Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[bawang]

SD came from Indonesia where all things Chinese were suppressed. Plus when Sin The first started it in the US Kung Fu was unknown and Karate was the more familiar name the masses would recognize..

thanks man, but it makes me still confused, the anti chinese policies in Indonesia are over , so why don't they now lose the gis and change the name to just shaolin?

Also, the "moves like Karate" has been kicked about plenty throughout this thread. The current issue is the secret info they have that would validate everything they claim (true Shaolin, everyone else is watered down/modified) but it can't be revealed to the public.

And no, they are not a cult because they said they aren't.

people like this make me very, very , very angry. makes me wanna perform rhinoplasty with my fists.

to be serious, well if they want to continue the shaolin heritage, then all they have to do is lose the gi, loes the "do", invite some real monks to teach, incorporate real forms with applications. just one real shaolin form and they can call themselves shaolin. but..

[Yao Sing]

I am not exactly sure what information you are refering to that is supposed to be top secret.

If you've followed the thread from the beginning (don't expect anyone to read the whole thing now) you will remember someone (Willowsword I think) wanted to ask Sin The some questions. I think it ended up where kwaichang (or someone) was going to be meeting with him and agreed to ask him the questions.

Afterwards he claimed to have ask these questions but would not reveal the answers although he claimed they put his mind at ease and he was 100% sure SD was the real Shaolin.

Then he recently said this:

Well after all the argueing this past weekend confirms even more so the SD link to the Shaolin Temples of Old. I am totally convinced even more than I was before that SD is the real deal. KC

and again he can't share any of this conversation that convinced him about the validity of SD.

That is the information I am referring to that appears to be Top Secret. This info is not listed anywhere in this thread (I've followed from the beginning) and it appears kwaichang has direct validation from Sin The himself but refuses to make it pubic. Smells like BS to me.

It would be appreciated if you could fill in the info, if known to you, without muddying the waters with side issues.

[brucereiter]

If you've followed the thread from the beginning (don't expect anyone to read the whole thing now) you will remember someone (Willowsword I think) wanted to ask Sin The some questions. I think it ended up where kwaichang (or someone) was going to be meeting with him and agreed to ask him the questions.

Afterwards he claimed to have ask these questions but would not reveal the answers although he claimed they put his mind at ease and he was 100% sure SD was the real Shaolin.

Then he recently said this:



and again he can't share any of this conversation that convinced him about the validity of SD.

That is the information I am referring to that appears to be Top Secret. This info is not listed anywhere in this thread (I've followed from the beginning) and it appears kwaichang has direct validation from Sin The himself but refuses to make it pubic. Smells like BS to me.

It would be appreciated if you could fill in the info, if known to you, without muddying the waters with side issues.

i would like to hear this information too:-)

[Citong Shifu]

I'd love to see that footage too! I know this: at his age 64, I'm very impressed when he teaches a seminar at what he is still able to physically do. He's slowed down a bit, but his stances are way lower and stronger than mine and his stamina is unreal for his age. I'd love to see him move in his prime.

I respect your perspective, but like I've said, I don't think that our lineage will not be more defined then it is already. I think things got "mixed and matched" a bunch in the school in Indonesia and it has made SD what it is today. It is certianly distinct from what is identified as shaolin today, but that's not to say that the material didn't have some line back to what we define as a set of temples under the shaolin "banner" including many martial temples that are usually associated with henan or even fukien.

As far as what it reported in each individual website, then that's on that owner in not be clearer when they descirbie certain things.

I hear you JP. Dont get me wrong, I'm not against SD just the SD self media/press/claims. SD, or who it may be, places Th'e above all the Shaolin martial arts world in one way or another. SD website after website reinforce his position as the highest authority concerning the various Shaolin Styles. My point is this, There are so many more Shaolin martial art masters that have worked hard to complete their training and achieve high level skill in the Shaolin MA for one guy to claim he has mastered and achieved all . I would like to see Sin Th'e intermingle with the Chinese masters here in U.S. who have documented history and lineage of the arts (for the most part). Better yet, why hasn't Sin Th'e offered his assitance to the U.S. Shaolin masters, Chinese and non-Chinese?

His claim to be youngest Shaolin GM in history, I can buy that, but only in the context of being GM of his own system/style, SD, not Shaolin Temple kung fu. There are and were too many others Shaolin exponents ahead of him for ST to claim GM... But thats another conversation...

