Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[brucereiter]

okay because you asked:

thank you.

To start with, you don't have whole body movement, you move your arms independent of your dantian. Rule #1 of TJQ broken.

maybe for a moment here and there whole body movement is broken.
my arms are not moving independently of my center (dan tian)
one way to really feel that this is true would be to do some push hands... i come to nyc often are you there? i understand you had surgery etc so n=dont take that as a challenge or anything i am just saying if you felt what i do i am sure your comments would change.

In essence, you are just waving your hands and arms, no full body connection, no deep root, no emanation from the dantian to perform the movements, and lots more.

i disagree with that as a blanket statement. at times in the practice videos i show i am sure i make many "mistakes" and can improve on many things. i am sure i am not simply waving my arms in the air as you say.

TJQ is a process, your videos don't show it being done. And you are doing the same things wrong as I said that Grooms was doing in his video.

examples?

Not too bad for a beginner though, keep working.

lol you are too nice... do you practice tai chi chuan?

here's some old timers you can study and hopefully you can see the difference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq2uHsUkwA8 (Yang TJQ)

nice video. can his students demonstrate self defense ability? i have "touched hands" with some people from that line ... i did not feel much in the way of actual self defense skills but they do win alot of gold medals in the forms competitions.

SD never taught the foundational Songshan CMA sets (northern) that Shaolin derived internal martial arts developed from (TJQ, XY, BG), so I can't expect SD people to understand and know it.

i would say most ima schools do not teach northern shaolin sets. saying that is insulting to almost any ima person.

Plus SD teaches modern times version of the TJQ sets, not the original long forms, nor the important training forms that TJQ people learn first. Nor the neigong sets that are necessary too.

yes speaking for the yang tai chi chuan as the example it is pretty modern. it is a variation of cheng man chings tai chi.

man there are so many different "niegong" methods taught ... come on almost every school i have visited teach a different niegong method.

[Sal Canzonieri]

I see that there is a direct line from his rear heel to his head, but that doesn't make one rooted. SD does teach these things Sal and I do understand them. I was an offensive lineman in high school and I understand very well how easily it is to unbalance someone if their weight is forward. You can have a heel down, but still have too much weight going forward which is what it looks like to me in the video.

well, then it's an optical illusion. his dantain is doing all the work and he is using whole body movement and his root is deep as a result.

That old master was famous for his ability to use taiji quan perfectly for self defense.

Wu style is even more inclined. And they are some of the very best taiji players around, especially for self defense.

[brucereiter]

Did you miss my question? It seems to me, a novice, that the master in the video you posted is leaning too far forward. It seems that this would make it easier to unbalance, but that's to my untrained eye. I was asking for your comment.

in my opinion that type of lean is good for throws... maybe his intention os more throwing? i dont know though

[Judge Pen]

well, then it's an optical illusion. his dantain is doing all the work and he is using whole body movement and his root is deep as a result.

That old master was famous for his ability to use taiji quan perfectly for self defense.

Wu style is even more inclined. And they are some of the very best taiji players around, especially for self defense.

I saw a lot that I liked, and he looked rooted throughout his entire movement until the end and he overextened.

Maybe it is an optical illusion. I was just drawing a line from his heel to his head and comparing that from a verticle line from hi lead heel. His knee is often well ahead of his toe (another "no-no" as far as my experience is concerned). But its hard to tell these things from videos. As Bruce said, the only way you can tell is to push hands and feel these things for yourself.

[Sal Canzonieri]

in my opinion that type of lean is good for throws... maybe his intention os more throwing? i dont know though

Well, sure, yes, ONE application of that movement is throwing someone over the leg, for sure. All CMA has levels of use: basic striking, joint locking, throwing, and the most advanced is attacking with just slight movements.

[Judge Pen]

in my opinion that type of lean is good for throws... maybe his intention os more throwing? i dont know though

That's true, and depends on the movement of energy in relation to the location of the opponent. But I didn't get that sense from the video. Again, it's an observation, I could be way off.

[BoulderDawg]

And, if you thought that was something other than beginner Taiji being shown by that guy, you are sure in a sorry lame state of delusional psychosis.

He's being sincere and working hard on improving his form, I commend the guy for doing that.

But you are just plain ignorant and have been so completely brainwashed, especially since you have a vested interest in keeping up the SD charade, that there is no use bothering with you.
Why butt in to any discussion? You never provide anything constructive to say.

