60's Brenden Lai's open sparring classes - *northern shaolin

[urban tea]

I heard that Brenden Lai used to have open sparring classes for anyone in the 60's/70's. Mike Lam and John Wong from kenneth chung's school used to go there and fight a lot. Who else attended these? Besides, of course, Lai's students.

Did George Long's guys, Dino's clf, Y.C. wong, or wong jack man's guys go there to spar as well? Although George Long only learned kung fu for three months before opening a school, I know that his guys used to spar with wong's students after class.

[NorthernShaolin]

This was so long ago and I can only tell you what I can remember. During these days in San Francisco Chinatown, there were very few playgrounds and a majority of youths ended up learning some form of CMA. During these days, competion between Northern and Southern schools was very strong. All the Sifus knew and respected each other ability and, to a certian degree, resented each other. The students of each school developed a strong association with their style and sifus..

Sifu Q. Fong of White Crane and Sifu Wong Jack Man of Northern Shaolin and Lo Han were the first schools to have sparring within their schools (1960's). The other schools believe it was too dangerous to spar. Sifus QF and WJM officially allowed sparring only with the proper sparring equipment. Later, in Sifu WJM's school, proper equipment was dropped after regular class if the advance student demonstrated that he had control of his strikes. Sifus QF's students and WJM's students would spar after their respective sifus retired to their home so they never knew the two schools were sparring, let alone without proper equipment. Later (about 4-5 years) Sifu Brenden Li's Praying Mantis started to have closed door sparring in his school. I asked him why it took him so long to have sparring sessions and he answer that Sifu WJM's school been around longer so he had more senior students who reached that certain level where it can be introduced.

The next year, almost all the CMA schools were having official close door sparring with the sifu's supervision and unofficial open door sparring with other schools without their sifu's knowledge.

A few schools (mostly southern styles) did not participate with the open door sparring because 1. they believe that their style was too secret and death would result, 2. afraid that their sifu would find out and as a result would be kick out of the school, 3. they just felt that they were not ready to fight with other schools.

The Wing Chun school was the last school to enter the open door sparring. When they did open their doors they were overly confident and a few schools put them back in their place.

As to who attended these unofficial open door sessions, almost everyone in SF area who was into CMA attended, at least once, to measure how good their skills were against others. In these sessions, sparring equipment was an option and skill levels were usually matched. A white T-Shirt was a must. This was a method of showing strikes on the person because of the dirty shoe prints left on the white T- shirt. Many people went in with white T-shirts and came out with black T-shirts filled with dirty shoe prints. One can choose to fight against any style but in general on any given session there was usually only two different styles present. Very rare was there more than five different stylist present at any given session. These sessions really brought the different CMA styles closer together and respect toward individuals in the CMA world.

The official open door session came in the early 1970's and it became a political thing within the CMA circles. What kind of rules, who were to be the judges, where is the support money and resources. etc.

I remember visiting Sifu B. Li again when he had one of these official open door sessions in his school. Wong Doc Fai and Dino (both who are of my generation) were monitoring a sparring session between a 7* student and a CLF student. Each one had boxing gloves and head mask with mouth piece, chest protectors, etc. As I watch them dance around I knew this method of sparring was not going to work and was doom to fail.

However, these official open door sessions failed because of the political reasons in CMA and not because of what I witnessed at Sifu B. Li school.

[diego]

Have you had the chance to find out who recieved what from Ng-Yim-Ming, what you wrote to urbantea, now i'm thinking maybe you do know what Mr.Ming taught, & not what i initially assumed that you would have heard his story, as i'm told by someone on these boards" about a year ago?" He bieng killed in retaliation for protecting one of his students in the gangwars of the seventie's?, is common knowledge in SFCT!.
Do you happen to know about his school, it is written at www.hopgar.com KuChiWai's site, that Mr.Ming was only in SF for Two years, and that he is Mr.Ming's Adopted Son, & Inherited GM of HopGar Gung-Fu.

But at www.greencloud.com in a article by Mr.David Ross of Chan Tai Shan Lama Pai, it states KuChiWai learnt In SanFrancisco, now im told by a student of KuChiWai this info is false and thier not happy with Mr.Ross?.

