Pheurton Skeurto

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Posts posted by Pheurton Skeurto

  5. Posted

    Biff,

    if you mean J.C when you say Pak John,I have a lot of reasons to beleive that he relays in Full Lotus,as Level 1 Lotus meditation is an exersice for life regardless the Level achieved.

    There was another thread few months ago about the Full Lotus position and a lot was written.

    In Inner alchemy the full lotus must be used in combination of certain mudras. Although half lotus is more easier and also the simple cross leg stance,you have a lot of unlocked points that redirect the chi to be wasted or circulated among the body instend to be stored in Dan Tien .

    In general I agree with drewhempel , one unit of achievment in full lotus, needs 3 times more time in half lotus and 20 times more time when just X-legged.

    From the other hand ,full lotus is just the one way that you have to follow depending on goals and school that followed.

     

    I was going to drum up a reply to this thread, but Chen has pretty much nailed it. It also has to do with pressure in the upper portion of your body (and maintaining that pressure). Also, women can generally get away with 1/2 Lotus in all schools, whereas us guys have to go all the way. Bummer for us.

  6. Posted

    I was listening to the latest NOMEANSNO album yesterday, and I am becoming more & more convinced that Rob has been studying Buddhism... it's all over the record once you think to listen for it.

     

    NOMEANSNO is also not for your average dinner party... in case anyone is thinking about looking around for some.

  10. Posted

    Thanks I beleive a good healthy non killing diet is half the battle for enlightenment, the rest is a strong body, mind and spirit through proper training, meditations, and energy work connecting with the elements.

     

    Ape

     

    I couldn't agree more with this point of view. Spot on.

     

    I am not sure if you are in the USA (I'm not) but if you are, I would suggest getting this:

     

    http://www.mynaturalmarket.com/nutiva-hemp...691ca1f991f32ab

     

    Forget about whatever else is in protein powders (casein, egg whites, etc.)... this stuff is all you will need.

     

    Also, as has been stated above, read The China Study.

     

    I will tell you from first hand experience.... you will hear people shooting down veggie diets for your entire life, however, when it comes time for you to sit there in meditation and pull all of that shit out of your bone marrow.. you will realize why you went vegetarian. Oh it's still going to hurt, but you're going to see results a lot faster than many others will.

     

    Only then will you truly realize why people who argue "if you can eat spinach, you can eat pigs because they are both 'alive'" totally have no idea what they are talking about.

     

    But hey, don't take my word for it.... as with all things, investigate this for yourself.

     

    Prove it to yourself.

     

     

    Train like a mofo dude.

     

    Cheers!

  11. Posted

    I am at a loss as to why getting the books discussed in this thread is so difficult for many people. It isn't like you are finding stone carved manuscripts in far-off caves underneath waterfalls. This is the damn Internet! GOOGLE, people.

     

    I have purchased all of the books discussed here on Amazon-esque websites using perfectly legitimate means. Instead of downloading everything, why not try actually buying the books and supporting the authors and the publishers who make this stuff available. Gee, I guess it's only the afterlife we're talking about.. no biggie... I'll just grab this along with that new Kanye .mp3.

     

    It's like meeting your favourite band and then telling them "Hey, I totally DOWNLOADED your whole album last week for free!" Looks REEEAL good....

  13. Posted

    Yep... Cymatics. Great stuff. I studied this stuff for a couple of years and I still love it. The video clips are from Hans Jenny's research video footage. If anyone's interested in getting more info on this, I'd suggest Cymaticsource. Jeff Volk is pretty much THEE flag-waver here in North America for this stuff.

     

     

    Want to know what Mandalas really are? Investigate this stuff...

     

    http://www.cymaticsource.com/

  14. Posted

    I saw this on the internet and so ...

     

    sign.jpg

     

    I've been to Bruce's grave a few times, there are usually flowers there.

     

     

    I also find it funny that whoever took the time to Photoshop this gem together has obviously failed to realize that, while Bruce was extremely proficient in Mantis, there is no Mantis in JFJKD!

     

    This little image seems to imply that the man who taught Bruce Mantis actually taught him JKD. Which passes well into the realm of the ridiculous. People's Egos are funny things....

