im not familiar with any of them so im not going argue about them. i am familiar with longfist systems and i had lots of friends in my hometown who trained different stuff.
im familiar with the pattern and structure of northern marital art memnonics and codewords especially ones fro my region, so i have the authority.
[QUOTE=bawang;1119105]if you read that other guys post a few pages before, he was obviously talking down to shandong kanjiaquan with disrespect, and exaggerating the history and worth of beishaolin.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know about that. I think it’s more of you supporting the idea that BSL came from Kanjiaquan and others disagreeing with that. Personally I have no dam idea. However I don’t pick on styles. There is no exaggeration of worth, however.
[QUOTE=bawang;1119105]
that guy said the lyrics in bsl are older, so i am saying post them and give proof. i am familiar with martial art code words, especially from my region so i have the authority to decide.[/QUOTE]
I see. Now that would make sense. I have no idea of the aging of the lyrics and know next to nothing about Kanjiaquan.
i dont care about kanjiaquan. i want the lyrics to compare, instead of having that guy bragging with no proof. that guy has been acting smug for a long time, talking about wondering monks and secret rebels bs.
i 200% respect bsl. what i dont respect is people with wing chun syndrome.
[QUOTE=bawang;1119114]…snip… is people with wing chun syndrome.[/QUOTE]
I have no idea what that means but it sounds funny as hell lol 
originally posted by bawang
[I]post the lyrics for beishaolin and kanjiaquan and i will tell you which one is older, then you dont have to guess or theorize.
the boxer rebels still have people training meihuaquan an hours drive from funing county, but no one has heard of bei shaolin. in real life you can pretend your kung fu is super special and unique, but dont try to tell me that, because im from the hometown of your kung fu great grandaddy.[/I]
Oh, excuse me Mr. Scholar! I guess it was the picture of those guys having butt sex in your posts that made it hard for me to take you seriously.
And like I was saying, no one in China has heard of the tank man either because the government has deleted any mention of him on the web. What does that say about the country as a whole? That would be like people in the U.S. not knowing that the Kent State shootings had ever happened or that there was a video of Rodney King being beaten. If people don’t even know about something like that then it’s no surprise they don’t know who Gu Ru Zhang was. That’s just sad.
Do you get it, your country’s martial history is largely missing because your government used to kill and imprison people for practicing kung fu. When they let everyone start training again most styles had been standardized and modified. There’s even a “standard” version of Hung Gar now that’s quite different from the style people were doing since Wong Fei Hung. I’ll bet people there don’t even know that. So now you’re an authority on changquan? What “standardized” longfist styles do you know?
[QUOTE=Siu Lum Fighter;1119165]
Do you get it, your country’s martial history is largely missing because your government used to kill and imprison people for practising kung fu. When they let everyone start training again most styles had been standardized and modified. There’s even a “standard” version of Hung Gar now that’s quite different from the style people were doing since Wong Fei Hung. I’ll bet people there don’t even know that. So don’t act like some kind of authority on changquan. What “standardized” longfist styles do you know?[/QUOTE]
Government censorship and suppression does not make your version any more legitimate. We are just supposed to take your word for it that your oral history is the accurate one? How pretentious. Word of mouth is not historical fact whether trying to assert a connection between Kan Jia and Bak Siu Lum by comparison of kou jue or claiming that Gu Yu Cheong was treated like a celebrity because you’ve been told he was.
People get too obsessed with all these minute historical details and persecution complexes try to trace lineages back to mythical Ming loyalist societies. Or tracing every movement of a form back to its origin trying to learn 8 different versions of Hong Quan with all the quasi mystical theoretical trappings that only serve to muddle what is in all likelihood an already overly complicated practice. Gong Fu is simple. Gong ma pu xu xie, shou yan shen fa bu, jing qi shen. Does your practice add value to your life? Does it seem authentic to you? Good. Why all this desperately public need for legitimacy?
You may be overestimating the effectiveness of the Cultural Revolution and historical censorship while underestimating the wealth of extant documentation not to mention the ability of cultural practices to survive even in the midst of extreme oppression. The suppression of one recent highly political news event does not erase what is the most historically documented continually existing civilization in human history.
[QUOTE=Siu Lum Fighter;1119165]
And like I was saying, no one in China has heard of the tank man either because the government has deleted any mention of him on the web. What does that say about the country as a whole? [/QUOTE]
Many hundreds of people died in Tiananmen, all with family members and guanxi, who ALL survive and know about it. I’ve met scores of people who know about that day, including young people, INSIDE the PRC. Only Western news has so empowered censorship in China(at least in idea) that they believe the Chinese themselves don’t know about these things. I saw one documentary about how little the Chinese know about that, and, in the interviews, Chinese students clue each other in(in Mandarin) on the footage being from that year. They can pin it down to a year, and likely know about the rival general involved, whereas most Americans cannot tell the first, and even the well educated often don’t know the second.
