Li Liangui - another story from Great Big Story

[mickey]

Greetings,

Of all of the guys demonstrating their flexibility kung fu, I like this one best. Is he really from Shaolin? And is there more info in his branch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0eq3...layer_embedded


mickey

[Xian]

Couldnt he also be from the Southern Temple ?For me he doesnt looks like the "typical "Northern Shaolin Temple monk okay except of the color of his dress of course...


Kind regards,
Xian

[mickey]

Greetings, Xian.

While the posts at u Tube say he is Master Li. I was looking for a full name and more info.

mickey

EDIT: I listened carefully. I think it is Li Chun Li.

[LFJ]

Greetings,

Of all of the guys demonstrating their flexibility kung fu, I like this one best. Is he really from Shaolin? And is there more info in his branch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0eq3...layer_embedded


mickey

He's from Beijing. His name is Li Liangui (李连贵), Dharma name Shi Yanfa (释演法). Notice the Yan generation character is not from the Shaolin Caodong poem, but from Linji sect.

What he practices in addition to Tongzigong is bone displacement or "bone shrinking methods" Suogufa, as he showed with his shoulder at 5:45 in the video, and as in the demonstration pulling the ring over his whole body when the other guy couldn't move it further down his chest.

Interestingly, at the end of the video he said he has only been practicing this for 20 years, which means he was of pretty good age already when he started.

[mickey]

Greetings LFJ,

Thank you for your assistance.

Twenty years? I guess he does not want the attention. What I really enjoyed was his ability to do a full forward split, a split done with the instep of the rear leg making full contact with the ground. While women can do that easily,one will seldom see men with that ability. Also, his body compression is really good. There is nothing sagging on him


mickey

[LFJ]

What I really enjoyed was his ability to do a full forward split, a split done with the instep of the rear leg making full contact with the ground. While women can do that easily,one will seldom see men with that ability.

Really? This is the way it is required in Shaolin, with the rear leg knee and instep down. It's often called a "true" frontsplit. If you do an open frontsplit with the rear leg knee and foot pointing outward, they will roll it over. I actually find it easier to do than an open frontsplit anyway.

[katana_jitsu]

In Takeshi style we do what's known as a 'double side split', in which you place your forehead on the floor, and then both legs split out backwards. I hope this helps.

[rett]

I believe this may be the same person I saw perform in Yan Shi (near Luoyang) at a martial arts performance in Fall 2010 on a public basketball court. He was the next-to-final act. I filmed his performance for a couple of minutes, but it's not a very good clip because of the angle.

A friend I was there with said he had performed in the Olympics show, and that he began training after retiring from his job. Ring a bell?

[katana_jitsu]

That sounds like Andrew Brookman - he started training in Takeshi style after retiring as an assassin for the yakuza.

[mickey]

Greetings,

LFJ, though the person in the photo has his instep down, he has his pelvis open. The older guy doesn't, making it more difficult. Nevertheless, training with the instep on the ground is a good thing. I thought I wrote "true" in my post and I was wondering why you were repeating me.

mickey

[LFJ]

LFJ, though the person in the photo has his instep down, he has his pelvis open. The older guy doesn't, making it more difficult.

In what way is his pelvis open? Looks pretty square to me. I don't know how you can have your knee and instep facing downward, yet have your pelvis open.

[mickey]

Hi,

His pelvis is turned slightly to the right. It is not the case with the older guy. This is what is so difficult about that particular split.

mickey

[GeneChing]

There's a vid after the link.

WATCH A KUNG FU MASTER SQUEEZING INTO TODDLER SHIRT IN DEMONSTRATION OF SUOGUGONG
Posted: Oct 17 2016, 2:50am CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr, in News | Also on the Geek Mind



Watch a Kung Fu Master Squeezing into Toddler Shirt in Demonstration of Suogugong
Credit: Xinhua

Meet the weirdest Kung Fu skill: Suogugong, the art of body shrinking.
If you think Kung Fu, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan come to mind. You would not imagine to see a Kung Fu master who shows off how he can squeeze into a toddler's shirt. Well here it is. Watch a Kung Fu master how he puts on a tiny shirt and even sticks beer bottles under it to demonstrate the art of Suogugong. Suogugong means body shrinking.

To make his body smaller, this Kung Fu master is dislocating his bones. According to Xinhua, well-known Kung Fu master Wang Baohe trained this rare Kung Fu skill over the past 60 years.

Watch below a performance of this weird Kung Fu skill. This definitely helps to sneak through small openings, but I am not sure what else it is good for in combat.

