Wah Lum Temple - Orlando

[yu shan]

18, your kids stance looks better than mine.

Anyway, back to the topic. Maybe you should live at the dorm and go thru a typical month of pro-student training. I am very sure you could sit and chat with Master Chan and Mimi. Then you can go from there. If you are going to have dorm rooms, keep them clean. I myself would not train or live in filth. Have you heard of Shangwu farms? (sp?) You might visit with Shifu Art D`Agostino and see what he has going, I hear his retreat is very cool. Plus he is just a great guy to hang out with, and his Mantis is good.

[isol8d]

Your alignment is much better than in the pic posted. The problem is that people are not corrected( you can't argue that as the picture is of a long time wl sifu) why is his stance not correct?????
WL horse stance is done wider than the way i was taught. People who go wider with the stance usually stand with their knees improperly aligned with the foot.

Ironfenix-
got some pics of you and your wife doing lion, send me your email and i will send them to you.

Hope you guys had a good time with Art, tell him happy BD from all us pong lai people when u chat with him.

My photoshop died, but I was going to paste a bit of Nick Scrima's division sheet for this year.

*SPECIAL EVENTS*
Horse Stance Competition
Kids Ages >12
Juniors Ages 12-14
Teens ages 15-17

Horse.jpg reminds me of that, not of buddha breathing hands.

[Crushing Fist]

Thanks for the lead... Shangwu Farms looks like it could be what I'm looking for.

I sent an email asking about some specifics, so we'll see what happens.

Chen Taiji and Mantis with Qigong are right on target for me.


Has anyone been there?

Done the live-in training?

[yu shan]

A member of kfo named ironfenix trains there under the tutelage of Shifu Art. You might send him a pm, but I`m sure when he catches wind of this he will post.

[Hua Lin Laoshi]

I think that's a fairly new setup he has down there so you probably aren't going to find many who have done the live-in training.

Of course you could be among the first and blaze the trail instead of following.

Hey Steve, where the heck is the new school? I was down that way a few times recently and I thought you said it was just around the corner from the old place.

I had to go out Hillsborough past the airport but the address still wasn't as high as the address number I have for the school. I wanted to see what it looks like. Maybe I have the wrong address.

Last time I was down in Safety Harbor but didn't have time on the way back. I don't get down there as much as I used to but I'd still like to see the new place.

[mantiskilla]

"Have you seen any pictures of Bode Miller skiing downhill? Totally wrong structure, hips too far back, downhill ski un weighted, knees bent waay too far back? All he does is win with that form. So you think Bode would tell a beginner to ?do it like I do??

Seen any pictures of Tiger Woods at the top of his follow through? Andy Rod**** at the end of his forehand? The torque that?s evident in their structure would destroy a lesser athlete. Should a beginner try and do it like they do? Or maybe we should screen advanced strength pictures in case someone thinks improper structure in an advanced athlete is something to emulate."



None of these people teach. Martial arts are nothing if not visual, and a student gets their base knowledge by emulating the teachers movement before finding their own way eventually. So you can say one thing, but the student more than likely will do what they see you do. After all it works for you, right? Maybe you're a freak of nature and can get away with it, but most people cannot, hence the anomaly I just mentioned. Also, look at Nolan Ryan. Supposedly he had the 'perfect' pitching motion, which may explain 20 some years of throwing a baseball close to 100 mph, and then you have people like Kerry Woods who cant seem to make it through a full year in his 20's. It has been argued the reason for his contiued injuries are due to his poor mechanics. http://chicagosports.chicagotribune....s-home-utility Of course he could just be injury prone, who knows?

There is a lot more to structure in martial arts than just preventing injury, in many cases it is the difference between a technique working and not working, and that is also part of the reason why I said earlier structure or mechanics are in place for a reason. You may be able to 'muscle through' a lot of stuff when you are strong, but when you face someone who is stronger than yourself, that is when your mechanics will be put to the test. It may keep someone from destroying one of your joints. That's why it's 'martial arts', not 'martial whateverthehellyoufeellikedoing'.

Maybe we should start another thread on mechanics.
________
AVANDIA SIDE EFFECTS

[spiralstair]

mantiskilla
Good points.

On Bode, Tiger, Andy…
Of course they don’t teach, but when they do, should they cleanse the world of photos that show bad mechanics because some poor unaware student somewhere might try it ‘that way’? Yes, I think they should.
What about Kerry Woods? A succession of bad teachers, I guess.

I’m 52 years old. Not a freak of nature. Done Wah Lum for 30 years. No problems with my knees, hips, back. I pay attention to my structural mechanics based on what I already outlined in my post on page 2 of this thread. I do the same for my students, in fact I insist on it. Too bad your previous teacher did not. In styles with low stances like Wah Lum, Chen T’ai Chi etc. mechanics are doubly important because of the angles of force expressed through the lower limbs. Students can develop problems, usually slowly, which makes it hard to trace back to the source.

