The Universal Form is not an obvious fighting form, but it is a powerful foundation for all martial art styles and general wellness. Some of you have been asking us to show a tiger form. Students of TanDao Tiger may use this variation of the Universal Form to aid in their development of a powerful tiger claw. Use dynamic tension and focus on fingers and hand tensing and feel the “burn.” Do you have specific questions on learning this form or on tiger? Ask us!

We’re pleased with your responses to our new TanDao Fight Lab Series.  The idea of hardness and softness has stimulated responses from several TanDao Web Warriors.  Thanks for your comments and questions, including Sifu Lloyd Fridenburg and our forum members Advance One, Arnuld, and the Karate Kid. An application of hardness and softness is for understanding different ways of generating power.  A goju karate punch, boxer’s right cross, wing chun punch or a tai ji punch use different biomechanics.

The Evolving Martial Artist seeks to develop the appropriate hardness and softness, or muscular tension and relaxation to maximize power for a particular technique rather than mixing up different methods of creating power.  There is a different fighting distance and tactics behind the hard palm and the soft palm strikes on Fight Lab 2. Do you know the difference against a real partner? Keep the comments coming — we love your intelligent responses and your questions!

Lawrence Tan
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The Karate Kid’s Mr. Miyagi and Mr. Han are film heroes who show up at the precise moment when we must evolve or die. It seems odd to remake a classic…though we are always up for anything with Jackie Chan in it. The bully theme never gets old, and, unfortunately, it remains a part of our life.

There is the deliberate bully, the unwitting bully, the school yard bully, the office bully, and the bullying that goes on behind closed doors. Since the original Karate Kid we now add cyber bullying and electronic bullying to the pain roster. Of particular concern in the teen community, this type of bullying can be done without ever laying a hand on the victim. It can even be done anonymously. The damage can be so far reaching that it is sometimes unbearable, with lethal consequences for our children, who may see suicide as the only escape.

In the real world, how many of us have Mr. Miyagi or Mr. Han step in to block an attack with their stunning karate or kung fu, and then guide us along our path to inner power? We have to tap into that core strength on our own. Self defense gives physical confidence. But it is soul defense that protects our spirit. Bullying weighs heavy on the heart and soul of who we are. Bullies rely on our  helplessness, our alienation, isolation and our silence. These are their weapons, and the goal is to shame us. Don’t let them.  The Evolving Martial Artist goes beyond the warrior’s physical techniques to deal with bullies. There are also the ways of the scholar and the monk to empower us to diffuse or even avoid bullying. By all means – get strong. Learn self defense. And here is some soul defense:

Turn On A Light In A Dark Place:
Bullies live in the shadows. They flourish where there is no authority or watchdog.
Communicate. There are compassionate and helpful people. Talk!

Know Thy Self:
It’s inscribed at Apollo’s Temple at Delphi. Don’t internalize the attacks. We all make mistakes, we all have vulnerabilities. It’s not the core of who we are. Our being is much richer and more complex. Remember this.

Don’t Rationalize Irrational Behavior:
Benjamin Disraeli said, “Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.” Bad behavior is bad behavior. It belongs to the bully. Our focus is to manage our own behavior. Stay calm, don’t engage, and get help. 

Toni Josephson

http://stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/kids/
http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/bullying
http://www.safehorizon.org/
http://www.workplacebullying.org/

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TanDao Kung Fu

Today martial artists acknowledge Bruce Lee as the force for popularizing the art of kicking ass rooted in China’s Shaolin Temple, source of Far East fighting arts. Yet the original force behind the Shaolin legacy is Bodhidharma. The blue eyed, bearded monk from India founded Shaolin kung fu. He was a monk, not a warrior. More importantly, Bodhidharma is the founder of Zen (Chan in Chinese) – a way of awakening based on sitting meditation.

Meditation improves our martial skills. The focused mind, emotionally calm,  and mentally clear liberates our fighting responses; they become natural, spontaneous and efficient. This is especially important during a fearful situation. True power is rooted in the mind not the body. The old masters teach meditation as a potent way to help control our body’s reactions. We learn to recover from panic. Breathe. We become more intuitive. If we think of the mind as a muscle, then meditation is push ups for the mind. After consistent practice, the mind gets stronger, flexible and concentrated. And we discover secrets of the body, subtleties in executing technique that we once thought we knew.

Beyond Bruce Lee and kicking ass, the true value of regularly sitting cross legged will enhance our daily lives by reducing stress and finding a discipline of stillness. There are further benefits for those who delve deeper into Bodhidharma’s teachings to become inner warriors who seek awakening.

The Evolving Martial Artist works to get the edge. You want it? Meditate.

