Kung Fu Lessons

By now, I guess you've figured out that I'm really into Kung Fu. So, it wouldn't strike you to learn that I was really excited when Nick expressed interest in learning some Kung Fu. I haven't really taught any Kung Fu since my days at school with the Meihua Student Association of Martial Arts, except occasionally teaching Cherry to get her to exercise. Kung fu is always more interesting when you practice with someone - as cool as doing forms looks, doing them over and over by yourself does get old. So, now I have someone else to train from the ground up, and I'm pumped up!

At the club in Gainesville, we had probably a 30-35% retention rate of new members. Looking back, I guess that's not too bad - I imagine a lot of martial arts schools only keep some 10% of the people that have tried it out. The trick is to give the students or members what they want and keep them interested. That was always my way of thinking.

The problem with this, of course, is that there are a lot of students. A lot of students means a lot of different interests. Some are interested in the physical fitness aspect of Kung Fu, others are interested in the self-defense aspect, others in tournament fighting, and still others in the culture. Not many schools can keep up with all of that, and hence, the large drop out rate. At the club, I tried my best to give new members a taste of all the different aspects of learning kung fu, be it performing beautiful forms or just kicking people's asses. From there, I tried to figure out what each person really enjoyed, and would let them work especially on that aspect, while still making them do some of the other stuff from time to time in order to round out their training.

I'm definitely not the best martial artist out there, and I'm even more sure that I'm not the best instructor, even if I have produced some decent competitors during my time with the Meihua Student Association of Martial Arts. However, I really enjoy teaching, and it helps me learn even more about the art when I go through it step by step with someone, all the way back from the most basic parts. But nothing is more satisfying about it than seeing members stay and enjoy the training, and really take a deep interest in kung fu, maybe to the point that they seek out more qualified instructors than me, like sifus, on their own.

In Defense of Paper beating Rock

In Ed's latest post, one of his friends argues the legitimacy of Paper as a contender in the classic game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, which, without Paper's ability to subdue Rock, would result in the dominance of Rock in any match. Fortunately, Billy came to Paper's defense, in the following educational discourse:

Billy said...
"Dude, My wide open palm would bitch slap ur ass if u tried to say that paper doesn't beat rock. Its pure physics man. Rocks are scared of the dark so when u put paper over them they start hyperventilating. duh"

Wicked.

Cr@zy C0mpUterZ!@%$#

Ahh, home sweet home. We spent this weekend at my parents house since it was Chinese New Year today. We didn't end up doing a whole lot for the sake of the New Year, but the trip was still moderately fun and entertaining in its own absurd ways.

First, Ed got his PocketPC fully operational this past week (see his blog for details) which allowed him to basically put a hell of a lot of his favorite MP3s on it. This led him to believe that he no longer needed the iPod Shuffle he got from our cousin Leo this past Christmas. As the natural progression of events would have it, he decided that I could have his iPod Shuffle, so I took it! And the cool little white earbuds too!

Almost as cool was the fact that Ed brought his new football (again, see his blog for details) so we could throw it around. And throw it around, we did! We were able to convince Cherry to come out and toss it with us, and she's getting pretty good at the whole throwing and catching part. Later in the day, my 11-year-old sister Melinda (see picture to the left) wanted to get in on the action, so we set up some 2-on-2. Cherry showed her route-running prowess by scoring two touchdowns! Unfortunately, Melinda wasn't quite as good as Cherry, so my team (Melinda and myself) lost to Ed and Cherry in a 30-7 route, with our lone touchdown coming on some trickeration.

During Chinese New Year's Eve, we took a bunch of pictures of the family in traditional Chinese dress, and I took some too with my new Camera Phone (see previous post about this exciting episode!). I wanted to post them to Grant's Pad immediately, so I sent the photos to go@blogger.com. However, apparently the mobile blogging feature wasn't working too well that day, because none of my posts showed up, as you can obviously tell! Crazy mobile e-mail...

I wrote my last Kung Fu Facts post on my sister's computer, which was some of the most pain I have ever endured. I don't know what they do with that computer, but there were seed shells and all kinds of crap stuck in the keyboard. Not to mention, the machine was painfully slow, and the Norton anti-virus was set up to pretty much block anything that I needed to look up information. I ended up killing Norton, only to find out that he was suppressing an unbelievable amount of spyware and viruses which suddenly assaulted. I promptly decided to take advantage of my still-active-despite-having-graduated-two-semesters-ago University of Florida account and downloaded McAfee Virus Scan, which was able to get rid of a lot of garbage. But, it wasn't enough. I then tried to download Microsofts Antispyware, but apparently the copy of Windows on my sister's computer couldn't be authorized, so again I exercised my UF account and finally got that to work as well. I spent several hours, significantly cleaning up that computer, but in the end, I still couldn't get rid of one spyware which made pop-ups come up at random.

I gave up trying to fix Melinda's computer, but that experience caused me to go home and fix up my own computer, which also was running pretty slow. I was able to speed it up by basically not loading up ANYTHING on startup, but then I decided to let Antispyware and Virus Scan be exceptions.

I installed iTunes on my computer when I got home, and found that it was a little more difficult to use than I expected. Especially when it decided that all the work Ed and I put in on putting songs that I wanted from his computer in was worthless and removed all of those songs! I was pretty upset. I really liked that "Ai ni xiang lao shu ai da mi (爱你像老鼠爱大米 - Love You like Mice Love Rice, it even rhymes in English!)" song! Computers suck. But I still want a new one!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 8 - The Shaolin Temple

Tonight is Chinese New Year's Eve, and so, here is the finale of this series of Kung Fu Facts! I hope you all enjoyed the series - from time to time I'll see if I can post more such articles in the future, when I come across more information, or if there are any special requests.

Kung Fu Facts Issue 8 - The Shaolin Temple:

Almost everyone knows that there wouldn't be Chinese Kung Fu as we know it today without the Shaolin Temple! So here's my tribute to the largest and oldest existing kung fu school.

The Shaolin Temple is old. In fact, having been reportedly built around the 5th century AD by an Indian monk, it is one of the oldest and largest major Buddhist temples in China (by my count, it is the3rd oldest, behind the White Horse temple, built in the 1st century, and the Temple of the Soul's Retreat (also the largest Buddhist temple in China), which was built around the 4th century). Shaolin translates loosely to "Little Forest", possibly because its location on Song mountain in the Henan province of China is relatively heavily wooded.

Regardless, several decades after its founding, another monk referred to as Da Mo in Chinese arrived to practice and preach Zen Buddhism at the Shaolin temple. Legend has it that he was initially denied entrance to the temple, so he found a cave nearby and prayed and meditated for supposedly nine years - so long that his shadow was permanently ingrained into the wall of the cave (you can actually see what they claim to be this shadow at the Shaolin temple today!). Regardless, he earned a following this way, and in order to help his fellow monks withstand the long hours of meditation, he developed a series of exercises which imitated the movements ofseveral different animals, such as the elephant, the bear, thecrane, etc. These are widely believed to be the origin of the Animal Forms of many Kung Fu systems. His teachings supposedly also included the Yi Jin Jing, a very famous inner energy scripture which supposedly exists today as the 18 Arhat Fist set of Northern Shaolin Kung Fu.

Some of you are probably saying, what do you mean Northern Shaolin, do you mean there is a Southern Shaolin as well? In fact, there is! The Northern Shaolin temple is the one I have described in the previous section of this article. Somewhere down the line (I like to believe around the 12th century, during the Song dynasty, but this is very estimated) an extension to the temple was founded in the Fujian province, directly across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan. This temple, like it's Northern counterpart, was involved in several political incidents, and was burned down and rebuilt several times in history. Most notedly, however, is that the Southern Shaolin Temple is believed to be the root of several of the modern Southern Fist systems, such as the Hung Gar system used by Wong Fei Hung, and also our own Choy Lay Fut system (Choy Fok, one of Choy Lay Fut founder Chan Heung's teachers, is sometimes said to be a survivor from the Southern Shaolin temple when it was burned down by the Manchurians in the late 1700s, betraying the Shaolin after the temple assisted the Manchurian government in suppressing a Tibetan revolt).

