Some Karate

Top Karate Lady showing some of her stuff

The Moon orbiting Earth, seen from NASA satellite

Seen from 31 Million miles away.

Some Bagua

Clip of Bruce Frantzis doing Bagua Applications, freestyle.

Kung Fu Expert Struts his Stuff

Kung Fu Expert Struts his Stuff from Simon O'Connor on Vimeo.

A New Camera

I just bought a new camera, a digital SLR, the Nikon D40. That's it in my hands in the last photo. Let's see if it turns me into a photographer, and not just a point and click "happy snapper" :-)

Reviews of the camera are here http://bythom.com/d40review.htm and here http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40.htm

Judo Throwing Form - Nage No Kata

When demonstrating Judo forms you are meant to be very formal. The moves are clear but appear "stiff". Personally I prefer a move natural and looser style.

Cheng Man Ching Sword Play

Cheng Man Ching Form Class

The clips I am posting on Cheng Man Ching come, I think, from newly released material from his Family. You can buy the set of 4 DVDs with hours of video here The Master Tapes, but they cost $149, plus postage! The clip below is on YouTube but I cannot embed it on the blog because it has been "locked" down. Hopefully this won't happen to what I have already linked to!

Cheng Man Ching Form Class on YouTube

Judo

Internal Masters

Not sure who... came across this video when chasing/browsing links!

Cheng Man Ching Push Hands Class

Some light relief...

Tai Chi Punch

Demonstrated by Glen Hairston, from ramcity youtube

More bujinkan budo

MOre from Tony at the World Culture Day in Dun Laoghaire

Bujinkan Budo at World Festival Day Dublin Aug 2008

Thanks to Tony for Video

Seven Stars

This is a description of "Seven Stars", but from a well known Wu Style Master.

Right Side Brain Experience

The following two youtube videos are of a talk given by Jill Bolte Taylor, describing a stroke she had. She is a scientist who works on the brain, and paid attention to what was happening. I'll let her tell you about it herself!

Spinning Lady "illusion"

Watch this spinning shillouette of a lady. It can appear to spin either clockwise or anticlockwise, and can change direction while watching.



If you can't see the change see here www.randominc.net/spinninglady for help (this may take away the "fun" of the illusion for you)

Figure of Eights and Teacups

Just read blog post at http://formosaneijia.com that had a few photos of the Bagua "Teacups" exercise. My brother is learning it with his Tai Chi Teacher and mentioned that is was similar to our Figure of Eights exercises that I showed him some time ago.

I found this video of it, with applications!, on YouTube:

Famous (infamous?!) Tai Chi "Fight"

There is a lot of dicussion on this fight in 1954 in Macau between the son of the founder of Wu style Tai Chi and a younger Kung Fu master. From web forums it seems this may have been a demonstration that escalted a bit, though not much... !

TaiChi Symbol Favicon

I have added a Tai Chi (Ying Yang) Symbol to my page address. I've always liked those sites that have this "favicon", thinking they looked better in favourite lists, etc. Now I have my own!

It's the small things...

"Challenge!" match push hands (supposedly!)

You can read some discussions about how real this "challenge" was here:

http://formosaneijia.com/2006/the-truth-about-chen-xiao-wangs-fight-pt2/

Using Spaces in Haiku

Use the following post




To get the lines to line up properly when writing the post you may need to change the font to Courier, in compose mode. This may not be necessary, I think using the pre tag will force a monospaced font in any case when posted to the blog.

The first line tags or to bold the word Haiku. The "pre" tags are what displays the spaces as wanted

This can't be real, can it...!

Actual Kung Fu movie auditions

Haiku

           Night,   and the moon!
     My neighbor,   playing on his flute -
                    out of tune!

Long Form, Lefty - with distraction!

Short Form Applications

Came across this a while ago, mentioned on one of the blogs I regulary check out.

http://formosaneijia.com

It shows some applications for the short form, as the teacher goes through the form. Quite a lot of "moves" here.

Peurto Rico, January 05, Short Form at Sunset

There are No Secrets...

I am trying out Amazon links through its associate program Widgets. I will try several versions of linking objects in this post.
NOTE taht the displayed prices do not seem to be the "standard" amazon price, you may have to choose from 'more buying choices'

I have several books on or by Cheng Man Ching. I will give a few brief comments on each below.

There are No Secrets: Good "feel" for Tai Chi practice and philosphy, and an insight into Cheng Man Ching as a person. I have read this several times and it always reminds me of important points. The author trained over many years as a student of Cheng Man Ching when he instructed in New York.



Gateway to the Miraculous: A follow up to There are No Secrets. More of the same good stuff.



Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan: Chen Man Ching on the principles of Tai Chi. A Classic. Also has photos of him as a young man (middle years?) in postures of the short form, with commentary on the posture. This is the hardback edition.



Master Cheng's New Method of Tai Chi Self-cultivation: Chen Man Ching performing the short form. Also some push hands. Here he was in his later years. Intersting as a historical photo reference of the short form perfromed by its originator

Mallow Tai Chi Class, November 04

Doing form work at old Davis College sports hall, our temporary abode for a few months. Video is very dark, I had to adjust monitor settings to see clearly. I might rectify at some later date to brighten image. Apologies.

Short Form, Mallow, March 2005

Must too fast as usual. Especially when being videoed!

My Tai Chi

I train in TaiChi with Ann Mc Ilraith

See here for her blog

http://taichicork.blogspot.com/

And here for the Cork TaiChi Heartwork website

http://cork.taichiheartwork.com/

We train Thursday Evenings, beginners always welcome, at 7:30pm at Woodview Centre, Mallow. See map Below


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NOTE: Tested Map on Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox. I have had problems with IE6