Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[brucereiter]

Hey JP. I think at the time, 3 or so years ago, I realized that the closed door instruction thing was even more dubious. It was more thourough and detailed than SD, but equally open to bs. I prolly hadn't really been studying kf for a few years before that. I trained it occasionally, but really had made the switch to the bjj/mma thing. The clincher was that I sparred my kf instructor after a few months of grappling, and beat him pretty easily. I also just realized that for me, I liked the fighting part of martial arts. I like to watch forms and weapons, but I don't really have an interest beyond that in them. For the sake of argument, I used the closed door training as a comparison to SD. I occasionally got caugt up in the argument itself, and over-emphasized a part of what I had experienced in TCMA for that sake only. Ah, the difference in writing about and acting upon.

I don't think SD is a cult. Misperceptions and falsehoods can live within SD because it is not as transparent as it could or should be. However, there's no one in SD asking you to quit your life and follow Sin The'. There's no one doing unlawful or extremely unethical things that I know of. Instructors don't break people down so they can take all of their belongings, or dominate them mentally and emotionally. So no, it's not a cult at all.

LX, open forms comps would help SD open up to a community of fellow TCMA'ists. It would improve your forms because it takes you out of your comfort zone, and demand examination in way that's unfamiliar but healthy. The example you gave reflects that. You had an awareness due to the pressure of performing for an audience. It's funny that you gave an example of why you should compete, and then said you don't know why it's meaningful.

hi ralphie,

you made two very thoughtful posts about your experience i like that for the most part you only really spoke about your first hand experiences.

i would like to address one point (quoted below) you made though ... i think it is the fault of the student almost more than the instructor if they dont "relate" the forms to "fighting" and learn how to apply the pricipals and concepts containd in the forms. if the student does not work and experiment he will not be able to apply the forms.

i too have noticed that many people around me just learn the basic movements of whatever form only to test with it and never really dig into it and therfore can not apply the movements and have no "real" understanding, "inho" thats there problem/fault, if some teachers allow and encourge this that is unfortunate i think i have always been taught and agree it is up to the student the teacher is just a guide.

i think students have diffrent goals as long as they are happy and becoming more healthy all is good even if they can fight there way out of a wet paper bag.

having said that i will agree the way most martial artists train their forms they will never be able to fight with them ...

<<1) Forms- I like forms in KF for what they are. They can be a very athletic and interesting part of an art. I don't think they relate well to actual fighting, but whatever. I'd rate the forms in SD medium, as I did not see a structure that allowed the performer to prepare for maximum expression. Once you had learned a form, there was little reason to remember it besides testing. I think competing in forms tourneys would help SD a lot.>>

live and let live and keep training & sweating no matter what art you chose!

[Fu-Pow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m203c8l6B7w

Ignore the cheesy music. I was playing around and forgot to delete it when I burned the DVD. Anyway, this is me. I'll wait to hear your feedback and then give you my thoughts and critique later. It's not perfect, but it is a representation of an SD weapon form done by yours truly.

Hey JP, thanks for posting that...you've joined the elite club of those who will put their **** out there for critique.

A couple of questions and constructive criticisms.....

1) What is the purpose of that portion of the form where it looks like you are tiptoeing?

2) Watch that back foot in the Bow Stance. Don't let your let your back foot tilt onto the side like that, it shows that your weight is too far forward.

3) For a weapon like Guan Do you need to have a deeper stance. Its a heavy weapon so you need to really root strongly to the ground. As my Sifu says "Control the weapon, don't let it control you." Especially difficult with a weapon like Guando.

4) Make sure that you're eyes follow the direction of the weapon till the end of the movement. It looks like in a couple spots you are rushing to the next movement before finishing the last one. You turn your head before you have finished.

Overall, nice job though. Keep the videos coming.

FP

[lxtruong]

But fundamental technique, spirit, power and flow should still be present. Those are the things that are judged at an open tournament--not that you left part of the form out b/c no one would know but you and those of your style.

