Tiger style kung fu

 Tiger style kung fu is one of the traditional styles of kung fu practiced in China. When using the tiger style to fight you use your hand like a claw. You curl the fingers down and push the top part of the palm out.

 At first the tiger claw will be uncomfortable. When I was training we hold a pen or a pencil in our fingers to make sure our hands were in the proper position.

 I have included a few photos to illustrate what I am talking about.

 The way the tiger fist is used in by first striking with the palm and then scratching with the finger nails. The palm is cupped for concussive force. This hand can be used for side hand strikes as well.

Some of the potential applications are striking the face with the palm and following that up with scratching to the eyes, tearing at the groin, and striking the ears with the cupped palm. The Tiger style has dynamic rolls cart, wheel kicks, various other types of kicks.

The whole tiger style should be done from the view and with the spirit/attitude of a tiger. I personally like to think of myself stalking my opponent like a cat stalks a mouse when doing this fighting art. The tiger style is an aggressive style.

You want to use this style to over power people and to cause significant damage your opponent. Also, use various angles when using this style. Use your foot work to move around the opponent.

 Some of the training that we do is tiger style push up. To do this style of push up simply make a tiger claw and do push ups.

 The thing that makes these hard is the push up should be done on the base of the palm with the fingers curled and pulled back so that the fingers are up off of the ground.

One of my favorite moves in my tiger forms is to grab the opponents head with one hand and use my other elbow to strike their face. Hope you have fun experimenting with this hand and it's uses.

Standing in a horse stance for 10 minutes

  I was 16-17 years old. I was in high school. I stayed out all night and I didn't call my dad. I got home the next day and he was pissed. He told me I had a choice. I could be grounded for a month or I could do a 10 minute horse stance. I chose the horse stance...

  The rules of the horse stance punishment: I had to have my thighs flat in the stance, I had to stay in that position the entire time, and if I came out of the stance at any point I had to start the entire thing over.

I got into the stance. I had no idea how hard this would be. The first few minutes were fine as I had done a horse stance fairly consistently for a couple of years at this point. Then the pain starts to set in. It simply got worse and worse until I couldn't hold my back up straight any longer. I was literally screaming in pain near the end. My body was bent over but my thighs were flat. At the end my dad made me lift my back up to the point where I could see the clock to know when the punishment had ended. The whole thing not only tested my body but my mind as well.

I knew that if I were to give up at any point the whole experience would start again. That was not going to happen no matter what. My mind was continually fighting itself. Part of it telling me I had to give up. It was to much pain.  The other part telling me if I give up I'd have to do it all over again. Either way I made it through but I would never want to do it again. After that experience I knew I could do anything so long as I didn't listen to my brain when it said to give up. Good lesson.

After I completed the horse stance I did not have the strength to stand up. I fell backwards on purpose and to my surprise my legs were so cramped that they stayed in the horse stance position as I was lying on my back. It took about 30 seconds for them to finally relax enough for me to be able to straighten them and stand up.

Standing up was now a problem as well. I had to keep my legs locked. When I first stood up I bent my knees a little bit and I fell back down. My legs didn't have the strength to hold me up. I recovered fairly quickly after a hot bath and some massage but the next few days my legs were hurting for sure.

The main reason I chose the horse stance option was because I was willing to go through whatever I had to go through so I could continue going to my kung fu class for that next month. I was back in class the very next class and had a blast as usual. There is no feeling in the world like knowing that you've gone through something like that and that you've conquered your self to make it happen. If you want to do it make sure you've got someone there to make sure that your not cheating yourself. It is hell to go through but you come out the other side stronger than you went in.

Positioning

I was thinking it would be fun to write about out positioning people in fights and in sparring. I am more concerned with this particular thing than anything else in sparring. I want my lead foot outside of their lead foot almost all of the time. This gives me a huge advantage in most cases. If my lead foot is outside of my opponents lead foot that means that I am slightly behind them almost all of the time. It is very hard to hit someone who is behind you. It allows for me to be able to set up sweeps easily. Having my foot outside of my opponents positions me so I can hit them in the kidneys, the face, the abdomen, I can use my knee to buckle their knee. There are way to many reasons to take this position versus the inside position to explain here but get creative.

I would primarily put my foot to the inside of an opponents foot if I wanted to back sweep them and for a few other applications but for the most part if my foot is on the inside of theirs I am fighting to get  it to the outside.

Play with this thought in your next sparring match and see if you can't get a significant advantage over your opponent if you can maintain this positioning.

The Tiger Tail Sweep

The tiger tail sweep is my favorite sweep.  The tiger tail sweep is when you spin, drop to the ground and sweep the legs out from under your opponent using your back leg. The way I set it up is I make sure that I have my left leg forward. I wait for the opponent to throw a high kick with their right leg. As they are about to kick me in the head I drop and spin below their kicking leg. I use the back of my right leg to sweep their supporting leg out. they fall down. I don't use this sweep for anything other than this. I've found it is ridiculously hard to try to use this sweep on things like people punching, unless they have no skill what so ever but in that case you can do what ever you want any way. One major key to being able to use this sweep effectively is to make sure your foot stays on the ground as you spin. If you don't you will likely hit them mid-calf and it will hurt but the sweep will be ineffective. The Achilles tendon on your leg should hit the Achilles tendon on your opponent. In the event that your sweep fails, be sure to have a good follow up technique. If my sweep fails I am usually able to follow it up with a round house kick to the opponents' groin or a leg scissor to the leg. If your sweep does fail you are in a fairly vulnerable position so just make sure the follow up you have planned is going to work. That is about all I have to say about it. If you know the technique try it the way I've suggested and see how it works for you. :)

Playing with a Spear

The other day my wife came home from a long hard day at work and wanted to practice some kung fu. We both grabbed a spear and went out into our yard and went through 2 northern style spear forms. These forms are fun and challenging.

The spear tip should be looked at while doing thrusts. The blade of the spear should be oriented so that the cutting edge is always cutting, after all it is a blade. The spear is a fantastic long range weapon and can be used at close range as well as long as space isn't to constricted. Our forms have some fantastic moves such as jump spinning smash kicks over the spear and running away from the opponent just to turn at the last moment to impale the opponent.

All good Spear forms have La, na and cha, which means deflect, take, thrust. These 3 moves are essential for spear play and should be completed without much movement from the left hand. When performing the take move the blade should be able to cut the opponents throat if the blade is being used properly.

The less imposing end of the spear is quite possibly more painful to be struck with. I personally have crushed small rocks with the "blunt end" of the spear. Imagine that force being directed by a martial artist through your solar plexus or throat. Good times!!!

There are 3 different types of spear forms that I have learned. Northern, Southern and Drunken.
The northern spear is very conservative in it's use. You almost never remove the left hand while doing thrust for example. The southern spear is much more dramatic. In the southern spear forms when you thrust the left hand almost always leaves the spear. This allows for more reach at the sacrifice of control. Drunken Spear is even less conservative than the southern spear. It is very acrobatic (as are most of the drunken forms). The moves are done with a drunken flair stumbling out of the way, falling over, cart wheels, and even feigning throwing up. The spear forms all have really cool applications and they are amazingly fun to practice. The weapon is light weight for the most part but after a few times through the forms you start feeling the work out for sure.

This weapon will absolutely develop great wrist strength and combined with low bow stances and powerful thrusts your legs will feel it in the morning as well. Here is a fun little movie clip with some spear play.

Learn more about spears from a qualified instructor at a Shao-lin center near you. Click here for their website.