Last spring I visited Jet Li on the set of The One. They were shooting nights, in an old abandoned factory south of Los Angeles. Rusty water dripped, paint was peeling off the ancient pipes. I even had to wear a hardhat. Not a good hair day. When I came in Jet and Corey Yuen, his action choreographer, and a handful of other Hong Kong stuntmen, were busy blocking out a complex wirework stunt. After ...
Author: Martha Burr
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In June 1992 a group of prominent Chinese martial arts leaders met in San Francisco to discuss the possibility of establishing a national governing body for Chinese martial arts in the United States. After a year of public backslapping and private bickering, the United States of America Wushu Kung Fu Federation (WFK) has become a reality. Its goad is to unify the fragmented world of Chinese martia ...
Author: Annabelle A. Udo
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When Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon pushed martial arts movies into the Oscar spotlight, it also exposed one of China's most cherished martial treasures, Wudang Mountain. Nestled in the heart of the mainland in Hubei Province, Wudang Mountain is a famous center for Taoism and is believed to be the birthplace of Tai Chi Chuan. According to legend, Tai Chi (spelled Taiji in modern Mandarin) was crea ...
Author: Gene Ching
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Witness Master He Jing-Han's bagua with a trained eye and you can see the skill that a novice observer might miss. His posture appears effortless so it looks quite simple. In fact, his poses don't appear uncomfortable at all until you try to mimic it. He twists his body beyond the normal range while staying completely relaxed and strong. Here is a body that has been manipulated through years of pr ...
Author: Gene Ching
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The "internal" martial arts stress relaxation in their directives for achieving the "internal strength" which is the differentiating factor of these martial sets. There are valid reasons for this relaxing, sometimes referred to as "sung".
[standing paths]
1. The mechanical efficiencies of peng and connection in the internal arts are dependent upon the optimum joint angles which tr ...
Author: Mike Sigman
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