Brian L. Kennedy

As Mal pointed out, and as I discussed in my book on the Jingwu Association; well known and respected Chinese martial arts teachers of the late Qing and Republican Period agreed that people could and should learn Chinese martial arts out of books. The idea that martial arts, including bagua, is so "deep and mysterious" that its practice can not be captured in a book is very much a modern western idea. Chinese and Taiwanese are quite up front about the idea that one can learn martial arts (or qigong for that matter) right out of a book. That view was shared by such bagua teachers as Sun Lu Tang,Jiang Rong Qiao, Hwang Bo Nien and others. How skilled one will become depends on a number of factors; one's basic intelligence, how diligent one is in practice, how honestly one reflects on one's progress and one's prior experience with martial arts. Of course a teacher (and good fellow students) helps a lot. But in the end, as Shiek Kin famously put it, "you become your own teacher". On a personal note, I have always really enjoyed bagua and find that it really helps my judo practice. This is me having some fun with my bagua practice back in Taiwan take care, Brian

Trunk, Thanks much for posting the link. I appreciate that. take care, Brian

Good Morning Mal, Yeah I was surprised too. Before doing this book I really did not know that much about the cultural history of the Republican Era. But it turns out that alot of what we have for modern Chinese martial arts and in a broader sense what we have for Chinese exercise programs (including all the qigongs)were developed in the Republican Era. It is kind of an interesting irony, most of the time when people start talking about Chinese martial arts or Chinese qigong they start yacking about how it is a 1,000 years old or was developed in the Sung Dynasty or whatever---but most of the development, that we have any historical proof for, took place in far more recent times. take care, Brian

Thanks much for the kind words on the Jingwu book. The Republican Era marked a very interesting time for both Chinese martial arts and for many of the related qigong type practices. In both instances Chinese teachers sought to mix western scientific ideas with Chinese martial arts and qigong. The Jingwu is an interesting example in that they sought to preserve traditional practices but also put them on a modern footing. take care, Brian

Yes, it is too bad. The lives and thoughts of Chinese martial arts teachers were never well recorded. They often were not the kind of guys who left behind diaries or autobiographies. There is also cultural reasons why little accurate information is known about them. About the only Republican Era Chinese martial arts teachers we know much about were Sun Lu Tang and Jiang Rong Qiao. And before that, with maybe one or two exceptions, we know nothing about the actual lives or personal thoughts of any Chinese martial arts teachers. That is one of the reasons I did the book, I wanted to get what information we have out for people to enjoy. One of the things I really liked about the early history of the Jingwu is that there are lots of great photos that have not been seen in the west before. take care, Brian

Hi Robert, I responded to your private message, its great to meet you. As to qigong methods, a friend and I were standing in San Min Bookstore in Taipei about a week back. And he and I were talking about the hundreds of different qigong programs. For example at San Min Bookstore, there are three large bookstore bookcases filled with martial arts books. And right alongside is another solidly packed three bookcases with qigong books, some from here in Taiwan, some from China. Of course to show you what really interest the Taiwanese, right next to the qigong shelves is 6 (six!) very large sets of shelves dedicated to...............a million forms of fortune telling! take care, Brian

Dragon's Gate is the name of a Daoist sect and the name of a place. If you want to see a picture of the place I typed in (in Chinese) dragons gate and here is a typical China tourism page on it. Look where it says Lung Men (i.e. the top picture) http://www.chinaorg.cn/whyl/06_whyc/2007-0...ent_5004890.htm Take care, Brian

In the new issue of Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine my wife and I did a piece on various Daoist creatures and gods that are connected with martial arts. One of the creatures we talked about was the defender of righteousness; the Qilin. Here is one of the photos I took over at Dragon Mountain Temple of a Qilin. This picture was one that was used in the article. During the Ming dynasty the Qilin became identified with the real life giraffe. Ming explorer Zheng He brought a set of giraffes back from East Africa to Beijing and these novel creatures were called Qilin. The mythical Qilin are usually depicted with fire all over its body. This is said to reflect their power and their abundant qi energy. The fire often appears as a ring of fire which surrounds their heads. And if you are a Japanese beer fan, you have seen the Qilin on every can of Kirin brand beer you ever drank. Kirin is the Japanese word for Qilin. Respect and thanks to Gene Ching for running the pieces my wife and I do on the wider Daoist cultural aspects of Chinese martial arts. And we hope folks find the pieces of interest. Take care, Brian

As is obvious pakua is largely about circles of movement, and for me at least pakua is basically about standup grappling (I hold the same view regarding taiji). I drew these two diagrams to help illustrate this to a friend of mine and I thought they might be of some interest to folks here as I saw the other pakua threads. This one shows the three core circles, they are routes to project force, (much like xingyi 5 forms are routes to project force). They also correspond to the first three forms in stock Cheng style. This second one is the circles in relation to an opponent. To give respect and credit to where I got this approach, it was from the writings of Tim Cartmell and the videos of Eric Luo. For me, pakua is basically about your ability to spin around an opponent (not walk around him like you are walking the circle, but pivot out of his attack) and about your ability to get in tight against an opponent (and mitigate his ability to nail you with a punch/elbow/knee). I do not subscribe to an idea that pakua is "deep" or "unlearnable" by the masses. {warning: inflamatory statement following} Everything that is in pakua is in standard Iowa college wrestling....everything. Pakua just puts it in an "exotic" package. Let me be quick to add, I love pakua, I practice it several times a week, I hope to teach it someday but movement is movement so to speak. Take care, Brian

