Traditional European Martial Arts: Jogo do Pau

For a long time, everyone has looked to Asia for martial arts, but there is a growing interest in local martial traditions all over the world. Here is a German documentary on the Portuguese art of Jogo do Pau. A stick-fighting art with its roots in the Middle Ages, it has been attracting attention and gaining respect in recent years. If I'm not mistaken, it may be a derivative of combat with the Medieval greatsword. Be warned...the clip is in German. For those who are interested, here is an English language website with some information on the art. Wikipedia offers information and links. This is the English version of a Portuguese website. The Dog Brothers are taking an interest in the art, and there are a video and book available, as well.

Rules and Fighting: The Paradox of Martial Arts Training

Here is a problem that is faced in every martial art:

1) At some point, you must train realistically (e.g. full-contact.)
2) Realistic fighting is dangerous, so you must either risk serious injury or develop rules.
3) Rules change the nature of fighting.
4) At some point, the practitioners forget that their rules-based fighting isn't real fighting.

Brazilian Jiujutsu fighters (who should be respected for their dedication to full-contact training) forget that outside the ring the ground is a bad place to be.

On the other end of the spectrum, Chinese wrestlers, knowing that the ground is death on the street, set rules so that you lose the fight as soon as anything knees or above touches the ground. For an Indo fighter like me, knees-on-the-ground means that I have two more ranges to fight in before I hit the ground.

Western boxers are famous for breaking their knuckles the first time they punch someone in a bar. Judoka are lost without lapels to grab. Karateka are easily defeated by a little grappling and stalking. Have I left anyone out?

What to do? The obvious solution is to keep reminding ourselves that we are playing. I make a point to use the word play quite a lot in my teaching. I play the sword and spear, we play sambutan, etc. The Filipinos have a word, Labanlaro (I think), which means "Cubs Playing". The idea being that tiger cubs, for example, play with each other more-and-more -roughly until one of the yelps, and then they separate and start over. Then the mother tiger drags home a slightly-injured wildebeast, and they take turns trying to take it down under her watchful eye, all in the safety of the den.

More on how to practice.

Here's another article from an old master, talking about how you should train:

http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=591

I found this article on Eric Ling's wonderful blog.

He doesn't sound hopeful about the martial arts, but he does talk about how the form is a receptacle for the art, not the art itself. If you want to understand the art, you have to:

Deconstruct the form, examine and practice each movement, both by itself and in combination with other movements.

Change the movement, combine upper body with different footwork.

Explore how the movement works against an opponent in different situations.


That is Kung Fu.

Kunlun...Pai?

by Jonty

Eric Ling (http://eric88ling.wordpress.com/) has just posted about one of the Kunlun VCD's that we are researching. He has classified it as "Kunlunpai," rather than "Kunlunquan."

For those of you just tuning in, one of the goals of this blog is to research a group of martial arts named after the Kunlun mountians. I learned a system called "Kunlun Mountain Fist," that shares several forms with a set of VCD's (available from Plum Publications here.) In the VCD's, Master Huang names the system Kunlun Quan (Fist), but that doesn't mean much, since "Fist" can just refer to a system, rather than the name of this particular system.

Eric Ling, who has a wonderful blog mostly on Fukien White Crane and Hakka styles, labels one of the VCD's, the "Bandit" Fist, as Kunlunpai. He has also claimed he has several old manuscripts about these styles. Very exciting.

Its Important to Enjoy Your Martial Arts Practice...

by Steven

...and this man obviously does. He is Guru Bang Husin, the Pewaris (grandmaster) of Pencak Silat Golok Seliwa Betawi. A rare, traditional style from the area of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, on the island of Java. I hope people are trying to save what men like this have to teach...

