Daoist Fighting Arts

The amazing Tim Cartmell Laoshi was in London the other week! Warning this article contains his martial secrets!

If you are in or near London at the March 30-31 or April 6-7th you will have the opportunity to train with Canadian legend Andrea Falk Laoshi. See pic for details.

Interesting article on 'Root' in the Internal martial arts by Neil Ripski.

This article discusses the benefits of how martial arts improve the brain right alongside the corporeal benefits.

新年快樂! (Xīnnián kuàilè) Happy New Year of the 土豬 (Earth Pig)! Some themes for this year are; Being easy-going, kind and persistent.

This woman demonstrates 吃苦 (Chīkǔ) Eating Bitter / Enduring Hardship, as she trains the classic kungfu conditioning drill: 打三星 (Dǎ Sān Xīng) Three Star Hitting.

2019 arrives with a translation of Taijiquan insights (the source was published in 1935) from 吳公藻 (Wú Gōngzǎo), the second son of 吳鑑泉 (Wú Jiànquán). My thanks as always to Mr. Paul Brennan for making his translations freely available.

安劍秋 (Ān Jiànqiū) laoshi demonstrating some applications from his family's take on 高義盛 (Gāo Yìshèng) style Baguazhang. Gao style comes from the 程廷華 (Chéng Tínghuá) branch.

R.I.P. Ben Lo [ 羅邦楨 Ben (Pangjeng) Lo / Luó Bāngzhēn ], one of the great masters of our time. Top student of Zheng Manqing, teacher to many, including Tai Chi author, Scott Meredith. The link goes to a guest blog post Scott has done over at the Cook Ding's Kitchen blog.

馬步 (Mǎbù) Horse stance. Training it from a physiological viewpoint. Happy training!

徐致一 (Xú Zhìyī)’s book on Wu style Taijiquan as translated by Paul Brennan. Xu Zhiyi was a direct student of 吳鑑泉 (Wú Jiànquán). My gratitude and appreciation goes to Mr. Brennan for sharing his fine translation work with us.

There are no secrets, save; Practice, practice, practice. Sometimes phrased as 'polishing the sword'. Here's a brief Tang poem about the sword (translated by Scott M. Rodell laoshi) to inspire your martial spirit.

夏至快樂! (Xiàzhì kuàilè!) Happy Summer Solstice!

Martial Humor

洪懿綿 (Hóng Yìmián) of Gao style Baguazhang.

For those of us interested in the role fascia has to play in our martial arts bodies, I feel this clip is a good starting point.

An interesting meet-up - Taijiquan & Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Done respectfully by both people. The article lays out the rules they both agreed to and it also includes video clips of how it went.

Scott M. Rodell laoshi offers us a brief look into the "Spring and Autumn of Wu and Yue" via his translation.