The current Northern Shaolin Temple was restored after being burned down for the last time in the 1970s by the Communist government. Eventually, the government realized that culture is important and restored the temple, and now visitors can see the temple, the nearby Forest of Pagodas (which features stone pagodas memorializing several generations of monks), and of course the Shaolin monks themselves. The current Shaolin monks are roughly 30th generation disciples, dating back to around the 1100s. They practice several hundred individual sets of kung fu, ranging from palm sets to fist forms to weapons sets to Qigong sets, making the Shaolin Temple the largest and most comprehensive school of Chinese martial arts, but the temple today is often flooded with tourists, which is often disappointing to avid martial artists. Regardless, the Shaolin Temple will always have a very important role in the development of Chinese Kung Fu.

- How did you like this short article? Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment, or any questions or suggestions on this or any other article!

Cutting Google and China Some Slack

It seems an awful lot of Bloggers are blasting Google for the launch of Google.cn, the so-called "sanitized" site for use excusively in China. I'm not usually one to write about controversial issues, even though I do talk about them a lot, but I this time I think I should say something.

First of all, I want to say that any time I have ever gotten myself into discussions about touchy topics, I inevitably always take the opposite side of whoever I'm talking to, in a sense. I might not necessarily agree with that particular school of thought completely, but I believe that at least one participant in the discussion should speak for the other side, because usually, both sides have some merit to their arguments.

Next, I want to make it clear that I know no matter what I say, it's probably not going to change anyone's mind. But I still hope people at least consider what I say. I do, otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up.

So, what's the deal? Google launches it's site, which basically filters its search results to omit hits deemed offensive or subversive to the Chinese government. Theoretically, when such searches are attempted, only government approved sites or sites with the .cn suffix are accessible. The user is notified that "inappropriate" hits have been omitted.

Suddenly, bloggers, media, and congress people are accusing Google of not abiding by it's "Don't Be Evil" motto and not assisting the mission to spread democracy.

First, I'll come to Google's defense. Several members of the media, as well as Google's own representatives, have already vouched for Google, stating that it was, in fact, in the best interest of the company (obviously) to cooperate with the Chinese government, but also that it was a better solution than the alternative, which was to not have the information Google provides at all. Proponents also indicated that Google refused to host e-mail and blogging services in China in efforts to curb invasion of privacy by the government.

Opponents promptly struck back, saying that it should be noted that the international Google.com site was readily available in China before the launch of Google.cn, and that Google sold out, the same way Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN did. Yes, Google.com did work, to an extent, in China, but it was slow, and at times even completely blocked. Don't forget, even if Google could find the sites, China's government can block those sites anyway. Without letting you know. Plus, it hasn't even been proven that the international Google.com site doesn't work in China anymore.

They aren't supporting the cause to spread Freedom and Democracy, they say. Google's supporters respond that the problem isn't Google, it's China. Is it really? Let me put it to you this way. Having been to China numerous times, for extended periods, and also being married to a mainland Chinese woman, I have to say that the desire for Freedom and Democracy isn't exactly burning in the hearts of the Chinese people. The lifestyle of the typical middle class citizen in China, is not much worse than, say, living in northeast Palm Bay. They're happy, and in no mood to revolt anyway. What about the poor, oppressed people? Most of them aren't among the 100 million internet users in China, because they probably don't have access to it. And even if they did, to paraphrase Agent Smith in The Matrix, "What good is internet access... if you are unable to read?" That's right, remember, some 20% of the Chinese population is illiterate even in their own language, much less a foreign one like English.

I'm not even done yet. Let's say that, in fact, some Chinese activist really wanted to look up information about the Dalai Lama. I refer you to an earlier post of mine, when I said that my friend Candy in China wasn't able to see Grant's Pad because of the Great Firewall. Candy is a normal private college graduate in China who had very little computer savviness when I first met her three years ago. I'm not sure what leaps and bounds she made in learning to use computers, but mere days later, she was able to view my blog, bypassing the block. I should hope that, if our activist really wanted to go about his movement intelligently, he would have the prowess to find those banned sites and information anyway. If not, then maybe he shouldn't be organizing a movement.

Here's where I'm really gonna get tarred and feathered. I already mentioned that there really wasn't that much desire to overthrow the government evident to me. But is it possible that maybe our so-called freedom of speech, our Democracy, and our plethora of information is overrated? We take it for granted, ignoring that our internet is firewalled at work, just like offices in China, where the most internet usage occurs. Censorship of the internet occurs in a lot of other countries - Cuba, Saudi, even wealthy Singapore. Censorship has occurred on the Internet right here in the US too, and did you know that US ports of many Japanese video games are also censored for language and content? But they had their reasons, didn't they. So why is it so shocking that China might want to control its information flow too?

But forget all that. What we should remember is that China is a different country. It's not America. It's not Canada. It's more like India, or Russia, or a slew of South American countries that toyed with Democracy. Democracy might be the best thing for countries like the United States or Canada or Germany or whatever, but it simply might not be for China at this time. Readers should harken back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Russia fell from power. All because of a few wide eyed activists who probably didn't realize that Russia wasn't ready. For those of you who don't know, China is by far the leading supplier of steel and concrete in the world, are catching up with Taiwan and the US with their 90 nm IC process development, and, oh yeah, the fastest growing economy by leaps and bounds. Is it too presumptuous to say that maybe they do some things right?

The bottom line is, China isn't going to suddenly become democratic even if Google doesn't censor its websearches for them - they just wouldn't use Google as much. And, whether China changes or not shouldn't really be our business anyway. They'll get it right someday, and without our "help". In the interest of competing in China, the move was correct. Sure, they wanted to make some bucks. But hey, isn't that what we all want? Oh, and by the way, President Bush just endorsed a proposal by Russia allowing nuclear development in Iran. Yeah, our government does some wierd things too. And Google still rocks.

Kung Fu Facts Issue 7 - Kung Fu Figures No. 3 - Chen Zhen and Jing Wu

Hi, and welcome to the third installment of my mini-series, Kung Fu Figures. Today's article will give an overview of a fairly recent Kung Fu Figure, Chen Zhen, and his school, the famous Jing Wu school of Chinese Martial Arts (精武门) in Shanghai.

Kung Fu Facts Issue 7 - Kung Fu Figures No. 3 - Chen Zhen and Jing Wu


Chen Zhen was a protege of the famous martial arts master, Huo Yuan Jia, during the Republic of China period (from 1911 to about 1949,f rom the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, with some intermissions, including a Tai Ping(heavenly peace) nation, but this is all political history that I won't detail here). Huo Yuan Jia was the headmaster of the Jing Wu school of Chinese kung fu in Shanghai, and at the time was accused by the practitioners of many other kung fu schools and sects as being heterodox. This is because Huo Yuan Jia introduced the idea of one school combining the best of every style of kung fu, an idea very unpopular with the "purists"(sometimes even today!), who believed that each system was a complete fighting art, and had its own honor. To mix all styles of kung fu was to not respect each individual one, and so, Huo Yuan Jia was despised for his ideas, despite the fact that his practice of all Chinese martial arts made him into the most consummate fighter of the time. It was not until the Japanese invasions and occupation of Shanghai that the other Kung Fu masters began to stand behind the idea of defending the honor of all Chinese martial arts against downfall at the hands of Japanese Karate masters.

This is where the legend of Chen Zhen begins. As fate would have it, Master Huo would finally take up a challenge against a Japanese Samurai, but for fear of losing to the Chinese and thus morale for Japanese martial arts, the Japanese local government in Shanghai took measures to ensure victory by poisoning Master Huo, and act which was considered despicable by both the Chinese people and the Japanese warrior class. However, the deed was done, and the great Huo Yuan Jia died from the poison shortly after the fight.

Being the most capable of Master Huo's students, Chen Zhen assumed leadership of the Jing Wu school, and became a figurehead against Japanese occupation as he defeated the Japanese samurai who had beaten Master Huo. However, the Japanese government was determined to rid Shanghai of Chinese heroes, and insisted on capturing and executing him. Chen Zhen finally decided to try to end the injustices the Japanese were inflicting, charged into the Japanese embassy, defeating and killing the Japanese agents. Finally, he gave himself up to the guns of the law, and was executed for his crimes, but not before becoming a martyr of the Chinese Republic with his master Huo.

