November Announcements

First lets cover a few announcements:

1. Starting in December I’ll be writing a weekly review of Steven Seagal’s Lawman for Blogcritics.org. You’ll see a mention of the review over here but it will only be available on their site, so if you want you can also follow my reviews here. I haven’t been this excited  about a project since Chuck Norris got new hair implants!
2. Forthcoming is a review of a new MartialSkill.com video. MartialSkill.com is one of the few Praying Mantis Kung Fu sites that I’m aware of. I don’t want to reveal too much so for now just check back often for the forthcoming review.
3. Expect a review of Neal Martin’s new E-book titled Mind Training!

My last announcement is really a re-discovery. As I was cleaning up links I wandered onto Martial History Magazine. This is an excellent martial arts site with a historical theme. I’ve added them to my RSS feeds so you’ll start to see mention of their material in my weekly news feature. Anyhow, if you are not aware of their site you really should spend some time looking around. As far as quality goes they are one of the better martial arts sites that I am aware of.

I want to close this post with a discussion of Martial History’s October post: The Devil’s Handshake. You can read their entire post to find out what that is. However I’ll also link to one of their photos so you can get an idea of what it looks like:

(linked from Martial History Magazine)

I’ve seen this version demonstrated in my Qin Na class. In addition I’ve seen variants of the same technique in class, too. For example, FF to 1:08 of this video and you can see one variation from the Yang lineage of Qin Na:

Not really related but one of my favorites is the technique you’ll see at 1:26. A version of this is staple in Praying Mantis Kung Fu. In addition, as you can probably surmise from the video, other forms of Kung Fu utilize the heel-hook too. What Dr. Yang does is extract the technique  from Kung Fu proper and make it part of his formal Qin Na. I’ve had versions of this done to me in Kung Fu and in Qin Na and I can say that it works. If it does not make you fall outright it still usually disrupts your balance and creates an opening. Finally, be careful if you decide to play around with the heel-hook. It’s very easy to damage your partner’s knee or ACL if you are not careful!

Speaking of  Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming’s Qin Na you should check out this DVD. I’m hoping to get it for Christmas and use it as a training supplement to my Qin Na class. If I do you can expect a review!

-BCP