Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

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Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby greytowhite on Thu Apr 22, 2021 8:55 am

Kelly has been making courses on Udemy and generously offering gems for free on his YouTube channel. Kelly recently started making a podcast and updated his web site. If you have his older courses you already have a blueprint for the content he has been releasing lately. That said, his newer courses have a lot more information. Kelly's deep knowledge and understanding of the arts he teaches are obvious to anyone else who has trained them in person.

I met up with a student of Neil Ripski's school who was visiting from Chicago a few years back to practice push hands and compare/contrast styles. He said practicing with Neil is like wrestling a bear but pushing hands with Kelly is worse. I was curious as my first Gong style instructor, Lloyd Day, also spoke well of Kelly. Kelly's content has really helped me through the years, particularly with my Jiang Rong Qiao Baguazhang. I've been meticulously going through and buying his Bagua courses as I'm able. Udemy regularly has the courses on sale but I try to pay full price when I can.

Thanks to Taste of Death here and Ray Carbullido I have been fortunate to receive some in person instruction in Han Family Yiquan. I have since gone on to research it a little more on my own and the Standing Stake material Kelly offers is very close to the stances taught by Han Jing Chen. I think his Earth Marrow Washing and Bone Marrow Washing material from the Qigong course are really good stuff to integrate into Zhan Zhuang. I feel his distance instruction has been a valuable addition to my standing and circle walking practices. Kelly learned his Yiquan from a student of Lee Ying Arng who learned in Hong Kong if I recall correctly.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCveVtr ... DV4qZhlitA

https://www.udemy.com/user/kelly-whelan-enns/

https://legendarylivingarts.ca/about/

https://anchor.fm/theopendoor/episodes/ ... oor-eonhu9
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby jjy5016 on Fri May 14, 2021 5:00 am

Lee Ying Arng learned yiquan from Leung Zhi Peng.

Leung Zhi Peng learned only a little bit of yiquan from You Peng xi. He was a very good fighter who at one time was champion of three provinces and would fight every day in a park in HK well into his 60's. His specialties were eagle claw, LHBF, taijiquan, baguazhang and hsingyi quan.

He was the first person to bring yiquan to Hong Kong and also introduced my teacher to yiquan.

He invited Han Xing Yuan to fight him but Han refused. Some sort of generational or lineage thing... Han did go over to his house one day to discuss quan and drank a bottle of his liquor.

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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby nicklinjm on Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm

@jjy5016, interesting that you should mention Leung Zhi Peng, I am currently learning some of the LZP material from a teacher here in HK.

How would you compare Leung's stuff to Han family Yiquan? Leung was a good fighter but didn't really get the whole system?
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby jjy5016 on Mon May 17, 2021 10:06 am

Leung's students seemed to be better fighters than Han's. Yiquan's basic training as taught by Han, didn't really teach fighting. After some time Han began teaching the yiquan students some shuai jiao so they could fight. My teacher left Leung to study with Han. Leung saw my teacher practicing taiji in the park one morning and invited him to his home to study privately with him. He learned Leung's LHBF form and some yiquan from Leung but never told me what he got from who. Leung supposedly didn't get the whole yiquan or LHBF system but taught them nevertheless. Who was going to challenge him on it?
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby nicklinjm on Tue May 18, 2021 5:30 pm

Haha, interesting to know and chimes with what I've heard from my current teacher (especially the park challenges part!). Am finding Leung's exercises / stances v helpful for my own practice so will keep on plugging on.

Surprised at the comment that Han's students found it difficult to transition to the fighting part - I thought that younger Han was a famous fighter in his day too?
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby jjy5016 on Wed May 19, 2021 7:45 am

Small Han was known as the Tiger of Yiquan. He was employed as the bodyguard (unarmed) for the Chinese equivalent of Don Corleone in Shanghai. He trained in baguazhang, xingyi, and shuai jiao since he was very young.

He would get goaded into fights by his school brothers and because his father was a famous general in the army and could get him out of any trouble that might result from the confrontations.

Sifu made it very clear to us that he was a man basically without a conscience who fought like a wild animal. Even sitting on his death bed he had enough power to throw a visiting student into the next room.

Unfortunately the beginning time spent in yiquan does not yield the same transition into fighting as easily as some other systems. Hence his teaching them some shuai jiao. Some of his students who are / were good fighters that I know of are still around in HK.
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby edededed on Wed May 19, 2021 7:33 pm

Hi jjy5016 - great seeing you here again. I love hearing stories about the old greats :D

Han Xingyuan at some point converted to Christianity (and took the name "Joseph"), didn't he? Curious if perhaps this shows that he had at least some sliver of conscience there...
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby jjy5016 on Thu May 20, 2021 10:38 am

I'm not sure about the sliver of conscience.

