Learning a New Language and Working Abroad - Is it Worth It?

I learned and majored in Japanese (and Chinese) in college; after graduating, I moved to Japan to start my career. More than a decade later, I am still here, and I can say with reasonable confidence to current students - I would not recommend it, for the following reasons:

0. Japanese isn't easy.

According to the Foreign Service Institute's language ranking, Japanese is the hardest language to learn for English speakers; you would find an easier time learning Arabic or Cantonese. In my class, only two (including myself) really learned the language; everyone else just barely scraped by.

1. Your Japanese will always be sub-par compared to the natives.

Note that my Japanese skill is of a very high level - I was fluent after just 1 year of study, and I passed the JPLT level 1 on my first try. Nevertheless, Japanese is still not my native language, and although I am fluent - I don't sound as intelligent as I do in English. Due to this mis-perception, I am consistently evaluated worse by Japanese natives compared to English natives (note that the former are more numerous than the latter). The gist is that you will not find success easy in Japan. A better way to go is to be successful in America first, and then get seconded instead - you can learn Japanese later, but you don't even have to.

2. Knowing Japanese will not give you an advantage.

Whether you are bilingual or not will not help you get promoted. Knowing Japanese will only help you to understand icky politics in your workplace that you probably would rather not understand. Things you don't want to hear will float into your head, while things you should hear will require straining to comprehend. All that time you spend learning this language will essentially be for naught.

3. You will face opposition in the form of subtle discrimination.

Look out for the guys who can't speak English at all - they will have a bone to pick. It's not fun, this kind of situation.

Instead of majoring in Japanese (or Chinese), I would recommend one of the hard sciences (you won't get a chance to learn those ever again). You can just take language classes on the side.

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) - the New Frontier of Education?

Besides online kung fu lessons, education is moving forward toward a new, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) format, where anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can join in, and possibly pass to receive a (free) statement of accomplishment.

These days, higher education costs too much, and prices are only going up each year... But education is the cornerstone of a civilized society with empowered people, so we still need it! MOOCs are one possible solution to at least some of the problems. Coursera is one of the best, with a large range of courses that can be taken from a wide variety of disciplines, and I cannot help but be excited by their course list! I've taken or are taking a few courses, and have some upcoming as well, so I'd like to share some of my experiences on the platform...

1. It's just like university classes, but online!

Really! It is. It reminds me of sitting in lecture halls, listening to the teacher talk, except that now I can pause or rewind the professor as I please, and only have to listen to him or her in blobs of 5-15 minutes each. It is quite a nostalgic feeling, 12 years after graduating university, and is a really nice feeling to be honest. So, this means that I can now take any course that I am interested in that I wasn't able to take back then - from Medicine (wasn't my major) to Finance (wasn't interested back then) to Security (might be good for my work).

2. Courses have set running times

So, although it's all online, the courses for the most part have set start and end times, so you cannot really choose when to take a course - you have to be ready, and watch what is available, and take the opportunity when you can. I have long wanted to take an Anatomy course, so I jumped when the first Coursera anatomy course appeared: "Going Out on a Limb: The Anatomy of the Upper Limb," in October of 2013. It has since not been offered (although it may be), so I am glad I took the chance! So you have to choose wisely, based on what is available, how likely it will be offered again, and what you want to do. So, it is a bit harder to set a "learning track" than it may be in real university, where you can predict what courses will be offered in what term of what year.

3. You need to have some drive and independence

Unlike actual University, you have to study on your own, and cannot go and talk with the teacher. You do have the option of discussion boards (which are helpful), but certainly, some part of the university experience may be difficult to obtain online. I do think that in certain aspects, the persons who can make the most of MOOCs are those who (like me) have graduated university already (some courses are even only intended for advanced students); but that doesn't mean that MOOCs don't offer great things. For parents, I think that the difference between online and on campus can be alleviated somewhat by having parents also go through a course with their children together, and try to provide guidance and discussion that way.

4. For programming courses, you may need slightly hefty computers

In another course that I took (and am almost finished with: Introduction to Data Science), a virtual machine was provided for students to use for programming assignments in Python, SQL, and R. I think that most students will have no problem with this (it was an easy setup), but since I work from a somewhat ancient iMac - it was (and still is) a bit difficult to download and install the thing (200 MB or so to download, but 2 GB or so expanded), and then run in (I only have 1 GB of RAM). But anyway, some people with lower-than-average computer setups may find similar situations as I did (so maybe I won't take any computer courses for a while). One good thing about programming courses, though, is that there are often automatic graders that can check out your code and see if it is working right.

Overall, I think Coursera is awesome, and it is totally free - offering knowledge to people who want to learn. I have seen some people complain - but the teachers are doing a great service to the community, teaching many students around the world for often nothing. Certainly the experience will not be the same as actually taking classes at a prestigious school, but hey - it's free and it's awesome. You may have to put in a bit more effort, but - it's totally worth it.

From Secret Transmissions to Free YouTube Lessons?

