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Thread: Training with Monks why does it matter?

  1. #1
    reemul Guest

    Training with Monks why does it matter?

    All this B.S. about who trained with Monks. Do you think because you train with a so called Monk your any better off than training with someone else. Sounds to me like you guys are trying to validate what it is you study and elevate yourselves beyond the rest of the Kungfu community. Ya know I saw Yan Ming and his students and it reminded me of some of the Ninja schools around town. The expression on my face was that of "man I hope these guys never get into any cuz they will get dusted". So again what is the relevance of whether or not you train with a monk?

  2. #2
    HuangKaiVun Guest
    Monks know that there's more to kung fu than just fighting.

  3. #3
    shaolinboxer Guest

    Yan Ming Demo

    Yan Ming is a master of selling his visual presentation. Hence the success of his school. Also, his fighting technique (as I learned, anyway) is very simple, similar to Bruce Lee. Maybe 5 basic kicks, 3 punches, and forms to create strength, speed, and chi.

    The demos are just his wushu style.

  4. #4
    gumyilo Guest
    I'm assuming you guys are from NYC any schools you recommend this is directed to the people who've been to Yan Mings.

    "There are no shortcuts in Kung Fu only long days of Hard Work."

  5. #5
    shaolinboxer Guest

    Schools in NYC

    There are almost 100 martial arts schools in NY. It's so hard to recommend any of them, since we all have our own personal tastes and tolerances.

    The web and a local yellow pages are your best leads. My last search took two years of watching classes, taking classes, and moving around.

  6. #6
    kungfudork Guest

    reemul relax

    hey we are only trying to share experiences with each other, no one ever said training with the monks was better than with anyone else. it would be like if you made contact with maybe another one of your masters students student( i phrased it this way because you said your master is your teachers teacher)and you wanted to know his/her experience and training techniques. so back off, we know you don't think the monks are real and know no real kungfu, you post it on every forum, yet to discuss your lineage and such...it is secret, well i sure get tired of your posts because you won't share any details with us. it seems to me you are the one trying to elevate yourself above the rest of the martial community by discrediting everyone else's teachers. i mean after 12 years of studying your heart isn't settled....you still try to deface others.
    you are in dallas right, well i will be there this weekend for the jimmy wong tournament. i would love to meet you and talk about shaolin and such...you can even talk to my curent sifu, shi xing hao. if you think he only know wushu then you are sadley mistaken. he would be willing to discuss things with you too. now this isn't any kind of challenge, like your take it to the mat attitude you had before. this is an invitation for a mature discussion. if you want to meet, email me privately at kungfu****@kungfu****.com
    respect to all,
    dieter wagner

  7. #7
    GeneChing Guest

    The return of reemul

    You vanished off my "trained with shaolin monks thread." I was beginning to wonder.

    I don't think I even implied that training with a monk makes you better than training with someone else - in fact that would be a little hypocritcal coming from me, since I train with someone else myself. What is interesting to me is how Shaolin is spreading, especially in the face of such skepticism. I just wanted to see who trained with monks to create some dialog - after all, that's what the forum is for, eh? According to my infopop monthly report for May, it was the most popular topic of the month. And I admit, I'm very pleased with that. Now what to post as a follow up....

    Gene Ching
    Asst. Publisher
    Kungfu Qigong Magazine & www.KUNGFUmagazine.com

  8. #8
    reemul Guest

    So far removed

    >>Monks know that there's more to kung fu than just fighting

    Says who?

    >>Yan Ming is a master of selling his visual presentation. Hence the success of his school. Also, his fighting technique (as I learned, anyway) is very simple, similar to Bruce Lee. Maybe 5 basic kicks, 3 punches, and forms to create strength, speed, and chi

    Sounds to me like he doesn't know much and if thats all he gets out of forms, sounds to me like he doesn't understand the depth of the material. Oh yeah, thats right the material left with the masters in in their exodus from China in 1928-1933.