Just baby talk, babbling boob stuff.

I'm simply not going to be dragged into a discussion about what's right and wrong...forget it. That's like a buddhist trying to explain his religion to a hard core bible thumper.....can't be done.

However I am interested in if you consider your Kung Fu an art. From what I've seen here your idea of "real" shaolin KF is to somehow carbon copy what they did 1500 years ago. Not only is it totally impossible to know how these people did their forms but who wants to duplicate anything. Art is freedom of expression and creativity. If you goal is to mimic someone then that is in no way art.

[brucereiter]

SD doesn't understand these things, hence they don't teach it.

come on sal, do not lie. there are enough negative things about sd you can address without resorting to making things up.

Check out that guys channel on YouTube, he has dozen's of videos of all the most well known and best Taiji teaches from the past, you can see that regardless of style or sub-style none of the fundamentals are ever broken.

he has some very cool videos.
i have seen plenty of "arm waving" from notable masters of tai chi chuan.
ehhh. i have seen "masters" make "mistakes" here and there. its not a big deal to me.

[Judge Pen]

come on sal, do not lie. there are enough negative things about sd you can address without resorting to making things up.




he has some very cool videos.
i have seen plenty of "arm waving" from notable masters of tai chi chuan.
ehhh. i have seen "masters" make "mistakes" here and there. its not a big deal to me.

I've also seen masters fight and resort to arm-waiving too. well-respected lineages, or perfect form movement does not, by itself, make good kung fu.

[tattooedmonk]

I can tell all of you that many of the so called "body mechanics" of CMA are off. There is either proper body mechanics or improper body mechanics, plain and simple...

From what I understand there is thing called "modern science" that substantiates these things now, not just what some masters regergitated from previous masters........

NO ONE has ever said that SD was pure CMA , because we know it is not, but the largest part of the material and training is.....CMA forms.

The way it is taught, practice and passed down may not be the way that everyone does CMA material , but we arent trying to do it the way everyone else does .....if it works, then how can it be wrong???

We all understand that you have a lot to offer Sal , but the way you are going about it could be considered offensive by some people.

Like I said , maybe you should try a different method

BTW I have NEVER had any problem with using or applying what I have learned from SD!!

[tattooedmonk]

come on sal, do not lie. there are enough negative things about sd you can address without resorting to making things up.




he has some very cool videos.
i have seen plenty of "arm waving" from notable masters of tai chi chuan.
ehhh. i have seen "masters" make "mistakes" here and there. its not a big deal to me.

everyone makes mistakes....period. I have seen more mistakes by noteable famous masters than anyone else I have ever watched.....BFD

Sal is an elitist......

[Judge Pen]

Sal is a historian. My best friend is a historian. They tend to romanticize the past as some type of ideal. At least in my experience.

It's like when I posted some of my fight videos on you-tube. One guy e-mailed me to discuss my fight. He, a wu shu practitioner, was critical because my fight did not look like kung-fu. I was punching, kicking and throwing, but it didn't look as crisp as he would like to see. His counter-example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG366AHzI2U.

[BoulderDawg]

Sal is a historian. My best friend is a historian. They tend to romanticize the past as some type of ideal. At least in my experience.

When I was in Amsterdam I came across a street vendor who was painting replicas of Vah Gogh's painting......beautiful work and to my untrained eye I could not tell the difference. However there is no art involved. If there is then I guess my copy machine is a grand master!

But you are right. Some of us see and hear things that we want to be true.

[bawang]

thanks ...
the csc atlanta where i learned have the "internal" and "external" programs split up so you can learn just "internal" or where you can learn "external" where at some level you would be taught internal too.

does that help the confusion?

is a shaolin do a style or a organization? most styles dont take forms from other styles for no reason

i think you guys taking all those forms from other styles is strange

if you dont mind taking forms why dont you guys learn some forms from the real shaolin in songshan china

[kwaichang]

Sal do you do forms EXACTLY like your teachers same angles etc. If you say yes you are lying that would imply you are perfect , if no then you arent doing it RIGHT. So you may be close . BTW i have seen tai chi at a SD school as good at the rules / vids as you referenced. I dont know who you have seen but I would love to see a vid of yours so I can see Perfect form KC