The story of Chen Zhen and Huo Yuan Jiang is a popular nationalistic legend from the Republic era, and has spawned several movies and televised events. I have seen three, and most kung fu movie enthusiasts should be familiar at least two of them. The three I have seen are Bruce Lee's "The Chinese Connection," which includes the famous scene at the entrance of a Shanghai city park and an infamous sign which read "No Chinese and Dogs." This park still exists in Shanghai's Bund district and Kir-wei and I have visited it (however, the sign is no longer there). The second production that is also very famous is Jet Li's "Fist of Legend,"which exhibits some of the finest fight choreography ever, but also features the compassionate, honorable side of the Japanese, something that Bruce Lee managed to leave out in his film. The last production I have seen is a TV serial produced in Hong Kong starring Donnie Yen. These stories tell different origins of Chen Zhen - Bruce Lee and Jet Li's Chen Zhens were both students who had studied in Japan, then returned to Shanghai to find their master murdered, while Donnie Yen's Chen Zhen was something of a farmboy-turned-street-thug in the local organized crime circuits before Master Huo took him under his wing, but the rest of the story is the same - a battle against Japanese oppression.

Supposedly, some of the kung fu sets from the Jing Wu school have found their way into the Choy Lay Fut system - in particular, some of the staff sets. The Jing Wu school still exists in Shanghai today, and it will always have its role as a center of the Chinese resistance during the Japanese occupation.

- How did you like this short article? Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment, or any questions or suggestions on this or any other article!

Doing a Lot of Nothing

Today was one of those days. There was tons of work to do. Anyone who went to our production telecon can tell you that. Problems to be solved, miscommunications to be recommunicated, serial numbers to be coordinated... the list goes on. And yet, with all the work that there was to do, I found myself very very bored through most of the day. In fact, the day isn't even over yet - I'm just finding something else to keep me busy for a few minutes.

I think what happened is that the group was so overwhelmed with problems that everyone was too busy to give me an assignment which I could do without the equipment that was busy being used to solve those problems. I was able to do a little bit of helpful work during the morning, but in the afternoon, everyone was nowhere to be found, and I was stuck back in that situation again.

I decided to follow Burt's example and organize my company email into folders. But, wouldn't you know it, the e-mail server suddenly went down. And suddenly, I went back to doing a lot of nothing again.

Eventually, the e-mail server did come back, and I proceeded to clean up my inbox. However, it was a lot less daunting of a task than I had expected, and, you guessed it, once again I was looking for something to do.

That something came in the form of filling out my Flexible Benefits reimbursement claim forms, and attempting to fax them. It worked out pretty good, because the fax machine refused to cooperate, eating precious minutes of game clock. But, with all that great effort, here I am again!

In the meantime, I updated my music list. It might sound crazy, but I really do think I would prefer a lot of work over no work at all!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 6 - Kung Fu Figures No. 2 - Zhang San Feng

First things first, a big Congratulations to the 2006 AFC Champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers!

Next, a pep talk to the Florida Gators Basketball team, Pick Your Butts Up and Don't Fall Apart Now, We Got A Lot More Basketball Coming Up!

Finally, the moment that you really came for, the newest issue of Kung Fu Facts, and the second Kung Fu Figures article!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 6 - Kung Fu Figures No. 2 - Zhang San Feng:

Taiji Quan, or Tai Chi, as is commonly known, is one of the oldest of the Chinese martial arts. Today, many people view Tai Chi as a yoga-like exercise, because it is practiced with smooth, slow movements, paired with breathing exercise, but it was created as a consummate fighting system, as it's name, which can be loosely translated as 'Grand Ultimate Fist', implies.

Today, there are three major schools of Tai Chi - Yang style, Chen style, and Wu style. Yang style is the most popular, often seen on the city plazas and parks of areas with a high Chinese population. It is traditionally slow, with relatively relaxed stances and movements, and therefore more friendly to the practitioner. For this reason, Yang style Tai Chi is often practiced by elderly folk. Chen style Tai Chi, on the other hand, is characterized by painfully low stances and slow, smooth movements, but also features lightning fast strikes, embodying the theory of Yin and Yang balance. It is slightly older than Yang style. In fact, the creator of Yang style Tai Chi, Yang Luchan, was an expert of Chen style Tai Chi. Although his Yang style Tai Chi is somewhat of a toned down version, Yang himself was a true warrior. In fact, he was also known as Yang Wu Di (杨无敌), or Yang the Invincible, loosely translated, in the Jiang Hu (Martial Arts World, do you remember?). Wu style Tai Chi is the newest of these three popular Tai Chi styles, and its creator incorporated more takedown and grappling to its forms.

The origin of Tai Chi is somewhat vague, but many people agree that it was created by a Taoist named Zhang San Feng, in the Yuan dynasty, when China was occupied by the Mongolians (shortly after the conquests of Genghis Khan). The stories about this figure are numerous and varied, but I tend to like the one portrayed in Jet Li's 'The Tai Chi Master', which I will brief below:

Zhang San Feng was originally Zhang Jun Bao, a young Buddhist monk at the renowned Shaolin Temple, in the early Yuan dynasty. Here, he perfected Shaolin Kung Fu, but felt it was lacking in balance, the vital ideal of Taoism. The movie shows the young Zhang Jun Bao and his best friend and martial arts brother, Zhang Tian Bao, training together. Tian Bao was a very clever and very proficient fighter, but was also a troublemaker, and managed to get the two friends banished from the Shaolin Temple. Shortly, the two monks would go their separate ways, the ambitious Tian Bao joining the governor's army, and the peaceful, kind Jun Bao living a blue collar life working with a group of bandits who ran a restaurant in the day time and robbed the rich to give to the poor by night. The two eventually became enemies, but Tian Bao, being the more vicious fighter, gained the upper hand, leaving Jun Bao to contemplate.

After some time and some aftershock, which basically made Jun Bao go crazy, Jun Bao was given the name "San Feng (三疯)" by his friends, which originally meant "Three Crazies", because Jun Bao would go crazy at least three times a day. It was during this time that San Feng began to read a scripture given to him by his master at Shaolin, which incidentally had in it theories very similar to Taoism - balance of all things, action and natural reaction, and so forth - and he began to develop the Grand Ultimate Fist. Basically, he felt Shaolin kung fu had too much hard movement and heavy breathing, which was not good Taoist practice. An alternative story recalls that Zhang San Feng witnessed a fight between a crow and a snake, and from watching the two creatures fight with such efficiency, he created this "natural" fighting system. After creating this ingenious art, he changed his "Three Crazies" nickname to "Three Plenties (三丰)", which sounds exactly like the words for Three Crazies (It was still Zhang San Feng, only Feng in this case meant Plentiful, in a rich sense).

Needless to say, San Feng soundly defeated Tian Bao with this new type of Kung Fu, eliminating the government's threat on his city (which was probably Luoyang (洛阳), in Henan (河南), judging from the location of theShaolin Temple, but I'm not certain). After his victory, legend has it that he recluded to Wudang Mountain (武当山, the famous mountain which was featured in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and also a very famous Kung Fu Legacy, credited as the gatekeeper of Tai Chi Sword), and took on a life of Taoism, passing on his theory and kung fu. It is believed that Zhang San Feng's Tai Chi was very similar to the Chen Style Tai Chi practiced today, with a balance of hard and soft, fast and slow, and most importantly, of cultivating "qi", or inner energy. It is thus that this most famous of internal Chinese martial arts was created.

- How did you like this short article? Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment, or any questions or suggestions on this or any other article!

Big Scare

So, I was getting in my daily hit of NCAA 2001 yesterday, when, all of a sudden, I discovered that I couldn't roll out of the pocket! I couldn't figure it out, I was so confused. It wasn't until I was on defense that I discovered that my problems weren't only on an immobile quarterback, my corners were also refusing to drop back into coverage. That could only mean one thing... In the famous words of Derek Zoolander, "I can't turn left!"

No really, I couldn't turn left. I struggled with the input configuration tool in ZSNES for about ten minutes before I finally decided to attempt the unthinkable - I took the controller apart, with a set of precision flathead screwdrivers to try to fit into the tiny Phillips screws! The horror!

I found out that it wasn't all that complicated inside. It was just one printed wire board with a single microcontroller and a few switching transistors which were hooked up to the contact pads which would conduct when the button pad completed the connection. The pads looked a little on the dirty side, so I did what any experienced electrical engineer would have done - I wiped them down. I put the controller back together, fired up ZSNES, and, drumroll... still no left.