Real Training in the Chinese Arts

By Jonty

I just ran across an interview of Yang Fukui, a member of the Yang family who is known for his fighting prowess in full-contact competitions. I was immediately gratified to read that his training didn't consist of long forms, but rather of the individual movements in different combinations. This supports my arguments that modern Chinese arts are too focused on memorizing the forms and often fail to escape them. Here's a quotation (He's talking about Yang Banhou and Yang Jianhou, second-generation masters):

"First of all, they devoted most of their practice to gongfu and martial arts, not to health or “spiritual development,” although these two latter aspects certainly underlied their practice. Their emphasis was different. For example, they never practiced more than a two or three form or movements in sequence, in order to develop fighting skill and gongfu, and they never linked more than five forms together. There were no such things as the 24 or 85 or 108 form Taijiquan."

The entire article can be read here.

Working the Other Side of the Coin...

By Steven

The other side of the coin in the warrior arts, from martial pursuits, is to practice healing arts. I'm going to be working on this a lot more in days to come.

I'm doing a lot of Qigong these days. More than I have in years. And it is good.

I am starting to work on learning some acupressure/energywork and reflexology. My wife has a hypothyroid condition, and suffers from a lot of pain in her right ankle (from when it fractured in three places some years ago), and in her right hip (courtesy of a mild-to-moderate hit-and-run incident many years ago). She's also been having a problem with sensations of extreme heat in her feet for a couple or three years. Painfully hot. At the same time, other sensations in the soles of her feet have felt muted.

I've been compiling information from books we own (that have mostly been gathering dust) and decided to try out some of their suggestions. So...

I worked on the acupressure points Kidney 3 and Spleen 5, and did some reflexology work on her feet. I concentrated, based on what I knew about her conditions and the feedback she was giving me, on the areas of her feet that represent her thyroid, hips, and sciatic nerve. We also discovered that she was reacting to the areas for the solar plexus and eyes, so I added those to the list. Lastly, I worked on her Lung 1 acupressure points, since I've been experiencing benefit from that for myself. It seemed prudent, at that point, to say 'enough' for today.

We evaluated the results:

• Her ankle went from a 6.5-7.0 (on the pain scale, and she is pretty fair in her use of it) and it went to a 3.5-4.0.
• Her hip/back went from negligible at rest/9.0 while standing for extended periods to essentially pain free, at least for the moment.
• The heat issue with her feet, which I had not set out to address went from hot to cool, and the sensations feel less muted/more normal. This was an inadvertant and unexpected benefit.
• She feels more alert, and relaxed. Anxiety levels, which have been a problem, are decreased.
• She's had a twitch in her left eyelid for a couple of months. It has stopped, at least for the moment.
• The work with Lung 1 caused her shoulders to drop and made breathing easier and more relaxed.

I fully expect for these issues to require frequent follow-up, but am excited to see how things progress with time. I noticed, while doing the reflexology, that the areas being worked often gave a crackling sensation under my hands and fingers...like the shrinkwrap-sort of material they put around cigarette packs. Eventually that feeling would abate, and I'd move on to another spot.

I'm going to try and keep a record of what I (and we) are doing. I think we'll be better able to track what works, and what doesn't. We have a lot more health issues and changes we are going to be addressing over the next year. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

FOLLOW-UP: At 4 to 5 hours past the event, hip and back pain when standing for a prolonged period rates a 5.5-6.0, which is still an improvement over what it was before. I'm hoping that with frequent repeats, the chronic pain will improve on a more permanent basis.

18 December: My wife's right foot and ankle are routinely swollen, and full ROM has been missing in ankle, foot and toes since the fractures "healed". Upon arising this morning (and waking up...lol), my wife noted that there was little, if any, swelling in her ankle/foot, and she had much increased ROM. This is really exciting, and gives me hope that with a steady Tx plan using these methods, and a few others, we may be able to relieve many of her symptoms without having to resort to surgery, which was what we've feared for some time. She is not pain-free, but it has not been as bad as before, so far. The only real side effect we're seeing is that the soles of her feet are a bit tender from my working on them, but it isn't too bad.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not advocating that you, the reader, follow any of the treatments/modalities I am recording. These are not 'recommendations', but 'observations'. Any form of medical treatment should be done under the supervision of trained professionals. Your potentially poor and/or harmful choices are your own, as are mine...