Good training

[mortal]

loolololol

[Swordless]

How is telling someone 'your forms are awful' teaching them? Not exactly constructive criticism.
I actually like Dao's question a lot. It would be an interesting philosophical discussion, and if it got too heavy Zachsan would just post something highly humorous to bring us back down to earth. Why not roll with it?

[dogchow108]

Originally posted by shaolintiger
Well,the stupid kid knows what shaolin really means.
Dogchow,what do you mean by {it seems you have picked up on a very important step in your training}

-whether or not anyone knows what Shaolin is or not other than its literal translation is up to debate in my opinion.

anyway as to what I said. If i understand correctly you say you have reached a point where you know a bunch of forms but you're stoping to practice all but a few that you will really drill yourself on. this is very good.

you can know a million forms but it will all be merely exhibitional unless you really look at a few of them under a microscope and practice/drill/apply/analyze the **** out of them one by one. reducing your number of forms in many cases actually increases the quality of the time spent on them. Think about it this way...some people know as many forms as other people know moves in one form. looking at it from a logical time/effort investment, who is going to have a better shot at really knowing what they do?

this by the way takes a long time, and is the truth for any chinese system with forms.

In my opinion in shao hong chuen alone there are, though a finite numner that include infinite variations, more applications that one will ever "master" in a lifetime- but that depends on your definition of mastery (which i feel is cheapened by most people's definition of it). I personally think in that the six years or so of training ive done i have not yet mastered a single damn thing. I also personally believe that most "masters" i have met have barely earned their reputation at best (as far as really mastering their material rather than just the philosophical or some other aspect of it). However this is not to say that theyre not better than me at what they do or that they dont know what they are doing.

I dont think Mastery is unattainable- i just think that few people i have ever heard of much less met have probably reached what i think "Mastery" is. Hell, i really think that is simply a case of it being that few people CAN reach it.

But anyway, i think that limiting the amount of material to a relatively small amount that you can actually focus on is a good way to start.

[Xiaobeeno]

Chow, I agree with you about the definition of Shaolin's meaning. Although on a personal level I think it can mean different things to different people due to personal experience, rather than be a single definative fact.

I was hoping to discuss that with shaolintiger but he hasn't posted back yet.

[shaolintiger]

I think that your right dogchow.
As I said,I dont want to learn many forms.Because I am starting to get confused now.
But I didnt learn all of these forms in a week,or in a month.I have learned these forms in a long time.
The most confusing form I have learned is xiaohong chuan.I like the the form,but I know so many versions.
Thats because when I have learned it,I have learned the short virsion.I have never learned the big one.
I have learned the big xiaohong chuan from videos and vcd.Thats why I want to learn it from a master.

[Asger]

Despite the fact that you all claim to be experts on Shaolin,
none of you managed to spell xiao hong quan correctly.

[Swordless]

After going to my kung fu class for three and half years, I'm convinced that the only art I've mastered is the exquisite art of Not Falling Asleep Behind The Wheel and Crashing Into a Tree On the Drive Home From Class.

[daodejing]

Man, I'm surprised noone has posted to this forum yet saying, "you all suck. Shaolin gongfu is not TRUE gongfu, I train Tailin gongfu, and its real and you aren't. My forest is bigger than yours so HAH. My forest is grand and yours is small, therefore your practice must suck."

Just train. That's all there is too it. If you don't know whether your training is going well enough, get into fights with your friends, especially if those friends train different MA's than you. And if you guys get hurt while playing toghether, help your temporarily crippled brother up and buy him a shot of tequila to nurse his wounds.

I know a few forms, but the only ones I practice are the yang taiji long form (which I'll probably use for the rest of my life) and a few modified Aiido (is that how its spelled? phonetically it's eye-EEE-do) sword forms I've learned from a friend who has built his own system after 27 years of kempo, gongfu, and taiji training.