Now in David Chin's HopGar book with Micheal Staples, it mentions Mr.Chin as Mr.Mings GM Rep... so my initial hypothesis was KuChiWai is the official rep of harrywu-ngyimming from hongkong, and Mr.Chin is the official rep from the sanfran Class?, all this seemed fine and dand, till i was referanced to above mentioned article!.

Now me bieng lucky to recieve what it seems is a portion of Mr.Ming's Technique, i want to know the truth, who has the best understanding, who can help me better understand what Mr.Ming practised, wich will lead to better understanding what the wong bros taught, wich will lead back to the tibet monks?!> follow the links above if you don't know the history.
Peace&thanks for your time in what you can find:)

[urban tea]

I met one of Dino's guys once and he said that Bruce Lee was stirring up trouble and walked into a CLF school to fight. Then he saw Lau Bun there and bowed, then left.

Thanks for the post northern shaolin. WJM never really taught sparring though did he? I know he only showed a few applications from time to time after class but that was it. Anymore information?

[NorthernShaolin]

urban,

What you said that Sifu WJM never taught sparring is a general belief but this is wrong. He did have sparring lessons for his most senior disciples and he was the first Sifu to conduct San Shou matches with full contact equipment between his students within his school. These matches were close door at the time so very few people realized that they occurred.

Diego,

Let me review these web sites before I write what little I know. Perhaps these web sites will trigger a memory cell.

[diego]

:cool:

[diego]

check your pm, it doesnt warn you anymore, i sent a message the other day
Peace

[urban tea]

Hi northern shaolin

WOuld you please email me at.. " urbantea@hongkong.com"

I would like to discuss witht his you in private. I know few others that have learned from wong sifu and one that is still with him.

Are you the guy that has that amazing stretch!! The kicker?

Looking forward to your email. =]

[NorthernShaolin]

No, I do not think I'm that person but there were about 10 of us who jumped kicked high enough to kick the 9 -1/2 foot ceiling of our school and leave foot prints on the ceiling. Our Sifu made us repaint the ceiling every 6 months because of all the shoe marks.

[Tainan Mantis]

NorthernShaolin,
Why did you think the open door sparring sessions wouldn't have worked even if the political reasons hadn't stopped them?

[NorthernShaolin]

The reason why I did not think the official open door sparring sessions was going to work was because of the type of gloves that they were using. There were no open finger type gloves in those days and they were, instead, using light weight boxing gloves.

A Praying mantis fighter could not use his mantis hooks nor an eagle claw fighter could not use his claws to grab and seize his opponent nor could a Northern Shaolin fighter use any hooking techniques while wearing these gloves. Trapping techniques could not be used either because their own gloves would get in the way thus prevented small circle techniques. As a result much of their techniques in their respective styles were useless and ended up as boxing matches. Also not allow were tripping and take down leg techniques because they were regarded as too dangerous. Punches began to look like straight line with no variation. Those that used circular techniques, ended up using big circles because of the large gloves and thus were too slow to excute and ended up taking a shot in the ribs.

Later, for some reason, the target areas became smaller and restricted to the chest area with no head or groin shots. Techniques then became too limited and the matches just looked like two robots hitting each other in the chest. The winner would be: who was the fastest to throw the punch or kick to get his point score.

Clever fighters who knew that they were no match against their opponent would purposefully walk into punches and kicks and take the hit to the head so his opponent would be disqualified.

[NorthernShaolin]

diego,

Interesting reading. Master Ming was known as Master Harry Ng here.

From what I could remember, it was common knowledge that Master Ng had a small school on Powell street where he trained the Chinese Mafia soldiers late at nite. The style that he taught was Hop Gar which has always been associated with the Chinese mafia. In the past, if you mention that you learned Hop Gar, you were a thought as a ganster and regarded as a dangerous person who should not to be associated with.

It was very common in the old days for the Chinese Mafia to hire kung fu masters such as Master Ng, put up a front kung fu school, and have them train their youth gang members known as soldiers.

Master Ng's death was an effort by the Chinese mafia to stop an uprising of their soldiers and gave the excuse that Master Ng could not control his students, i.e., the trained gang soldiers. Originally the soldiers were given an assignment but were unable to complete it but still demanded payment of $2,000 from the mafia for an unsucessfully job performed. If the Chinese mafia did not pay, the soldiers threaten to expose their gambling houses and prositution houses.

