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  • Solo Training

    I'm very interested in learning traditional shaolin kung fu, but there is no where for me to train in my area (unless you count Shaolin-Do, but I don't; I live in Atlanta btw). I have enough resources to teach myself Xiao Hong Quan (Shao Hong Chuan), but if I just practice on my own I'm likely to mess up on some of the postures/trasitions and ingratiate bad habits. What do you suggest? Should I practice any way, or should I wait to find proper instruction?

  • #2
    Just practice. The key to any martial art is to just practice. Start with foundational elements where you can tell if you're doing something wrong. Practice with a friend helps too. Stance practice is of vital importance. Even if it's a year before you can find a qualified teacher, at least do stance practice every day. If you can hold a horse stance (and forward or backward stance aka bow stance, seven star stance, whatever they all boil down to forward and backward stances) for 20 to 30 minutes then you'll be doing far better than most other begining students. Personally, I recommend stance training as a means of developing standing meditation. Start with 5 minutes and work your way up. But then all gongfu is meditation so of course stance training would be standing meditation.

    The other important thing you can develop in the absence of a proper sifu is flexibility and strength. Stretch every day. And pushups are good too for developing punching strength. But if you are under 18 years of age NEVER do pushups on your fists (the standard open palm pushups are fine). This can injure the epiphyseal plates in the bones of the hand.

    As for deeper training, do whatever you think is right. Many people will tell you that you should never practice gongfu or qigong except under the quidance of a proper sifu. To be honest I've been teaching myself freeform gongfu and freeform qigong for 4 years and I'm always asked the question, "Hey what form are you practicing?" My aikido instructor of this past spring (who was really and incredible teacher and also studied hung gar) was quite surprised to learn that I had taken no gongfu classes after seeing me train before class.

    Ultimately, the most important thing in solo training is to listen to your body. If you can develop listening jing on your own thats even better, but for now, suffice it to just be sensitive and open to the signals your body sends to your brain. If you're practicing a form and you experience a sudden strain on your left knee, stop, look at what you're doing, and ascertain whether this strain is due to improper stance or is it the weakness or overtraining of the localized muscles. Once you can listen to your body, and decipher what it is telling you, and therefore correct imbalances before they become a problem, then your training can progress as far as you allow it to go.

    If you do insist on solo training, I highly recommend this book, The Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee.
    Show me a man who has forgotten words, so that I can have a word with him.

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    • #3
      Something I forgot to write

      Sitting, standing, walking, and sleeping. These are the foundations of all gongfu practice.
      Show me a man who has forgotten words, so that I can have a word with him.

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      • #4
        well, i just can't imagine there's no kung fu at all in atlanta. i would suggest maybe looking a little harder. i tried a search in google and found a few schools maybe you should do the same. in the meantime, i would excercise, stretch, and find some sports you and your friends can play together in order to get into shape and develop coordination. and if you can't find kung fu, how about another martial art? training with a good teacher is much more satisfying than training by yourself, regardless of what martial art you think you want to do.

        as the saying goes 'when the student is ready, the master appears.'
        -Jesse Pasleytm
        "How do I know? Because my sensei told me!"

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        • #5
          If you have great ambitions in gongfu, remember that patience is equally important as ambitions.
          If I was you, I wouldn't think about training any forms or advanced techniques for the first couple of years.

          You need to boost your stamina to the absolute maximum by running, jumping or whatever.
          Your muscles and most important your mind must be persistent.
          You need to be flexible. Do stretchouts after each time you have been training/running (no pain no gain ).

          When you are fit and flexible, practise speed and basic exercises.

          You already have the bad habits. Any training is good.

          Look for a shaolin seminar or something somewhere. There you'll learn a lot you can practise at home.

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          • #6
            Basics

            Is it that you can't find someone to teach you Shaolin Kung Fu specifically , or any kung fu? Or is it that you can't find someone who is a master? There are plenty of people teaching but that does not make them a master. There are even people who have mastered a skill who are not masters of themselves. What is it you are looking for? If you just want to learn Kung Fu then I am sure you can find that where you are now. How have you searched?

            If you really can't find someone then train as best you can on your own, but there are benefits to training with a group of people. Trining with a group tends to push you harder and progress is increased because you have some frame of reference. You can see people who do what you are working on well and you can ask them how. There is also an energy that comes from a group of people pushing themselves that is not there when you are alone.