My take on it is that good movement, of all kinds, and even most of what MAists call 'chi phenomena', is just structural mechanics done well.
Peace

[mantiskilla]

"My take on it is that good movement, of all kinds, and even most of what MAists call 'chi phenomena', is just structural mechanics done well."

I agree. I have seen my teacher do some things that were pretty amazing for his size, when broken down it was just good engineering and structure. BTW, if you are 52 years old and have had no problems with your back or knees, you may be a freak of nature. LOL
________
Wendie 99

[3 Rotor]

IIRC the choreography from the Disney cartoon Mulan was from the Wah Lum school.

There was a tv special about Grandmaster Pui Chan several years back on A&E or maybe discovery.

[tonglongtodei]

IIRC the choreography from the Disney cartoon Mulan was from the Wah Lum school.

There was a tv special about Grandmaster Pui Chan several years back on A&E or maybe discovery.

From what I understand quite a bit of choreography from various games and such comes from the temple. Mulan (the character) was done exclusively from Mimi Chan I believe.

[ironfenix]

Shang Wu farms provides live in training. And like jim said, shifu is just a cool guy to be around.

HuaLin - Actually he does have some students doing the live in training. It is nice up there. He will probably take some guys to TaiJi legacy.

18 elders- info@floreskungfu.com thanks in advanced for the pictures.

[Yung Apprentice]

I thought they had sparring classes at the temple on Thursdays?

[woliveri]

I'm comiing in late on this one so I'm just going to through some stuff out.

In my opinion the secret for getting these low stances right such as the Tom Hasse photo is stretching. All the WL stretches, Elbow to Toe, Center and Side stretches, etc. If someone doesn't have the flexibility to do the stance then the result will be injury eventually because the correct position cannot be formed.

I think this is Tom's problem. As I remember his flexibilty needed work so the result is such a photo. That was 15 years ago or so so he could have fixed himself up.

When I was at WL I didn't receive instruction on the above comment, I had to think about it and work it out for myself.

Another problem with the Sifu program at WL (IMHO) is that WL is a business so Sifu Chan may feel "obligated" in a business sense to advance someone to Sifu level even though they may not be ready or in reality, may never be ready.

To contrast, I'm currently in Shanghai training Bagua Zhang for the last 6 weeks. I train 1 to 3 hours a day, everyday and I didn't learn anything for the last 6 weeks other than Basics. No form, just Basics, Bagua basics. I just now started learning a form and I think it's only because I have a MA background that I'm able to do that now.

My teacher's kung fu brother told me that he trained basics for 3 years before he was able to learn a form. The point is, some students want to learn forms and of course I do too, but we cannot forget basics. Always working on correct form, stretching, etc.

Being in Shanghai for the last 6 months I've seen some things. I've seen old ladys who couldn't weigh over 90 pounds doing stances that would make me squirm and they do it with ease. Chinese train daily which is sometimes difficult for us in the US due to financial obligations.

So where am I going...? don't know... just food for thought.


Oh, one more thing. One secret at WL that most people don't see is what MC eats. He keeps and has kept a flat stomach since I've known him. He eats light, soups and not much fried food as I remember. If you guys at the temple have the chance you should observe this. I think it's one of the secrets that allows him to be so quick and have low stances. Also, not eating too much "fire" foods allows his stretch to remain.

[isol8d]

I thought they had sparring classes at the temple on Thursdays?

I think it is on Friday nights...

[Chop Socki]

I'm also coming late to this thread, and it's branched off into several side topics though by now it's come most of the way back, but there was something said earlier that I wanted to respond to.

I routinely see systems evaluated on this forum based on what is often a very narrow sampling of a small number of instructors. The theory is that you can say with some degree of authority that 'system X doesn't emphasize aspect Y', and even though it's often followed with something like 'for my taste' or 'imho', I find the basic premise that you can categorize an entire system based on the emphasis of a specific instructor has always baffled me.

Sure, every well-developed system has a core curriculum, and it's safe to assume that every instructor certified to teach that system is familiar with and passes along those basics at some point. It's what comes after that that really distinguishes a school, and that's the part that's almost entirely dictated by a specific instructor. I've trained at the Wah Lum Temple several times with a number of people including Master Chan, I've been fortunate enough to receive invitations to attend classes in various styles both locally and when I've travelled, and in all cases, while the underlying thread was dictated by the system, the characteristics and specific material being stressed by the instructor came from two things:
(1) his personal strengths and interests, and
(2) the aptitude and interests of the students

Please don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to inject drama or pick fights, but I've watched Tai Chi students back away with shocked expressions when an instructor tried to demonstrate the applications of the beautiful techniques they've spent months learning, just as I've seen beginners who try to puzzle out fighting applications of every new technique they're shown. I guess what I'm trying to say is that at the end of the day, every school is a business; the instructor, as the head chef, has a great deal of influence over the ingredients, but the menu is going to be designed to appeal to the regular customers.

Sorry for the novel,

- CS