Kung fu means in Chinese any study, learning, or practice that requires patience, energy, and time to complete. Master Baohe's body-shrinking skill hits that original definition of Kung Fu head on. It wasn't until the late twentieth century, that Kung Fu was used mainly to refer to martial arts fighting.

[GeneChing]

Kung fu master seeks apprentice to pass on ancient martial arts tradition
Suogugong, or body shrinking, is one of the most challenging forms of kung fu
about 17 hours ago
Clifford Coonan in Beijing


Kung fu master Li Liangui at his home in Beijing. “This kind of kung fu is passed from generation to generation,” he says. Photograph: Clifford Coonan

Martial arts master Li Liangui, an expert in suogugong, or body shrinking kung fu, takes a deep breath and dislocates the bones in his arm before stretching it in a way that he insists is more painful to watch than it is to do.
There are scores of differing fighting styles that come under the heading of kung fu, but suogugong is one of the most arcane and most challenging. While the popular fighting style wushu is thriving as a hobby among China’s emerging middle class, Li, who has travelled the world to preach the message of kung fu, is worried that many traditional forms of martial arts are in danger of dying out, and he is struggling to find new students.
“The bones need to be flexible and small. This kind of kung fu is passed from generation to generation, but only a very small number of people can become the master of it, because it’s very painful to begin with,” says Li, a fresh-faced 70-year-old with a long wispy beard, as he pours tea in his airy Beijing apartment.
Dislocate
On the floor are weights and pictures of Li in action, holding a bar behind his head with his feet, doing the splits, lifting his leg high over his head as he sits on his mat, not the kind of activities you would normally expect of a retiree. After we speak for a while, we go into another room, where Li bends and picks up four dumbbells and dislocates his shoulder in the process, on purpose, so that it appears that it is the ligament that is holding the weight. It’s impressive, if startling.
“I’m looking for a student, because I’m worried this kind of kung fu will become extinct otherwise. The difficult thing is finding a student who is smart, who has a flexible and supple body, who also has good morals, as they can’t use kung fu to do bad things. So it’s quite hard to find someone who is suitably qualified,” he says.
Kung fu is immensely popular in China, and is seen as the apex of martial arts. Practitioners say other fighting arts, including karate, originated from kung fu. The most popular is Shaolin kung fu, which has more than a million learners around the world and many centres of Shaolin culture globally.
Painful process
However, suogugong requires a different kind of discipline, and learning it is a painful process and requires the kind of dedication that is more difficult to find these days in an increasingly materialistic society.
“Nowadays it’s difficult for parents to allow their children to follow this kind of path because they all want their children to go to college, and go abroad to study. But in my opinion, people need a skill and to find a perfect student and a perfect teacher, you need a perfect match,” says Li.
Although it looks gentle, suogugong includes strong martial elements, including kicking, wrestling, hitting and throwing. Some is based on contortion. He asks me to grab the skin on his upper chest, and then flexes his muscle, releasing the flesh.
“The person should ideally be younger than 20. It doesn’t matter if they are a man or a woman. Before you turn 20, your bones remain flexible. Many of the students I have taught have moved abroad now, but they haven’t really mastered. I have done videos to teach people, but it’s not the same as teaching a person face-to-face,” says Li.
Hong Kong actors such as Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, and mainland proponents including Jet Li, have done much to popularise kung fu on TV and in movies, but basically that style is the discipline that comes from the Shaolin monastery, found 96km west of Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province in central China.
“They popularised Chinese culture and attracted a lot of people to that kind of Shaolin kung fu,” says Li.
“That Shaolin style is very, very commercial, it’s basically a brand to sell a product. But actual kung fu requires a lot of work and dedication, and years of practice. The relationship between a teacher and the student is like that between a father and son, it’s very close,” he adds.
Even Shaolin kung fu faces problems. Many sign up to do it, attracted by the self-defence aspect, but few stay the course and practitioners bemoan the lack of dedication among young people taking up martial arts.
Li began at the age of seven in Beijing, when he was working in a materials shop for a master from Shandong province, who began to teach him as a way of encouraging better behaviour in the unruly child.
“My most important task is to pass this knowledge on, no matter where or to whom. I’ve done this all over the world, and have looked for a successor everywhere. The person just has to have a kind heart, the right body, because I’m at this age and this is my biggest challenge, to make sure this does not die out with my generation,” says Li.
“That would be a big regret, a great loss.”

Who is going to pick up this gauntlet?

[BSL-Chris]

I agree with him completely that many of the lesser known arts are dying out and that society seems in whole to of turned its back on the traditional rigors of Kung Fu practice I know in the near 20 years training I've seen a major dip in students because people would rather develop there PS4 Kung Fu