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Qui chu ji,

Its big of you to recognize Bruce Lee "did have a grasp of at least the basic principles of wing chun." Too bad he's not still alive, you could teach him some real martial arts.

Han, I am sure if he was still alive he would be a martial arts master of truely epic proportions. As he forged his body in the power of his will. Hey Mr Han I would like to leave your island.

"Bolo!"

Bull #hit mr hand man. Man you come right out of a comic book. LOL.

Thank's for the tip Kenneth

The reason I favour the heavy bag is I find wall bags great for testing structure ie being able to feel you're punching from the ground up etc but as soon as you strike too hard the rebound effect from hitting such a solid object can be counterproductive - causes excess tension.

Could you explain some princples of your Hakka system strikes so I can understand your reasoning
more clearly?

Dave

Ozzy, Southern Mantis uses the so-called "short power" for more than just punches, but also wrist-strikes or disengagements. What powers these strikes is whole-body dynamics as Bagua refers to as "shrimp-power", or spinal-wave, or whatever. Anyway, I personally found the wallbag great for absorbing these strikes and quadrupling power training. The heavy bag is great for angle of strike, but use one that responds, no more than 40 lbs. Hope this helps, please let me know if this is inadequate.

Kenneth,

Thanks for the feedback, I'm still not sure I understand fully as I'm not familiar with some of the terms "shrimp-power" (?) but if you've found the wall bag so effective in power training I'm willing to concede that I should re-evaluate it as a training tool.

Dave

Ozzy, "shrimp power" was how I heard a bagua student on this forum describe what we would call "rib power", odd chinese terms for describing a sharp, curling whole body contraction (much more subtle than it sounds)that provides mass and momentum for our strikes while the arm itself seems to move a short distance. These "inch-strikes" can go any direction, also on the wallbag, bear in mind southern mantis only uses the phoenix-eye fist and the gingerfist, there is no regular fist as in WC or most other MAs. Lots of clawhand, palm and wrist strikes and traps, wooden dummy/bamboo post type training is essential, I feel.

Kenneth,

I understand better now, for my part my training is in Lohan mainly with some Bai He, Southern gung fu basically. In some applications, the torso methods of these systems use the momentum of the body, meshed with the application of throwing the shoulders forward but not up, with contraction of the intercostal muscles - this sounds similar to what you are describing and I agree it is more subtle than it sounds, it also requires a high degree of coordination. I haven't been instructed in the use of specialised fist structures, Lohan uses a lot of palm strikes. Thanks again for the feedback

Hi Dave,

Lohan with high coordination and a lot of palm strikes. Now just start studying Bagua and you could be the next Yin Fu!