            If you do start to practice on your own then I would start witht he basics and just keep practicing them. Alot. When you find that master, they will probably start you off doing the basics but you will get through them so much faster if you have been practicing a variation of them on your own. Work on endurance, flexibility, strength (fast muscle like a basketball player- not a weightlifter), flexibility and flexibility. basic stances are good to but realize that they will be different somehow whne you are taught by a master. Try to keep them low and slowly build up to holding them for longer and longer. Do not be discouraged if you can only hold them for a short amount of time in the beginning. Even five minutes could be something you have to work up to if you are a total beginner and you have a deep stance.

            My master has said many times that the basics are the top and the top is the basics.

            Train Harder! More Chi!

            Good luck
            Bhodi

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            • #7
              Thank you all for your replies.

              My problem is in finding Shaolin Training specifically. Right now I'm living in Atlanta, GA, and the only thing I can find even close to traditional Shaolin is Shaolin Do. *shudders* I'll work on the basics for now (after I learn exactly what those are... ).

              Thanks again! ...and if anyone else has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

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              • #8
                I've seen sites for Hung gar and Eagle claw in Atlanta, but I don't know of any Shaolin Temple schools, there might be a bak sil lum school around though.
                practice wu de

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                • #9
                  oracle,
                  it really breaks my heart when i see the 'all or nothing' approach to studying martial arts. like mentioned before, there's gongfu in and around atlanta. if you can't find EXACTLY what you want, go to those, or any good martial arts school for that matter. if you're training at a good school, either you'll be training rather than doing nothing until your circumstances change OR you'll try something new and find out you really love it.

                  for example...
                  back when i lived in the states, i was not impressed at all by any japanese martial arts. my love was with kung fu. when i moved to japan, however, i tried to have an open mind and i went to any school i could find. right now, i'm in aikido, judo, and kendo and i love them all because i go to good schools.

                  and....
                  the more you visit schools and maybe train at them, the more your connections will expand. many gongfu teachers teach privately, and getting into the 'community' per se will open doors for you.

                  anyways, you should start running and doing your pushups....good luck.
                  -Jesse Pasleytm
                  "How do I know? Because my sensei told me!"

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                  • #10
                    I'd have to reiterate what pazman said... There are a lot of basics too that can be learned at any good ma school... and if your dream is shaolin, then most northern styles would leave a good 'foundation'.
                    practice wu de

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                    • #11
                      www.yingjowpaiatl.com ..... visited the school last week. very nice teacher. reputable background
                      life is a cumquat (Maxwell Smart)

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                      • #12
                        I have to comment, that I once saw a professional baseball player swing a bat on a commercial, it was very smooth.
                        http://www.blogger.com/profile/16155538

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                        • #13
                          Oracle- we seem to be floating on the same boat here...if you have the patience to read it, here is a story that i hope inspires you.

                          During the end of my time with a con-artist sifu i had spent a year with, it donned on me that what i was learning was not what i had sought. I promptly began to look for ANYTHING i could use to teach myself actual shaolin kung fu. Here, in a nutshell, is what i did:

                          First off, there's something that you need to understand, and actually this might give you and some other people an idea of just how hard it can be to find a real traditional teacher. This problem scares me even today.

                          Here are in my opinion what makes traditional martial arts vulnerable to fraud:

                          1- as human beings, we all have the same humanoid body and are all generally capable of the same movements.

                          2- given our species' notourity (sp?) for violence, it should not be surprising that really, any idiot with the right idea can teach people to fight- in fact, that's just about where ALL martial arts must have came from unless you believe the traditional story of bagua. violence is a natural tendency for any animal capable of it- it is totally natural and not really wrong as much as it is simply ugly.

                          3- For many reasons, which im not going to go into, even the most traditional and pure arts you can learn today will be different from the way they originally were.

                          This should give you an idea as to how easily a person can make himself appear to have been trained in martial arts. it takes quite a lot of resources and guts, but TAKE MY WORD for it, there are people who do this, and you simply would not believe how well they do it and to what lenghts they will go.

                          On the bright side, this kind of conning is made easy by the very same thing that makes self-teaching possible to a crtain degree- the fact that the basics of many martial arts, especially chinese martial arts, are VERY consistent.

