I hear a lot about the big name Martial Arts, but there are rarely many posts about some of the closed door Arts: Bak Mei, Bak Fu Pai, Plum Flower…
I am curious about the rest of the communities opinions on these. Of course, it is generally hard to get authentic training in them due to the fact that most are closed door.
What are your thoughts?
For the record, I feel that closed-door Bak Mei is a different art than the public White Eyebrow.
different how?
We may be talking about two different strikes as I do not study Bak Mei.
this is from your other post. How does this make you qualified to judge? Not trying to be a jerk, I’m just curious.
I am only qualified based only on what I have seen. I am far from a an expert, but when I caught a glimpse of closed door Bak Mei, it was different from the forms and sparring I witnessed at tournaments.
Who and where are the “closed door” bak mei you have seen?
and who and where are the public bak mei you have seen?
Both were in California.
I was hoping for a different feel to this thread. I apoligize if I offended anyone. Let’s try to change the scope of the thread. How about this:
Does anyone feel that there are Martial Arts that have different Closed-Door and public styles.
From my previous posts, you know my opinion. I am sure my training is different now than it would be if I were a closed-door disciple of a grandmaster. Any thoughts?
i do believe that some styles are taught differently in closed door environments than in public. by that i also want to say that i think the modern idea that all info is public and that there are no secrets anymore is a bit foolish.
that being said, it would stand to reason that a performance in public would be markedly different than actual authentic forms and application. if you had something worth having, why would you give it away in public for free?
D
Here is a question whose contemplation brings up what I consider to be issues related to this discussion. Consider a hypothetical “master”, i.e., someone whose kung fu is sublimely good. Suppose he/she knew a top secret super b@d@ss pattern, and further, suppose that it contains the most advanced principles of this hypothetical kung fu. Now, say that some person sneaks up on the master unawares and video tapes him/her performing this pattern. Then, the sneaker goes home and practices the pattern until it looks just like the master performing it. Would the sneaker have the master’s kung fu? What things can be kept secret? What things need to be kept secret? What things can be kept secret or not because it matters little either way? Why does it not matter? Oh god, I sound like a fortune cookie! Help!
Kung fu is taught systematically as is any field of study.
medicine as an example is taught the same way.
There are things you learn early that allow you to build further knowledge upon the fundaments.
it is a mistaken assumption to presume there are secrets in knowledge. These "secrets are just things you haven’t been shown yet, but others have the information and therefore it is not “secret”.
many martial arts contain a great deal of their primary knowledge in the fundaments, with refinments to those fundaments that come with practiced technique in it’s many forms and drills and augmentation or supplemental exercises.
back to medicine, at a health fair you won’t see open heart surgery performed for the public but you will see an assortment of the essentials. you are still going to need to spend the eight or so years in practice before you can actually perform an open heart surgery. This information is reserved for those med students who carry on through the whole system. and even afterwards improvements are made to technique and distributred to the surgeons through various seminars or study sabaticals that drs will take to keep current.
now let’s say you watch an open heart surgery on tv, does that mean you can now perform it? No, but it does give you an idea of what’s going on and the subject is no longer “secret” in context to your own personal knowledge.
open and closed dorr designations are another way of developing a student inside the framework of a system. The system has spent many years in development in the aims of achieving a system that is whole and complex in it’s breadth and depth of knowledge and principles.
just because you can fight doesn’t mean you can do it with form and technique.
There are plenty of flailers out there who have won plenty of fights. But would you learn from that person or would you learn in the framework of a system?
Many assume that they can know things because they have been shown to them, but they mistakenly make this assumption because they have not spent adequate time developing the muscle memory required to do the technique properly.
My si fu told me that “showing and teaching” are 2 completely different things. A Si Hing will show you how, a Si Fu will teach you how and why.
Be patient, stick with your studies until you have confidence and then move on to the next line of study in the art.
Generally your Si Fu will know when you are ready to learn something new. That something new may be in the system at the “closed door” level and no longer in the “open door” level.
peace
I think the terms to use are "Yub Moon Dai Ji " (Entered Door Disciple) and “Yub Sut Dai Ji” (Entered Chamber Disciple). Some people translated them as Inner Door Disciples and Inner Chamber Disciples. They have the connotation of entering further into the inner core or the essence of a system.
