Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[Old Noob]

HSK,

I appreciate your recent contributions to the thread. When you're not angry, you offer some good information and you are clearly a skilled practitioner who has overcome some serious physical adversity. Kudos to you.

However, when you say with such assuredness what SD is, you reveal a certain amount of ignorance. Because you are very accomplished in your style, and perhaps MA generally, that doesn't make you qualified to judge all the constituent parts of another style. I think SD probably does have some JMA in it and some significant Indomensian influence as well, but to say that it's all karate and that there's no kung fu in it is not only, as JP pointed out, a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word kung fu, but also just silly. Sin The is a Chinese person who grew up in Indonesia taking MA from a qwoon where the teachers were also Chinese. This suggests to me that there is very likely some CMA in SD as well.

[Old Noob]

I enjoyed the brief discussion about tiger claw.

Here's an alternate proposal: tiger claw is not tight/compact at all but is meant for striking with the fingertips (assuming proper conditioning of course). So to strike like this and get maximum strength/stability of the fingers, you would not hit with the heel of the hand but would have your fingers splayed out similar to doing a fingertip pushup.

Thoughts?

I am by no means and expert but it seems to me that there are other hand positions that are more suitable for fingertip strikes. The tiger claw makes much more sense to me as a heel-of-the-hand strike with raking, digging, and gouging potential. If I wanted to lead with fingertips, I'd likely be targeting pressure points, which is finer work than I'd be able to do with the tiger claw. Again, though, by way of disclaimer, I'm just a six year noob.

[OTD]

Any Thoughts

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Shaolin Five Animals
Wu Xing Chuan
Shaolin master Zhue Yuen lived at the Northern Shaolin temple around 1540. Zhue Yuen believed that the Lohan style kung fu practiced in Shaolin focused to much on the hard external style. Zhue Yuen pondered this problem during meditation and decided to try to bring more balance to the Shaolin system. He left the temple and traveled China in search of different kung fu styles and masters.

When Zhue Yuen came to the town of Lan Zhou he met a master named Li Sou. Li Sou introduced Zhue Yuen to Bai Yu Feng who was another famous martial arts master. Zhue Yuen was able to convince both to come back with him to Shaolin Temple to develop kung fu.

Together they redeveloped Shaolin Kung Fu expanding the original 18 form Lohan Style into 128 movements which were then divided into the Shaolin 5 animal forms (Tiger, Snake, Dragon, Leopard and Crane).

OTD

[UCT]

Martial art forms were not protectable under copyright law unless they were created after 1978. Before then, there was no copyright protection for choreography. There was the cunundrum for Sin The. If what he teaches is ancient martial arts, then it is not copyrightable (you also have to be the creator to claim copyright protection, but that is another story). If Sin The created his forms after 1978, then it is not ancient Shaolin, is it. You all know what he decided to claim in the lawsuit.

The law and society favors allowing others to use and teach public information, because that leads to change and advancement. That's why patent protection doesn't last forever. Copyright protection does last a long time, but then the copying must be almost exact to be actionable. Might that be why some teachers make small changes to the forms???

Learning a form exactly might be fun for some but not for me. When I studied aikido I was more interested in doing what my body allowed me to do rather than forcing my body to do something it couldn't do well. My sensei changed many forms to fit his students needs. Didn't sit well with those in Japan, though. However, since many of his students were SWAT, it seemed pretty practical to me.

[Shaolin Wookie]

So your position on intellectual property is that all ideas spoken or written should be open source?
You can use money to buy and suppress knowledge, and that sucks. But the trade off is that a man can profit from better ideas rather than just automatically placing it in the hands of those who already have the means and infrastructure to put the ideas in motion. That never ends well when the inevitable oligarchy sorts it out. At least with intellectual rights people can make a better life for themselves. And if they want to make it open source, cool, they can do that if they choose.

It would be nice if all decisions were based solely on moral considerations, but that isn't the case.

My contention is that ideas are not scarce resources and thus cannot be "owned." You can publish a book, fine. You can publish a CD, fine. You can publish a form, fine. But you do not own the ideas (IP), because ideas are not scarce. You and I can share the same ideas, and even have different ones--all at hte same time. It's not like a coat--only one of us can wear the coat at a given time.

IP is a grant of temporary monopoly (usually about 15 years) by a government institution. Furthemore, if you create a book and copyright it, and then I decide to print another version using my paper and my ink, on a printing press in my basement, you might sue me. Under IP law, you claim a property in my ink, my printing press, and my paper, but you have no right to claim a property in those scarce resources because they are not yours. You aggress, I do nothing wrong. You have no right to what I own. If you claim that the ideas in your book are yours, and they cannot be propagated without your consent, then you shouldn't publish your book in the first place since that is the ****ing intent of the publication. I might reshape some of your ideas and note mistakes in your logic, and thus I do not propagate your ideas. I change them using....MY ideas.