Fortunately, I have an extra gamepad which I usually keep in the closet. That's because it has been on my list of sucky game components for a while. The reason? It's "A" button, sticking with the button-designation protocol of the greatest system of all time, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, was a bit unresponsive. I figured it might be the dirty pads again, even though cleaning the pads didn't work well last time. So I opened him up, wiped down the "A" pad, put him back together, plugged him in, and voila, "A" worked fine!

Elated, I decided to try it out on Final Fantasy VIII. No more than five minutes into the game, I discovered that I was unable to challenge any characters to a friendly game of Triple Triad cards. This time, I was able to quickly deduce that it must be my "Y" button that no longer worked.

In my anxiety, I went back to NCAA 2001 and set the system to play using only the keyboard, to see if I could actually play without my trusty Gamepad Pro. It was disastrous. No maneuverability at all. I don't know how Ed does it.

I thus went to bed, utterly defeated. However, I never lost hope. This morning, for whatever reason, I took out the first controller and plugged him in again. To my delight, it worked, no problem whatsoever! I could turn left! And I had mastered the "Magnum" Look! It was unbelievable! Still, it was a pretty big scare. I was already looking at BestBuy.com and EBay to see if there were any suitable replacements. All's well ends well, I guess!

Kung Fu Facts Special Issue - Chow Ka

I tried a Bubblicious Burst Pop today. It was really good, and it reminded me of the sheer genius of putting food on sticks. Sure, it's had its failures, like the "Tootsie Roll Pop" (Chocolate covered fruit is good; fruit covered chocolate? No.), but we've seen the huge successes of the original candy lollypops, candied and caramel apples, shish-kabobs, and my personal favorite (my fellow classmates from Shaanxi Normal University 2002 will probably agree), Meat (hopefully lamb)-on-a-Stick. Or 烤羊肉串. Convenience and flavor, all wrapped up in one. What could be better?

Anyway, today, we will be having yet another Special Issue of Kung Fu Facts, by special request. See? If you leave comments, I'll probably listen to you too! So, without further adieu, here it is!

Kung Fu Facts Special Issue - Chow Ka:

Chow Gar (周家拳) is a lesser known style of kung fu when compared with systems such as Wing Chun, Choy Lay Fut, Hung Gar, Praying Mantis, and so forth. It is relatively recent, having been founded by Chow Loong and four of his brothers (their family had a total of 10 brothers, I believe), who, in the late 19th and early 20th century, were considered to be the Five Tigers of Canton (as you can see, this title got tossed around quite a bit, dating back to the early 1800s with the founding of Hung Gar and Wing Chun). These five Chow brothers were excellent practitioners of both Northern and Southern Shaolin Kung Fu. Their primary styles were Hung Gar and Choy Gar (no relation to Choy Lay Fut), which are both prominent Southern Shaolin Styles, but they also had training in Bak Sil Lum (北少林 or Northern Shaolin). From these styles, they filtered and developed a new style they called Yun Yee (仁义 or Benevolence and Justice) such that it had the upper body power of Hung Gar, the long range of Choy Gar, and the kicking skills of Northern Shaolin. Years later, their students renamed the style to Chow Gar to pay respects to its first masters.

As a Shaolin system, Chow Gar shares similar characteristics to other Shaolin systems, such as Hung Gar and Choy Gar, obviously, but also of other Shaolin systems like Choy Lay Fut and of course Northern Shaolin. Like many Southern systems, Chow Gar has Five Animal forms, many of the weapons considered to be Southern, such as the Broadsword and the Staff, and Lion Dancing. However, it also has Northern weapons such as Hooks and Double Edged Swords (while Choy Lay Fut has these weapons as well, it is not renowned for these skills).

The Chow brothers opened a large number of schools in the early 1900s and has since expanded through Southeast Asia and beyond. Since I am not very familiar with this style of kung fu, much of the information I have paraphrased in this article is from the website of a school located in Australia (kind of like the Chan Family Branch of Choy Lay Fut!) which is directly descended from Chow Bil, one of the original five Chow Brothers. The link is listed below for your reference.

Shaolin Chow Ka Kung Fu School - Perth, Western Australia (Jow Ga Zhou Jia WuShu Lion Dance)

- How did you like this short article? Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment, or any questions or suggestions on this or any other article!

NASA - New Horizons

NASA - New Horizons

Yeah! I saw it! Amidst the cloud cover, but hey, better than nothing!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 5 - Kung Fu Figures No. 1 - Wong Fei Hung

Hi everyone! I'm having a bit of a hectic day, but every hectic day needs some Kung Fu Facts!

In my next mini-mini series, I am going to try to write a little bit about famous figures in the history of Chinese martial arts. Today's figure is perhaps the most famous Chinese martial artist worldwide, Wong Fei Hung (黄飞鸿).

Kung Fu Facts Issue 5: Kung Fu Figures No. 1 - Wong Fei Hung:

Wong Fei Hung was born in 1847 in the village of Xiqiao, presumably near Fut San (佛山),or Buddha Mountain, in the Guangdong (Canton) province of China. His father, Wong Kai Ying (sorry I don't know the Mandarin for this), was a famous doctor and martial artist, known as one of the 'Ten Tigers of Canton', a group of martial artists who lived by a code of honor. Wong Kai Ying was an expert of Hung Gar (洪家拳) kung fu, which he learned from master Luk Ah Choy. Hung Gar is a descendent of the Southern Shaolin temple in the Fujian province of China. Somewhere down the line, this 'Southern Fist' was passed on to Wong Fei Hung. Needless to say, the father and son made famous this type of kung fu, which shares many similar features of Choy Lay Fut (which, as mentioned before, is also a southern system). It is often noted that Hung Gar is special because it also trains the student in traditional Chinese medicine and internal martial arts.

Fei Hung was very proficient in his martial arts, eventually becoming a martial arts instructor for the Cantonese army as well as the local militia, and therefore was very involved with the local government at the time. It was during this period that China was in a stage of political turmoil. With the decline of the Manchurian Qing Dynasty, many revolutionary groups rose up, among them one in Fujian, which somehow Wong Fei Hung was associated with. This rebellion was crushed, and following it, Fei Hung retreated to Canton, opening his famous drug store "Bo Chi Lam" (宝之林).

Aside from this, little is known about the actual life of Wong Fei Hung. He was married several times, and lost many members of his family due to illness. He had mastered several techniques, including the famous "Shadowless Kick (无影腿)", and was also famous for Lion Dancing.

The King of Lions died in 1924 at the age of 77 in Canton, but his legend was only just beginning. Many of his educated students propagated his heroics to journalists, and soon, the story of Wong Fei Hung had reached mythic proportions. Finally, in these recent decades, he has been immortalized by countless films, ranging from Jet Li's "Once Upon a Time in China" series, which recounts Wong Fei Hung's political involvements, to Donnie Yen's "Iron Monkey", which follows a story about Fei Hung's father Wong Kai Ying, to Jackie Chan's "Drunken Master", which portrays a comedic, younger Wong Fei Hung, surpassing his father's kung fu upon learning Drunken Boxing.

All in all, Wong Fei Hung's influence on the world of Chinese Martial Arts is on an epic scale. Kung fu schools around the world often make pilgrimages to the home of Wong Fei Hung today, similar to how many schools visit the Shaolin Temple. Almost anyone with an interest in Kung Fu has probably seen at least one movie depicting a fictional version of Wong Fei Hung. Regardless of the exaggerations, I hope the movies still keep on coming, because they do feature some really nice kung fu fight scenes, and demonstrate the virtue and honor of a real Wu Xia (Kung Fu hero).

- How did you like this article? Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment, or any questions or suggestions on this or any other article!

Stupid Spaceship

After being all amped up to see the fastest spacecraft ever to launch, Nasa postponed the launch about six times before finally saying that we would have to wait until today. So, hopefully, I can get to see the launch today!

I saw "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" yesterday. I have to say it was another good Blockbuster selection. In case you don't know already, I am Chinese American, and though I haven't really experienced really bad discrimination, for lack of a better term (either that or I'm just too thick-skinned to realize it), I thought it did a pretty good job with the stereotypes and undercutting some of them. Like it says on the DVD special features, this movie really makes fun of everybody, and I think that kind of makes it classy, in a way. Granted, it was the DVD cover which lured me to this movie, but there wasn't that much of that, and it still wasn't disappointing because of the brand of humor that was in the movie. So, check it out.

