The Chatter In The Modern Urban Mind

In the last post we read a quote from Robert W. Smith on the use of the mind in Internal Martial Arts. So everybody is on the same page, here's the quote again:

"A system based solely on body mechanics remains forever at the level of calisthenics and rudimentary fighting. Functionally, such a system is limited by the fact that in the animal world man is something of a weak creature.
Except by recourse to his brain, he cannot stand physically with most of the other animals.
But the brain itself needs to be checked and trained. The trouble with urban cultures throughout the world is that man's brain is out of control. The internal imposes the restraint that, paradoxically, leads to freedom. The mind is king -remember this- and must be accorded priority over the body."

Our skeptical friend at Martial Development saw an inherent contradiction in this statement:

"The trouble with urban cultures throughout the world is that man's brain is out of control."

"The mind is king and must be accorded priority over the body."

(M.D.) "Are these contradictory statements? If not, why? And what does it mean for the mind to be accorded priority over the body?"

The disconnect was leaving out the brief sentence between those two themes:
"The internal imposes restraint that, paradoxically, leads to freedom."
In my opinion, Smith is making not one but two statements. The first is that the urban mind is on overload from stimulation. The second is that quieting the chatter in the mind is healthier, and is both a necessary product and component of the Chinese Internal Martial Arts.

Back in 1980 my friends and I built a shack in the deep coast range mountains out of Coos Bay Oregon. My friends grandparents had homesteaded the last private farm 26 miles up the Coos River. In the summer you could drive a truck across a shallow ford in the river, in the winter you pulled yourself across in a cable car high above the flood waters. Then we hiked in another two miles to where we built the shack.
Here's what I mean about the chatter in the urban mind:
We noticed that it took a full week for our minds, our bodies, our beings to settle into life in the forest. We were hunting and gathering food, there was constant danger of injury, being charged by elk, drowning, and a brush with Bigfoot.
We became like the animals. We smelled like the animals. We felt the heat in the summer and the driving rain in the winter. We didn't see a television for six months at a time.
Every now-and-then we'd take the truck to the University of Oregon in Eugene where we visited the girls and restocked our pot supplies. As we entered the city we'd literally feel the electrical energy. Power lines, noise, Yuppie assholes.
Before, our minds had been quiet and open to absorb every bit of information you need to live and hunt in the woods. What we felt is that as we entered the city we had to put up a mental wall, to shield us from the overload of stimulation. Most people go through their entire life in that condition and know nothing different. Later, when we returned to our shack in the woods it took another few days to decompress.
*****
This is what Smith is talking about.
Short of living like Thoreau at Walden Pond, we can quiet our minds with introspective, internal martial arts. We can live in the moment, setting aside concerns of past and future. Smith is talking about training the mind in this way to free it:
Yi (mind intent) leads Chi (energy), resulting in Jing (action).
In this context, Smith is correct and the trained mind is "king".

Robert W. Smith On Internal Martial Arts

Robert W. Smith Punching Wang Shujin

From page 22, "Hsing-I, Chinese Mind-Body Boxing":

"A system based solely on body mechanics remains forever at the level of calisthenics and rudimentary fighting. Functionally, such a system is limited by the fact that in the animal world man is something of a weak creature.
Except by recourse to his brain, he cannot stand physically with most of the other animals.
But the brain itself needs to be checked and trained. The trouble with urban cultures throughout the world is that man's brain is out of control. The internal imposes the restraint that, paradoxically, leads to freedom. The mind is king -remember this- and must be accorded priority over the body."

Review: "Chinese Medical Qigong"