If ST footage can not be produced then how about someone letting us know who and where are the masters teaching SD (ST lineage and other teachers from his masters) outside the U.S. ; China, Indonesia, Mongolia, Taiwan, etc. Surely there's a link back to Indo-China and abroad. There's got to be other school outside of his creation. I would like to research the original schools that still exist over there. I have resources throughout the CMA both here and in China, as well as some of the International Chinese martial art Federations that I belong to.

ST claiming to be GM of his own system is purely his right, but claiming be the only GM that completed and masterd all of the Shaolin Temple arts is just not true.

Who knows where the Indo-China SD schools are and the teachers that teach ST's art? Whatever info you can give would greatly be appreciated.

JP, this post wasn't directed at you, but to /sd in general. I just kinda trailed off, lol... Like I said, I'm not against SD or its members, just the press that is allowed by ST to be posted to the public... He controls all other aspects of SD, why cant he control whats be relayed to the public by his own people and their schools, hmmmm, .

[brucereiter]

I was reading one of SD's websites (Colorado Springs) and found it interesting that SD would claim that master Th'e was honored with a stone tablet that was erected to commemorate his visit to Shaolin Temple, instead of saying, SD or master Th'e was honored by Shaolin Temple (location of temple) and was allowed to erect a stone tablet in respect of his teachers/lineage. Or, something along that line. Know what I mean?

boy that statement has caused a lot of talk and misinformation. i think it was in fact erected to honor sin the' and his visit. what people just assume and what many sd students have said is "the monks" gave it to them or something like that. i think it is common knowledge how things like that are placed at these shaolin temples and chen village etc ... any way you word it it can be misconstrued ... why do people read so much into things like that. also why do some sd students represent that as the monks honoring sin the instead of what i think it was and that is sin the's students were honoring sin the'.

i know what you mean ...

best,

bruce

[Citong Shifu]

boy that statement has caused a lot of talk and misinformation. i think it was in fact erected to honor sin the' and his visit. what people just assume and what many sd students have said is "the monks" gave it to them or something like that. i think it is common knowledge how things like that are placed at these shaolin temples and chen village etc ... any way you word it it can be misconstrued ... why do people read so much into things like that. also why do some sd students represent that as the monks honoring sin the instead of what i think it was and that is sin the's students were honoring sin the'.

i know what you mean ...

best,

bruce

Hey Bruce, Your right, most CMA affiliates know how things work with Shaolin Temple, but the public at large doesn't. This is where many feel SD is misinforming the public and SD's position within the Shaolin kung fu world...

LOL, we were just talking that the other day at class, Shaolin Temple, not only paying for stone tablets, but paying to light and burn an incent in Shaolin Temple, and this is great, you can pay a monk to say something over your cell phone, to bless it or someone outside of China, lol...

Shaolin Temple is just not the same place anymore. Money, money, money...

[Judge Pen]

thanks man, but it makes me still confused, the anti chinese policies in Indonesia are over , so why don't they now lose the gis and change the name to just shaolin?

My school did, but we are still SD and the outer-trappings are cosmetic only. They don't make us any more or less shaolin. It just makes us look more shaolin. As for the schools that have kept the gis, it is out of tradition and respect for our branches history and tradition. You have to respect that too.

people like this make me very, very , very angry. makes me wanna perform rhinoplasty with my fists.

to be serious, well if they want to continue the shaolin heritage, then all they have to do is lose the gi, loes the "do", invite some real monks to teach, incorporate real forms with applications. just one real shaolin form and they can call themselves shaolin. but..

Ok, define real shaolin. Are you talking about what's being taught at henan now? Or are you talking about bak si lum, hung gar, CLF, or the other hundreds of chinsese arts that claim that they teach shaolin also? When you've figured that out give me a call.

[Judge Pen]

I hear you JP. Dont get me wrong, I'm not against SD just the SD self media/press/claims. SD, or who it may be, places Th'e above all the Shaolin martial arts world in one way or another. SD website after website reinforce his position as the highest authority concerning the various Shaolin Styles. My point is this, There are so many more Shaolin martial art masters that have worked hard to complete their training and achieve high level skill in the Shaolin MA for one guy to claim he has mastered and achieved all . I would like to see Sin Th'e intermingle with the Chinese masters here in U.S. who have documented history and lineage of the arts (for the most part). Better yet, why hasn't Sin Th'e offered his assitance to the U.S. Shaolin masters, Chinese and non-Chinese?

