[nbotary]

Originally Posted by BLACK PANTA

Like my buddy Kris (Tease) likes to say. Opinions are like asses, everyone has one and they all stink. I will just say this man, whenever you post something, post it with the thought that your Sifu is going to be reading it.

Panta, you took the words right out of my mouth!

[samurai6string]

just to beat a dead horse a little here (no pun intended.....or is it?) some people are like myslef and have one or more "splay" feet. If my right knee faces forward, that foot shoots out at about a 30 degree angle. If I were to keep my feet parallel in a horse stance, my right knee would be angeled inside by 30 degrees.

[WushuPadawan001]

Good point Panta. Very good. Definitely something I?ll try to keep in mind. Like I?ve said before, I like this forum because I learn something just about every week. I would only ask that you regard me with the same respect I show you. ?wushu okay, please stop givin advice like you know it all.? I hope you?re intention was not to offend in the manner I received this.

I hardly know everything about Gongfu, or Wushu for that matter. But I have spent the last three years training with Madam Wang before her passing and I can say that from studying under her I have a very good knowledge of stances. That is, the proper form, how to train them, and how to avoid injury when training them. Injury especially because I had knee surgery because of improper stance training years ago. I learned the hard way why it is necessary to have proper form and never stray from it (physical/medical abilities permitting).

[graham1]

Originally Posted by The BadBoy

Panta you have mentioned Chi and excercises to develop your Chi, so this lead me to a question that has always troubled me. What is Chi?

A good deal of what is passed off as expressions of 'chi', at a basic level, is the student overcoming his/her reluctance to commit him/herself to putting full speed & power into a technique.

A second level is where a student or teacher gets to a very high level & acquires a strength on mind where they may influence others. An example is where teachers, through autosuggestion, can get students doing all sorts of weird things, with their full knowledge but with an inability to stop themselves. This only works on people similarly minded to the teacher.

A third level does exist, but only in rare circumstances. This is where it gets really weird. When this is exhibited, you'll usually see practioners scaling walls without the use of ladders or any other form of assistance. Photos have been published in British martial arts magazines showing this.

I remember one incident at a tournament in Birmingham, England in 1979. A member of my club was showing off his athleticism by climbing one of the square-section support pillars in the dance-hall the tournament was being held in. He had his hands holding the reverse edges of the pillar from him & his feet flat on the sides of the pillar & climbed 20 feet/6 metres up to the top. When he got there, he panicked & said that he daren't move. A man walked through the crowd, & climbed up the pillar, with the palms of his hands flat on the surface nearest to him & the balls of his feet on the same surface. He quickly climbed up beside our helpless friend & told him to hold on to him, which he did. He then turned round so that his head was facing down & scaled back down & onto the floor. After our friend got off him, he disappeared into the crowd & we never saw him again.

[Bloodybirds]

I would like to answer some questions posed here. In Southern Shaolin, BP is right in naming the 5 animals (another name commonly used for them, whether or not agreeable, is choy li fut style). However, there are other styles based on Hunan Shaolin, Wudang, etc. Preying Mantis has 12 systems under it, most commonly 7 star, tong long, six harmony, etc. Eagle claw, bak lum snake, nine birds (shaolin family style I have learned), tiger, etc. Dragon is an actual style consisting of very intensive first step Shaolin boxing, then 13 hand strikes of the dragon (usually with the index and middle fingers in forward knuckle position with the others receded), 13 kicks of the dragon (consecutive kicks resembling 13 heel kicks in a row for practice), the dragon claw slightly more open than the fu jow (tiger) claw, and usually the dragon will walk in a figure 8 pattern where if an opponent steps into either one of the double circle of the eight punishment ensues. A dragon never retreats and usually has learned iron body techniques as well.

In traditional Shaolin, there are 12 animals. Shaolin training invests many years in bodily punishment (I went through seven years of it with my Shaolin master) to develop nei gung, hard gung, body armor, etc. As BP will tell you, the stance training and banging of trees with forearms and legs, slapping each other in the stomach, front rolls length of football fields, hitting each other with full contact body blows by both kicks/punches, etc. Wushu can tell you about my Shaolin master and his training. Wushu took a seminar from him. Punch drunk has also seen him.

In all, true Shaolin training is dying out and being replaced by Shaolin monks who practice Shaolin "wushu" and do some neat parlor tricks. Animal styles are very hard to learn and after all this time I am only now beginning to understand what comes naturally to the animals in nature.

[BLACK PANTA]

Originally Posted by Bloodybirds

In all, true Shaolin training is dying out and being replaced by Shaolin monks who practice Shaolin "wushu" and do some neat parlor tricks.

This is true, however I find a sinister reason behind this...namely the Communist chinese government.
btw. check out the Falun Gong thread.

[Bloodybirds]

Yes BP!!! Luckily, because of one of my three masters' association with the recently deceased Madame Wong Ju Rong, we were able to hear a first hand account of the absolutely deleterious affects of the Cultural Revolution and Mao's attempt to emascalate the true kung fu and Shaolin and hence create "Wushu" which ironically means "the war arts." My Shaolin master, though not Asian, grew up at the Shaolin temple in Hong Kong from age 3-15 when it was still hard Shaolin. On the mainland, the current abbot (about to start a firestorm here) accedes to the wishes of the Communist government to make it a tourist attraction that presents no threat. Remember our Shaolin history......monks defending against the major dynasties of the time including the Manchus. Well...lol.....the current government is trying to accomplish the same thing. That is why, in traditional Shaolin, Traditional kung fu, etc. the current best teachers are probably either in Hong Kong or North America (sidenote BP and colleagues: isn't it interesting that since the 1997 takeover the PLA or other reps of the Chinese government have not attempted to water down the traditional kung fu practiced in Hong Kong....could be part of the hands off agreement that the mainland is actually adhering?!).

As always BP, good comments!!

[BLACK PANTA]

Originally Posted by Bloodybirds

(sidenote BP and colleagues: isn't it interesting that since the 1997 takeover the PLA or other reps of the Chinese government have not attempted to water down the traditional kung fu practiced in Hong Kong....could be part of the hands off agreement that the mainland is actually adhering?!).

Thanks BB, right back achya

I do find it interesting. Hong Kong is still like a totally seperate state/country. My friends is visiting Beijing and she says she needs a Visa to get into Hong Kong.

[WhiteLotus]

Originally Posted by BLACK PANTA

I would say the most common misconception that people have about Kung Fu is that all we do is high flying acrobats (Wushu) or very slow moving techniques (ala asshole Carradine in Kung Fu the legend continues) These misconceptions derive from too many people watching too many kung fu movies on television. Hollywood and other entertainment industries "hollywoodise" kung fu. You know they make it good for the cameras. Because of this people dont see kung fu as effective or just a "wow look what he can do" type of thing.

Hello, I would have to agree with you for the most part. But i know that there are some real kung fu masters in the old films, the shaw movies I am thinking of. Some of them used real Hung gar kung fu and even the real forms in their films. I find those films fun to watch having learned Hung Gar and some Choy Li Fut as well.

[WhiteLotus]

Do you have the lineage from your school or the history dating back to the original Shaolin? I ask this because it seems that there are many that claim Shaolin and even the monks that are Shaolin Monks today I think the direct lineage may be wanting.