Stay away from Shaolin-Do
Don't waste your time or your money.
Do a search on KFO search engine for Shaolin Do or Sin The, you'll find out all you need to know.
"Gong Sao Mo Gong Ching Sao"
- When you talk with the hands,
best not to speak of polite hands.
Traditional is WHAT precisely...?
Firstly, I am NOT a Shaolin-do practioner.
Secondly, in Japan, Shorinji Kempo is a style of fighting (mostly for sport) that is alleged to be a Japanese interpretation of Shaolin boxing that managed to make its way to the Land of the Rising Sun.
Thirdly, what uniform is worn is immaterial (get the pun? Im-material? HAHAHAHA) to the "traditionalism" of the training. In my school, we have recently adopted wearing Japanese style uniforms and belts, simply because they are cheaper and more practical that the Chinese style uniforms we have worn for 20 years.
Chinese uniforms, with the exception of the shuai chiao getups offered by some supply houses, are horribly inadequate for repeated grappling training - they are too thin and not designed for that kind of abuse. The sleeves are binding and restrictive to some folks with larger builds; the frog buttons are nearly impossible to replace when they get ripped off; and sashes are notoriously difficult to keep tied during rough training.
We have always made our own sashes out of stretchy material to help keep them tied and tight, but you can't beat the utilitarian toughness and durability of a Japanese obi. A judogi was specifically designed for grappling, and once you get used to the different design and fit, they are much more comfy than the Chinese uniforms.
In short, what uniforms are worn by a group (Fu Jow Pai in New York, to my limited knowledge, has worn karate style uniforms for years, and nobody says they are wrong for it...) are not as important as what is taught by it - and in the case of Shaolin-do, its alleged 500+ forms and other improbable claims are enough to make a person look elsewhere for quality instruction.
Just my humble 2 yen...
Matt Stone
shaolin do brads video clips
with only 7 yr exp with yang tai chi chuan and shaolin i would no recomend thes master for these styles. his expertiese may be in other areas. :confused:
my experience with shaolin do
I have studied with a Sin the lineaged system of "kung fu", and even earned a black sash ranking within approxiately two to three months. Now keep in mind that I previously had - oh about 18 years experience in other gung fu systems and what not, so the only thing I had to learn was a different sequence of movements.
I thought that the training was very non-gung fu...it looked more like shotokan karate with a few gung fu movements thrown in. They even had japanese names for some of the drills!!! The only good thing that came out of it was that it wasnt "shaolin do" but rather a break away and thus, I had some real exposure to more actual gung fu through "seminars" by friends of the teachers, which were of real gung fu lineages such as tang lang and Pow chuan.
I have left them since then (even though that was the only "gung fu" in the area) and begun to simply study the gung fu systems that I already knew, but had not mastered. I figured that training in pre-learned things even though my original sifus werent around was better than learning crap that would end up hurting me in the long run with sifus that werent as good as me.
And that is being humble about it. One of the most important things in learning gung fu is respect for the master and faith in the system, without those two things, you will not progress to your desired levels.
Train hard and always question the "unquestionable"
Sounds like Chop Suey to me!!!!
I missed the standing O - thanks for the correction
I will admit I haven't met or seen shaolin-do personally, is there any input from others that have met, trained, or touched hands with them? I just read all I could on the net, and independantly (before coming to this board) have seemed to come to the same conclusion as the others here. One thing they definitly have is a lot of material. IMHO too much material. But if can do 100 forms correct and well, then you must be good, right? That being said, let's get to that history.
Karate uniforms to hide behind during exile - I can believe that. Although most kung fu people I've seen don't wear "uniforms" when training anyway, we tend to wear shoes with black pants and a t-shirt. But why continue to say "katas" with an art that uses the word "shaolin"? Also the words "bo" and "numchaku" (that's how they spelled it) are Japanese. A practicioner of Chinese kung fu would say "stick/cudgelstaff" or "rice flails". Sorry I don't know the Chinese equivalents.
http://www.shaolin-do.com/masters/index.shtml
Su Kong Tai Djin was supposed to be a hermit who just had to stay in hiding in the wilderness. Why, then, did he get a professional photo taken wearing a suit?
The picture of Ie Chang Ming I saw on another site. It is a painting, and its in color. It appears to have been grey scaled to make it appear like an old photo.
Dare you take Sin The's name in vain!?!
Don't make him beat you with his chest muscles!
He is the worlds most dangerous man anyway.
Dangerous Man :D
"Gong Sao Mo Gong Ching Sao"
- When you talk with the hands,
best not to speak of polite hands.