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Abusing alcohol is much worse than abusing weed, and unlike with weed, you can actually OD on it, and get addicted to it.  It can make you slow, but only if you abuse it, and the whole "marijuana psychosis" thing is an effect that is much worse if you drink to excess.  I don't smoke it, and I don't intend to (except when I'm about 80 - then I'll start doing everything under the sun just to see what it's like before I pop my clogs), but it shouldn't be illegal, just as kava shouldn't be illegal.  It's a very hypocritical system we have in western countries.  Legalise the lot, I say, and get taxes from the drugs - and more importantly, educate people about the real risks and not invented ones, so that they can make a reasoned choice.

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Using the legs in a throw is great fun as well.  There's a technique in shuaijiao called the "rowing hook" (huagou, I think, but I'm not sure of the exact Chinese) where you hook your leg in front of the opponent's leg, and just as he thinks you're going to trip him back, you loop your foot around the back of his ankle and flip his leg forward.  But there's no groundwork in shuaijiao, unlike judo.

The quote button is the one with a page with a blue arrow pointing to the right, just next to the typewriter and the hash.

Shuaijiao is the oldest Chinese martial art, and the origin of pretty much all Chinese systems, even the predominantly striking ones.  It's basically Chinese wrestling, and there are a few different styles styles.  Mongolian wrestling is a relative of shuaijiao, and they developed together - the Mongol or other nomad styles probably influenced shuaijiao more than the other way, but there are a lot of training methods in shuaijiao which are unique (equipment training, mostly).  I think that the nomad styles had more influence, because shuaijiao is almost exclusively a northern style, and there are few southern shuaijiao teachers.   Shuaijiao is almost certainly the origin of sumo (Chinese is "xiangpu", which in the Tang dynasty, the time of most Chinese influence on Japan, was the name of shuaijiao), and probably the origin of the oldest organised forms of jujutsu, but obviously once it reached Japan, it became very much a Japanese thing, and jujutsu developed pretty much independently.
  And shuaijiao is an element in all Chinese martial arts as well as a separate system.  It's just the throwing side. You could study, say, taijiquan, and then enter a shuaijiao tournament, so long as you know the rules and train hard.

"Ankle tap" could be the name of it.  I love all the leg hooking techniques.

  It really is difficult to think of a reason why pot would be legal but not kava.  Pot is definitely a stronger drug with more obvious effects.

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Definitely.  Shuaijiao has similar throws to judo, which are similar to ones in many European wrestling styles, and even African styles.  I know that looking at the Beni Hasan images (the oldest martial arts images in the entire world, from Egypt), I can see many techniques that I recognise.  The main differences between styles are 1) training methods and 2) body mechanics.  For instance, shuaijiao has a lot of equipment training - wooden clubs, braided ropes, weighted ropes (or, nowadays, elastic ropes), bundles of canes - which are not found in judo.  And doing a basic over the shoulder throw in judo is not the same as in shuaijiao - in which you use a powerful, explosion upwards at the hips.

  The only other martial arts I've ever done are judo, when I was about 7, muay thai for a very short while (gym was too far away), taijiquan, and now, Brazilian jiu jitsu, Sanshou kickboxing and Shuaijiao.  Sanshou (or sanda) is a set of rules for kickboxing in China, where throws are legal, but no groundwork.  You could use any technique you want so long as its in the rules, and it's pretty exciting to watch.

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The power in a boxing punch, a Jeet Kune Do punch, and a taijiquan punch, are all different.  The basic ideas are the same - using as much of the body as possible in an explosive  movement - but they all carry it out differently.  There are only so many ways to hit and throw, but the training for them and the precise body mechanics are different, like the difference between a muay thai roundhouse kick and a TKD roundhouse kick, and the difference between the shuaijiao throw and the judo throw. I consulted my brother - we threw each other (he's a judoka), and his throw was much smoother than mine and there was no jump with the feet as he threw, but just a subtle push upwards.  It's the little things.  The throw is essentially the same, though.

If you're interested in seeing some shuaijiao, you can see it on Youtube.  Some pretty cool videos up about techniques, showing competitions, etc.  An alternative, older spelling is "shuai chiao".

Yes, it does - Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Chinese is just Baxi Shuaijiao, Brazilian wrestling.  But even in China, people say "shuaijiao" when they mean "zhongguo shuaijiao", and sometimes they just say the exact style - like Baoding Kuaijiao (Baoding style fast wrestling), Tianjian Guanjiao (Tianjin style wrestling), that kind of thing.  When speaking in English, it's fine just to call it shuaijiao normally.

english,
checked out shuai jiao on youtube, I was quite impressed with the skills shown, reminded me of my judo days.

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- bigkahuna

well, it does come from the roots of the plant, so it probably does taste a bit 'earthy' and it also looks like dishwater, or so some of my friends say.

I havn't tasted mud, but I'm sorry, I will have to disagree with you on that one. there are two different types of Kava, Waka and Lawenna and each has it's own flavour. I always found the taste and smell similar to nutmeg.
still, it's not for everyone, I guess.

Kava_Fiend