Bin Laden: "Too Tall for Judo"

From Reuters News, c/o "Raw Story"

Osama bin Laden a serious student: Taiwan judo coach

"TAICHUNG, Taiwan (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden stood out not just because of his height but because of his serious, conservative demeanor, according to a Taiwan man who says the al Qaeda leader, killed by U.S. troops on Monday, was a student in his judo classes in Saudi Arabia.
Jimmy Wu, a top Taiwan judo coach, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a tournament in the central city of Taichung that he came across bin Laden when coaching the Saudi Arabian national judo team from 1981 to 1991.
Bin Laden, whom Wu then knew only as "Osama," attended classes at the judo center while still a university student. He was too tall for judo, and Wu said he advised him against the sport, but he was insistent so Wu accepted him."
(snip)
"Wu showed Reuters photographs of himself and a tall, thin, bearded, serious young man with a mop of black hair whom he said was Osama. Osama attended lessons two to three times a week but Wu never saw him again after 1984.
Reuters has no way of verifying that the man in the pictures was bin Laden.
Bin Laden was shot dead by U.S. forces in Pakistan on Monday. He had been on America's most wanted list since his followers carried out the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001."

More at link above

Photo Credit

(D.R.)--Disclaimer:
Even Reuters could not verify the picture, and I question whether someone could get a Black Belt (as shown in the picture) in just a few years.

UPDATE:

Here's a Reuters Video that may verify the story

Tai Chi Chuan: What is it Missing?

Tai Chi Chuan: What is it Missing?

I started Tae Kwon Do (Korean Karate) in 1979 and got to Second Dan Black Belt with eight years in the system. After moving out of Oregon I found a Kenpo school and reached Third Dan. Fortunately, one of the instructors was also a Yang-style Tai Chi Chuan practitioner, and had a friend who taught us some Bagua. Monday and Wednesday was Kenpo, Saturday was Aikido, and Sunday was Tai Chi and Bagua. It was a pretty full schedule.
As injuries and age set in, I dedicated myself to trying to understand the subtleties of the softer internal arts, and Tai Chi Chuan became a full-time art for me.
I love to research and compare, so I started collecting everything I could find on Tai Chi Chuan - books, videos, visits to other instructors. As the years went by I felt I had started to internalize my movements and developed better sensitivity to opponent’s movements. While the hard-style arts were pretty easy to understand, the subtle techniques in Tai Chi were difficult to grasp. Sure, there was still punching and kicking, but it avoided direct clashing and relied on yielding skills.
And here-in-lies the problem; in Tai Chi Chuan the focus is so dependent on yielding skills, many students never really learn how to return power. Even the push-hands tournaments that are run in the United States have too many rules and none of the body-slams used in Asia. Actually hitting an opponent is virtually nonexistent in most Tai Chi classes. Tai Chi had become all Yin and no Yang.
For this reason, many of the old Tai Chi masters also trained in Xingyi (more hitting) and Bagua (more grappling). There were stories about one of the Yang sons considering suicide because his Tai Chi training was so intense. In those days, handling a spear or sword was a survival skill.
Times have changed, but life is still difficult and the streets are still rough.
The stress of guarding caravan shipments has changed to dealing with co-workers, hard economic times and the rat-race of modern life. Tai Chi Chuan has become a valuable way to decompress from a fast pace and turn inward to experience ourselves. But what about the martial art aspect?
Tai Chi is supreme at developing yielding skills. When I have taught classes, new women students always get a better start than the men, they are naturally more supple and adapt to yielding better. Women do however, have a harder time turning on the power when needed. Men can turn on the power, but need to learn yielding skills. Students with a hard-style background like I had can really benefit from learning the yielding. It takes time and patience, but eventually it comes along. People who have only practiced Tai Chi Chuan can benefit by either training in Boxing (hitting target pads) or Xingyi (developing aggressive Kung Fu). Everyone should have some practice in safely falling to the ground and returning to their feet.
So if you are an aging hard-stylist, You can get a lot out of the meditative and yielding skills of Tai Chi Chuan. It will make you a better martial artist.
If you have practiced Tai Chi Chuan as your only martial art, it would serve you well to practice hitting target pads and do some actual sparring.
Proper Tai Chi Chuan is not just Yin, it is both Yin and Yang.