                          Another, 4th factor in this is the ready and controversial availability of martial material on media such as dvd's videos and vcd's. there is also a lot of published literature on this stuff, and seminars are becoming increasingly accessible throughout the world.

                          So back to where i was going. I had picked up footwork from the first of these frauds- and he drilled us to death in them. I feel that my progress to the point it is at could not have been possible without this. the second teacher---man he just flat out made everything up and took some stuff from movies. to this day i cannot tell you where he got his stuff, and i have made it a point to try and find out for over two years.

                          either way, regardless of how well these people could really fight, they were both capable of producing some pretty good and confident fighters.

                          Drawing Upon this realization that martial arts are, essentially, only human, i began to do my own research. i was determined to study shaolin Temple Kung fu, and that is simply what i wanted. I looked around on forums and websites and it was not too long before i found the thing i wanted to do first- the form generally (though not universally) recognized as the most basic of traditional shaolin forms- shao hong chuen.

                          I taught myself this form first using visuals (i have two sources) and anything written i could find. my goal was simple- learn this form, drill it incessantly, and once i got comfortable with it, start to figure out applications.

                          this noble venture would prove more difficult than i thought. very quickly, i started to get confused. a moving visual reference was vital if i ever wanted to get anywhere. i looked into video references, and found out i could order vcd's of shao hong chuen- and literally hundreds of other clips- for TEN BUCKS including shipping and all. wow! i could hardly contain myself, and it was hardly a month after that before i had acquired two vcd's of shao hong chuen, one of Da Hong chuen, Long chuen, Hu chuen (JESUS that one hurt to learn), pudao, broadsword, Lohan chuen, and i got some taiji on the side. It was not too long before my second crisis came about- what the hell was i doing?

                          putting aside the increasing monatary value of my vcd collection and my suffering grades, i started to feel empty. i had degenerated to the point where i literally became a forms collector. despite the fact that i could go through vcd versions of shaolin forms as easily as i could recite the alphabet, i realy had gotten nowhere in my martial training. even if you put fighting aside, my movements were undisciplined, i grossly lacked power both in footwork and attacking ideas.

                          this is where Brad comes in. a little over a year ago i had heard about a guy who teaches Bagua here in Oklahoma city, and i sought him out. i had absolutely no interest in bagua- i had heard that h had spent some time learning shaolin in china. it was all i could do to keep from pissing myself.

                          Brad is a powerful martial artist, and he is very much into learning things well enough to execute them. apparently this guy has spent 13 years living in China, and has had teaching in XingYi, Chen, sun and cheng man jing taiji, cheng Bagua, plum blossom mantis (very impressive and lethal to the core), and amongst a couple of others, Shaolin.

                          I asked him if he was willing to teach Shaolin, as he was fixed on cheng Bagua in his class. his response surprized me- in a timid, almost reclusive tone, he replied "Well, now i dont really like to teach shaolin; mainly because i suck at it...". WOW. i couldnt believe my ears- up until now, everyone i know who had claimed to know the slightest bit of shaolin arbitrated upon themselves sub-godly status.
                          He did, however, demonstrate a bit for me (applications) and i was astounded only less than i was heartbroken that he didnt want to teach it. To add insult to injury, he demonstrated things directly out of shao hong chuen, which by that time i knew to be a traditional shaolin form. He did and said a lot more to verify at least the legitimacy he claimed, and i asked him at least three more times that day if he would teach me shaolin- "no".

                          (at this point, he had mentioned another person who was overseas and who was supposed to come back to oklahoma- Marcus (who turned out to be none other than Luo te Hsiu/hong yixiang-student and gao-style afficionado Marcus Brinkman. not that i knew or cared who that was at the time but knowing what i know now i eat my heart out that i didnt go to more of his classes while he was here).)

                          I simply didnt care for Bagua- i had had enough of learning what people wanted me to learn, and i was dead set on learning shaolin goddamn kung fu, and that was that.

                          I had taken something else with me from Brad at that point- he had demonstrated TongBei Skill. I truely think that though it did not click at the time (i had never gotten any tongbei chuan vcd's at the time), this one demonstration not only proved to me the superficiality of my practice, but would essentially change my entire approach to training.