He cried when the Chinese Govt. allowed his son to leave mainland to join him in HK. The same son that he had for all intent and purpose killed years earlier for running in between him and his older brother while they were engaged in conversation. He bragged to my teacher that he just kept on talking while his son lay on the floor not breathing. Big Han had to revive him.

He converted to Christianity when some missionaries helped him with recovery from a back injury. He told my teacher that he slipped while mopping a floor working as a janitor. Later big Han told sifu that the injury came about when he slipped on a fire escape while escaping from a police raid on a brothel that he happened to be in at the time.

I don't think that too many of the really nasty fighters of the previous generations were humanitarians. I'd go as far to say that they were mostly "broken" individuals without regard for human life not unlike mob enforcers.

Small Han knew who he was and didn't try to sugar coat himself.
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby edededed on Thu May 20, 2021 6:41 pm

Cool stories - perhaps younger Han was an intuitive (or just illogical) type - thus not really noticing the contradictions in what he did or said. (Older Han was certainly the calm, logical one.) Probably the brothers' teaching styles would have differed quite a bit due to the different personalities.

I agree that most of the old-time fighters were probably not humanitarians - on the other hand, CMA tends to come with some Daoist and/or Buddhist baggage, which might nag some of them to think about ethics a bit more than if it did not (usually in older age, when the fires of youth die down).
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby Martin on Fri May 21, 2021 8:30 am

jjy5016 wrote:Small Han was known as the Tiger of Yiquan. He was employed as the bodyguard (unarmed) for the Chinese equivalent of Don Corleone in Shanghai.


Hey John - hope you are well!
Was that in the Green Gang?
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby jjy5016 on Fri May 21, 2021 9:34 am

Not sure. It was so long ago that I honestly can't remember.
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby Taste of Death on Thu Jul 29, 2021 3:10 pm

jjy5016 wrote:He invited Han Xing Yuan to fight him but Han refused. Some sort of generational or lineage thing... Han did go over to his house one day to discuss quan and drank a bottle of his liquor.


If you wanted to learn the secrets of yiquan beyond just being a student of HXY's you had to drink with him. He could drink a lot and he required his training partner to match him drink for drink. Henry Look (my guang ping yang taiji and xing yi teacher) said if you didn't write down what HXY was teaching it would all be forgotten in the morning, replaced by a tremendous hangover.
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby Doc Stier on Thu Jul 29, 2021 4:04 pm

Taste of Death wrote:If you wanted to learn the secrets of yiquan beyond just being a student of HXY's you had to drink with him. He could drink a lot and he required his training partner to match him drink for drink. Henry Look (my guang ping yang taiji and xing yi teacher) said if you didn't write down what HXY was teaching it would all be forgotten in the morning, replaced by a tremendous hangover.

A typical gathering with several of my Kwangtung and Hakka Sifus would involve a small group of people who were invited to the teacher's home, where one or more herbal wines would be drank, perhaps to excess, and cigarettes, cigars or tobacco pipes would be smoked, followed by eating several different courses of home cooked Chinese food. Then, and only then, would they be ready to play some gungfu! These were memorable experiences. :o
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Re: Kelly Whelan-Enns' Videos

Postby greytowhite on Thu Sep 09, 2021 10:05 am

Taste of Death wrote:
jjy5016 wrote:He invited Han Xing Yuan to fight him but Han refused. Some sort of generational or lineage thing... Han did go over to his house one day to discuss quan and drank a bottle of his liquor.


If you wanted to learn the secrets of yiquan beyond just being a student of HXY's you had to drink with him. He could drink a lot and he required his training partner to match him drink for drink. Henry Look (my guang ping yang taiji and xing yi teacher) said if you didn't write down what HXY was teaching it would all be forgotten in the morning, replaced by a tremendous hangover.


I miss the Chen Taijiquan lessons from my friend. We would sit in the cigar factory and work on form for a little while. Sit down, drink some liquor, watch some novelas. I'd normally go outside and smoke a blunt before coming back to push hands - I flew across that factory a number of times. It wasn't uncommon to adjourn to the strip club with some cigar customers later. Later, at other cigar shops, I encountered a few more people that helped me with Bagua. Martial artists that are temple oriented bore the fuck out of me.
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