New Training Schedule at Seattle's NW Jiu Jitsu Academy

Over at "The Ground Never Misses", my friend and Xingyi instructor Jake Burroughs announces exciting new changes:

"Brian Johnson is expanding the NW Jiu Jitsu Academy to almost triple his square footage, giving us another matted training floor, and a large workout area that will include various weights and equipment essential to martial arts conditioning and endurance training.
Along with this expansion, I am also happy to announce an expanded training schedule that I will be offering at the NW Jiu Jitsu Academy for those wishing to improve their striking and stand up skills. I will be offering three different formats starting July 2nd:

Kickboxing –
Develop pinpoint accuracy along with devastating power using kicks, punches, elbows, and knees. Whether you are looking for a calorie-burning workout, or you want to learn fundamental striking for self-defense as you are working your butt off this class will address all of your fitness and training goals!

Essential Combatives –
Continuing where kickboxing leaves off, Combatives class uses strikes to enter into clinch range where students train throws, takedowns, ground proofing, and the essentials of self-defense. Ideal for women and those wishing to take a more realistic approach to your self-defense training, combatives will challenge you mentally and physically.

Pekiti Tirsi Kali –
Filling in the final gap in modern day self defense one must address the weapon factor. Pekiti Tirsia Kali is considered the most technical bladed art to ever come out of the Philippine Islands, and it addresses all ranges of combat as well as all types of weapons. Learn a traditional Filipino weapon-based art in a safe and fun environment.

Instructor Jake Burroughs (left), the late Mike Martello, and myself


If you are in the Seattle area and are looking for diverse, efficiant training contact Jake at:

Three_harmonies@hotmail.com

Xingyi Chicken Form

I made a day trip down to see my Xingyi instructor, Jake Burroughs, north of the mean streets of Seattle yesterday.
On the agenda was learning my sixth of the animal forms in our Xingyi system. This was the chicken, or as I like to call it; The Fighting Cock!
The Chicken/Rooster/Cock form is a flowing but powerful set with applications that include fist, palm and knee strikes, a projection, a cross-body arm-drag throw, evasive movement and eye gouging. As usual, in review of my training video I really look like a stumble bum when I first learn these forms, but after weeks of practice it starts to smooth out.
After about an hour and-a-half of form and applications, we finished with Jake beginning to teach me Tim Cartmells "Ground-proofing" system. This is geared to provide strategy for what to do when you are knocked to the ground, how to safely return to a fighting position on your feet, etc.
This is an important aspect to get my 51-year-old wrestlers body used to ground fighting again.

If you are interested in this kind of training in the Seattle area, contact Jake through his Blog "The Ground Never Misses" and "Three Harmonies Martial Arts Center". Jake's a great instructor.


And if you doubt the fighting ability of Chickens, here is a re-post of my Turkey vs. Rooster story from 2009: "Turkeys; Fear The Lowly Rooster!"

When I was running the farm down in Oregon, I had lots of animals, many of which tasted pretty good.
One year I bought six Turkey chicks. Out of the six, one died right away. I fed them out, and when Thanksgiving rolled around I butchered two and a friend butchered a third for himself. That left two very lucky Turkeys.
As it happened to be the Presidency of George Bush senior, I named the male George, and the female Barbara. I figured I'd keep them around until we needed to eat 'em.
All winter long I watched with disgust as the birds drug themselves through the mud at the farm, eating bugs and wheat shoots coming up in the field. They didn't look so appetizing as they battled winter storms and made themselves a general nuisance.
Winter turned into spring, a new girlfriend (now my wife) moved in and the nuisance became a hazard. It seems that Barbara couldn't stand having another female to compete with, and took to flying up in my sweetheart's face. At thirty pounds, that's something to watch out for. I gave her what we called "the Barbara stick" which my sweetie swung mightily and beat some respect into that bitch Barbara.
Now George on the other hand, well he became the life of the party. He would chase anything with a motor. Tractors. Cars. Lawnmowers. Anything.
We would have parties where George would wander in and out between the legs of the guests and stomp his feet and hiss. My buddies would pour beer on his head just to watch him turn purple with feigned Turkey rage. George thought he was top cock.
At times when I let my chickens out to free-range, George decided he hated one of the Roosters. He was at least three-times the Rooster's size, and chased him relentlessly for weeks on end.
Finally the Rooster had had enough, and learned how to fight back. While George the Turkey would try to use his size and weight to bear down and stomp the Rooster, the Rooster figured out how to expertly duck under the Turkey's wing and come up spurring from George's blind side. Over and over he bloodied that Turkey George, and before long it was the Rooster that was top cock. Now we watched with amusement as the Rooster chased huge George the Turkey all over the farm.
Lesson learned?
The mobility, agility and sheer willpower of the Rooster overcame the immense bulk of George the Turkey.

