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• Jing Mo Photo Shoot

  Sunday, Oct 26, 2008 11:19AM / Standard Entry / Members only

  A while ago some of my kung fu brothers and I got together for a photo shoot in Golden Gate Park.  It was actually the first time I can remember getting together with these guys when we were all in our formal uniforms displaying our Jing Mo Athletic Group patches.  This never happens since we don't really participate in many tournaments or demos as a team (I think I've been the only student in our class who's competed in a tournament in years).  I guess it's because ours is sort of a "masters class" of sorts.  We're all experienced students of the great grandmaster, Wong Jack Man (the man who fought with Bruce Lee back in 1964) and there aren't really any younger kids in our class.
  

  
  This is actually a good thing for me because I've managed to learn a lot from these guys without a huge class getting in the way.  Of course, I'm the least experienced of the group since I only just started learning from Sifu Wong a few years before he retired.  So I've ended up mimicking my senior kung fu brothers, which has given me a multitude of perspectives on one of our main arts, Bak Siu Lum (also called Bei Shaolin or Northern  Shaolin).  It's been said in our passed down traditions that it was, indeed, the original, "Shaolin Northern Style of Shaolin Gate".  This was the original style of the Shaolin monks who escaped the destruction of the temple by Qing troops in 1732.  Bei Shaolin has an interesting history after that, having been kept alive by traveling performers, Ming rebels and, the famed, Kuo Yu Chang.  There's been some controversy surrounding who has the "real" Shaolin since all of the Northern Shaolin masters (and most all other kung fu masters) had to flee Communist China because all kung fu teaching and practicing was forbidden during The Cultural Revolution.  There's an interesting  Kung Fu Magazine article about this:   http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=158

  I was actually debating about this stuff on the KF Magazine forums and, I didn't realize at first, but Shi Deyang himself was arguing with me!  I felt kind of like a jerk after that.  As the 31st generation successor of the Shaolin tradition, I still have to give him some props and respect.  I sincerely hope I didn't offend him:

  http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47251&highlight=Ten+Song+Shan+Forms
  http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46255&highlight=Ten+Song+Shan+Forms
  
  Anyway, enough getting side tracked, here's some of our pictures:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Lazy Man's Gung Fu

  Tuesday, Jul 22, 2008 11:19AM / Standard Entry / Members only

  My friend and I were in Washington Square (in San Francisco) yesterday and we decided to see what the video quality was like on her new camera.  I sort of lazily performed one of my Shaolin forms and it turned out...O.K.  My knee is really bothering me so I abstained from getting into any really low stances. 
  
  At around 46 seconds into it I get distracted because this old Chinese lady who I see doing Tai Chi out there was making fun of me.  She kept laughing and she said, "Oh, are you doing kung fu? Hiya!!"  Her girlfriends were all laughing too, so I ended up getting all self-conscious which I think may have affected my over all performance.  For better or worse, here it is:
  
  Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ao2VIZvWj9
  

  
  
  
  

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• What a Downer

  Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008 3:29PM / Standard Entry / Members only

  Due to the downturn of my country's economy and the fact that it's having a degrading effect on me personally in all areas of my life (BIG TIME!), I've been a thinkin' long and hard about the current state of affairs here in the good ol' U.S. of A.  I feel it's time that I got brutally political and say the things that I've always believed and felt.
  
  I grew up around liberal people and liberal culture here in the Bay Area, but it doesn't take a liberal to admit that my country's leadership has some of the most insane, ego-maniacal, Sith Lord, evil motherf@ckers on the planet!  Let me tell you why I've always thought so...
  
  I have Republican relatives.  Old school people, who fought in WWII, who got brainwashed along the way into believing a philosophy that has proven to be dangerous to all life.  I remember telling my dad, my grandfather, my uncle, "If George Bush gets elected, our economy is going to go down the toilet, and we're going to get wrapped up in another war, MARK MY WORDS!!"  Of course, some programming is not easily undone.
  
  After 8 years of Bush, I find myself enraged over a whole host of issues.  Not the least of which is the fact that it's estimated (according to The Lancet) that the war has wiped out more than 500 people a day in Iraq.  By now, over a million men, women, and children have been killed!!  How can I paint this for people...that's women and children raped by machine gun fire, and blasted to bits by 30mm chain guns, hellfire missiles, and 500lb bombs.  The media here is constantly pointing out how sad it is that we've lost over 4,000 troops.  There's never any mention of the MASSIVE numbers of innocent Iraqis that have been killed in this war.  All you'll ever see is a sort passing acknowledgment of the carnage, or the media showcasing a few tragedies involving some of our more sociopathic, murderous troops out in the field. 
  
  It was the same in Vietnam.  They don't even know how many Vietnamese people we killed.  They think it's somewhere around 3-5 MILLION.  Oh, but it's important that we still only concentrate on grieving for the 58,000 dead Americans, cause their lives are worth more than all of those other...people.  Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely horrible what happened to our guys in that conflict.  I've seen firsthand how Vietnam and Gulf War 1 destroyed the lives of our veterans.  I've known a lot of these guys.  Most of them are severely tweeked in one way or another.  It only goes to show, our leaders don't even care about their own tools.  When it comes down to it, a good portion of the people in our military are expendable.  That's only one of the reasons why my country's leadership has always sickened me. 
  
