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Yep, I never saw a Nazi once!

Archaeology. Don't know if he ever did anything with it. I think it was just for interest, I get the impression he'd made a lot of money in his younger days. Certainly don't doing archaeology! 😂 Just one of the reasons why I no longer work in the industry

I actually went to University with Charlie XCX's dad. He was a mature student, she was just starting her career and wasn't big yet. Didn't think anything would come of it, then a couple of years later saw her and her dad on Never Mind the Buzzcocks!

Belts only really serve to help the instructor keep track of who knows/is doing what, the student to keep track of their own progress and other newer students to know who might best be able to help in lieu of the instructor. Its a convenient short hand that means nothing outside the school...

For me it depends on the movement. If there are other forms or parts of the form that have the same move/a similar mechanic on the opposite side then I wouldn't bother. For others I try to from time to time. When teaching I'm more likely to do it to help people get certain difficult body...

I've always maintained that you can separate art and artist. As mentioned above many artists did bad things but we still appreciate their art. This questioning is very much a modern phenomenon. Perhaps society as a whole has become more moral? Or perhaps just more self conscious? Say you have...

No they can't. It's one of the many nutrition myths out there built on journalists reading the title of studies and never even going as far as the abstract, let alone the paper. To quote myself from earlier in the thread...

And usually it is entirely possible, just the watcher doesn't know enough about physics/body mechanics. Or it's juts plain fake reactions from partners/cult induced behaviour

Stances in CMA exist because of observation and the inherent affordances of a position; if you want to do x, you must do y. The resulting position was codified and trained. When you look at stances in terms of affordances rather than fully thought out positions that someone created uses around...

I completely agree that these are now deliberate motions which require control and that they have very valid applications. I just think it unlikely that they started this way. Even if we look at the earliest Karate, we are still looking quite late into martial arts development in the east...

So the whole hand to the hip, and indeed many other aspects of traditional martial arts can be post rationalised; you can find a reason or an application for the movement. But this very likely not how these movements were originally formed. Although styles have of course undergone evolution and...

That's why I always demonstrate facing the same way as my students for the first few runs of a sequence/drill. Then you can turn round so they can see other details and you can see them. If they aren't quite getting it right on the first few run throughs, it's not the end of the world, and it...

Yep that's a genuine thing. A mix of training the wider area to take blows, proper placement and retracting the balls inside. Or you can just hit your crotch all day, just in case someone kicks you, like that America dojo that was on the Discovery Channel.

There's certainly something to be said for not trying to get it perfect first time. There is generally too much to correct. But the core ideas and maybe one or two corrections at a time. You need time for those corrections to bed in. But equally you don't want to spend too much time doing it...

I get some seated meditation in a couple of times a week teaching a morning wellness class. We usually end with a short bit of meditation, the only problem is I need to keep an eye on the time, so I rarely get into it! Sitting down too much is certainly not good for your health, but how many of...

Sounds interesting, unfortunately it doesn't load for me. Might be because I'm on my mobile

On a more positive note, I too have just started BJJ. Finally given in 😅 The place I train Muay Thai also does it, and one of the coaches had been on at me for ages to give it a go. I already pay for the membership, and I tore up my toe on the mats doing kicks, so thought I'd try it out to keep...

I think the double ended bag is really useful. You can train reaction/ timing of strikes, movement around an opponent, slipping etc. with one.

I mean MMA is more a ruleset and particular organisation of techniques, it brings in other, older martial arts. Even BJJ developed out of judo and Japanese jiu jitsu. Everything has antecedents of some type, though new techniques do of course emerge.

You're welcome! Happy to spread the knowledge :) I know, right?! Like sure, people just never learnt to use their fists for a few thousand years of civilisation. They spent all their time inventing weird weapons instead! 😂 Never mind all the travelling of people around the world who definitely...

I'm just reading (well listening) to American Shaolin for the first time. It is very funny. Spot on with observations about starting to train and western perceptions of China/Shaolin. Shahar's book is also great, if a little drier! One thing I do disagree with is his take on unarmed combat...

The whole of the country is covered in Shaolin lore. Shaolin was hugely famous and influential, certainly not denying that. I'm just saying that it is unlikely there is a direct link between what is commonly seen as southern Shaolin styles and Northern ones. That doesn't make it any less valid...

Hahaha, OK, you caught me. My real name is Darth Damien. OK, not completely, most CMA has links, but northern and southern are different in flavour. It's pretty well established that the southern temple was a myth. That's not to say that there were not temples with fighting monks all over...

:O I didn't know that. And I'll have to wait til the wife is home, sad times. We've already built up a long list of TV to catch up on. When will I ever get to train?

Crikey a lot happened since I last checked! No it was on another forum. I said about how I regularly used the technique (in a different way) in sparring and they were essentially like "no, its still not a strike, just because you use it as one, doesn't mean it is one" I mean it's dumb...

If you watch the video I posted above it talks about the stance and what distinguishes it from gong bu, at least within Shaolin

Well, you'd be surprised. People don't like hearing they don't know something. I got an awful lot of grief after a previous video where I described using Xie Xing as a strike. I was categorically told by a number of people that it was a throw and nothing else...

Usually yeah, I had this one student who's arms were longer than my legs! He was very tall and very lanky with it. He'd done kickboxing for years before hand too. Man sparring with him was not fun!

Actually 服虎步 Fú Hǔ Bù in Mandarin. I usually can't be bothered with the effort of putting in full pinyin script for something like a forum post, but I really should, given the potential for misunderstanding with a tonal language.

Front kicks use different muscles than roundhouse and have a different trajectory, so depending on your abilities and your opponents, you might find uses. Plus the closed hip position means it has a shorter effective range than a roundhouse, and is less telegraphed id done well. Different tools...