Hi Frank…how’s it going?
hahahahahaha
hey what’s up fu pow.
how’s it going? i was just telling my girlfriend last night i wonder who will recognize me first.
anyways, as for me been training hard. been teaching a great group of guys in san francisco. although, since one of my students got jumped by 8 guys (funny thing was my student how no cuts or bruises except for bruised knuckles) but his friend was jumped by 6 of them that night and his nose was shattered pretty badly, I have de-emphasized forms for now and initiated a freestyle sparriing sessions with 3-4 on 1 person, my guys think it is fun.
what’s up with you, it’s been pretty quite around here.
hskwarrior
Got here kinda late…
Nothing new, but Paul Hwang is not usually clear in this matter, but both Elephant and Ambush are sets, not systems.
I lived in Austin, and know him well. :eek:
Does he at all allude to what system these sets are from?
-123
Never.
He is usually evasive on the subject. He says he learned the Elephant “system” from DFW, but when I pressed the issue, he would say it was a one form system.
As for “Ambush”, he had a book laying around that was the Long Fist book from Dr. Yang, Jwing Ming. In that book there was a series of photos detailing a form - “The First Way of Ambush”. Not saying he got it from a book…I am just stating what I saw.
As for the video, if you have $50 bucks burning a hole in your pocket, get a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, an drink it away. I am sure you will be much more enlightened that way…
xiang xing quan
I see a book in China titled “Xiangxing quanfa zhen quan”. Xiangxingquan is Helephant Boxing.
Do you mean Heffalump boxing? That is a devestating style originating from the 3-acre woods. Sister style is Woozle Pai.
lol no elephans in china
Geographic Distribution: Asian elephants live in large blocks of forest near water sources and grasslands. They inhabit India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Bangladesh, and southern China.
This is for any other trolls who are dumb enough to think there are no elephants in China.
ouch
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The elephant techniques as i have said in previous posts strictly comes from Lau Bun lineage. However, i will say “Beware”. You have to be careful where you acquire this set from. it is such a “Wanted” set that people may claim to have it knowing how bad you want it, charge you some outrageous price then give you some cheap watered down version.
I will not disrespect sifu hwang, but the elephant i have seen from his sight looks nothing like what i know. and he did not learn it as a style because it is not a style, it is strickly a set. but there are a few different versions out there and all claim to have the original version. i can say this because i am closer to the source than anyone here on this forum. i have enough knowledge to even say that most likely DFW didn’t learn it from lau bun himself either, but since LB us not here DFW will probably say LB only taught him privately or something.
I don’t trust anything coming from DFW’s mouth ever since he had the audacity to say that he learned original lau bun method, and after Lau Bun died he was forced to learn Jew Leongs new way. But Sigung Jew is DFW’s senior by 20 years. he began learning HSCLF from Lau Bun in 1941 while DFW started in the mid 1960’s when Lau Bun was old and suffering from a Hernia (Can’t spell it).
so what he didn’t realize out of his own arrogance is that thru Sigung Jew he was learning the more authentic Lau Bun way because Sigung Jew was learning from a much younger Lau Bun. it is said that lau bun didn’t really teach in his last few years of his life.
anyways if DFW is so willing to give this old set away to people outside of lineage then why hasn’t he produced a video til this day on the elephant?
in ending, bluntly, you must be loopy to think that such a revered set will pass thru the fingers of the people who have it so easily. some people will claim because they heard or seen the hand that they know it. heres’s something to make you say “HMMMMMMMM”. Just because you may have seen the set doesn’t mean you have seen the elephant. there is way more to it than you think than just the techniques. if you saw someone using it then you will instantly know if someone knows the elephant.
for example, the teacher of the escrima student i stabbed -that’s another story -in oakland was blatantly absorbing other styles into his system. I saw he did the same with choy lee fut. I asked, he denied. until, one day i saw him ( whether it was intentional or not) demonstrating " certain " techniques noticeable only to those who know the elephant -not just the typical- and i immediately approached him, pulled em’ to the side and asked him to come correct with me because he was using lau buns elephant. he admitted that his teacher had a run-in with one of Lau Bun’s students who defeated him with the elephant. and thats how it got absorbed into his filipino stick fighting system.
DFW or his son Jason would be the only one you can go to to pay and learn the set on video. but you would have to become a life time student in our school to one day get- if not just a glimpse, the set. I can’t even say “sorry about that” because it is what it is, and most likely will stay that way.
peace—hsk
That raises an interesting point of debate Frank (and I don’t mean the authenticity of DFW’s material vs. sigung Jew–that’s a can of worms that I really am not equipped to discuss as much as others here). But if one learns a set from a master who is, say in his 40s and another learns the same set from the same master when the master is in his late 60s, does the student learn a less effective version of the set just because the master may not be able to move as well or hit as hard as he did when he taught the first student? On a superficial level, that makes sense, but I suppose it also comes down to the effectiveness of the teacher. Can he describe and teach the appropriate application and intent of a technique without demonstrating it at full speed. Is a master’s instruction and observation of a student’s grasp of the appropriate technique dependant on the master’s ability to do the same technique properly?