"Chinese Medical Qigong" is the work product of Tianjun Liu, professor and director of Qigong research at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, and Kevin w. Chen, associate professor at the Center for Integrative Medicine and Psychiatry at The University of Maryland School of Medicine.
This encyclopedic research study weighs in at a whopping 650+ pages, and at $89.95 is meant to appeal to the serious student of Qigong (Chi Kung). Perhaps the most comprehensive book on the subject I have seen yet, it begins with the obligatory history of Qigong including brief snippets on Qigong in both internal and external martial arts.
There is a thorough study of the effects of Qigong practice, which includes focused meditation with breathing, postures and body movement. The book details scientific data analyzing blood chemistry, brain waves, and other physical and psychological changes in the human body. Emphasis is on finding proper balance of Yin and Yang in the body, which is essentially one big electro-chemical battery.
There are descriptions of how Qigong is practiced, with clinical applications tailored to such illness as diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, obesity, hypertension and treating tumors and cancer. Specific methods are recommended for each of these illnesses.
The book has a strict focus on Qigong breathing and posture methods, and does not touch on meridian theory and acupuncture other than tangentially. It does however instruct students in the Wu Xing or "five element theory", as well as information on the healing sounds of the "six syllable formula".
This immense study is meant to be a companion book for students, perhaps those enrolled in formal schools of Chinese medicine. It is laid out in classical textbook fashion for those already familiar with Qigong practice and methods.
The text is however without useful graphics and pictures are few. Lacking these aids, the reader should already have some experience in the field of Qigong research.
There is no doubt that "Chinese Medical Qigong" would be a good desk reference for those who are studying and practicing Qigong, Chinese medicine, or both.

On a side note, while reviewing the Qigong applications for various illness I saw tremendous similarities to the therapeutic movements in Taiji Quan, Xingyi Quan, and Baguazhang. This completely reinforces my belief that by practicing these internal martial arts, we are employing the same methods used for health maintenance in Chinese medicine. Hence, the practice of internal martial arts is in itself a health Qigong. Balancing martial power with healing methods is the optimum state our bodies can be in.

Information on "Chinese Medical Qigong" can be found at "Singing Dragon" and Jessica Kingsly Publishers, linked here at www.jkp.com

World Cup Madness

Hmm.
I guess I like Soccer after all...

1970's Karate; Texas Style

The Port of Corpus Christi, Texas

Back around 1979, we had a guy from Texas come and train at our Tae Kwon Do school. I'll call him "Buzby", which was actually part of his name.
Buzby was about ten years older than me. He was only about five-foot seven, but had a pretty stocky build. He was also balding, had a wandering eye, and spoke with a heavy Texas accent. But he was tough. For some reason, he always fought from a side stance, as many people did back then. I think it was because the side kick was his best weapon. Buzby had a Gi (Karate uniform) that was dyed army green, which stuck out in a sea of pure white Gi's that other students had.
He said his school in Texas, an Okinawan style, practiced outside so much they dyed their Gi's to mask the grass stains. I know he had held a higher rank, but in our school he just wore a white belt.

Typical Corpus Christi Biker Bar

Buzby explained to us that Texas Karate was practiced a little differently than what we were doing in Portland Oregon at the time. There was lots of outdoor woodland training, hence the dyed green Gi. There were also different testing procedures. One day, while Buzby was working as a heating and air conditioning technician he got a call from his Karate instructor. His instructor told him to come immediately to a well-known Bar in a rough part of Corpus Christi. Buzby wondered why, but said "No problem, I'll be right there".
Buzby walked into the Bar and his eyes adjusted to the dim light inside. Even though it was daytime working hours, the Bar was full of bikers and oil rough-necks.
He spotted his instructor and walked over:
Instructor: "Buzby, you know so-and-so from the Karate school across town"?
Buzby: "Hi, nice to meet you".
Instructor: "And this is his student, so-and-so".
Buzby: "Hi".
Instructor: "And Buzby, you're going to fight his student, right here, right now".

Well, Buzby told us the story and we were glued to his every word:
"The other guy had been waiting and was ready, I was caught a little off-guard. But we fought right there in the Bar. It seemed like forever, but it was probably only about a minute. We were knocking over tables and chairs, and we both got hurt a bit".

(Us, listening): What happened?

Buzby: Our instructors stopped the fight, and they both seemed pretty satisfied with the results. I think they were testing us, to see if we had the nerve to do it".

-And they all sat back down at a table and ordered another round of Beers.

Follow-up To Cop Punching Teenage Girl

Chris over at Martial Development asked for specific techniques the Officer in the previous post could have used to maintain control over the teenage girl he was trying to give a jaywalking ticket to. The Cop lost control and hit one of the girls in the face, and generally blew the whole scene into a major fiasco.
Here's the video again:

This is a supposedly "trained" officer dealing with two teenage girls one at a time.
I'm sorry, but I contend that this Cop is miserably under trained. There is a failure in public relations, communication, and he resorts to punching the girl. He is so ill-prepared that if it was a more serious time and place, he could have been rushed by the crowd and disarmed.
Now, I know that no amount of restraint would have looked nice, but efficient grappling would have been so much more professional. Chris from Martial Development requested alternative techniques. I don't have time to stage an elaborate reenactment of the scene with the Cop, but here's a couple of examples.
These are merely demos, but any single technique can be used to restrain, provide pain compliance, and in many cases leave one hand free to operate a radio and call for back-up or whatever:

Or in this case, not using the striking but concentrate on locking the elbow/shoulder, something the Cop had many opportunities to achieve:

Now, neither of these drills replicate the attempted arrest scene, but I submit them as more efficient ways for the police to deal with mild resistance without resorting to hitting a teenage girl in the face.

