Shou Shu - real or another made-up melange?

[apoweyn]

Hello, this will be my first and last post to this forum. I am a busy man and as I am sure my post will be met with much discussion I would rather spend my spare time practicing my mongoose (something you will never have the opportunity to know or see ) than arguing what is to me a mute point.

1) excellent. disappearing afterward circumvents the pesky need to address any questions, comments, or concerns that might arise from these discussions. handy, that.

2) "something you will never have the opportunity to know or see" good grief. how old are you? this sounds precisely like, "i'm taking my ball and going home." why bother chiming in at all if you're going to say things like this and then bugger off?

3) it's a moot point.

I cannot prove the validity of the art that I study and teach on a forum, nor can you disprove it. I will not spend the hours it would need to explain our history.Much of this history is not even known by our own students, why should we discuss it with you.

you're right that you can't really convince anyone of the validity of your art over the internet. but that doesn't mean you can't substantiate history. history is argued over such media all the time. surely you're capable of citing sources, etc. over the internet.

"i will not spend the hours... " ah. here we go then. it's not that the medium makes it impossible. you just aren't willing. and that's fine. you don't really owe us anything. but call a spade a spade.

much of the history isn't even known to the students. so why should you tell us? i don't know, chief. no real reason, i suppose. but this whole veil of secrecy bit leaves you a lot of wiggle room when it comes to facts. even your own students aren't properly equipped to determine the validity of their style's history. that's seriously suspect. essentially, you're eliminating their chance to make fully informed decisions.

Soy, I notice that your profile does not tell us your city of residence.

mine does. what of it?

Stealing is not a quality I would attribute to a martial artist. Please do not steal my pictures or plagiarize my website.

it's not really stealing or plagiarizing if it's cited, is it. it wasn't presented as original material. it was attributed to you and your organization. hardly stealing.

I have spent many years training in Shou Shu. In my early years, my curiosity got to me and I spent much time investigating other arts. I went to tournaments, demonstrations, attended classes and took it to the streets. I have now decided that this is a waste of my time. Now they come to me and I try to be as polite as possible but I show them the way. I can imagine how hard it is for people who have trained all of their lives to realize that they have wasted their time.

"show them the way" have i mentioned lately how thoroughly fed up i am with analogies about 'ways', 'paths', 'roads', 'highways', and 'byways'?

"I can imagine how hard it is for people who have trained all of their lives to realize that they have wasted their time." beautiful. because that's precisely what you're doing. belief preservation. you defend your own beliefs and choices. we all do. now, we can't accurately say whether you've wasted your time. hell, even if your style wasn't worth anything, if you'd enjoyed the process, it still couldn't be described as a waste of time. but understand that you're involved in precisely the same process. you're not immune.

The secrets of Shou Shu are not seen unless you have Eyes for them. In investigating other arts it is obvious to me that most of the things that they do have origins in something useful and real. However they are ussually so diluted to be innefective. Most forms of kung fu have lost the why and the truth although it is there hidden. You , most likely do not know what you are looking at. It is not your fault, it has been lost in most arts.

here's another of those built-in safety buffers. like the history that not even your own students know. the secrets of X are only known to those who are ready. handily alleviates the need to actually back up any of your assertions. if we don't 'get' it (read: agree with you), it's only because we don't 'have eyes' for it.

I'm afraid that one cannot explain the sea to a well frog.

analogies. last bastion of a weak argument. we're not well frogs. we're reasoning human beings. don't blame us for your unwillingness to provide us with more information.

Yes, we do some of the Kempo techniques, but as someone on this forum has already stated, the technique is not the art. The technique is the most basic level of learning. It is only a starting point.

what that person said was that the principles make the art. then, when questioned further, he was unable (or unwilling) to go into further detail about the principles involved. so would you be willing to discuss, specifically, the difference?

If my Da' shifu were to one day come to me and say that the history was all a lie. He got the art from a magic gumball machine or made it up. I would inly train harder in it. For then I would consider him more of a genius than I already do. It has saved my life and the lives of others too.

a genius that willfully mislead you? you wouldn't resent that at all?

As far as the sword form goes. Brandon Lei (sp?) taught that to us. Really, as with most of that a bit to showy for our taste. The way he constantly says "Charisma, charisma " What has that got to do with fighting. I don't understand. Some of our shifu's have converted it to our motion. I saw that one of the posts noticed this. It is different, he has taken out the flashy BS.

could you go into further detail about this 'motion'?

We have had other Masters come to teach us also. We alwys find that they have litlle or nothing to teach. ASk a certain Swai Chou (sp?) master who was bested on his own terms at his own art by one of our junior black belts after a seminar on the topic.

that would be a whole lot easier if you had provided the name of said shuai chiao master. (and shouldn't you know how to spell these things? da'shifu knows enough to correct these masters on their own styles. but his second in command can't even spell them? that seems odd to me.)

Masters have flown from China and Japan to study from Da' Shifu. He is knowledgeable enough to corect them in their own arts and I have seen this.

again, i'd want to talk to the masters who've been 'corrected.' get their opinion of that. see whether anyone else considers them masters.

I am sorry that you train without seeing. It is unfortunate that most of you will spend your life learning an art which has lost it's fighting ability over the years. I'm certain that at one time in history it was taught well, else it would not still exist.

right. we disagree with you. therefore, we train without seeing. that follows.

Shou Shu has worked for me with extreme efficiency. I have been attacked on the street by multiple opponents ( 8 on 2 ) who had weapons and meant to do me great harm. They were hospitalized and I'm sure many have injuries which will never heal properly. I am sorry for that but my life was threatened. I am thankful for my abilities.

if that's true, then i'm glad for you. but i think that the history and presentation is the biggest issue here. if it's essentially modified kempo, then why not market it as such. why this stuff about mandarin princes?


stuart b.