You and your style

[SPJ]

how do you know a style is good or right for you?

most people ask and want some info on several styles--

then they "make" a decision as to what style to learn.

what would be your criteria or determinants to pick a style?

[SPJ]

at the age of internet;

people may google search for info and youtube search for vid of a style.

--

well these were not available in the 70's.

--

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jxwSzksq2I

some would go to a zoo and look for inspiration.

[TenTigers]

for me, I was always the runt of the litter. All my sparrring partners were bigger than me, so when I would land a kick or a punch, they would say,"Nice shot."
I didn't want to hear that, I wanted them to go down, or get launched, like I would when they landed one on me.
So, I did some research, and I wanted the system that was going to generate the most power. It was a toss-up between Hung-Ga and Ying Yi (xing-yi) and Hung had the Five Animals,the history of the Siu-Lum Temple, which I was enamored with, oh yeah, and it looked cool.
So far, twenty years later, I am still loving this system, and it gets deeper and deeper all the time. The system is so vast, the learning is endless.
Would I make the same decision today? Well, I would have changed the other styles I started off in, and began with Judo-at like 4, kyokushin for awhile, then stayed with one good teacher for twenty years.
Of course, the trouble is..I have become the teacher I always wanted, so I would have to find me.

[monkeyfoot]

well I figured I was quite skinny, moderately sized and relatively fast, so something like Hung Gar or Choy Lee Fut was out the window. So I narrowed down the styles and researched around at something that was fast, energetic and used fast arms a lot. Needless to say, mantis fit that description perfectly.

The irony of it all is that I didn't know any of this at the time I started....its only now after 3 years that I have realized what a good choice I made.

Craig

[RonH]

For me, I was looking for something that would enhance my energy work, but I had also suffered a neruo-muscular injury. Taiji was not only the cheapest (it was only a couple bucks per class at the Y), but it was also the closest. It was 2 minutes from my house. These days, I'm formless and using the taiji principles in most fighting situations.

One thing I did love growing up was seeing the ones that could drop someone with barely any effort and I do like being able to stop someone with a limited amount of effort used against them. Not only is it a legal issue, but the looks on their faces when they realize I just did barely a movement and they're stopped.

What I do see a lot of the time is that at the moment it is decided that martial arts is taken up, it's the events surrounding that moment that are a key determiner in what you choose.

[Mega-Foot]

Well, I think I was about 5 1/2 years-old, maybe 5 3/4 when I first discovered how absolutely empowering and edifying it feels, as a human being and an mixed-race American child, to rip out and hold a beating heart in my naked hands. I knew, at that moment, that I was born to be a ninja.

After that, karate just wasn't the same. I tried some wushu, but I got kicked out of a tournament when my four-man spear vs. broadsword vs. tonfa vs. frying pan form got out of hand, and the other three participants found themselves shish-ka-bobbed on my spear. Everyone just kept screaming at me: "For shame!" I ran away when they started throwing things and left them there on the floor. My classmates kind of scrambled around, transfixed by the spear, but they couldn't coordinate their movements, so they just wound up scrambling in circles. They died, right there on the mats, because they couldn't find a stretcher that was up to the task.

After the deposition, I ran away from the detention center, and survived in the streets by joining the Crips. It was a hard life, but I was a hard case. Nearly a year later, as I lay riddled with bullets from a drive-by gone awry (I was driving a caddy with no left turn signal, and the drive-by shooter in the passenger seat (Sooky Sweetwaterbritches) signalled for a left turn mid-driveby (he didn't know you were just supposed to bend your right elbow down instead of reaching out with your left arm [consequently, at me]). It was horrible. I told them to leave me where I fell when they opened the door, and they did. As I lay dying, I was taken in by Grandmaster Sensei Takeshi Ukeno. He healed my 36 bullet wounds using secret acupuncture techniques, and he has taught me everything I have needed to know in order to survive in this crazy cookoo world.

[Corwyn]

to rip out and hold a beating heart in my naked hands.

See Mega-Foot - This is where you went all wrong ! You were SUPPOSED to
EAT the heart so that you could gain your enemy's chi and then you also would be among the enlightened ones who can control the sacred power of the life force. But instead you squandered said powers and mocked the universe.

Now you are doomed to languish on kung fu forum on the out of the way corner of the internet.

[Mega-Foot]

I did eat it. But since cannibalism is illegal in our narrow-minded society, I left that part out. Self-incrimination and all that stuff.

I only replied to make this clear after I remembered double jeopardy. You have to love America.

Or leave it.

[TenTigers]

how do you prepare the heart for eating? My ex makes a great chicken heart dish, using a sauce made from garlic,chicken stock, oyster sauce and cornstarch as a thickening agent, then adds scallions. It's delicious. I suppose the same can be done with a human heart. In this day and age,what with the high cholestorol levels in the diet, I would want to eat heart sparingly, perhaps adding more fiber, such as brown rice, rather than white rice, and a high fiber vegetable, such as gai-lan.

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ouk1...elated&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPfYApv7gzU&NR=1

monkey style is much fun to watch.

there was a drunken monkey style. I only saw it performed in front of a temple in keelung, Taiwan once.

[Adventure427]

I want something that is effective and can finish someone with minimal effort....and yes...honestly....i want something that looks cool and is original.

So I take Aikido/8Step Mantis.

[TenTigers]

"I want something that is effective and can finish someone with minimal effort....and yes...honestly....i want something that looks cool and is original."
here ya go...


http://www.barrettrifles.com/

http://www.fnhusa.com/products/firea...012&gid=FNG007

[Toby]

It was a toss-up between Hung-Ga and Ying Yi (xing-yi) and Hung had the Five Animals,

If you'd done xing yi you'd have had 12 animals and 5 elements.




Mega-Foot, that was outstanding. <golf clap/>

[golden arhat]

I did eat it. But since cannibalism is illegal in our narrow-minded society, I left that part out. Self-incrimination and all that stuff.

I only replied to make this clear after I remembered double jeopardy. You have to love America.

Or leave it.

ok gene we know its you