    To Kungfu ****: What irritates me about these new monks is their ties to the old school is weak, their knowledge of the Shaolin systems before the communist take over is fragmented beyond repair. I could careless whether they are monks or not, it is their Shaolin kungfu knowledge that concerns me. A monk is merely a religeous icon, but after that 14 year old boy was beaten to death by one of the "monks" at Shaolin temple it does make me wonder about their lagitamacy. I have also noticed that more people coming to the defense of the PRC lately, however I also noticed more and more of these "monks" leaving their simple lives to come to the U.S. To make some serious Cash.

    >>You vanished off my "trained with shaolin monks thread." I was beginning to wonder

    Well Gene, I have a life. I'm ivolved in two films right now, and training for a San Shou tournament in Houston providing I can find out when it is, my contact is dificult to get a hold of and I havn't been able to find anything on the Inet. I am also training for the Ironman and working relaunching my music career. So if I seem to vanish again you know why.

  9. #9
    kungfudork Guest

    reemul, how do you know

    reemul how do you know that the ties of todays monks are week....have you spent time with these monks you discredit or do you blindly follow the word of someone else. where is your proof other than what you have heard or been told. maybe with some of the people at and around shaolin today the ties are week, but there are 10,000+ practioners around and in the temple ranging in ages from 3-80+, so how can you speak for them all. how can you assume they know anything of real shaolin, how can you speak for the old men who have lived in or around shaolin temple thru the cultural revolution and whose families have lived and passed on shaolin kungfu from before 1928. can you really tell us about everyone of these people, have you ever really been in the area, have you ever met these monks you discredit, have you met these masters that have lived generations deep in shaolin village. to me it sounds as though you only speak from what you have been told by your teacher or master.....i am willing to listen to what info you have from your master, but you won't share that....you seem to tiptoe around any real discussion, maybe you do have some good info but it is a secret( sounds fishy to me). you seem to know so much of how china really works, yet you haven't been there.....hmmm, that one seems a bit immature. i mean most people in other countries feel that in the US you can do anything, you are free, true freedom....but you and i know that isn't true. we know that our gov't isn't always for the people and truethful. you have to live here to know how things really work....you need to live in china to know how it really works. so i still look forward to a good discussion with you, if you ever have anything to say other than what you think happend pre 1928 at shaolin. lets talk about what makes your style shaolin, what are the characteristics of shaolin, not forms but the core concepts.............

    dieter wagner

  10. #10
    The Willow Sword Guest

    in reemuls defense

    he as well as i have questions about the validity of these so called "monks" just as certain individuals have certain questions about the validity of a certain school that i am trying to figure out......mypost in the subject of who has trained with a monk,,reflects what i have studied and what i have been told from eyewitness accounts of the shaolin temple in china and of the monks. CHINA is Communist,,and the communist goverment controls EVERYTHING there. get that through your heads folks. the shaolin temple would not have been opened back up for viewing if the communist government didnt want it to be so.
    also,,,it is a TOURIST ATTRACTION,,that rakes in income for the government as well as the upkeep of the temple,,as in toilets and such,running water,,electricity..we;ll you need these things to keep an amusement park going. i would encourage all of you to read the history of MAOist
    doctrines in china. it is very sad what has happened to the people of china as well as tibet.
    China is also in economically depressed, and is starting to CAPITOLIZE on tourism and trade. money goes in to china it does not go out of the country. WE have known about the history of shaolin for only 30 yrs in this country,,remember bruce lee? and where did we learn about the shaolin temple in the beginning? TV. remember KUNG-FU? and after the success of the show all these books started coming out on the subject out of nowhere and they all told a different story to us,, NIxon helped to open the doors of trade and travel to china. china's reason for going communist was to abolish the monarchy and get with the rest of the industrial world.......now with all of these FACTS in mind we turn to the shaolin temple and monks. the temple is more popular where in in the world,,is it china? do they ALL sit around and dream about the shaolin temple? its AMERICA WHO HAS PROPAGATED THE TEMPLE
    andit is CHINA THAT CAPITOLIZES ON OOUR SENSE OF THE GRANDIER. remember what was in this country before kung-fu? JUDO, KARATE, JUIjuitsu. Were they being capitolized on by the japanese..nope. not at the time..... MONKS,,oh yes i almost forgot the monks. i have seen"REAL" monks, i have been with buddhist monks(thai). THese shaolin Momks are not MONKS,,theyre dressed up to be as that for it brings in the money from the blue eyed fantasy seekers and movie fanatics.
    nothing more.