Who The Hell Trains Cops To Work This Way?

Seattle's Finest.

I know that Cops have a tough job, Yada-yada-yada. But please, where are these mooks getting their training?
First of all, Officer Ian P. Walsh is attempting to issue a citation to a teenage girl for-- yes, jaywalking. And look how it escalates.
Sure, the girls had no right to resist the Cop, and should have shut up and taken the citation. But they're idiot teenagers, and they think the Cop is out of line. Look, I was worked over like this by a Cop when I was a teenager too.
Let's set the circumstances aside for now and look at how Walsh reacts to a little pushing and shoving: he punches the girl right in the face. He certainly knows that multiple people are recording the incident on cell phone cameras, and still reacts like he is a bully at the High School beer party.
Here is exactly where the skills of so-called "less-lethal" martial arts perform very well. If the Cop had any knowledge of Taiji push hands, Aikido, Small Circle Jijitsu or Chinese Chin na-- for craps sake, wrestling... the outcome may have been an arrest without hitting the girl. It just looks so awfully terrible.
Officer Walsh is arm grappling with the girl, yet fails to slip into any kind of arm bar or shoulder/elbow/wrist joint lock. A pain compliance hold may not look pretty to the camera's either, but it is way more professional and from the extended amount of time he is grappling with her there were plenty of opportunities.
Too many Cops are shooting marginally dangerous people with mental issues.
Too many Cops are Tasing people who are not resisting.
Too many Cops are hitting people because they can't handle a simple grappling situation.

More information at This Link

Spring Saloon Party !

Back by popular demand, a Swamp Ridge Saloon update!
New readers may not know, but we've had a project building a little Western Saloon going on for a while, and it's close to finished. We still gotta' lot to do, but it was ready for our big Spring party. Here's the Bar we built, on the left as you walk in:

And the music area on the right:

Things started out pretty mellow, with a huge BBQ, chicken, ribs, ahi tuna, venison, pizza-- you name it, we ate and drank it.
Just getting started:

The Music started on our outdoor stage, there were fifty or more people running around with a big campfire in front of the stage. Lots of people, including families with kids set up campsites and stayed all night:

-And of course, things degraded into some really crappy electric jams as the night got late and massive quantities of Beer were consumed:

Drummers are always out of control...

It's gonna' be a very, very busy Summer!

Zackey Chan's Mamachari

My buddy Zac (aka "Zackey Chan") is teaching English in Japan and writes the "Gaijin Explorer" blog. It covers cultural issues, Aikido training, and in this case Epic Journeys!
The picture above is his bike, the "Mamachari" a big-ass rusty thirty year-old bike that he uses to travel his area of rural Japan.
In this epic journey, he discovers ruins of castles, endless rice fields and has a close encounter with a wild boar.
Take a look at his latest adventure at this link.

New Blog: Bujitsu: The Path

"JC" has a fairly new blog up and running, "Bujitsu: The Path".
The posts are short and thoughtful, bouncing between philosophy, personal training experience and Book information.
Drop by and take a look at "Bujitsu: The Path" at this link.

Friday Fun: Tiger Style vs. Snake Style

Ok, I totally ripped this off from the guys at "The Rum Soaked Fist"
Watching the movements of the cat is fascinating. At first glance, it appears that the snake is faster. But as in "The Tai Chi Classics", "When my enemy moves, I move first." In other words, the cat is able to predict the snakes movement or evoke a response from the snake. The cat avoids double-weightedness, transferring to back legs allowing to swat with the paw.
There's no doubt this cat has killed a lot of snakes!

What's Going On In China?