Most of the "form" work i do is the improvisational stringing toghether of basic weapons and barehand techniques. Thats all there really is. Learning what techniques you can pull off in a fast and balanced manner from which positions and just flowing with it. Learning that most of the good moves are both blocks and strikes at the same time and you have to do is flow with them. I don't practice gongfu. I pick up a staff and gongfu happens.

Maybe thats just my style. Maybe it will help you guys out. Maybe it won't. Maybe I could benefit from your style of meticulously dissecting a traditional form, maybe not. Maybe I'll just continue to experiment with whipping jing, shaking jing, and p'eng jing in my taiji and see what happens.

[zachsan]

iaido.

[dogchow108]

Originally posted by Asger
Despite the fact that you all claim to be experts on Shaolin,
none of you managed to spell xiao hong quan correctly.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I ... you... wow i dont even know where to start.

you're kidding right?

lol


Xiaobeeno- dont get me wrong, i didnt mean that Shaolin has one meaning. To be honest i kind of chuckle at a question like "what does shaolin mean"

[xing_jian108]

I didn't read these posts, but I don't know if anyone realized why Shao Lin Temple was named Shao Lin. So just for fun and letting you know, I will type it out...

The first word, Shao, shouldn't be looked at for it's literal translation. There is a mountain there called Shao Shi Shan. The first word, Shao, was taken from that. And Lin from the surrounding forrest. So it shouldn't be translated to Young Forrest Temple. Or Few, or whatever you crazy people like to think. It's just Shao Lin. From Shao Shi Shan and the forrest which is Lin in Chinese.

Also Xiao Hong Quan isn't exactly "correct". Nor is Shao Hong Chuan incorrect. Chinese don't write with letters. They have characters. There are many ways to write out the Pin Yin (written sound). Although, if Chinese use Pin Yin to write, they will spell it Xiao Hong Quan, with this type of Pin Yin. But either way, it's not Chinese. Chinese writes with characters. Silly foreign people made it up. So it's not right or wrong. It's just made up. It can be whatever you want it to be I guess.

A mi tuo Fo
-Xing Jian

[dogchow108]

Actually chinese made it up sometime close to the cold war when they were in very good relations with Russia- pinyin is meant for Russians to learn chinese.

Anyway, i think the proper pinyin romanization would be Xiao Hong Chuen- I dont know the tone for the family name Hong so i didnt add the tones at all.

Its kind of easy to reach the conclusion of using Xiao rather than Shao, since the "bigger" frame form is Da Hong, not Duo Hong Chuen.

[Asger]

Well, nonetheless there is still a correct way because chinese use pin yin all the time when writing on the cellphone or some computers. My experience is that they don't really use the radical and strokes system that much, but prefers pin yin.

Furthermore pin yin is also used by chinese speakers to correspond with eachother using our new technology when the systems do not support the correct encoding of characters. In this case, correctly spelled pin yin is of utmost importance. As you know, many chinese single syllable words are quite similar when pronounciated, which is why is it important to spell correctly so that you don't look up a wrong word if you need to look it up.
For example Chuan means boat and Quan means fist.

[xing_jian108]

You're right Asger. This is Han Yu Pin Yin. But most Chinese don't like it or don't even know it. So it's not important to Chinese. But if you use Pin Yin with them, it must be Han Yu Pin Yin. There is no way a Chinese is gonna understand this other stuff. Pin Yin isn't made for Chinese. Chinese hardly know it well enough anyway.

Xiao Hong Chuan would be little red boat. And Shao Hong Chuen would not even be understood by Chinese. And they'd have to know what you are talking about to understand Xiao Hong Quan. If you don't know about Gong Fu, what does that mean in Pin Yin? They wouldn't be able to tell.

A mi tuo Fo
-Xing Jian

[dogchow108]

I dunno man, to be honest i barely use the pinyin...most of the writing i do in Chinese is using the Taiwanese "Bo Po Mo Fo" system- which dosent use romanization at all. To be honest, i have found it pretty handy but i guess either one is okay.