It’s an article on the recent discovery of the southern shaolin temple and it’s rebuild. good read. (Fellow SDer’s it mentions GM Sin’s stele he placed as tribute.)
Scroll down the pics until you get to the one with some old weapons excavated from the original site…
Lo and behold there sits a SAI!
I read an article in kungfumagazine a while back that talked about the use of ‘whips’ by law enforcement in old china. They were called whips because that’s what you did with em, whipped the crap out of someone. Anyway, the pics they had in the article was basically a sai, they were different shapes and sizes but they were all identical to a regular ol sai.
Originally posted by shaolinarab
[B]yes, that is pretty cool. it’s under the putien temple section…what’s interesting is that these are EXCAVATED sais, and there are short and long varieties.
so what do u think of that masterkiller ? [/B]
Long variety? What I saw was one sai and a few tiger fork heads.
Well I have no point joedoe other than I’ve seen some debate recently concerning the sai as a chinese weapon, sparked my interest a little.
I agree that I see one representation and the rest spear and tiger fork heads.
Just really wanted to get some conversation going about this weapon. I enjoy the sai form that we have also, but we really don’t have much more than that out right now.
OK fair enough. I guess a lot of people believed the story about how the sai was an Okinawan weapon, and the sai as we generally know it probably was. I have been told the Chinese version is slightly different, but in what way I am not sure and for the purposes of practicing the form and learning the application the Okinawan/Japanese version will suffice.
The point is we have a bunch of blowhards on here saying that Shaolin Do isn’t chinese in origin because we use sais. Well behold, there are some chinese sai.
The only reference to a chinese ‘sai’ I’ve ever seen was in the article that I have in the zine that sponsors this forum. The pics they had in the article showed what amounted to a sai except that the middle was a little longer, and some had knobs at intervals going up the length of it, sorta like a rope with knots tied in it. Some had smaller side prongs as well, and then again some had larger side prongs that were ornate and more curvy. If I can dig up that issue I’ll scan the pics and see if I can get them posted for reference. That article was neat, it had pics of lots of different representations of what they were calling a whip. The article was on whips actually, everything from the chain whip to the ‘whip’ used by law enforcement.
Maybe Gene would know some good sources for research?
Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming asserts, in “Ancient Chinese Weapons - A Martial Artist’s Guide” that the sai originated as a hair pin, and was a favoured weapon of martial artists in Canton and Fujian Provinces, and Taiwan.
The point is we have a bunch of blowhards on here saying that Shaolin Do isn’t chinese in origin because we use sais. Well behold, there are some chinese sai.
yeah it was the sais. :rolleyes:
it wasn’t the gis, the poorly contrived history, or anything else. it was the sais.
While I’m not going to make any comment on the validity or otherwise of SD, if you read Weapons and fighting arts of Indonesia by Draeger it shows Indonesian Fukien crane practitioners in Gis.
Now if we could only find links to Chinese Nunchukus (edit: Two-section staff) are quest for kung fu legitimacy would be complete! There were at the Southern Temple, I tell you, but since they were wood they haven’t’ been found in the relics.
There were at the Southern Temple, I tell you, but since they were wood they haven’t’ been found in the relics. 