left or right

[alexjxavery tim]

The old shaolin dudes use to get the tiger and dragon burned on them by the big old pot. But witch arm was the tiger on and witch arm was the dragon on? And does anyone have and pics or links to what these brands would of looked like?

[Sho]

As far as I know, the burning of tiger and dragon onto one's forearms is merely a folktale often depicted in movies.

[MasterKiller]

Not too many people know about it anymore, but I have this scan from a 1908 picture depicting the "Dragon" emblem.

[David Jamieson]

yes, trogdor the burninator was definitely the shaolin dragon scar burned onto the novice carradine apprentice level padawans of teh jedi/shaolin order of old. lol

I think the tiger was this one


and the romulans would cower in tremendous fear that would make the blood worms curdle in their bellies whenever they saw teh marks of trogdor and tony scarified into the jedi/shaolin arms!

true story!

[norther practitioner]

Welcome to the forums Alex.

Excuse the sarcasm...


You should do a search, this has been discussed in the past. I think there is a general concesus here that the burns were more folklore than real.

[Shaolin Dude]

regardless of folklore or not. dragon goes on left tiger is on right arm

[David Jamieson]

what are you basing that on? the tv show?

[buddhapalm]

In the fellowship of martial brothers there is the saying:

"Jor Ching Lung, Yau Bak Fu"

Meaning. Left Green Dragon, Right White Tiger.

Cheers

Buddhapalm

[David Jamieson]

which fellowship is that?

east is dragon, west is tiger. when the main cardinal direction is south (which it is to the chinese) the east is on your left and the west to your right....

for 17 points and a half eaten banana, whats in teh south and whats in the north? doo dee doo doo, doo dee doo, doo dee doo doo, doop dee doo dee doo dee...

but anyway, lol, the scars only prop up is from the tv show.

so, don't go scarring and tatooing yourself up to fit in the mold of a tv show for hippies from the seventies LOL

that'd be waaaaaayyy to geeky!

[GeneChing]

...tattoos of star trek symbols however - GEEKY!!

For 17 points and the win, south is the phoenix and north is the dark warrior, Zhen Wu (namesake of Wudang) often represented by a snake and/or a terrapin. That's not really a martial arts thing. It's a Han dynasty thing (206BCE-220CE). The green dragon/white tiger thing was probably derivative of that, but was really more of a reference to the door guardians (although I suppose an argument could be made for the parallel of door gods to Shaolin monks). Now by this theory, you need to tattoo a turtle on your forhead and a phoenix on your ass.

Seriously, does anyone know how it went in the show? I remember that they showed it clearly in the opening sequence. I'm just curious now...

[buddhapalm]

Hi Kung Lek,
Not the "fellowship of the ring" thats for sure :-)))))

Perhaps "martial brothers" is not entirely the correct term, perhaps "martial brothers of the incense stick" is closer.

Hi all,

I dont think it really matters all that much which color or which side the tattos are on to most people. But when the symbols signify membership of a tradition, then if the tattoos are backwards then they will seem ridiculous to other members of the tradition.

In some traditions membership as you know are guarded and limited, and also implying certain priveliges and dangers, therefore it would be imperative to only wear the insignia if appropriate and correct. For example, would one walk through the hood wearing gang colors ? One would have to think wisely before doing so. But here in the USA the tattoos are more for decoration, but once we step off the plane to Hong Kong or some such place, then it could be slightly different.

Not only do the symbols denote membership in select traditions, they also carry powerful spiritual protective power. The colorings of the eyes can make the dragon/tiger more potent in its "Saht Hey" that is "Air of Killing". If one were to put on a tattoo that was too powerful for your personality/commitment to the path of the warrior (so to speak), then supposedly ill fortune would rear its head. So one must - according to Chinese tradition - be ready for the tattoo and all of its spiritual/martial meaning. By the way when I use the word martial in this post I mean actual fighting/military rather than simply the practice of martial arts.

Cheers

Buddhapalm

[David Jamieson]

Buddhapalm-

your points are relevant.
However, the whole Dragon Tiger burned into the arms thing is entirely fabricated by the writers of the TV series.