And Chinese people aren’t exactly unaware of what a proxy server is, or which of their friends knows how to find one.
the communist government tolerates anti white, anti communist boxer rebels and let them build community centers, but bsl is too hardcore. thats why no one has heard of bsl in china, because it was so hardcore it had to be banned.
and since i am brain washed chinaman i cant know anything about kung fu from my very own hometown. third generation cantonese and white dudes who cant speak chinese know better than me.
this makes perfect sense
originally posted by bawang
[I]i dont care about kanjiaquan. i want the lyrics to compare, instead of having that guy bragging with no proof. that guy has been acting smug for a long time, talking about wondering monks and secret rebels bs.
i 200% respect bsl. what i dont respect is people with wing chun syndrome.[/I]
Which version of Kanjiaquan’s lyrics did you want to compare? The one with 13 hand forms or the one that was mentioned earlier with 10 hand forms? I would assume the one with 10 since that’s the number of forms that have been in BSL since time immemorial.
And I once again want to emphasize that I’m not putting anyone’s style down. You were the one who said BSL had “major faults”. It’s just as insulting to say that the history of Bak Siu Lum is completely bunk and that either Gu Ru Zhang or Yim Chi Wen just made the whole thing up and therefore lied to their disciples. The whole reason there’s now this connection between Kanjiaquan and BSL is because some Kanjiaquan people pointed to some old book and claimed that Gu Ru Zhang’s teacher, Yim Chi Wen, was a younger classmate of Yang Xiushan even though the characters are slightly different! This theory is obviously false and it doesn’t fit with any of the histories told in any of the BSL schools around the world.
originally posted by wenshu
[I]Government censorship and suppression does not make your version any more legitimate. We are just supposed to take your word for it that your oral history is the accurate one? How pretentious. Word of mouth is not historical fact whether trying to assert a connection between Kan Jia and Bak Siu Lum by comparison of kou jue or claiming that Gu Yu Cheong was treated like a celebrity because you’ve been told he was.
People get too obsessed with all these minute historical details and persecution complexes try to trace lineages back to mythical Ming loyalist societies. Or tracing every movement of a form back to its origin trying to learn 8 different versions of Hong Quan with all the quasi mystical theoretical trappings that only serve to muddle what is in all likelihood an already overly complicated practice. Gong Fu is simple. Gong ma pu xu xie, shou yan shen fa bu, jing qi shen. Does your practice add value to your life? Does it seem authentic to you? Good. Why all this desperately public need for legitimacy?
You may be overestimating the effectiveness of the Cultural Revolution and historical censorship while underestimating the wealth of extant documentation not to mention the ability of cultural practices to survive even in the midst of extreme oppression. The suppression of one recent highly political news event does not erase what is the most historically documented continually existing civilization in human history.[/I]
It’s also pretentious to all of a sudden claim that what’s been written and orally transmitted about Bak Siu Lum is false because of some flimsy, half-baked evidence. And what, Gu Ru Zhang wasn’t famous? That whole story about “the five tigers who headed south,” no one’s heard of that? His killing horses with his iron palm and defending Chinese honor? Americans had heard about him all the way back in the 60’s because Bruce Lee mentioned him in his books. It’s not word of mouth, I’m talking about well documented facts. I don’t need to seek legitimacy for all of this stuff, it was already considered legitimate before people started making claims that me and other Bak Siu Lum practitioners couldn’t agree with. What’s the point of this thread if we can’t debate this?
And there weren’t even that many specific documents about longfist styles before WWII and The Cultural Revolution. You’re going to tell me there’s a “wealth” of it now? Even after they burned every book they could find and leveled all of the libraries? That’s a fact too.
[QUOTE=Siu Lum Fighter;1119208]It’s also pretentious to all of a sudden claim that what’s been written and orally transmitted about Bak Siu Lum is false because of some flimsy, half-baked evidence. And what, Gu Ru Zhang wasn’t famous? That whole story about “the five tigers who headed south,” no one’s heard of that? His killing horses with his iron palm and defending Chinese honor? Americans had heard about him all the way back in the 60’s because Bruce Lee mentioned him in his books. It’s not word of mouth, I’m talking about well documented facts. I don’t need to seek legitimacy for all of this stuff, it was already considered legitimate before people started making claims that me and other Bak Siu Lum practitioners couldn’t agree with. What’s the point of this thread if we can’t debate this?
