Mind Body Kung Fu

“You can’t fire a cannon from a canoe.” I originally came across this phrase in a strength training context. While martial arts and strength training sometimes don’t mesh nicely, they are both still physical skills and share some common principles. I found this little pearl of wisdom to apply equally well in both contexts. It…

At the point of contact, you want to be able to generate at least two energies: one attacking the structure and one attacking the mass. The why and how of this may not be immediately obvious, but the principle behind this “fork” energy can be understood via simple models. As a first pass to understanding,…

“Son of man, you live in the midst of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house.” ~Ezekiel 12:2 (New American Standard Bible) A good portion of learning I-Liq Chuan is learning to recognize what you are seeing.…

Mistakes are part of the training process. Stumbling a bit while exploring beyond your comfort zone is par for the course. Recognizing the mistakes and correcting them is essential to make progress. I didn’t see my mistakes at the time (hindsight is 20/20). Looking back on my training, I’ve made plenty of mistakes that were…

I haven’t given the question much thought in a while since I had already long since decided to focus on ILC.  But now that I teach as well as study the art, it is a question I have to answer with some regularity. After I was recently asked about the specific distinguishing characteristics of ILC, I…

One of the things that I find painful to observe when I go to the gym is watching people do squats.  It’s a basic movement that gets butchered since our sedentary lifestyles have made us forget how to move from the hips.  Instead, what happens when people squat is mostly poorly coordinated movements starting from…

Achieving proficiency in a martial art requires certain abilities.  However, the abilities themselves do not equate to high level proficiency.  To achieve mastery of an art requires developing skill.  Skill and ability are related concepts, but are distinct.  The difference between the two is subtle, and I have not always had the best explanation to distinguish…

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out fajin, but you might want to use a little rocket math to understand it. The force equation is a fundamental relationship for understanding how rockets get off the ground.  In the last blog post, we left off mentioning how we need acceleration to generate enough…