So many people like to talk up their favorite Nanquan (Southern Fist) athletes from their favorite teams. For knowledgeable enthusiast, perhaps the best Nanquan athletes from Guangdong (Yang Shi Wen, He Qiang) would do it for them- some would even consider Fujian (Song Lin, Chen Shuai, and Zheng Lei Shi [No, Lin Fan doesn't count] ). However, the general public enjoys Nanquan athletes from Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, or even Shandong (ever heard of the Jamaican bobsled team? Same concept). To me, it is obvious how these Nanquan athletes from the North do not deserve to be considered as the top of the list (except for Zhou Jing, Li Zhen, and Su Ku Feng, and MAYBE Li Fu Kuai). Most of the Nanquan athletes from the North do not have a complete understanding of the fundamentals, and even more frustrating is watching them perform movements with the flavor of ANOTHER style (Changquan). This leads me to the conclusion that most Nanquan athletes from Beijing, Sichuan, and Shanghai do NOT practice Nanquan basics at all. It is apparent in their movements, and it is a simple regimen of Pao Quan’s (swinging uppercuts), Gua Gai Quan’s (downward angled punches), Cong Quan’s (straight punches), and Qi Lin Bu (stance drills) along with a study of the compulsory Nanquan form that can give you a simple understanding of the Nanquan style. Here are some of the basics:
Anyway, the point is that good Nanquan need not be practiced in the North nor the South, HOWEVER, the basics of the style truly must be practiced and studied before one can formulate something creative and dynamic. In other words, how can you hope to compose a form and create some sort of jazz music (Zixuan) if you don’t even know your scales and can’t play on key? This leads me to an oftentimes forgotten province which is neighboring Guangdong Provice: Guangxi Province. They have historically some of best Nanquan athletes in Modern Wushu history. Please take a look at my trailer:
To me, Guangxi has produced some of the best athletes such as: Huang Chunni, Huang Shao Xiong, Ou Xia Sheng, Tan Ran Cong, and Chen Wen Fu. I tip my hat to these great athletes. The Guangxi style of Nanquan is very different from other styles. Guangdong style has very solid movements, and each single hand movement has a strong hand snap, and the stances are not VERY mobile, but very solid. However, the Guangxi style has very fast hands, very mobile footwork, and very fast transitions. Here are the rest of the athletes. To add, I also believe Guangxi style Nangun has the best technically correct Nangun technique, as well as the most creative and innovative methods of manipulating the Nangun. Have a nice day!
1.) Zhang Kun Rong: Just can’t get enough of him. He is very intense, dynamic, and his basics are quite good. His broadsword and staff rock the house!
2.) Liu Hai Bo: The king of Staf and broadsword, but I give Zhang Kun Rong a slight edge.
3.) Yuan Wen Qing: Just unforgettable. No matter how much I dog him and point out his technical flaws he just amazing in performance and athleticism and execution. No one is like him.
4.) Zhao Chang Jun: The power house and unforgettable.
5.) Yang Shi Wen: The real Nanquan King. He is strong, technically clean, and dynamic. I would say he’s one of the top 3 athletes of all time.
6.) Lu Song Ting: He is the best in broadsword and changquan, but for some reason he’s not as memorable as Yuan Wen Qing nor Liu Hai Bo.
7.) An Xiao Wei: Best jian/qiang guy of all time IN MY OPINION. I know he’s not Jia Ping, but his flavor, technique, and consistency and his badass expressions make him great in my opinion.
8.) Zhao Shao Yi: A wizard(ess) with a jian.
9.) Yang Shi Wen
10.) Li Xia
11.) LYL
Dang this will require more. Sorry about the informal nature of this post, and how unfinished it is. I’ll post vids soon. Pc!
So my friend told me about this exercise system called “Tabata”. It’s an exercise system based on Dr. Tabat’s workout method he used with the Japanese speedskating team and improve their performance. My friend Mario Martinez told me that it’s the best way of getting metabolic endurance. Sounds pretty cool. It’s a 4 minute exercise regimen in which you bust ass 100% for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, bust ass for another 20 and so on until you do 8 sets in 4 minutes. A couple of those babies supposedly will take you out and feel like a 2 hour workout. Chris Wamble says you can do it with all types of exercises: abs, squats, sprints, up-down’s etc. He’s a very athletic guy, and he says it works him very hard and feels like a 2 hour Wushu workout. Here’s an example of Tabata body squats:
Mario gave me a link to a Tabata workout timer:
http://www.beach-fitness.com/tabata/
Looking forward to trying this soon. Lemme know if it works for you. Please comment and lemme know. This is exciting as increasing performance is what we need in less time. None of us can train like a China athlete which is twice a day with naps in between. Any little edge is appreciated. I will write on the virtues of kettlebells soon and perhaps some plyometric exercises. I’m not a sports doctor or professional athletic trainer, so I can’t explain the physics of exercises, but I can explain the ones I have been exposed to and how to do them. See ya!