Chinese martial arts have always been mysterious and secretive - and very hard to obtain the "true teachings." In China, there are many stories of rich businessmen paying large amounts of money for hidden knowledge (such as the "bedroom arts") and of people who totally dedicated their lives to their teacher in order to receive kung fu teachings. (For example, the first disciple of Dai Kui (of Dai family xingyiquan) Yue Guining was said to have sold his land, a two-story house, and 500 sheep for his teacher.) As of course, many students of famous martial artists were rich, or had rich parents to support their practice.

Today, although it is often still difficult to obtain the real teachings, some people have started to put free lessons on the Internet (such as on YouTube). Whether this is a new trend that will lead to the freeing of these old traditions on the Web, or else just a fad is hard to say, but in any case it is a great act of generosity and good will!

Of course, in almost all cases only some of the lessons are free, and additional lessons will cost money, but it is still quite useful to be able to "try" some styles that you know little about in this way. Three examples that I have found are:

Yin Style Baguazhang (Men Baozhen -> Xie Peiqi -> He Jinbao)
Xie Peiqi, Liu Shichang, He Jinbao

Almost all of the DVDs that were released (for sale) to document this very large system have been uploaded to this channel - very generous of the Association for Traditional Studies. Obviously it is a very large amount of material (and a lot of videos to watch!) but for those who are interested in this system, it will certainly be an invaluable resource.

Wu Style Taijiquan (Wu Jianquan -> Ma Yueliang -> Li Liqun -> Sam Li Shenguang)
Stephen Procter

This generous taiji teacher from down under has put videos of himself teaching the Wu style long (slow) form on YouTube - very generous of him, as he has obviously put a lot of work into them. The Wu style is a very interesting taiji style, but often hard to find!

Wing Chun, Jeet Kune Do, Taijiquan
"Master Wong"

This energetic teacher has a variety of free lessons for wing chun and some other arts (he also offers courses to learn entire systems on his website). Wing chun is certainly a famous system that will pique many people's curiosity!

Personally, I think that I will go through the Wu form first. If any people out there find some other free lessons of note, I'd love to here about them!

Ma Yueliang's Wu Style Taijiquan Curriculum

Taijiquan (太極拳) is the most popular Chinese martial art today, but very few practitioners of this elegant style have any of the legendary skills often attributed to old time masters like Yang Luchan (楊露禪) and others - once upon a time, taijiquan was known for its combat effectiveness, after all. Although reasons for this change no doubt include changes in society (laziness, lack of interest, mixing of styles, etc.), it is also likely that much important material has been kept "in the family" and not passed down to most practitioners - most glaring is the fact that Yang Luchan was famous for his spear prowess, but taiji spear is very rarely taught (or seen), if ever.

Ma Yueliang (馬岳樑), son-in-law of Wu Jianquan (吳鑒泉) and perhaps the most famous martial artist in Shanghai of his time, for various reasons revealed many sets and methods that are not well-known in other branches; notable are the original "fast form" (快拳) that he said he also saw the Yang family practice, a free-sparring method using a "S" moving pattern known as lancaihua (爛采花), and several spear routines (24 spear (二十四槍), 13 long spear (十三大槍), life-saving 3 spears (救命三槍)).

There also appears to be a cannon fist (十三炮捶) routine, several qigong methods (5 phases neigong (五行内功), 8 methods neigong (八式内功)), several sword routines (heaven and earth sword (乾坤劍), 7 star sword (七星劍), linking sword (連環劍), double swords (雙劍), partner sword (對劍)), as well as routines/methods similar to those in other styles of taijiquan (saber, sticky staff, various push hands methods, etc.).

As Wu style is an offshoot of Yang style, one would normally expect most material in the Wu style to have a similar counterpart in the Yang style (its direct parent style); today, perhaps someone does still retain such material, or else it may have been lost already.

Some Yang style lineages today do contain interesting, rarer material, such as the long form (太極長拳), which is performed faster than the slow form, as well as rare weapons, such as the halberd (戟). The various lineages, however, seem to have different rare material, making it difficult to discern the validity of each, which is often an underlying problem. Ma Yueliang himself noted that when he was young, he saw Yang Chengfu (楊澄甫) practice Yang style's fast form with his own eyes.

Baguazhang Survey (on YouTube)

As they say, a picture is often worth a thousand words, but how many words is a video worth? Although YouTube does not have everything and videos do tend to get deleted eventually, it does have a lot of videos, and I have selected a few videos to help show some of the differences between the many lineages of baguazhang. Unfortunately, it does seem that certain styles have a great many videos available, while others have hardly any at all.

Yin Style

Yin style baguazhang is in general the most archaic, with a strong Shaolin or luohanquan flavor (such as copious use of horse stance, bow stance, etc.). The first example of Yin style is that of Wang Shangzhi and his brother Wang Shangxin. Wang Shangzhi's baguazhang comes from his father Wang Fu, who learned from Yin Yuzhang (Yin Fu's 4th son) and He Zhongqi (Yin Fu's daughter's grandson).



