Shaolin Temple UK Training

[wooden dummy]

so do I man, it's all related to philosophy.

[wooden dummy]

OK...

just completed my first training session at wahnam. Tomorrow I visit the temple for some training there, and you can expect a full review and comparison when I'm done.

[Maestro]

lol

wood dont expect your "review" to be earth shattering

its just going to be your oppinion

personally i dont really care what shaolin wahnam is teaching you or anybody else

its all to obvious to most people on this forum what they are about anyway (cough) $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (cough)

but i will say kudos to them for doing there research..but its not all that impressive if you consider how long this has been going on..by the looks of that vid wkk has been in the macdojo business for awhile now...

[dave]

the "sparring" on the clip just looked like a 2 man arranged set, and the pole looked like the hung gar "8-trigram pole", but im not sure

dave

[wooden dummy]

wood dont expect your "review" to be earth shattering, it's just going to be your opinion

Yeah, but it'll be an unbiased opinion based on having trained at both places, rather than a conclusion jumped to by people who haven't trained at both or even either of the schools, which is more than most people seem to be able to claim.

I'm not under the pretense of creating some kind of "earth-shattering" review, I just want to be able to provide a simple, unbiased and fairly scientific account for people in a similar predicament to myself- wanting to train in shaolin gungfu but being unable to come across anyone who doesn't have some kind of unreasonable hatred for one school or another, for no real reason in particular.


Besides, I'm only responding to Lipster, who said this:

Watch out, keep an open mind and let us know what it was like, it's about time we had an unattached view of all this.

I couldn't agree more. I think we need a few more straight answers available for people like me who just want to train without having to worry about any sort of controversy in the issue- it just spreads negative vibes, man lol

If you're afraid of your prejudices being proved wrong or something, I can only say don't worry about it. It doesn't really matter in the end anyway- it's not a case of "who's right" and "who's wrong", I just think it's a real problem, and exrtemely counter-productive to the continuation of shaolin arts and culture, to have this constant animosity and in-fighting between schools.

Anyway I didn't get a chance to visit the temple on sunday, and I won't get another chance until next sunday, so it'll have to wait a while longer- probably a good thing because I'll have more experience to go by.

And btw, "unbiased" means that if I do find some element of corruption in wahnam, or find, for example, that the temple does teach modernised, prettified wushu, you can bet I'll expose it, finally and conlusively, so that at least prejudices can be justified lol

[Lipster]

Ok sounds good, Wood.

As for 'unreasonable' - yes, it's probably unnecessary and perhaps petty, but before passing that judgement you should really read all of the Wahnam threads and WKK question and answers. Being told by someone with a fair bit of influence over people who don't know better, that everything the hard-working monks who dedicate their lives to helping others do is actually a load of balls, - "don't go there, go to learn 'real kungfu'...oooh, looky here! I teach real kung fu! What a bit of luck you ran into me!" - doesn't go down well. This coming from a guy who's rolling in it. Come look at the monks living quarters when you visit the temple. A porta-cabin. The entire controversy stemmed from the fact that others, particularly someone who I would have thought knew better, were 'spreading animosity' for no readily apparent reason other then the ones that have been mentioned. Standing up for ones ideals is most certainly not counter-productive. Some people think it's worth making a fuss about, some not, some express their indignation through pictures - each to his own. After trying to reason with them, we realised it was a one way dialogue; the absurdity of their claims just increased as they went on - and so to hell with it, insults were the only things they responded to. Research, baby, research.

Sure, if it was some shmuck in the street who said it that's one thing, everyone has opinions - but all this came from someone with a fair amount of influence and standing - and one would think responsibility comes with it. If you're told by a leading figure that it's a documented fact that your mother's a whore when you know otherwise, I can't see you taking that well. Everyone reacts. The only thing I plead guilty to is reacting to someone who's just not worth it. Well, we each have our down sides...

Don't worry about [dis]proving prejudices, his gongfu doesn't concern me, it's his attitude I dislike.

By the way, you'll be restricted to the prep classes - only in gong fu, not Taichi and all the rest - so I wouldn't expect any super advanced training. I don't see how you can 'expose corruption' anywhere - it's not as if WKK is some evil cackling old wizard who's gonna try to bring you to the dark side, but it'll be nice to have a comparison of the teaching.