So, if you publish a form, fine. Do you really think that you then have a right to my body, such that you can patent a given set of movements? Or, do you have a right to my memories, such that you could say: "You don't have a right to perform that form?" Or, would you simply claim a right in the name of a form, such that you could say: "You can't call your form the same thing that I call a form that is nearly identical!"

As for whether or not IP makes life better for people: you know that it doesn't. If IP really made life better for people, IP rights would never expire. You wouldn't sign a 15 year patent. You'd sign for perpetuity. Temporary grants of monopoly are always a sign that (1) the patentee wants to shut out competition in the design of a product, and (2) the patentee wants to use the government to monopolize profits for a bright idea. Monopoly always shuts out competition, raises the price of a good, and slows down its progress. Monopoly also shuts out improvements in the product, since nobody is allowed to copy and innovate for a long term of time. Sure, payouts for patents might decrease in a non-IP society, but there would be more payouts to more people, and more and more people would be improving on products by copying and innovating.

I'm an atheist, but you have to admit--the most profitable and influential book in all of history was propagated without IP law, and it enriched the world's mind, its arts, promoted literacy, and influenced history beyond all measure: The Bible. Even when kings tried to patent the book, they failed. When they tried to protect it from criticism, they failed. You can't stop ideas with government monopoly.

It was when governments claimed a property in the ideas of the Bible and then tried to claim a property in other peoples' minds that IP really showed its true nature--the crusades, witch-hunts, etc.

[kwaichang]

Tiger movements, a Tiger hits with the palm to stun its prey then it hangs on with claws as it uses its back claws to Rake at the body of the prey , 1st stun then grab then claw it is the order of a Real Tiger in the wild. KC

[Shaolin Wookie]

To the innocent people of shaolin do, i apologize if your feelings were hurt over this video. However, i felt it needed to be done after i contacted jake mace and he out right lied to me. That lie triggered more anger. From this point forward, if you practice the shaolin 5 animal form as seen in this video, please take a moment and know its true roots, history and source. You have been lied to. That just sucks. I'm sorry for such and outburst, but the truth needs to be told.

No problem there. Although I don't know this form, it is at least nice to know where it likely came from. Anything that bursts the Shaolin-Do "1000 original Shaolin forms, straight-from-the-temple" bubble is welcome here.

[Shaolin Wookie]

So if I write, record and release a song, you can just take it and sell it to whoever you want? That would be bullsh1t and you know it. How is a form any different than a story or a song?

Personally, I just think MA's are light years behind when it comes to the law. They really need to catch up and put disclaimers on everything. Make students sign contracts of conduct and all that. Some do, many don't. It seems like the cracker jack schools are way more knowledgeable of the law and use that to their advantage. A strip mall commercial karate school will mos def have disclaimers whereas the old dude who teaches at the park for free but still wants his rights respected is relying on the honor system. Back in the day it was cool, if you were dishonorable then it could be settled between the schools. That doesn't fly anymore, and legal knowledge is the only real protection for property rights, intellectual or otherwise.

Any judge that rules against clear cut intellectual property rights is over-reaching and the decision should be appealed. Unfortunately in the states it is really hard to remove appointed judges, even when they are bat sh1t crazy.

Great analogy. In fact, music was passed along without IP for thousands of years with no problem whatsoever. Folk music was never copyrightable, and millions of people played Beethoven without IP laws in their homes. Think of the great bluegrass traditions--Blues, Folk, etc. Were these people deprived of quality music? Nonsense. They created it, adapted it, copied it, "plagiarized" it, etc. Music never respects copyright law. If I have perfect pitch and can play a Mozart sonata off of a single hearing, do I infringe on Mozart's rights? Does this change at all concerning MA forms?

Don't White Monkey Steals the Peach and a thousand other CMA forms (esp. 7star mantis) plagiarize titles from traditional Monkey King stories? Aren't all great stories traditionally folk stories--stories passed from person-to-person without IP laws. had IP laws been in place, we might never have received Homer's Iliad and Odyssey---originally preserved by oral tradition. In pre-literate society, did anyone own oral tales? Were they protected by IP law, or should they have been? HOW ON EARTH COULD IP PROTECT ORAL TRADITION?


I'm telling you what intellectual property is--it's a temporary grant of government monopoly. I'm also telling you why it's invalid as a concept, regardless of what sillylawyers say. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both though IP was un-American and rationally un-defendable. Perhaps that's why Franklin and Jefferson didn't patent their inventions. They believed that ideas should remain unregulated by government bureaus.

