ruggedfalcon2 said:🤣 hahaha! So he just flashes those fancy degrees and photos from his trips to China at everyone... then tries to impress an actual American by showing them pictures of China...🙏 🙂☕
yeah... what can I even say... after the way Hao described that whole scene in broken American with a thick Russian accent—I was actually tearing up over here...
George Martin70 said:Now you're just proving my point. Any kid over in China knows Chen and Yang styles aren't even in the same ballpark. This Hao guy is basically charging a premium for stuff he picked up during gym class back in the day. Back then, missing class was a death sentence anyway 😈 Not sure why he got canned by Škerl—something about money, apparently...🤔 As for Bagadur, you clearly know your way around Hao's history, so why don't you ask him if that's actually true... 👍
If that's your take, you don't know squat about Tai chi.
Hao never mentioned anything about beating up Bagadur. The story always went that Bagadur just flashed a bunch of diplomas at him or whatever. As far as I know, they never even traded blows.
Yeah. These Tai chi styles are basically all the same anyway. Every kid in China goes through Chang Quan in elementary and middle school—it’s like basic gymnastics to them. All the movements from the other styles are baked right into Chang Quan. Yi Chuan is just a variation of Xing Yi that Hao spent the most time teaching. And BA Gua knows its forms.
Regarding getting kicked in the leg—if you actually know why, let me know. :P
So many people claim Bagadur absolutely wrecked him that I just mentally delete the conversation the second someone starts talking about it.
Red maples have forgotten the six alignments Tranquility will reveal The five elements
You're a long way from being able to quote Dai Fengzhong...
George Martin70 said:Ever since that leg incident with Škerl, this greedy guy teaching ten different styles seems to have moved up to a much bigger arena. Even Kuzman doesn't teach that many skills... 😍
nah, nah. Hao’s still got 30 years of training under his belt. You gotta respect that—even if he really gets on your nerves...
seriously, just start a women's kickboxing federation. (not like an official one—keep it chill, you know?) I know 3 or 4 girls who train with the guys and would kill for some female-only sparring sessions. I’ll definitely be showing up to watch the fights, and I’m pretty sure other people on this forum would too 🙂
I’m putting forward Gerald Smith76 for an award—purely for his patience and the fact that he’s always willing to jump in, even when the working conditions are absolute garbage. 👍
Not in Korea. Unless you actually meant Hapkido—which is basically just a blend of Aikido and Tae Kwon Do.
There’s Tenshin Shinjo Ryu, which teaches the style that guy was talking about in that Martial Arts magazine, but I don't have any numbers handy to give you...
Then there's Koku Ryu, if you can even find someone willing to teach you.
As for anything else, no clue.
Besides, why would you even want traditional Ju Jutsu anyway?
Any hysterical old lady can make you feel warmth, coldness, or pulsing anywhere in your body. Those sensations are just symptoms of "something" else. They aren't "it."
That stick thing is just that falling into a void I was talking about. If your opponent can't find that "point," they can't push you like that. It’s way harder than people think. Using the stick is just the early stage of sensing intent—actually, it's not even intent yet, just the opponent's movement and body orientation. The Chinese used to demonstrate this skill by holding a bird in their palm. If the bird tried to fly, it would push off the hand—as soon as they felt that push, they'd snap their hand down just an inch, and the terrified little thing wouldn't dare take flight. Animal cruelty... what a mess.
As for concentrating force into a single point—I think you need to be fully connected and have strength flowing through your entire body first. If you attack me with all your power concentrated into one spot, I'll do whatever I want to you. Unless, of course, you can shift that point incredibly fast. You get there easily by widening your focus, exactly like you said. Otherwise, that’s basically the specialty of Xing Yi.
Peter Myers29 said:🙄 .... You aren't going anywhere in karate without understanding what you're doing. Honestly... doesn't matter what skill you pick up—if you don't get it, you're stuck... 🙄
So that means you actually know something, huh... 😛 Alright, then—drop some actual wisdom for once.