Now, I'm not a big fan of reading books, but I do read, from time to time. Most of the time, it's in some kind of comic form. And, a high percentage of my comics reading is done on the internet, reading webcomics. So, I've added another little link list to my sidebar which has links to the webcomics that I'm keeping up with. I'm not sure what good that will do - maybe one day I'll reference one of the comics or something, and I guess it would make more sense if you had already seen what I am referencing.

I swear I had something else to say, but it completely escapes me. Check back later, maybe I'll remember (but probably I won't, because I will have thought of something else again!)

FOXSports.com - NFL- Steelers fan had heart attack after fumble

FOXSports.com - NFL- Steelers fan had heart attack after fumble

I knew it was exciting, but wow, this guy is hard core.

CNN.com - NASA taking fast track to Pluto - Jan 17, 2006

CNN.com - NASA taking fast track to Pluto - Jan 17, 2006

I hope I can see it from here!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 4 - Wing Chun

It turns out Candy (remember her?) was able to figure out a way to visit Grant's Pad in China, and she added a link to my blog on her MSN Space, under my Chinese name, and adding the note (translated) - A Boy who Likes Chinese Martial Arts. With that said, on to the Kung Fu Facts!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 4 - Wing Chun:

Today's article is about Wing Chun (永春拳), the type of Kung Fu my Sifu learned at first. Wing Chun also played a big part of our practices, as many of our street techniques use wing chun concepts and movements.

As far as I know, Wing Chun is the only Chinese Kung Fu developed by a woman. According to legend, at the time when the Shaolin temple was burned to the ground, many of the Shaolin monks and nuns fled and went into hiding. The nun Ng Mui, who was a powerful fighter, often credited with being the best fighter of the legendary Ten Tigers of Canton, fled to Yim Wing Chun's home town and lived there for a while. One day, Ng Mui saw Yim Wing Chun being harrassed by a local bully who was intent on marrying her. Having compassion on her, Ng Mui approached Wing Chun and offered to teach her Kung Fu. After a short period of time (probably a few years) Wing Chun challenged the bully to a fight and beat him. The Kung Fu she passed on to Wing Chun was a system of kung fu that had only three forms, but was specifically designed for a woman's physique.

Wing Chun is a very aggressive style of martial arts, that was designed strictly for self-defense. It features short, straight strikes to the centerline of the body, as Wing Chun practitioners
believe that attacks to this centerline are the most damaging. The 'short arm' nature of the system promotes speed in counterattack and wastes very little energy, as it doesn't incorporate any of the long arm, circling techniques seen in, for example, Choy Lay Fut. Blocks in Wing Chun are used to redirect the opponents attack, and then counterattacking with either the blocking hand or the other hand from a very close range, such as the case with the 'bong sao', or wing arm block. The system is comprised mostly of hand techniques, which include the famous 'one-inch punch' and finger jabs, as well as elbow techniques, but there are also short, low kicks and knee attacks. Hand and foot techniques are often delivered simultaneously in Wing Chun, and are perfected on a wooden dummy, as seen in many movies. The techniques were designed to be simple and easily incorporated into muscle memory for instinctive response.

Because of the close range nature of Wing Chun, sensitivity in the arms is very important - it is essential to be able to anticipate the opponents next movement in order to counterattack instantly. To train this sensitivity, Wing Chun practitioners practice "chi sao", or "sticky hands", where two practitioners move their wrists and forearms against each others in small circles, and deliver short, quick attacks.

Unlike Choy Lay Fut, which was an emergency combat system and therefore employed essentially every traditional Chinese weapon (supposedly there are 18), from staffs to spears to swords to Kwan Dos, Wing Chun was mostly a self-defense system, and there are very few weapons. Perhaps the most famous weapon featured in Wing Chun are the double butterfly knives, which we used in 2004's Chinese New Year celebration demo.

Because of its effectiveness from its "no wasted effort" concept, Wing Chun is a very popular system of Kung Fu, and Wing Chun practitioners are known to be very aggressive. Perhaps the most famous student of Wing Chun is the late Bruce Lee, who began his martial arts training learning Wing Chun, and later on incorporated many Wing Chun concepts into his own Jeet Kune Do.

- Thanks to Jason for helping me out on this article! How did you like this article? Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment, or any questions or suggestions on this or any other article!

Yummy!

Yummy!

Go Steelers!

The great thing about claiming several cities as your hometown is you get to root for several teams without getting burned for "jumping on the bandwagon"! As you may know, I'm a Bucs fan, having grown up in the Tampa area during their years of eternal suckiness and horrible uniforms. My loyalty paid off in 2003 when we won the Super Bowl that year (in the far superior pewter uniforms, no less), but of course we had two very disappointing seasons following that championship. This season was okay too, but we lost in the first round of the playoffs last week, which didn't give me much more to root for in terms of Bucs games. Fortunately, having been born in Pittsburgh, I always have the Steelers to fall back on, and they came through this time as they survived the Colts yesterday! I have to be honest, I had the Colts beating the hell out of Pittsburgh, and I am a Peyton Manning enthusiast. Still, I thought an upset would be nice, but I never expected that the Steelers would actually pull out with the W, especially after the officials helped out the Colts by overturning Polamalu's interception, and even more after the Bus committed a very rare fumble (by the way, Big Ben is awesome). The end of the game was some of the most thrilling football I've seen this year, up there with that crazy Tampa Bay overtime game that I talked about a few weeks ago. Now, if they can just beat those scary Broncos!

I finally got to see my hero, Rex Grossman, play yesterday as well, when Nick, Cherry and I went to Farrah's baby shower/Chinese New Year get-together. He didn't do so good though, and the Bears lost to the hated, and I do mean hated, Carolina Panthers. Guess I'll have to wait till next year to see if a Gator quarterback will make it big in the NFL.

While I'm on the subject of football, I'm kind of dreading February 5, because after the Super Bowl, I'm gonna have to wait until September before I can start to watch games I care about again (read: Gator games). I wish they would start the NFL season after the college season ended, so that there would be football all year round, and also so that I could have at least one day on the weekend for doing things other than watching football during the Fall. I guess it's too hot to play football in the Summer though, so that will probably never happen.

In other news, we found out that all company email from now on will be deleted in 90 days, with no option of archiving anything. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I usually don't delete emails that I don't want to delete. If Blogger can give me 300 MB of space to talk about nonsense, why can't I keep my 150 MB of email at work? Oh well, such is life.

I've added a few new links to the sidebar. I think Wikipedia is really cool. If you haven't tried it before, look up something and knock yourself out. I saw on MSN news that Wikipedia is about as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica, so I guess it must be pretty darn accurate. I also added a new little feature - a small music list. I'll update it from time to time with songs that hit me like the Outback Boomerang during work.

Speaking of work, I'd better get back to it!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 3.5 - Choy Lay Fut, Part II

Well, today you guys are in for a special treat. As some of you may know, although for the most part I am just directly republishing old posts that I wrote for the MSAMA web group site. Today, things will be different - I will be posting a never-seen before, special limited edition post, expanding on Choy Lay Fut!

But first, a few movie reviews. For the past few months, I've been going to Blockbuster once a week because of my Rewards membership, which lets you rent one movie or game and get another one free on Mondays through Wednesdays, gives you a free rental each month, and also a free rental for every five paid rentals. Needless to say, I've rented a lot of videos. Usually, they are okay, with a few good ones like Star Wars Episode III, Batman Begins, and older movies as well, such as Terminator II and Goldeneye. But this time, I was very satisfied with both of my rentals: "Wedding Crashers" and "The Rundown".

Now, I've always liked Owen Wilson, but I think Vince Vaughn takes the cake (and a lot of it too, mostly the wedding variety) in Wedding Crashers. A little cliche towards the end, but it had a few good moments, and, as with most Owen Wilson movies, it's the dialogue between the main characters that makes the movie good.

With "The Rundown", my expectations were not so high, mostly because of the guy who played Stifler (Sean something). Turns out that he indeed did suck in this movie, but fortunately, The Rock kicked serious ass. Some great fighting sequences in this movie, especially some of the multi-opponent sequences. Which brings us to our main topic of the day...