As a result of the threat, the mafia hired a 15 year old kid and was assigned to shoot Master Ng who took four slugs (22-cal.), one in each knee and two in the chest. This sent a loud message to the soldiers-back off or your going to be next.

Anyway, my knowledge seems to be in line with David Chin's accounts but I really can not verify if it is true.

[diego]

That is very interesting how Hopgar was/is? associated with chinese mafia, any idea how far back this goes?, you get the general history that a tibet monk taught the wong brothers and pakhok & Hopgar, etc are just differant lineages, from the monks lions roar.

I'm assuiming thier is quite a few Big schools, not open to the public in lionroar history- as you said, if you did hopgar you were not to be associatted, from its link. Now this is very curious for me, & if you can get a ruff date how long NgYimMing taught in sf, you dont know how much this could possibly help in my research:cool:
Peace

[NorthernShaolin]

diego,

From what I recall Hop Gar started being associated with the mafia around the mid to late 1800's in Canton.

Master Ng had his school only for 1 to 1-1/2 years from what I can remember.

[diego]

i know i have more questions, just gotta meditate n make em count:)
Take care

[diego]

the guy who i can cliam knowledge of NgYimMing from, he was killed in the mid80s and im told stopped teaching in 1980, started in 72?.
i was described what i was taught as kajukenbo/hopgar style, and that Kaido taught emperado kajukenbo, ngyimming tibet whitcrane-HopGar, and in a article describing him it says he learnt some karate from richard kim and another fellow in sanfrancisco, it also states in sf he learn?Mantis and i think some internal style from a W.C.Wong, wich i have found no info about, it always leads to the HungGar Master Y.C.Wong:) .

Your Clarification of the dates and the detials from NgYimMings death, clarified all previous accounts i have found.
So now im back to my original enquiry, How much could kaido have learnt in that brief time?, He grew up in the phillipinnes studying arnis with his father, and he would have been entering his 30s by the time of HarryNgs death, so assuming he was fairly skilled in the martial arts, how much do you think the guys in the nightclass could have studied, i know the Tibet White Crane Curriculum is Deep, but due to the nature of the orginization, i doubt they were sitting around in Lotus
:) :)

I'm told When Kaido started teaching in Montreal in 1972, in the hopgar he taught something like 30 combos, some chigung and the soft/hard set of HopGar wich i think is the Cotton In Needle?.
Then he also taught his students Kajukenbo.
Now the funny thing, im told he taught thirteen sets, the first bieng the first from Emperados kajukenbo, the next two is exactly like another two of Emperados sets, but using the kaju "tantui linestructure, similarity!!" using HopGar techniques.
The soft/hard set i mentioned is the 8th set i think, but the funny thing is the other sets, follow a traditional program similar to hunggars sets!, inthat the next set builds off the first in combination & complexity of skill, like the fourth set has a single low broom kick, then the next set uses a double broom sweep!.
Thing is it is literally all kajukenbo/hopgar form, mixed with what it seems some mantis and internal elements, so it is a modern made form, but from what i have seen in the kf press its definatly of a Traditional structure, wich is why i mentioned it resembles hunggas pillar lineup.
This is a basic assessment, from my limited understanding, and now i must enquire, how much Master Ming imparted, in his SF school. From how much Technique I see in what I practise, it has Alot of HopGar to be blunt,... so, I must assume, He strictly taught them how to fight, prolly based on line drills oppossed to mastering the traditional form structure" sitting in horse for four years and punching:D " when most of them, most likely already could fight?. So thats where i'm at, if you could give me your opinion on how effective these students would be under described conditions and the allotted timeframe, from me you would be much respected; and thats about it on NGYIMMING, except the general, do you know if he had any fights in Sf, did they goto comps?.
Also i think i read Ngyimming or his senior where the first to use the name HopGar"wandering Knight" to describe thier Lama!. Was it just HopGa associated with the triads, or Lama in general, you got pakhok, hopgar, mokgar??, and lama pai, dont know if thiers any more.
what do you think about this, in that article at greencloud, it gets to the wong bros in canton and wongyanlam sets up the leitei stage, and defeats 150 challengers??..:) then it describes how the wongs kf split into bakhok, hopga, etc. Any idea how it got to the Chinese Mafias, and how big those lineages could get" does that make sence?"
Also, from Kaidos main senior he wrote me that he contacted NgYimMings main sf rep and he denied seeing kaido, so im thinking maybe Harry taught a day class to, and the senior talked to the legit master, and maybe kaido went to the nightschool, but i really assume, kaido maybe just had a friend in NgMings class.

