Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[The Willow Sword]

Wow, TWS, I apologize for not commenting on those pics before...that looks like the same guy to me. Same lips, same eyes, similar hair length (long on nose and top, but small beard). I didn't see where you mentioned corresponding with the author of the article before? Did that happen a good while after you posted that?

I had corresponded with prof Dikotter way before i posted all of that on this thread. Actually i wasnt going to post it at all because i felt that i had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the lineage was fabricated and that i had done the right thing in leaving the school, for that reason and the other that is posted in this forum.
but after reading 40 some odd pages in to this very long thread, at the time, i decided to go on ahead and share with everyone what i had discovered.

When i corresponded with Prof Dikotter i had asked him to compare the two pictures because there was some question as to whether or not they were the same individual. i had stated to him that the suit and tie picture was being claimed in a martial arts lineage that has come in to question many times within the martial community(and left it at that). I mean i already KNEW that these two pics were the same i just needed some professional validation, since members here want that sort of validation from the rest of us concerning what IS CMA and what IS Shaolin etc etc.
But as you see in the posts after the denial and the downplaying of what i found flowed forth.
The second time i had emailed prof Dikotter i asked him that if the book that he got that other pic mentioned ANYTHING about Li baoshu being involved with any martial arts or shaolin temple or anything relating to south china. His response was that there was no mention of any such affiliation and that li baoshu was put on exhibit at the beijing zoo,no mention of being abandoned by his mother for being a demon and so on and so forth. I think he also mentioned that Li baoshu died at an early age as a result of the disease.

TWS.

[Judge Pen]

You made an excuse for the use of that picture. It isn't an insult to say you made an excuse.


And I wasn't talking about point sparring. I was talking about full contact sparring. They have full contact tournaments. San Shou has proven to be great venue for Gung Fu stylists to compete. Traditional martial arts were developed for life and death situations, but this doesn't mean they can't be used in sanctioned tournaments. You just can't do certain things, thats all.

The quote. That quote has been around for a while. At the time it was first made, most MA tournaments were point sparring and many didn't allow groin shots or sweeps to the support leg. Now you do have more options for tournaments if you're willing to travel.

But, let's call a spade a spade, all of kung fu claims "too deadly for the ringh" techniques. Certainly there are things that you wouldn't do in the ring, but what this quote is promotion. Don't point the finger at SD because I'll tell you a secret--we're not the only ones that self-promote.

[lunghushan]

You'd be hard pressed to find a martial arts school or teacher who didn't self promote.

[Judge Pen]

TWS, My settings are off to find what you refer to as page 44. How many posts per page are you set for so I can get to the same 44 and re-examine those pictures.

I'd be curious for you to copy the original e-mail from this professor. I'd like to read this for myself.

[Judge Pen]

You'd be hard pressed to find a martial arts school or teacher who didn't self promote.

Exactly. As for the wild stories, take everything with a grain of salt. And, if you study the Indonesian culture and kun tao in particular, wild stories are par for the course.

[lunghushan]

I think a better question for SDers, is they actually believe the seeming nonsense that is posted as the history of their style, and the 900 forms and all that.

That's a better question that is that information actually nonsense.

Anyways, what does it matter. If Master Sin The got all his forms out of old Chinese books, and is teaching them, what does it really matter?

But that history sure doesn't add to the credibility of the school, so it would be interesting to find out if it does add to the credibility for the people who practice there.

[lunghushan]

Exactly. As for the wild stories, take everything with a grain of salt. And, if you study the Indonesian culture and kun tao in particular, wild stories are par for the course.

Kun Tao is an absolute mess of politics and conflicting stories and opinions. I'd be surprised if anybody could put together anything cohesive. I've been looking at that stuff for a long time now and I sure can't make heads or tails of it. De Thoaurs, Reeders, Willie Wetzel, what a mess.

[The Xia]

Here you go Judge Pen.