And there weren’t even that many specific documents about longfist styles before WWII and The Cultural Revolution. You’re going to tell me there’s a “wealth” of it now? Even after they burned every book they could find and leveled all of the libraries? That’s a fact too.[/QUOTE]
You cite myths and legends as your evidence. Myths and legends that you have a vested interest in perpetuating. I don’t have a dog in this fight just pointing out that what you claim as evidence is just as flimsy as what your are bemoaning.
I was speaking about Chinese history in general as a counter to your apparent esteem for the ability of the Cultural Revolution to utterly destroy history.
Whats the big deal about Kan Jia Quan anyways? Why is speculating about a connection anathema to your worldview?
I haven’t even started being pretentious and trust me it is not something you want to see because I am exceptionally fucking good at it.
originally posted by wenshu
[I]You cite myths and legends as your evidence. Myths and legends that you have a vested interest in perpetuating. I don’t have a dog in this fight just pointing out that what you claim as evidence is just as flimsy as what your are bemoaning.
I was speaking about Chinese history in general as a counter to your apparent esteem for the ability of the Cultural Revolution to utterly destroy history.
Whats the big deal about Kan Jia Quan anyways? Why is speculating about a connection anathema to your worldview?
I haven’t even started being pretentious and trust me it is not something you want to see because I am exceptionally ****ing good at it. [/I]
I wasn’t necessarily saying you were being pretentious but some of these other jokers are saying I’m bragging about my style and such just because I don’t agree with the new theories about where Bak Siu Lum came from. I’m not just using “myths and legends” to support my side either. Gu Ru Zhang was a real historical figure. His claims about his style were recorded by his disciples and others. The actual men he learned from were part of a lineage of masters that were famous in their own right. Sure, when one goes back to about the early 1800’s and late 1700’s some of this stuff starts to sound like tall tales but much of it still has some element of truth to it.
What we’re really debating is the actual history of Bei Shaolin and Kanjiaquan based on historical facts and not the legends and tall tales. That’s the “big deal” here. Again, what’s the whole point of having a thread called “BSL vs. SSSL” if we’re not going to discuss this. Why do you try to paint me out to be an obsessive weirdo when that’s the whole point of having a forum. Why are you posting here?
And fine, I’m not saying the Cultural Revolution utterly destroyed China’s history but it can’t be denied that it did a hell of a lot of damage. You can’t just ignore the significance of that.
The facts concerning who Gu Ru Zhang’s teacher, Yim Chi Wen, learned from are somewhat debatable but the most accepted version, the one that lists Yim Po was documented by men like Hsu Szu Ya in New Martial Hero #1, HK 1972, and by Yim Shan Wu (disciple of Kuo Yu Cheong) and Hwang Ken Wang in Martial Arts Association Limited, August 1970, Hong Kong Chinese Martial Arts Association Limited. Some think it was Wan Pang Tsai but theres no real evidence for that.
The research done by Sal Canzonieri in the late eighties or early nineties (?) was what yielded this theory that Yim Chi Wen was a younger classmate of Yang Xiushan. It has been debated that the character used for Yim Chi Wens name is not the same as how it was usually written and besides that the two styles have drastic differences. I’m not saying they couldn’t be loosely related, but it shouldn’t be set in stone that that is the style that should be considered Bak Siu Lum’s ancestor. In the face of such questionable evidence, why couldn’t we say Kanjiaquan came from Bak Siu Lum? Just in this thread alone it’s been pointed out that there’s a version of Kanjiaquan with 10 forms and not the 13 that were recorded when Sal first did his research.
I think because Sals research seems to have been done with Shaolin Temples blessing, people tend to want to think, “that’s it, it’s set in stone, no more need for debate.” But Sal didnt even discuss any of this with Bak Siu Lum schools outside the country. Maybe because he felt that most schools listing Yim Po as Yim Chi Wens teacher and not Yang Xiushan’s teacher could just be brushed aside. I actually cant even find the name of Yang Xiushans teacher any where on the net. Maybe someone can enlighten me?
[QUOTE=Siu Lum Fighter;1119416] Gu Ru Zhang was a real historical figure. His claims about his style were recorded by his disciples and others. The actual men he learned from were part of a lineage of masters that were famous in their own right. Sure, when one goes back to about the early 1800’s and late 1700’s some of this stuff starts to sound like tall tales but much of it still has some element of truth to it.
[/QUOTE]
You are right. In the villages of the time there were a lot of so called ‘big fish’ in small ponds. In the larger cities of the time however, specially in larger coastal cities such as Shanghai, no one could hide. Gu Ru Zhang was a well known contender in that bigger arena. The man had, and has more credibility than the village styles that are being reconstructed in China today . . .which is, if what we are seeing online any indication, rather thin.
cheers,
r.