Everything about that show was not entirely up to scratch on the research end. It was a complex interweaving of truth and fantasy and how could it not be. After all, the writers of the show claim to have come up with it themselves with one having read a story about a samurai that in it had a shaolin monk (go figure) an the other making the bridge into teh western story and then there is Carradines claim that he thought up the whole thing about the mark of cain connection etc etc etc.

What they knew of Shaolin in America during teh seventie was, well, nothing really and the research folks would've at best been able to get some stories from people generations removed and of course the wuxia novels.

Legends and myths.

In buddhist traditions, there actually is a ritual wherein a monk will burn scars into their head to signify that they have taken vows, particularly of celibacy.

as the original show writers were already mixing their cultural metaphors quite healthily, why not throw in some of the concepts that are wraped around the samurai and the yakuza? IE: the meaningful tatoos, but lets replace them with scars so the direct inference isn;t caught and it fits with the buddhist monk practice of the scarification I mentioned above.

so, let's come round a bit more to now. Where the real problem in regards to this is is that there is not a single claimant in recent knowledge who can show the scars. Even the abbot Hai Deng did not have them and he was considered by many to be a bonafide Shaolin monk, a master of one finger zen, etc etc.

By the way and fwiw, Hai Dengs story of the temple as relayed through his biography is almost entirely contradictory to the writings of the producers of kungfu the tv series (by the way produced, written and created by a couple of nice jewish boys in hollywood , hardly qualified as "scholars" in the matter)

Now, Kungfu had some good moral stories to tell, be good, act good, do not be bad, etc etc. But all these stories were tailor made for the western paradigm. It was a veritable soup of judaeo/christian philosophy mixed with confucian parabells and snippets from the Tao te ching as they knew it at that time, maybe a smattering of buddhist phrases thrown on the top for good measure.

Because of this, we also have a great deal of people out there who have completely fabricated entiure systems of martial arts! or have co-opted other styles and called them "Shaolin"!!! Amazing! And every day some poor sucker of a kid walks into a mall and purchases in advance his chance at gaining some of this martial enlightment based entirely on presupposition and fantsy both the kids and the teachers.

Now don't get me wrong, it is most certainly not all bad, but in the west, quite a lot of it simply is total hogwash or a definite blend of truth and nonsense.

If you speak with a Chinese martial artist, from China, you get an entirely different perspective. While they recognize the different pai, they also recognize the validity of all the different practices and they really couldn't give a turd about which pai you choose. They appreciate the fact that you are practicing one of their cultural treasures, period whether it's wushu or a kmt style of village hungga!

Ok, sorry if I've been long winded here, but beware the Carradinites out there. They are wholly unaware that although they may have good martial ability, they are in some ways doing more damage to the overall perpetuation of Chinese martial arts through their co-opting of what were once sacred ideals and practices.

cheers

p.s the is only my opinion and I really don't claim to know anything beyond my own experience and what I've seen and tasted myself.

[MasterKiller]

I have Discovery Channel documenatry on Shaolin in which I believe Martha Burr perpetuates this myth. I haven't watched it in a few months, but I'm pretty sure she is the one telling the story of the Hall of Wooden Men and the scarification ritual.

Gene, do you know which one I'm talking about? I'll try to watch it tonight to be positive.

[GeneChing]

...her own (with me) for PBS, one for Animal Planet, and one more, was that Discovery? Could be - I worked on that one too. I can't remember her perpetuating the myth of the wooden man hall, but the dashanmen was real. There's some documentation on that. And of course, ritual branding is still practiced by Chinese Buddhists, in fact, there's a bit of a revival of it, since it was banned during the Cult Rev. However those brands are limited to the forehead, not the forearm. I've not been able to validate the dragon and tiger. It did not originate from the Kung Fu TV show - it's something out of Southern China myth and that's a real pandora's box.

As for tattoos, you'll occassionally see Chinese kids with swastika tattoos around Shaolin. In China, tattooing is fairly primative - they all look like prison tattoos. Talk about cultural contest.