Martial Development

More Chuck Norris Facts

My previous list of top Chuck Norris facts was a surprise hit. Here are a few more of my favorites, from Comrad Ivan Red’s myspace blog:

Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. And don’t bring a gun to a Chuck Norris fight.

Chuck Norris crossed the road. No one has ever dared question his motives.
Chuck Norris doesn’t shower—he only takes blood baths.
It takes 14 puppeteers to make Chuck Norris smile, but only 2 to make him destroy an orphanage.
Chuck Norris won the 1983 World Series of Poker, despite holding only a Joker, a 7 of spades and a green UNO card.
Continue reading More Chuck Norris Facts

3 Ways to Make Tai Chi Form Practice More Interesting

Chen style Tai Chi Chuan practice

Attaining competency in Tai Chi Chuan requires hundreds of hours of correct form practice, and mastery requires thousands more. One impediment to sustained practice is a lack of interest: Tai Chi forms are too boring to perform daily.

Perseverance in the face of boredom builds character; however, feelings of boredom may be a sign that your learning has stalled. To keep your practice fresh, productive and fun, try performing these variations on your standard Tai Chi forms.

Martial Arts of Addition and Subtraction

Perhaps there are two ways to approach martial arts training, after all.

I am not talking about soft and hard, or fast and slow, or offense and defense. Nor am I referring to external and internal martial arts—whatever you take those terms to mean.

Addition
The first method requires a partner. Together you drill common attack scenarios, one by one, until you’ve perfected a set of automatic, thoughtless and effective responses.

Sweep Her Off Her Feet With Wing Chun

Successfully executed, the foot sweep transforms a dangerous hand-to-hand combat scenario into a more favorable boot-to-head scenario. Wing Chun sweeps can be performed in a few different ways, some easier than others. If you want your partner to fall for you, try this simple method.

Wong Kiew Kit on The 3 Levels of Kungfu

Question from a student:

I understand that Kungfu, a multifaceted system, is a system of combat, and hence dominant and superior combat power is its highest priority. Is that true?

Answer from Wong Kiew Kit:

It is a matter of perspective. I would view kungfu in this way. Kungfu as a mutifaceted martial art, has three levels of attainment. The lowest level is combat efficiency. This is also the most fundamental level, without which it ceases to be kungfu and degenerates into a demonstrative form.

Continue reading Wong Kiew Kit on The 3 Levels of Kungfu

Mimicry is Not the Path to Mastery

Mastery is efficiency. A master of their art simultaneously exerts less effort, and achieves greater results than others. Wouldn’t it would be wonderful if attaining mastery was as easy as defining it?
It is that easy, and that difficult.

Eavesdropping on the Astral Plane

A conversation recorded by Terry Bisson:

“They’re made out of meat.”

“Meat?”

“Meat. They’re made out of meat.”

“That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?”

“They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.”

“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”

“They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.”

Add Pullquotes for a More Professional Blog

There are more than 50 million blogs on the Internet now, and thousands more are added every day. If you want to keep readers’ attention in this hypercompetitive environment, you must create posts that both look interesting and read well.

This is an example of a basic pull quote.

Pullquotes are one of the easiest ways to add a little style to your blog post. They break up large blocks of text, reinforce the key points in your post, and make your blog look more professional. As common as they are in offline print media—such as magazines—pullquotes are rarely used on blogs; they are therefore an effective way to help your blog stand out from the crowd.

Learn to Levitate the Easy Way

Back in the olden days, levitation was considered a miraculous skill, requiring years of diligent meditation practice. I have recently discovered an Indian technique that simplifies this amazing feat.

Using this method, levitation is within the reach of even the least committed students. Although it won’t work for everyone, it just might work for you.

Farting to Enlightenment

Su Dongpo occupied a government post on the northern shore of the Yangtze River. Across the river at Jinshan Temple lived the Chan master Foyin.

One day, Su Dongpo, feeling proud of his accomplishments in meditative practice, wrote a poem and dispatched it to Foyin for approval:

I bow my head to the heaven within heaven
Whose light illuminates the universe
The eight winds cannot move me
Sitting still upon the golden purple lotus

When Foyin received the poem, he read it, wrote a single word in reply, and sent it back.