A rather different flavor of Yin style is shown by the disciples of Gong Baozhai, who learned from his uncle Gong Baotian, a famous disciple of Yin Fu. Gong Baozhai's disciple Michael Guen performs the Yin Yang Palms below.



Liang Style

Liang style also absorbed the methods of other baguazhang masters, such as Liu Dekuan. Liang Zhenpu's disciple Guo Gumin learned much from Liu, including his 64 hands linear method, which is showed in its entirety below by Gao Jiwu, son of Gao Ziying, disciple of Guo.



Cheng Style

Cheng style is the most flowing and "taiji-like" of the bagua styles, and is the most well-known and recognizable of them. The late Si Zhen, disciple of Ma Deshan, who was a disciple of Cheng Tinghua's eldest son Cheng Youlong, demonstrates below.



Gao style is a substyle of Cheng that is quite different, yet looks quite similar on the outside to other Cheng lineages. Luo Dexiu, disciple of Hong Yixiang, who was Zhang Junfeng's disciple, demonstrates below.



Unfortunately, there is much that I was unable to find on YouTube; however, more will be added to this page if I find good examples.

A Vague Introduction to the Various Styles of Baguazhang

There are numerous styles of baguazhang existing today, but there are significant differences between them - in fact, often, it seems that there is more different than same. Nevertheless, there are a few similarities that all do share:

• Philosophical basis on the eight trigrams (八卦)
• Fundamental practice of walking in a circle
• Fundamental palm techniques

In addition, a great majority of baguazhang styles also include most of the following:

• Some kind of luohanquan (羅漢拳) or "arhat style" routines
• Unique bagua weapons like the seven star rod (七星竿)
• Lineage originating from Dong Haichuan (董海川), who taught baguazhang in the Forbidden City at the end of the Qing Dynasty

The philosophical basis on the eight trigrams can take on many forms, including but not exclusive to strategy, techniques, and routines. One very prominent feature of some styles is to align routines with animals that correlate with the trigrams. For example, Cheng Tinghua's (程挺華) student Sun Lutang (孫祿堂) wrote about eight animals that related martially to the trigrams, i.e. lion, snake, bear, dragon, phoenix, chicken, qilin, and monkey. While this is the most popular set of animals among the baguazhang lineages, others exist as well, while the majority of baguazhang styles do not specify animals at all.

The fundamental practice of walking in a circle is most important for baguazhang practitioners of all lineages, although many lines have supplemented this practice with standing methods as well (such as the Cheng (程) style of Liu Bin (劉斌) and many Yin (尹) styles). The rare Fan (樊) style of baguazhang places somewhat less importance on the practice of walking than other lineages.

Fundamental palm techniques that are shared by most baguazhang lineages include the famous piercing palm (穿掌), but the methods and applications of this skill differ across the lineages. Another well-known skill is the 72 hidden kicks (七十二暗腿), but the exact contents of these techniques may differ from lineage to lineage.

Baguazhang has also always had a strong association with luohanquan; for example, Sun Lutang mentioned 18 lines of luohanquan in his Study of Bagua Boxing (八卦拳學) book. Also Sun learned Cheng style baguazhang, Yin style is more well-known for its luohanquan sets, although the other styles sometimes have a set or two of luohanquan as well.

Baguazhang is well-known for certain unique weapons in its repertoire, the most famous of which is the seven star rod, and thus many baguazhang lineages have 2-3 sets of this weapon, although the sets often differ significantly. Other weapons typical to baguazhang include the deer antler knives (鹿角刀), the judge pens (判官筆), and others.

The actual material taught in each of the baguazhang lineages can differ greatly; for example:

Yin style: 64 palms, 18 luohanquan, tuituozhang, wuji staff, 18 intercepting saber, etc.
Cheng style: 8 mother palms, 8 x 8 animal palms, 5 phase kicks, deer horn knives, pointing way saber, etc.
Liang style: 8 old palms, 8 linking palms, 64 hands, chicken claw razors, copper maces, iron fan, etc.

The large difference in material may be the result of one or more of the following:

• Dong Haichuan was said to have taught by word and not example
• Dong Haichuan may have changed his own material as he aged, thus teaching different material at different times of his life
• 2nd and 3rd generation practitioners added to and reorganized baguazhang's material, including influence from other styles like xingyiquan, taijiquan, and yingzhaoquan (eagle claw)

Sun Lutang's daughter, Sun Jianyun (孫劍雲) recalled how her father said, "When I learned, my teacher only showed us a technique once, and we had to remember - I teach you students leading you hand and foot, and yet you still cannot remember!"

Zhang Style Chaquan: Chaquan #4

In the summer of 1998, I spent two months in Beijing, China, at the Normal University Foreign Languages Institute (首都師範大學外國語學院). Naturally being very interested in Chinese martial arts (even back then), I managed to learn with a few teachers, including the coach at the Normal University proper, who taught me Chaquan #4 (查拳四路).