Kung Fu Facts Issue 3.5 - Choy Lay Fut, Part II:

Choy Lay Fut is often considered a long range style because of such techniques as the Sow Choy (捎槌) and the Gwa Choy (卦槌), which are both long, sweeping punches. Uppercuts come from the back hand and sweep up, and in the forms, the non-attacking hand is often placed far back for balance. While this may seem to make the fighter open to attack, it actually sets him up for his next attack, as Choy Lay Fut is a very aggressive style. In the same way as Musashi's famous sword technique, every move is in the effort of landing another attack. Thus, there are not many true blocking techniques in Choy Lay Fut - the blocks that we have often can easily double as attacks.

Footwork in Choy Lay Fut is also fast, and sometimes complex. There are in general two types of footwork in Choy Lay Fut - Sup Gee (十字, or "cross step", loosely translated) and Bat Kwa Sum (八卦心, "heart of Bagua"). Sup Gee footwork generally works in four primary directions, while Bat Kwa Sum footwork works in an asterisk format, providing more angles of attack. Stances are very important, providing the vehicle for the fast footwork of Choy Lay Fut. The student first trains his horse-riding stance to develop his foundation, then starts working in more advanced stances, such as the twist step, the cross step, and the kneeling stance. These stances make Choy Lay Fut a very mobile style of kung fu.

The long range, fast, aggressive nature of Choy Lay Fut, coupled with its fast moving footwork make Choy Lay Fut one of the most effective styles of martial arts for use in situations with multiple aggressors. As mentioned in Part I of the Choy Lay Fut series, Choy Lay Fut was used and developed during times of war. Therefore, it's practitioners trained in fighting in combat situations where there were attackers all around. The sweeping attacks keep attackers away, and the constantly changing directions allow the practitioner to shift from one attacker to another in an instant.

Although Choy Lay Fut is known more for its long range attacks, short and middle range attacks are also abundant. quick, whipping backfists, hammerfists and body throws are executed best at point blank range, and thrusting chop choys (插槌), or stabbing panther fists, are excellent mid-range attacks that attack weak points on the opponent with piercing force.

Choy Lay Fut is an aggressive art that is fit for many types of fighters. Its range adjusts itself to the situation, and also to the size and mobility of the fighters. For less mobile fighters, the long-range attacks can help to compensate. For more mobile fighters, they can use the small to mid range attacks to be more selective in their offense. For all fighters, defensive techniques are often counter-attack moves or otherwise lead directly into pummelling attacks.

It is usually accepted that there are three main branches of Choy Lay Fut today. They are the Chan Family Hung Sing Branch, the Jeung Yim (张炎) Hung Sing Branch, and the Buk Sing Branch. The Chan Family branch is currently based in Australia by the direct descendants of Chan Heung, the common founder of Choy Lay Fut. The current head of this branch is Chan Yong Fa.

The Jeung Yim Branch maintains that their kung fu was passed down to them from a high profile "outsider" student of Chan Heung, named Jeung Yim. It is said that Jeung Yim was a standout student of martial arts, whom Chan Heung taught in secret. This was because, at that time, Chan Heung only taught his kung fu to family members. In some time, the secret was revealed, and Jeung Yim had to leave his sifu. Before dismissing Jeung Yim, however, Chan Heung referred Jeung Yim to the Green Grass Monk (青草和尚) to advance his training. In time, Jeung Yim's kung fu became very advanced, and he returned to Chan Heung. Together, they developed Hung Sing Choy Lay Fut as it is known today. Sifu Dino Salvatera and his students are prominent Jeung Yim Hung Sing masters in the USA today.

The Buk Sing branch was founded by another outsider, a third generation protege by the name of Tam Sam. He was especially noted for his fighting prowess and aggressiveness, so much so that he was expelled from his school before finishing the curriculum for fighting with other students. He went on to further hone his skills by practicing the kung fu he had already acquired. In the process, he developed some very formidable techniques as well, such as the Buk Sing trademark Lin Wan Chop Choy (repeated stabbing punch). The most prominent masters of Buk Sing Choy Lay Fut in the USA today are the Lacey family.

Although there are three branches of Choy Lay Fut, most of the time, there is not much conflict between the branches, as the spirit of Kung Fu is to respect fellow martial artists. All Choy Lay Fut shares a similar history, regardless of the little discrepancies. More importantly, all Choy Lay Fut shares the same basic principles and trademark techniques. Our branch of Choy Lay Fut, the Lee Koon Hung branch, has incorporated not only forms and techniques from both the Chan Family and the Jeung Yim branches, but also some concepts from other styles, such as Northern Shaolin. Kung Fu is always developing, and that is one of the wonderful things about practicing Choy Lay Fut - there is so much to learn!

- Well, that concludes my Choy Lay Fut mini-mini-series! Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment, or any questions or suggestions on this or any other article!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 3 - Choy Lay Fut, Part I

A little late, but better late than never! In this post, I relate one of many stories about the origin of Choy Lay Fut. This history is the one commonly accepted by the Chan Family Branch of Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu. I will write another post in the future (maybe my next Kung Fu Facts post) to expand on the branches and some other histories of Choy Lay Fut.

Kung Fu Facts Issue 3 - Choy Lay Fut:

So now that we've given UF a taste of Choy Lay Fut kung fu, I think this would be a good time to provide everyone a little more background in the system that Kir-wei and I trained in.

Choy Lay Fut was developed in 1836 by a well-known martial artist named Chan Heung (陈享) from King Mui village in the Guangdong province of China. At the age of seven, he went to live with his uncle, Chan Yuen-Woo (陈远护), a famous Shaolin boxer in the area. After training in Shaolin kung-fu for 10 years, Chan Yuen-Woo had nothing left to teach Chan Heung, so he referred the boy to his Sihing (师兄), or older martial arts brother, from the Shaolin Temple, Li Yau-San (李友山) . Li Yau-San was also the founder of Li-Gar, another famous type of kung fu. Li Yau-San trained Chan Heung for four years.

After four years, Li Yau-San decided that he could no longer teach Chan Heung, as Chan Heung's kung fu had reached such a high level, and that it was time for the boy to find yet another teacher. The teacher Li Yau-San suggested was a Shaolin monk on Lau Fu mountain named Choy Fok (蔡福). However, Choy Fok no longer wanted to teach kung fu, and only wanted to be a recluse and cultivate Buddhism. Choy Fok rejected Chan Heung's request to take him as his apprentice at first, but then accepted him as his student, but only for studying Buddhism. Chan Heung thus began to live on Lau Fu mountain, studying Buddhism by day, and practicing kung fu at night.

One night, Chan Heung was sweeping his legs over bamboo, then kicking up stones and smashing them before they hit the ground, when Choy Fok approached him, and asked Chan Heung to kick an 80 pound stone twelve feet. Chan Heung used all his strength to kick the stone, and it barely made the twelve feet. Then Choy Fok went over to the stone, placed his foot under the stone, and sent it flying effortlessly. Amazed, Chan Heung begged Choy Fok to teach him kung fu, and this time, Choy Fok agreed. After studying with Choy Fok for eight years, Chan Heung returned to his village and spent two years refining what he had learned from Choy Fok. It was then that he developed his new system of kung fu,which he named Choy Lay Fut (蔡李佛), to honor his teachers, and to pay respects to the system's Buddhist roots.

After several years, Chan Heung had taught many students in this new form of kung fu, and when the Opium Wars broke out in China, Chan Heung joined the army to fight against the British invaders. When China was defeated, Chan Heung returned home. Shortly afterwards, in the 1850s, rebellion against the Qing dynasty (which was ruled by the Manchurians) began to rise, and the Tai Ping Tian Guo (太平天国) emerged victorious. During this era, Chan Heung did not participate in the rebellion, but taught many more students in case the Manchurian rulers were to strike again. Choy Lay Fut thus became known as a revolutionary fighting style against the Qing empire. Since Chan Heung passed in 1875, his sons passed on his art, and soon after several favored outsiders also set up Choy Lay Fut schools in China. Our sigung (师公), the late Grandmaster Lee Koon Hung (李冠雄) was a fifth generation Grandmaster, and so, Kir-wei and I would be considered seventh generation practitioners (our sifu would be in the sixth generation). However, it should be noted that there is a vast discrepancy between the skill of our generation (in particular, us) and the masters from the previous generations. In other words, there is a lot more to Choy Lay Fut than we have to offer.

