BSL Lyrics: Tom Toy

[GeneChing]

ngokfei: You want something new? Try XMA. Most lyrics are kind of old. That's sort of the point. These lyric threads were mostly for comparisions, so I had a new one to add to the comparison. This one was interesting since it breaks form with what has been previously posted here as previously stated here.
As for making the big bucks, yeah, I wish. Translating is part of my job here, a grisly part at that, sort of like flipping burgers is part of some other people's jobs.
I once did an analysis of Xiaohongquan lyrics - I'll try to dig that up...

r.(shaolin): You know, I'm afraid I've only seen two Shaolin 24 TT's. One was on a Shaolin video, but I can't remember which. The other wasn't demonstrated in full, just in parts, like a jibengong. Given that rather short exposure, and fairly long ago at that, so I can't really answer your question accurately. I think the first line was the same - the first line is almost always the same - but the rest, I can't really remember.

[ngokfei]

just pulling your chain gene

Translating gives me a headache, especially when they use very obscure charters not in the main stream. Forget the "new" characters, I give up

I do the Chin Woo version with a twist (eagle-claw-ized). And still I had to go ahead an add 2 additional lines from a moslem version


When I was in HK I met a Sifu Chow who showed me how to do the set like any other flowing set without the repetitions. It really is easier for beginners to learn (especially kids), I keep the left, right left bit as a drill now.

PS: on another note Sifu Wing Kit Lam has just released the Chin Woo Tan Tui Partner set (2 volumes). Good work

[norther practitioner]

I do a ten line, very similar to grandmaster Han's on that video of a video that is on the web.

[GeneChing]

...but you already know that since I wrote that video too. Actually, I haven't practiced Tan Tui in years - I replaced it with the Songshan Shaolin Jibengong a while back, and lately, on those rare moments when I actually get in to practice anymore, I've replaced those with the Xingyi element and animal lines. I still hold Tan Tui in high regard, tho, of course. It's just been my personal path to move on. My work brings me back - I haven't really thought about Tan Tui seriously, probably not since I originally posted this thread so long ago, and here I am working on yet another lyric translation of Tan Tui.

[norther practitioner]

I've recently been allowed to browes my teacher's closet of notes.... He bought a lot of book when he was in Taiwan trying to get as many of the sets he learned in picture form as he could. Some interesting stuff to say the least, whether or not some of that writing is lyrics or not is beyond me, as the only characters I regullarly recognise are the ones for shao, lin, si, tai, chi, qi, gong, and fu.... lol

I'm in the process of getting all this stuff together and scan it as some of these books have been rather beaten to hell, I'll see what I can find for tan tui....

[GeneChing]

The original BSL lyrics that I've posted on these BSL lyric threads were from Wing Lam's notes. He had this old notebook, hand copied on a legder book, no less. It was something he copied off his master and Sifu Lam and I worked quite diligently to bring translate those lyrics for posterity (and for his videos). You'll notice that there's actually an alternate translation of BSL#7 from Ted Mancuso in Wing Lam's book on said set. I can't remember if that made it to our BSL lyric thread for #7. Someday, when I have some time, I'll have to index all of those here. Or maybe we chan just get our dang serach engine to function properly again...

[Shaolinlueb]

The original BSL lyrics that I've posted on these BSL lyric threads were from Wing Lam's notes. He had this old notebook, hand copied on a legder book, no less. It was something he copied off his master and Sifu Lam and I worked quite diligently to bring translate those lyrics for posterity (and for his videos). You'll notice that there's actually an alternate translation of BSL#7 from Ted Mancuso in Wing Lam's book on said set. I can't remember if that made it to our BSL lyric thread for #7. Someday, when I have some time, I'll have to index all of those here. Or maybe we chan just get our dang serach engine to function properly again...

i have yet to see the wing lam version.

[Dronak]

I'm working on translating the Tan Tui lyrics for Master Zhang Lingmei, who learned Cha from Grandaster Pang Lingtai (one of the few recognized 9 duan holders in China). It's a Ten Road Tan Tui. . . .

Yes, I remember this thread. I was actually wondering why it was being brought up from the dead.

So these are names for each of the moves in each routine. The book on tan tui I have does the same thing. I think there is at least one other book with tan tui info, but I don't have it to know what it says. I don't completely understand the numbering; I'm guessing you left out moves in later routines that were already translated in earlier ones, but that makes it hard to follow what the routine is like.

BTW, my training was like that of norther practitioner -- the routines our college club learned were very similar to those in the old video of Grandmaster Han performing the routines. That's where our line came from, so it is pretty close. I'm not sure quite where the differences came from or why they're present though.

[Sal Canzonieri]

Yeah, it was published, in your magazine, heh heh.

Just do a search on google for A moslem in China and you will find the article,
there are a bunch of jerks that stole the article and were using it on their websites without crediting me or the magazine at all.

