I will be posting all of the lyrics I have translated from Bak Sil Lum on this forum over the next few weeks. I hope everyone enjoys them. If you have a different version of these lyrics, I hope that this encourages you to post them on this thread and share them with our online Northern Shaolin famliy here. These lyrics were passed down to me by my BSL Sifu Kwong Wing Lam
I am offering this to generate more traffic to our forum, so if you quote these, please have the good courtesy to reference us, and do share them with your Shaolin friends!
We’ll start at the beginning…
LIN BO KIN (Practice footwork)
Yin yang hands facing each other.
Grabbing hand, palm chop.
Turn around, open the door hand technique.
Following step, straight (Chinese character “sun”) punch.
Chopping hand under the arm pit.
Immortal carries firewood with a yoke.
Break hand grip, palm push.
Grabbing hand, hammer strike.
Horse stance, double palm pushing down.
Open hand, thread through, block, strike to the head.
As a side note:
This set was not always part of NSL’s curriculum. KYC picked this set when he became part of the Five Tigers from the North who went south. It was Wan Li Sheng who was the head of the Central National Arts Provinces Schools who requested the other four tigers to assist Wang Shao Chou to set up a standard martial arts program for Kwangsi and Kwangtung schools. Together they decided to adopted Wu Chih Sheng’s Lin Bo Chuan as the standard basic set. This is how Lien Bo became part of KYC’s NSL curriculum.
I was one of my first kungfu books acquired in China. Found by pure luck, I just opened it and there was the first kungfu form I learned. You know, I should dig that one out again and see if the lyrics match.
Your BSL history concurs with what I heard. I guess it’s still a big military set like Chung-i-chuan.
If memory serves, didn’t Yang Jwingming cover this one in his shaolin book? It was also published somewhere else, in an old unique or ohara book.
Some people call them ‘names’ or ‘poems’ even ‘songs.’ The proper title in mandarin would be chengyu, but usually that refers specifically to 4 character sets. Lyrics just works the best for me.
Hey that is pretty cool. I just sat here and did the form in my mind while reading each line.
That is the same Lien Bo Chuan form I was taught!
Is the form in Yang Jwing Mings book different? I remember a friend had that book, “Shaolin Long Fist” I think it’s called and it had a Lien Bo form in it. But for some reason I remember it being different than the one lyricised above.
As does many others - Lin Bo is a pretty common form, so there are many manifestations. Bryant Fong has sort of a wushu twist to his version, with some flashy kicks added around move 25.
And I love doing kungfu while sitting on my butt - aint’ that what the forum’s all about?
This Set was also called Lien Po from the Lineage of lung Chi Cheung, Johnny So, Kenneth Hui, Steve Baugh or the Las Vegas Lohans, which was my first teacher. I teach both versions Lien Bo Chuan to my students. They are similar forms, but DEFINETLY have some differences.
Originally posted by Kung Lek
[B]Hey that is pretty cool. I just sat here and did the form in my mind while reading each line.
peace [/B]
:eek: :eek: woah me too!Though the form might have been different in my mind I just read it and I could picture almost every move even though I don’t practice the style.
Hey you know what? This gave me an idea. I’m going to get a friend of mine’s to read it and try to make moves to how he sees it and I’ll do the same. At the end we’ll compare what we came out with. It’s going to be pretty interesting.
I recently had a chance to check out Dr. Yang’s Longfist book.
The Lin bo kin form I learned in BSL is different from Yang’s Lien Bu Chuan form. The stances, sequence of moves, they’re all different.
There are similarities in the 2 forms, like the yin/yang move at the beginning, and a few other techniques. But they seem to be performed differently in the book.
There was probably some kind of influence or fusion with both versions…what came first, the chicken or the egg? Who knows. But all I know is that they are 2 totally different forms.
As for the name variation, it’s the same characters, just different romanization. Lin Bo Kin (or Lien Bo Kuen) is a typical Cnatonese derived spelling, in pinyin mandarin it would be lianbuquan.
If memory serves, our version was pretty loyal to that old book I have. I must find that again and look through it.
I found a missing lyric. I have consulted several Northern Teachers/Masters and they also said it was not there, But that it is in the set when practised
Originally posted by GeneChing
[B]
LIN BO KIN (Practice footwork)
Yin yang hands facing each other.
Grabbing hand, palm chop.
Turn around, open the door hand technique.
Following step, straight (Chinese character “sun”) punch.
Chopping hand under the arm pit.
Immortal carries firewood with a yoke.
Break hand grip, palm push.
Willow hand strike, palm chop
Grabbing hand, hammer strike.
Horse stance, double palm pushing down.
Open hand, thread through, block, strike to the head.
There are some omissions in the lyric sets I have, as well a few extra moves and redundancies. When I pointed them out to Sifu Lam, he just shrugged. We do practice that move within the set, but it’s name is omitted from our lyric list. Sometimes this was done to maintain poetic rhythm (read Dante’s Inferno for more on this) but my understanding is that the lyrics I have are not particularly poetic, so I have no idea why the omissions. Bad note taking on behalf of our ancestors perhaps. FWIW, my Sifu hand copied his list of lyrics into a ledger book one night when his teacher let him borrow it (before xerox came to HK you know) so he might have made an omission there.
Do you have the Chinese or are you creating the name from the moves of the form?
I made them from the movements! I just named it from similar movements that were already in the set. I just got the chinese lyrics yesterday!! I’ll be going over those next (with someone who can read Chinese of course)!!
[QUOTE=GeneChing;163939]As does many others - Lin Bo is a pretty common form, so there are many manifestations. Bryant Fong has sort of a wushu twist to his version, with some flashy kicks added around move 25.
And I love doing kungfu while sitting on my butt - aint’ that what the forum’s all about? :p[/QUOTE]
was gonna ask the same question, Dr. Yang’s variation was the first I saw of it, and in mandarin lol, Lian Bu Quan. Ironically I had Sifu Lam’s Moi Fah book at the same time, and never made the connection between them having similar curriculum in terms of classical BSL. Also had not made the distinction between BSL and Songshan curriculum at the time. I was streaming all “Northern Shaolin” under the same umbrella. South Shaolin was Hung Gar only to me back then also. So it all made sense later why I gravitated toward certain teachers in my seeking, and strayed away from others. I’m thankful for Sifu Lam, and Dr. Yang for sharing the way they do.
Now speaking of sitting on the butt kung fu training lol, I’m seriously gonna go train now
Reading Shaolin Trips early on you make a clear description of how the kids in Shaolin village train (24/7), as opposed to the western hobbyist. Since reading that part of the book, I’m trying my best to train more frequently at any chance I can, rather than just a specific time of day.
and I know I will be tested.
