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 saying, "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:
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:
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':
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:
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!
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.
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):
Although he's somewhat offensive and obnoxious at times, I can't help thinking Daniel Tosh is kind of a genius. I guess he's funny to me because he's really mean yet sarcastic; a quality that I lack, but am entertained by since, in our day and age (and especially here on the West Coast), being PC and not offending people is so strongly emphasized. Sometimes there's a part of me that just wants to say, "Ah, come on, Fuck It!! Why is everyone so sensitive? it's all in good fun!!"
Led Zepellin, Black Sabbath, Metallica...this was mainly the stuff I was into when I was growing up. My older sister and her friends were mainly into soul and some of the lighter classic rock (like in the previous entry). I grew up around all of that stuff mainly because, early on, we lived in a predominantly black and latino area in Oakland, and my parents were friends with Pete and Sheila Escavito, the parents of Sheila E. My sister was also best friends with Sheila E's little sister. Of course, my sis' and all of her friends were more into Prince and all of the other soul and hip hop at the time.
I still like all of that music, but growing up as a depressed, stoner, rocker kid, I was more into the harder stuff. I played guitar also, so maybe that's why I was into playing challenging hard rock and metal riffs, like these:
I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area and I've lived here almost all of my life. I've been involved in the arts in one way or another since I was a child...
I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area and I've lived here almost all of my life. I've been involved in the arts in one way or another since I was a child. My mother was a ballet teacher, so I grew up doing performing arts in one form or another. After receiving a Bachelor or Arts Degree in Theatre Arts from San Francisco State University, I moved to L.A. for a while looking around for some work. After deciding I liked 'The Bay' so much better, I moved back to San Francisco with plans on working on my own films and screenplays. I'm somewhat of a martial arts, action movie junkie and I'd eventually like to showcase some of my own talents.
I've been practicing Bak Siu Lum (Northern Shaolin) kung fu for six years now and other martial arts (Karate, 7 Star Mantis, Tai Chi) for something like 15 years. My most recent sifu of note was Wong Jack Man. He is a grandmaster of the Northern Arts and he shares his lineage with the great Kuo Yu Chang (Gu Renzang). He had a controversial fight with Bruce Lee back in 1964 which turned out to be a draw. Despite some disagreement over the outcome, this battle has always been seen as the "big event" that prompted Lee to invent Jeet Kune Do and proclaim Wing Chun to be "insufficient". Wong Sifu is a kind and honorable man who retired from teaching in 2005. Since then, Sifu Rick Wing has been my main teacher.
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