In Choy Lee Fut, we have a term called “Noi Lim Sou”, meaning Inside of Curtain Hands as compare to “Ngoi Lim Sou”, meaning Outside of Curtain Hands. Again, the idea is that there are things easily seen and there are things hidden from view. It will take someone more experienced to show you the inner working of a system.
“Open Door” and “Closed Door” give an impression that there are secrets one is not allow to know or to enter. Strictly speaking, there is no such terms in CMA. IMHO, loose translations will often lead to misunderstanding.
strangecaptain
“Oh god, I sound like a fortune cookie! Help!”
ROTF!
Helps on the way!!
See ya tomorrow!
sf-
I’m having a little difficulty understanding what you posted.
can you please clarify what you mean regarding “secrets”?
I personally don’t think there are any secrets to Kung fu, just acquire knowledge and practice application of the knowledge.
The Knowledge is available in a myriad of places in this day and age and therefore “no secrets”.
Not to mention, much has been exposed to people for a very long time now.
Learning and practicing and the impetus and motivation to do so are the only things that hold back a potential studenmt of martial arts these days.
That and access to the information. But I do not think there are any “secrets” to martial arts. Just a lack of being exposed to knowledge.
peace
Concise Oxford Dictionary: Secret - "Kept private, not to be made known or exposed, abstain from revealing, thing only known to a limited number - amoung the number of those allowed to know it
Ergo - techniques, sets, training methodologies reserved for those students who have earned the trust of their sifu ie. closed door student.
True, many secrets have been brought out, but much of it is only the outer shell without the depth of the knowledge. To really gain the knowledge and complete information (and skills), one must still be taught by a qualified sifu.
During external practices the secret of success lies in constant observance of the principle “Toil and Persistency”. All the men who reached the top in the Shaolin practices got their high abilities in hard toil and reached successes only after a lot of regular exercises. One must rely only on his diligence. If you are not persistent in your heart, you will abandon your training half a way and loose what you have obtained during your practice.
One needs determination, and certainly one needs a good teacher. But without that self determination to succeed one cannot achieve Kung Fu.
peace
They are both equally important so u can reach ur full potential. One without the other is just wasting 1 of the persons time.
A man can practice a whole life time and not gain much skill if he is not shown the way. That is why a good teacher is the most important aspect. But without persistance, the student will not gain much from the teachers instruction because he does not stick with it to gain the skill and to gain more training.
Besides, the question was not gaining skill, but rather your (kung Lek) statement that there are no ‘secrets’ in kung fu knowledge. I provided a definition of a ‘secret’. Since sifu do not just give their knowledge away, but a student has to earn it and if not earned the teacher keeps it to himself - ergo - it is secret according to the Oxford definition.
When we get to a certain level, the only way to move forward is to have a one to one or small group tuition from our teachers. Everyone makes slightly different mistakes or bad habits, sometimes it is only a fraction of an inch in our posture or the wrong breathing method, so without this exclusive environment, we will find it hard to make personal progress at the highest level, hence the need for “inside door†and “inner chamber†discipleship.
It is not that the teacher withholds secrets from us by making the class difference; it is just that he or she needs the proper environment to reveal to us what is holding us back from making the breakthrough. Large group classes are only good for general instructions; we all need small group tuition to make real personal progress.
Since there are limited time and resource, a teacher has no choice but to select the more loyal and the more dedicated students to spend his valuable time with. The result is that some of us may feel that there are secrets not available to us.
2 issues
It seems like most people have a grip on the concepts, here’s my take…
We’re talking about two things here. Inner and outer students, and mastery of kung fu.
From my experience, an inner circle student is one that has earned their Sifu’s respect, and a student the Sifu believes has what it takes to carry the tradtion further.
Each Sifu has the right and responsibility to select and foster the good students and discourage the bad seeds as they see fit, it is their legacy.
Perhaps its like probation, only with no particular time limit. To be inner circle is to be in the family, it is a personal relationship, an oath. Sure ability figures into the equasion and perhaps race too, but that is not what it is all about.
“Secrets” on the other hand, are not always Sifu’s to give you. Only in finding them yourself will you truly appreciate the value and learn the lesson. Granted, if you can’t make it into the inner circle, you probably haven’t got much of a chance to make it to the level where that becomes an issue.
One is a matter of respect and recognition, the other is a matter of Kung Fu.