kung fu sparring without kickboxing
how do you shaolin practitioners spar? i mean you practice forms with many techniques,then when you spar ,how do you block a punch? does it relate at all to the way you block a punch in your forms? what type of fighting stance do you use? what two man drills do you do that are directly from shaolin for fighting?
I've saw more street fights and challenges at Shaolin than any where else I've been.
And I've been in some rough environments.
That doesn't really answer your question, but I'm just putting that out there.
There are so many schools at Shaolin
They all get challengers. Sometimes it's rival schools. Sometimes it's obnoxious tourists. And sure, there are challenges from other styles. It's a martial town.
Note that I don't mean the Temple proper. They used to get challenges, but now there is so much Public Security around that place that it no longer happens. I'm talking about the private schools in neighboring Dengfeng. Although I spent more time there back before the forced relocation of Shaolin Valley, so that's where I saw the fights.
You haven't read my book yet, wiz cool c?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
wiz cool c
gene can you put up a link to your book with the challenge stories at the shaolin temple. sound like a very interesting read. i would like to buy a copy
There is a whole thread dedicated to my book here: Shaolin Trips by Gene Ching
Actually, I didn't document many challenge stories in my book. I discussed a street fight I saw, and there may be a few casual references to some other conflicts, but if that's the sole reason you want to read it, you might be disappointed.
every movement in Shaolin is everything
please don't mix non-Chinese martial ideas with Shaolin fighting logic.
in other martial arts, like Karate, Taekwondo, etc, they show you a technique and say 'this is a block,' 'this is an attack,' etc. this is not the case in Shaolin fighting logic. in Shaolin, and all the other ancient kung fu styles, every movement is considered everything, whether defense or attack, block or press, take-down or throwing, ..., even for qigong practice. if we don't know it, we should practice more, learn more, and then practice more again and again. for example, i can safely say, for your question, every movement you see in, e.g., Xiao Hong quan, every movement, can be used as many kinds of block. so when you ask somebody who has trained under this principle he may look at you and say what???? because in his view every movement is a block, and asking him how he blocks is like asking him about what movements he knows in general! and you know, it is almost impossible to list every movement you know!
however, most the modern Shaolin monks have not been taught under this principle. they've mainly learned the forms, and may even know one or a few applications for many movements in the forms, but they still have no idea how to fight with those forms!
Forms, and more forms, are always secondary anyway.
You may be taught forms first if you aren't a longterm student or if your teacher is the just-for-performance type. Without forms you can already be turned into an expert through the training system apart from forms.