Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[kwaichang]

So no one believes Su Kong Dai Jin was real , ? how bout the midget monk then ? is Fu Jao real ? they all have legends. even wong fei hung is legendary. KC

[Lucas]

I'm legendary too! But only in certain parts of the world.

[buddajoe]

Today I laugh in the same way!

Now all can see one version of the five-animal and compare. I know that all those who have learned this form from dubious teachers may see themselves the differences and the beauty of a righteous form.

The bottom line is that DFW did something great. His book tells the whole world that Professor Lau Bun first brought the five-animal to America. It is also a specific form for Choy Lee Fut, Hung Sing style, originating in San Francisco.
Jew Sifu told me that the Professor had over ten thousand students. Sifu told me that he had had over ten thousand students (mid 80’s) and perhaps Dino would do the same. The book DFW wrote would have much more readers. If I am to believe the DFW is closing in on one million students then I have no worries about the book or the video.
The video is now a closing statement. I believe that the video was made much earier than the book. ESPY was the company and it advertised in the martial art mags. please correct if I am in error.

[Judge Pen]

So no one believes Su Kong Dai Jin was real , ? how bout the midget monk then ? is Fu Jao real ? they all have legends. even wong fei hung is legendary. KC

I am legend.

Seriously, you're right, most, if not all lineages of traditional martial arts have some wonky fairy-tale at it's origins. None of them are probably true and serve as allegory and oral tradition. To be fair, the difference, I think, is a longer tradition of teacher to student teaching the same material with that material sharing fundamental common denominators that are consistent. In SD, the common denominator is Sin The but the forms are all over the place.

Mas Judt made an interesting point about this type of hyperbole and embellishment being cultural (especially in Indonesia and in Kung Tao lineages). Heck, we could spend hours ripping apart things that the Willem de Thouars has said. But the difference is that he doesn't call his art the true expersion of Shaolin and he doesn't claim to be the grandmaster inheritor of Shaolin. If Sin The did what he did (and just called it kung tao) this would not be as big an issue.

[hskwarrior]

HSK, I thought there were two deficiencies in the video: A missing sequence, plus a false sequence, that would separate this set from the authentic one.

i purposely chop up forms we care about. i just didn't want to whole thing available to everyone. but buddhajoe said something about it reaching millions. i have no problem with that. just tell the true source of it.

[Judge Pen]

they do. and i still haven't seen your lineage be honest about it yet. just a couple of guys on a forum. i want leaders of SHAOLIN DO to acknowledge the true source, do it as HUNG SING or even say it came from the book. but GIVE US OUR PROPER CREDIT FROM HERE ON OUT.

I will, but I have no control over anyone else.

[GeneChing]

This thread has had quite a journey to 1K+.

I'm merging the Professor Lau Bun's U-Ming thread soon. Despite all of this, I still plan to keep SD corralled into one thread here.

[Empty_Cup]

http://www.sinthe.com/

that says it right there. never question your karate roots again.

Funny, first thing I saw when going to that site was "Kung Fu and Tai Chi." Guess I should never question the Kung Fu roots again?

[Leto]

you guys need to leave our lineages ALONE. period. facking thieves.



DFW should never have put this form on video for the masses. that was HIS mistake. we were totally up in arms when he did that. still, just because someone bought the video, it doesn't give them the right to take it and absorb it into their own system and give it a fake phony bunk alternative history. i will call everyone and their momma's out on this.

and YOU put the WHOLE MOTHA FUKKIN SET ON YOUTUBE AND JUST GAVE IT AWAY. can you pls place the video on private or take it down. this is my lineages entire form and you are just giving it away to just anyone. im asking you please do this for my lineage. thank you

Just anyone can't see the video, only the forum participants. I felt that was private enough, as I did know there might be some concern about it. I will take it down eventually, when this discussion dies down. As I said before, Doc Fai Wong is the one who gave it away, he made an instructional video so people could learn it, your concern is twenty+ years too late.

I thought this would have been a favor to you. Everyone keeps going back and forth about wanting to see the form, they want to see the differences and similarities, you keep telling them to go visit your teacher, you don't want to put up video of yourself doing it understandably because you might upset your teacher or someone in your lineage, don't want to give away your teaching. So I did it, there is no blame or responsibility on you, and it is the public version that has been available to anyone with a credit card for over twenty years. Now everyone who knows the version learned from Sin The can see and make up their mind about it's source, if they had any question remaining. If they learn something from the clip I put up, it will be no different than having learned it from Sin The, which is to say learning it second hand without the proper foundation. I also thought this public version has markers which you and other Hung Sing will recognize, so it isn't even the "complete" form.

That question about wuxing bafa and northern shaolin is a legitimate question. There are a few people on this forum who actually practice legit shaolin, and are quite learned and well travelled, and might have some insight into ways that connect this form with shaolin. This would give credence to Lau Bun's story that it is a northern shaolin form. But they need to see it before they could tell anything.