Lawrence Tan

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Did you know that if you eliminate the self defense content, the movements and breathing of a form or kata are powerful tools for combating stress?
If you need respite from today’s tension and anxiety join us on our wellness or martial art video and just follow along for a few minutes. Try our Universal Form or follow this week’s tiger moves. Relax and energize.

Now, of course, it will not change tonight’s deadline but doing a short breathing exercise may revitalize and clear your mind to help eliminate excess stress. Give it a try. It works. Follow us all month long: something new to help you de-stress every day!

Lawrence Tan
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Bruce Lee said, “It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” Although Lee was referring to technical martial art excellence, it is relevant in every day life. That quote comes from the most ancient of Chinese thought, and you ware likely to find it running through the culture stream of any wisdom tradition.

Our focus this month is stress control. Part of that work is getting rid of what you do not need. A recent I Ching reading cast hexagram #41, decrease. Good advice for these times. Sometimes it is called “empty the cauldron”. It is the trigrams of the mountain over the lake. The water evaporates, and though not visible, the moisture nourishes the mountain. It moves deep inside, hidden – yet is fosters new growth.

It is a time not of accumulation, but meaning. What seems to be lost, and in many ways is lost, is, in the end, just change. The external gives way to the internal. Maybe its a reduction in material possessions. Their loss can leave room for something else: things that are not visible, but felt, understood. Known only in a way that manifests when you make space for it.

Clean up your sh*t. Cutting through excess could be cleaning out a closet, or clearing out your own cobwebs. Streamline efforts in your daily life, or in your martial art or wellness practice. Clearing a place for deeper exploration of thought or spirit. Is it time to talk less and listen more? Maybe the anger has to go. Or frustration. Judgment. Jealousy. Feeling lost. All baggage you do not need to carry. It weighs you down. Hack away at it, let it go. Empty the cauldron. Dissolve into the mountain, see what grows.

Toni Josephson

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TanDao Kung Fu

Are you stressed? Ancient Chinese martial art masters delved into nature’s secrets for devising superior self defense, but you may not know that they developed mental and physical techniques for promoting health, wellness and combating stress.

With the acceleration and intensity of economic and political uncertainty, it seems that no matter who we are or where we live in our global village, stress is universal. April is National Stress Awareness Month. Each day this month we’ll have something to help you with your stress management. You’ll also find our Universal Form in the mix, TanDao’s unique exercise created by Lawrence and taught for martial arts and wellness for over 30 years. Join us…TanDao Wellness

There exist only three respectable beings: the priest, the warrior, the poet. To know, to kill, and to create.~ Charles Baudelaire

Baudelaire’s quote captures the spirit of the TanDao Evolving Martial Artist. In Taoism, the bagua follows the flow of nature and the phases of life. We use this concept to express our TanDao triad ~ the Warrior: fire, physical energy (destroyer); the Scholar: water, metal – mental energy (preserver); and the Monk: earth’s mountain and wood, spiritual energy (creator). This is martial arts, wellness, life.

Trinitarianism, or belief in the Trinity, is found in Asian and Southeast Asian religion and folklore, Catholicism and in other traditions. The Sanskrit word Trimurti refers to three forms. In the Hindu tradition, believed to date back to the Rig Vedas, it is the Great Trinity or Triad representing three aspects of a supreme being. This expression takes its one form in the three distinct faces of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Each represents a stage of creation: Shiva, the destroyer, physical – fire, consuming, transforming; Vishnu, the preserver, mental – water, sustaining life; and Brahma: the creator, spiritual – earth, where life emerges. There is also the Christian doctrine of the Trinity – the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is the Triune, the essence of being. Body, mind, spirit.

We put it all together and had fun making our martial art video – Warrior, Scholar, Monk.

Toni Josephson

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TanDao Kung Fu

The Year of the Tiger celebration lasts two weeks. A week ago, we marked the New Year by launching our martial art ebook and video – TanDao Tiger Combat Series. Toni, our resident Taoist & Chinese cosmologist, cautions this year of the metal tiger will provide ongoing challenges. But with the courage and tenacity of the tiger we can overcome adversity. An experience we had last November is appropriate and we would like to share it with you.

We went to the seashore to film our tiger videos as we were planning to introduce our Shaolin/JKD tiger style for the lunar new year. But a Nor’Easter storm put a halt to that. It was awesome to see the tumultuous ocean, but our mission was aborted by bad weather. We were bummed. The last evening, however, we managed to film a wellness exercise to a stupendous sunset and in the following dawn we also filmed tiger kung fu form sequences. We were on a roll. (Click on links to see the videos!)

Our schedule was actually completed. We were elated. While walking back along the seashore looking through rocks and shells for our zen garden in the city, a tiny object in the sand simultaneously caught both Toni’s and my own attention. It was a tiger figure. An omen? Although our rational minds may regard this as superstitious, a holistic view sees it as synchronicity, a meaningful coincidence as psychologist Jung would say.