I have read Salvatore Canzonieris"sp" article on Vagabond KungFu, im sure you know about the history of gypsy kf better than I, but could you tell me about Chinese Mafia KungFus technical structure" thiers enough books on thier history, and im not into that" but what i am into is Real Gung-Fu and i would imagine some of the more ruthless orginizations with century of history would have some crazy chinwoo type structures" to use modern speak:) "

[diego]

the guy who i can cliam knowledge of NgYimMing from, he was killed in the mid80s and im told stopped teaching in 1980, started in 72?.
i was described what i was taught as kajukenbo/hopgar style, and that Kaido taught emperado kajukenbo, ngyimming tibet whitcrane-HopGar, and in a article describing him it says he learnt some karate from richard kim and another fellow in sanfrancisco, it also states in sf he learn?Mantis and i think some internal style from a W.C.Wong, wich i have found no info about, it always leads to the HungGar Master Y.C.Wong:) .

Your Clarification of the dates and the detials from NgYimMings death, clarified all previous accounts i have found.
So now im back to my original enquiry, How much could kaido have learnt in that brief time?, He grew up in the phillipinnes studying arnis with his father, and he would have been entering his 30s by the time of HarryNgs death, so assuming he was fairly skilled in the martial arts, how much do you think the guys in the nightclass could have studied, i know the Tibet White Crane Curriculum is Deep, but due to the nature of the orginization, i doubt they were sitting around in Lotus
:) :)

I'm told When Kaido st

[diego]

the style i do's curriculum seems to have elemnts of 3 or 4 styles better techniques that whoever put it together liked from what they learnt" i dont know if kaido made the kaju/hopga sets..maybe someone from NgYimMings night class made it??.

So im assuming and i would bet on it, that these CM orginizations would definatly have systems made from the best of styles-Mixed!.

[NorthernShaolin]

Diego,

Lot of questions but few answers.

Master Ng's school was open day and night so he could have taught Kaido anytime. As is it possible to learn alot in a short period of time?...Yes, for some people it would be easy; provided that one has previous martial background, time, energy, desirer and $$$ to go with it but I cannot honestly say how or who Kaido learned from. Remember, money talks and even some sifus are willing to show anything if the green backs are high enough. They'll even let the sets be filmed (in those days it was Super 8mm) so that it can be studed at a later date. (It was not so long ago that one can go to China with liquior and cigrettes and use them to buy knowledge from sifus).

As for Hop gar being associated with the Chinese Mafia, there is nothing written about this but it is common knowledge in SFCT and in HK. If anyone wrote something about this in detail I think they would be dead meat. I remember when I inquired many years ago, I was told "you do not want to know" and then their lips were sealed...end of discussion.

I do not know about the other styles. My personal feeling is that the Chinese mafia was associated with almost all the different styles at one time in the last 150 year history but Hop Gar has the strongest link and may still have that link today.

I do not have any knowledge of Master Ng fighting anyone in SFCT except that many of the sifus did not associate with him because of the connection to the mafia.

[diego]

that whole thing about hopgar bieng a major one affiliated, and lips are sealed.


YOU DO REALIZE HOW CURIOUS I AM.... As besides the whole mysticality/mythicality? behind the arts legend, i know kaido had newage?! drills mixing kajukenbo and hopgar technique, so these mafia guys most likely have some really cool hopgar drills:mad: :)
Thanks, for your Time. the only thing i can think you could possibly help me with, in regards to kaido, im told he wrote a article for Black belt or it could have been inside kungfu either in the 70s or 80s, on HopGar and Tibet WC, you wouldnt happen to have old issues would you, or have a friend who may have this article?. I gotta ask gene this:cool: .

I have another question on sunlutang and guruZhiang? sp.
On how they trained for combat?, i'l post it in that other thread inabit.

****, you search you wrote about got me curious, masters prolly were on some Han Island ****, straight out of ETD,:confused: :D
PEACE