Look, in Shaolin they have this whole "progress" method—basically just punching a tree with your bare knuckles for a year straight. You don't even need to understand the mechanics or whatever... you just keep swinging. Then, a year later, you’ve got a killer punch. How is that not progress?...
Heat, cold, pulsing—you can get that just by shaking your hands out properly. (Kind of like Ki Aikido, right Peter Myers29?). Not sure if that actually counts as "chi."
That whole thing about focusing on a single point also applies to body "weight." It's easy to demonstrate but a pain to explain. Best way to pick up that skill is through partner drills like Tui Shou.
Regarding Tai Chi at the end of a strike—what you said isn't quite spot on. In an ideal scenario, even if the muscles are relaxed or nearly so, the alignment of the bones and tendons creates this unbroken, solid chain from the feet all the way to the point of impact. If the practitioner wants to, they'll feel hard as a rock under pressure. That's just a byproduct of the previous skills. There’s no secret sauce here—every martial art has something similar (like the Bong in Wing Chun or the rooted hand in Aikido)—it's just human biomechanics at work. That Tai Chi "relaxation" is just what happens when you orient yourself toward tactics and pull the opponent into empty space.
As for what Mario Topolšek wrote... well, I have to take his word for it since I saw it with my own eyes 😁 but man, sensing intention sounds like straight-up science fiction.
A fighter's need to be "everywhere at once" in their body seems kind of opposite to striking from just one single point, doesn't it? Or maybe it's just some koan... 😁
Man, it would be nice to just disappear to a monastery for a couple of years and just train.
Internal vs. external... if we're going by definitions, it has nothing to do with muscle mass or whatever. Original Tai Chi involved some pretty grueling exercises. Most of the forms people see nowadays don't have much to do with Tai Chi as a combat art—they just show the application of skills you're supposed to have mastered through intense fundamental drills. The "softness" of those (internal) skills comes from the necessity of rapid changes. There's a saying: you only start learning how *not* to use force once you know how to apply it. And once you master not using force, then you can start learning how to change.
Movement without muscles is just self-delusion 😁 You need muscles just to stand upright.
So how do you actually feel your chi? Where does your focus go when you contract at the end of a strike? And why even bother contracting at the end? (trick question: is it yin or yang chi? 😁 )
When it comes to internal training, it’s all about releasing those internal blockages—the essence of xing yia (or Hsing I-, if we’re going by Wade Giles' transcription which he's still stubborn about)... but let's not talk about that stuff unless we want to look like weirdos or total jokes. At least not before we've bled our opponent out. After that, we can just brag "my chi is stronger than yours!" and pull a face like 😁
No martial art is purely internal—meaning there aren't any external, physical elements involved. What does "internal" even mean? That term was basically coined by the masters of those three styles (xing yi, ba gua, tai chi) because they noticed huge overlaps in how they trained. The fourth style considered "soft" is Liu He BA FA (Six Harmonies and Eight Steps, sometimes called water boxing). Yi quan (intent boxing) is a derivative of Xing Yi and could probably be classed as a pure internal art too, though most of the combat application is lost. BA Ji would likely fall into the internal category as well if some master had been at that legendary meeting where the term neijia (internal arts) was first dreamed up.
The only thing truly "internal" about those arts is that the real technique is hidden within the basic drills. A practitioner's strike in any of those systems is incredibly, incredibly hard.
As for why Aikibudo is called an internal art... honestly, no clue. O-sensei could have given us the answer, and it probably would've involved golden clouds and universal love. Unless you asked him back when it was still called Aikibudo, then he'd probably just show off a bit, throw you around, and give you a big grin.
Silat has similarities to ba gua, but nobody calls it an internal art because they're too busy being terrified of the knives those guys always carry.
If you don't know shit, why the hell are you even training?
The xing yia motto is Yi beng, kan xue—one strike, see the blood. Breathing stays natural, though we toss in some vocalizations during training sometimes. Mostly just yelling at your opponent like, "Goddammit, you got me bleeding again." No, seriously. Go ask Walterdimov 😁