A source of random news, martial arts and techies talks. A little more or less. — Paul Luong
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Loading ...At last Winter season has slowly faded away, leaving its place for the Spring to arrive. Many days I train at a nearby park seeing everybody loves to enjoy outdoor activities with friends and family, they even love lying down on the grass under the sunshine.
For us in America, we are fortune have four different seasons very clearly comparing to other tropical countries where there only are only two specific weathers, rainy or sunny months.
Summer in some place is hot, either burning or extremely humid thus it becomes very uncomfortable even to the local residence. In our area, fortunately we find that summers are always great and equally mean a lot of fun. Even better, day light saving time allows us to spend more hours under the sun. However, at some point or for some of us, summer is the time of suffering. Hay fever, bad cases of pollen allergy could literally make a day suck and ruin all the best moments. (more…)
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If you train Martial Arts, especially traditional styles, more than once in a while you would hear your Siifu or Sensei mentions about Dantien and tells you to focus your breath into it. Needless to say, you should instantly know, by common sense, that Dantian is not a type food or a beautiful girl as well as not a handsome guy. Technically, it is your centre just below your navel. But why is it that this place so important? Let’s flip the pages of history all the way to the very first chapters of civilization, of China to be specific.
Not just few years ago, but it’s way back to the ancient times when the population of China was occupied by peasants, poorest farmers of the lowest classes in the society. They call a day by starting as early as the fifth hour in the morning, sweating in the fields until sunset. Then, they return homes for some rest. If you are young, you would gather with your friends listening to stories of the village elders, while some others would enjoy the the cool night air that just silently replaced the heat of the day. (more…)
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“**** , is that even human hand!?” We often see on the TV show of some martial artist who uses bare hand to cut wooden boards, chop concrete bricks and break coconuts like thse physical objects are just pieces of foam (or even better Marshmallow!) , and you would definitely wow then wonder how do they do that. Needless to speculating, your immediate answer would be ‘years of consistent training’.
Then we start to think, “wait a minute, I chew food everyday too still my teeth cannot break the keyboard”. Then, my instant thought would be no, you do not want to try that. Martial Arts looks as beautiful as the decorative branches and leaves, but if you do not have the strong understanding of where the roots are and how they draw the energy, you never get to have the fruits or maybe fall into injury yourself. You must see through the result to meet where the effort was. Having a strong hand does not mean particularly the hand is strong. The hand only simulates the delivery of the force which has been internally built up, along with the techniques. There are two type of Palm techniques, fall into two opposite categories of Qigong (pronounced chi-kun, Inner Energy exercise) : Soft and Hard.
The Hard Qigong forges the inner hand structure from daily practices on hard objects, and in the end result the palm delivers explosive force on whatever it tends to break. The downside of Hard Qigong Palm Technique is the hands often become bigger, covered with bruises and layers of damaged skin, as well as the force being generated is more purely physical. The Soft Palm Technique, delivers the same amount of energy but takes twice or more the amount of times of training. The hand of this style practitioner look soft, natural and nearly the same as before the training. Nevertheless if one concentrates and focuses the inner Qi (Energy – read What is Qi?) to the Dantien (read What in the name is Dantien?) and controls this very energy to the point upon impact, along with the universal power, the outcome is predictable, that is deadly. In many cases, people usually want the instant result for it is not easy to wait for something patiently, therefore most of the time Hard Qigong Palm Practice is preferred to Soft Qigong Palm Practice. (more…)
(0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5) Loading ...Every Tuesday and Thursday of this semester I would stay in my martial arts class after the last official session over for extra practice with my friends on katas and techniques. We enjoy going over and over different forms, as well as sparring during this hour. Once a friend and I did a long form continuously for a dozen times and we both got tired quickly, first because we have trained for almost 3 hours before that and second, we were trying so hard to completely imitate the movements of our Sensei.
We sat down on the floor. My friend were still examining his hands and making shapes from the kata. I, on the other side, was loosely moving my arms and body. Obviously, both of us were still going through the forms in our heads even though we were taking a rest. The friend suddenly said “Oh man I can’t get this right at all”. “Yeah, neither can I” , I quickly agreed with him. He continued “right! but you seem to pick everything up just fine” , I smiled and shook my head “Do you think you will ever do Seisan (name of the kata we were practicing) perfectly?”. My friend replied “If I practice hard enough and after more times I hope I will”, then he asked the same question in return, “How about you?”.
“No, I don’t really expect to ever do it perfectly,” . My friend looked surprised, but I continued with another question “How do you know when something is perfect?”. He thought for a moment then said “When all the movements we do in our kata are correct and the postures are right.” (more…)
(0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5) Loading ...Feng Shui, simply means Wind and Water. Together these two elements affect the life of every living thing in our world. If you are my friends in Karate Martial Arts class at MC, you probably should have a chance to gain some knowledge about Qi from Sensei Hardman (whom I’m greatly thankful for first introducing to me about Qi), and its practice called Qigong – the Internal Training.
If you are not, to define the the Qi (Vital Energy – chee) term may become a little difficult. It’s almost the same as the story of a blind man who surely said he knew about the elephant. He could touch the trunk, the legs, the tail, the ear of the elephant and believed that how the elephant looked like, but it is not the elephant. The same thing applies to Qi, it’s much bigger than the word itself. Every occasion one tries to understand Qi, it maybe different from time to time. Qi in our body is the energy that keeps us alive, to keep our heart beating, our brain functions, our mind conscious and our body moving. (more…)
If everyone thinks they are right, there will never be peace