  15. Posted · Edited by Pheurton Skeurto

    The fact that he's in his late 90s and still agile...is more impressive to me than martial ability. Longevity and preserving your health against the ravages of time is the far bigger threat we all face today. By that criteria, very few people even make it to their 90s today, much less while still active.

     

    I think trapping is an intermediate stage between hitting and qin na. Like hit first, trap second and qin na last. Although ideally you may never need to go past hitting...

     

    I wholeheartedly agree with all of the above.

     

    Also, for anyone who's been following this - some cool news from HK:

     

    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090107/...ruce_lee_s_home

  19. Posted

    I found this yoga routine that I wanted to share because it has made me able to sit in the full lotus afterwards, which for me, with a damaged knee and my extremely stiff norwegian hips, was a great achievement.

     

    http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=9...annel=301783449

     

    Its yoga for the hips and takes just about 20 min.

     

    It would also be interesting to hear if someone else has some other techniques they use to be able to do the full lotus. My guess is that Drew, the full lotus guru, might have(if he hasnt told us allready somewhere)? :)

     

    Hey. I know that this post is a year old now, but is there a chance that someone captured this video (or that they know of another working link)?

     

    Thanks.

  20. Posted

    "Efficiency" is a not an issue here. What WC outsiders derisively call "trapping" only happens in WC semi-freestyle sparring (i.e. playing around), and it happens when two WC people compete for the line. Even then, "trapping" is a poor description of the action and the intent. This is my experience FWIW.

     

    Outside of a training context, WC is not heavy on trapping, it is heavy on beatings. But I'm sure you all knew that. :)

     

    haha.. for sure. I know some pretty proficient WC practitioners and they are not pushovers. Regardless, a lot of trapping is pushed, now and in the past, as an aspect of self-defence. Also, keep in mind that just because Bruce effectively did away with trapping doesn't mean that I can say that it's pointless to trap (or to bother learning some counter-trapping measures). However, it would be rather short-sighted to think that once a person is in a fight situation that they are bound to start using "all of that great trapping we drilled in class!". That's just not a realistic way of going about things. Most of the trapping that we see is related to WC, so once you start to connect the dots, the semantics just take a person down the Wing Chun road.

     

    I just wanted to be a bit more precise on this. But I think that most of the people reading this are following the thinking here anyway...

  22. Posted

    Well that's cool... But what is seemingly being overlooked here is that when you play any single note on an instrument, it's not the "note" that you are hearing. You are hearing a chord. It is impossible to speak of timbre (and of a note produced in that timbre) and not be speaking of chords.

     

    The only way you can hear a note (say, A=440) is to head to set up a signwave generator and have it play that frequency to you (even then you risk a crappy speaker affecting the sound). The moment you introduce an instrument into the equation, you have moved into the realm of chords. Each note is really a chord because timbre and tone are created by partials and overtone interference.

     

    Talking of single notes in music is like trying to be the neutral observer in a physics experiment.

     

    It's just not a reality.

  23. Posted · Edited by Pheurton Skeurto

    Yes, by locking up I meant trapping, I guess, if when you trap someone you get their arms locked so they can't move, and sometimes their legs too.

    The reason I was wonderinng about these things is I'm trying to find out how similar JKD and Yueng Chuan are because JKD looks external while Yueng Chuan is similar but has the internal added to it..

     

    Trapping is always a sensitive topic in "JKD". Everyone knows that Bruce had his base in Wing Chun. It is also no secret that WC is heavy on the trapping and the Chi Sao. So since Bruce had many elements of WC in his Jun Fan Gung Fu (and subsequently in the transition period between JFGF and JFJKD), JKD Concepts people will argue to the DEATH that trapping is Jeet Kune Do. Which is hilarious because there is documented proof that Bruce did away with trapping fairly early on in JKD's evolution. However, when you are sold an Apple, and you want to tell people it's an Orange.. you'll do everything including painting the orange red in order to save face.

