This man's eyelid was torn from his face by a...butt

Man of Tai Chi with Keanu Reeves

I just finished watching Man of Tai Chi with Keanu Reeves.

I was glad to see that Keanu Reeves was not the main character. If he had been this movie would have been just about as bad as it possibly could have been.

The majority of this movie was fight scenes. I enjoyed the scenes but I've got to say that most of the scenes were not done well from a Tai chi stand point.

The fight scene with the main characters master was a good one though. I would watch scenes like that every day if I could but for the most fault you won't see too much that isn't in any kung fu movie.

That is about all I have to say about it It is almost beginning to end fight scenes. I liked it.

3 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Kung Fu

When you begin kung fu you will learn many things and some of these things are things that you'll want to avoid.

Newbie martial artists are fairly predictable when they are making mistakes.
There is nothing wrong with these mistakes everyone goes through some version of mistakes when they begin the martial arts.

The first mistake I want to talk about is the mistake of thinking that kung fu is like the movies.
Kung fu is a lot of hard work and you should strive to have your movements be as natural as walking not dramatic and flowery like the movies.

I have seen many people come through the doors and they often think that kung fu is about pretty poses. You can't beat anyone up with a bunch of power ranger poses. These poses waste energy because they are inefficient and they lack power.

The next mistake I want to discuss might be a bit confusing but I think I can make it clear.
It is the mistake of doing what they think they should be doing rather than what the instructor is telling them to do.

So often I have seen people who join martial arts and after they have seen the new form they start thinking that they know it. Sometimes they do but they should look for further details to ensure they are doing it completely right.

So rather than getting a deeper level of understanding through observation of their instructor they start to think they know the form and look in their head  to see what to do next.

Now the other side of that coin is another mistake. Newbie martial artist would do well to give up following their instructors through forms in favor of getting through them on their own.

When I teach kung fu I make sure to show the students that I am teaching about 3 times. Then I make them think and do it on their own. They can never get through  he form themselves on the first try but they always know the form and know the form well by the time I am done teaching it to them.

I just require that they think and work to get the form so they don't end up going home empty handed. I hope these tips help you avoid these mistakes when you get started or even stop making them if you have been around a while. I have seen black belts still making some of these mistakes, so don't feel too bad if you are brand new and you have been making one, two or even all three of these mistakes.

If you'd like more kung fu tips and trick and just some fun martial arts related stuff check out my kung fu blog at http://www.eightdrunkenimmortals.com

Saved Some Ducks After I Did Tai Chi.

A couple of weeks ago I was out and about.
I did some Tai Chi.
I practiced a little Pa Kua Chang.

I really had the chi flowing when I noticed a duck acting strange.

I had heard that ducks will sometimes walk over sewer grates and then the ducklings will fall in but I never in my life thought I would see it.
I never once thought I would be the one to save some of the ducks who had fallen into the sewer but here I was standing there looking down into a sewer grate and the ducks were all down there.

The mother was freaking out but not aggressive. In fact I am not sure a duck can be aggresive lol.

I called the non emergency police number and told them what was going on and they sent animal patrol out to help.

Once they got there I decided to stand back out of their way and take some video.
Here is the video footage I made.

I hope you enjoy it.

I originaly share this story here: http://benjaminnewcomb.com/blog/saving-ducklings-from-certain-death-in-the-sewer

He was looking over his eye lid...

Eagle Style Kung Fu

Eagle style kung fu was developed a long time ago by a man named Yueh Fei.

The eagle claw is formed with the index finger, the middle finger and the thumb.

The hand is used to grab the opponents pressure points and to jab the fingers into the opponents eyes and throat.

The form that I know is one of the most brutal beginner forms I have ever seen because it has neck breaks and throat tears. It has eye jabs and bone breaks. This form is called Ying Jow Na.

The eagle claw forms are not limited to the hand techniques either.
They have several different kicks and jumping kicks. It also includes side hand strikes and punched and several different bone breaking techniques.

Ying Jow Na also has a really brutal move where you block up with your left arm grab the groin of the opponent with the right eagle claw and then pull the groin off!

Yueh Fei developed the eagle claw techniques to be brutal and effective so that they could kill or injure as many people as possible.

Sin Kwang The' Fact or Bull-shido

 Sin Kwang The' Fact or Bull-shido

According to Sin Kwang The' the story goes something like this.

