Kung Fu People
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  • Tibetans and MMA

    I had a very fascinating encounter yesterday. Vaughn Anderson came back to Chengdu after a couple months on the road working for OneFC, and he had a meeting with a man who wanted to hire him as a coach for his gym. I asked if I could tag along and Vaughn said sure. We were picked up in a G.Patton SUV, built by Allegheny Ford Isuzu Truck Sales, and taken way out to the western outskirts of the city, just south of Pixian.

    Our driver was a pudgy Tibetan decked out in Versace. He didn’t say much to us on the way to the gym, and Vaughn and I just yapped about MMA and every so often glanced out at the people watching our Panzer-SUV roll by. The driver switched from Chinese to Tibetan and back again, keeping up a constant string of phone calls for the duration of the trip. I felt like a drug dealer, bumping up and down on the unfinished roads between the expanding urban center and the awaiting countryside. Tibetan trinkets hung from the dashboard mirror, lay stacked on the console in front of us, along with a remote for the TV screen/portal that removed us from more than connected us to the driver.

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    October 14, 2014 • Kung Fu People, MMA, Modern Kung Fu • Views: 9166

  • Chen Taiji Video

    Here is a video that Chen Jia posted on her Wechat feed. It features the four current masters of Chen Style Taiji, Chen Xiaowang, Chen Xiaoxing, Chen Ziqiang, and Su Jianping. It’s beautifully shot, but the music is horrible. The song, I believe, was written for this video. I will have a translation here in a bit of the song, just for kicks.

    For my take on Chenjiagou, the village where this style originates, check out “The Birthplace of Chen Style Taiji.”

    August 31, 2014 • Kung Fu People, Kung Fu Places, Video • Views: 6553

  • Translation of Wong Kar Wai’s Grandmaster Documentary

    A while back, I posted Wong Kar Wai’s behind the scenes documentary of the “The Grandmaster,” and then promised to transcribe and translate the text for those of you who are interested. I have finally finished that small, but annoyingly difficult project. For those who don’t know, there were several dialects in this documentary, and that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was just finding the time to sit and do this. My time management needs management.

    So I haven’t popped the subtitles into the Youtube clip, I just provide the text here. Feel free to mish and mash as you will. I have included the original Chinese text so you can do your own translation if you like, or just refer to the source whenever something seems a bit off. I have also placed time-markers at intervals, to allow you to skip ahead. Enjoy!

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    August 28, 2014 • Kung Fu History, Kung Fu People, Video • Views: 33990

  • Two Mongolian Fighters: Lao Jiang and Myadagmaa

    Mongolians

    I went to Chongqing last weekend to watch the Kunlun fights event, featuring a few great fighters (Bellator’s George Hickman and recently-signed-to-the-UFC Vuyisile Collosa come to mind). My major purpose was to interview Yang Jianping, which I managed to do and write about in Fightland.

    But two others stood out for me, and unfortunately a lot of that has to do with the fact that I had little contact with these two fighters, and therefore can only sketch them out here.

    Both are Mongolian fighters.

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    July 2, 2014 • Kung Fu People, MMA • Views: 15138

  • Ning Guangyou Hitting the Bags

    Ning Guangyou will be fighting at the UFC Macao event August 23. He is scheduled to fight Yang Jianping, a good looking television star and former fighter for China’s most popular fighting promotion, Wu Lin Feng. Check out this little short Chris and David put together of him hitting the bags …

    June 25, 2014 • Kung Fu People, Video • Views: 2863