Today's article in McClatchy News Service prompts me to take a look at news form China that has occurred in the last few weeks:

"Rising Chinese businessman killed on party official's orders"
(snip)
"At the end, though, Zhu's ambitions couldn't keep up with the frenzy, and he ran afoul of party officials feeding at the trough of local projects. A local potentate who'd wanted to invest in Zhu's coal mine sent two men to his home just past midnight on June 15, 2008. One of them pulled out a blade and stabbed the 62-year-old Zhu repeatedly, leaving him for dead.
Late last month, a Shaanxi province court handed down death sentences for one party official and the thugs he hired to kill Zhu. Another official was given four years in prison.
The murder reportedly was part of a backroom deal to seize Zhu's coal mine, a damning example of what goes on behind the scenes of China's financial success.
While the central government likes to project the image of an authoritarian state that's creating a hybrid version of capitalism, many of those in charge of development in the interior behave more like mafia dons than like party cadres."

So a rising star in China's State-Capitalism was murdered by Party officials, unusual but not as unexpected as this:

"China school attacks highlight mental health"
(snip)
"The signs of trouble should have been clear — the man who launched a deadly rampage through a Chinese kindergarten had been depressed and suicidal for weeks — but his behavior raised no red flags in China's feeble mental health system.
The attack by Wu Huanming, who stormed onto the grounds of the private school in northern Shaanxi province and slashed and killed seven preschoolers and two adults, was the latest of five assaults against schoolchildren in the last two months that have left 17 dead and more than 50 wounded.
(snip)
"There's reason to believe that they are seriously psychologically disturbed and psychotic," he said. Attacking children shows their "desire to make their statement in the strongest way possible."
All the attackers in recent cases have been men in their 30s or 40s. They all used knives and hammers — unlike in the U.S., guns are tightly controlled in China and obtaining them is virtually impossible.
Some experts have speculated that the attackers sought to target children, society's most vulnerable members, because they cannot vent their frustrations on the government itself."

And the level of frustration has reached into the huge manufacturing plants resulting in employee suicides:

"The suicides have exposed the human costs of China’s 11.9 percent growth and opened the plight of the average factory worker to outside scrutiny as rarely before. Workers have a long, long way to go to benefit more fully from China’s boom.
Signs they are growing impatient show that China is entering a messy stage of development. For years, foreign companies raced to the mainland because lax regulations let them pollute in ways they couldn’t at home. China is now home to a critical mass of the world’s most polluted cities and rivers, and the government is demanding greater accountability. While it’s the right thing to do for China, foreign executives can’t be happy about the fastest-growth major economy going green.
The wage issue will be even more difficult. Chinese workers demanding higher wages, as they should, must have the folks at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. quaking. It’s hard to exaggerate the effect a big increase in Chinese pay would have on international profit margins and on inflation.

(D.R.)- Poor Wall Mart...

* But here's the kicker; I recently watched a long speech given by MIT professor Noam Chomsky that directly addresses this issue and how it relates to socio-political struggle of the working class in the United States:

"There are poignant studies of the indignation and the rage of those who have been cast aside as the state-corporate programs of financialization and deindustrialization have closed plants and destroyed families and communities. These studies reveal the sense of acute betrayal on the part of working people who believed they had a fulfilled their duty to society in what they regard as a moral compact with business and government, only to discover that they had only been instruments for profit and power, truisms from which they had been carefully shielded by doctrinal institutions.
There are striking similarities in the world’s second-largest economy. This has been investigated in a very penetrating study by Ching Kwan Lee into Chinese labor. Lee draws the close comparison between working-class outrage and desperation in the decaying industrial sectors of the United States and the fury among workers in what she calls China’s rustbelt, the state socialist industrial center in the Northeast now abandoned by the state in favor of state capitalist development of the Southeast sunbelt, as she calls it. In both regions, Lee finds massive labor protests, but different in character. In the rustbelt, workers express the same sense of betrayal as their counterparts here, but in their case betrayal of the Maoist principles of solidarity and dedication to development of the society that they had thought had been a moral compact, only to discover that, whatever it was, it’s now bitter fraud. In the sunbelt, workers who lack that cultural tradition still rely on their home villages for support and family life. They denounce the failure of authorities to live up even to the minimal legal requirements of barely livable workplace conditions and payment of the pittance called salaries."

This was a brilliant speech by Chomsky, here is the complete version (text) and video:



Thanks for bearing with me, more martial arts coming soon.

