Today I'm celebrating the Chinese New Year with a big dinner in Chinatown in central London. I love the Chinese people, their food, their culture and am perpetually interested in learning more about them and their ways.

But we mustn't forget that this otherwise great country also has a very very dark side which we must never accept or forget: The Persecution of Falun Gong.

Didn't the nazi persecution of jews teach us anything? Are you aware that Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned, bullied and tortured? Do you know that this oppression is fully sponsored by the government and not rogue individual groups?

I was made aware of this website (warning: graphical content) and this video just a few days ago. I'm fully aware that China is a big country where many "bad" things can happen due to the sheer numerical chances with such large numbers and such many different internal cultures but that's never an excuse for this barbaric behavior.

Think about it. Remember it.

Thank you everyone who sponsored me for this weekends Kungfu endurance challenge to raise money for the Claremont project.

A reminder... The Claremont project is a venue where old people go to for activities in Islington. Many of these people are weak and lonely and doing these activities is practically all they have to meet and socialise with people.

Unfortunately I didn't win any of the individual events of the endurance challenge but I did try my best and I'm very happy that I participated and at least tried.

Thank you all who sponsored me!!

Here are some photos from the event

Yesterday I went down to Nick Fielding's new Kung Fu club in Twickenham to train because this week I've been working for VSO in Putney (southwest London). His venue is a big church hall with a very nice floor and a nice atmosphere too.

Finding the place was easy because it was near the Twickenham train station but as always happens, when you actually get near the street and house number you're looking for you get a bit confused so even though I found the street quite quickly I did actually make a hell of a detour around the block the church hall was on.

Nick and I have been training under Dave Courtney Jones and Dennis Ngo in the City & Islington club since about 2001 I think and I genuinely believe Nick is going to do well as an instructor. The classes in Twickenham have only been going for about two months but he's already got plenty of people coming regularly.

If you're reading this kung-fu-students-of-Twickenham, hello, thanks for welcoming me on my visit to your club. I hope we meet again at competitions or camps at Dennis.

For all people who like Tekken or martial arts, it's a must that you have a look at this clip which is a faked Tekken match with actual humans. They've just added the sound effects and the fake blood and added some other sounds.

Although I haven't played Tekken 3 much (or whatever the latest version is these days) I recognized a lot of the stuff from the original Tekken that I played.

The moves they do are alright, especially the final double-hitting kick. Generally most of the moves are quite clear and crisp. I like the way one guy wipes of blood from his face or mouth and that that is animated too.

Pen Rance, who wrote the book Martial Arts that I mentioned about a month ago has now set up a kung fu club in Hertfordshire. It's called FWC Herts

If you live in the Herfordshire Watford area, I genuinely recommend that you give it a try if you want to get fit or you're already fit but bored with the local gym.

UPDATE

This club is now run by instructor Carlo Fernandes

If you live in the Stratford or east London area you should do what I did last night. I went to Shkar Sharif's new kung fu club in Stratford. It's a quick walk from the Stratford station and getting to Stratford is quite easy for me thanks to the Waterloo & City line + the Central line. Doesn't take long.

Shkar and I have been training for many years now together under Dave at the City & Islington club; Shkar a bit longer. Last year, Shkar took his instructor grading and has now started this club on his own (with some help from Dave). He's been running this club now for only a couple of weeks but is (t)here to stay. I genuinely recommend anybody in the area to come along and train there. At the moment he's only teaching kung fu (Fujian White Crane) at that venue but will soon have t'ai chi classes too.

If you want more details about the classes go to his club page See you in class!

Got my copy today! I'm excited to read it.

Martial Arts is a book about martial arts films such as Enter the Dragon and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon etc. written by my "kung fu sister". Within the club you sometimes refer to other people in club as brothers and sisters. Pen and I train both train with Dave in Islington.

Have you seen Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon? Do you understand it all or are you, like me, just watching for its fascinating effects, scenery and swordplay? Apparently, all the questions that you've always wanted to know is in the book. I remember asking Pen once: "Why does she jump off the bridge in the end?" To which Pen replied: "Buy my book and you'll find out". So I did. Can't wait!

My kung fu club is this week going to do a major charity event in Islington (north east central London). We start at 14.00 very near Angel tube station this Saturday the 26th. Our aim is to walk like lizards on our bare knuckles from Angel tube station to Highbury corner. In other words, we're going to do the whole Upper Street in relay which is about 1 mile (1,600 metres).