[UCT]

Not all intellectual property is a "monopoly." For example, intellectual property includes trade secrets, which are only intellectual property until made public. Think "Coke" formula. No governmental grant of a monopoly. Further, patents are not a monopoly in the strictest sense and under the commonly understood definition. A patent gives the owner no rights, other than the right to stop others from performing the patented idea. It gives the owner no right to practice the idea as elements of his idea may be subject to an existing patent owned by others. The authority to grant a patent is contained in the US Constitution, so most framers at the time thought it was a great idea. Me too, since I make a lot of money working in the field!!!

[Empty_Cup]

It's ironic that hsk is in essence accusing Jake of the exact same thing GMT did, i.e. "stealing material." I think if hsk was to try and prove the 5 Animal Form is some sort of intellectual property that Jake stole, he'd have no grounds.

There could always be agreement that Jake sucks at the form, but I don't think he say he "stole" anything.

Lawyers, thoughts?

[Syn7]

Nice analogy. SD discussion aside, I actually DO believe that kung fu should be open source. I believe sources should also be honestly disclosed.

Over time, incorporating new material, making it your own, and improving upon it is what made/makes kung fu so great and adaptable even centuries later than it was initially created. I believe it honors our kung fu predecessors even more to adapt and change this system based on internalization of the concepts and practice than it does to say, " My form is EXACTLY the same, down to the wave of my pinky finger, as it was when my great, great, great, great, great grandmaster taught it." Has anybody heard the fable of the grandmaster and student who kept coming back every 10 years?

Does anybody really believe that forms were kept exactly constant after generations of practitioners were taught even in these so-called "pure lineages?" I don't see how that is possible, especially without the use of books, DVDs, or other written documents which are always so frowned upon

I love the argument about intellectual property. I find it fascinating.

Ok so I release a song, you change it slightly, change the name and re-release it... is that ok? There is huge debate about this going on right now. Lately it has been up to individual judges as to how much change makes it different enough to be something else. Most cases go for the original, but that is changing.

Why should kung fu be open source but music should not? What's the difference?

[Drake]

i've been getting some awesome support via messages to me about this. i don't need to prove it anymore. i placed our video next to his and people see they are the same form. one performed like a novice, the other looked like he actually learned the true form. but i'll spill the beans to one certain marker.

ONLY doc fai wong and his direct school uses the terminology like "Snake comes out of the hole" or Pregnant gorilla guards its egss" (monkey beaks ya'll!!!) that terminology was never passed down through my teachers school nor to him via his teacher who is doc fai wong's senior classmate by 20 years.

plus, jake straight up lied about other master in china teaching this form. with technology we have today, even the shaolin temple has the internet. he would or should be able to prove that he knows these alleged masters. if he is caught in his lie he won't look too good will he?

Or, what was that one.... "Tiger plays with the ball"?

[Syn7]

Great analogy. In fact, music was passed along without IP for thousands of years with no problem whatsoever. Folk music was never copyrightable, and millions of people played Beethoven without IP laws in their homes. Think of the great bluegrass traditions--Blues, Folk, etc. Were these people deprived of quality music? Nonsense. They created it, adapted it, copied it, "plagiarized" it, etc. Music never respects copyright law. If I have perfect pitch and can play a Mozart sonata off of a single hearing, do I infringe on Mozart's rights? Does this change at all concerning MA forms?

Don't White Monkey Steals the Peach and a thousand other CMA forms (esp. 7star mantis) plagiarize titles from traditional Monkey King stories? Aren't all great stories traditionally folk stories--stories passed from person-to-person without IP laws. had IP laws been in place, we might never have received Homer's Iliad and Odyssey---originally preserved by oral tradition. In pre-literate society, did anyone own oral tales? Were they protected by IP law, or should they have been? HOW ON EARTH COULD IP PROTECT ORAL TRADITION?


I'm telling you what intellectual property is--it's a temporary grant of government monopoly. I'm also telling you why it's invalid as a concept, regardless of what sillylawyers say. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both though IP was un-American and rationally un-defendable. Perhaps that's why Franklin and Jefferson didn't patent their inventions. They believed that ideas should remain unregulated by government bureaus.

First, the intellectual property rights debate has nothing to do with quality, you can just leave that at the door. That isn't what I'm talking about.

There is nothing in the law that says you cannot play anothers music, NOTHING. It says you cannot PROFIT off other peoples IP. Do you understand the difference? If so, why do you keep mixing the two?

Nobody is saying that it isn't hard to bring the old world into the new developing world we see today. It is a monumental task and now with the internet we have engaged in the largest experiment in chaos in human history. This illuminates major problems that need to be solved. But in todays world property rights means something.

So do you wanna just fall back into bartering and share everything? I think that would be pretty sweet, but it isn't gonna happen and we need to face what is ahead of us rather than try to emulate what is behind us.