Yes, Sin The and the Shaolin Do leadership should tell the truth about where all their forms came from, as should anyone who teaches those forms. I think I want that more than you do, because I actually learned from them. But that isn't going to happen because of a forum. Those of us who see the truth, admit it. We aren't going to stop practicing a form we know and love, despite the crazy path it took to get to us. Each person is going to make it work in whatever way they can.

[hskwarrior]

do you know how many people all around the world check out this forum? do you realize how widespread this forum is? its NOT just the handfull of people. you gave EVERYONE who checks out this forum access to that video.

your intentions might have been honorable. but honestly, it opens the wound wider than helping it close. i'm sorry.

[taai gihk yahn]

I linked to those two forms because there's independant evidence that these two forms are still being taught, independant of Sin The, in Indonesia. The videos of Indonesian students doing these same forms are on the SD thread. Also another poster linked to another forum where Sal Calzone (sorry I butchered the spelling) indicated that he has seen the same Buddha Fist form practiced in a Chinese lineage that is independant from Sin The.

"Not that I want to ever defend Sin The's stuff, but I have seen this exact some form being done by another Chinese lineage not related to Sin The whatsoever. They most have this confused.

It's is a southern Chinese style set, it happens to be called "Taji Quan" it is not related to what we know as Taiji Quan from the Chen, Yang, Wu, Hao, etc., styles.

It is karate like in that southern style as well. The name of the style was Southern Shaolin LONG Fist, the other sets were karate like, as many Five Ancestor's southern styles as well, that were the ancestors to Okinanwan Karate."

So at least these two forms seem to have some legitimate history and lineage (even if it's not exactly what is told by Sin The).

vids of Indonesian students practicing those forms do not necessarily mean it is independent of Sin The / SD; the question would be if not from ST/SD, then where?

if it was Sal Canzoneri who verified the Buddha Fist forms independent existence, that is a markedly reliable source, and if that is in fact the case, then I stand corrected;

overall, I am still rather dubious about it...

[Leto]

Ok, for anyone who hasn't seen it but wants a comparison to what we were taught in SD/CSC, here's the complete five animal form by DFW. It's not listed on youtube, you can only get there by the link.
This is commercially available, so anyone could see it if they wanted to, and it is only five minutes of a fifty minute instructional video. I'm not giving away some precious secret, DFW did that, I just bought the DVD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpt__6sH8tU


I also wonder if songshan shaolin students can recognize any linking elements between this supposedly shaolin form and the other northern styles. Apart from the name, do you think it connects in any way with the wu xing ba fa set? How does this or wu xing ba fa connect with the older shaolin styles, if they do?

Doc Fai Wong's Shaolin Five Animal form
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpt__6sH8tU

Ok, I have made the video private, instead of unlisted, out of sensitivity for strong feelings about this. If someone wants to see it, you'll need to PM me with your youtube username or email address (you still need a youtube account to see it).

I put it up so that everyone can be better informed about the subject of this thread. You can't accurately judge whether something is the same or different if you don't see the whole thing. Just one or two sections isn't enough. Now we need to see a full version of the way it is taught in SD, and compare side by side. Put to rest the doubts. Also, watch earlier clips of the form being performed by DFW and others. Different, similar? Compare with northern shaolin styles. Any seeds of connection?

[hskwarrior]

Ok, I have made the video private, instead of unlisted, out of sensitivity for strong feelings about this. If someone wants to see it, you'll need to PM me with your youtube username or email address (you still need a youtube account to see it).

thank you. now thats honorable. i respect that.

understand, pls, that this form is not some average form. its pretty high level and there are element missing that are not in that video. and yes i mean the internal side.

my school under my sifu never liked the fact that dfw published that form in a book. it wasn't meant for the masses. but he did what he did and he can't change anything. I didn't want the whole form up for people to see because we treasure that form and work hard at perfecting it. my sifu, my sigung and DFW are among the best to perform this form in our lineage. however, the video recently posted of him doing it isn't like how he used to perform it.

[Judge Pen]

vids of Indonesian students practicing those forms do not necessarily mean it is independent of Sin The / SD; the question would be if not from ST/SD, then where?

if it was Sal Canzoneri who verified the Buddha Fist forms independent existence, that is a markedly reliable source, and if that is in fact the case, then I stand corrected;

overall, I am still rather dubious about it...

I was told it was. I quoted that from another forum. I think there's a link to that forum directly on the SD thread. Of course Sal can speak for himself.

I'm not sure I follow your other point. The students in Indonesia are from the school where Sin the learned. There were more than one teacher there. These forms were learned in Indonesia by those students after Sin and Hiang The moved to the US. It doens't answer the question where the forms came from, but it does say that there is an origin to these forms that was not fabricated from The and still survive independant of him and SD.

[hskwarrior]

Compare with northern shaolin styles. Any seeds of connection?
__________________

The Tan Tui is one northern connection we share. but if you ask me, most of the moves in the form resemble CLF more than anything aside from the Tan Tui.