Chan Tai San stories

[Kristoffer]

fuck em, tell us more stories

[lkfmdc]

Over the years, I've become an expert and completely diagnosed the disease known as being a BJJ zombie. It's a dellusional mind state in which one believes that only BJJ and Muay Thai work and no one else has any skill or idea about fighting. In this pyschotic state of mind, Chinese martial art must always be the worst of all possible training, devoid of value and unable to do anything.

Like any psychotic, when the truth comes crashing in, it challenges their entire world and threatens their understanding of themselves. Thus, guys like Chan Tai San and the existance of a place like NYKK is dangerous, and they must try will all their (limited) skills to attack and try to topple it...

But I just find it amusing....

[ngokfei]

hey david.

Eagle Boy in exhile here!!!!

Hey got to have you fine tune my Siu Lohan set

ps: congrats, how was hawalli (my spelling sucks) and have a great holiday!!!

[SifuAbel]

Not everyone in BSdo has this attitude.
They just attact their lions share of bandwagon hitchers. Or those that use the site for personal cred validation. Some of the video of these people in action lends one to wonder how they are allowed to percieve themselves as fighters.

After reading more of the thread, a good number have made comments in your defense.

On a side note, the BJJ zombie is no different from any other style zombie. BJJ, like so many other arts, are slowly breeding the mcdojo section of their franchise. Particularly in schools whose primary style is not BJJ but incorporate it in their curriculum.

[lkfmdc]

Yo man, next time you are here in nYC we'll look at that thing!

Hawaii was great, wish I was there now, NYC is cold and it sucks

[MasterKiller]

LKFMDC,
On Parella’s website, he has a hand-drawn chart of Dim Mak time points done by Chan Tai San?

http://www.nykungfu.com/school/docum...mMakPoints.pdf

[lkfmdc]

Originally posted by SifuAbel
After reading more of the thread, a good number have made comments in your defense.

Actually, the ORIGINAL thread is nothing but snide, uninformed comments... I think you mean a second thread that was started over there, where Master Killer seems to have posted.

But even over there, the level of stupidity was at an all time hi. One guy first says that no student was ever killed in China by his teacher, then says "yeah, a few were" but cant' grasp that of those few, one or two might have been students of Chan Tai San

I hold to my initial comment, bullshido is a waste of time

[lkfmdc]

Back on topic with more Chan Tai San stories....

This one is a funny one, to lighten the mood so to speak...

Sifu Chan was famous for his hard Qi Gong, breaking bricks and such... well, we were going to San Francisco for Tat Mau's event and he was scheduled to perform. So he wants us to buy the bricks and slabs and stuff. We told him we weren't going to drag that crap on the plane, we'd buy some in SF...

Sifu Chan threw a fit... tried to make us buy the stones and crap. We of course found this ridiculous and simply refused. He called up Tat Mau... Tat Mau calmly told Sifu Chan that we were acting sensibly, in fact, Tat Mau said he'd buy the stuff for us... not to worry...

We get on the plane, and as soon as we land in SF, Sifu Chan calls tat Mau. Tat Mau tells him, "it's Wednesday (we arrived a few days early to site see), the demo is Saturday night, we'll get it"

Sifu Chan freaks out. He was aperfectionist when it came to his demo's and got very difficult around demo time. OUr very bad luck, this is SF and the cab driver at the airport is Chinese. SO Sifu Chan DEMANDS that we get taken from the airport to a lumber yard... still carrying luggage and crap, we go and have to buy all these bricks and crap... then check into the hotel... by the time we got to the hotel, it was late. And the "detour" to the lumber yard, with the wait while sifu chose his bricks, the cab ride was F-IN EXPENSIVE!

I tell Sifu Chan, "I'll call Tat Mau and tell him we have the stuff". Sifu Chan decides "not to take chances" and have Tat Mau get some stuff also.

By the time Saturday night hits, we're unloading a cab full of crap, Tat Mau has a pile of crap that Sifu demanded he get, the back of the demo area looks like a construction site...

SIfu Tai Yim is there, and in a joking kind of way, he says to sifu Chan "wow, you gonna break ALL that stuff?"

Sifu Chan turns to me and says "oh, now, to keep face, I have to break ALL this stuff"

We finally get to the demo, which as always, goes well, but Sifu has to break all this crap. Normally, he'd break one or two bricks on his head, but with all this crap, he breaks like four.

People are amazed, and after he demo, sifu Chan shows his head to everyone, not a mark. People ask him "does it hurt?", Sifu Chan waves his hand and says "NO"

Well, we get back to the hotel, and sifu slumps against the wall while waiting for the elevator, and holds his head. My ex-wife, who was Chinese, asked sifu "what is the matter"

Sifu Chan explodes!!!!!!!!