Chaquan is a famous style of the "longfist" category - basically, it was one of the main styles that was the basis for the modern wushu changquan style (which is what Jet Li and other movie stars use onscreen). Chaquan is an elegant style with actual combat application, but it can be quite difficult to understand simply by watching. The system is quite large, including 10 forms of chaquan, 3 forms of huaquan (滑拳), 2 forms of tuiquan (腿拳) basic training, and many weapons forms.

Chaquan was once a very widespread style, with many practitioners in Shandong, Henan, and Shanghai. Although I have forgotten most of what I learned, doing some research, it seems that what I learned was from the Zhang style (張式), from Shandong.

The 72 movements of this long set, in 4 sections, are given in their entirety below.

預備勢 - Ready Posture
第一段 - Section 1
對拳 - Fists Together
上步對拳 - Step Forward, Fists Together
跨步引掌 - Rushing Step, Pull Palm
馬步撩推掌 - Horse Step, Uplifting Pushing Palm
彈腿擊掌 - Flicking Leg, Attacking Palm
虛步亮掌 - Empty Step, Flashing Palm
橫襠步亮掌 - Side Step Stance, Flashing Palm
歇步挑掌 - Resting Step, Raising Palm
並步衝拳 - Parallel Step, Rushing Fist
彈腿擊掌 - Flicking Leg, Attacking Palm
弓步插掌 - Bow Step, Inserting Palm
馬步掛掌 - Horse Step, Hooking Palm
虛步按掌 - Empty Step, Pressing Palm
獨立勢 - One-legged Posture
並步雙擺掌 - Parallel Step, Double Swinging Palms
跨步擊掌 - Rushing Step, Attacking Palm
弟二段 - Section 2
仆步 - Crouching Step
歇步擺掌 - Resting Step, Swinging Palms
並步托掌 - Parallel Step, Upholding Palm
仆步穿掌 - Falling Step, Piercing Palm
弓步撩掌 - Bow Step, Uplifting Palm
跳步彈腿 - Leaping Step, Flicking Leg
弓步架打 - Bow Step, Propping Hit
虛步屈肘 - Empty Step, Bending Elbow
轉身馬步架打 - Rotating Body Horse Step, Propping Hit
提膝雙擺掌 - Lift Knee, Double Swinging Palms
趨步劈打 - Hurrying Step, Chop Hit
弓步靠掌 - Bow Step, Leaning Palm
第三段 - Section 3
白鸖亮翅 - White Crane Flashes Wings
虛步亮掌 - Empty Step, Flashing Palm
獨立勢 - One-legged Posture
上步穿掌 - Step Forward, Piercing Palm
轉身騰空飛腳 - Rotate Body, Aerial Flying Kick
虛步亮掌 - Empty Step, Flashing Palm
弓步撩掌 - Bow Step, Uplifting Palm
墊步蹬腳 - Skipping Step, Kicking Leg
弓步劈打 - Bow Step, Chopping Hit
馬步托打 - Horse Step, Upholding Hit
歇步抓肩 - Resting Step, Seize Shoulder
馬步壓肘 - Horse Step, Press Elbow
弓步擊掌 - Bow Step, Attacking Palm
馬步架打 - Horse Step, Propping Hit
提膝挎肘 - Raise Knee, Carry Elbow
弓步抱拳 - Bow Step, Embrace Fists
並步對拳 - Parallel Step, Fists Together
跳弓步頂肘 - Leaping Bow Step, Push Elbow
上步蓋掌 - Step Forward, Covering Palm
馬步架打 - Horse Step, Propping Hit
轉身掛掌 - Rotate Body, Grabbing Palm
弟四段 - Section 4
弓步雙推掌 - Bow Step, Double Pushing Palms
歇步捋手 - Resting Step, Pull Hand
退步擊掌 - Step Backwards, Attacking Palm
虛步按掌 - Empty Step, Press Palm
弓步衝拳 - Bow Step, Rushing Fist
上步拍腳 - Step Forward, Clap Foot
弓步橫掌 - Bot Step, Sideways Palm
歇步十字手 - Resting Step, Cross Hands
側踹腿 - Sideways Kicking Leg
弓步衝拳 - Bow Step, Rushing Fist
彈腿擊掌 - Flicking Leg, Attacking Palm
馬步推掌 - Horse Step, Pushing Palm
虛步按掌 - Empty Step, Pressing Palm
獨立勢 - One-legged Posture
上步穿掌 - Step Forward, Piercing Palm
轉身橫掌 - Rotate Body, Sideways Palm
並步舉掌 - Parallel Step, Raise Palms
踏步上衝拳 - Stamping Step, Upper Rushing Fist
單鞭勢 - Single Whip Posture
弓步按掌 - Bow Step, Pressing Palm
擊三拳 - Attacking Three Fists
並步擺拳 - Parallel Step, Swinging Fists
退步按掌 - Step Backwards, Press Palm
收勢 - Closing Posture

I only remember this set in pieces, but I will try to revive it if I can!

