Holding of postures, commonly called "Zhuan Zhuang" in Chinese, for varying lengths of time is common in Chinese martial arts. This is often looked upon as a method of martial meditation. Holding of postures (especially in the internal arts) are fundamental to developing power in the body. Holding ...

Great points by everyone. The only thing that I'd like to mention is that, if BJJ is taught properly, it doesn't have to be only for the young. I'm also Steve's age and I see a major deficiency in the teaching method. Most instructors teach it in a way that will discourage the non-college age male ...

Great points everyone. I've struggled through this exact issue the last couple of weeks when I've been teaching a Wednesday night class over at Gary Khoury's dojo. In fact, the last two weeks we've been working on how to get into a clinch.

In this class there's a pretty big range of people with ...

Mike,

I forgot to mention that the above is for the typical BJJ tournament. Some people will state that a BJJ tournament is watered down Judo.

Historically, according to Ippon Book masterclass series book "Osaekomi" by Kashiwazaki.
"During the first three decades of the 20th century, the emphasis ...

Hi Mike,

Don't get hung up on the labels of internal/external. There was no term used as "internal" before circa 1916. The term internal was coined by a great martial artist named Sun Lu Tang in his text titled. "Bagua Quan Xue" (A study of eight trigrams boxing). His reference was clearly to show ...

This is a good thread. Some Chinese systems like Xing Yi really emphasis the vertical expansion/contraction. The Tiger form specifically uses this vertical expansion/contraction in a double thrust movement much like the double thrusts at the end of Sanchin Kata. Another good example is Pi Chuan ...

Lone Wolf,

Let's keep things in perspective. Traditionally, fighting arts were developed for the battlefield. That means simply, if you went down to the ground someone was going to spear you, stab you, run over you or have a chariot or horse run over you.

Let's think about things historically and ...

"Or could the job of the circling hand be grabbing the opponent so we can unceremoniously dump them or pin them while we pummel?"

In my opinion, this is one of the major applications of the movement. I'm in total agreement that no person will be able to pull off a wauke block faster than a good ...

I had the opportunity to train with at Tracy's dojo last night in Northboro, MA. If you ever have the chance to train with Tracy I strongly recommend it. His students were strong, tough and extremely nice people. A great group of people. That's what a dojo is. It was a great experience.

I just ...

We have a great opportunity.

Historically, there has always been interweaving of concepts, techniques and philosophies. Even on Okinawa, look at the old masters. A Naha-te practioner would pick up something from his buddy doing Shuri-te. A tea pushing merchant who studied a Crane style in Fukien ...

Hi Victor,

Interesting observations. The Tai Chi classics state that there were only 13 original posture in which all the "modern" flavors derived from. (Chen, Yang, Wu, Sun, Hao)

In many Xing Yi Quan and Bagua Zhang systems, you have the emphasis on combining 5 element fist approaches and the 8 ...

Several months ago there was a guy who was using the same type of names on some of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu forums. He was basically posting the same topics as we've seen here as of late. He was pretty immature and just tried to cause problems.

Just an FYI.

Joe

Hi Jajima,

Let me share some of my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu experiences with you with regards to leg and arm positioning in a grappling situation. Let me first state the the above advice you received is very good.

When someone is shooting in on you (say like a double leg) one of the better things you ...