Names For Martial Art Meetup Group

I am trying to gather like-minded martial artists for the purpose of collaborative training, and I need help coming up with a name for the meetup group. The name has to tell the public what the group is doing, without pretensions and false advertising.

And now, to help you guys with the brainstorming, let me list down the core beliefs of my meetup group.

• I move very slowly during training. I believe that performing techniques and drills very slowly is the best way to improve precision of one’s techniques.

• Precise punches are much faster and heavier than sloppy ones.

• During partner drills where one side throws a punch while the other side dodges, it’s very easy to develop sloppy posture and habits if you move fast. For example, novices have a tendency to dodge with a too-wide margin when they face incoming punches.

  I find that the best way to correct that bad habit is not to force the beginners to move faster but to make them go really slow, so that they can make sure that they are really dodging incoming punches by a really small margin (like an inch!).

• The number of reps you perform is more important, far more important, than how fast and hard you practice your techniques.

So taking into account the core beliefs I just mentioned and the fact that it’s going to serve the function of collaborative training, what do you think I should name this martial art meetup group?

Loh Teck Yong

Let’s Ban Tao Of Jeet Kune Do

Let’s start off on the right foot…

Don’t get me wrong. I am a Jeet Kune Do practitioner myself and I truly believe that it is one of the most scientific fighting systems on Earth. It’s right up there with Krav Maga and Systema and all the other stuff that Special Force soldiers love.

And I am a free speech advocate. I don’t even want vile books like Mein Kampf to get banned because I know if you start with Mein Kampf, it won’t end with Mein Kampf. And before you know it, we find ourselves living in a dystopian society where public libraries have to be protected by militia units.

So why do I want to ban the Tao of Jeet Kune Do? Because reality has been a harsh teacher and, as it turns out, between the propagation of Bruce Lee’s quotes from the book and the advancement of his school of martial art, one must give way to the other.

Because of the language barrier…

Wait, that’s not quite right. The Tao of Jeet Kune Do was written in the English language and English has been taught as the first language in Singaporean schools for decades. So what language barrier am I talking about?

An English teacher of my acquaintance had this to say about our standard of English. Singaporeans are competent enough to read complex technical manuals written in the English language, but many of us tend to fall short when we try to read between the lines or grasp ethereal concepts.

Well, it’s not surprising when you consider the fact that our government has been raising engineers rather than poets in our schools.

And the thing to note about the Tao of Jeet Kune Do is that it’s not a technical manual. It’s stuffed full of abstract concepts. In the book, Bruce Lee talked about being formless and the Void and using no way as way and being like the reflection of the moon and all the esoteric stuff that would be right at home inside a philosophy textbook.

So if you interpret them literally, the same way you would interpret the information in your car maintenance manual, you end up like…

Some idiots I used to train with…

The 3 Ways Of Martial Arts Training

* The above image is taken from The Telegraph.

Chinese wuxia novels often contain archaic words that are necessary for the mise-en-scène, and even native speakers who are fluent in the language sometimes have trouble understanding them. So I wasn’t too surprised when an American friend of mine, who’s a fan of the wuxia genre, asked me for my help to translate some of those antiquated Chinese words into simple everyday English.

And one of his questions was: What’s 横练金钟罩?

金钟罩 (Golden Bell) is the name of a body toughening skill, but what does 横练 mean? I went and did some research and found out that 横练 is just one of the 3 ways of martial arts training. Below are my explanations for the 3 ways written in simple English.

#1. The Wen Way (文练法)

Basically, it means training solely in the techniques and developing “nei jing” (内劲) naturally, without using punching bags or other hard objects to strengthen your striking power.

Shadow boxing and mirror training (i.e. practicing in front of a mirror to improve your form) all fall under the umbrella of the Wen Way.

#2. The Wu Way (武练法)

Punching heavy bags and kicking wooden stakes etc. These are all training methods under the Wu umbrella.

The Wu Way allows for swift development of striking power and when used together with the Wen Way, will allow the martial artist to grow in a balanced manner.

However, it is detrimental to a martial artist’s growth when used by itself. Many teachers lament that too many youths are focusing on the fun and quick aspects of the Wu Way and neglecting the refinement of their techniques by using the Wen Way.

#3. The Heng Way (横练法)

Is simply a more extreme version of the Wu Way. Methods include thrusting your bare hands into buckets of sand, striking your body with a wooden bat and hitting your head against a tree etc.

The Iron Shirt (铁布衫) and Golden Bell (金钟罩) both use the Heng Way when it comes to external training. It is inadvisable to practice such skills without knowing the internal training methods as well.

Loh Teck Yong

Author’s Note: 文, 武 and 横 could be translated as scholarly, martial and overbearing respectively. But I thought “Scholarly Way”, “Martial Way” and “Overbearing Way” sound weird so I went with the hanyu pinyin for those Chinese words.

 

3 “Sure-win” Moves All Martial Artists Should Watch Out For!

 

In the school courtyard during recess, a preteen hero thrusts out his palms and yells:

“Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms!”

“Arrggh!”

His team of playmates obligingly fall to the ground as if they were just hit by the invisible dragons overflowing from the hero’s palms.

And that’s one of them. The Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms. The invisible dragons released from your bare hands can destroy entire armies, making it one of the most deadly “sure-win” skills in the pugilist world.

Okay, fuck no. No. That’s a lie, okay? And a test to see how many of you are gullible enough to believe in the existence of “sure-win” moves.

So what are the 3 “sure-win” moves and why do you have to watch out for them? They are biting, the eye jab and the groin kick. Avoid martial art teachers marketing them as “sure-win” moves because there are more interesting ways to waste your money.

Why? Because.

Eye Jab

First of all, eyes are rather small targets and your opponent is not going to stand still and make things easy for you. He will most likely keep swerving his head from side to side to avoid hits. Or cover up with his arms. And if the fight is taking place in the dark, like an unlit back alley, it gets so much more difficult to see, let alone jab at, your opponent’s eyes.

JKD, Jun Fan And Other Names

One day, someone asked me this question: Are you after a name?

The question came up because of my reluctance to do kickboxing (Boxing and Muay Thai) drills that deviate too far from my Jun Fan structure. I kept saying ‘Oh this is or this isn’t JKD’. He told me I was missing the point completely, and how mistaken I was to think JKD as a “name”.

There You Have It!

My Martial Arts Odyssey essay in 3 parts!

Read them in this order:

Good And Bad first, followed by Learning To Get Hit And Other Lessons and finally Biblical Lesson.

Teck Y. Loh

Biblical Lesson – Part 3

Do not, I repeat, do not cast pearls before swines. Especially truly valuable ones which you have gotten through expensive overseas trips.

And so it came to pass that, after finding Jeet Kune Do in the USA, I left S’s camp.

But 8 years later, in 2008 (iirc), I threw in my lot with S again. At that time, I was already back in Singapore and my JKD teachers were faraway in USA and UK. I was still training, but without the benefit of teachers and peer support. And at the same time, a tournament was taking place in Singapore. So, when I ran into S again, my sole training partner at the time advised me strongly to make use of this chance encounter.