Serpent … I am telling you not to go down this road. It is futile anyway. My arguments will beat yours but you will dismiss it. I have been down this road many times. I can use historical evidence, scientific evidence, and even biblical evidence and it won’t matter to you. You will deny what I tell you because to you the alternative to evolution is inconceivable, it would change your whole world view. If you really want to pursue this I am not going to waste time retyping or cutting and pasting things that have already been said. For your primer go watch these videos. Creation Videos I may not agree with everything that is contained here but that will give you some basics. From there I will give you some more advanced scientific journals to read. Maybe then I will discuss this with you in PMs.
Now get this thread back on topic. [/B]
Way to avoid the subject there, meecer. You’re assuming I have no knowledge of your side of the argument and you just tell me to go and watch videos and read journals and then maybe you’ll talk to me?
You realise that everything you’ve said above could just as easily apply the other way if I was simply not going to accept any other truth. You’re projecting yourself right there.
With respect to Shuul and because themeecer is just a complete tool (good grief, have I resorted to name-calling?! :eek: ) I’m not going to go into this any more on this thread. themeecer doesn’t have the balls to talk about it anyway.
Whatever .. I’m an idiot then. I’m not going to waste my time on you. I have much much better things to do than waste my time on a spiteful, hateful person like you. You have shown your colors on here time and time again, during my short stay. I am leaving now to go hang out with real life friends .. you stay and play with your virtual ones.
Thanks man that means alot. I get really worked up about religion and it can take weeks or longer for me to get back to normal. I had a mental breakdown a while ago when i was intensely questioning my beliefs and kind of went into la la land so im trying to get my feet back on the ground. So thanks again.
Ok, the last serious post before this went waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off topic:
Re: Do “animal styles” make sense?
The vast majority of my forms are animal forms. I have crane, tiger, preying mantis, monkey, leopard, bird, and seen some snake. I think some of you are underestimating the value of our animal forms. First off … the originators of our styles felt it was important for some reason. To them martial skill was a life or death situation … for most of us it is normally for sport or health. [QUOTE]Even when we are faced with real life situations it is normally not life or death. So for that alone we should rely on the wisdom of our ancestors. Secondly I do believe having the “spirit” of the animal is important. But at times I like to have these “spirits” with me when I do non-animal based forms. Thirdly, even though we don’t have the exact appendages of the animals we can learn a lot from them. They fight for survival; if they are not good fighters… they die. The “moves” they use are just as effective to us if we modify them to fit our body. I think it is a shame when I see someone that does great animal forms but when they spar they are only doing basic kicks and punches. If I wanted that I would take TKD or Karate. (No offense to them) There are untold hundreds of hidden applications in our forms if we would just study them and utilize them. For kicks someday … try sparring and only allow yourself to use moves from one form. If it isn’t in there, you can’t use it. You will be surprised at the amount of knowledge that is hidden in even the shortest of forms. Also surprising is the effectiveness of the moves many of us have overlooked, myself included.
Serpent,
To me, we cant get into the mantis in the same way. But we can get into what our perceptions of the mantis spirit are as we imagine them. It goes back to what i was saying earlier, that the animal association was a over all name that helped reference the qualities of the form.
while a 140 pounder may not be able to fighter tigerish against a 200 lb person they COULD against a smaller person. A quick person may not be a to utilize snake or leopard against a quicker person but they could against a slower person.
Aren’t there MA styles that overcome that barrier after drilling certain techniques and principles, tactics and strategy? I thought that was one of the facet of MA, that if you’re extremely weak, learning MA should give you at least some tools if your opponent is exaggeratingly bigger or quicker than you?[/I]
My point was more that if you are an animal stylist, in this case the traditional 5, you should learn all aspects of each animal.
If two people learn snake (fast, accurate striking) the naturally faster person will be somewhat better at it and if the two were to square off and just use their dreaded snake style; the faster guy would win.
Some body types DO fit specific animal concepts better. Just don’t lock yourself into the ones that fit you best because you will be able to apply the others in the right circumstances.
fwiw, I have worn tiger claw strikes that looked like I had been raked by a big cat. just no broken skin.
but, I’m also currrently wearing a fashionable bruise that looks like the Crab Nebula. Was this from a rare Celestial Stylist? Nope, just a plain old boxer with really fast hands. I doubt he has ever thought about snake or any other animal.
CSN, that was it. They had another one that they had not tapped that was in the 20% range but didn’t have a free tap.
Interestingly enough, by VA law, they could have only served me one of those beers in a single night. At least they can have that kind of beer. Here in NC if the beer is higher than 5.9 % ABV it must be labeled as ‘malt liquor’. So, the high end beer crafters won’t distribute here because they don’t want that ‘appelation’ on their label. So, we don’t get to have any.
I don’t know if Xingyi has been mentioned, i’m too lazy to read the whole thread. But here goes; The xingyi animal styles is not based on animal-imitation, it is more based on using the essence/tactics of the animal in focus. Like the tiger, when you do the tiger-form in xingyi, you do this diagonal step to the side, and then halt the step and move the head in direction of the next strike. here you have to think the way the tiger is hunting it’s prey, where it has to be vigilant and attentive in every movement. The way you look is also based on the tiger’s way of thought (xingyi-quan means "form-mind boxing after all), because the tiger does’nt focus on one point, but has a periferal vision, where it just dwells on everything in sight, while being attentive on everything. That is valuable in combat, where you have to be attentive of any strike that comes against you, without dwelling on a special strike ( which could result in not being attentive of the next strike..)
The tiger also hides in the tall grass, relaxed, while being unseen, and then suddenly, in a fast, powerful leap, it jumps the deer that is closest, and ends the deer’s life as quickly as possible. That is also a metaphorical way of using the tiger’s essence in combat.
Hope it helps.
Did the animal fighting forms come before or after the animal training forms? I agree they are a metaphor for different fighting styles in different situations. The five animal training (live, dead, and qigong) mimics the movements and attitudes of different animals to develop flexibility, strength, and chi. These are not fighting based exercises although they are used to train us to be better fighters when studied along with our martial techniques. I was wondering if these exercises pre-dated say hsing-i animals or the traditional five animal form?
You need techniques before you have a system; A system before you can have forms; a system that works & has forms before you can effectively train others (ie “training forms”).
Just my opinion.
~BTL
JP; taoists have used the 12 animals as different religious symbols, and have used them in their qigong-systems thousands of years ago. so yeah, it predates the animal-imitating fighting-styles.
FC; how has this developed into a religious discussion? what do you mean?