The charity that we're supporting is called the Claremont Project which is a centre for old people in Islington where they can participate in activities such as dancing, drawing and t'ai chi. Since this year, the local government has drastically reduced the budget for places like the Claremont Project. The reason our club (led by David Courtney Jones

) do this particular charity is that we know them well because we train at the Claremont Project building in the evening on White Lion street. (more about that here)

My dear Kung Fu sister Pen Rance has now published a lovely little article on the FWC Inter-Club Competition, Dulwich (August 2005)

It's complete yet short (so you can afford the time to read it) and funny too. I like the fact she didn't forget about the dodgeball incident:

"The action was rounded off by a giant game of dodgeball, in which the students took on the instructors," ... "Shot of the game has to go to Instructor Adam Prout, who managed to silence the hall with a direct hit on Chief Instructor Ngo’s ear."

Last but not least my name was mentioned too which I'm not going to quote so you'll have to find it yourself.

My good friend Richard Wagstaff has started a kung fu club in Clapham (south London). At the club they do Fujian White Crane Kung Fu which is a soft hard style (not a hard soft style). This is Richard's first setup in the area and I can assure you he's good at it. If you're in the area, do go down to Soho Gyms and give it a try. The club is affiliated with my club in Islington. Richard is, like me, a student of David Courtney Jones

Classes are held on Monday and Thursday evenings. Visit his club website for more info on exactly when and where.

For those computer people out there who don't know who Eric S Raymond is you've got a long way to go on what I'm about to write about. If you're not even into computers I can say that ESR is an old time computer hacker (not cracker which is something different) who is known for his views, publications, books and the fact that few people know as many programming languages as he does. He's simply pretty damn good with serious computer usage.

Anyway, in his How To Become A Hacker I read some interesting things today. The most striking one is this:

"Points For Style
Again, to be a hacker, you have to enter the hacker mindset. There are some things you can do when you're not at a computer that seem to help. They're not substitutes for hacking (nothing is) but many hackers do them, and feel that they connect in some basic way with the essence of hacking. [...]
Train in a martial-arts form. The kind of mental discipline required for martial arts seems to be similar in important ways to what hackers do. The most popular forms among hackers are definitely Asian empty-hand arts such as Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Wing Chun, Aikido, or Jiu Jitsu;..."

Yesterday, Saturday, we had a money raising charity event at the City & Islington Fujian White Crane kung fu club.

The money we raised was for the Claremont Day Centre (aka Claremont Project) which is a day centre here in Islington for old people. Sadly the council has cut their fundings dramatically this year and that's almost where we come in. The thing is that we train kung fu in their building on Monday nights, Wednesday nights and saturday mornings. By having a charity event we could raise money to go towards this charity.

I came back from Sweden the day before yesterday late after having spent a long weekend on the west coast of Sweden for the FWC Competition. We arrived in Varberg on Friday and all the competition events were on Saturday. I won two gold medals; one in heavy weight semi contact sparring and one for suan yang (t'ai chi).

After the events we all went down on the town to have a wonderful dinner. A few of us actually went for a quick swim in the sea as we came back to the youth hostel.

Both the whole Sunday and the whole Monday was spent in Gothenburg. On the first day we went to Liseberg and on the next day we went to Universeum which has a really cool webcam of the shark tank

Anyway, here are some photos that I have uploaded:

• Varberg
• Kung fu
• Gothenburg

Here you can download the latest little video summary of the FWC competition. If you're quick you can actually spot me once or twice, but only once without a black hood over my head.

In Kung Fu there is often talk about Yin and Yang, and with time I've started to appreciate the notation more and more. First I thought it was "humbug" just like I think about many other medicine disciplines, but now I understand more about it.

It's not rocket science, it's actually a very simple concept. All things are in harmony of two opposite sides. No side is more "important" than the other and one side can't exist without the presence of the other. For example, there can't be a front if there isn't a back.

This site explains it very well. I read all of it. What shocked me though was the on the "Supreme Ultimate" symbol, Yang is the white part and Yin is the black part. I've always imagined that it was the other way around. Damn!

"Yin and Yang may be the most important theory in Chinese Medicine"

I also found this nice page about Qi Gong which I will read now.