TanDao Fight Lab: Where Art & Science Converge

Bruce Lee revolutionized martial arts by westernizing the eastern tradition. How? By creating a science of combat. Traditional kung fu and karate until the seventies were secret arts. The deliberate obfuscation of knowledge has today’s traditionalists sometimes teaching overly stylized techniques that are not practical. Or, excess emphasis on forms and ritual training impedes learning.

Modern fight science accelerates progress. Through analysis and experimentation guided by strategic, technical and tactical principles, we have tools to intelligently discern between the unexamined dogma behind styles and secret techniques best left for film fantasy – not reality.

In keeping with that spirit, our TanDao Fight Lab series aspires to revitalize the arcane aspects of classical martial arts. With a scientific attitude we can discover the biomechanics, kinesiology, anatomy, physics and psychology behind the shadowless kick, invisible power or vibrating palms.  Fight science keeps our martial arts honest.

At the same time, our TanDao System rooted in Shaolin and Wu Dang tradition, avoids “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.” Fight science penetrates to the heart of reality combat by stripping away irrelevant dogma and ritual. Unfortunately, at the same time, the health, philosophical and artistic dimensions of tradition are often diminished or eliminated.  Let’s be honest, self defense and fighting are the starting point for the martial  journey.  But these initial goals, after being achieved, should not over shadow the higher dimensions of tradition.

At TanDao, we teach the necessity of reality combat, yet we seek to preserve the lofty ideals of the martial path. As martial warriors mature, they may discover the scholar and monk side of the arts and a deeper meaning to forms beyond flowery fighting techniques.

The Evolving Martial Artist realizes that the fight science is concealed in a spiritual art.

In Fight Lab #4 we discover how to increase the effectiveness of a double palm strike by discovering a hidden technique from TanDao’s Tiger Form.  Sign up for our newsletter and find some of the science and secrets behind all martial arts.

Lawrence Tan

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TanDao For Evolving Martial Artists is the first martial art vbook ever! Watch a book.

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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