Strange and Rat's Excellent Adventure

A Couple of Ugly Mugs


Hell, I knew I was in for it.
He's bigger than me.
He's about 16 years younger than me.
He's a Texan.
He's a 5th Dan and practices Judo and Aikido.
He's capable of holding large quantities of alcohol quite well.
Oh, and I forgot to mention he's a magician.

Yes, He is often known as "Sensei Strange" at The Dragons Orb Website.

Strange and Rat have been long-distance friends for a while. We have traded compliments and barbs and like many of us on martial websites, we became friends.
Strange (His parents call him Eric) is on the journey of the warrior. Much like a hero in an ancient epic quest, Strange is wandering from Texas, through Oklahoma and to the far outskirts of the Dojo Rat Empire on a remote island on the Canadian border. He is hitting Dojo training on the way everywhere.

So Strange has been on this tour of drinking engagements disguised as martial arts seminars.
That works for me. When he showed up the first night, we had a nice mellow BBQ party which included a bunch of old people as well as a few local drinkers. We filled the Saloon and played into the wee hours.



Strange admitted to me that he was on a mission.
Agents deep within the New Confederacy had sent him up here to take me out.
Apparently, they were pissed off at me mocking Chuck Norris and that I had coined the term "Republifucks" to describe over-the-line so-called "Conservatives".
It seems they were truly pissed off.
Would he have warned me if he was going to kill me?
So I developed a strategy; Take Strange to a sauna /hot tub facility where there were naked hippie chicks.
Great distraction. Worked for a while.
There was only one tense moment where he looped his "Scarf of Death" around my neck from behind. Thankfully, it was a failed assassination attempt.
But for all you conservative guys who consider yourself in the "Republifuck" category, I got the message.
My next plan was to keep him intoxicated.



We toured our secret location and did about an hour of push-hands / kazushi unbalancing on the waterfront at the grounds of an expensive historic resort without getting arrested or kicked out by the staff. I only got knocked down once.
Strange, aside from his youth and size is a superior practitioner. I mentioned he is a magician, and I truly think that has a lot to do with his skill development.
He has the ability to think in non-linear ways in all respects. His push hands are unorthodox due to his Judo/Aikido training. This was great for me. We ran about an hour of standing grappling at the waterfront and then retreated for the comfort of our local Tavern.

It was late afternoon and we drank, snacked and then went back to my Saloon for more food, drinking and training.
Strange clearly outfights me in the clinch due to his judo skills. Our grappling range practice began to include leg traps and punching. I felt the only way I could keep my game going was with some controlled hitting, very soft and changing angles but keeping him off grappling range.
Whew!

We had a fantastic sparring session and after that everyone moved inside to drink in the Saloon and go through Knife stripping techniques.

Random drunk friend training with Strange



I am proud to have connected with a true friend and Martial Brother. He had traveled a long,long way to reach our little island and play.
This is the beauty and wonder of our interaction with others on the intertubenetwebs.
We had a wonderful martial and drinking visit, and I hope for many more;

Thanks Strange!

Sensei Strange on "Parting Wild Horses Mane"

Our buddy Sensei Strange produced this video in response to Tai Chi Chuan's "parting wild horses mane" a while back and is now re-introducing it to us.
I love the production quality he has, it makes my little videos look pretty crappy.
Here's a clarification on the difference in technique with the Aikido he demonstrates.
In Tai Chi Chuan, PWHM definitely rotates the waist throwing the opponent over your leg/thigh. The arm is typically under the opponent's arm. The rotation is the key, and you must be deep into the opponent's center. Strange does a great job at breaking the opponent's structure in his demo.
The curved arm position is called "Peng" or "Ward-off". He uses it correctly when his palm faces himself, with back of hand towards opponent.
When Strange uses his "Peng" arm to rotate or strike the opponent's head/face, it would be called "eyebrow mopping" in Chinese arts. It is particularly effective when used to turn the opponent's head/neck, where the head goes the body follows.
Likewise, if the projection is not over the leg in a rotating motion, and instead more linear, it would be more like "Slant Flying". In the previous Su Dong Chen video I posted he uses it more like that or with a shoulder strike..
It's fun to watch Strange flow through his motions, Aikido is beautiful to watch.

Here's some more of Su Dong Chen working the technique, note that he is using a linear projection, not rotating over the leg as in :parting wild horses mane".
Also note the hand strike set-up and the alternative take downs if things change:


And here's me and Zackey Chan doing a loop drill with this technique a few years ago:

Great Thread on Aikido's Ueshiba in China

Onisaburo (left) and Morihei Ueshiba (right) shackled in Mongolia

Jonathan Bluestein has started a great thread over at "The Rum-Soaked Fist", speculating that Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba may have picked up Bagua techniques and incorporated them in his Aikido.
As expected this is a hotly contested claim, and one I have also written about in "Is Aikido of Chinese Origin?"
While it's obvious that Aikido's roots are in Daito Ryu Aikijitsu, I see a valid explaination for Aikido's softer, more circular movement as strikingly similar to Bagua.

