I started what I would call my committed martial arts training around 20 years ago. Within those two decades are two distinct paths. After initially playing around with different kung fu and kickboxing styles, I settled on White Crane, which I trained with my old instructor. The other 'branch' of my training and teaching is … Continue reading China ’24 Blog. Part Three: Training
Category: martial arts
After two days of sightseeing and adjusting to the time zone and temperature in Hong Kong, it was time to venture over the border to Shenzhen. Then take the high speed train to our final destination of Ping’s new school on the outskirts of Jieyang. Filling up for morning at the very tasty breakfast buffet, … Continue reading China ’24 Blog. Part Two: Arrival in Jieyang
Sunday 4th Feb myself, Karina, and three of our kickboxing students (Sam, Lukas, Charlie), as well as Charley's dad and brother were back up to Barnsley for our second WKO kickboxing competition. Sadly our other fight team member, Alex, was not able to attend this time. It was the second competition for everyone and they … Continue reading WKO Kickboxing Competition
Mark's China Travelogue: Part 3 As students of mine will well know, it is important to sink your weight when practising tai chi. This becomes easier when training in China, as the deliciousness of the food ensures that there is more weight to sink! Like most places in China that I have been fortunate enough … Continue reading Eating, Training… and a bit (a lot) more Eating….
My personal training clients will know well that I am an ardent fan of kettlebell training and the striking improvements to overall strength and fitness that you can attain with regular practice. Always a lover of the unconventional and slightly strange (hope my partner doesn’t read this!), when I first encountered the kettlebell almost two … Continue reading Three Reasons I Love Training with Kettlebells
Those who are new to tai chi may well not realise that there are several different styles, some of which can look and feel very different. At the end of the day, if the style is taught well, the benefits are pretty much the same but you may want to spend some time investigating … Continue reading History and Benefits of Chen Tai Chi
Keep up to date with WCA... View this email in your browser Hi everyone, It's the summer holidays already and whilst classes are quiet this month, there's plenty going on behind the scenes to get you excited for September onwards - including a new weekly kung fu class for children. Read on for news of … Continue reading August Newsletter
套路 - tàolù Taolu is the pinyin romanisation of 套路. In this context 'tào' is a classifying word for anything regarding sets or collections of things, 'lù' is a journey, road, path. In English we speak of martial arts forms, sets, routines. The Japanese term 'kata' is often used also. Plato was of course the … Continue reading Tào Lù and the Platonic World of Forms
Welcome to another edition of the weekly White Crane Online blog. Over the past few weeks we have been exploring topics in and around the theme of Taoism. Last week I introduced the core concept of Qi (if you missed it, you might want to read it here first) and I explained a little bit … Continue reading Martial Qigong