The Simple Art of Breathing
This simple method of breathing works well for people practicing Chinese martial arts, Chinese medicine, meditation and what is commonly referred to as Qigong (Chi Kung). We call it simple, but it is...
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Kung Fu Training: You Always Hurt The One You Love
Over my years of teaching martial arts, I’ve had quite a good time explaining some of the more obscure switches of Kung Fu’s winding pathway: the splits, front and side; gyrating and rolling children,...
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Why I Like Bagua
Everything is spinning crazily. The fact that facts are scarce does not prevent them from flying at us, relentlessly. We spend our hours looping and diving, just to keep upright. In times like this,...
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Telescoping
This guy has a huge jaw! A damned big jaw. By far, the largest jaw I’ve ever seen. At least, that’s what twirling around my brain as I face my sparring partner. Of course, the truth is that his jaw—in...
View ArticlePracticed Intent
Internal martial practice is an important step to deepening and improving your kung fu. In this video, Sifu Ted Mancuso demonstrates and teaches a short exercise learned decades earlier from Sifu Wing...
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Stretching For The Art
You’ve finished your workout and the idea comes to you: why not stretch a little? It can only help, right? But immediately your brain floods with questions: How important is it to stretch? If I have...
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Chang Gong
Whether you are the ancient hermit of the Dark Forest or a week-in week-out practitioner, martial training always rewards perseverance with increased skills you have gathered and accumulated like rain....
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Better With Age
After class the other day my student Harvey, who has studied with me for more than 15 years, asked me a pointed question: “How and why does a longtime practitioner maintain his or her interest in...
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Instructor’s Notebook: The Art of Forgetting
If there’s an art to forgetting forms, then I am a master. I’ve forgotten entire systems of martial arts. Remembering didn’t seem as crucial during the early days of my career, in the flurry of Kung...
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Bagua Zhang’s Ji Ben Gongs—Plum’s New Project
Here is a short interview with Ted Mancuso, Plum’s director, on his upcoming book/DVD project. Covid slowed us down, but now we are back at work again, and hope to have this finished in the new...
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Tai Chi Is the Fastest Martial Art
Q: OK, I’m intrigued—what makes Tai Chi the fastest martial art. A: Of course, we have to first admit that speed is relative, but let’s come back to that. There are some very simple reasons that Tai...
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A Perspective on Chi
More than 50 years have gone by since I began studying martial arts. In those Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris dark ages, all of us who practice Kung Fu knew of this thing, “Chi” (vital energy). Few of us...
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Two Paths, One Road
Praying Mantis Fist (TangLang Quan) is a famous style with a distinctive hand position known as a “Hook.” Although I shouldn’t write “a distinctive,” when, actually, this famous style has TWO versions...
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Recommended Seminars
As a longtime teacher, I do not get much opportunity to actually be a student myself. So I was delighted to be invited to take a seat (well, take a stance) in Ken Cohen’s recent online zoom class on...
View ArticleFrom Basics to Mastery: Jibengongs and the Bear Palm Gong in Bagua
As we have mentioned (more than once, I’m thinking), I am working on a new book/dvd project on Bagua Gongs, those special exercises that teach by principle and really infuse your practice with the...
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QA: The Benefit of Reeling Silk in Bagua
A little while back, we published a short video tutorial on Reeling Silk exercise in Bagua Zhang. We just received a nice comment on it from Lyn, plus a couple of questions… Q: Very interesting little...
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All of a Sudden: A Brief Lesson on Speed
Initial Speed is an endless topic. It is a transformation of a moment. Initial Speed leaves your opponent still reacting to what is past. There are endless ways to acquire Initial Speed by eliminating...
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Spinning Bagua
When we think of Kung Fu and its long history, we tend to think of its venerable age, lineage, and established methods. But everything in Kung Fu was new once — VERY NEW — and innovative. Responding to...
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Why Practice the Tai Chi Sword?
If you are learning the art of TC sword, or even just want to appreciate the style, you have picked one of the great martial arts weapons. This double-bladed instrument — whether wooden practice or...
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The Role of Continuous Movement in Yang Style T’ai Chi Chuan
~Reprinted from T’ai Chi Magazine Millennial Issue, February 2000 At one time T’ai Chi was known as River Boxing (He Quan). The reason is obvious, even to the non-player. T’ai Chi’s smooth, continuous...
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