Here's an excerpt from the article I wrote (linked above) with comments by Ellis Amdur:

(Amdur): However, Ueshiba did observe Chinese martial arts. Takeda Hiroshi studied Ruyi Tongbei ch'uan from He Zhenfang in the 1920's and 1930's. Takeda published the first book on Tongbei ch'uan in 1936. Tongbei is a martial system that uses a very flexible upper body and whipping techniques with the arms, as if there is an axle from one shoulder to the other. Although I do not know if this is true in Takeda’s line, some Tongbei ch’uan traditions have staff and/or spear training with fajin practice as part of their system. According to the following website,

www.tongbei.homestead.comHistoryQiShiStyles.html,

"Interestingly, although the content in certain portions of the book are very clear, other parts are very puzzling and strange. Many believe the reason is that Master He did not really want to teach Takeda, and so he diverted the teaching on purpose. There is speculation that this happened because of the political situation between China and Japan at that time." In any event, Takeda stated in an interview in a Japanese martial arts magazine in the late 1980’s, that his home became a center, not only for practitioners of Chinese martial arts, but also for visiting Japanese martial artists, and among them was Ueshiba Morihei, who visited him in 1936. According to Okumura Shigenobu, “Yes, he went to Peking too. He saw various Chinese martial arts. There are good martial arts in China. Ueshiba sensei was impressed by them.” Let me be very clear here. I am not saying that I believe that Ueshiba studied under Takeda Hiroshi - or anybody else in Beijing. But it is possible that, in his visit to Beijing, that he observed such training either by Takeda Hiroshi or by some of his other compadres, and saw something of value that he could "steal." Remember, Ueshiba was the man of whom Sugino Yoshio stated that he could observe something once and see exactly what they were doing. In sum, what I am saying here is that the type of force-building and expression that I am loosely referring to as “fajin,” may have been something that Ueshiba did observe in China and integrate in his own way into his art — either as something new or as a augmentation or variation to what he had already learned."

Review: "The Gift Of Danger; Lessons From Aikido"

There are thousands of older, middle-aged folk out there that take up martial arts training, and Mary Stein is one of them.
In "The Gift Of Danger; Lessons From Aikido" Stein provides a social narrative on gaining confidence, partner interaction, and the path to self-improvement through the martial art of Aikido.
In this passage, she describes "finding a rhythm" with attackers:

"As they come, you can be there for the whole thing- the meeting, turning, and joining, the throw, their descent to the mat, all the way to the end, even if you linger there for only a fraction of a second before preparing for the next attack."

Stein continues on, comparing the action and rhythm on the mat with her struggle to learn Japanese from a audio tape, repeating each phrase, matching the rythym and moving immediately on to the next phrase.
In this way, Stein weaves the lessons from Aikido into her daily life.
"The Gift Of Danger" is inspirational for not only older people who take up martial arts, or women in martial arts, but to students of Aikido in general.
It's a short, sweet read that many may find of interest.

This book was provided for review by Blue Snake Books. You can find this and hundreds of other martial arts titles at their website highlited above.

Circular Or Linear? You Decide...

Our old buddy Pat over at Mokuren Dojo has an interesting post up titled "Pay attention; Aikido is not circular". Pat's contention is that there are no true circular (or linear) aspects in human movement. I say he is splitting hairs. That is in the context of, let's say a comparison to Shotokan Karate or Hsing-Yi, Both Aikido and Bagua are indeed composed of circular movement. Colin Wee made a good observation that perhaps a better distinction should be if the technique takes the opponent's center directly, or if it captures it and spins it off. The above video is one of my favorite Aikido demos, and I think it displays both linear and circular aspects beautifully.
Below is an example of Bagua circle-walking. The best example of circles-within -circles begins around two minutes in:

So perhaps Pat and I are BOTH splitting hairs, but I have been involved in far more linear martial arts, and they did not employ the amount of circular movement demonstrated in both videos above.
Click the link above to Pat's discussion for his views and the excellent comments that follow...

Chin Na in Israel

Here's one for Bob over at "Striking Thoughts", who is currently enrolled in a very painful Chin na school right now...

We know that Israel is the home of the ultimately practical "Krav Maga" self-defense system, but it looks like there's a few good Internal artists there also!
"In this clip, Efi Dinar, from the Nanking Tai Chi School of martial arts in Israel, demonstrates only a few of the various techniques taught in the ancient art of Chin Na".
-- I love the concepts and movement. Notice about half-way through when the "attacker" spins out of the shoulder/elbow lock, the instructor demonstrates several ways to salvage the technique for a takedown.
My only criticizm would be that these techniques are pretty hard to set up against a resisting opponent, unless you have a set-up strike first.
STRIKE TO LOCK, LOCK TO STRIKE-
While stylisticly different, you see here many techniques that would also be found in Aikido and traditional Jujitsu.