                          I thought a lot about what i had seen Brad do. He was rock solid, and the techniques he did were so completely different than the tae-kwon-do-like applications i had always been made to associate with kung fu that i simply couldnt stop thinking of it. He had also demonstrated one particularly powerful move from tongbei chuan which involved a stopm so loud that my ears rang for a good while afterwards. and he said he SUCKED??

                          I simply wouldnt have it- i felt like Gollum chasing the Ring; i absolutely had to have this kind of power in my traiing if i ever hoped to get anywhere...Tong Bei--- through the back, power that starts at the ground and resonates the length of your body until it is emitted with incredible power through the place of choice. i had nver thought much of the concept before that.

                          I began to incorporate this idea into what i had already done. Soon, i found this to be a problem, as this skill was not something you could just duplicate. but i just plain didnt want to learn bagua.

                          after a few months, i ate my ego and went back to brad's class. His class, to say the least, was very boring for me. i had really hoped to pick up some palm changes and really learn how to put power into them. i quickly realized that Brad's class was nothing like i had expected. We drilled applications for the entire duration of the class, and i left there so sore everyday i had convince myself to go back each time. Still, i was determined. this kind of power had to be present in bagua too- i had read a lot about the prevalence of Fa Jing in the internal arts, and if not Tong Bei then i would get a hold of this fa-jing thing if i had to.

                          neither happened after a substantial period, and i was getting tired of wasting my time. At this point, Marcus came back, and quickly started to resume teaching the students. not to get too deep into how the place worked, Brad and Marcus were two martial artists independent of each other/each other's lineages but who cooperated in teaching here in Oklahoma city (all this came to a grinding hault a couple of months ago).

                          Also at around the time i started with Brad, I had just by luck bumped into an old acquaintance from the first con artist school, my now good friend David. I had gne to this buddhist...i dunno, thing...and i was totally awe-struck when i saw the familiar man come out and do Choy Lay Fut's Plum Blossom Sabre Form. Obviously, my stomack was doing barrell rolls, and i quickly approached david and asked him where he had learned that.
                          David had left the place i had met him way before i did, as he had been one of the teacher's first students and quickly realized what was going on. David has has life-long experience in martial arts wnd was very critical of teachers who did not know what they were doing- obviously, it was only a matter of time.
                          He informed me that he had just left his teacher under the lineage of Doc Fai wong due to internal turmoil in the school- Praxis massage school had a school of choy lay fut under Doc Fai Wong's lineage, and apparently the problem was not so much with the lineage as it was with some of the administration at Praxis. he had also been learning massage and was now making a decent living doing that. the most intriguing thing he told me was that he had been asked to leave just after he finished learning the five animal form of that system. i swear to you, i almost lost control of my bowels- even moreso when he showed an expressed interest in teaching me this form. Thus, we have become close friends and he is one of the now several groups i currently train with. learning the 5 animal form took me a couple of months, a few moves every day. it is an awesome form, and will build your body, stamina and most of all balance very well.
                          anyway, also during this time, i started to study with Marcus.

                          Marcus is by far the most talented and gifted teacher i have ever worked with. I started at the basics of Gao style bagua, and managed to pick up the first line, basic palm, dragon (wu long bai wei, for those who know this system) and snake palm changes, some really interesting basic hand techniques and, very importantly, Qigong that would eventually allow me to begin to develop power in my training similar to what i had been looking for. Unfortunately, my time with Marcus has been VERY limited- partially due to the fact that most of the time ive known him hes been in Taiwan, and partially due to the fact that when he was back for a short while i couldnt make the time to go back to his class.

                          Sometime before i started doing staff training with Brad, i went to chinwoo tournament in Dallas. I did Shi De Shan's Cannon Fist seminar and yuZhi Lu's Yang Style 24 posture seminar. David knew this form and was slowly teaching it to me- most of our time was spent working on the CLF 5-Animals form. This, i think, is one instance where makeshift training and putting together all i know worked VERY well for me. As far as the monks went, i only signed up for SDS's cannon fist seminar. he let me stay afterwards for his chin-na seminar and Shi Yan Feng's Eagle Claw Seminar. i really liked cannon fist, but was only moderately impressed with the eagle claw seminar...not that Shi Yan Feng isn't a totally awesome athlete (for example, i saw him do like 15 or more back handsprings all in place in a row, and i swear to you the guy can fly...), but just the form seemed too...i dunno...cool. it would be nice to know just for the sake of performance. as a side note, i was surprised to discover that Shi De Shan's version of shao hong Chuen is abridged. i dont really know why, but in fact if you fo to their website they actually mention this... http://www.shaolinusa.com/modules.ph...ula&file=index ... their shao hong chuan says 24 posture. interesting, huh? however, i did get to see Shi De Shan do this form- twice, and there are no omitted posrutes...just some repitions are deleted. however, its been a year since ive sen it and ive had shao hong chuen reiterated to me several times since then from brad (just a teny weeny but) and some other people.

