Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[MasterKiller]

If you were a hairy guy and everybody saw you as a freak would you want your pic taken, well I wouldnt. Maybe that is why. Its all speculation anyway. KC

If I was a hairy guy I wouldn't let a bear bite my arm, either...

[Flaca]

If you were a hairy guy and everybody saw you as a freak would you want your pic taken, well I wouldnt. Maybe that is why. Its all speculation anyway. KC

KC, so that's why you don't want to have your picture taken. Always wondered

jk

Pat

[Judge Pen]

Good luck, broham. This is for 4th black, correct?

Thanks. Yes, its for 4th.

[Judge Pen]

Or perhaps SKTJ didnt want his pic taken and Maser Ie saw LI bao Shu's pic and said that looks something like him I'll use that as a pic of SKTJ WHO CARES ANY WAY, little did he know a thing called th computer would develope so many geeks. KC

Maybe. Who knows?

[kungfujunky]

I've heard that story too except GM The was a 5th at the time (see the certificate translation earlier). After attending a few tournaments and seeing the skill of those who called themselves 6, 7, 8 9 or 10 degree black belts he reported this to his teacher who then promoted Master Sin to 10th. There is a letter floating around that is rumored to document this. I've seen a transcription of it, but I have no idea if its even remotely accurate or authentic. He was reposrtedly promoted to GM and 10th degree black in 1968 by Ie Chang Ming.

I'm curious to hear about your training. Who did you train with after leaving GM The?

heres some clarification on this point....

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



he was a fifth level black belt...according to this belt ranking chart he was between 8th and 9th and 10th black.

[Shaolin Wookie]

5. The politics! Vegans are "worshipped". If you eat meat, you are a subclass of student. If someone wants to become an assistant instructor then they cannot imbide alcohol.

LOL, I'm trying to train to become an assistant instructor in the future, and I drink whiskey, so I guess I'm screwed. And sometimes I catch myself swearing in-kwoon, but I try not to (bad habits of a rebellious youth). Sometimes the F-bomb gets dropped without realizing it....but more likely, the S-bomb. I have a great vocabulary, but I intersperse swear words every now and then. LOL......and I've seen full-fledged instructors drinking beer at CSC holiday socials, so I guess they're screwed, too. Hell, there's even pictures of them on the internet. The reason I find this funny, is that in Chinese society drinking plays an important part in social relations. I guess they missed that part in their observation of the aescetic culture.

As for the meat-eating, I made my point clear on another thread. I'm steeped in blood, and happy to bathe in it. Or, in a more Shakesperean way: "steeped in the gore of my trade"

BTW, I wonder how they perform drunken styles. Zimaquan?

7. The desire of the school and students/instructors to "chinafy" themselves. Carry chopsticks, only read chinese literature, only watch kung fu movies, wear chinese hats, bash the U.S. - this is mainly a pet peeve only. I don't really care about what other people necessarily do. The school definitely has a "cult like" atmosphere with junior students following senior students/instructors actions (herd mentality). Ex. testing to higher belt levels and becoming vegan.

This is a symptom of every CMA school in the nation. Far less at CSC's, at least in Atlanta. Look at how many national CMA non-chinese teachers have CHinese wives, as if to lend credibility to their image. I'm not saying that's so, but many of these guys are die-hard occidentalists. They do everything chinese; it's one of those psychological things, where we're fascinated with what is different from the culture in which we are raised. How far you take it is always up to you. It's not that way at all CSC's, and it will always be an individual. Me? I'll never date another asian after my fiasco with a Cambodian chick as an undergrad. Wow, she was hot. But she was crazy, LOL. Everyone thought I was crazy for dumping her, 'cuz there's something about smoking hot asians that just turn off most male minds. I do like Chinese Lit, though. I think Journey to the West is easily as good as the Iliad, Aeneid, and Odyssey, and ought to be studied as such. But then, I'll only ever read the English translations, and would only teach them beside Chapman's translations of Homer, and Dryden's Aeneid. Despite my comprehension of Latin (in the case of the latter). Dryden was just better at his game, hand's down.

[Shaolin Wookie]

Isn't the whole Su Kong picture thing in this thread or was that another thread before it all consolidated into this one?

I still say face recognition software would an interesting way to compare the photos but I just don't knnow anyone with access to such. I did find one I was going to download but would prefer to use a working system.

I even thought about sending the pics to one of the leading developers and see if they would return the results.

Anyone reading this have access to face recognition?

GSU's library has the book by Dikotter in which the Li Po Sui (LI Baoshu) pics are located. I tried to check it out, but it's missing right now (GSU's library is doing renovation, and the book is in storage (non-student access), so it might just be shelved in the wrong storage compartment). It's also at UGA's library, but I won't be back there unless I need a source for my Tennyson paper this semester. It would be interesting to see if there's more pics to draw from.

[Shaolin Wookie]

heres some clarification on this point....

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



he was a fifth level black belt...according to this belt ranking chart he was between 8th and 9th and 10th black.

"Elderly Master" makes me laugh my ass off every time I see that placard. LOL.....SD does suffer from bad editing. Grandmasterthe.com makes me cringe every time I see it. Changes in tenses, persons, passive voice......uggggh......it's an editor's nightmare. The "Secrets of the Shaolin Temple" book was even worse. It had to be a vanity publication.

From now on, I vote that all SD public documents must be submitted (forgive the passive voice usage here) to Shaolin Wookie, before they may be posted for public viewing.

[Yao Sing]

GSU's library has the book by Dikotter in which the Li Po Sui (LI Baoshu) pics are located.