  11. #11
    r.(shaolin) Guest
    1o

    [This message was edited by R. on 06-04-01 at 10:33 PM.]

  12. #12
    r.(shaolin) Guest
    good points Willow Sword.

    I think a number of posters are trivializing the scale and thoroughness of the the cultural revolution.Early estimates put the numbers at 2 million victims. Recent evidence has put the true number at 10 times that. These numbers have been concealed from the rest of the world for decades. The fact is, the Chinese Cultural Revolution is the largest mass murder in the twentieth century. I would like to underline the world CULTURAL because
    it very much included the traditional martial arts and in particularly those connected in anyway with religion. It truly is a miracle that any traditional martial arts remain in the PRC.
    The central point of the 1960's Cultural Revolution was to get rid of the old culture. This was ONE serious attempt and it was largely very successful. (Aspects of the objectives in that revolution remains to this very day).
    The body count is estimated at around 20 million, which is unsurpassed in world history. The scale and implications of this fact is something that is very difficult to grasp. Most people do not. What remained of Shaolin in the PRC is but remnants.
    What training was done was in all probably very minimal if it did take place at all during this time. What remained of Shaolin martial arts after this horrific human tragedy are scattered pieces.
    Even today the PRC leadership is categorically against the concept of lineage that isn't under their direct control. In other words the curriculum that is used is the product of a committee that has research what remains of the
    traditional arts and identified forms they feel represent Songhan Shaolin curriculum.

    Second point not every monk at Shaolin did martial arts in fact most know no or little martial arts. Third point - the centra l focus of monks and nuns life was not
    martial arts but Buddhism. This idea that a bunch of seventy year olds were getting together and risking their lives and children they may have been tutoring to train wushu is a big big stretch. So when certain M onks from the PRC make claims that
    they trained in traditional Shaolin martial arts during Cultural Revolution I can only
    react with utter disbelieve.

    No true martial arts lineages exist in the PRC. The PRC just would not, well not, stand for it. Any o rganization outside their full control is not tolerated. That’s why the Fulon organization fried them. This is why the Vatican freaks them out. Oh yes there is a Roman Catholic Church in the PRC. The official RC Church in the PRC is run by a PRC comm ittee which is why the PRC’s RC Church is not recognized by the Vatican. To this very day the underground Catholic Church is being persecuted. The Tienimen Square slaughter was not just political incident invented by the West.
    Sadly, it appears that e ven the US wants to ignore it for political reasons of their own.
    Most in the West erroneously think that at most 200 people were shot in Tenimen!
    I’m sorry taking a trip out to China (as one poster put it ) is not evidence of the what is really going on. The PRC hid 18 million murders for 4 decades from the international community and you think staying at the the Shaolin Hotel for a couple of weeks gives one the true picture. Guess again.

    Kind regards
    r.

  13. #13
    GeneChing Guest

    the nature of communism and religion

    reemul: Well, that's cool you have a life and I truly mean that in all earnesty. You'll have to let us know about the progress of those films, your music and the Ironman. I'm always genuinely fascinated with how CMa affects other media such as those.