I knew what SD was and I had not really been so gung ho about being a follower of the rhetoric and the claims and statements made by the organization. I knew that it wasn’t traditional CMA and I knew that certain aspects of the history were questionable. But what I did like and admire about Sd was the atmosphere there and the curriculum itself,,it actually was very conducive to the everyday average joe and jane who wanted to take a martial art,,learn self defense and not have to deal with a drill instructor environment or be in these reality fighting schools that most folks would not go to anyway. So the sell point at SD was done well and the atmosphere there was decent. What finally clinched it for me as to the history of SD and its claims was the research I finally did when I left the school.
This information focused on the “hairy grandmanster,,which they name (Su Kong) My research turned up another Picture of “Su kong” whose name is actually ”li Baoshu” who was part of the bejing circus in the 1930’s and the picture that everyone sees of Li baoshu in the suit and tie was taken and put in an old guiness book of world records featuring “circus freak shows”(in this book it is a full body shot)the picture that is shown to everyone now and that has been for years is just a head shot(edited of course). This book was found at a public library in louisville kentucky and shown to my previous teacher back in the early 80’s(it was an old book from the late 60’s and for some reason is no longer at the library in Louisville Kentucky). It has been debated here and the Sd’ers will dismiss it as just a similarity and not another picture of their “great grandmaster”. But in fact the persons in the two pictures I have are the same person( now there are some other pictures of people with the same disorder that Li baoshu had that look similar only with respect to the disorder,,but are obviously different people,,it is NOT the case with the pics that I have.) I wish I could find that book and then the evidence would be concrete and could not be downplayed or argued as something other than what it is(ironic eh?)

Anyway we have beat the dead horse in to something else now,,the gelatin mass that once was a dead horse is now pureed in to something else other than a dead horse,,yet we continue to beat it as if it were top news. Hahaha and the rest of us roll our eyes and think “ oh boy here we go again”.

Peace,,TWS

On the Sin The quote....
So you say that quote concerned point sparring? If so, keeping it in circulation doesn't do well for Shaolin Do's image.
Are you saying a Shaolin Doka would not be able to point spar? (not that I put value in point sparring)

[The Willow Sword]

Page 44 is where i come in on the thread and post the pics.
Page 72 is where KC comes in and starts his trolling and flame war with me.
Page 78 is where i reveal the name of the book where the messy pic of li baoshu came out of.

As for copies of the email correspondance with Frank Dikotter. My computer crashed recently and all those correspondances which i had saved were destroyed in the crash( i also lost so much more valuable information and files and music. its sucks and i just KNOW that this will be spun as a "very convienient" excuse to not provide said proof of correspondance. but if you are so bent on corroborating what was corroborated to ME by him then seek him out for yourself and email him and remind him of the pictures and his article and get the info for yourself.

i had been operating on win2k pro for the longest time and the OS finally crashed on me(when i was trying to download an adobe acrobat document) i lost everything on my C: drive and most of everything else on my D: drive. i had to restart from scratch and upgrade win xp pro. bought a 300 bg external HD to Back everything up now(wished i had it back then)

Anyway there it is, TWS

[BentMonk]

Perhaps many years from now, when William Hung is forgotten, someone will take a picture of him, change the name, and attribute a style to him. All of the style's techniques will be accounted for in the deadly "She Bang" Form.

Dude you have issues!

[Flying-Monkey]

As for copies of the email correspondance with Frank Dikotter. My computer crashed recently and all those correspondances which i had saved were destroyed in the crash( i also lost so much more valuable information and files and music. its sucks and i just KNOW that this will be spun as a "very convienient" excuse to not provide said proof of correspondance. but if you are so bent on corroborating what was corroborated to ME by him then seek him out for yourself and email him and remind him of the pictures and his article and get the info for yourself.

I am kind of on your side but that seems a little cheesy.

[Yao Sing]

It would be interesting to run those 2 pics through face recognition software.

Hey, maybe we can get a mythbusters type show or other investigative journalist to look into the situation. Bring in the high tech imaging and forensics equipment.

[lunghushan]

Did anybody else buy some of those kungfulibrary.com books? Do you remember seeing the guy in there?

That guy was in SOME book somewhere ... not just Shaolin-Do.

[lunghushan]

You know, a little known fact in this country is that in Taiwan, Singapore, China, etc., they have books written by various martial arts teachers with forms in them. They've been doing it for like 100 years now, not just the VCDs more recently released en masse.

It wouldn't be that hard for some guy to come from Taiwan with a stack of these or go back there and pick up a bunch and start their own lineage.

How can some guy remember 900 forms? No way, right? But a suitcase of books like that and you could start your own school, 900 forms, no problem.

[kungfujunky]

lunghushan that could be possible...but gmt can show you moves in a form at the drop of a hat...

any form you ask him about he can show you the move you want to see.

maybe he learned it from a book but he sure shows it like he spent years training over this material..not hours reading it from a book