wujimon tumbling

The [Diablo 3] Monk is designed to be a fragile, melee-based character that performs some amazingly agile moves. With skills like the “Seven-Sided Strike” and “Way of the Hundred Fists,” we’d say he’s stripped from a different golden age — from the reels of 1960s and ’70s Kung Fu serials. The only detail that’s missing are the Bruce Lee yips.

I just finished editing a wushu video I shot back in May of 2004. It was a demo done by a bunch of kids and is very inspiring to see the level of skill for their age.

After the match, Shifu was so disgusted by our lack of fighting sense that he taught us a few basic combat drills. No, these were not any less tiring to do then the foundation exercises. And they were much more difficult to do correctly too, since they were rooted in the basic movements I still had not yet mastered.

Functionally, if you are this focused you lose awareness of your surroundings. You are susceptible to attack by outside forces. If your fighting a skilled opponent, he may be able to use his eyes to feint, fake, and otherwise deceive you. In such a case it could be a weakness your opponent can exploit in you. Looking directly and focusing increases reaction time compared to peripheral vision.

… Kind of like what a local restaurant owner said to a couple at the next table to us when they asked for Chow Mein and said they sure hoped it tasted like the “good stuff they bought at the supermarket”. The proprietor responded with: “would you like it served in the can or out?

… have you ever watched a martial artist who has claimed 40+ years of experience, but turns out to be terribly unimpressive and unnatural? The reason why is because most of that person’s 40 years has probably been spent in TALKING about how great he/she is rather than practicing. They also very likely trained themselves into a box during their first 5 years and just sold that same package over and over again without any substantial branching out, diving inward, and improving.

Many people zone out when they engage in different types of training … There are so many ways people can disconnect from their training. Awareness is key. Where are you noticing? Where are you focusing? What else are you focusing on? What is the purpose you seek to train for?

Zhan zhuang (pinyin: zhān zhuāng, lit. “standing like a post” , sometimes called “standing like a tree”, “post standing” or “pile standing”) is a method of training in many Chinese martial arts in which static postures are used for physical training, to develop efficiency of movement, perfection of structural alignment; and hence maximal strength, for martial applications. It is most often among practiced among the internal Chinese styles such as tai chi chuan.

I believe that training the mind is just as important as training the body, for where the mind goes the body follows, something many of us forget in our pursuit of physical mastery. It is almost impossible to achieve our full potential as martial artists unless we acknowledge the fact that the mind plays a significant role in our over all development. It is the key to all growth and without it we are merely puppets on a string, all physical movement and lacking in the depth and understanding that’s absolutely necessary to take us to the higher levels of mastery.

Jiayou (pinyin: jiā yoú) is a Chinese figure of speech or idiom. “Jiā” means add, “Yoú” means oil or fuel.