Let me know who you are, I'll keep a look out for you on Sunday [have you got the timetable?]...

And we'll get a few guys to take you round the back and **** you up a bit, just in case you say something bad...just kiddin!


Peace

David

[wooden dummy]

Thanks, man.

I guess you really put the finger on my biggest problem with all the controversy in the issue- the fact that people have risen to shouting and screaming over issues that by all rights shouldn't be argued over so vehemently. If sigung Wong Kiew Kit doesn't believe the monks practice "real" shaolin gungfu, that's his problem for being... not offensive exactly, (not intentionally anyway), but simply ignorant of the truth. I suppose from his point of view, and he's also just "standing up for his ideals"- he truly believes the training methods he learned from his sifus to be the ONLY correct way of teaching gungfu, which is more than slightly narrow-minded, but I get the impression that he's simply misguided and that if it were proved to him otherwise, ie. if he SAW shaolin monks training in shaolin gungfu AT the temple, he would almost certainly change his tune. But then, maybe I'm wrong, I've never met the guy.

My reference to "exposing corruption" does sound a little sensationalist and trashy now htat I read it back, but it was only in response to a sentiment I felt was implied by certain individuals, where the term "macDojo" was used lol My experience of "macdojos" leads me to believe that the term usually refers to a so-called "master" of a MA school ripping off students by teaching them something which is not, in fact, a martial art, but something the person has invented from watching too many movies and reading a few MA "instructional" books. I feel that, whatever things WKK can be accused of, this is not one of them, but the idea of "exposing corruption" was based on the idea that if, on the off-chance, wahnam was indeed guilty of this "macdojo" attitude, I would not hesitate to make it known as widely as possible. However, having now trained there, I don't think this will be an issue Conversely, if I found that the monks indeed taught something that was not describable asshaolin gungfu, but highly embellished modern wushu (which again, I'm sure will not be the case), I wouldn't hesitate to make that known either- I wasn't being totally serious, really just trying to emphasise the idea of giving an unbiased account.

Anyway it's gotta wait 'til sunday now. I'll show up a little before 1:00 at the temple (as long as I can find it this time!) for the preparation class. Name's Jim, by the way, so I'll look out for you... maybe I'll just shout out "Lipster" or something lol And yeah, I realise there won't be a lot of actual gungfu training at the beginning, but I'd like to experience the training all the same. How strenuous is the preparation class exactly? If you could give me an idea of the actual process, that'd be useful.

[Maestro]

no no no no woody

no no no no woody what you dont seem to understand is that what you say is not completely unbiased, it is not the "end all" word on this discussion so that the "shaolin arts" can keep moving forward instead of all this bickering

for one thing who the hell are you to say anything about the subject of shaolin wahnam vs people like me..arhat..bodhi..jeff..etc etc whove been discussing the matter of "shaolin arts" for over 2 years

we are the ones whove been talking to wahnam..WE have heard EVERYTHING they have had to say, on almost every subject pertaining to their school..their school vs basically any other shaolin school..shaolin temple(current and past)..zen..combat efficency..bla bla bla

we have talked about it all, and you seem to think that these "bickerings" sum up what we as the people apposed to wahnam stand for..which is what to put in your own words?

"rather than a conclusion jumped to by people who haven't trained at both or even either of the schools, which is more than most people seem to be able to claim."

"wanting to train in shaolin gungfu but being unable to come across anyone who doesn't have some kind of unreasonable hatred for one school or another, for no real reason in particular. "


no no no no..me so sowwy but your wrong again..the hatred as you call it is just dissapointment..and disgust, and it is not unreasonable, and there are more reasons then you could fathom little man


the point im making is..YOU dont know all the facts..lipster might be he hasnt been having this discussion on wahnam as long as I and others have, and the fact that no one here knows who you are makes your "experiences" that much more less effective in your arguement of wahnam vs the guys who hate it as you say..

[dave]

hey didnt know u were "against" wahnam dude

dave

[Maestro]

oo

oo im against them and everyone who looks like em

dude

[wooden dummy]

wow this guy really has some kind of aggression problem.

You make it sound as if Wahnam murdered your entire family in front of your eyes, burned your cat alive and raped your gerbil while you watched.