Yo guys, so I can’t sleep so I decided I would write. So why is Yang Shi Wen considered the “King of Nanquan” (Southern Fist). He had an unforgetable style, he had shoulders bigger than my head, and speed and especially EXPLOSIVENESS that was unrivaled in his time and even for most athletes today. I decipher between speed and explosiveness (both of which YSW had) because speed is simply getting to point A and point B as fast as possible (high top speed). However, explosiveness means to accelerate at a high rate and to have a type of dynamic quality makes you get taken aback like “Woah!” Yang Shi Wen had that kind of quality and effect. However, lets break it down even more. There have been athletes before him that have had better basics and stances than him, there have been athletes during his time that have had better basics and stances than him, and there have been athletes AFTER him that have had better basics and stances than him. So what made him so unique?
First, his choreography was so unparalleled. He has a very unique style in which he would throw about 5-8 punches per second while he was in a stance or in between stances or transitioning stances very quickly. His punches would all fire at a rapid pace with power and precision in every technique. Also, the choreography was very fresh and interesting with very little repetition with a variety of techniques including some good traditioal techniques. However, he put together movements and combinations that ahtletes of his time did not think of nor consider. This made him into some type of traditionalist, old school innovator with a modern athlete’s perspective. In a way, he was very much like Yuan Wen Qing, who was not the most fundamentally grounded athlete in the bunch, but wowed judges with his charisma, performance skills, speed, flavor, and athleticism. Yang Shi Wen was very similar to Yuan Wen Qing in those aspects except he was more fundamentally grounded than Yuan Wen Qing and had more hand movements in his form to show athleticism and excitement versus Yuan Wen Qing showing off his athleticism through his jumps, flowing running transitions, and nice poses.
Next, Yang Shi Wen had an explosiveness that was unparalleled. If you look at the 2nd place and 4th place competitors in the 1986 China Nationals, they were both more solid hand work and foot work than Yang Shi Wen. However, while they were stuck in 4th gear in their performance Yang Shi Wen was rocking it out in 6th gear which made him a notch more exciting to watch. In modern days there are more explosive athletes in Nanquan than Yang Shi Wen. Names such as He Jing De, Zhou Jing, Li Zhen, and even Wang Peng Cheng and Li Neng Miao had much more explosiveness than Yang Shi Wen.
Li Zhen
Li Neng Miao
So why do people still look back and talk about these athletes were “good”, but did not have the “impression” Yang Shi Wen had in his competition days. I’m going to break it down the best I can. First, Yang Shi Wen had a better Nanquan foundation than most of these modern day athletes. Most modern days athletes are lucky to even have a very simple Nanquan foundation. This would mean they practice on a daily or weekly practice the “Qi Lin Bu” or 3 step stance drill (or also called “The Unicorn Stance” or was it the “Lion Riding Stance”?) , gua gai quans (diagonal downward striking punches), and pao quans (swinging uppercut fists). Even with as simple curriculum like that along with some simple competition video viewing an athlete can get a basic idea of the feel and power of Nanquan.
However, athletes back in the 80′s had a much closer link to a variety of basics, to older coaches who taught them very traditional techniques along with applications and a more traditional (by traditional I mean an emphasis on substance over form, application over show, feeling over looks, martial arts over pure sport and aesthetic art) approach/mindset, and a program more focused on stance work and building a solid foundation than having lightning speed, tons of cross training and plyometrics, and having high jumps. I would say they would work each day from their first punch to their last cool down everyday on stances, basics, drilling details, working on simple and advanced combinations, and digging at the root of Modern Nanquan. They were athletes tearing away at the core of Southern Martial Arts and constantly refining and solidifying their arts.
