Six Harmonies United

Here is the Five Flower Leopard Form I demonstrated at the Traditional Chinese Martial Arts Federation Banquet back in 2017, seems like forever ago! Lots of fun down and up springing movements that develop strong legs and the mental focus of dropping away and springing in to attack, common with Leopard and Tiger forms in Eagle Claw Kung Fu

After hanging with Sifu Gus Gates at his school I got together with a few students from the LA eagle claw group to teach some form and locking techniques, what a fun trip, thanks to all

Throw back video from a few years ago, Kung Fu applications from the form and traditional partner exercises of

Another result of REGULAR kung fu and tai chi practice is the overall strength you develop if you train purposefully and honestly. I haven't squatted in almost a year due to an injury so I thought I'd see what I could do with just the strength from kung fu and tai chi. Did a set of 8 at 165 and thought 'that was easy'. Bumped it to 185 and was actually surprised it was not that bad though my depth wasn't great, so I grabbed my camera and did it again, in case I never squatted again 😆. Bumped it to 215 for 8, that was hard. These are baby numbers of course for powerlifters and my form needs work so apologies to Chip Conrad, my mentor at Fitness, maybe one of these actually counted as a legit squat.

Poor form aside, being able to lift well above your own body weight is a good metric for overall usefulness. Kung Fu & Tai Chi training builds a strong connection of the mind and body and gets the body used to working as a whole unit, I think its one of the great benefits to training. Tai Chi especially connects you greatly to the exact position of the body and its alignment with itself. I'm just an average person with limited skill, but it was fun to see how kung fu and tai chi develops strength that you aren't even specifically training.

We've been running this lunge combination in our classes lately, today added the to make it harder. It was hard 😆 based on from

As an aside, 6 months ago doctors told me the in my hip was to blame for the constant pain I was in and that I would just have to live with it, get shots to manage the pain and that was it. I woke up and went to sleep with it. I have been focusing on my diet and incorporating several stretches into my movement diet and I'm pain free for most of my day, doing silly things like this and making huge strides to being better. Still got to work at it but doing much better.