His claim to be youngest Shaolin GM in history, I can buy that, but only in the context of being GM of his own system/style, SD, not Shaolin Temple kung fu. There are and were too many others Shaolin exponents ahead of him for ST to claim GM... But thats another conversation...

If ST footage can not be produced then how about someone letting us know who and where are the masters teaching SD (ST lineage and other teachers from his masters) outside the U.S. ; China, Indonesia, Mongolia, Taiwan, etc. Surely there's a link back to Indo-China and abroad. There's got to be other school outside of his creation. I would like to research the original schools that still exist over there. I have resources throughout the CMA both here and in China, as well as some of the International Chinese martial art Federations that I belong to.

ST claiming to be GM of his own system is purely his right, but claiming be the only GM that completed and masterd all of the Shaolin Temple arts is just not true.

Who knows where the Indo-China SD schools are and the teachers that teach ST's art? Whatever info you can give would greatly be appreciated.

JP, this post wasn't directed at you, but to /sd in general. I just kinda trailed off, lol... Like I said, I'm not against SD or its members, just the press that is allowed by ST to be posted to the public... He controls all other aspects of SD, why cant he control whats be relayed to the public by his own people and their schools, hmmmm, .

I hear you, and no offense was taken.

I believe that what ST was taught was represneted to him by his teacher as the most complete collection of the broad spectrum of arts taught in the shaolin temples. Why would he question his teacher. If he didn't question his teacher, then how can he have any more answers then have already been given? He's the youngest master of SD, and yet, GM The's certificate from his teacher identifies him as a Master of the Golden Snake system, not all of shaolin, but he was taught a large and diverse curriculim, so SD is the system that GM The was taught and it includes several different arts--many with shaolin heritiage and some that many would consider outside of shaolin (like tai chi, hsing ie etc). Why is this so offensive when the temple is known to absorb whatever martial material it can to make its own? What is "shaolin" to many people is merely a snapshot of time as to what was shaolin to their teachers' lineage when it left the temple. I think most people will fall somewhere in between.

Simply put, GM The is the Master of Shaolin-do. It is its own creature.

Many of the questions that people have may not ever be answered to their satisfaction because everyone has different levels of satsifaction. For some who believe or want to believe, a simple answer will suffice because, to them, the origin has credibility. To others, unless they see uncontroverted proof of lineage and video of a master in his prime doing amazing feats that cannot be questions, then SD is a fraud.

To each their own, I'm still just going to punch, kick sweat and get better. Oh, I'll keep talking here because its a nice distraction from the "real" world.

[Citong Shifu]

If possible, I would like to attend one of SD's seminars with Sin Th'e. Do You guys have open seminars and allow other styles of cma to attend? I'm not looking to bash on anyones art, just really curious to see what SD is like...

[sean_stonehart]

boy that statement has caused a lot of talk and misinformation. i think it was in fact erected to honor sin the' and his visit. what people just assume and what many sd students have said is "the monks" gave it to them or something like that. i think it is common knowledge how things like that are placed at these shaolin temples and chen village etc ... any way you word it it can be misconstrued ... why do people read so much into things like that. also why do some sd students represent that as the monks honoring sin the instead of what i think it was and that is sin the's students were honoring sin the'.

i know what you mean ...

best,

bruce

Bruce... the problem with the misinformation is there's been no active attempt by anybody to correct/clarify the statements.

The steles at Henan, Fujian (Soards) & Chen Jia Guo (non Soards)were put up by the students. In fact the one in Henan (God I wish I'd taken a picture of that) has a "version 1" carving on the back side of it, facing the the old tree there, stating something about that.

The problem as seen by the general population of CMA practitioners, is the mass marketing machine & outlandish stories have not been curtailed or even toned down, especially with the advent of the 'Net (thanks to Al Gore )& all its related world shrinking information sharing. From the 60's to the late 80's early 90's, you didn't have the enormous amount of info available at the stroke a key.

Now you do, now it's fess up time.

If there were an honest, true to life blanket statement concerning the biggest questions & most outlandish claims, I gotta a feeling much of this would disappear.

But that's just me... I keep hoping to win the lottery too...

[Judge Pen]

If possible, I would like to attend one of SD's seminars with Sin Th'e. Do You guys have open seminars and allow other styles of cma to attend? I'm not looking to bash on anyones art, just really curious to see what SD is like...

