If you would like to know opinion on bodybuilding in connection with/versus martial arts you should read this opinion. Here are some methods and strategies which have worked very well for me against bodybuilders and musclebound body types. Better yet, when any martial artist had any experience in combat against a non-MA bodybuilder, I mean, the seriously built-up type, not the once-a-week-at-the-gym type. Who often go to the gym and flex their biceps say something like “well yeah? that’s what I think”. I asked instructors about this, but the answer is usually a standard-type MA=supreme one, like “I bet SOME areas aren’t built up… My advice is to pay particular attention to the grappling sections. Продолжить чтение

The following variations to the history detailed in my thesis have been mentioned by one reporter or another.
Rather than there being five masters who escaped the burning of the Shaolin Temple, some have five masters developing the Wing Chun style within the temple to train a revolutionary army, with Ng Mui being the only survivor after the Manchu attack. This theory clashes with that of the role of Jee Sin teaching Dragon Pole to Wong Wa Bo.
Ng Mui is also credited by some as having developed the White Crane (Pak Hok) style of Kung Fu, passing it on to a descendent named Mui Min. A story is told of Ng Mui witnessing a battle between a crane and a snake (some say a fox), with the snake’s darting and coiling moves evading the crane’s beak, while the crane swept the snake’s strikes away with skilful use of its wings. Legend has it that Ng Mui based the Bon Sao (wing arm) on the crane’s movement, and the Fok Sao (bridging arm) on the snake (or the paw of the fox). Other stories have it that Yim Wing Chun was the witness of the fight between the two animals. Продолжить чтение

Traditional Wing Chun has its own philosophical creed:
He who excels as a warrior does not appear formidable.
One who excels in fighting is never aroused in anger.
One who excels in defeating his enemy does not join issues.
One who excels in employing others humbles himself before them.
This is the virtue of non-contention and matching the sublimity of heaven. Продолжить чтение

The ancient Chinese, like their modern counterparts, sought a way to understand and explain the world around them, principle and purpose in the changing pattern of events around them, and order in the chaos of existence.
The most powerful principle used to explain the cause and effect of events was that of the interplay of Yin and Yang, two opposite but complementary forces whose relationship and mutual ascendancies are continually changing.
Yin is negative, passive, weak, receptive; Yang is positive, active, strong, creative. Neither can exist without the other, and each, even at its most abundant, contains the seed of the other. Продолжить чтение

Unlike Taoism and Buddhism, which advocate detachment from the mundane ways of the social world and attuning one’s spirit with loftier principles, Confucianism wholeheartedly embraces human relationships, social structures, and commerce. It concerns itself with standards of social behaviour, morals and virtues in copious low level detail, contrasting again with the principles and truths of Buddhism and Taoism, which are small in number but transcendental in scope. Продолжить чтение

The Buddha’s teachings and doctrine proposed a disregard for self and materialism, instead emphasising subsequent lives and the eventual deliverance from the eternal cycle of life and suffering which is human existence. Продолжить чтение

The doctrine of Taoism is concerned with living in harmony with nature, or more precisely in harmony with the natural laws of the universe. Salvation and enlightenment are to be found, not in the achievements and endeavours of the society, nor the doctrines and dogmas of education and organised religion. One lives in harmony with the Tao, not by resisting or trying to overcome the world, but by accepting and yielding to the forces around one. Where a powerful but rigid oak tree may be split by a hurricane, a blade of grass bends with the wind and survives undamaged. The experienced waterman survives dangerous seas not by fighting against a current stronger than he, but by swimming with it, unresisting, until he is out of danger. The Wing Chun fighter does not oppose a stronger force directly, but redirects it to his own advantage. Продолжить чтение

Kung Fu without its traditional and philosophical basis would be little more than a brutal and inhuman science of injury, death and destruction.
However, it needs to be understood by the student that Kung Fu’s primary purpose is self protection. In ancient China as well as in large cities today, real fights may end in injury or death. Philosophising over respect for one’s opponent or strict adherence to Buddhist or Taoist principles in the middle of a streetfight is likely to earn the practitioner a ride in an ambulance. As Sifu David Crook wrote, “Anyone who believes in the [Marquis of] Queensbury rules in the street had better be fully insured.” Продолжить чтение

It is almost impossible to determine a definitive history of Wing Chun Kung Fu. The circumstances leading to the marriage of Yim Wing Chun and Leung Bok Cho have been described in several different ways by different members of the WWCKFA, including lectures by Sifu Rick Spain, the writings of Grandmaster William Cheung and writings purported to be those of Grandmaster Yip Man.
I discuss alternative versions of events to those set down here in Appendix A.
The enigmatic Ng Mui is used by a number of styles of Kung Fu besides Wing Chun to explain their origin, and she may be as much a legendary as a real figure. She figured extensively in the lore and performances of the Red Junk Opera Company, through which Wong Wa Bo, Leung Bok Cho and Jee Sin play a pivotal role in the art’s development. It is perhaps prudent to remember that, as operatic artists, they were skilled in dramatic storytelling, and that many of the best stories have their basis in fact. Продолжить чтение

The first Shaolin Temple was built in approximately 495 A.D., in Honan Province near Mount Sung. It was built by Emperor Hsaio Wen, for the purpose of housing Buddhist monks who were charged with the task of translating the Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Chinese, in accordance with the wishes of the Emperor, who sought to make the scriptures available to the people in their native tongue, as a means of achieving Nirvana for himself. Продолжить чтение

The development of martial arts in China is inextricably linked with the development of Chinese medicine, and of the major religious and philosophical systems which underpin all aspects of life in historical China.
The martial and healing arts have always had a close relationship, of necessity when the wounds resulting from combat required healing, and in the use of medical knowledge to develop more effective targeting and striking techniques. Martial arts through the ages were practiced as much for health and longevity as they were for aggression and defence, and indeed the Shaolin arts were based on movements originally developed for health reasons.
Nearly five thousand years ago, the three legendary emperors laid the ground work for a nationalised system of Chinese medicine for the populace. Emperor Fu Hsi first proposed such a system; Emperor Shun Nung developed a classification of herbs for use in healing; and Huang-Ti, the Yellow Emperor, sent healers out to care for the people. The “Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine” a book on the principles of Chinese medicine, attributed to Huang-Ti but more likely written by others much later, is still regarded as a standard text by many contemporary schools of acupuncture and Oriental healing. Продолжить чтение

The deep nature of our own species, and those that preceded us in evolution, includes competition, violence, and killing. Prehistoric men no doubt fought one another for dominance, food, mating rights, and survival. The dawn of a structured or scientific approach to fighting no doubt occurred with the first primitive man to pick up a stick with which to strike an enemy or prey. Продолжить чтение