[QUOTE=Siu Lum Fighter;1119416]I wasn’t necessarily saying you were being pretentious but some of these other jokers are saying I’m bragging about my style and such just because I don’t agree with the new theories about where Bak Siu Lum came from. I’m not just using “myths and legends” to support my side either. Gu Ru Zhang was a real historical figure. His claims about his style were recorded by his disciples and others. The actual men he learned from were part of a lineage of masters that were famous in their own right. Sure, when one goes back to about the early 1800’s and late 1700’s some of this stuff starts to sound like tall tales but much of it still has some element of truth to it.
What we’re really debating is the actual history of Bei Shaolin and Kanjiaquan based on historical facts and not the legends and tall tales. That’s the “big deal” here. Again, what’s the whole point of having a thread called “BSL vs. SSSL” if we’re not going to discuss this. Why do you try to paint me out to be an obsessive weirdo when that’s the whole point of having a forum. Why are you posting here?
And fine, I’m not saying the Cultural Revolution utterly destroyed China’s history but it can’t be denied that it did a hell of a lot of damage. You can’t just ignore the significance of that.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Siu Lum Fighter;1119421]The facts concerning who Gu Ru Zhang’s teacher, Yim Chi Wen, learned from are somewhat debatable but the most accepted version, the one that lists Yim Po was documented by men like Hsu Szu Ya in New Martial Hero #1, HK 1972, and by Yim Shan Wu (disciple of Kuo Yu Cheong) and Hwang Ken Wang in Martial Arts Association Limited, August 1970, Hong Kong Chinese Martial Arts Association Limited. Some think it was Wan Pang Ts’ai but there’s no real evidence for that.
The research done by Sal Canzonieri in the late eighties or early nineties (?) was what yielded this theory that Yim Chi Wen was a younger classmate of Yang Xiushan. It has been debated that the character used for Yim Chi Wen’s name is not the same as how it was usually written and besides that the two styles have drastic differences. I’m not saying they couldn’t be loosely related, but it shouldn’t be set in stone that that is the style that should be considered Bak Siu Lum’s ancestor. In the face of such questionable evidence, why couldn’t we say Kanjiaquan came from Bak Siu Lum? Just in this thread alone it’s been pointed out that there’s a version of Kanjiaquan with 10 forms and not the 13 that were recorded when Sal first did his research.
I think because Sal’s research seems to have been done with Shaolin Temple’s blessing, people tend to want to think, “that’s it, it’s set in stone, no more need for debate.” But Sal didn’t even discuss any of this with Bak Siu Lum schools outside the country. Maybe because he felt that most schools listing Yim Po as Yim Chi Wen’s teacher and not Yang Xiushan’s teacher could just be brushed aside. I actually can’t even find the name of Yang Xiushan’s teacher any where on the net. Maybe someone can enlighten me?[/QUOTE]
Fair enough. I was not trying dispute the man’s existence or cast aspersions on BSL, it appeared to me that you were disputing the historical veracity of other’s claims while justifying your position with myths and legends of questionable origins. I will say that I view Sal’s research with the same skepticism that I view students recitation of the stories they’ve been told as if historical record. Unfortunately we do not have much more to rely on than word of mouth; even extant records are only someone’s word.
So I guess it’s settled then. Based on all of the evidence presented, it can be deduced that Bak Siu Lum and Kanjiaquan are related only in that they are both Shaolin related styles.
Now, it’s still my opinion that if one style came from another then it is Kanjiaquan that was based on some early version of Bak Siu Lum. This probably would’ve happened within the last 200 years or so. For those of you who might jump all over me for saying this, realize that I have a right to my opinion and I’m not trying to claim that one style is superior to another. If it came down to it though, probably every other Bak Siu Lum school in the world except maybe the ones (or the one that I know of) in mainland China and, as ginosifu said, every sifu who came out of the Jing Wu era would agree about which is older.
I would also like to mention that if Kanjiaquan had been related to Bak Siu Lum all along, then why wasn’t there ANY mention of this in any record anywhere before the 1980’s? There’s barely any mention of Kanjiaquan by anyone before this time and it was a totally obscure village style before it was all of a sudden discovered and propped up as Bak Siu Lum’s predecessor. Bak Siu Lum, on the other hand, was famous before WWII and there was never any mention of a relation to Kanjiaquan in any way. Bak Siu Lum (or Bei Shaolin) was the only style that was referred to as “Northern Shaolin” and along with styles like Preying Mantis, Eagle Claw, and Mi Tsung Lohan, it was believed to have originated at the temple itself. Then came the massive upheaval of war and The Cultural Revolution when even Buddhists were persecuted. Now you’re going to tell me that I should recognize Kanjiaquan as BSL’s predecessor when it never was before during the time when there would have been more evidence to draw from? I don’t think so.