Sal

I remember Sal Canzonieri once sent me a list of like a dozen different lyric versions of Tom Toy. It was a really cool piece of research he was working on, but I don't know if he ever published it. It's sort of what I'm going for here - let's compare some lyrics!

TOM TOY (Springing legs)
1. Upper punch, sweep block like carrying a yoke.
2. "Crossed" character (Chinese character "ten"), pull the drill.
3. Swing block, double covering punch.
4. Thrust technique, grind the stone mill.
5. Down punch block, followed by heel kick.
6. Lock, control, jam, and push, moving naturally.
7. Double grab, "crossed" character kick.
8. Stomping heel kick, spin like a wheel.
9. Jam the lock, heavy, close the door.
10. Plant the flower, light, snapping straight leg.

BTW, it's worthy of note that my BSL sifu Wing Lam changed this set in the late 80's. In line 3, we used to turn completely around to gongbu facing the other way in sort of a chin na move. Now we do a reverse gongbu without turning around in a simple block. When he made the change, he said he felt this was a more applicative move for our system. The 'new' way is what is on his video series. Interestingly, the lyric still works no matter which move it is...

[Sal Canzonieri]

My experience with different tan tui versions is that the first 4 lines are pretty standard, but then things start to break down after that. It makes sense given the nature of transmission. You learn the first lines first, so you probably work them the most, and they stick.

One of my dear old friends, Eric Ishii (who passed away recently) was a mantis stylist and collected beng bu versions. Beng bu, like tan tui, is a fundamental form and there are tons of versions. He claimed he had around 50 different versions, and he kept them all since he felt they all had something to offer. I imagine you could take the same strategy for tan tui, if you were so inclined.

Hey I knew Eric too (RIP), who was a very nice person, we traded videotapes of variations of forms (which one day I will transfer all my tapes to DVD!). We both knew the same persons and realized we traded tapes with the same people, so we decided to give each other what tapes we were missing and cut out the middleman so to speak.
Eric worked at Sony and was going to help me get a videogame developed.
Alas, he was making me a great tape the week before he passed away,
and I never got it.
I had called his number to ask if he had sent it, and his roomate informed me of his death that week (its already years ago!), he sai he would send me the tape, but never did. I was so sad that Eric passed away at such a young age.
A very nice person that was seriously into martial arts forms.

[GeneChing]

Yeah, it was published, in your magazine, heh heh.

Doh! What issue was that? I remember you had quite a long list of lyrics that was floating around the net at one point. I'm sure I saved a hard copy of that somewhere, but my files nowadays...

I knew Eric too

Eric and I went to China together in 1991. We went to a tournament in Jinan, Shandong (I was on the AAU national team), then to Beijing and Hong Kong. He was living in San Bruno and I was just over the hill in SF, so we hung out a bit. He was into the rave scene and I was working for the Grateful Dead, so our paths crossed on numerous occasions. He came to my bachelor party. Great guy - a fanatical cook - very dedicated to his practice. I miss him. He had this great antique broadsword with a crescent moon guard - I've never seen anything quite like it since - I always wondered what happened to that... Here's a nice bio on Eric from one of his students.

[Sal Canzonieri]

My article was in: Kungfu Magazine 1996 June/July

Here is a place on the net that credited me/magazine properly and has the complete article (with some errors they made when typing it in):

http://cclib.nsu.ru/projects/satbi/s...atyi/mosl.html

[GeneChing]

June July '96 just came back in stock. Recently, a cache of back issues was discovered by Gigi when she was doing some re-org back there, so many of our previously sold out issues came back in stock.

[K.Brazier]

r.(shaolin)
Where did you get information that Tantuei was developed in the late Ming?
Even in the Ching dynsaty there seems to be no mention of it, but my information is incomplete.

[r.(shaolin)]

K.Brazier wrote:
"Even in the Ching dynsaty there seems to be no mention of it"

Unfortunately there is very little written/published material before the 'modern' period on the history of specific sets. I think it is safe to say Tan Tui was practiced during the Ching Dynasty. Both of my teacher's teachers (sigongs) studied and practiced martial arts, including tan tui, during the Ching Dynasty. It is well known that other people such as Wang Ziping and before him Yang Hong Xiu, his teacher, also practiced Tan Tui during the Ching Dynasty. Ma Zheng Bang, who studied the set in the 1930's from Ma En Chen and then later with Wang Ziping, wrote a book on Tan Tui.

Based on Ma's research it appears that this set is connected to Cha Shang Yir (known more commonly as Cha Mir) (1568-1644) of Xing Jiang. Ma then traces the set to Li Lao Chong then to Zhang Qian and then to Yang Hong Xiu. Apparently Wang Ziping studied Tan Tui with Yang Hong Xiu.

r.