"What's the matter? My head f-in hurts, do you have any idea how much it hurts breaking bricks on your F-in head?"

He then asks my ex for his "special bag", so she hands it to him. Some secret dit da jow no doubt? No, a very large bottle of extra strength Tylonol

[Newb]

That was Hallirious!! I'm still laughing. Poor Sifu Chan, not only did he almost have a heart attack for getting stuff to break, then gets a headache for breaking too much to save face LOL.

[lkfmdc]

Chan Tai San was great because while he was a famous teacher, a legit bad azz and all, he was also very human, thus scaring away all teh mysticism and BS surrounding so man "legends"

[SimonM]

My brother shares several attitudinal traits with your sifu so I have been sharing some of the stories you told with him. He got a real kick out of the story about your sifu getting you to teach the demos that he had been paid for.

Anyway, just wanted to say, your stories have been truly entertaining, keep them coming! (And don't let those jerks on BSdo get to you.)

[lkfmdc]

I posted this before, but this one belongs in here as well...

was in (edit out city name) with Chan Tai San in the 1990's. We were having tea with 4 Choy Lay Fut teachers from the area, three I gurantee everyone here knows, but I won't use names for obvious reasons.

Now, over the years I've seen two trends in TCMA. I saw guys who weren't the best educated, not exactly historians, often didn't care about lineage and style history and the associated trappings like Kuen Po. Frequently, these were guys who because they were poor, struggled to survive, fought a lot and thus were actually good fighters. Some were actual killers. Deadly.

I also met guys who were educated, upper middle class, so they knew the literary terms, the philosophical inplications of certain terms, they could read all the books, they had good minds for history. They might have had enough money to study with a lot of teachers. They might have traveled all around and seen different versions and studied Kuen Po and got to "direct lineages" etc... They were also freuqently guys who did all their training in schools and who had never had a fight with an angry guy with a butcher knife ever in their lives....

One of the four CLF sifu sitting there was a guy who was well educated, well spoken, had done a lot of research. He'd traveled all over, read various books, knew a lot about the theory. Prior to meeting him that time, I actually had some respect for him. Then we went to tea.

I don't remember what started the exact conversation. But we were discussing what we call Teut Kiuh or scrapping bridge. This sifu, we will call him "mr expert" from now on, said that "the old teachers" were frequently poorly educated and didn't know the original, correct names for the technqiues. On this, he may have well be right.

Anyway, "mr expert" talked about how he only used the original, correct names. OK, fine, he'd gotten some very old Kuen Po. It was an interesting side note, but the conversation had actually been more on APPLICATION

My training brother had started the conversation, not me. But I got drawn in as it progressed.

Mr expert insisted that the application that "old guys" like Chan Tai San used was "wrong". I sort of stepped in at this point. A technque can have many applications, but to tell an "old guy" like Chan Tai San that he was wrong was retarded. Chan Tai San, unlike "mr expert", had actually fought, even killed people. I am pretty sure "mr expert" has never had a real fight in his life...

Mr expert continued about how the old Kuen Po he had gave the correct name and theory, and that since he was the only one currently using it, he was the only one with the "correct application"

So we asked, what is YOUR application?

Mr expert didn't want to show us.

Come on, show us already! We're Americans, we believe in put up or shut up. Mr expert said he didn't want to offend my sifu. A quick translation back and forth, my sifu said, "no, show us your application and David will show you ours"

I told "mr expert", tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it so you can show me your application, then you grab my arm because I am going to show you our applicatoin on you....

mr expert again said he didn't want to offend my sifu, we translated again, this time the other three CLF sifu, Laughing their butts off, helped translate to be 150% sure that my sifu understood (we, his students, were just dumb lo faan)...

My sifu offered mr expert to do it on HIM this time!

Mr expert just started eating his dim sum and didn't open his mouth the rest of the day.....

[Meat Shake]

Interesting stories coach ross. Thanks for posting them. Keep em comming.

You should compile them into a journal or essay book, a collection of short stories of the life and times of sifu chan tai san. Im certain a good number of people would buy it... You tell the stories quite well. Its been an interesting read thus far.

[sihing]

Sh!t that was so funny, I haven't had a good laugh like this in awhile, LOL. I also liked the story of all of you with Sifu Chan Poi (Praying Mantis Master in Florida, sorry for the spelling if its wrong) and him driving and turning around all the time to talk to you all, LOL. Absolutely Hilarious stuff and great Kung Fu stories also. I haven't even heard of Master Chan Tai San before this thread but I can almost see him when he's is getting angry with you or making a funny crack. LOL....

Keep'm commin...

James

[SifuAbel]

ttt,

keep um coming