I think Willow Sword said he found pics in an old edition of Ripley's Believe It Or Not and that it can no longer be found. I remember the jokes about SD going to all the libraries and removing them.

Don't know if it was supposed to be the exact same pic or just a similar one.

[Shaolin Wookie]

I think Willow Sword said he found pics in an old edition of Ripley's Believe It Or Not and that it can no longer be found. I remember the jokes about SD going to all the libraries and removing them.

Don't know if it was supposed to be the exact same pic or just a similar one.

There are like billions of those old Guinness Books (TWS was not linking to Ripley's), and it'd take forever to search 'em. Plus, I don't know any libraries that have them on file.

But then the Li Po Sui stuff got linked to a website where all the other photos were located, which were taken from the book : Misconceptions: genetic defects...etc. by Frank Dikotter, a western geneticist living in China.

[sean_stonehart]

LOL, I'm trying to train to become an assistant instructor in the future, and I drink whiskey, so I guess I'm screwed. And sometimes I catch myself swearing in-kwoon, but I try not to (bad habits of a rebellious youth). Sometimes the F-bomb gets dropped without realizing it....but more likely, the S-bomb. I have a great vocabulary, but I intersperse swear words every now and then. LOL......and I've seen full-fledged instructors drinking beer at CSC holiday socials, so I guess they're screwed, too. Hell, there's even pictures of them on the internet. The reason I find this funny, is that in Chinese society drinking plays an important part in social relations. I guess they missed that part in their observation of the aescetic culture.

If you drink your chances go up. Firewater & you're almost a shoe in. I don't know about Midtown though... it could be a bit PC compared to Marietta.

I used to bartend along with several other isntructors at the Xmas party. Nobody left vertical if they came to the bar. Then again... that was Marietta. Ask about the house boat parties or UGA parties.

[kwaichang]

You guys are basing your entire argument on pics that could be Li Bao Shu or SKTJ all the pics could be the same guy but represented as the other. Even if the 2 or 3 pics are the same person it only proves the pics are the same person and does not prove that SKDJ did not exist . Ie Chang Ming could have easily used a pic of Li Bao Shu because he did not have one of SKTJ because of the similarities of the two. I wonder if JP would believe your premise would hold up in Court , I doubt it. KC

[chiballsoffire]

....lets go back to the Certificate. Its the one piece of evidence that the SD guys don't dispute as being authentic.

I recently posted a translation I found online for Sin The’s certificate and then shortly thereafter ‘Shaolindoiscool’ posted another very similar translation. There seem to be several problems with what’s listed here, the stories that are posted on this forum, and the main Shaolin-do websites; www.sinthe.com and www.grandmasterthe.com

Here’s a good quality photograph of the document provided by Shaolindoiscool: http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o...ankcert-05.jpg

1. Nowhere on the document is the word ‘master’ or ‘grandmaster’ used, nor is it implied.

2. The person’s name on the document doesn’t appear to be Sin’s. A possible explanation is that ‘Sin The’ is his Indonesian name which is not unexpected, but its surprising that no one has taken issue with the apparent inconsistency.

3. The dates of study listed do not conform with the information given on the main SD sites:

The certificate is dated 1964, states Sin is twenty years old and that he has studied for 10 years.

“When he was 7 years old he began studying under one of Grandmaster Ie's top students. After proving himself worthy, he then studied under Grandmaster Ie Chang Ming as a private student until Ie Chang Ming retired and passed the title of Grandmaster to Sin Kwang Thé (at the age of 25).” Source: http://www.sinthe.com/grandmaster.html

“At the age of six, after an exhaustive six-month selection process which tested patience, endurance, dedication and temperament, Grandmaster E accepted me as a student.”
Source: http://www.grandmasterthe.com/biography.html (page 7 and 8)

4. There is nothing on the certificate to indicate any private instruction; on the contrary the wording seems to suggest a normal progression through “schools” and being awarded the appropriate rank after passing the required exams.

heres some clarification on this point....

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



he was a fifth level black belt...according to this belt ranking chart he was between 8th and 9th and 10th black.

5. If you compare the Chinese characters listed on the belt ranking chart at http://www.sinthe.com/images/2004/rankingsystem.jpg for a “5th Black” with those characters listed on Sin’s certificate you’ll find they match exactly. Sin was a 5th Dan Black Belt, nothing more.

6. The material listed on the certificate that Sin The supposedly minored in is not listed as being taught in any of the SD schools.

7. Nowhere on the document is the translated name of the school or the system referred to as ‘Shaolin-do’ or ‘Shaolin-tao.’ Instead its translated either as “Zhong Yuan” or “Central Plains” Shaolin. If this was the name of the school/system that Sin The studied, why isn’t that name used today?

8. Sin’s teacher, Ie Chang Ming, has signed the document and he lists himself as the “Founder” of the “Central Plains Shaolin Wushu school.” There is nothing in his seal or ‘signature block’ that suggests he is trying to pass himself off as a Shaolin Grandmaster. Seems like if you were the Grandmaster of the entire Shaolin system, or even a single temple, you’d want to list that on your martial arts school’s certificates. Also, there’s no indication that Ie even called himself a grandmaster. So what did he, or could he, pass on to Sin The? The leadership of the Indonesian school and the Central Plains Shaolin school? If he did pass this on, why wasn’t it enough for Sin? Why is there not a single Shaolin-do school in Indonesia today and over 100 in the U.S.?

[kwaichang]

If you read back the 450 so pages you will understand more HAPPY READING. kc

[bodhi warrior]

I think alot of it has to do with gms's big ego. He always seems to need to be the biggest and most of everything. His brother school is named after the school in Indonesia.