Seven Star Praying Mantis: Bengbu

Image courtesy Luc Viatour

Although I now mainly practice baguazhang and xingyiquan, in the past I tried many styles, such as changquan, taijiquan, chaquan, Choy Lee Fut, Hung Gar, zuiquan, and even a smattering of Wing Chun. Unfortunately, I have forgotten nearly all that I learned before... except for a single seven star praying mantis (七星螳螂拳; qixing tanglangquan) set, bengbu (崩步), whose 48 movements are given in their entirety below:

中平雙蓄勢 - Stable Preparatory Posture
跨虎斜補捶 - Straddle the Tiger Stance, Diagonal Capturing Fist
跨虎捕蟬式 - Straddle the Tiger Stance, Capture Cicada Posture
登山左插掌 - Dengshan Stance, Left Inserting Palm
登山右補捶 - Dengshan Stance, Right Capturing Fist
縱跳封統捶 - Leaping, Sealing Fist
入環右疊肘 - Ruhuan Stance, Elbow
入環右崩捶 - Ruhuan Stance, Backfist
背踢雙撥掌 - Back Kick, Double Releasing Palms
馬式雙封手 - Horse Stance, Double Sealing Hands
登山刁劈捶 - Dengshan Stance, Hammerfist
右勾摟采手 - Right Gou, Lou, Cai
跨虎番車式 - Straddle the Tiger Stance, Fanche
登山左插掌 - Dengshan Stance, Left Inserting Palm
登山右補捶 - Dengshan Stance, Right Capturing Fist
馬式雙封手 - Horse Stance, Double Sealing Hands
登山右腰斬 - Dengshan Stance, Right Waist Chop
馬式左崩捶 - Horse Stance, Left Backfist
提腿左刁手 - Raise Leg, Left Hook Hand
提腿反刁手 - Raise Leg, Reverse Hook Hand
馬式右劈軋 - Horse Stance, Right Chop and Crush
扭步左黏肘 - Wringing Step, Left Sticky Elbow
登山左拐肘 - Dengshan Stance, Left Capturing Elbow
登山右斜掌 - Dengshan Stance, Right Diagonal Palm
馬式正補捶 - Horse Stance, Forward Capturing Fist
雙刁左揪腿 - Double Hooks, Left Jiutui
雙刁右揪腿 - Double Hooks, Right Jiutui
跨虎反捆手 - Straddle the Tiger Stance, Reverse Capturing Hands
踢腿刁取眼 - Kicking Legs, Hooks to the Eyes
提腿雙擊掌 - Raise Leg, Double Attacking Palms
刁手反沖爪 - Hook Hands, Reverse Rushing Claws
拼腿上圈捶 - Parallel Legs, Upper Hook Fist
提腿下截捶 - Raise Leg, Lower Intercepting Fist
提腿上截捶 - Raise Leg, Upper Intercepting Fist
登山封齊掌 - Dengshan Stance, Sealing Together Palms
反封左措捶 - Reverse Sealing, Left Placing Fist
迎風右措捶 - Welcome the Wind, Right Placing Fist
挂手頂臍捶 - Sealing Hands, Top Navel Fist
吞塌右扇風 - Tunta Stance, Right Fan Wind
吞塌左扇風 - Tunta Stance, Left Fan Wind
吞塌右扇風 - Tunta Stance, Right Fan Wind
引針右腰斬 - Pull Needle, Right Waist Chop
登山左圈捶 - Dengshan Stance, Left Hook Fist
登山左崩捶 - Dengshan Stance, Left Backfist
七星左刁手 - Seven Star Left Hook Hand
七星右補捶 - Seven Star Right Capturing Fist
跨虎捕蟬式 - Straddle the Tiger Stance, Capture Cicada Posture
中平作收式 - Stable Ending Posture

The legendary founder of praying mantis, Wang Lang (王朗), was said to have created two sets - bengbu and bazhou (八肘), as well as a set of secret techniques called mishou (秘手). This version of bengbu comes down from the Hong Kong lineage of Luo Guangyu (羅光玉), and is a fun set that is a great introduction to the techniques of praying mantis:

The trademark mantis hands posture (捕蟬)
The trademark "rolling" punch with both arms (番車)
The trademark gou, lou, cai trapping hands (勾摟采)
The trademark mantis low kick to the Achilles tendon (揪腿)
A very strange and surprising kick that goes around from the back (背踢)

The set also contains most of the major seven star praying mantis stances, i.e.:
Horse stance (馬式)
Dengshan stance, i.e. bow stance (登山)
Tunta stance, i.e. low stance (吞塌)
One-legged stance (提腿)
Tiger straddling stance, i.e. empty stance (跨虎)
Ruhuan stance, i.e. entering ring stance (入環)
Seven star stance (七星)

The last two are peculiar to the seven star branch of praying mantis.