I know from personal experience that there are some techniques that I can no longer do as effectively as say 10 years ago, but I can still teach them appropriately to a student. Interesting concept.
judge pen,
no, thats not what im saying at all. what i am trying to express is that when a sifu is around his forties he may still have a very aggressive way about them. but there are some who may have a complete turn around in their mindsets when their in 60’s and 70’s and not be or think so aggressively.
when doc fai wong learned from lau bun, lau bun wasn’t at the best of health. plus, he was in his mid 70’s. and from what i’ve heard from my si-sook gungs that lau bun rarely taught in his old age.
but lau bun was well known for (just like many true masters) modifying a set to fit someone specifically. for example, our si-goo Susan Der- pronounced as “dare” (married name) has a technique that no one else has because Professor Lau would consider someones physicality when teaching. another example is he wouldn’t teah a 6’5" 275 lb guy the double daggers. but if he wanted the double daggers he would alter it to fit that guys body type.
anyways, judge, what i am saying is that if you have trained with your sifu when your sifu was young, you get a different and fresher perspective, in one small aspect. but of course, by the time your sifu turns 60 or so he will have amassed a large of knowledge, but there are some who still soften up due to old age.
if i am unclear please let me know and iwill try again.
hsk
I didn’t think that Lau Bun softened up with age. Everything that I’ve heard indicates he was a tough old man.
How long you been practicing elephant form?
he was a tough old man, but where did you get your info from? My sifu remembers lau Bun having problems getting around. but i don’t think i said lau bun softened up. He was just old at the time and could not express his old ways do to his age and health. People that were close to him knew that during the last 3 years of his life he was doing terribly.
But Lau Bun was an assassin when he was in his forties and taught slightly different. possibly even taught the “regular students” as opposed to the students connected to the hop sing tong- slightly different. and as well, Lau Bun as i have said was known for changing CLF to fit the individual. most probably because he was so into teaching people how to fight with it, and not all people are built the same. so i see how people would have their own version because lau bun modified it to fit.
Judge, trust me, i have done so much research on Lau Bun, interviewed so many of his senior students (way higher than DFW) and I am much closer to the source than whom you may have gotten the info from. Remember, I am just about finished with my book called “The American Hung Sing Kwoon” and hope it will get published. I can honestly say I possess info on Lau Bun than many of his own students. For example, I own the pair of couplets that were in his own handwritting (Chinese Calligraphy) which hung in his school.
so if you feel like pm’in me, i would like to hear where you got your infor from.
I didn’t mean to imply that you said he was softend up in his old age. Old age will catch up with us all. I was just curious on your perspoective that age affected the manner the material was taught. I know students that try to immitate thier teachers so much that they move like an old man becuase their teacher does to. I know you come from a direct lineage of Lau Bun, so I thought you would have a good perspective.
I have been practicing Hung SIng Choy Lee Fut now for 24-25 years. No, i wasn’t always at the school practicing, but when a foster home took me too far to return to practice regularly i practiced what i knew on my own, but have been under Sifu Salvatera now for 2 and a half decades. and most of the time i practiced every single day 7 days a week in or out of the school. I learned and kept many of my sifu’s very hardcore training and applications and pass that on to my students to keep up the tradition of when i first started learning. basically i have taken it back to the old school with modern-day approach.
Now, let me preface this by saying that within my sifu’s school we will only get the elephant if we deserve it. thats just how it is, nothing will change that. i actually like it that way because it serves as motivation. The Elephant and its usage has always been around my school but if you have never learned it you were forbidden to ever imitate, steal, or use the elephant fist or techniques, and sometimes even talk about it. it is a treasured form within our branch.
I spoke with my sifu just now and i have been authorized to speak about this subject. its just that i will never be able to demonstrate its techniques. However certain strikes are already floating around out there. Personally i have been practicing the Mon Jerng a little more than 10 years now. i first learned the usage by having it done on me by my sifu. so at first i got the “Essence” of it, and that took some time to perfect. when i learned the form that just basically opened up a whole new world for me. but truthfully, i prefer practicing the usage of the Mon Jerng over the form. still, it is such a powerful method, as i have said, even demolishing. I used it on one of my students the other day ( a very simple technique) and the next morning his arm was pretty bruised up. I only struck his arms cuz i didn’t want to hurt him.
so from this point, i will try to answer any questions i can.
hsk
Judge, you are right. there are some people that try to mirror their sifu’s movements and manorisms. I for one have imitated my sifu, but i learned when he was around my age today.
Some out of injuries like a bad shoulder or collapsed lung or some slightly altered range of movement will move a little different. and because students don’t know better and the teacher never corrects them then the students will learn bad habits. i’ve witnessed this first hand and had the reaction of "what the hell are they doing? or why are they doing it like that? then one day one of my si-sooks say they can tell i am a student of DIno because i move like him. But imitation is the highest compliment, right? then i understood why some people move the way they do. their sifu must move like that.
still, there’s just a difference learning from a young sifu than with a really old one.
not wrong or right.
hsk
Maybe a new thread should open up discussing the merits of training under a teacher who is young and at the top of his game.
Or the merits of training under a teacher who is older, more seasoned and who has spent more time studying and refining his techniques.
OG,
Sounds like a great idea for a thread. Wanna start one?