Happy Birthday To Me, And A Tribute To The Late Dennis Hopper

Yes, today is the Geo-Rotational celebration of when ol' Dojo Rat first appeared on the planet, and here's a little example of what I got for my birthday:

Oh Boy!
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And what the hell, I think I'll take this opportunity to mention the passing of Dennis Hopper, the Drug-crazed actor that is best remembered for his 1969 movie "Easy Rider"

But Hopper was in countless westerns and other movies such as "Hoosiers" and "Apocalypse Now".
Here is a very creepy piece of a 1961 horror movie Hopper stared in called "Night Tide. The mysterious woman that enters the room is Marjorie Cameron, an actual Witch in the Crowley tradition and wife of Jack Parsons:

And here is a very short, hilarious clip of Hopper as "Frank" in the freakish movie "Blue Velvet"

On an interesting note; I read an interview with Hopper that talked about how he used his paranoid personality as a vehicle in his acting.
He told the interviewer that his father had worked for the O.S.S, the precursor agency of the CIA. When he was very young, he was told his father had died in the war. Several years later, his father returned alive, and the "death" story was a cover as he was a spy.
That's enough to make a guy a little paranoid, eh?

R.I.P Dennis Hopper

Introducing "Mu Ryu"

A week ago or so we ran a piece about training in public parks, and the reaction of people who watch you train. I joked that I saw a tv comedian say that he asked a guy practicing Tai Chi in the park "How many dead people do you have in your freezer?".
Well, much as in the "Dog Brothers" stick-fighting tradition, these guys in the "Mu Ryu" club pull out all the stops.
They train at The Labyrinth Hall at Col. Summers Park in Portland, Oregon. The Labyrinth gives the training a cool Gothic feel, and mixed weapons are used.
Here's from the FAQ on their website:

"Mu Ryu?
Mu Ryu means “No School”.
The flesh is the student. The sword is the teacher. The fight is the test.

Duel with What?
Our swords and armor are modified to be heretically practical. So what about tradition - why do what people did just because they did it? Do what works. Don’t do what’s been done. Fuck what was just because it was.

Mu Ryu Swords:
Bamboo swords called shinai, used in Kendo, are given thickened tips to prevent injuries and add additional weight forward on that sword which helps make the sword heavier like a steel sword, which forces real body-mechanics - swords should swing and slash, not snap and flick.

Other customizations include swords modified with cut down handles to turn "katanas" to "sabers". Others have moved their guard midway to the hilt for a "longsword". Handles and pommels have been thickened while others have been modified to have custom hilts like Western bell guards.

Mu Ryu Spears:
Spears & halberds are made from pvc & padding. [production cost <$5]

Mu Ryu Knives:
Knives are made from dowel rods, cardboard & tape. [production cost <$2]

Other Weapons used:
Axes, whipchains, shorts swords, etc.

Mu Ryu Armor:
People who fight can opt to wear the following armor: lacrosse helmets, lacrosse gloves, cheap & great soccer shin guards for forearm, and guards for the knees/shins. Helmets are mandatory must be used for any full contact fighting. Additional armor is encouraged. Almost everybody wears gloves.

Is this fencing or kendo?
No. Unlike fencing or kendo, Mu Ryu doesn't dictate anything or limit targets and techniques. Fencers and kendoists are welcome to fight and are welcome to shed their sports' restrictions. We don't have them and won't submit to them."

(D.R.)-- These guys are spirited and it looks like they have a ton of fun. I'm not sure if any of them have had formal training in other martial arts, but they reference everything from Irish traditional to Kendo, Bagua Palms and Tai Chi sword. This would be a good proving ground for people who have some formal weapons training to go up against these scrappers and test their skills.
The Mu Ryu group takes their lumps and bruises, but they show good sportsmanship and I'll bet they learn what works and doesn't work pretty quickly.

If you are in the Portland area and want to train with them, contact by Email 1@mu-ryu.net
You can find additional information on their website LINKED HERE.

If you have an informal training group and want to send pictures and videos, leave a comment and link in the comments section or contact us at dojorat@gmail.com

Friday Fun: Ukulele Madness!

Ah, there's something about Ukulele's that just puts a smile on your face!
I heard about this Uke documentary on NPR this morning and looked it up- I can't wait to see the whole thing...