In general, praying mantis seems easier to understand "as-is" than some other northern Chinese martial arts, like chaquan. I do admit that I don't completely understand the form's applications, though - perhaps one day I will be able to follow up and learn some more of this very interesting style! It would also be interesting to compare with seven star praying mantis practitioners from mainland China as well.

Dungeon Craft Spells

Working on spell effects now... Here is the most recent screenshot.

Yet Another Belated Dungeon Craft Contest Entry

I am currently at work on yet another mod for a Dungeon Craft contest, the entry of which is due in December. Oops! Uh... it is already January, and I am still not getting near finishing this thing, but I do have a few new screenshots, at least... so here they are!

Although it is hard to say exactly what I have accomplished until now on my mod, you can see some new graphics (as usual, ulp!). Some highlights include new cursors, new area backgrounds, new icons, and a darkened background for the main window.

Obituary: Baguazhang Master Si Zhen

Si Zhen (司珍), whose courtesy name (字) was Shangjie (尚傑), passed away on 2009.10.10 1:26 in Beijing. He was 84 years old. As disciple of Ma Deshan (馬德山), who was in turn disciple of Cheng Youlong (程有龍), eldest son of Cheng Tinghua (程廷華), Si Zhen represented orthodox Cheng style baguazhang in Beijing, and was well respected by the baguazhang community. Si Zhen's lineage is carried on by his top disciple, Kui Enfeng (奎恩鳳), courtesy name Shehao (社浩).

Computer Forensics (and Other Favorite) Tools

Windows Tools (Free):
Truecrypt Version 6.3a (2009/11/23)
Sun VirtualBox Version 3.1.0 (2009/11/30)
FTK Imager Version 2.6.1 (2009/8/3)
Sysinternals Suite (2009/12/1)
7-Zip Version 4.65 (2009/2/3)
Scale2x Version 2.4 (2009/7/8)
Potrace Version 1.8 (2007/5/22)
Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools (2003/4/28)
Wget Version 1.11.4 (2009/4/29)

Windows Tools (Not Free):
EnCase Version 6.15 (2009/11/19)
Forensic Toolkit 3.0 (2009/9/23)
Tableau Firmware Update Version 6.50 (2009/9/22)
Tableau Disk Monitor Version 1.2 (2009/7/31)

Linux Tools (Free):
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All About Ditangquan (地躺拳)

Ditangquan (地躺拳) is a style well-known for its spectacular acrobatics in wushu competitions, and is hardly even seen outside of modern wushu. But where did this athletic, exciting style come from?

Pan Qingfu (潘清福) and then-competitor Zhao Changjun (趙長軍) created the modern ditangquan together after the latter was rejected from the historic "White House Tour" of 1974 because his specialties were the monkey and drunken styles. As they believed that the original ditangquan was already lost, they "built" a new ditangquan using the drunken style as a base. As a result, modern ditangquan appears as something of a demonstration of fantastic acrobatics more than a martial art, and often features movements like the head flip (頭翻), pouncing tiger (撲虎), and tornado kick to fall.

Video of a young Zhao Changjun performing his ditangquan can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzubS_5dJww

In actuality, though, traditional ditangquan has in fact survived, and in various forms in both Taiwan and Mainland China.

In Taiwan, traditional ditangquan has been passed down via several old masters who escaped to the island during war. Of these, the most extensive ditangquan style is the digongquan (地功拳) passed down by Su Kegang (蘇克綱,名克剛,號起三) (1909-) from Qingdao City in Shandong Province, whose lineage is as follows: Li Ermiandazi (李二麵袋子) -> Liu Xiwei (劉希維) -> Su Kegang (蘇克綱).

His extensive digongquan curriculum consists the following:

Single Forms:

Linked Five Palms, with Extra Version and 2-Person Version (連五掌(附‧對打))
Kicking in Eight Directions (踢八方)
White Horse Descends Mountain (白馬下山)
Slippery Cart 1, 2, and 3 (滑車一，二，三段)
Drunken Style (醉拳)

Partner Forms:

Black Tiger Mountain (黑虎山)
Seizing Forgiveness Mountain (奪諒山)
Small Five Hands (小五手)
Hooking Parrying Fist (抅樓拳)

A video of the first form of Su Kegang's digongquan can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmpcuyKJpEI

A more thorough overview of Su Kegang's digongquan can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6UCqOH3qug

Watching the above videos, one can see extensive hand and leg attacking movements; in fact, the first form has very few acrobatics at all! Later forms do show various acrobatics, however, including the drop-kick from one-handed cartwheel, scissors kick from spin-up, and kicking from arm stand back to standing.