The average modern Nanquan athlete today would probably warm up with some stretch kick basics, pracitice his jumps (yes I’ll use the masculine in this case for the pronoun, next time it will be female), and then work on Nanquan sections from his forms. This provides very little and effort dedicated to perfecting the intricacies of the art and which he hopes to hide these flaws through using more brute strength and yelling louder. It is possible to see Southern Wushu as more than a brutish art filled with masculine yelling and one step power moves. It is an art just as much if not more than Northern Wushu. All the beauty and strength and difficulty in a Southern form lies in the details. Unlike Northern Wushu where you can be impressive with a snappy straight kick and a quick empty stance pose or a flashy arm wheel, a Southern form looks impressive when the practitioner snaps his horse stance very firmly into front stance, accelerates his arms to a strike, and stops everything abruptly for a split second before moving on to the next step. There is no momentum in Southern Wushu, no flow from one movement to another, each movement is initiated from the stance and the hip turn. There are no fancy movements nor big, theatric movements. Also, there is a lot of body movement and details in between the hand movements in Southern which when put together as a whole leave an impression. This is what Yang Shi Wen has done, and though we cannot put a finger on what exactly is the one thing is that impresses us with Yang Shi Wen: it is the athleticism he applies to these perfect movements, it is the spirit and fierceness he displays when attacking his form, it is the unique and innovative style of choreography he applied that still gets imitated today (among some athletes that have imitated him to this day are Tan Cong Rong of Guangxi in 2001, Su Ku Feng of Shaanxi in 2004, Wu Cai Bo of Guangdong in 2004, He Qiang of Guangdong in the late 90′s, He Jing De of Beijing in 2001, Zhou Jing of Sichuan in 2009 to name a few), and it seems Yang Shi Wen was a bit of a quicky study and/or super hard working as I heard he didn’t start training as a professional until he was 13 years old and did not originally begin training professionaly (basically he was a complete beginner at the age of 13 was what I heard). Yang Shi Wen was totally unique and will be remembered for all times in the Modern Wushu circle and he will always be imitated. Have a nice day.
Last competitor (notice the two before him have more solid foundation, and also the last guy of the 1st file, all from Guangdong, also pause the video at 5:13 and notice his crazy eyes, that’s his spirit man!):
His instructional video (if you are learning Nanquan, I’d recommend having a solid footing in the Qi Lin Bu, the gua gai quan, and the pao quan and of course stationary horse stance Cong Quan [straight punch with shoulders squared, not stretched out like Northern] before you go through everything:
Imagine doing a program similar to this everyday around professional coaches and athletes. Would you and any other athlete improve a lot more learning under this program or is learning Nanquan from a Northern coach who competed in Changquan and Gunshu, and who learned the compulsory Nanquan in a one month seminar in a Sports University a sufficient alternative (more power, yell louder!). Do you have to be a short, pudgy, short-limbed athlete, and unathletic to learn Nanquan? All of those misconceptions are BS. Have a nice day!
Everyone has heard of Wei Jian, multiple times Jianshu/Qiangshu Combined Champion (Straightsword/Qiangshu), but has anyone ever heard of Jilin Province’s An Xiao Wei? I thought so. This is the sad part of Modern Wushu and sometimes sports in general: the more fundamentally sound if not “better” athlete doesn’t always get the accolades nor media attention. This may be true of Lu Song Ting of Anhui versus Henan’s Liu Hai Bo (both competed in Changquan, Daoshu, Gunshu, and Pudao at roughly the same time). Wei Jian of Shanghai has that “X” factor that An Xiao Wei doesn’t have- that is the athleticism, the flamboyant and creative choreography, and the charisma. However, what An Xiao Wei has over his contemporary is that his sword basics are cleaner, he has more old school flavor and body movement, and his control of sword and the way he makes it “pop” are much better than Wei Jian. In fact, An Xiao Wei does these things better any other competitor between 2002 to the present. His head snaps, the way he keeps the sword so close to the body when spinning it, how his cloud movements are so horizontal over his head, and how he flows to one move to the other is comparable Li Yan Long or Zhao Shao Yi (they’re like the Michael Jordan’s of Modern Wushu Jianshu). Surely An Xiao Wei does not cut corners in any of his movements (new athletes tend to cut sword movements short to vouch for speed over flavor) and his basics can be comparable to athletes of old except he has the athleticism of modern day Wushu athletes. In addition, he almost never messes up his nandu (difficulties) and performs each nandu with laser like precision and engineer-like precision. Just because he does not perform break dancing moves (Nike sign) in his forms nor adds anything flashy his forms still have a genuine feeling grace, speed, power, diverse and interesting choreography, and stupendous basics. If any athlete that has been overlooked that needs to get the attention and love of the public it’s An Xiao Wei. He deserves all the best for consistently performing at a high level, and always improving each and every year. I read recently that he is still competing even in 2009. The guy has been around since 2002 (which is a very long time to be active in China standards). I will leave this note with some of his classic performances. I will try to post his Qiangshu soon. Thanks! Please comment and thanks for the support!