     

    Bruce wasn't backing trapping because he began to realize that it was not at all efficient. Firstly, your opponent has to give you their arm/hand/wrist in order to get the trap sequence going. And I don't know about anyone else, but if you've ever been in a bar fight, no one is handing you anything (except maybe your own ass if you don't have your wits about you). Plus by the time the punch comes, you train (in JKD) to slip it, duck it, distance yourself back from it, and lastly block it. As is said, in JKD: No block is the highest level of blocking.

     

    When your speed is that of Bruce's (literally blinding) there is no time to get caught up in a trapping session. Might one happen anyway? Yes. So there are one or two little gems from trapping that are discussed and drilled a bit in JKD. These moves are generally one part (at most two part) traps. I can only think of one 2-part trap at the moment... and about three 1-part moves. That's probably it, truthfully.

     

     

    I will also confirm that JKD is as external as it gets. As has been said many times, Jeet Kune Do is essentially a Western Martial Art. Bruce was fiercely proud of his heritage, but he felt that there was a better way to fight "man to man", as it were.

     

    However, there are aspects of being a JKD practitioner that I feel cannot be achieved as long as you stay in the realm of the external.

     

    I have seen two or three photos of Bruce sitting full lotus, one outdoors in some strangely public location, another inside somewhere, and one on a dock (p. 123 of The Tao Of Gung Fu). However I have gone to a very knowledgeable source and asked about Bruce's meditation habits. From what I have been told, even though it is "highly likely" that Bruce did meditate, it was never discussed... not even with his closest and most trusted friends.

     

    I imagine that that is a question that only Linda Lee (or maybe Shannon) could answer. If I ever get the chance, you can bet that I'm going to ask about it.

     

     

     

    I wasn't referring to drawing when I said balance stealing. Balance stealing is something you do during their punch which makes them loose their balance, and holding them on the edge of balance, which makes them helpless. If their arms are free they'll be waving those around in circles trying to regain their balance, and they make a sound like "erk" every time.

     

    It's like when someone goes to push open a heavy door and someone else opens it from the other side, the first person will almost fall on their face. That's stealing their balance, sometimes we call it "making them fall in the hole". Once a super strong person with huge muscles tried to punch Dave. Dave made him fall in the hole, and the guy's reaction was to jump back twenty feet. Dave didn't even need to add a push, but that's when the push is added (in tai chi), when they recoil backwards. 20 ft may be a bit of an exaggeration.

     

    It's kind of like your description of drawing, in a way. It doesn't make them feel like they will have to over reach, it actually makes them over reach by blending with and assisting their movement.

     

    Alternately, you can steal their balance and use it to drop them right where they are. Balance stealing is a priority, because once you do it you can control the other easily.

     

    So, maybe it's like JKD but sneakier.

     

    Ahh yes, well I totally get what you are saying here now. Sounds like an interesting technique, but it's not one used or taught in JKD. The closest thing to that would be, say; the punch is coming, and you snap back just enough to avoid it and, as your opponent's fist is retracting, your body (head, fist, body) is effectively mirroring that motion - by following the fist back the way it came so that as soon as your opponent's fist is retracted, you are already hitting them in the head/body with your own fist. If you are fast enough and your timing is really good, you will hit them before they know what happened.

     

    Bruce Lee maintained that he was by far not the fastest martial artist on the block, but that his timing was better than 98% of the people he'd ever witnessed in the fighting arts.

     

    Did he develop his timing through meditation? The world can speculate all they want, my only thoughts on that matter are, "if he was meditating, it wasn't hurting his cause."

     

  25. Posted

    Thanks, I enjoyed watching that, and I watched some other you tube videos of JKD. I can see Bruce taught very well, and the footwork, locking and fast movement punching I saw all look a lot like Yueng Chuan, but there's one thing I didn't see in the JKD videos, and that is the blending, yielding, and balance stealing that Yueng Chuan has. I suspect Bruce could do that too, but wonder if he did and if he taught it. Are there any examples of JKD that show a soft blending and balance stealing aspect?

     

    I'm glad that you enjoyed it. It was put together by Sifu's niece, but actually wasn't supposed to end up on YouTube... but there it is.. haha. Freeeakin' YouTube...