Choy Lay Fut is considered a Southern system of kung fu, but it is heavily influenced by both Northern and Southern styles of Chinese kung fu. It employs the powerful kicks characteristic of Northern systems and the long arm techniques and punching skills of Southern kung fu. The power of Choy Lay Fut comes from a strong horse stance and the turning of the waist. Power is generated from the turning of the waist and released at the fist, like an iron ball on a metal chain. Another of the advantages of Choy Lay Fut is its vast arsenal of weapons. Choy Lay Fut trains practitioners in the use of all of the major traditional Chinese weapons, such as the staff, the spear, and the broadsword, and also less common traditional weapons such as the chain whip, butterfly swords, and the Kwan Dao. It is a very fast, dynamic style, and hence, it is is a very popular system in Southeast Asia. Many of the regions top full-contact (Sanshou) fighters are Choy Lay Fut practitioners. In fact, our sifu, Sifu Kenneth Chong, who unfortunately has decided to stop teaching, was a very successful Sanshou fighter before he began to teach us, and still taught us with full-contact fighting in mind, not just the movements of the forms. Without this kind of practice, no amount of forms knowledge can prepare you for real combat.

- How did you like this article? Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment, or any questions or suggestions on this or any other article!

Body Parts

This week seemed to go buy pretty quickly - up until today. At the very beginning of the day, during our meeting, I felt a pinched nerve in my hip. I think my body is starting to feel the effects of my highly advanced age of almost 24... Getting older is a weird thing - on the one hand, you get "old person strength", which is the phenomenon that you keep on getting stronger as you get older for no apparent reason, but you also lose flexibility for the same lack of reason. I imagine the pinch was a result of my kung fu practice yesterday. So, that's how my day started.

The rest of the day went by very very slowly, as I further investigated my uncooperative circuit. I made some headway - just enough to keep me going, but not enough to keep me awake. there were a few points during the day where I really had to lay my head down for a few seconds in order to keep going. Not even my trusty bottle of Coke could save me! I ended up struggling with printed wire board drawings for some three hours before I finally told Shawn about my problems, and he started cutting stuff off. Fortunately, his reckless actions were once again victorious, because, lo and behold, no more problem! Sometimes you just have to put in some fresh legs. Unfortunately, Shawn's legs don't look like these...

Also unfortunately, I didn't go to him earlier, because by the time we had figured it out, it was almost 6:00 PM. On a Friday.

By the way, Ed started something new these past couple of days at his blog. It's TWFC, a new webcomic. It's also pretty hip, featuring superheros. But these superheros aren't your typical superheroes with huge torsos and massive biceps. He's only got a few frames in so far, but it looks pretty good, and he says he has a lot of storyline in his head. Check it out here.

Well, that's all for now, the next post of Kung Fu Facts is coming soon! I promise!

Solderer or Soldier?

The word for the day is Solder. It should be, anyway, because that's just about all I did today! From conforming boards to trying to get busted boards fixed, I spent just about seven hours in the trenches of my solder station. The hours were long and hard, and there were a number of casualties - I must have lost 4 or 5 ICs in the battle. We should get hazard duty pay for working under these conditions - while wielding my double irons, I dropped one iron tip into the palm of my hand, scalding it. I still have a light scar to show for it! Even Mark got in on some of the violence, when the power supply inside the test station exploded!

So, I looked around on my phone some more yesterday (I still haven't gotten over the novelty of it) and found out that using my phone to chat on AIM still counts as using SMS text messages, which I haven't gotten a bundle for. Since chatting is kind of a back-and-forth kind of dialog, and since I was chatting with my brother, whose phone is also on my plan, which I pay for, each exchange of information was charged twice! So, I decided to look into getting one of those bundles today. In the process, I found out that I can get really cool games for my phone too, like Prince of Persia and King of Fighters! So much coolness! I'm going to overload!

Well, I'll keep it short and sweet today, but tune in tomorrow for the next edition of Kung Fu Facts and more blog fun!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 2 - The Jiang Hu, or the Martial Arts World

All right then! Today, I learned something interesting. I learned that way back in 2003 or so, China decided to censor all webstuffs hosted on blogspot and several other blogging servers, which explains why it's so difficult for some of my Chinese friends to come and visit Grant's Pad. That's not good, China...

On the other hand, China has a lot of good things too. Among them is its 2000+ year-old culture. Today's feature article is about a little piece of Chinese, and more specifically, kung fu culture. Most of it was cut and pasted from another website, which I have credited to avoid infringement charges, but it is somewhat littered with grammatical errors. It's also a bit long, but it's worth it. Take your time, and enjoy!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 2 - The Jiang Hu, or the Martial Arts World

Welcome to the second issue of Kung Fu Facts. This issue introduces to many of our members the idea of the Jiang Hu' (江湖）, or the world of martial arts. It is the world where kung fu sects reigned supreme, where everyone carried swords and you slay or be slayed, where there was a very thin line between evil and good. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, if you recall the popular film 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' (卧虎藏龙), much of that film (the part where Zhang Ziyi's character (the governor's daughter) is traipsing in the mountains and the woods) takes place in a Jiang Hu setting, and also Chow Yun Fat's character (Li Mu Bai) is prominent jiang hu figure of the era.

While the jiang hu of days past can be analagous to the fantasy worlds of western legends, today, the Jiang Hu is often used to refer to the underworld, but not necessarily in a bad way. I feel it is more like a world where the government rules may or may not be followed, but by any and all means, the rules of the Jiang Hu always apply. Below is an article I found which I think grasps the concept of the Jiang Hu very well. It uses martial arts novels as its reference, so my Chinese readers will find much to relate to it, and those of you who aren't familiar with it will hopefully find it fascinating. It is a little long, but I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Jianghu: A World of Martial Arts
*Written by fridaythe13th

The term "jianghu" actually means rivers and lakes. It is used to describe the pugilistic world of ancient China. It was a world where the law doesn't exist. The people of "jianghu" are those who tries to make a living, or survive, in this world. Chinese fiction have captured that image very well through books, movies and TV series. "Wuxia", the Chinese name given to martial art fiction, is about martial arts and the way people lived through the pugilistic world of ancient China.

People

The variety of people in "jianghu" is endless. Each has their occupation, their membership of a brotherhood, their martial art skills and their personalities. For example, the carefree Linghu Chong (State of Divinity) is the leader of the Heng Shan Sect, an order of nuns. There is no "the hero" or "the villain" in "jianghu", the people are just trying to make a living, survive and become the best martial artist in the world. Some do it with justice, others do it with evil practice.

No matter what personalities the main characters have, all heroes are courageous. The character of Qiao Feng (Demi Gods and SemiDevils) is not only a brave person, but he is also loyal and honest. Felix Wong portrayed the character almost to perfection from the character of the novel. Gu Long characters like Li Xunhuan (Dagger Lee) and Chu Liuxiang (Chu Liu Xiang) have a more gentleman-like personality, while Linghu Chong and Wei Xiaobao (Duke of Mount Deer) are more cunning and attitude. They, almost always, have a common thing. They are surrounded by more than one female character. For example, Duan Yu (Demi Gods and Semi Devils) was being chased around by three different women! Why didn't the main female characters get that advantage?

Many creators of fiction have their main female character as the most beautiful woman in their storylines. Different types of female characters are different in their own ways. There are some characters who are considered the lively type, usually likes to help people, they are sometimes nosy. They argue a fair bit and they usually make the reader, or audience, laugh. People like Ren Yingying (State of Divinity) and Huang Rong (The Condor Heroes) fit well in this type. Other heroines are really the smart, witty people who are cold and heartless on the outside and soft and caring on the inside. This people include Yang Yan (Dagger Lee) and Murong Jiu (Jue Dai Shuang Jiao).