I agree that sure all those things are important. But I don't think that BSing should be rewarded. To the extent that "correctness" is not checked, you're rewarding people who are able to make mistakes but correct for them in an inobtrusive manner. You're essentially rewarding people for covering up for their own mistakes.

Imagine a figure skating competition where the judges didn't know the routine beforehand. You could turn a triple lutz into a double and no one would know, as long as you landed gracefully. Or the same thing with gymnastics. Or ballroom dancing. Or platform diving. If you look at any "judged" sport, you'll see that they have some requirements for "correctness", as a safeguard. That's why I think that open forms competition aren't all that great.

LX, open forms comps would help SD open up to a community of fellow TCMA'ists. It would improve your forms because it takes you out of your comfort zone, and demand examination in way that's unfamiliar but healthy. The example you gave reflects that. You had an awareness due to the pressure of performing for an audience. It's funny that you gave an example of why you should compete, and then said you don't know why it's meaningful.

I gave an example of how I pull absolute bull out of my rear end and the uninitiated loved it. I don't really see how that's all that meaningful. I don't think that I really got all that much out of it, except manage limit the audience where I embarassed myself and my teacher to a small select group instead of a large group.

An analogy of what I did would be for someone assigned with the task of giving a speech in Spanish walking up and speaking in gibberish. Good thing most of the crowd didn't know Spanish!

I think that teaching does much much much (times infinity) more to demand examination in a way that's unfamiliar. I don't know how many times I've been asked a question about XYZ form and it has forced me to give a critical look at my forms. Frequently the answer is "I don't know". I get something out of that too. Plus I get to keep the entry fee for the tournament and I don't have another cheap trophy littering my room.

[Judge Pen]

Hey JP, thanks for posting that...you've joined the elite club of those who will put their **** out there for critique.

A couple of questions and constructive criticisms.....

1) What is the purpose of that portion of the form where it looks like you are tiptoeing?

INTERESTING THAT YOU PICKED UP ON THAT. I DON'T KNOW ANY PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THAT PART OF THE FORM. STYLISTICALLY ITS AN HOMAGE TO THE KWAN DAO BEING A BATTLEFIELD WEAPON--STEPPING OVER CARNAGE OF BATTLE.

2) Watch that back foot in the Bow Stance. Don't let your let your back foot tilt onto the side like that, it shows that your weight is too far forward.

YEP. GUILTY AS CHARGED. IT'S ONE OF THE CRITICISMS I HAVE OF MYSELF AFTER WATCHING THAT FORM. I THINK ITS A PROBLEM OF ME BEING EXTREMELY UNFLEXIBLE IN MY HIPS. MY BACK FOOT IS COMING UP ON CERTAIN STANCES IF I DON'T WATCH IT.

3) For a weapon like Guan Do you need to have a deeper stance. Its a heavy weapon so you need to really root strongly to the ground. As my Sifu says "Control the weapon, don't let it control you." Especially difficult with a weapon like Guando.

YEP. I WAS A BIT NERVOUS AND RUSHING IN SPOTS. BECAUSE OF THAT, I WAS LAZY AND UNDISCIPLINED IN NOT FORCING MY STANCES LOWER.

4) Make sure that you're eyes follow the direction of the weapon till the end of the movement. It looks like in a couple spots you are rushing to the next movement before finishing the last one. You turn your head before you have finished.

YEP. I SHOULD SLOW DOWN A COUPLE OF MOVEMENTS THERE. I WAS RUSHING. (SEE ABOVE)

Overall, nice job though. Keep the videos coming.

FP

Very observant. Thanks for the criticisms. Like I said, I'm not that good (especially at forms); but I keep coming back to class. All you can do is work to get better. What you say isn't anything I haven't heard form my teachers, but I always appreciate another perspective.

[Radhnoti]

Nice JP. Those spinning moves always seemed to throw me off for the end of that form. Always ended it winded and a bit disoriented.
An interesting sidenote, an aikido school in Richmond, KY just started (today) offering a kwando form. Seems the instructor picked it up on a trip to China researching the roots of his art. I'm pretty sure I've seen it somewhere though...

