Tai Chi Disco-nnect

Ha, ha...
"The ZhongZhen" sent this to my YouTube inbox. I'd never seen it before and it's pretty funny.
Martial legend Bruce Frantzis provides a great self-deprecating performance of Tai Chi Chuan and dance.
The cool thing is, Martial movement does make us better dancers.
In the words of "The E-Trade Baby" (commercial) I was "a terrible, terrible dancer; Haunting".
But honestly, once I started Tae Kwon Do at age 20, I got more comfortable with body movement. I'm sure people had to stay the hell out of the way of my elbows, but at least I became a passable dancer.
Of course, much like a fine wine, my dancing just gets better. If I could only get off this bar stool...

Three Nice Visits

Internal Arts Expert Bruce Frantzis

We've had some interesting visits from some great martial artists in the last few weeks;
While discussing Bagua and Expert Bruce Frantzis, we had some very interesting commentary by Jess O'Brien, author of "Nei Jia Quan- Internal Martial Arts"
Jess's comments on the fusion of Bagua and Aikido, and what Aikido practitioners might find useful in exploring Chinese internal arts can be found HERE.
While refering to Bruce Frantzis, I neglected to include a link to his website and was contacted by Erin Gilton, who asked if I would post a link. Bruce Frantzis has an incredible history in the Internal arts, and lived and trained with many famous masters in China, Taiwan and Japan. He has a new addition to his famous book "The Power Of Internal Martial Arts and Chi" which is updated with the emphisis on Chi. He also has many new titles out, including "The Chi Revolution". The Energy Arts Website for Bruce Frantzis can be found HERE.
Nando Raynolds (Website here) wrote in to let us know about his new book "The Push Hands Workbook- Tai Chi Partner Movement For Sport And Personal Development". The book is spiral bound so you can open it flat for reference while you practice, and has a written recommendation from my Tai Chi Chuan instructor and push-hands champion, Michael Gilman. I hope to review it soon!
We also had a nice e-mail from fitness trainer and SanShou expert Wim Demeere, who wanted to let us know about the release of his Six-dvd series on "Combat SanShou". His main website is HERE, and his blog with reviews and commentary can be found Here. If you surf through his various web pages you'll see some photos of great knockouts, and clips from his brutal "Combat Sanshou" videos. It looks like there's a lot of great Martial Arts coming out of Belgium these days (Watch out, Mike Martello!)
Thanks everybody, for checking in. I'll try to get a little better at including links!

Bruce's Bagua

Here is the great Bruce (B.K.) Frantzis showing some Bagua applications.
While this particulear video is not the best quality, it will give the viewer an idea of movement and application. This is an example of how similar Aikido is to Bagua, and one reason Uyeshiba may have been inspired to create Aikido after viewing Bagua in China. Here's what Frantzis has to say:
"Everything changes. Every moment in time is unique unto itself. Every moment in time carries a shadow of the past and in many ways the future is nothing more than a projection of the past. What happened before is going to happen again, although in exactly what way is hard to predict.
The nature of change is that you have to have the capacity for it. Whether you're trying to go from one chi gung movement to the next, from walking the ba gua circle to changing directions, going from one meditative state to another or going from one event in life to another, you must be able to change".