Chen Bing is one of dozens of martial arts instructors visiting Seattle this year.

Chen Style Taiji: 38-posture form

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In theory, the Seattle Martial Arts Club has no teacher. Members meet to practice martial arts drills and exercises of their choosing, under their own direction, for the benefit of all involved.

In practice, no two practice partners are ever equal, and the partner in control usually sets the pace and the tone of a practice session—if not intentionally, then haphazardly.

As I am often the senior Taiji practitioner in attendance—or in other words, the unpaid and under-appreciated Taiji instructor in attendance—it seems appropriate to briefly discuss my personal guidelines and preferences for tui shou (pushing hands) practice. [Read more →]

Ikken Hissatsu, the popular Japanese Karate maxim, is usually translated as “one punch, one kill”. And although you won’t see it in the sporting ring, it does happen in real life. As reported in the Seattle Times,

The July 9 confrontation began while James Paroline was watering plants in the traffic circle, where he set cones on the street to protect his watering hose. Instead of driving around the cones, a group of girls got out of a car and two of them yelled at Paroline.

One of the girls summoned Brian Keith Brown, who was driven to the scene. He hit Paroline once and walked away…

Hans Aschenbach, a friend of Paroline’s for 20 years, said the [cellphone video evidence] proved Brown deserved a long sentence. “The video is shocking and was really an execution with a fist.”

Now, I’m not going to ask whether, with all your Karate training, you could have stopped someone like Brian Brown. That is too easy. [Read more →]

Where do you draw the line between real fake wrestling and phony fake wrestling?

Seattle Semi-Pro (SSP) Wrestling performers and their fans await the answer from the Washington State Department of Licensing. The decision will determine whether their oddball institution goes down for the count.

The man who blew the whistle on them: a former SSP grappler-turned-real-archenemy known as The Banana. [Read more →]

North Seattle, December 25 2008

Yang Taiji Sword

• The annual World of Martial Arts Exhibition, sponsored by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, has been held for more than 20 years. Last weekend marked my fourth year of attendance.
• This year’s event was the best of those four. Whether intentionally or by coincidence, the organizers and participants responded positively to my past observations.

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Months before Noel Lopez was found dead in the rubble of a construction site, he challenged co-workers at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront hotel to fight him in the garage where they parked cars as valets. His co-workers chalked up the strange request to Lopez’s increasingly erratic behavior and his fascination with the movie “Fight Club.”

Last weekend, Lopez, 25, was involved in a real fight that ended his life. At least 20 people surrounded Lopez on April 13, after drinking alcohol together, and watched him fight another man in Freeway Park, according to court records released Saturday. Construction workers found his body the next day. The man who police say fought Lopez, a 22-year-old from Federal Way, was ordered held without bail Saturday on investigation of murder.

Police are still looking for a second suspect in the slaying, a 20-year-old man.

The 22-year-old, who had not yet been charged, told police he had been contacted by friends to “straighten out” Lopez because he “was treating people wrong,” according to court documents. The man told police he wrestled Lopez for the title of “King of Freeway Park,” court records said.

But he claimed it was the second man who broke boards over Lopez’s head and body and stomped on his stomach and chest. He said the second man fought Lopez after the three walked together to a nearby construction site.

(Continued in the Seattle Times.)

Word to the wise: assume every gun is loaded, and there is always a second man.

A Seattle Weekly reader asks:

Credit: Rod Filbrandt

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

Please explain the compulsion some Seattleites feel to practice tai chi in public. This week on the Seattle-bound run of the Winslow ferry, I observed a middle-aged man practicing tai chi who looked like he was going to mate with the bulkhead, until he almost fell down. Note that it was a calm day and there were no swells. A regular on the ferry told me the man does this every morning. My dog and I always see this other guy who’s tai chi’d to death all the grass around a tree in a park near my house. I see the same thing at Volunteer Park, Green Lake, and other places around the city: middle-aged white guys sweeping the air in elaborate, self-conscious slow motion. Why do they have to do it in public?

Signed,
Why Chi?

Dear Mr. Chi, [Read more →]

Reader and contributor Rick Matz tagged me to participate in the 7 things pyramid scheme writing project.

The rules:

• Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
• Share 7 random or weird things about yourself.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here we go… [Read more →]

Last year, I predicted that Qi Gong and energy medicine therapies would become big business over the next decade, possibly eclipsing both Yoga and the UFC combined.  I also predicted an increase in qigong fraud, where inadequately trained therapists operate expensive, ineffectual energy devices on desperate patients.

Sorry to say, I was right. [Read more →]