[Ralphie]

Looked pretty good, JP. You should post more of those, that one was fun to watch.

sdic,
I knew someone was going to say that, and I dont' agree with you. It's an inneficient way to learn and teach techniques. The delivery system lacks realistic conditions. Try and pull your most advanced stuff on a serious san shou or mma competitor, then come back and tell me how this or that technique derived from this or that form helped you win. Bring video. To put it succinctly, I don't believe you unless you have proof. It's too convenient to say "it's up to the student", when you yourself have never shown it outside the safety net of your school.

LX,
Who cares what beginners think,? It's what you found out during that experience that matters. If you got up and passed gibberish for Spanish in front of people, and your goal was to speak Spanish fluently, wouldn't that experience tell you what you needed to do in order to reach your goal? If you get in front of someone and blow your form, then work to correct that, you get better. That's why you compete, or a good reason anyway. If you performed that form side by side with other competitors, wouldn't it be obvious that you blew it to the judges? You said yourself the other black belts knew it. Anyway, if you don't care about trophies, there are many other reasons to compete.

[brucereiter]

Looked pretty good, JP. You should post more of those, that one was fun to watch.

sdic,
I knew someone was going to say that, and I dont' agree with you. It's an inneficient way to learn and teach techniques. The delivery system lacks realistic conditions. Try and pull your most advanced stuff on a serious san shou or mma competitor, then come back and tell me how this or that technique derived from this or that form helped you win. Bring video. To put it succinctly, I don't believe you unless you have proof. It's too convenient to say "it's up to the student", when you yourself have never shown it outside the safety net of your school.

hi ralphie,

you do not have to agree with me ... what i said is just my opinion.
you say forms are an inefficiant way to learn and teach techniques, by themselves yes they are. i will agree if you want to be able to fight within a year or so mma type of format might do you better.

i have the good fortune to travel around the world about 7 months per year for my job (for more than 15 years) and have visited many martial artists representing alot styles. i have seen/felt alot of what is out there.

through being polite when meeting teachers at schools around the world i have been able to join classes and or spar/push hands with many people outside of my system and the "safty net" of my school and most of them have respected my understanding/skill. i am one shaolin do student who does not wear blinders there are others too ... i think jp from what i have read of his posts has been out there a bit to see how others do things.

i stand by my statement that it is up to the student to gain skill. in the context of your mma training i would think this is true too. if you do not "make the move your own" it is no good. you do not need to belive me.

"pull my most advanced stuff" i say this tounge in cheek but it is kinda true, my most advanced stuff it no to be in a situation where i have to fight.
having said that though ...
i will respond to what ever the situation asks for. in no way am i saying i cant be beat, i am sure i can be beat as can anybody.

also note i am an "internal arts only" student. we have alot fewer "forms" but each style on its own does take a lifetime to refine but maybe only 3-5 years to "learn".
i am saying i can use taijiquan for example to defend myself against a resisting person, yes the taijiquan i learned in shaolin do. sorry i have no video for your proof but it does not matter what you think of my training and skills it only matters what i think.

(i think jp said that your sd rank was black belt) in the context of shaolin do that is a beginner. i do not think you put in very much effort into what you were taught in sd and that is why you got no results.

in your mma training i would think the guys that have been there for 8-10 years and work really hard i would think can pull things off that you maybe never thought of or cant do. why? because they have experimented and practiced and expanded on what their teachers have shared with them (inho). but then i bet there are some who have been there just as long who get "owned" by a guy with 2-3 years under their belt.
what does that say about mma? my answer is nothing it only speaks about some students.

if you are every in atlanta feel free to drop by the school. you will see a wide range of skill and understanding. some people will make you say wow thats cool and others you might say ummm??? what is he doing? but all of them are bettering themselves, and having a good time becoming more healthy.

in my experience mma/bjj type fighters are very skilled and good fighters the several i have had the chance to "roll" with were very talented.

on that note i would advise all students to go outside of their "safety net" and find out how others do things. for me doing that reasured me i made the right decision to study shaolin do.

live and let live!

