Info on Wudang?

[WushuSpear]

Hello People

I'm looking for information on Wudang wushu and the Temple, specifically on it's current sttus. What styles are currently taught? Anything would be of great help.

WushuSpear

[Liokault]

I'm looking for information on Wudang wushu and the Temple, specifically on it's current sttus. What styles are currently taught? Anything would be of great help.

Is their a wudang temple? I was under the impretion that wudang (or wutan) was a mountain (or mountain range as it has many pecks) with many shrines ect. Also i belived that due to the martial arts being toaist on wudang they didnt go in for temples?

[dezhen2001]

I remeber there was an old article in Combat Magazine about the Wudang Wushu Guan... i think there is actually a specific school somehwere up there. As far as i can remember (from the article),there is some Wushu but also some more unique qigong and MA skills taught there.

david

[joedoe]

Originally posted by Liokault


Is their a wudang temple? I was under the impretion that wudang (or wutan) was a mountain (or mountain range as it has many pecks) with many shrines ect. Also i belived that due to the martial arts being toaist on wudang they didnt go in for temples?

Ummmmm, yes there are Taoist temples. From what I understand there were Taoist temples on Wudang and they were well known for their MA teaching. Whether there was a single 'Wudang temple' or not I am not sure.

[dezhen2001]

just to confuse matters more, from russbo.com i think, someone said there were also BUDDHIST temples on Wudang :D

david

[Shadow Dragon]

Dezhen2001.

Easy to be believed.

There was some cross-communication going on at times in History.

I think also some Buddhist monks hid in Wudang temples to escape the prosecution/slaughter and ended their lifes as taoists.

Not such a big deal to trade religion in Asia.

Peace.

[joedoe]

Especially seeing that there were a lot of common ideas between Buddhism (especially Chan/Zen Buddhism) and Taoism.

[Liokault]

Sorry I thought that taoists were hermits who used wudang mountain to be alone.

[Sho]

Wudang also had a Shaolin (Buddhist) sect.

[dezhen2001]

If you think about all the legends etc. remember that Bak Mei (white eyebrow) monk and red eyebrow monk (Hung mei??) were said to be Daoist, but also in Shaolin... So i guess there must have been some definate interaction there.

As for the styles taught there... i'm not sure? :) But it's said they have their own version of Taijiquan, that's different from the 5 families versions... I'm sure lots of qigong and other skills also :)

How much you could learn if you went there though... i'm not sure? Would they teach you real skill or wushu..? Also it's meant to be a 3 day climb to get there, so better have lots of stamina :D

david

[Liokault]

I know a guy who has gone to Wudand (my teachers teacher).

He took a load of students and the Grandmaster about 10 years ago.

They were the first westoners to go up there (or so they were told)

They took lots of photos ect and found lots of (really cool) taoist shrine but made no mention of any temples.

Also they found no martial practice. They went to the chen village but that is another whole thread.

[Mr Punch]

If I remember rightly Wudang Mountain has five peaks, each of which has a temple at the summit. There was some cross fertilisation but they were predominantly Taoist. They were also burnt to the ground by the Communists, after they had chased out or killed the Taoists in the '50s (?), so anything there now is a modern take I think.

Read Deng Ming-dao's The Chronicles of Tao: the Secret Life of a Taoist Master: luridly titled, pretty airy-fairy in places, but a **** good read nonetheless, and I think, quite well-researched historically... it's Deng's autobiography so it should be!

BTW, he lived and trained several Taoist arts there, martial and otherwise, before going off to be a golden gloves boxer in the States.

[dezhen2001]

trained at Wudang then became a Golden Gloves Boxer... that's just sweet! :D

david

[Mr Punch]

there seems to be little difference between a shrine and a temple between many religious affinities in other than Western eyes. The Japanese have a word for each, but many times the denominations are shared. There are Buddhist tera (a 'Shinto shrine'), and 'Shinto' ji ('Buddhist temples')! The deities are quite happy sharing apparently! Can't remember: they may be different readings of the same kanji...

[Liokault]

Ah ....I have found a picture of a building on wudang mountain....a big 4 tierd plalace type. The caption is "the purple sky palace. This was erected in 1413 AD by the ming emperor. Over the centuries it served as a dormitory for taoist hermits who frequented wutan (wudang) mountain.

I stand corrected.

[Mr Punch]

maybe it wasn't burnt to the ground then... maybe it was just burnt out... maybe it was rebuilt...!?

[dezhen2001]

I think it must be a very tricky situation for those guys up there... :)

david

[Liokault]

Ok i have found a second book with referances to wudang mountain in it.


It apears that wudang mountain has 72 pecks and covers an area of 77 square miles.

Toist temples were first built on the mountain around 649AD.


If you want some nice pics of wudang mountain go look for books called Instant Tao by Dan Docherty (should still be in print) and Wutan tai chi chuan by Chen Tin Hung and D. J Docherty.

[northstar]

There are some remaining daoist temples/shrines in the Wudang mountains dating from over a thousand years ago, they are on the UN World Heritage list. As for the martial arts we'll probably never know what truth lies in the stories.

[GeneChing]

Since you got a bigger response from us over on the shaolin forum, I posted the link to that thread below.

http://forum.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=13105