I don't think any of the seminars are open to a non-student of SD. You could sign up as a white sash, take the basic curriculim and then attend the seminar as a student! We used to have open tournaments here in Tennessee, but it was difficult to make money in a small market, so we haven't had them in a while....

[brucereiter]

Bruce... the problem with the misinformation is there's been no active attempt by anybody to correct/clarify the statements.

i think people like jp and myself and a few others are trying to do just that. why some higher ups do not i dont know.

The steles at Henan, Fujian (Soards) & Chen Jia Guo (non Soards)were put up by the students. In fact the one in Henan (God I wish I'd taken a picture of that) has a "version 1" carving on the back side of it, facing the the old tree there, stating something about that.

The problem as seen by the general population of CMA practitioners, is the mass marketing machine & outlandish stories have not been curtailed or even toned down, especially with the advent of the 'Net (thanks to Al Gore )& all its related world shrinking information sharing. From the 60's to the late 80's early 90's, you didn't have the enormous amount of info available at the stroke a key.

Now you do, now it's fess up time.

If there were an honest, true to life blanket statement concerning the biggest questions & most outlandish claims, I gotta a feeling much of this would disappear.

But that's just me... I keep hoping to win the lottery too...

now that would be cool ... then you could buy a stele to honor al gore for inventing the internet and place it at shoalin temple lol ... that would be cool :-)


also here is another tablet:


and in reference to the japan questions a few post back why are look at the weapons rack and figure out the weapon many have used on this thread to say sd in japanese karate, what is a sai doing at the shaolin temple :-)

[chiballsoffire]

Here's the link to the main SD site and the certificate:

http://www.sinthe.com/images/2004/GMcertificate.jpg

Here's what it says:

Graduate Certificate

Mr. Zheng Zhong-Guang, age 20, a native of FuQing County, Fujian Province, has continuously studied and completed martial arts studies and practices for 10 years, covering 3 courses at Zhong Yuan Shaolin Martial Arts School. These courses are:
• From 1954 to 1955, the Class of Basics (Given Level-One Black Belt) [Dan 1]
• From 1956 to 1958, the Class of Middle Rank (Given Level-Two Black Belt) [Dan 2]
• From 1959 to 1963, the Class of Ace (Given Level-Five Black Belt) [Dan 5]

When verified, this certificate provides that the said student has passed all exams, and is graduated. During the past ten years, he also minored in: 1) JinSheQuan (Golden Snake Boxing); 2) QuanFengTui (Cyclone Kick); 3) TieZhiGong (Iron Finger Gongfu). These 3 courses are esoteric martial arts, and he excels in all. He also followed school rules and participated in all series of open competitions at school for distinction of excellence, and won all the top titles, and is honored with the Medal of Wu Tao (Medal of Martial Art and Tao). This Certificate serves as proof of all above merits.

Zhong Yuan Shaolin Martial Arts School (Seal)
Yu Chang-Ming (Seal) – Master of Iron Palm
Founder and Principal

Given on this fifteenth day of January, nineteen hundred sixty-four

Have Fun!

[brucereiter]

If possible, I would like to attend one of SD's seminars with Sin Th'e. Do You guys have open seminars and allow other styles of cma to attend? I'm not looking to bash on anyones art, just really curious to see what SD is like...

i am not sure about the sin the seminars ... i think jp has that right. i have never gotten much out of seminars as a matter of fact of the 3 i have done i cant even get threw the forms let alone say i have any skill with them. i am a slow learner lol.

if you are interested i am sure my teacher would be happy to meet and exchange with you ... if you are ever in st pete fl ...

let me know i will introduce you.

best,

bruce

[Citong Shifu]

I don't think any of the seminars are open to a non-student of SD. You could sign up as a white sash, take the basic curriculim and then attend the seminar as a student! We used to have open tournaments here in Tennessee, but it was difficult to make money in a small markey, so we haven't had them in a while....

LOL! . Its not that big of a deal. I was just curious. I thought it would be interesting to see what if any differences between my shaolin styles compared to SD style... Not meaning actual style, but posture, principles of execution, etc... Maybe some of you peeps can get with me. I live in So. Illinois, Tennessee is not that far away, maybe something can be arranged. Of course, if I head in that direction I'll have to stop by Jim's pong lai mantis school as well, lol... If not, I may get a nasty email, lol....

Anywho, talk at you guys later.