Here are two resources for developing martial skill in Tai Chi Chuan:

Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming's website - lots of good books and videos

Tim Cartmell's excellent series on Sun-style Tai Chi Chuan - principles and applications that apply to all Tai Chi systems

My instructor Michael Gilman has some very detailed videos at the website for The Gilman Studio

Bush Gave Up On Bin Laden; Obama Got The Job Done

Let's not forget moments like this, where the self-described "Commander Guy" admits that "I don't know where he (Bin Laden) is, I just don't spend that much time on him".

More to the point, journalists like Gareth Porter have proved that capturing or killing Bin Laden was never a priority for Bush and Cheney, they had other plans.
From Gareth Porter in "The Asia Times":

"Had the Bush administration's priority been to capture or kill the al-Qaeda leadership, it would have deployed the necessary ground troops and airlift resources in the theater over a period of months before the offensive in Afghanistan began.

"You could have moved American troops along the Pakistani border before you went into Afghanistan," said Lamm. But that would have meant waiting until spring 2002 to take the offensive against the Taliban, according to Lamm.

The views of Bush's key advisers, however, ruled out any such plan from the start. During the summer of 2001 Rumsfeld refused to develop contingency plans for military action against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, despite a National Security Presidential Directive that called for such planning, according to the 9-11 Commission report.

Rumsfeld and deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz resisted such planning for Afghanistan because they were hoping that the White House would move quickly on military intervention in Iraq. According to the 9-11 Commission, at four deputies' meetings on Iraq between May 31 and July 26, 2001, Wolfowitz pushed his idea to have US troops seize all the oil fields in southern Iraq."
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So there you have it; the Bush Administration never wanted Bin Laden, they played the 9-11 card to seize the oil fields in southern Iraq.
While elements of the right-wing media want to credit Bush in part for the Bin Laden hit, multiple news agencies reported that the trail for Bin Laden had "gone cold" in 2005.

Now, Obama can say "Mission Accomplished".

Cute Hippie Chick of the Month: Clowning Around Edition

Well, it's once again time for "Cute Hippie Chick of the Month".
This edition is dedicated to all those people who are completely freaked out by clowns...


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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:

Su Dong Chen: Entering Method

Here's a nice way of setting up what Tai Chi Chuan calls "parting wild horses mane".
Su Dong Chen has a very eclectic version of Internal Martial Arts, and this looks a lot like some of the entries Tim Cartmell teaches also.
The problem many Tai Chi guys have is being nearly completely immobile. I think it comes from too much fixed step (stationary) push hands, where opponents stay rooted and try to off balance each other.
I recently had some e-mails from "Bob", who asked how to neutralize gut punches from his son while they are doing some light sparring. Bob does Yang Tai Chi Chuan and push hands.
I encouraged him to bring his extended guard in closer as the opponent closes, to slip and cover rather than reach out to parry when the opponent is in hitting range.
This is non-traditional for an art like Tai Chi Chuan, but we gotta' use what works.
The second bit of advice relates to what I mentioned above: Don't get stuck in a root. Move evasively and root when you hit.
Likewise, as Su Dong Chen demonstrates above, "Call to get a response" - that is open with a hand attack to get the desired response from your attacker.
The projection Chen does on the student is actually more like the Xingyi "Rooster announces the dawn", where "parting wild horses mane" rotates the opponent over your lead leg/thigh. The entry principle is the same.
It is also like "Slant Flying", but I believe slant flying usually has your arm above the opponent's arm rather than below.

Machete Launcher

Man, I've been to two State Fairs and a Goat ropin' but I've never seen this:



This Dude must have some time on his hands; what do you reach for when you're out of 12-gauge shotgun shells, 9 mm bullets and that road flare and can of gasoline?
Why, your machete launcher of course!

Kids these days...