I've read as much about wahnam as I can find here on the forums, and I'm sorry but it just seems nothing more than bickering, gone over and over by people who seemed to have lost the perspective that nothing's really THAT important. It's just words, and like I said, if there's any stupidity on wahnam's part, it's only their own ignorance getting in the way of their own progression. You're the guy who keeps talking about buddhism, and things being whatever you want to make them and so forth. Ever try paying attention some of it for yourself?

[Lipster]

Easy fellas

That's just Vince, our resident 'fiery' guy. He has a unique way of putting his points forward, but the points are still there. You just gotta get used to it.

Jim, although I don't want to revisit this all over again... if it was simply a matter of them losing out through their own ignorance, I doubt anyone would make such a big fuss. I come across ignorant people every day, you can't spend your whole life correcting them. Arhat is an extremely sensible and level headed guy, and he surprised me by blowing up how he did, but only till I realized his motivation. Then I got a little pissed myself, lol. There are alot of Wahnam threads in the archive; I doubt you read them all. They weren’t just in the Wahnam section. When it can potentially affect alot of other people in a negative way, then it's not just senseless bickering. That is the main point. As for 'it's just words', I think you'd be very hard pressed to find something with more power then words.

As for Sunday, come at least at 12.45 because recently we've been getting full and they have to turn away people sometimes. Lol, where did you land up? Have you got the right road? It is quite easy to miss - it's just a fairly small alley entrance, but now it's got bright red gates. And it's side-to-side with a petrol station. Texaco, I think.

As for the training, you say you have eleven years experience, so prep shouldn't present you with too much difficulty, but it's still a good tough workout for fitter people. We start of with a warm up, a light stretch of the joints followed by 100 knee high running on the spot, twenty pushups and thirty ma bu squats; repeated three times. That's the first five mins. The next half hour is various different punches. Then we stretch for a few mins and do five or so types of kicks for ten mins, a bit of Ma Bu Jia Da and finally taught the first five stances, and then perform a preparatory form, Wu Bu Chuan. That's it in a nutshell. I think I wrote a bit on it in the old archive. Go to Shaolin Gongfu Schools, and look in Shi Guolins - I wrote something on what we do in class about halfway down the thread. Don't shout out Lipster, that's not my real name!

Peace

[wooden dummy]

Hehe, I came out of tufnell park station and totally lost my bearings- it doesn't say on the map which direction you come out of the station, and I couldn't remember the name of the road, so I ended up in each direction about a 200 yard radius- I know which road it was on now, but I must have walked right up near it (on the wrong side of the road) and just missed it... oh well

Sounds like a pretty good workout... I should manage it ok but it's been awhile since I've really done much cardiovascular stuff (in karate the emphasis on fitness training gets less and less as you get more advanced- sensei rarely makes us do those knuckle pushups any more!)

As for 'it's just words', I think you'd be very hard pressed to find something with more power then words.

Sorry mate, but i have to pull you up on that one. Believe me, without going into details, I've been subjected to enough abuse in my lifetime, verbal and otherwise, to know what affects me personally and what doesn't, and for me, at least, words tend toward being pretty meaningless unless there's something to back them up. When the only backup for one's words is ignorance, they tend to fall apart mighty quick. Anyway, that's the last I'll say on the subject, so now we're all happy & smiley & good lol

Don't shout out Lipster, that's not my real name!

LOL ya don't say...

anyway see ya sunday man

peace

Jim

[Lipster]

(I wrote this out, thought I posted it but it wasn't there, so God knows where it's gone...)

Jim,

Agreed, but this returns to the point I made in the movie thread. Most people do not have to faculties not to take things at face value. Do you have any idea of how many people there are on the internet? And do you know of how much honest-to-God pointless, mindless, sick and crazy shit there is out there? Who do you think all this stuff is catered for? There are alot of people out there, fella, and not all of them are bright. In those circumstances words have absolute power. Words always have absolute power with the masses. (This hasn't got anything to do with WKK anymore..I'm not that pissed off..LOL)


You need a more pragmatic view of existence.


If the Internet did consist of people with the foresight to keep this in mind then probably none of this would have ruffled my feathers at all.

[wooden dummy]

Ach, you're right, of course, but it's just so depressing having to think of things that way, lol