“Sifu, in my mate’s class they learn to harden and desensitise their arms by bashing them together with the blocking movements, why don’t we do that?”  Rod had lots of martial arts ‘mates’ who trained at different clubs and they would get together on a regular basis to ‘share’ their knowledge.

“What purpose do you think our arms, hands and fingers serve Rod, why do you think we have them?”  Sifu answered the question with a question in his usual ‘Chan Buddhist’ way…

“To hammer the crap out of our opponents?”  Rod was being mischievous, as he knew Sifu was looking for the opposite answer.

“Rod………..”  Sifu gave him ‘that’ look….

 “Okay… To be able to touch and feel things not directly attached to our body..”  Rod conceded..

A good explanation of the Kanji for the Japanese word ‘Budo’, which is ‘Wu Shu’ in Chinese….

“The character bu is constructed from the characters meaning “arms of war” or “violence,” and “to stop, prohibit, or bring to an end.”  Therefore, bu is more accurately translated as “to stop violence,” or perhaps “to bring about peace.”  Thus  budo,  bujutsu and  bugei might more appropriately be  known as the “arts of the peacemaker.”  The warriors of China and Japan saw their skills as tools for maintaining the peace rather than indulgences in a love of war.  And although warfare was sometimes necessary to restore peace, peace was always the ultimate goal.

‘Leadership’ is a much-maligned word in the Martial Arts these days; it tends to be over used, often by the wrong people in the wrong way. If you run a Club it’s essential that you fully understand the responsibility that you are undertaking. You primarily have a responsibility to yourself as the Leader of a Club and will be the pivotal figure that everyone is going to look up to. The Emotional Intelligence of the Leader will dictate how the rest of the Club will behave. If the Leader is disingenuous, a bully or financially greedy it will reflect negatively through the whole Club.

Over the 40 years of my training history I have watched so many clubs fail through inadequate training and preparation of the Leadership when a few simple changes would have altered the entire outcome. Some were good Martial Artists but emotionally unintelligent, some were lazy and many simply upset their students and staff without realising it!

“According to research, every inch the head moves forward of the shoulders, weight is amplified by 10 pounds.” Erik Dalton Ph.D.

This is a quote that I throw around regularly but it wasn’t until a recent seminar with Steve I understood the implications those extra 10 pounds of weight has on the body.

Steve was teaching at my kwoon and was talking us through some standing nei gong postures explaining the importance of having the head aligned properly on top of the torso. He used the above quote and then looked over at my medicine balls on the shelves and said, “This medicine ball weighs 10 pounds meaning that every inch your head is out of alignment you’re adding another medicine ball!” and then passed the medicine ball around the group. It was the first time I’d really considered how much 10 pounds of extra strain actually weighed and it was shocking.