In Mainland China, traditional ditangquan has survived as well; one notable example that has been described in literature is the ditangquan (also called "ground hopping stomping" (地踅卡) or "plum blossom falls to ground" (梅花落地)) as passed down within the Beijing style of chuojiaofanziquan (戳腳翻子拳). This lineage, passed down by Wu Binlou (吳斌樓), includes an extensive ditangquan curriculum in addition to its large chuojiao (戳腳) and fanziquan (翻子拳) curriculum:

Single Forms:

Son and Grandson Cinnabar (子孫丹)

Flying Scissors (飛剪)

Swallow Stuck (燕子卡)

Five Hopping Feet (五踅腳)

Golden Thread Hands (金絲手)

Small Eight Immortals (小八仙)

Drunken Eight Immortals (醉八仙)

Weapon Forms:

Rolling Dragon Saber (滾龍刀)

Ground Prone Whip (地躺鞭)

This style of ditangquan seems to favor some unique movements such as toad jumping (蛤蟆式); as a part of chuojiaofanziquan, it also mixes in the unique kicks of that style as well, such as mandarin duck kicking. The existence of weapon methods in this style is also very interesting.

AD&D Commentary: Magic-user Weapons

Magic-users, or mages (as they were called in 2nd edition), have always been a staple of Dungeons & Dragons, or any other fantasy RPG. Although their selection of spells has changed a bit throughout the editions, I wonder about their weapon selection a bit (from Unearthed Arcana):

Caltrops, daggers, darts, knives, slings, staves

In 3e, wizards were given the following weapons:

Club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, quarterstaff

Unlike clerics or druids, whose limited weapon selection derives from religious views, magic-users have no real reason to avoid weapons like swords, spears, or maces. One reason for limiting their weapons selection might be to limit them to only simple weapons that can be learned easily, but of the weapons listed above, the staff is most definitely not a simple weapon at all, as I have been finding out through personal experience recently!

Any weapon requires some proficiency to be able to use it to kill someone; further, any weapon requires much more proficiency to be able to use it to attack, defend, and parry other weapons skillfully. I would not expect a magic-user to be able to do much with any weapon at the latter level, but some weapons require quite a lot of time to be able to be used at even the former level.

A sword, for example, can be quite heavy, but is rather simple to use in a lethal manner, even for a magic-user (as long as he has the requisite strength to lift it fairly easily). A blunt club is fairly simple to use as well, even though it lacks a blade. However, the long staff is a rather complex weapon that is hard to use in a lethal manner due to its great size and special manner of wielding (i.e. with two hands at different parts of the pole). With skill, the staff can be a very potent weapon, using both ends to attack and defend, by poking, swinging, and blocking; however, without skill, a staff is very hard to use at all.

Thus, although magic-users are often thought of as staff-toting old men, I think that learning to use a staff well would take days and days of training - something that they would probably prefer to spend in the old, musty tower, reading magic tomes.

Perhaps a better list of simple weapons would be:

Caltrops, daggers, darts, sling, crossbow, spear, club, mace, short sword, hand axe, hammer, short bow.

A few heavier weapons are simple as well, and so perhaps a magic-user with STR 13 or more could also use:

Long sword, bastard sword, footman's mace, morningstar, battle axe, staff sling.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with a magic-user using a staff as a walking stick!

Forays Into Other RPG Construction Kits: RPG Tsukuuru 2000

This is a most famous RPG construction kit in the English-speaking world, albeit known with a different name - "RPG Maker 2000." In general, this program is rather easy to use if one is inclined to make a Japanese console RPG-type game, but requires considerable work to change what is there (combat systems, etc.). In terms of community, this program likely has the biggest one - although a lot of art is ripped from Super Famicom games.

Years ago, I used to fiddle around in this program, although I never finished a game! (Ulp!) I do have some screenshots from what I was working on back in those days - basically, I wanted to have Korean-, Chinese-, and German-themed character sets and chip sets and work on a game with various languages and nationalities from there. Some screenshots from said game:

Character sets used sprite sizes of 24 x 36, while chipset tiles were 16 x 16; basically, character set sprite sizes in generally did not fill the entire area, instead using about 16 x 24 or so. Although small, the character sets required 12 frames total, or 3 frames for each direction, so making characters was a somewhat tiresome, if rewarding, task. (In general, the right frames could be flipped and used for the left frames, so in actuality one had to make about 7 frames total.)

In the end, I decided that I preferred the old PC RPGs compared to the old Japanese console RPGs, so I went in another direction (i.e., Dungeon Craft). Still, it was a good system for what it was, with a well-made interface and nice graphics.

Incidentally, many years back I was working on quite an ambitious game with this program, with lots of art (including big, anime-style pictures), but my hard disk basically blew up and I lost it all! Needless to say, that really sucked, and I had instantly lost many hours of work. I do sort of want to "revive" that somehow, but... I would have to redraw everything and all...

Forays Into Other RPG Construction Kits: Hephaestus

Well, although I am set on making my personal home-baked CRPG using Dungeon Craft, I am not against trying other tools every so often. In the past, I did some fiddling around with the RPG Tsukuuru series (known as "RPG Maker" by the English world, it seems), but I guess that I didn't really like the boring, Dragon Quest-esque combat engine. Ah, well.