Su Kong Tai Djin

There was a boy who was found in the woods. The boy had a disease that made hair grow all over his body and even his face. This boy was ditched in the woods by his parents because they thought he was a demon. The disease is called hypertrichosis.

The person who found the child was a monk of the Fukien temple. He realized that the child was not a demon and brought him back to the temple. After some debate on what they should do with the boy they decided to raise him.

They named him Su Kong Tai Djin. As Su grew he learned that he could never leave the temple because when he did he would be picked on and treated poorly because of his disease.

So the masters at the temple decided that they would each teach Su their style of kung fu. Su was to become the first person in history to learn the entire Shao-Lin martial arts system.

There is a story about how he walked into a room at one point and when the 12 masters bowed to him he took out a knife and threw it into the rafters. An assassin fell from the rafters. According to Sin Kwang The' Su had heard 13 people in the room breathing but there were only 12 masters there!

After learning the entirety of the Shao-Lin martial arts systems Su decided that he would teach a boy by the name of Ie Chang Ming.

Ie Chang Ming

Ie Chang Ming learned the entire art from Su. After he had gone through all of the training he decided to go on a little walk. He found himself in some trouble however because he had accidentally walked onto an abandoned military base. He was surrounded by men who decided that he needed to die.

Unfortunately for those men they had run across the wrong man. Ie killed them in self defense but he realized that he needed to flee China if he was going to avoid going to prison.

Ie Chang Ming Goes to Indonesia

Ie found himself in Indonesia and he realized that he was the only one left who could pass on the Shao-Lin art. At the time however it was illegal to teach the Chinese martial arts in Indonesia. Ie Chang Ming decided that he needed to disguise the Chinese art as a Japanese art if he was going to teach it.

To this day at the Shao-Lin centers and in the Shao-Lin-do schools there is some Japanese influence.

Enter Sin Kwang The'

Sin The' started doing Kung Fu in Bandung Indonesia when he was a young boy. Upon meeting Grandmaster Ie for the first time Ie dumped hot coffee into Sin's lap. Then he quickly grabbed him and looked into his eyes to see if Sin  The' had become angry about it. Seeing nothing but surprise in the young boys eyes Ie thought he might just have the next Grandmaster of the Shao-Lin art there in front of him.

After several more tests Ie finally chose Sin The' as the next Shao-Lin grandmaster. Then came many years of brutal training. Which I am not going to get into here.

Some people think that Grandmaster Sin Kwang The' made this whole story up. Some claim that he made up the entire art that he teaches. that claim to me is ridiculous because the art he teaches is massive and it is hard to learn it let alone make it up in one life time.

The thought that he learned it all from books is also ridiculous because if you have ever been to a book store and looked through the martial arts section you would know that these sections are small. Let's assume that he could have learned all of it from books and he made some of it up. That would make him a freaking genius.

So I don't know if the story he tells is true or not but one things is for sure if it's not then he definitely learned what he knows somewhere. I have studied at one of his schools for ever 20 years and there seems to be no end to the awesome forms he teaches.

I am sure there are going to be some jack asses who come on to this post and say he is a fraud because they read it on the internet. You may have heard he is a fraud on the internet and that doesn't make it true. At least I have heard something about him on the net can't say the same about you.

Always buy a Martial Arts Groin Cup for Martial Arts

Always buy a Martial Arts Groin Cup for Martial Arts

It turns out that all groin cups are not created equal.

Several years ago there was a guy in my school who had decided that he should just use his old football groin cup instead of buying a cup designed for martial arts.

The problem with doing this is that the groin cups for football are designed for the kind of impact you could receive from football.

A martial arts groin cup is designed for a direct kick to the groin.

BIG DIFFERENCE! 

This particular man even got away with it for awhile.

but then came the fateful blow.

He was in a sparring match when the kick landed.

He immediately ran to the bathroom in pain.

From the outside all you could hear were guttural noises.

His partner goes to knock on the door and a hand comes out and grabs him dragging him into the restroom....

It turns out the cup had broken.

This picture is not the actual cup but I thought it was a good illustration...

It had broken in an x shape and the pointy pieces of the cup had collapsed and grab the poor guys manhood pulling it back into the cup.

Fortunately, the damage was not too bad but that doesn't mean it wasn't really painful!

After some rest he fully healed but had learned a valuable lesson.

Buy the proper cup for what you are doing!!!