As for our tiny, smiling tiger talisman, we choose to view it as a positive omen. After all, this figure was utterly miniscule in the vast space of the seashore. Yet we both found it. Go figure… What do you think?

In the week since its release, we’ve received enthusiastic responses to our TanDao Tiger Combat downloads from martial artists of different styles. We take it as a good sign. May the tiger bring us all a good year!

Lawrence Tan

There are life lessons everywhere, even in the most unlikely of places. For the Evolving Martial Artist, fighting is a metaphor for life. Engaging a daunting adversary who hits and inflicts pain is like entering the every day battles of life. Hell, it hurts.

Tough lessons are often employed by Shaolin kung fu masters to teach the tough demands of combat. And life. In American history, the Gold Rush brought people to the Black Hills of South Dakota and as the camp grew, a town sprung up around the prospecting. David Milch’s ground breaking Western HBO series Deadwood, based on real characters and events in the Old West, was a study in human evolution and our struggle to bring chaos to order.

In this scene from Deadwood, Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) the complex protagonist, ruthless and brutal, yet with his own morals, loyalties,and even, at times, kindness, imparts a life lesson to the Deadwood’s newspaper publisher, A.W. Merrick (Jeffrey Jones) who is demoralized by violent misfortune, after being threatened, finds his office and printing press vandalized and in ruin. In Swearengen we see a classic example of the Eastern zen slap or as we say in the West, a kick in the ass.

However crude, it is wisdom for martial artists and non-martial artists alike.

Lawrence Tan & Toni Josephson

Bruce Lee

“Emotional content,” Bruce Lee tells a student practicing a side kick in Enter the Dragon. Martial artists strive to re-channel emotions, like anger, fear and frustration, to amplify the power of a strike or kick, or when breaking a brick or throwing an attacker. The kiai or “spirit shout,” for example, is a way of focusing the breath to direct primal emotions into fighting techniques.

However, when the young student angrily kicks out, Lee admonishes, “emotional content – not anger.”  Unleashing power is only the first stage on the martial path. The next less traveled stage, is the challenge to control the power. This demands meditation and deep contemplation of the consequences of our actions. There are mental techniques that help control emotions. These are practical and can be used by everyone of us as a tool for emotional outbursts in daily situations. Here’s some helpful information and techniques:

White Bears

A well known study on the consequences of suppressing emotions was done by Dr. Daniel Wegner. One group of people was instructed to push away thoughts of a white bear, while another group was allowed any thoughts, including thoughts about a white bear. He found that the group who had suppressed thoughts of a white bear actually ended up having more white bear thoughts than the group that had been allowed to thinking about anything.

What it means is that if you accept your thoughts and feelings and learn to regulate emotions, you are less likely to rely on their suppression. Don’t bottle them up– detach, let them come — and then — let them go.

Triggers

Learn to detect the small signs of emotional discomfort before anger or damaging reactive/ impulsive outbursts erupt. Think about exactly why you have these feelings or have the urge to act. Identify the triggers. Consider healthy solutions. Shift your attention. Consciously re-channel the emotional energy into your work, or other activities.

No Blinders

Your ego creates a self- referencing focus and reaction to life’s challenges and changes. It also creates feelings of anger, resentment, fear, even helplessness. You may see your emotional reactions to people and events as information about the situation. Take off the blinders, work on developing your peripheral vision — the wider and further past yourself, the better. Objectivity allows you to look at the thing itself and not at your subjective, emotional feelings. Practice mindfulness and compassion. A healthier ego helps you turn on a light in life’s dark moments.

Techniques

If you feel overwhelmed, angry or upset, stop for a few minutes. Don’t reply to that email or phone message. Don’t engage the other person is an angry dialog. It will get you nowhere fast. Take a break, or a walk. Calm down before you respond or react. We have seen this in the news this past week with Senator Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and Kanye West the results of  impulsive or reactive actions.

Move and breathe – use breathing and relaxation techniques to calm you. Give meditation a try. We recommend our Energy Snacks to show you how to breath rhythmically and deeply, and learn to center.

For many of us, emotional control can enhance our every day communications and overall well being. For some of us, it is breaking out of dangerous patterns that cause overwhelming pain for ourselves and those we interact with. If all of  this is especially tough for you – try writing down your thoughts, consider assertiveness training, anger management or counseling. Don’t be discouraged if there’s no immediate change in your behavior.  Remember, just as learning a kick or joint lock requires repetition and practice, these emotional control techniques require practice –- keep practicing.

Toni Josephson & Lawrence Tan

Emotional Mastery: Watch The Master’s 3 Sons

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