Sometimes called the evil person, but the formal terminology is "antagonist". The Chinese saying goes: crows around the world are all bad. No matter how good they try to show on the outside, it doesn't change their evil hearts inside. Villains like Yue Buqun (State of Divinity) are not popular but is good at faking his evilness. These hypocrites are the best, or the wittiest, villains. Many villains that are too merciless and vicious, Zuo Lengchan(State of Divinity), and they get killed sooner than the patient, calculating ones. Almost 90% of the villains' martial art skills were better than that of the hero's. These included Dongfang Bubai(State of Divinity) and Oyang Feng (The Condor Heroes).

Weapons

There are 18 weapons of martial arts. The main groups of these weapons are spear, sword, staff, hammer, axe, halberd and rings. The sword is the most written about weapon in fiction, excluding hands. Heroes like Linghu Chong, Yang Guo (The Return of Condor Heroes) and Yuan Nianzhu (Swordsman III) all carry the sword. Weapons like the staff and broadsword are specially used by particular people, the staffs are for Shaolin monks and the broadsword for the royal guards. Secret weapons are also very popular to creators. Li Xuanhuan carries flying dagger, while one of the female leads, Yang Yan, uses the morningstar as a weapon.

The type of skills associated with the weapons are very important. They allow each person to be unique and can be identified by the skill. For example, Qiao Feng is identified with his "Eighteen Palms of Dragon Down" and Dongfang Bubai's "Sunflower Sculptures", the fantasy martial arts of fiction, "shen gong". The skill of martial arts are also associated with the particular sects, like Shaolin's "Eighteen Arhat Fist" and Guild of Mendicant' s "Sunbin Cane".

Everyone who knows martial arts in the ancient times know the skill of "qinggong", or the skill of floating in air. Qing means light, so the word suggest the skill of being lighter than the earth's gravity and be able to walk silently and long distance. Their leaping skills are also great. Dagger Lee's actors shows off this skill often in the series. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon also demonstrates the skill effectively.

Sects

Because of the rapid growth of the Chinese population, the way of jianghu was either join a brotherhood or be a wanderer. A brotherhood, can also be sisterhood, uses a particular weapon, follows a particular religion, does a particular trade, or looks over a particular area. Escort places are involved in trade as well as what's happening in the world around them. The most common brotherhoods in groups are sects, cults, guilds, guardianships, fortresses and societies.

The most famous brotherhoods are not only seen in Jin Yong and other's works, but some of them did, or still do, exist. The Shaolin Temple, The League of Five Swords, Emei, Wudang, Kongtong and Qingcheng are the most famous sects that are considered righteous and renowned. The Sun and Moon Cult, later became the Faith of Enlightenment, the Faith of Divine Dragon, the Five Poison Cult and the Yin Yang Cult are the most famous cults or religious sects that are considered evil. The righteous and evil sects are often talked about in Jin Yong's novels, although some righteous portray evil and some evil are good. This is seen in State of Divinity and Heavenly Sword and Dragon Dagger.

The three main guilds are the Guild of Mendicants, the Guild of Salt Transport and the Red and Green Guild. Guardianships are places where escorts are hired for a fee, these include Central Guardianship and the Guardianship of Bliss and Blaze. Fortresses include Flying Swallow, Sword and No Weapons, and societies include the Heaven and Earth, Green Dragon and Red Flower. Many of these brotherhoods aren't real, but some, like Red and Green Guild, are. Red and Green Guild actually lord over the Shanghai and Nanjing area in the 1800's.

Way of Jianghu

It is true that "jianghu" is a place where the law doesn't exist. Each person has their own morals and rules that keeps them alive.The code of brotherhood is important in "jianghu" as chivalrous people would be loyal to their friends. People like Qiao Feng are those heroes who stick by the code of brotherhood. The five basics of the code are:
1. xia (chivalry)
2. hao (gallantry)
3. li (virtue)
4. yi (righteousness)
5. zhong (loyalty)

- How did you like this not-so-short article? Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment, or any questions or suggestions on this or any other article!

Super Powerful!

My first Mobile Photo Blog Post! You know what that means! Drumroll please...

So, I came home yesterday evening and found the note on my door, saying that there was a package waiting for me at the office of the apartment complex. I knew what it was - it was my New Nokia 3220 phone! I could barely contain the excitement, but I waited until after my kung fu practice to play with it. I ended up going with the "Phantom of the Opera" ringtone (it took quite a while for me to find it because it's under one of the Themes) for my "Normal" profile and set up one of the standard ringtones for my "Outdoor" profile. I added voice commands and voicetags, and I took photos, just like the one at the top of this post. See the light near the end of my fist? Hadoken, baby, yeah!

The new phone occupied quite a few hours of my time last night, as I went ballistic on the Simon game and the Pinball game included in the phone. The novelty hasn't died down just yet, but I had to work today, too.

A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Candy, a girl that I met on my first trip to China. In fact, she could be considered Kir-Wei's girlfriend during our stay there. We've kept in touch somewhat since then - Cherry and I even met up with her during my last trip to Shanghai last year - and so I had to force her to look at my blog, just like I'm forcing all of you to. She responded by sending me the link to her blog, which I've added to my links list in the sidebar and included here as well: My Paradise.

It's really nice. So nice, in fact, that I seriously considered switching to them for my blog host. They have more memory (30 gigs!), easier layout (no HTML needed), and an AWESOME slideshow/photo album feature that I thought was the coolest thing ever. However, I decided to stay loyal to Blogger, because Blogger was my first time (blush). No really, partly was because it wouldn't let me create the profile name(s) that I wanted (too many people using it, I guess), and also partly because not only did it not need HTML, but from what I could tell, you couldn't use HTML to edit anything even if you wanted to! I could be wrong, and if so, I apologize ahead of time. So, for now, Blogger still has my allegiance. However, if you're listening, Blogger, I would really, really, really like to have that slideshow feature available sometime in the future!

So, check her blog out. Check Cherry's too. And Ed's. And come back to mine, too, for the next installment of "Kung Fu Facts" coming soon!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 1 - Names

Well, it's about that time of year again. We're approaching the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Dog, which also happens to by my year! In celebration of the coming of the Year of the Dog, I've decided to start up my next miniseries about one of my favorite passions - Kung Fu! Some of you may know that I was the former co-founder and vice president of the Meihua Student Association of Martial Arts at the University of Florida. I wrote a number of articles on kung fu during that time for our members, and now, I'm publishing them again to spread the knowledge! And, if you're attending the University of Florida and you're interested in Kung Fu or any martial arts, I would highly recommend checking out the club - follow the link in the title at the top of this post to find out more information. Enjoy!

Kung Fu Facts Issue 1 - Names:

Just in case anyone was interested, the Official name of our club is the Meihua Student Association of Martial Arts (梅花同学国术协会). For the Mandarin speakers, that's Mei(2) Hua(1) using the pinyin romanization system, meaning plum flower, which is a popular set of forms in several Kung Fu systems. For example, in the Choy Lay Fut (蔡李佛) system (the system we practice most in our club), we have the Small Plum Flower Fist form (小梅花拳 - Siu Mui Fa Kuen in Cantonese), the Plum Flower Spear (梅花枪 - Mui Fa Cheung), Plum Flower single and double broadswords (梅花单刀 - Mui Fa Dahn Do and 梅花双刀 - Mui Fa Seung Do), and so on and so forth.

Other popular names for sets in various kung fu systems include the various animal sets, like Lung Ying (龙形）, Fu Ying（虎形）, and Hao Ying （猴形） (all Cantonese for Dragon style, Tiger style, and Monkey style - in Mandarin it would be Long Xing, Hu Xing, and Hou Xing), many of which were inspired by similar forms from the Shaolin Temple （少林寺）. There are even entire systems of kung fu based solely on certain animal sets, like Fu Jao (虎抓 - Tiger claw), and Tang Lang Quan (螳螂拳 - Praying Mantis). Since there are so many hundreds of different sets from so many tens of different styles of Kung Fu, it's not uncommon for two or more styles of Kung Fu to have sets of the same name.

In an effort to stay objective, we chose one of these ambiguously common names in order to encompass as many styles as possible. Not to mention this little tidbit - the pinyin for plum flower (梅花 - Mei Hua) looks exactly the same as that for Chinese American (美华 - Mei Hua), the words differ in Chinese pronunciation only because of different intonations.

- How did you like this short article? I intend to post short articles like this periodically so that my readers can become more familiar with some of the culture and history of Kung Fu. Feedback is appreciated and encouraged, just post a comment on this or any other article!