the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

James Carss has trained a number of Chinese internal martial arts as well as Muay Thai and Western boxing. Alex Kozma interviewed him some time back on his YouTube channel and I was interested since. I purchased James' Yiquan book from Alex's site and received it incredibly quickly. I think there was some sort of file format conversion issues so the final product was slightly off. That said, there were certain anecdotes and lots of experiences with the art conveyed that I found valuable. He also has 4 videos available on Vimeo.

The 1st video he goes through the basic stances of the art and some single movement drills unique to Han Xing Yuan's line. The 2nd video he then introduces the basic footwork exercises that really ingrain the store/release mechanic into the structure through the legs. Almost like someone combined mud wading stepping and the Baji diagram. The 3rd video gives further footwork exercises combined with basic hand patterns. The 4th takes practices like the swings and really illustrates how to utilize them in striking. Really valuable material in my opinion. This Yiquan from Han Xing Yuan's material is like a distilled internal striking art, more Xingyi in its intent than other presentations. I feel anyone looking to deepen their striking in Chinese arts would find these videos valuable. I recall seeing some talk about a 12 Tang Hands video but then someone told me he took it down because someone was marketing it as their own material. I hope he opens it up again in the future.

https://lineofintent.com/product/yi-qua ... mes-carss/

https://vimeo.com/user126096523
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hanfamilyyiquan
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hanfamilyyiquan2
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hanfamilyyiquan3
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/yiquantheartofstriking

I like Jame's material.

Reading his book brought back a lot of memories for me.

His teacher was a classmate of my sifu.

James offers training that differs from most of the garden variety yiquan that is out there which comes from only one or two lineages.

Excellent book and videos by James Carss.

Coming a bit late to the game, only just received my e-copy of James Carss' book on Han style Yiquan ("Yiquan - A Fighting Art") recently.

As sb with only a superficial acquaintance with Yiquan, I think the book does a really good job of not only introducing Yiquan as an art but also what distinguishes the Han branch from the other main schools. Carss manages to cover the history, his own personal journey and the main training methods very concisely.

For me the part that was most interesting was the author's discussion of Pushing Hands (its place in Yiquan, if any) and Western Boxing in relation to Yiquan. The author is no armchair enthusiast when it comes to boxing either, as he fought in several white-collar boxing matches whilst living in HK.

All in all a fascinating book and a great addition to anyone's Yiquan library.