    And while you're in Houston for that Sanshou, you should really stop by and visit Deshan and Xinghao. Meet these monks face-to-face and see their traditional stuff. Dieter is there too. Then let us know what you think.

    willow sword & r: Communism doesn't work like most westerners imagine, especially in China. China is too big to be ruled by any government. It's a problem that has plagued it for thousands of years. So it's not like Orwell at all - it's more like High Noon. Posse mentality. Local sheriffs and small fiefdoms. Away from the congested cities, the fastest draw wins, and in China, we aren't talking about guns, we are talking kungfu. Seriously, I have witnessed more street fights in China than any other place. Challenges go down at Shaolin a lot. They are tried and tested by fighters of all caliber, all the time. So it's very hard for me to believe that PRC kungfu is some charade after witnessing kungfu street fights, at Shaolin and all across China.

    As for Shaolin's tourist attraction status, tourism was a direct result of Deng reformations and revitalized some of the damage done from the CR. While the CR was certianly one of the the most horrible events in human history, one has to understand the context - why and how it happened - and understand that it was not successful - Chinese communism never achieved Mao's ultimate goal of true democracy (but then given our last election, neither did we.) But of the 2,000,000+ tourists, less than 1% is non-PRC, so it's really not for Westerners at all. In fact, I think that's what offends most non-chinese, shaolin is not really westerner-friendly. But then, every religious site is tourist. In fact, the most tourist plagued place I have ever been was Bodh Gaya. And yet I still found some meaning there, validifying my pilgrimage. Tourism and holy sites are not mutually exclusive at all, in fact they are usually hand-in-hand and have been so for centuries.

    It's funny that you mention Thai monks. My experience at Wat Po found Thai monks to be some of the most eclectic, drinking beers and bbqing in the temple. Especially after that horrible embezzlement scandal that happened in Thailand recently, I'm surprised you used them as an example. Most all Thai males enter monastic life for a short period during their lives, so that changes their attitude towards being a monk. They are often average people, full of vice and delusion, but on the path. And despite their digressions, they are real monks too.

    Chan buddism is really unique. Just as Tamo answered to the Emperor, there is no doctrine. So to paraphrase Herrigal, we enter the path of chan (zen) through different means. Kungfu is just another means. It is a Decartian view separates the wen and wu. While wenseng and wuseng exist, it is like taiji, there is a little yin in the yang and vice versa, not black and white, but a spectrum between polarities with all the dynamism existing along the transition.

    Gene Ching
    Asst. Publisher
    Kungfu Qigong Magazine & www.KUNGFUmagazine.com

  14. #14
    Radhnoti Guest
    No disrespect Gene, but we live in a Republic...thank goodness. ;) If anyone tries to institute a "ultimate goal of true democracy" in this country I suspect a civil war will result.
    Sorry to hop off topic, I found R. and The Willow Sword's posts absolutely fascinating. The more recent history of China isn't something my instructor delves too deeply into...and, of course, no one mentioned it during my school days. And it's always nice to hear from someone that's "been there" Gene. Great posts guys.

    -Radhnoti

  15. #15
    The Willow Sword Guest

    GENE

    I for one do not deny anyones martial abilities there at the "temple". but the fact still remains that the idea of true Shoalin in a communist dictatorship is still a very impossible idea. As has been proven before that the "Monks" there are Wushu artists that dress up as monks to entertain.
    As for being a western unfriendly place,,,i agree whole heartedly with that. BUT i guarantee you this: if i were a westerner with 10,000 dollars in my pocket i would be welcomed there with open arms and bright eyed smiles. As for your comments about the street fights that go on there all the time. take a trip to oakland CA or Compton,,or the ward districts of houston. tell me the difference. aside from us having guns in our kids hands and them armed with knives and whatever else. most economically depressed countries will have this element to them,,it has nothing to do with the "kung-fu" mentality. this whole subject is about SHAOLIN MONKS. The Thai Monks have a different system than the chinese monks as well as the vietnamese monks and the tibetan monks and so on and so forth. but the fact still remains that they are freely practicing individuals in a country and government who allows them to do so. i dont know where you have seen the thai monks you speak of gene but that is not the case where i have been and what i have seen of them. they are some of the mist humble and peacefull people i have ever come across9 i dont care if they have bbqs or drink beer. anyway i am ranting and i will stop.
    MAny Respects,,,,,,,willow sword

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