[Green Cloud]

hey JP you are definatly a man of your word. Interesting video, I will keep my coments about it to my self so I don't ruffle any feathers

[Judge Pen]

hey JP you are definatly a man of your word. Interesting video, I will keep my coments about it to my self so I don't ruffle any feathers

Don't. That wasn't the point of me posting. I never said I was a forms person. I enjoy them, but I'm not good at them so any criticism of my peformance will be well received as its probably honest and good advice.

As for the form itself, I expect some to pick at it because its an SD form. So, since I have the expectation that people will hate it, then people only live up to my expectations or they exceed it. No worries there.

I'll still get the sparring match up where I fought well, made a couple of bad mistakes, and lost. It should so, though, that whatever SD teaches, it does teach you to handle yourslef as well as any TMA.

[Golden Tiger]

I'll say hello to GT, cause he'll undoubtedly say hello to me, along with a thinly veiled insult. GT, I hope you didn't feel dumber having read that. God knows you don't need to be dumber (take that not so thinly veiled insult

Hey there Ralphie!! Long time no see bud. And the only reason that I toss out the in****s "thinly veiled"...is so you can get them. Otherwise, they would fly right over your head my friend.

hey JP you are definatly a man of your word. Interesting video, I will keep my coments about it to my self so I don't ruffle any feathers

Not to use JP as a target (and by the way JP, very good job!) but I am interested in hearing your critique of the form as well. Perhaps that will shed some light on where some of your other comments come from.

[Judge Pen]

And GT, I'd like to hear your critique of the form as well. As for being a target, well, we knew that would happen as soon as I posted. In fact, I welcome it as I'm tired of people saying that we have something to hide. I don't; even though I'm certainly not even close to a good forms person in our style. I'm more of an example of the average guy with some athletic limitations that learns our style.

My personal opinion is that this form is sign better than some and worse than others of the infamous Atlanta forms.

[lxtruong]

Who cares what beginners think,? It's what you found out during that experience that matters. If you got up and passed gibberish for Spanish in front of people, and your goal was to speak Spanish fluently, wouldn't that experience tell you what you needed to do in order to reach your goal? If you get in front of someone and blow your form, then work to correct that, you get better. That's why you compete, or a good reason anyway. If you performed that form side by side with other competitors, wouldn't it be obvious that you blew it to the judges? You said yourself the other black belts knew it. Anyway, if you don't care about trophies, there are many other reasons to compete.

All these things are perhaps true. Of course I needed more practice, I decided on the form 45 seconds before walking on the floor. But I think that your arguement for attending open competitions is still weak. In my mind there are several reasons to compete in a tournament (forms):

1. To test your form performing skills against others.
2. As a "goal" so that you have a hard date to practice against.
3. To test your skill in performing in front of others.
4. For fun.
5. To impress hot chicks (just kidding, girls aren't impressed by forms).

In my mind, open forms compeition are inferior in #1, and reinforce bad habits in #3. Obviously, no matter how much you say 'doesn't matter how I place', your ranking in a competition still matters. It's an "objective" judge of how well you did. By entering a competition, you're implicitly recognizing that. So, I don't think that open forms competition are good for #1 because it gives an incomplete judgement of your forms skill. I don't think that anyone here would argue that it doesn't really matter if you ever do a form correctly; that it only matters that you do it with spirit and power. In that case why bother doing a form at all. Just stand there in a bow stance and do a bunch of punches and kicks and yell. Also, I think that even if you disregard the judging and say "Ok, who cares about them, *I'm* going to compare myself against my competition"...YOU don't know if they're doing it correctly or not. So all YOU can compare against is spirit and power and how well they yell and act.

