Holiday Schedule & a peek at 2009

Hello Everyone. It's been a while since I've posted here, and I thank you all for your patience & dedication. Luckily, I won't be travelling any more for the rest of 2008 aside from a long overdue drive to San Diego to train with one of my mentors - Prof. Roy Harris. No more LAX until 2009..... YES!!!!!!!!!

Depending on whether or not I can coordinate schedules with Prof. Harris, I may or may not be teaching on 12/20. I WILL, however, be teaching on 12/27/08 at the park.

2008 has seen me travelling more in one year than I have ever before. In my life, I never imagined that I'd see so much of an airport, never mind the rest of the world.

2009 will hopefully bring greater prosperity with less absence from my home... LA. To that end, I'm planning on bringing my Krabi Krabong and Muay Boran master here from Thailand in January. And I've curtailed my travelling somewhat to avoid some of the extended overseas trips that I originally had on the table.

Also, the 6-person instructor corps of the California Martial Arts schools, founded by my friend, Sifu John Cheng of Irvine, CA, will be training more closely with us in both Yang style Tai-Chi and Combat Shuai-Chiao. They've been training with me on Tuesdays for a few months now, but now they're going to be interacting more closely with my West LA/Santa Monica instructors. So far, two of them have earned their RKC certifications, and they are all training in Krabi Krabong, Combat Shuai-Chiao, and Yang style Tai-Chi with me. Please extend your warmest welcomes to them if you see them in class or in workshops.

It's about time that some of you work on finalizing your Tai-Chi instructor credentials. Some of you are not far from Black Sash ranking, making you a fully authorized instructor on your own under my authority. Others of you are very close to higher rankings as well.

Let's try to make 2009 a year for great achievements and great improvements!

Best always,
SIFU

Happy Holidays

Hi everyone,

I will be missing tomorrow's class in my attempt to join the Venice 5K/10K Christmas Run.  I used to participate every year, and I have decided to renew my effort.  However, I think it will be a 5K fast walk instead of the 10K jog.  Oh well....

I wish everyone the most festive of holidays and a happy and healthy new year. I will look forward to seeing you for our Saturday class, January 10th.

Mary

Let's start using this blog again. It is a great tool.

Perhaps we can get together for a 2nd group practice during the week sometime soon. I am still OK with Wednesday at 6PM. Can anyone else make that time?

Also, Sifu, are you in town this Saturday? What is your schedule for the holidays?

Group practice

Last month there was discussion about group practice Wednesday evenings at 6:30. Unfortunately I was never able to make the practice. Has it continued? With it getting dark by 6:30, any type of group practice would need to be in a well-lit area. Has the group practice continued? Any thoughts about continuing, changing, etc.?

Insert & Pull

As reviewed in today's advanced students' class, we spoke about the strengths & weaknesses of different weapons traditions in Asian martial arts. East Asian martial arts (such as those in China, Japan, & Korea) are usually quite strong about logarithmic systems of fighting. Southeast Asian martial arts are less about codifying and concealing and more about drilling the fundamentals of movement in the format of a partnered drill.

The partner drills in Filipino Kali & Thai Krabi-Krabong help the combatant better understand distancing, timing, placement, line-of-sight, mindset, and rhythm within the undeniable framework of efficacy. If it doesn't work when you're drilling with practice swords or dull sticks, it won't work on the battlefield.

This morning, more than once, I had to remind a couple of the students to concentrate.... and what gets my goat is that the ONE person I had to remind the most about concentrating probably won't have it register in that person's head. Violence, while socially anathema, is a great teacher when it comes to showing you when you're not concentrating to your fullest potential.

Today's swordsmanship lesson was very simple, taken from the side-to-side slide & slice. Instructions were simple: attack VERY slowly, and the defender is to insert the sword and slice to the side. Yet it's incredible how readily many of the advanced students reverted back to swinging erratically, looking off into the distance, and doing almost anything other than what I outlined.

In the future, please look for the simplest possible solution to each & every situation. If the framework or the logic for the martial system is solid, look for ways to implement it at every occasion possible. With the slide step & side slice (and with most applications), go back to the way the technique is performed in the set itself and try to understand the where, why, what, when, and how behind it.

We're going back to the point of gratest simplicity until the end of '08, so let's learn to get every cell of your body and every molecule of your blade to work as one fluid, total whole.