Karate

[Shaolinlueb]

spacers make things easier to break. but i think breaking anyting is hard enough. a lot of those guys have shaky hands and stuff if you notice too.

[gwa sow]

so why is ku yu cheing more impressive than these guys than? cause most shaolin people think hes badass jsut because he does a brick breaking iron palm.

dont forget he helped to continue/spread bak sil lum around china. without him there would be very little of it, if any, left. and also the story with the horse is kinda cool also

[IronFist]

For one thing, he didn't use spacers, didn't have to jump at the bricks, etc. He also put a whoopin' on a number of people, or so I've heard

Here's the famous pic. There might be spacers. You can't really tell:

http://www.harmoniousfist.com/images/2.jpg

It looks like there are spaces at the ends of the bricks, but not in the middle. Strange. Anyway, on the page that pic is from, there are some more pics of him and some more info.

It definately doesn't look like he jumped in that pic, tho. He could have broken it with a jump and then posed for that pic, tho.

[Vash]

ESPN2 has not had karate on it, nor do I think it will.

THat tournament garbage? That's XMA and XMA-lite. Nothing karate about it.

[Reign-Of-Terror]

dont forget he helped to continue/spread bak sil lum around china. without him there would be very little of it, if any, left. and also the story with the horse is kinda cool also

but bak sil lum is not taught at shaolin anymore is it? its mostly now only taught and learned by hobbyists in niche circles like the majority of kung fu in China. Also the story with the horse I read is a controversy that some say happened and some didnt.

[Brad]

A lot of things aren't practiced at Shaolin now. Doesn't mean it's not practiced elsewhere... hence the part where he said: "helped to continue/spread bak sil lum around china. without him there would be very little of it, if any, left." There's a good reason why it's often said as "Bak Sil Lum" and not "Bei Shaolin" And from mainland China, it ended up in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the rest of the world. I don't think he meant that everyone in China are Bak Sil Lum masters today

Hobbyists help kungfu teachers put food on the table All it takes is a few hardcore students to keep the art alive, though

And yes, the horse thing may or may not have happened. Too bad no one thought to take a video camera to the event

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

last night they had a spoof on at about the same time.

the guys had difficulty breaking paper and thin cardboard. but they obviously had good fun doing it.

[GeneChing]

Teh IOC just dropped baseball and softball from the 1012 London Olympic Games. Some are pointing their fingers at the US because we have a strange partition between pro-athletes and Olympians. I'm sort of glad that it was baseball and softball to go, since the other two that were in jeopardy were both martial: tae kwon do & pentathalon. This might open two spots and the five events that the IOC are considering are: Golf, Rugby, Squash, Roller Sports (?) and Karate.

[Oso]

which version of karate rules?

I think I'd heard WKF but I'm not sure.


shouldn't be all be chanting 'san shou, san shou, san shou' ?

does San Shou have any sort of world govorning body?

[SevenStar]

thai boxing would be good... they'd have to change the name though.

I'm thinking we won't see karate or san shou, as they already have to somewhat similar couterparts already part of the olympics - boxing and TKD. I think mma or pankration or something would be a great event though.

[Chief Fox]

I don't know how it is in other countries but in the US. the sports that get all the television air time are track and field, swimming and gymnastics. All the other sports are reported on briefly or are aired at late hours on obscure channels. I remember the last summer games when I wasn't even able to find any tae kwon do matches. Maybe I should get TiVo.

I'm not really interested in seeing any Karate point sparring. It would be nice to have an open martial arts tournament where people from different styles could compete. San shou would be neat to see.

[Shaolinlueb]

so karate gets bid but no wushu? wtf

[GeneChing]

I'm not sure which rules of Karate, but they've been in the running for a while now. The international governing body for San Shou, or we should say Sanda, is the IWuF, the same that governs modern wushu taolu. Unfortunately, Sanda has not had international female competition until recently, so it couldn't be entered in Beijing's wushu bid. As for Olympic wushu, it was rejected a while back. China is still making appeals, and they have a shot at getting wushu in as a demo sport, but it's next to impossible for them to get it in as a medal event now. I did an e-zine article on the hopes of wushu going Olympic when Beijing won the bid.

[SPJ]

TKD is very popular in Taiwan.

Taiwan is considering hosting the 2020 Olympiad.

The idea is that since the Mexico city hosted in 1968. So Er or Soul hosted in 1988;

Taiwan has Olympian Golds why not be a host.

[X_plosion]

Regarding Muay Thai, the governing body for its amateur competition is indeed pushing to make it an Olympic event. They have dropped the "Thai" suffix of the name, in order to make the system more "international" sounding.

Across Southeast Asia, the Muay art is being introduced to grassroots level by accredited teachers in order to build a good base of competitors. Here's hoping they succeed.