MARTIAL★WORKS new training center can be found at 2625 28th Street, Boulder, Colorado, USA. It looks amazing!
Thanks to the hard work of Ian Venter, Tom Herbstritt, Bryce Widom, Clinton Carpenter, Daniel Costantini and Rocco D’Ordine!
Check the new class times, upcoming events will be posted soon; in the meantime… check it out!
Beside the strengthening of the body, the practice of martial arts is a spiritual practice; the goal is to make a person more open minded, and to teach them to use the moral virtue of martial art…to weaken the enemy, to neutralize anger; this is the highest achievement of martial arts & the most difficult!
Swimming is an excellent complement to any martial artists training regime. Our movement in space reminds us of our common evolution, a return to this ‘watery environment’ provides that key opportunity to contemplate our internal being.
You might try this: whilst floating on your back, making sure your core is afloat or buoyant, the legs glide in the hipcage & stretch through the toes; the hands fan & the spine lifts through the top of the head or crown point… and you “listen to the joints”.
Having trouble hearing? Too much noise in your life? Check in with the root joints.
Hips & shoulders, these caverns or chambers of energy play an integral role in the surfacing of our internal energy, they are the root; allow the joint to announce it’s ‘state of Chi’. Understanding the exchange of energy in the joints & how the flow of Chi is an absolute essential for Life, will surely help the practitioner comprehend how the Chi moves through us ~ but does not belong to us!
“Be gentle
express the virtue
of Life!”
Martialworks Muk Yan Jong is in place… this one was custom made by local Colorado woodworker Jake Eichorn of Wooden Tattoo. The placement of Wooden Man training in Wing Chun Kung Fu comes after the student has learned the first – Siu Nim Tau “the little idea” and second – Chum Kiu “searching for the bridge” forms of Wing Chun; at this point in training the student is taught to capitalize on the mistakes in combat, based on the fact that combat is full of mistakes ~ training delivers the ability to make small corrections in the heat of battle, whilst maintaining the principles or energetic truthes that are encompassed within the skills already attained. Think of this as the game of Chess, everyone wants to play on their own – the leap in bridging skill is great! Just check the recently released Ip Man films and you’ll see the importance of this stage in the Mastery of critical thinking ability.
I met Shifu Yan Lei a 34th generation Shaolin disciple on Pearl Street, Boulder, Colorado in the Summer of 2010; we had lunch at the Moongate Asian Bistro with Brian ‘Seraiah’ Wood MMA Champion Colorado, USA. During our meal ~ I set to conversing with Yan Lei as to the history of Chinese Boxing, he confirmed some very interesting points: 1) the Shaolin Temples had enjoyed a long history (the longest) of creation, cultivation and destruction; 2) there were two Southern Shaolin Temples: Hunan & Fujian; the former renown for its’ kicking and the latter its’ boxing; 3) it was from the Fujian Temple that Wing Chun arose. The deadly science of Chinese close-range Boxing.
Those on the path of martial art would agree, the discipline is unusual in its offering; the practice is a continual process of metamorphosis it offers to re-make the practitioner in a Way like no other, turning him into – the real man.
Some years ago in Manila, Philippines I remember falling into conversation with Mandala Tim Waid of the Pekiti Tirsia Kali system; we discussed how empowering the training methods we were involved in are, and how students coming to the path had an ever increasing number of distractions which held them on the surface of self-discovery. We also talked over the dilution of training comprehension, as a direct consequence of distortion in the field of human relationships.
Looking into the depths of China’s past and back across the broad span of time leading us to the contemporary world, one can see a vast and murky expanse; to which, I’m sure we all struggle to attach ourselves. I think it can be safely said that “a history, of no history” has been given us by China, and this from the purely practical standpoint of a Kung Fu practitioner.
It is my opinion that Wing Chun is unique amongst Chinese martial art, a southern style of Kung Fu based on tung kiu or the short arm bridge; it is a product of a tumultuous cultural upheaval spanning thousands of years and surfacing for our use as intelligent beings. As Wong Shun Leung might have put it: “beyond civilized conversation, how is it that human beings interface?”, here an understanding of the Chi in China is all important. The mere mention of China draws a huge blank on most peoples screens, what if this disguise has been in place purposefully? Guiding theorists and academics into the netherworld of abstraction, or what if martial art has come to you…