And here's Lou De Xiu performing a very dynamic version of the Xingyi Rooster:

The Continuing Education Of The Dojo Rats

San Ti Posture

As if we didn't have enough on our plate...
Sometimes you say "oooh, that looks good. I'll have five scoops"!
In reality, you could only handle three scoops.
***********
Across the board, the guys in our little Dojo have been past hard Karate stylists. Backgrounds include Tae Kwon Do, Kenpo, Kajukenbo, Jujitsu, Goju-Shorei and a little Boxing, Judo and Aikido thrown in.
About 1996 or so, some of us started practicing Tai Chi Chuan with one of our instructors, closely followed with an intro to Bagua. As time marched on, several of us sought out further instruction in those "internal" arts, resulting in our long-time friendship with Tai Chi Chuan instructor Michael Gilman, and our new friendship with instructors Jake Burroughs, Mike Martello and Tim Cartmell.
Something was lacking in our old hard-style arts: perhaps it was the health aspects and the Mystique of Chi Gong and Acupressure meridian theory. Or possibly the meditative side of the internal arts, or the use of "whole body power". Internal arts hooked us, and I haven't seen anybody practice a hard-style form for years.
Which brings us to the five big scoops I tried to put on our plate.
I have felt for a while that if I was going to have a more complete understanding of the Chinese Internal arts, I needed to explore Xingyi. I had one Xingyi linking form that had been taught to me by a Karate instructor. That form, "Walk the Tiger", came from a Wado-Ryu teacher in Taiwan named Watanabe. It's lineage is of unknown origin, and the guy who taught me years ago could not provide much information about it.
"The thing I need to do", think'eth The Rat, "is learn the basic Five-Element forms", which are the basis for nearly every Xingyi system. So I grabbed Zac, our youngest Black Belt and we cruised down to Seattle to visit Jake Burroughs for what became a four-hour class. Now, while these forms are very linear in appearance and are straight-foward and direct, I was decieved by their inherent complexity (Que Jake Burroughs Cheshire Cat smile). Five Elements, Five scoops on the plate. No problem. Whoah... I think I'm getting kinda full here.
Jake patiently walked us through the first three forms: Pi Chuan (splitting fist, metal), Beng Chuan (crushing fist, wood) and Zhuan Chuan (Drilling fist, water). Normally, you could spend weeks just training in one of those forms, with the subtleties and wide range of applications. At three forms, we were pretty much maxed out, and we still will need much correction and application instruction. But, the exploration of these forms does indeed help me to view the complexity of internal arts, even those with outwardly simple postures - and that's exactly what I was looking for.
It's going to take repeated visits to train with Jake to gain deeper understanding of Xingyi, an art that looks simple but is so, so much more. If we can get a handle on this art, we will have the linear, whole-body striking of Xingyi, the spiral movement and grappling of Bagua, and the softness of Tai Chi Chuan which incorporates all these qualities.
So for now, I'm going to have to put those other two scoops, the "pounding fist" and the "crossing fist" back on Jake Burroughs' generous serving plate. They'll be there when we're ready, after we work on the first three.
If you would like to see information on Xingyi and the other martial arts Jake Burroughs teaches, take a look here at the website for "Three Harmonies Martial Arts Center".

Check Out Jake Burroughs New Blog And Website

Jake Burroughs, Second From Right

Hey! My buddy Jake Burroughs has finally got a new website up, with lots of great information on Chinese Martial Arts and some great photos also. Jake has worked tirelessly to bring world-class master instructors in Mantis, Xing Yi and Bagua, along with top-level Brazilian Jujitsu instructors to the Seattle area. The link for the new "Three Harmonies Martial Arts Center" can be found at THIS LINK.
Also, take a spin over to Jake's new Blog "The Ground Never Misses", which profiles guest instructors and seminars. Also included this month are video links and analysis of grappling tournaments in which Jake and Brian Johnson of NW Jiu Jitsu Academy competed in. Lots more good stuff at "The Ground Never Misses"!