Open forms competition fail in #3, again because they have no way of reinforcing correctness. If a competitor A gets up in front of the judges with no one else from his style there and totally blows his/her kata, there is no mechanism to punish them for that. Sure, you can argue that the competitor knows that he messed up, but what's to prevent him from just saying "Well, I totally screwed that up, but I won 3rd place anyway, oh well who cares". I think that devalues the competition, and actually devalues forms practice: after all who cares about correctness?

Open compeition are in my mind, perfectly a-ok for #2, #4 and #5 (ha!). But then again so are closed competitions, and I feel that they're superior for #1 and #3. Now, I'm not above doing something for fun, don't get me wrong. I'd probably do open competitions: IF THEY WEREN'T EXPENSIVE (oh yeah, and I weren't barred from some CMA tournaments because we wear karate gis). Proper prep. for a tournament requires a lot of work, and it's one thing to do it 'just for fun' knowing that the judging system is flawed if it's free or cheap. It's another thing to put in a lot of work, pay a lot of money, and then realize that the judging is flawed.

P.S. none of this applies to sparring. Obviously the rules of sparring are published well beforehand, and if you're not comfortable punching and kicking that's your problem. Everyone plays by the same rules there, so it truly is objective (within the limits of the quality of the judges).

[lxtruong]

And GT, I'd like to hear your critique of the form as well. As for being a target, well, we knew that would happen as soon as I posted. In fact, I welcome it as I'm tired of people saying that we have something to hide. I don't; even though I'm certainly not even close to a good forms person in our style. I'm more of an example of the average guy with some athletic limitations that learns our style.

My personal opinion is that this form is sign better than some and worse than others of the infamous Atlanta forms.

I think that the form was pretty good. I'd put it at above average, although the form actually is limited in respect in how it is set up to show off physical ability/formsmanship (Is that a real word?). In any case, the first thing I noticed was that you really like to high step when you do the steps which looked a bit funny to me but that's just a matter of style. The second thing I noticed was that the kwan dao looked flimsy. I personally think that the weight of the KD really factors into that form. If I'm judging that form and you're using a 13+ lb kwan dao you're forgiven for some bad stances. If you're using a 4lber, you dont' really have very much excuse for not hitting every bow stance.

[Judge Pen]

I think that the form was pretty good. I'd put it at above average, although the form actually is limited in respect in how it is set up to show off physical ability/formsmanship (Is that a real word?). In any case, the first thing I noticed was that you really like to high step when you do the steps which looked a bit funny to me but that's just a matter of style. The second thing I noticed was that the kwan dao looked flimsy. I personally think that the weight of the KD really factors into that form. If I'm judging that form and you're using a 13+ lb kwan dao you're forgiven for some bad stances. If you're using a 4lber, you dont' really have very much excuse for not hitting every bow stance.

It was lighter, but not flimsy. It has a live blade on it. I've used it to chop wood before (It was made by cold steel). It's only about 5lbs though.

And I was taught to step that way from my first teacher a long time ago. It stuck.

[Golden Tiger]

And GT, I'd like to hear your critique of the form as well.

Content wise, dead on. Looks pretty close to the way I learned it when it was first taught. Also, I watched it at about 4 am and can't pull it up at the moment but first impressions:

To be using a lighter version of the weapon, I would have thought you could have done the spins a little faster. If you had zipped it around at the opening, I think it would have looked a tad more impressive.

The stances were a tad high (especially from a M. Mullins student) and could have landed a bit more solid. As bad as it hurts to agree with Fu. it is a strong weapon and the user needs to be as rooted as possible.

Other than that, it looked fine. And I would hope that everyone will take into consideration that it was done during a competition. I have seen many kick butt in practice but as soon as they took the floor in a comp, the nerves and such caused minor mistakes such as high stances.

As for the walk back/tip toeing/what ever...I have seen that done many many ways, depending on what M. Sin had on his mind the day he taught it. The current version is at each step, you look side to side, and if creeping along looking for an attack. Who knows the real application....