Long ago in my misspent youth I played a little guitar, but kinda' set it down for a while. When I moved up to the islands here in Washington State my buddies had big music jams every Friday, they were called "Train Wrecks". The music got wrecked, the people got wrecked, and occasionally the instruments got wrecked. I started collecting guitars and playing again.
-But here's where the Ukulele comes in:
When my training partner Corey and I started traveling to martial arts seminars, we had to spend a lot of time sitting in the pickup truck waiting for ferry boats. Sometimes for hours.
Now, a guitar is too big to fit in a Toyota pickup with two big guys and the occasional dog, so I started bringing Ukes. We didn't know a single Hawaiian song and still don't. We play rock and blues. After the martial arts seminars we'd get in line for the boat back to the islands, grab some beer or wine, and have some perfectly horrible music jams as the ferry boat plowed it's way through the dark waters. Pretty soon, everybody in the Dojo was playing Ukes too.

Well, there was a short craze where the guys were buying and selling some really nice Ukes on E-Bay, I mean some expensive stuff. But soon, my friends who are cabinet makers and woodcarvers started building their own instruments.
In fact, Jim started collecting exotic woods and even started building electric Ukuleles. These are just like mini-electric guitars, but with four strings in Ukulele tuning. Here's one of our rock guitar friends, "The Paulinator" taking one of Jim's electric Ukes for a test drive:

Paul is a lead rock guitar player and doesn't even play the Uke, but you can see how easy he transitions to this smooth little instrument.
If you want to see more of Jim's custom-built Ukuleles, both acoustic and electric models, check out his website "Monkey Wrench Music".

William's Historical Study Of Chinese Martial Arts

Fellow Dojo Rat William filmed this video on a training visit to Tim Cartmell's "Shen Wu" school in California. As you can see, Tim includes a huge amount of grappling in his training, but his foundation is in Chinese internal martial arts. You can spot William in the private training session with Tim, William is in the black t-shirt.
William and I trained together in Seattle when Tim came up for training sessions with Jake Burroughs, and as you can imagine, there was lots of throwing.
William has been writing in to Dojo Rat as "Tianshanwarrior", and has put together a thorough history of Chinese martial arts. Take a look at William's past articles at his Chinese Martial Arts site, LINKED HERE.
And here's a few paragraphs he posted in the comment section of one of our last discussions:

"Tianshanwarrior said...
There is however a good starting point for the transformation of martial arts to a more holistic approach during the transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties that both Shahar and Ma Mingda agree on. The internal classification is, as Tim Cartmell points out, fairly new, starting with the publication of the Epitaph of Wang Zhengnan at the start of the Qing, as was revealed by Hening and Wyle. To say that there is such thing as internal or external only goes against the theory of Ying and Yang. There are examples of the application of both in military texts like the Jianjing written by Ming general Yu Dayou or the tale of the Lady of Yue, were the hard and soft complement each other.
During the republican period martial skills were emphasized in order to prepare against the Japanese; after the opening of the Central National Arts Academy, Zhongyang Guoshu Guan, two national examinations were organized. The examinations, according to professor Ma “placed an equal demand on set-performance and combat training and emphasized the integral relationship between the two, stressing that one should, (Xian Zi Wu, Hou Bi Shi, 先自舞 後比試); first dance on his own, then engage in competitive matches, which included both empty-hand and armed martial arts”. No theatre or religion were never part of the curriculum (unless we want to include the fact that pupils of the academy had to attend a morning Christian service). Several practitioners of the “internal” art of Xingyi Quan placed in the finals of the examinations. Martial arts, specially the so called “internal” martial arts had been hijacked by those who are too afraid to test their skills for real, and instead prefer to live in fairy land. Just my two cents."

And William and his wife are involved in other writing projects:

"I have been researching quiet about CMA, and have more material including primary sources. My wife and I recently published a survey book in Spanish on CMA history based on English and Chinese material scatter everywhere. We have been also blessed with the frienship of scholars like Stanley Henning, Meir Shahar, Andrew D. Morris, Dennis Rovere, Ma Lianzhen and his father, Brian Kennedy and Elizabeth Guo who have helped us a lot. We are working on publishing a few articles and a book on the Central National Arts Academy in English.
CMA is a very interesting topic that requires thorough research from many sources."

Good luck with your projects William,
And it's always good to touch bases with a training partner that has thrown me to the mat a few dozen times!

Cute Hippie Chick Of The Month: Nature Lovers Edition

Ah yes fellow Dojo Rats, it's that time again - Cute Hippie Chick Of The Month!
It's the first of June, time to grab a cute hippie chick and explore the great outdoors!

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