And for the record, a ton of things the founding fathers said was garbage and a ton was great. Not all their ideas panned out and some turned out to be absolutely catastrophic.

Merging the past with the present isn't an easy task, but we need to create cohesive rules and regs that we can all settle on otherwise we get chaos. Chaos does have some positive effects, for sure, but in the long run it hurts us all.

So what exactly is your argument here? Because we didn't have proper IP in the past or even the knowledge and especially the infrastructure to realize IP, that we shouldn't bother now that we do have the ability to enforce it? Because it is hard and challenging to find where oral tradition fits in, we shouldn't bother? Because corruption has been rampant throughout history we should simply accept it as a fact of life and not try to find solutions? If you disagree with that, what solutions do you have in mind then?

How is my ownership of my own ideas a government monopoly? Riddle me this?


I am not against open source information, I just don't see how all things can be open source and still maintain a functionable society. People aren't gonna give up all claims and decide to just be fair, it would be nice, and maybe one day it will happen, but not today. And we need solutions for today, not 2000 years ago and not for 100 years from now. We can always change the rules as we see fit. For now, IP is fit. Besides, IP by it's very nature is temporary. Even songs become public domain after enough time. No patent is forever, but I believe I should be able to patent anything I create.

Craig Venter patenting genome sequences found in all of us, now that's going too far. That's like patenting a flower cause yu saw it first. But patenting forms.....? MA's are waaay late to the party.

[Shaolin Wookie]

Not all intellectual property is a "monopoly." For example, intellectual property includes trade secrets, which are only intellectual property until made public. Think "Coke" formula. No governmental grant of a monopoly. Further, patents are not a monopoly in the strictest sense and under the commonly understood definition. A patent gives the owner no rights, other than the right to stop others from performing the patented idea. It gives the owner no right to practice the idea as elements of his idea may be subject to an existing patent owned by others. The authority to grant a patent is contained in the US Constitution, so most framers at the time thought it was a great idea. Me too, since I make a lot of money working in the field!!!

Correct. Trade secrets are IP (not in a monopolistic sense), but they are "discoverable" by others. Again, if someone stumbled upon Coke's formula and then sold an identical product called Coka, or something, then there is no problem. The only problem that arises, from a rational-legal persepctive, is if someone discovers the formula--or something close to it--and then tries to sell you Coka as geniune "Coke." But again--that's not Coke's problem (it was in the past, however, since many people tried to defraud the public with false Coke products). It's the consumer's problem, and the consumer has the right to sue for fraud.

Now, the patent does give the patent-owner the power of aggression where no harm is leveraged in exchange. For instance, if I manage to figure out Coke's formula by playing around with flavors, then Coke retains the power to prevent me from using my goods (my flavors and my formula) for profit. I did nothing to harm them. Coke thereby obtains a property in mind, my memories, and in my physical resources. If I try to compete with Coke, then the government will shut me down by force, even though I did not threaten to harm Coke. Again--reduction of profits in the form of competition is not a form of aggression.

The patent is the medium of aggression. Government is the agent of aggression.

[Shaolin Wookie]

I love the argument about intellectual property. I find it fascinating.

Ok so I release a song, you change it slightly, change the name and re-release it... is that ok? There is huge debate about this going on right now. Lately it has been up to individual judges as to how much change makes it different enough to be something else. Most cases go for the original, but that is changing.

Why should kung fu be open source but music should not? What's the difference?

Songs should not have government protection. Many of hte artists I listen to encourage free sharing via the internet, since many of them network that way to find new listeners. I know several aspiring hip-hop artists who regularly upload music to torrent sites in order to network their songs. They don't make a dime off of their music. What you have in corporate IP law (Crony Capitalism at its worse--"Crapitalism") is a rejection of free market economics. Corporate recording studios use the government in order to keep all the profits to themselves, and to shut out competition.

This recently was a debacle for the 80's band Def Leppard. Their recording studio retained the rights to all of their original recordings. For fear of losing profits by going digitial with Itunes, etc., the studio refused to allow the old recordings to be distributed by online sellers in mp3 format. Def Leppard thought that this was retarded, and so they re-recorded all of their songs this year, taking care to sound exactly like their old recordings, and then distributed the new recordings online.

This is the insanity of IP.

When musicians and studios whine about IP, they are trying to wring every last dollar from a temporary grant of government monopoly simply b/c America's IP laws are so antiquated and irrational as to allow such practices to remain legal, when clearly patents/IP ought not to be.

Govt. monopoly is not rationally defendable, and it ought to be destroyed ASAP. Is it likely to happen? Not sure. But if Universal Healthcare (Govt. monopoly on health insurance) is a sign of anything, it's not likely to happen anytime soon.