If people are seriously interested in the psychology of martial arts then what they need to do is turn to modern research in neurology and sports psychology and stop playing around with half baked Taoist nonsense. Daoism does some things very well and some things very poorly. Daoist psychology is pre-modern and wrong about 99.99% of the time. Look more towards things like this: http://www.jssm.org/combat/1/10/v5combat-10abst.php Now of course if one enjoys studying Daoist psychology for whatever reason that is fine. But it is not a good source for modern martial arts mental training. Take care, Brian

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Yes, as far as I am aware every human being who has walked this earth has been right about some things and wrong about others. In a similar vein every author who has ever written is right about some things and wrong about others and yes, I still appreciate his work. take care, Brian

For anybody who ever wondered what Cheng style pakua would look like in a real fight between skilled Cheng style pakua practitioners, have a look at this Youtube video. You will note it has nothing to do with nice old Chinese guys playing around. It would look like the tieups and throws demonstrated here in various high level competitions. Cheng style pakua is basically standup grappling and throws. Warning it has a heavy metal/death metal soundtrack, so if that is not you taste be sure to turn the volume down. I realize the mystery is part of pakuas appeal and if you like pakua because you think it is going to give you some mystery power that is fine (as long as you stay off the mat) but as a historian I am simply saying that is not original pakua. And as a side note, anyone who thinks that any Asian martial art is more subtle, sophisticated or otherwise better than western martial arts is simply showing their ignorance and has not trained in any western martial art. Western boxing and western wrestling are on par with anything from the Mysterious East. Take care, Brian Oh, I should have mentioned, although all the clips show good pakua wrestling, in particular at 1:10 into the clip there is a guy who really shows quick "kou pu" and "bai pu" (that is the two basic pakua steps, inward step and outward) and can really spin. For folks not familiar with pakua, its strong suit, what it does more than anything else is work on spinning. Okay enough on that, take care, Brian

Thanks folks, yeah I will try and add a bit more covering the next few moves, but it will be sometime after the New Year holiday. take care, Brian

In traditional Chinese Daoism, including modern day versions here in Taiwan, charging money (oftentimes lots of money) is the norm. There is no idea that Daoist teachings or training or Daoist services (i.e. exorcisms, purity rites or membership initiation fees into the various lineages) is "on the house". You pay, and you pay a lot. The idea that Daoism is free or should be free, is an idea generated by people who saw one too many Kwai Chang Caine Kung Fu t.v. shows. take care, Brian

Oh wow, I wish I had thought of this. Why are all the good scams already taken? Heated in bamboo to five million degrees.....yeah, yeah, I am cool with that. I could repacked MSG, which is quite cheap here in Taiwan, and MSG is FDA approved so I could legally import it to the US and then repackage it as Sifu Gan Ni De's Daoist Sea Salt from the Seashore. But, what is jamming me is that my parents instilled a sense of morals in me so I am out on that plan. Thanks for the New Years laugh. take care, Sifu 甘乃迪 (that is Kennedy spelled in Chinese)

I am often quite guilty of saying Chinese word x means y and my wife gently scolds me about that. The reason being, most Chinese characters do not mean anything in the abstract. They are either part of set phrases or need to be seen in context. A good example is zheng. Just sitting on a piece of paper by itself the word means nothing. An example of some of the meanings and phrases that use zheng can be found here. http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?...eng&wdrst=1 take care, Brian

My wife and I did a piece for the March/April issue (which I think is on the newsstands now) of Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine on Taiwanese Daoist temple parades. The article is called Street Fighting Men (because of the martial tone of the parades.). To give folks an idea of what these parades are about, here is a photo I shot from our patio of two of the Daoist generals walking past the 7-11. The two are the 7th and 8th Lords. This is some of the parade performers playing around in the back alley of my house. What the deal is, is they are taking a break while waiting for the other troupes to arrive. So the article talks a bit about all that. I probably have mentioned this before, but I do have a lot of respect for Gene Ching, who is the editor of Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine because he is trying to bring in wider Chinese culture into his martial arts magazine. Take care, Brian

The etymology of the word dao (道) has nothing to do with warriors. Some uninformed person seems to have slapped that on the Wikipedia article and now it has become a New Age cyber-fact. It is horseshit. "Dao" is a simple word which combines two basic radicals: "movement" and "ahead". It has nothing to do with "warriors". One thing that plagues Daoism (especially in cyberspace) is nonsense things said about various Chinese words, usually by white New Agers who either read no Chinese or rudimentary Chinese or by Chinese New Age authors trying to sell their books and sound "hep" to white New Agers. In any event making up nonsense is not part of Daoism and I never really saw the reason for it. Daoism has a very long and interesting history with plenty to learn and admire without the pseudo-cyber facts. Take care, Brian the Wordsmith