     

    I will urge you to be wary of the other "JKD" videos on YouTube. It is mostly Concepts and Jun Fan Gung Fu being tagged as JKD (or worse yet, some guy doing Muai Thay and claiming it's JKD). I will state for the record that Muay Thai is badassed, but it's not JKD.

     

    If by "balance stealing" you refer to "drawing" your opponent to the point where he mistakenly feels as though he has to overreach or overstep slightly to get to you then yes... that is taught in JKD. But if it's push-hands (or even Chi Sao) and all of that stuff, then no... it's not a part of JKD. It was a part of Jun Fan Gung Fu, but not JKD.

     

     

    I think the balance stealing is part of the tai chi and bagua that is blended in to Yueng Chuan. It's kind of like melting around the punchers fist, very sinuous and softly, so feminine, slinky coiling up their arm so softly they can't tell, melting into them and embracing them; so that about the time they expect their fist to hit your face your face is in their face, with you usually off to the side or behind them, with your hands around their neck or arms or poised for organ popping one inch strikes.

     

    Well, this vaguely sounds like stepping out and hitting simultaneously. And landing the strike before the foot touches the ground. Which is JKD. However, your description is far too romantic.... there is none of that in JKD.. it is far too practical for that. JFJKD pretty much has 98% of the esotericism sucked right out of it. JKD is based on pure physics and the most efficient body mechanics possible. Now note that this is keeping to the realm of Newtonian physics and Euclidian geometry.

     

    If you want to talk Qi, well then we're getting into quantum physics and Riemannian geometry. The two levels can co-exist happily... but JKD didn't use any Dan Tian or any mystery forces. Only torque, force, speed, and power.

     

    Does JKD have any of that kind of stuff or did Bruce teach it?

    The locking up of the puncher is what you do if you're their friend. After you explain to them all the different ways they are dead while you're holding them locked up they tend to loose the desire to try a second punch. However if you aren't their friend you can skip the locking part and just follow through with the application of choice and one is stealing their balance and making them 'fall'. They can be blasted down on the concrete at 100mph head first or let down easy.

     

    Bruce didn't ever teach any of that stuff to his later students who learned Jeet Kune Do. Some of the movements of which you speak may have been a part of Bruce's curriculum early on... and could likely be confirmed by going over Bruce's "Chinese Gong Fu" booklet (actually written by him). The "Tao" wasn't a book written by Bruce, per se. It is only a compendium of his notes and it's pretty much left up to the reader to sort out what is what. The "Tao" was released after his death. So it gets pretty easy to see why there is so much confusion about what JKD is and is not.

     

    In your above statement, are you talking about trapping? Because if so, that's a whole other ball of wax.

     

    I will also state that anyone saying that Bruce's students regularly hit him in sparring is out of their minds. No one, and I mean freaking no one (who tried), could touch Bruce. I honestly don't think that people these days can actually fathom how good Bruce Lee was. They just say, "oh whatevs" because there are currently like five people alive who are anywhere near Bruce's skill level (semi-publically) and those people aren't out there playing MMA either.. As a result, no one has a living specimen immediately at hand to use as a comparison.

     

    Anyway, I'd be interested to know what you mean about the "locking up" stuff...

     

    Cheers,

     

    /R

     

    I think you're on to something here. I studied Wing Chun in Baltimore. My teacher's teacher was William Cheung. Cheung visited us from time to time and I was usually his driver (not many of my classmates had cars). A a result I got to spend a fair amount of time with him. He was good friends with Bruce as kids and told me that he was the one that introduced Bruce to Yip Man and managed to get him accepted into the school. He described Bruce as being a very quick learner but much more interested in a career in movies than in fighting. Cheung said that Bruce was not as good a fighter as he was assumed to be in the US. He only learned a relatively small part of the Wing Chun curriculum before being asked to leave the school because of problems with other students. At least that's what Cheung told me (as best I can recall - it was about 20 years ago). Soon after, he came to the US, studied other arts and synthesized all of that into JKD. When you look at his history, though, it seems to me that acting was always his great love since childhood and was probably the inspiration for his martial arts training and dedication.

     

     

    ???

    VT/JKD