First 10 Movements of Peter Wu's Chein style Tai Chi

Yin Fu style Ba Kua Phoenix Ba Kua Form

New Kung Fu school in Footscray/ Victoria

There is going to be a new Kung fu school teaching self defense course in Footscray Melbourne soon. Base mostly on Snake Kung fu, but including a number of other martial arts.

The school will teach self defense course's at a beginner level and intermediate level, aimed at people who interested in functional self defense without having to learn a whole system or art to achieve a reasonable of self defense. I have choosen bits and parts from my over twenty years of Martial Art training, have are most readily usable and teachable. All techniques were chosen because of their suitability for application by the smaller person. My aim is to give people something they can use to defend themselves in the shortest possible time. And to achieve this through intelligent skill based fighting rather pure brute strength and conditioning training. The course will contain some elements of Qigong(Chinese yoga) improve students general health.

For those people who know something about Martial Arts the course will include: Chin Na (sizing, grappling, locking and breaking techniques). Some Western boxing mixed with 3 Harmony Kung fu. Some components from various styles Ba kua, Eskrima, Thai boxing, Chicken leg conditioning and Tai Chi.

Self defense course at Snake Kung Fu will be taught by Edwin Gardiner who is Accredited Instructor with the NASC(National Australian Sports commission), member of the AKWF(Australian Kung Fu and Wu Shu Federation). He also has Certificate 3 and 4 in Fitness, Gym Instruction and Personal Training. His gained his Instructors certificate in 1992 from Yu shih Tao kung fu in Canberra, at a time when full contact sparring was part grading. He continues to train with the top level Yin Fu style Ba kua and Cheng style Tai Chi practitioners in Australia. Edwin remains passionate about his training in Ba Kua Kung Fu. While he has devoted large amounts of time to the practise of Ba kua, he recognized that not all people want to learn, or have the time to learn complex, esoteric martial arts that take years of practise before becoming practically usable. This why he teaching decide to teach breviated condensed short course in martial arts.

Water block Figure 1

Example of Simple 'Water Block'

In Figure 1a, the attacker is throwing a lateral punch to defenders head, while defender water blocks punch.





In Figure 1b is the same scenario has figure1a but viewed from above. It is a little clearer to see how the defender block comes from the outside edge of the attackers punch pushing the further in the inside guard to take it away from the path of stiking the defenders head.

Water Block Figure 2

In Figure 2 it is easier to see the shape, or vector of the path way of force used by the defender in applying the water block. The force is 'short', with the elbow mostly flexed in a semi circular spiraling motion. Once contact is made to the in coming punch it wraps and sticks to the force of punch rather than attempting to conclusively strike the punch away. It also changes the direction from moving mostly across horizontally to moving in a more vertical motion. It effectively becomes more of a grabbing push than a traditional concussive block. These types of blocks use a soft pliable sticking force are categorized as by the the element water because of the type of force they employ.

Water block Figure 3

Figure 3 is of the attacker throwing the lateral punch. The zones 1, 2 and 3 are the distance from the attacker mid line. Good Kung fu is all about good physics. You must always assume that you're opponent is always going to be much bigger and stronger than you, otherwise they would bother to attack if they did not think they had at least a more than 60% chance of wining the fight. Your skill, knowledge and practical application of sound Bio-machanics it what will make even the odds against your opponents superior size and strength.

Coming back to Figure 3. There a basic rules of Bio-machanics that do not change from person to person, because we are all human and have many common movement patterns that are inherent to the basic human anatomy.
Firstly the further away you move your arm away from your centre line ,or mid point the less control strength you will be able to express. Your strength and control decreases dramatically as soon as the elbow passes zone 1. All internal Kung fu tends to attack and defend with their elbows not passing much past their knee joint. Tai chi in particular are great practitioners of this rule partially because their applications are more wresting orientated. If you look back to Figures 1 and 2 you will see that the punch was intercepted at the distance of zone 3. No matter how strong a person is they do not have much strength to resist lateral(side ways force) when their arm is at almost full extension.

If you do not believe me you can try the following exercise at home. Get a practising partner one playing a defending role and one an attacking role. Do not hit each other. Simply get the attacker make a fist and tense the muscles in their arm while keeping their arm in flexion close to their torso say not more than 25cm. The defender will attempt to push the attacker fist laterally(sideways) using only two fingers to do so while the attacker resists being push Laterally. The same scenarios is repeated again, but this time the attackers fist is at full extension while the defender pushes the fist with only two fingers. The difference in how much you could move the attackers arm depending on it distance to their central line will quite dramatic.
However there are people that have done an enormous amount of specialized training that can still possess a surprising large amount of even at full extension. These people however are invariably professional Martial artist and make less than 1 10th of a percentage of the population.

Bone Broth Recipe

I developed this recipe with the intention of making a good tasting soup, and was also inspired by Bob Flaw book "Prince Wen Huis Cook:Chinese Dietary Therapy" felt it would probably help to supplement kidney Chi, and assist with the nutritionally with recovery of ligament damage from over training in my knee. I since discovered that similar recipes are are recommended by others, for example (www.jadeinstitute.com/jade/bone-broth-health-building.php) I not completely sure how such good my recipe does, but it taste great and I feel good after drinking it.

Ingredients (For two with large appetites)

Beef Bones, usually from the spine, because they often contain cartilage and some meat. If the bones are not cut into smaller pieces get the butcher to cut into smaller pieces. This releases more of the Marrow into the stock. About 2 kg

1 Brown Onion with outer Skin on
1 Large Carrot(Better if from Garden with green leaves still on)

Half a regular brunch of eatable Vietnamese chrysanthemum, or about 300 grams
If you cannot get this use Celery instead, I prefer Chinese Celery, or wild celery.

Cinnamon Bark 5-8 grams
1 aniseed star pod
7 cloves
2 pieces of dried Danggui root( Chinese angelica)
5 pieces dried Licorice root
2 table spoons Soya Sauce(Recommenced Kikoman brand)
Ground pepper to taste
about 2 litres water, or enough to almost cover bones in pot.
2 lamb kidney's
3-4 teaspoons of raw sugar

Method

Put oil, chopped onion, beef bones, cinnamon, cloves, and pepper in stock pot and fry, stir until meat is partially brown. Add water until bones are almost covered. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to lowest setting. Better to pot to smallest burner. Cook with lid on for 3 hours ,or until meat starts to come away from bone. Add all remaining ingredients accept sugar. Continue cooking with lid no for 45-60 minutes. Be careful at this stage as any over cooking of vegetables and herbs will cause bitterness in taste that can be correct with small amounts of sugar at the end. Remove heat source from pot has broth cools skim fat and oil from surface.

Generally after straining and filtering broth into separate container. I serve with rice noodles, fresh Garlic Clives, some lemon juice, fresh Chillies and bean shoots.