Warfox Bagua 錦園八卦掌

( This was an answer I gave to Micheal, who was wondering how to keep training forms with out growing stale. Thanks Micheal. All of your questions make my blog better.) Well much like the bicep curl, even though you do the same movement, the result is different. Repetition is like continually filling a large vase with a drop or two of water a day. Doing the same forms may not exhaust your body, but it will most certainly exhaust your brain...followed by your spirit. So what I do is think of the movements of a form like parts of a car. Sometimes it's best to isolate a single movement from the form and then place on the workbench so that it can be examined. Examining each movement under the lens of purpose. When you understand the purpose of the movement you can begin field testing it in other scenarios. For example take a single strike that you need to practice from the form. Then surround yourself with targets i.e. swinging heavy backs, fruit, falling leaves, shooting...

Every major transition in my life is naturally accompanied with a major transition or understanding of myself through my art. My training has acted as a compass that helps me find my next spot on the map of my kung fu quest. My goal ultimately is to use bagua as a medicine, tool or weapon to help those in need defeat their personal enemy. Any master can only plant the seed and it us up to the student to continue watering the movements through practice, meditation and research. I hope to use modern technology to my advantage in order to spread Bagua to as many people as possible through the course of my lifetime. This means that I don't know how long I will be able to linger in any one place at any given time. But every place I do touch, I will teach to whoever wants to learn. In the end of course there will be a school for the Tianwudao, or all martial artist that wish to unite for the purposes of learning, training and developing. In addition I'd like to make some comme...

When I was 5 years old my father instructed me to do some training that I wasn't particularly fond of. The details aren't important but you could say that it was an emphasis on my weakness and how to "train it out". I trained every day for at least two hours, but it seemed that I never had enough time for my weakness. Truth be told it wasn't a matter of time, it was a matter of pain. The weaker areas of the body begin screaming in agony after only a few seconds of exercising them. In fact it's so discouraging that the training eventually becomes completely overlooked. This happens easily because everything else that I continued to practice was always getting better. I spent the next 25 years enjoying and mastering my strengths. It wasn't until about 7 years ago that the master told me all of my strengths were being affected by my weakness. He told me that the only way that I would be able to improve, was by doing the exercises my father told me to do ...

I was sitting at starbucks catching up on some of the latest kung fu novels that I love so much when a few MMA guys sat in the seat right behind me. They had just finished a recent fight and were trading war stories about the different events that took place during their fight. "I think my eardrum is busted." One of them said while looking at the other three. "Stop complaining, you only think your eardrum is busted, I KNOW my ribs are broke." The other one said while they all snickered. They listed off different personal injuries and even made mention of some other fighters who weren't there that happened to be knocked out or beaten to a pulp. I listened and I felt bad for them as I turned and asked, "How long do you guys plan on doing martial arts?" "Oh it is just a young man's sport." One of them said. "The longest anyone can survive is about 10 years." One of the stronger men responded as the starbucks waitress ...

Recently I have been busy with many personal activities such as traveling and my wedding. I have learned that the most important kung fu is to enjoy every part of your life, for it is the way we say thanks to the lord for the daily gifts. I get excited for the tiniest details because I know in the long run they fit perfectly in to God's masterpiece. When something spectacular happens in my life, I am actually calm and at ease because I know there is nothing that my father is unable to do.  In the process of inhaling the daily joys that surround me I make sure to continue training daily. I never take a vacation from training because my training is a vacation within its self. Especially because I believe that every time you train in an new area you absorb the energy from that particular environment. This means that you should try to train in as many different places as possible to see more options of both yourself and your style. The other day I was practicing Xing Yi on a...

After training martial arts for five years, I learned how to fight. After training martial arts for ten years, I learned how to think. After training martial arts for fifteen years, I learned how to learn. After training martial arts for twenty years, I learned how to breathe. After training martial arts for twenty-five years, I learned how to see. After training martial arts for thirty years, I learned that I know nothing. It does seem that every five years that my training changes in nature along with the way I perceive the world. It was as if after the first five years I stepped through a doorway and found the value of my skills. I was able to fight with more than one opponent at a time and had to in many instances. My focus was kicking harder and punching faster. Basically doing whatever needed to be done to leave the fray unscathed. When I stepped through the next door, I found there were many other doors. Fighting was no longer the best option for each situati...

Since the age of four years old, the longest time period I have gone without training was a month. Throughout my school years and traveling to Asia, I have been blessed to always have motivation. When I was child it was because I was fighting almost daily, but later it changed to a new type of combat.  Being oppressed as a child created a fire in my heart to become more. To quote Knight, one of the Tianwudao, "Life is like a bow and arrow, the more they hold you back, the farther you can fly." This philosophy has been the core of my being for most of my life. I trained hard so that one day I could show people a black hero on TV that I was never able to see as a youth. I was sick of gangsters being the role models for rap, so I began rapping. I learned Chinese because there were so many that told me that it was an impossible language. While I was teaching martial arts in the university they called me War. It was fitting because I was really at war in every aspect of my ...