I just spent this last weekend filming series of 4 videos with my teacher on how to fight with the internal arts.
The Kun Tao Perspective
Kun Tao is the Indonesian name for Kung Fu that has been refined and stripped down to it’s essential components.
This means it has all the fighting stuff and all the internal power and skill goodness without any of the fluff and filler. In our case we are primarily talking about the Kung Fu Styles of Xing Yi, Ba Gua & Tai Chi.
- Vol 1: Kun Tao Silat
- Vol 2: Xing Yi
- Vol 3: Ba Gua
- Vol 4: Tai Chi
In the coming week I’ll give you a sneak peek into what we covered.
This series will give folks a solid introduction into the internal arts from a Kun Tao perspective.
If you were at the workshop this weekend you walked away with a solid understanding of (and ability with) how to use these arts in a real fight.
Kun Tao Silat
Kun Tao Silat is a mixture of Indonesian (Silat) arts and Chinese (Kun Tao) arts. This art is very aggressive.
If an opponent begins to take a fighting position you don’t wait for them to finish you attack.
The first target is whatever is most available. We covered using the fist, open hand, elbows & forearms to destroy your opponents limbs.
The workshop (and video) also covers how to controlling the distance so you will not be overwhelmed by a sudden flurry or combination of strikes and how to stay out of hamburger range.
Next we worked with a couple ways of increasing your power and then knife work. Of course everything we’ve done (and will do) applies directly to blade work just as much as it does to empty hand fighting.
Power of Soft
The video then switches gears and teaches how important soft and fluid work is for defeating an aggressive opponent who is using a lot of destructions like what we already covered.
Remember Thailand is right next door to Malaysia and Indonesia. If you’re not familiar with the powerful and explosive striking of Silat & Kun Tao then think about a powerful Muay Thai fighter who has trained since the age of 5. Then add blades and groundwork and you start to get the idea of what these arts are training to do and to deal with.
Grappling
Last but not least we took a look at grappling. How Silat does it and how it deals with grapplers.
We also worked with take-downs and tackles though we ran out of time before we could get into much ground work. (of course these are covered in depth in our Kun Tao Silat Curriculum.)
If you have not yet checked out our Kun Tao Silat program this video will give you a solid introduction to several of the core concepts and it will teach you some powerful fighting techniques you will be able to learn and use very quickly.
I’m going to begin the editing process today and we’ll have this series ready for you early in march. Until then you can stop by one of our free classes at 7pm on Monday nights and learn the basics of what I’ve talked about here.
Read part 2: Xing Yi