Shaolin Crosstraining

[SSgungfu]

Dear fellow practioners,

I was thinking about adding an art to my shaolin practice. I know taiji would go nicely with Shaolin, but how about a southern style? Hung gar?
Or northern praying mantis? Another northern style? Would it be too much to study?

Studying many styles makes me wonder if I will only confuse myself in combat...but then another part of me says it will be beneficial, because the more options/knowledge you have the better. Can you guys shed any light? Thanks in advance.

-SS

[CLFNole]

Remember different styles have different feels. Power generation and techniques are different as are the principles behind them. I have never been against anyone who cross-trains it is helpful to pick a style similar to yours.

I myself am a 1 style guy when it comes to hand forms. I believe in being profecient at one style. This is a bit closeminded but its my mind. Weapons however can easily be incorporated to whatever style you do for the most part. The feel of hand forms is different though.

Good luck in your search.

[Lightning Vortex Seiryu go]

If you have mastered your style you should not worry about confusing your self with another, but rather expanding your skills in gung fu . gung fu is a never ending venture and a form of everlasting evolution for man and women kind all in itself. my recomendation for you would be to investegate into ba-gua gung fu. it is an exelant combination of exotic combat effective techniques.


blue dragon

[Maestro1700]

SSgungfu, interesting im involved in 2 of these same convos on different forums, but to answer your question from my oppinion you should train in taijijuan

there was once a master of all 3 internal arts of china(dont remember his name) but he mastered bagua,xing yi, and in his later life like around 60 years old he learned taijijuan, and incidentally is the founder of sun style taijijuan!

it was rumored that in his last days all he practiced was taijijuan, for its amazing health benefits and excellent combat application

so i feel, since assuming by your name you train in a southern shaolin style(which are generally all very effective styles) that the internal power and elegance of taijijuan would suit your ma needs.

i make this suggestion assuming you have "mastered" your current style..i dont suggest you train both at the same time..only because training in taijijuan many people get confused with its health and combat applications and just focus on health or just combat etc

but taijijuan is one of the most powerful martial arts in the world and you can find proof of this by reading about yang the invincible(founder of yang style taijijuan)

so thats my 2 cents anyway

[Lightning Vortex Seiryu go]

Yes taichiquan is a great form of gungfu, but wouldn't you like to
eat the whole pie rather than a piece out of three? your master
knew bagua and that art encampuses three differant forms encluding taichiquan. one more thing ssgungfu man up there may
be practicing an northern art,...:cool:

[mortal]

I trained shaolin for 4 years. Recently I started studying Wing chun. I find that they really compliment each other. That is if you are open minded enough to study both of them.

[Lightning Vortex Seiryu go]

Cool,


I studied wing chun from a vietnamese master in northern california for three years back in the year of 98' and have been keeping up on my unique training that I had expieranced.

I learned the external foundation of the art. There is an enternal part of wing chun kind of like tai chi I have yet to learn but hope to some day.

My Masters name is Ang Neyuen, I think that I miss spelled his last name any how he learned wing chun from a female chinese master in china who claimed to have a direct true leneage from the original wing chun. My master study'ed all kinds of arts when he met her, like praying mantis northern and white eyebrow kung fu and shoalin plus somthing else,

Any way he meet his master when he was young and liked to show off and ****. So one night at a local resturant he was with some friends and he was playing gungfu with some friends he was with and thier was a woman there who over saw and herd his big ego and so she said to him o so you think that your kung fu is superior to anyone he replied yes and so she said ok then do you want to play he did't back down and so they had a real fight no playing around he knew that she was really really good at gungfu after he got his ass kicked around for about 5 min.

So he then begged her to be his new master because he knew that she kicked major ass and that she was awsome, she accepted him as her new student. thats how it happend isn't that cool or what!!!

Since then I have moved away but have took enterest to shoalin kungfu, after all that is where most all kung fu origns come from, and I love it all..... I'm a nut too...:p

[mortal]

cool to here your thoughts on it. I too am a bit of a nut when it comes to training. I just got back from training under Hengxin(sore as hell). I want to train for a living, but my financial status doesn't allow it.
to be quite honest I have been checking out alot of different schools so I could crosstrain. Sifu Grados was the best I have seen. besides the monks that I have trained under lol. I am very open minded about all the different martial arts out there. I wish I could say the same for some of the other people I have seen posting on here. Good to get some positive feed back.
More Spirit More training
Anthony

[Lightning Vortex Seiryu go]

yeh thats awsome,

I wish that maybe someday that I too could go to
China and train with the monks, but I am not yet wealthy
enough to travel. Some day though I will. I heard of a
real chinese gungfu temple in houston texas that is closer
and accepts new students. I'm going to go see soon.

May you train well, see you later friend.

:cool:

[mortal]

You should go check that school out in houston. They are very good to say the least. If you train under them it is just as good. Except without the beatings.lol

Check out this guys videos www.sifugrados.com. He kicks ass. In real life he is even more impressive. I would like some feedback from anyone who knows of him. I have only taken a few classes. Its called street combat. Not very shaolin lol. That is what I like about it.

[NYerRoman]

I wrote a thread on that in the Kung Fu forum...many responded.

Training in different styles and schools

I train Hung Gar and Tang Lang. Both do me just fine, although I feel as if I'm betraying the kwoons in a certain sense.

But life's short and I get a lot out of them.

Go figure.