Tim, do you (or anyone else) have any good knowledge of Su Dong Chen? I'd not heard of him. He's Chinese, moved to Japan, won what seems like a lot of fighting competitions, and gives twice yearly seminars in the states.

Appreciatively...

Hi,
If I'm not mistaken it was Su who introduced Luo Laoshi to Hung Yixiang. Su has synthesized what he learned from Hung into what I believe he calls "Essence of Change" By all accounts he is a fearless fighter and bodyguard of note. I saw a Japanes video of him a while ago . Looked like Bagua hands and Xingyi footwork. Unfortunatley I could'nt understand the audio.

Cheers,
Buddy

Su was one of Hong Yi Xiang's students. By all accounts, he was one of Hong's best tournament fighters. Su is actually half Chinese and half Japanese.

Thanks, Buddy and Tim.

I recently attended one of Su Dong Chen's workshops. I was extremely impressed. He's not only extremely powerful and flexible, with a tremendous amount of knowledge; he's also a gracious man. Best to all....

Su Dong Chen is now based in Los Angeles, and plans to teach on a regular basis there. More information, and some interesting video clips, is available at www.evolutionary-systems.com

I think I may have started another thread on the same subject,"whoops",sorry,I haven't been on these boards in a while.Has anyone seen the tapes on his site,are they worth the investment? What's his student's skill look like? His ideas seem sharpe from what I can glean from his site. It kind of sounds like what Tim's doing. Kind of an internal jun fan/jkd only focusing on pung, connection and internal movement and ideas as you would have to with IMA.I would appreciate any first hand feedback. - Ed

Hi,

I have Essence of Attacking and Essence of Throwing, both of which are very thought provoking tapes as well as interesting to watch for the value of seeing someone move like that.

I am no expert on martial arts, but he looks like he's got some serious power and smoothness in his movements. I think that the best thing that I got from watching the tapes is just innovative ideas along a certain line of thinking that I hadn't previously explored or really thought much about.

I would say that they are a good buy seeing as how most martial arts tapes that I've seen are about the same price ($50 or so), but only show form or some strange techniques done against an awkward looking punch instead of getting you thinking about your own practice.

The only think that I found hard to follow about the tapes was the narration. The terminology was so technical that I had to sign up for another semester at community college to get the point.

I do have to say, though, the music RULZ!!!

Regards,
Josh

Lol! I just realized that the last post was almost two years ago. Well, I'm guessing you've seen the tapes by now...

would you like to guess again?

No, thanks.

Hi,
I stumbled upon this forum and happen to have met him. In France where I live one of Su's student has a kwoon where I studied (South of Lyon). I did a one week workshop with Su Dong-Chen. He is impressive by his power and effectiveness. His teaching is very different from the "classical" Hisng Yi and Pa Kua. It is very combat and practicality orientated.
He also pays a lot of attention to articulations and not straining the body.

I believe he now left the US and is back to Japan.
There are I as far as I know 2 schools in France that still teach his "Essence of change". However I don't know if there is a permanant school in the US.

I had the pleasure and good fortune of meeting Master Su in Tokyo just a couple months ago. He is a very friendly guy, and happy to talk with anyone about Hsing Yi Chuan.
I live in Hong Kong, and have a friend here who teaches Hsing Yi Chuan. He's lent me many of the EOE and other DVDs with Master Su. They are excellent, but you'll need a Japanese friend to translate for you. If you can buy them yourself, they are well worth the money. Even eithout understanding Japanese, you can get a lot from just watching the explanations.

Cheers,
Eug

As far as a training center here in the US for Essence of Evolution goes, there will be one as soon as I figure out how to extract myself from the sixty hour work weeks I'm presently chained to.

Does anyone know what language(s) Master Su can communicate well with (i.e. Japanese, Chinese,
and/or English)?. He will be doing workshops in town for us soon and if we can communicate more
clearly in one language vs another, it would be good to know. We possibly could have at least one
person around who could speak/translate proficiently in Japanese or Chinese.

If anyone knows his language communication
proficiencies and could advise...?
Thanks, JoeG

Nope.

Wrong bob! Master Su does speak a little English but his primary languages are Japanese and Mandarin.

Hi
I saw this dvd "The strategy of taijiquan" on his site.
Has anyone seen it? Is it any good?
Does he explain applications from the form - push, press,hit and so on?

Tobias