True. Yuhai is awesome too.
But it doesn't contain the 5 animals (snake crane dragon tiger leopard).
I wouldn't even consider southern styles as imitating animals. IMO, actually imitating a tiger, would be a man literally getting down on all fours and trying to look/act like a tiger, roaring, etc. Or a man slithering around on the ground, arms against his sides, flicking his tongue, trying to be a snake.
But even southern five animals movements are all human movements that drew inspiration from animals. For example, CLF's Tiger Set (Fu Ying Kuen) is human movements meant to be practiced with the tiger's 'spirit'. Which is quite a different thing from imitation.
I agree. If he can't understand that Shaolin Kung Fu was also practiced outside the temple grounds, in the immediate vicinity, or that the destruction of the temple didn't mean that everyone in the neighborhood instantly forgot how to do Kung Fu, then your wasting your breath.
Sees the performing monks doing wushu and assumes that's all that is taught, then ignores the guy that's lived there and all the others that have trained it? Don't understand how the old masters couldn't have been practicing modern wushu before it was invented. I know a thread he'd be right at home on. :rolleyes:
I'm surprised how serious people take the government bans on martial arts. Lots of governments in lots of countries banned martial arts. That don't mean people never practiced them. Okinawa and Japan also banned MAs. We still have their arts.
Do they not have any idea how difficult it would be to police every mountain village for possible martial artists? Where would the resources and political will to do something so difficult come from? You know pot is illegal in the States. Been for quite some time, hasn't disappeared though.
It just seems ridiculous to believe ancient China's government would have had the ability to eradicate MAs in rural areas. Close the big schools in the cities? Sure, they could do that. Stop every person in the countryside/mountain villages from training, many who may not even have known of the law?? Pretty doubtful.
The Taiwan/Hong Kong thing is far fetched too. If your on the southern coast, close to these areas and wealthy..maybe. In Henan, with no ties to these areas, thousands of farmers are just going to up and migrate to Taiwan, many of them traveling by foot...c'mon now....
Yes, that was my question.
OK, here's today's problem with the dicussion we were having yesterday:
If the 5 animal styles were never part of northern Shaolin teachings, say, during the last 200 years then why did "Grandmaster of Shaolin Kung Fu" Dr. Kam Yuen choreograph them in the pilot episode of David Carradine's Kung Fu TV Series (1972)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmQNBSQmXCE
The other person involved in Kung Fu TV Series was:Quote:
Dr. Kam Yuen
World famous Northern Shaolin and Praying Mantis Kung Fu master. Also known as the fight choreographer for the original “Kung Fu” television series. Dr. Yuen is the master of the very practical fighting form of the Grand Ultimate (Tai Chi) Plum flower Praying Mantis that is taught to many bodyguards of many Asian Presidents and World leaders.
source: http://www.lvlohans.org/history/lineageQuote:
Grandmaster Ark Yuey Wong
Legendary master of the Five Family Style (Ng Gar Kuen) of Sil Lum (Shaolin) and the five Animal System of the Tiger, Snake, Crane, Leopard and Dragon. Ark Wong is known as the first master to open the “secret” door of Kung Fu to non-Chinese, and the teacher of many famous Kung Fu and martial arts masters around the world.
These guys aren't southern boxing practitioners are they? Dr. Kam Yuen was one of the first masters to teach Kung Fu in the US. If these guys are Shaolin based then why are they showcasing 5 animals if it wasn't part of Song Shan in fairly recent times? Remember, this was before the animal styles appeared in movies and were popularised by Hong Kong Cinema. And you can't say they got their inspiration from some old B&W Wong Fei Hung movies from the 1950s.
How recent is performance Wu Shu and how did the monks suddenly come to incorporate 5 animals and other southern techniques into one of their four classes of Song Shan teachings? Did the monks suddenly start training under Hung Gar masters or something? Are you sure they weren't practising this stuff in the north already? Again, how recent is performance Wushu? I got videos of monks performing this stuff from the late 1980s, but you say they wasn't using it in 1982 (time of Jet Li's movie)?
That is a very good question, and this is a great debate! :) Right, here's my new hypothesis for today:
All the surviving Shaolin masters had fled the temple and immediate surrounding villages by 1904, preserving the original Shaolin Kung Fu in other parts of China. I think what survived in Song Shan comes from more suburban villages further out than those that were close-by to the temple. Perhaps Tai Chi Quan had been developed on the outskirts and now those and other internal forms of the same variations are now practised throughout the world and branded as the original Shaolin Kung Fu.
Does Chuantong (traditional) focus on pressure points? If it doesn't then the southern styles have a better claim to being the real Shaolin Kung Fu.
