Evolution and traditional kung fu..

[liutangsanzang]

I agree lineage is important. In mizong the refuge in the lama and the teacher is essential as we need to make 100 000 guru yoga as preliminaries. Tibetans say, i think rightly, if u do not serve and thank ur teacher it is impossible to remember and understand.

Alas, isnt hit?, in modern societies everybody think everybody is equal, there are no distances between generations, people, unkultivated and kultivated, animal torturers and animal defenders. I guess it is a bad interpretation of the french motto about equality witch basikally is about equality in front of the law.

I agree also with maestro about the fakt we might have to inkorporarte philosophy, meditation, chantings, rituals, food and so on to understand what is traditional shaolin gongfu...



Du feu 2 Shao

o feu 2 Shao

a l an 2 du DaO

il n y avait k une inversio

[mortal]

At Yan Mings in level 2 we would just do small parts of the form with all out power. It was almost savage. This has always been my favorite way to train. Eventually when you develop you could do the form from beginning to end this way.

[dogchow108]

The problem is most people are just trying to remember the form. Or think they are good just because they can remember the movements and flow a little. Shaolin is all about power. If your flexable and the form just "looks good" you will get your ass handed to you in combat. And you will give shaolin a bad rap.

Nice...

especially the part about practicing to remember, i totally agree with you. This is largely why i have shifted my main focus to, i guess you could say, a smaller, less form-oriented system.

But you can still do something similar with Shaolin. Looking at myself, what do i really practice when it comes to that? Mainly Tong Bei Quan. For one, it is small. another, i find it to be extremely variable in terms of its apps. I think that the eventual focus on one particular thing is the funnest part about the vastness of the shaolin system.

Xiao Hong Quan, Yin Shou Guan, Da Hong Quan and that bit of Da Luohan i picked up in vegas (thanks, yo!) are more for power and endurance. And again, this is just in Shaolin. My other system is the one i really work on for fight concepts and, provided the rare opportunity of a partner, actual hands on stuff.

Either way, all fun stuff.

[Maestro]

i train shaolin gung fu, to me its clear what seperates shaolin from modern demonstrative wushu

we place special emphasis on force training and hei gung, this means qi is apparent in every move as well as correct stance and power generation from the ground up. ideally speed, force and technique are the most important factors for fighting, therefore we train them constantly, this also brings the best results in health, as the whole body is involved throughtout training, on top of this special emphasis is placed on application, sensitivity training through vairous drills and pushing hands, forms training is also very apparrent

in my oppinion from my limited knowledge of wushu, there is a lack of true force and hei gung training and more of an emphasis on speedy technique and fluidness of motion, im not aware of any other training that would be considered shaolin except for the acrobatic training of the student, im not aware of any technique application or sensitivity training either

this is what sets them apart, because shaolin is known for many things but ingeneral the hei gung or chi kung training incorporated into the training and the sensitivity or the bridgeing skills either via the arms or the leg (southern or northern). modern wushu lacks both aswell as the intent or the spirit training associated with shaolin, which imo is an important aspect, also id like to touch on philosophy it was hinted at above but i dont want to say more then imo wushu has little fighting philosophy in that how could they even hope to reach higher levels of combat efficiency if they dont train the basic combative skills, which we all know they do not

cheers

[shaolinstylee]

gun fu... lol

seriously though, yeah there are some things that in a fight, you should be able to recognise.. especially things in the footwork, etc.

[arhat]

personally, I think the idea of martial arts is frozen in time, mostly represents fantasyland, ego, and being stuck in time like that never used to be the case...when new effective weapons came into play, MAs adapted.

it's like armored knights charging into howitzers.

the most effective martial art, most people you would consider to be 'martial artists' don't train it.

[shaolinstylee]

I'm sorry, I didn't know good gong fu looked a certain way. I thought if you were winning fights with the concepts held in cma.. you were using cma.. just because someone thinks they look better doesn't make a difference when your skull is folded in half.

[mortal]

Wow I always thought I was the black sheep. Glad to know you guys are out there.

I think the problem with shaolin is the seeming lack of practical applications. They are in the forms but we can't see them from where we are standing. We tend to look for the external things. Such as this attacks here. Or this is a throw when someone does this or that. In shaolin style the movements are always going up and down. This has two benefits. It makes you more agile and it strengthens legs, developing explosiveness.
There is no apps for going down into a cross stance and punching. You are developing punches and legs. A gungbu punch is not done low stanced in actual combat. It is just practiced that way. If you could throw a powerful blow in a super low gungbu. You could easily throw it harder and more stabile standing almost straight up. I think the type of apps we are looking for aren't there. I do believe getting a high level of skill at these forms does make you a much more formidable opponent. The problem is most people are just trying to remember the form. Or think they are good just because they can remember the movements and flow a little. Shaolin is all about power. If your flexable and the form just "looks good" you will get your ass handed to you in combat. And you will give shaolin a bad rap.

[LeiYunFat]

I guess that means your a liberal. lolo

You know what they say never talk about politics.
I live in New york so I make it a point to never bring it up.

lolol.

I agree with mortal very often as well. Politics included.

I should just add BJJ to the martial art waiting list I want to try.

[dogchow108]

are you kidding me? thats pretty much what san-da is. The Chinese do exactly that- revert to overglorified kick-boxing despite all the pretty forms. And I've seen Push-hands competitions that have turned into something that looked more like Greko-Roman wrestling. I think this is the funniest thing about all this- the Chinese themselves have always been the biggest factor in taking what we call traditional martial arts and making them more modern.

Mortal- in a way, i am sad that another person has given up the search for traditional Shaolin, and in some ways its perhaps just another sign for me to pick a number. I guess im just a stubborn bastard. One thing i've never really liked about Shaolin is the way they deal with applications. for the most part, i'm pretty disappointed with it- but i have my hands full with stuff i've figured out. On the whole though, i agree with you- if you want to learn direct, no-crap fighting, theres much better systems there. Systems like WingChun and XingYi are less susceptible to attacks on their practicality than something like TaiJi or ShaoLin.

Shaolinstylee- Lineage is important because with that, you know the guy is not making something up and selling it as something that he was taught by an authority in that feild. Your teacher studied with several people who were good in their feilds, and he has that to his credit. He's not a lineage-holder, but that dosent really mean too much. What is important, though, is where it came from. Granted, though, these are just the categories i go by based on my (less than fortunate) experiences with MA teachers.

[shaolinstylee]

lol, glorified kickboxing, what would make good gong fu look different then throwing punches and kicks, oh wait, those guys hold there hands up near their heads...

[mortal]

I guess that means your a liberal. lolo

You know what they say never talk about politics.
I live in New york so I make it a point to never bring it up.

[daodejing]

Mortal, it's funny how I agree with most of the **** you say outside of politics. Good point, form work is nice, but you need large amounts of 2 man and multiple opponent drills and freeplay to get good at actually fighting with any martial art.

It's funny how you very rarely see americans who can and do fight with their gongfu in a match. For all our pretty forms, most revert to glorified kickboxing in their sparring.

[mortal]

I am considering joining this school www.sifuchenying.com.

I am through with "traditional" shaolin. It is the same type of training as wushu except minus some of the cool flashy moves.

If you want to learn actual effective fighting take a wingchun class or jujitsu on the side.

I think if you look closely the theory and concept behind the two arts are very similar. And every year they get even more similar.

[shaolinstylee]

The theory and concept behind it..