  One of the main reasons is because, for the last half a century, the U.S. has, basically, been acting like a hegemonic, self-interested, economic empire that will stop at nothing to get what it wants.  And when I say "it", I'm referring to the real corporate, power mongers who control this nation.  I still find myself debating with people all the time about Peak Oil ("so, the demand isn't bigger than the supply, is what you're saying?"), and the fact that the primary reason the U.S. felt it needed to invade Iraq AND Afghanistan was because of oil and resources.  It was not really about ousting the Taliban, or bringing down Saddam, or bringing "democracy" to the region (the funniest notion, when Saudi Arabia is one of our biggest allies, and they're one of the most UNDEMOCRATIC nations ever).  The whole disaster was, and still is, because of OIL and the U.S. feeling like it needs to secure the resources in that region.  Iraq has the second largest oil reserves on the planet, about 17%.  Saudi Arabia (our puppet government, "allies") has the biggest.  With Afghanistan also having a huge geopolitical value due to the proposed Turkmenistan / Caspian Sea pipeline (that will now probably be built by Dick Cheney's Halliburton), was it ever any wonder what this was all about?!
  http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/175.html
  Not only that, but 95% of American aren't seeing a penny of all of the countless billions of dollars being made off Iraq's oil.  THAT'S the betrayal that should hurt Americans the most.  That  this nation and all of it's people would be used as tools to achieve these astronomical levels of wealth, power, and control, and then be left in the dust, to wallow in poverty and depression.  They're taking all the profits and still ripping us off!
  http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/08/iraq.main/index.html
  I could go on and on posting articles showing how the Bush Administration is still the totally corrupt, criminal regime that it's always been.
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR2008070203322.html?nav=rss_business
  But I'll digress for a moment and theorize that all of this turmoil and growing poverty and crime in my neighborhood is due to a sort of "shake-up" in this country.  Just like in Europe, things had to get extremely f@cked up for people to realize a more sensible way of living and treating others.  Maybe someday we will have the same sort of renaissance Europe has been experiencing.  Then, maybe, we can all look back at this time in history and laugh.  In the meantime, I can only curse the day we ever let GW and his cronies be in charge of anything, let alone the United States government.
  Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=WwVnHJ0Zucs&feature=PlayList&p=552123C6A01C9A8C&index=5
  

  
  
  
  

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• Real Life Hero

  Tuesday, Jun 24, 2008 6:10PM / Standard Entry / Members only

  I'm finding myself becoming an even bigger Jet Li fan after seeing how much he's doing for the earthquake victims.  He's such a good person!!  He's a genuine Buddhist.  I remember in "The Shaolin Temple" (another influential movie for me), the Abbot of the Temple said, "as Buddhists we must strive to help all people." 
  
  Other cool statements from that movie (but perhaps they sound comical due to the creative English translators) were, "Buddhists and devils will not live together, I will kill you!," and "Kill the devils and enter Buddha!"  Jet's training sequence has always been inspiring:
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_WYDc7_7AE&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=5
  

  
  
  One of my two favorite Jet Li movies continues to be Fist of Legend (the other one is Tai Chi Master).  It's just the perfect, well rounded action movie to me, and the numerous fight scenes are some of the best I've ever seen (and continue to see).  This movie has so many great fights!!  Here's two of my favs':
  
  Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0HrTDMXkQfY&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=3
  

  Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=IPyHBJx7bSQ&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=9
  

  
  
  This is my all time favorite sword fight:
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inD1L5cOghg
  

  
  
  Of course, how could I forget Black Mask:
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vhEc0aUEYY&feature=related
  

  
  
  I couldn't decide whether to include this Jet Li/Jerry Timble fight, or the ending one in "The Master."  They're both friggin' awesome but this one will have to do:
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEfk8JTA5pw&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=10
  

  
  
  This scene from "Dragon Fight" is one of my favorites from Jet Li's earlier work:
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG6kp36QAS0&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=11
  

  
  
  Jet Li has never looked more like a tough, bad-ass in this clip.  He's actually really convincing as a real, over-the-top, mean guy.  It's a real testament to his acting cause he seems like such a nice guy in real life.  I can't help it, I just love this clip!
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M213TbKqxlU&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=0
  

  
  
  God, so many great movies!!  He's had such an illustrious career and here's where it all began:
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETkYg8v4U90&feature=related
  

  
  
  
  

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• A True Bad Ass

  Tuesday, Feb 5, 2008 5:28PM / Standard Entry / Members only

  Although I hate to admit it to my sifu, Jackie Chan's work was probably the single most important influence that made me begin my lifelong pursuit of martial arts excellence.  Living here in the Bay Area when I was a kid, I used to sneak and stay up past twelve so I could watch Kung Fu Theatre with Tat Mau Wong.  I'm sort of embarrassed to admit it, but titles like Drunken Master, Snake In Eagles Shadow, Spiritual Kung Fu, and Police Story have had a major influence on my life.
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfv2o3vFQHw&feature=PlayList&p=0DF906233180C1CC&index=13
  

  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdbc2xJR9N0&feature=PlayList&p=0DF906233180C1CC&index=15
  

  
  
  I feel these next couple clips embody some of the best 10 minutes in action cinema history (actually, you'll have to click on the URL to watch the first one on Youtube, but, trust me, you won't regret it):
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khWcczhXgKQ
  

  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYTvpcP2YJQ
  

  
  
  Next I'll be pulling together a bunch of clips of another one of my all time favorite action heroes: Jet Li.
  
  

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