Today, I spent a few hours fiddling with a less console-like and more PC-like RPG construction kit, Hephaestus, by Mark Damon Hughes (URL: http://markdamonhughes.com/Hephaestus/index.php). This particular RPG engine requires some programming in Java, but does come with a mapping tool. Luckily for me, Hephaestus seems to use 48 x 48 icons in general, so I tried using my Dungeon Craft art and seeing what I could come up with:


Not so bad, eh? Luckily, it seemed happy with 48 x 48 icons (the sample game uses 48 x 70 for humans), although some conversion was necessary (namely, it uses separate GIF files for each frame (with a particular naming scheme), as opposed to Dungeon Craft's unified PNG files with all frames). Unfortunately, there were a few problems that bugged me:

• I was unable to make maps larger than 11 x 11. Strangely, in the Map Editor, even though you can select map sizes larger than 11 x 11, it doesn't seem to let you edit any spaces outside the minimum 11.
• I was unable to set equipment types (i.e., I wanted to have my dagger in the map be a weapon so that Irene could equip it), leaving my poor player unequipped and usually an easy target for the ice troll wandering around there...

For smarter people than me, there is the option of generating maps automatically through Java coding, but that is somewhat abstract and hard for ol' me. As it is, this RPG kit does have good potential, especially for Java-conversant folks, especially if one is into old Rogue- or Ultima-type games. I confess that my ideal is something like an overhead-view Gold Box game, or maybe Ultima VI, or something like the Baldur's Gate series; I guess I never really got into the whole Rogue-like thing.

The Deep Dungeon

Although I started off making walls and such mostly for the collaboration module, "The City," these came out fairly well and I have been lately working on using this stuff for my own personal (somewhat vanilla) module, "The Deep Dungeon."

So, what is this module about? Surprisingly, a deep dungeon is in the plans for this adventure, although most work thus far has been concentrated on the surface world prior to descending to the depths. My original plan was to have a single complex dungeon, but I am currently thinking of dividing it into several dungeons of different themes... but of course, we will see how things go.

The adventure is basically in my own home-grown version of Greyhawk - because I don't feel like spending the time matching official campaign maps with my own - placed in an as-yet not decided undetailed part of Oerth. Actually, one would probably not notice much "Greyhawk" at all about my module, except from looking at the temples and priests of the world, and maybe the two moons of the sky.

However, the new frames and background are vaguely Greyhawk-themed, if one notices (latest screenshot is above). I also changed the font of the game to Palatino Linotype, one of my personal favorites.

New Baguazhang (and Xingyiquan) Discussion Board

So, I have started a new baguazhang (and xingyiquan) discussion board over here: http://baguazhang.proboards.com/

There are both English and Japanese sections; perhaps in the future I will add a Chinese section, but my Chinese is not really up to par (not sure if I can manage that). At present, the only members are me, myself, and I, so please go ahead and join! Feel free to be the first poster (there are some events listed, however).

The name of the board is Orthodox Baguazhang Research Society (正宗八卦掌研究社), and I hope it can serve to unite the various branches of orthodox baguazhang so that we can research together. (Orthodox, meaning verifiable lineages from Dong Haichuan - no home-grown bagua, please!)

The City Combat Set

Following the background and walls I created for the City, I went and created a combat set to go with them - well, I guess that it is okay, but it does look a bit bright, even though I used the exact same colors as in the background and wall pictures.

Still, as I am a lazy person in general, I think I will use this as-is, and also leave the blank gray areas (on the tops and sides of the walls) as-is, too.

I do have to go and make four versions of the background at some point, though (so that is three more than I have now), because it is a bit weird that there are mountains no matter which direction you walk in...

Naming Species After Unrelated People

Most common animals have the luxury of being given common names such as "Least Weasel," "Red Fox," "Snowy Owl," or even "Giant Forest Hog." These names are related to how these animals look or where they live, and are thus easy to remember.

Unfortunately, a lot of rare animals discovered by science fairly late are given obscure and irrelevant names like "Przewalski's Horse," "Baird's Beaked Whale," and "Dice's Cottontail." Although it may seem that these animals were named after the scientists who discovered them, this is not the case - most often, they are named after famous people (often biologists) chosen by the discoverers. These names may be meaningful to the biologists who named them, but they aren't very descriptive of the animals that they describe. Even worse, this rather meaningless trend continues as scientists discover new animals and try to select appellations of a similar note.

Luckily, it seems that, at least in some groups, these sorts of names are falling out of favor; at any rate, sometimes we have other options to use when talking about these animals. For example, the Prezewalksi's Horse is sometimes called the "Asian Wild Horse" or "Mongolian Wild Horse;" in older days it was sometimes known as the "True Tarpan" or "Mongolian Tarpan." The Baird's Beaked Whale is sometimes grouped together with the very similar "Arnoux's Beaked Whale" and called the "Giant Beaked Whale." These latter names are much better and more interesting.

On another note, when including such animals in a CRPG (such as Dungeon Craft), these more descriptive common names can be useful, as it would make little or no sense to have your adventurers encounter a "Baird's Beaked Whale" or "Prezewalski's Horse."