From 1949-1972 traditional Martial Arts were banned. Sport like wushu was allowed and started coming into its own about 1960. But traditional techniques could not be taught. In Dengfeng they still taught Shaolin forms, but did them in a way that was for sport.
There was no way at the time to instruct all the rural communities in the same thing. They had to use local teachers and the standard forms although some created about this time could not be easily taught to the whole country as there is no medium to do so (people did not have tvs, a lot didn't have electricity). ALso the 60's were a difficult period and no one had enough food to eat let alone enough to give them energy to train wushu.
So Wushu was taught by local masters in the 60's who taught their art but in a sports-like manner to children.
In 1972 traditional Martial arts were allowed again. This opened the flood gates and all the teachers who weren't interested in teaching the sport could start teaching again. The mists of the cultural revolution and mass starvation of the 'great leap forward' had cleared. People had the energy and will to train again. (most masters had taught in secret anyway, and it wasn't so much a ban on practice as a ban on GROUP pracitce). unfortunately 23 years is a long time and of course wushu had regressed. The young could no longer meet the old masters.
Anyway after 1972 both contempory wushu and traditional got a lot more interesting again. The modern stuff could expand and traditional could flourish again.
Shaolin was taught properly in DengFeng in the 70's even at the Shaolin temple by the few remaining old monks. At this time a lot of locals went to shaolin to train.
After the 1982 movie Shaolin regained its name and people from all over China started to come there. Both as tourists and to learn. This created the need for big schools.
Big schools need to compete and do performances to keep their name. So this stuff exploded and most of the performance stuff was developed then.
THere is a marked difference between masters who were trained in the different decades. The largest difference is with those who trained before 1982 and after.
When it comes to movies anyhow, advanced people probably have an easy time imitating styles, at least superficially. They wouldn't have to study with a master to do film work. A lot of those films were done with dancers, generally athletic people, or similar. They just needed a coach (action director) on set.
I know of a tradtional teacher in Deng Feng who used to teach performance Wushu for the money. He just made it up, taking the traditional moves and exaggerating them to look more spectacular. People at that level can ham things up, do imitations, and generally horse around with ease. Even lots of teenage students do effortless imitations of other styles (no real substance, but it looks nice). They absorb movements easily. That's MORE than good enough for HK flicks.
Yes, they are southern practitioners. The clue is in their names. This is not mandarin language.
Kam Yuen is from Hong Kong. He did learn 'northern shaolin'. This is not song shan shaolin. I have seen it. it is clearly related to song shan and from there at some point. All the techniques are identical but the performance style is not. When you remove it from SOng shan you remove the influence of the mountain styles and it stops being song shan kung fu. The forms are different. This guy knew a lot of different kung fu.
Ark wong is also southern from canton. 'Sil Lum' is the southern language for Shaolin.
Fleeing what? They had no need to run away. Even in 1928 when it was burned down, it wasn't done so to kill people but to remove the Shaolin temple as a strategic position and also because the guy who did it was an *sshole. He was buried alive for his crime.
When monks left shaolin they simply went back to their families usually a couple of villages over OR if none were around they stayed in one of the many welcoming temples nearby. Song shan has many many temples.
Why go further? No one was hunting them.
Even nowadays some of the villages I visited had no road and I had to walk through the mountains to get there. Some masters had no electricity. Thats now. In 1904? WHo was going around these places hunting monks and teaching them all modern stuff? The traditions in these places don't change fast. There is no way to make that happen. I learned XiaoHOng quan in one village and they said they hadn't changed it in 500 years....I saw a 90 y.o old master do it exactly the same as I was taught in the village. And he told me as a boy his 90 y.o master did it the same as well. I believe them. This is the same technique as is practiced in Shaolin now. The same as all the old masters I met practiced. All form different parts of the mountain and some fromt the temple. DOn't you think it is more likely it that that IS shaolin technique?
you guys realize this guy doesnt actually train any martial arts except from books and dvds? and you just wasted hours giving answers to this guy who replies "no i think you are wrong"
are you posting to help or just for ego, to show your abundance of knowledge? thats not chan. chan is to explain in the simplest shortest form possible.
Chan is about approaching everything like it is a skill to be mastered. It doesn't make you follow a set of principles, it asks you to actually train wisdom as though it were a Kung fu technique. To actually meditate on the things that are. To argue everything so you may refine your opinions and strengthen your convictions.
This is training. Explaining it to another clarifies my own knowledge.
Although, in this case I am putting in a lot of effort for little reward. If you can get someone who is set in their opinion to change their mind using patience and logic then it is a wonderful thing.