                          Just for good measure, i bought a staff and asked the monkey king- Shi xing ying- to sign it. after a moment of confusion as to why the hell someone would want such a thing, he did. thank god...i was beginning to feel stupid.

                          At any rate, close to Marcus returning to taiwan for a while, brad started to teach us some bagua staff. this would become the second cornerstone in my understanding of martial power- the development of your body through weapons training. Never undersetimate the importance of weapons in training unarmed skills. i really think that martial artists who are unaware of this important fact are missing something very important. not that this makes them bad martial artists, it just means they are missing something that i think could be very, VERY useful to them.


                          at this point, it finally happned- we started doing some shaolin! my first experience in that class with shaolin was Yin Shou staff. According to brad, he had learned this form, i think in 1989 in china. Also, we started doing Da Hong chuen to supplement our bagua. Note- the shaolin we did, generally was for us to better understand the conection between shaolin and bagua, and generally understand the variable nature of the techniques themselves. I learned half the staff form from Brad, and the rest from one student who had been with him for about four or five years then. we ALMOST finished learning Da Hong chuen before Brad started being squirrely (as usual) and decided to hop onto something else. In fact, herein is my biggest problem with brad's class- he could not stay on the same thing for more than a week. he always moved about. only when Marcus was there did brad ever really stay with what he's teaching. as soon as Marcus left- back to business as usual.

                          though this pissed me off, i was still very satisfied with what i had learned. The trainingi had done, though limited, had compltely formatted my training again. I quickly brought my attention back to the shaolin, especially Shao/Da hong chuen, and i purchased Shi De Yang's VCD of Yin Shou staff- it proved extremely consistent though not identical to Brad's version from the late '80's. all the moves there, same order- different flavor.

                          since we started to back off the shaolin, and as it became more and more obvious that i wasnt about to get Brad to teach us any more, i decided to try and get him to teach us something else. though previously unmentioned here, i had quietly taken an appreciation of Chen style Taiji, and Brad, as i understood it, knew the rare Small frame (though only the first form). Brad welcomed the idea, as he seems to be of the school that external martial arts are simply inferior to internal ones, and we started to do Chen style. i was surprised- he only started getting squirrelly on me 2/3 of the way through the form, but i have managed to learn the whole thing through persistent, well, nagging

                          Towards the end of learning Small frame, i got the invitation from chinwoo again. to my amazement, i discovered that Shi De Shan wil be doing a Da Hong Chuen seminar, and that Shi Xing Ying will be doing yin Shou staff.

                          I am currently showing my friends what i know of da hong chuen and Yin Shou Staff, my goal with thse seminars is to compare and learn. this, ultimately, is how i have spent the past year and a half learning martial arts- getting what i can and meeting people who i can compare and learn from.

                          Oracle- i do not have a teacher here willing to teach shaolin, and so i have scrapped and made every effort to teach myself and find help where i can. don't quit trying, as you will later regret doing so. try some other schools to give you a head start- a good ma bu is a good ma bu, a powerul punch is a powerful punch... get info everywhere you can, and dont let people discourage you. anyone who tells you to resort to something you do not desire as far as kung fu style - especially when they are some of the privileged relative few who are "happy with what they have" because they actually get to train with a shaolin monk- should be ashamed of themselves.

                          until you find what you are looking for, dont give up...but as you can see, theres a lot you can get by venturing into other places. the story i gave you is only partial, i really tried to put in the things that REALLY helped me but theres a lot more that sums up to having helped me just as much.

                          good luck to you.

                          DoGcHoW

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                          • #14
                            Suprisingly enough, I read that huge arse story. Very very good.

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                            • #15
                              There's no doubt i would fully rate it after i read what is the idea about this article. You did a nice job.
                              ​ Future of the Casino Industry in the Philippines

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