man i was posting on the other thread and got booted off and was like aaarrrghhh!!! but i was ranting again ut at then end i was decsribing my meeting with ILLUSIONFIST today so i will post that. Illusionfist and i had a wonderfull exchange of forms ideas and an overall air of respect and good mannerism was created between us,i am speaking for myself here and hopefully he will post his impression of our meeting. mine was a very good one..it was hot and humid in the park and we got tired and sweaty ,but during this time we were able to respectfully show our forms and knowlegde(some of it) and i was thoroughly impressed with illusionfists hung-gar system. our hsingi’s were different but i could acknowlege the similarities to mine and his forms were great to watch. i have a better impression of “sun” style taichi… he showed me his hung gar sets including his fu hok,and i showed him my pakua and hsingi and yess,he even got to see the buddah fist form that all of you are trashing as a result of seeing the mullins vid clips. i demonstrated a couple of SD forms and i feel that if he did not think that they were any good he would have said so. even through the politeness he is pretty forthright with his comments and opinions. we also dod a bit of push hands and we excel each other in certain aspects of that but i feel that his push hands were more solid than mine( i dont have a partner to practice this drill which i desperatly need) overall the meeting was good and i hope that he and i can get together again,so as the title to this post states,HATS OFF TO YOU ILLUSIONFIST thankyou and many respects to you and your students.
Willow Sword
Whatever you think i am or want me to be, i am.
oh and,Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you are an a$.
I definitely had a good time, although i wish i had more time to go over stuff. Damn family!!
Its very enlightening to see the differences in other peoples technique. I can definitely attest to TWS’ having a TOTALLY different flavor to that of which is shown on the various SLD vids on the net.
I had fun and i’ll definitely be going up again soon.
Each practitioner will have a different expression of SLD depending on the person and instructor. It also depends on which generation the instructors come from. The core movements will be similar, but the expression will vary. Some fast, some fluid, some powerful, some jagged, etc…
Willow Sword: Who is your instructor?
J
PS Illusionfist, have you heard from the old gang from the chatroom? What’s new with all of them?
my Teacher is Master Joe Shaefer of the SD school in austin Texas. I have also trained with Gm Sin The’ amd master mullins and master Bill Leonard(these are seminars that they have held) My main instruction in SD has come from Master Joe.
Got your Email illusionfist,Yes I agree. Cant wait to see the pics.
MAny Respects, Willow Sword
Whatever you think i am or want me to be, i am.
oh and,Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you are an a$.
Brassmonkey, you’ll note that most the threads (at least right now) started by an admitted SD student get low stars. The star system is not in the hands of the moderators. At the bottom of the screen is the “Rate Topic” drop down box, you can rate any thread.
Hope this helps.
I agree with brassmonkey! This thread is refreshing. Much better than that other tired one where people ask SD students honest questions about their style, history and forms, and receive nothing in the way of answers. Yes, this one’s much better! Let’s all stop asking these guys questions that they refuse to answer. When they tell us that they are learning original Pa Kua, original Bak Mei, and the rest of us are learning modern wushu, tantamount to garbage, we should just smile and not ask them a single question about their original Pa Kua or their original Bak Mei, or their original Tai Chi which looks like the 20th century compulsory PRC version, or their LHPF which looks like the wushu version, , or the two form versions of the other 50 styles they know which look nothing like the styles referenced, why? Because they and only they have the originals!
All Pakua is derived from “dong hai chuan”
All Taichi is derived from " Chang seng feng"
all hsingi is derived from “Marshal YEUH Feh”
All Shaolin kungfu is derived from “shaolin temple”
Listen dipsh!t. maybe the reason why we do not answer the questions that you pose is that WE DO NOT KNOW THE ANSWErs and could care less about it AND WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT IT.
WE TRAIN TO DEFEND OURSELVES,PRESERVE AN ANCIENT SYSTEM AND ABOVE ALL KEEP OURSELVES IN SHAPE. UNLESS YOU HAVE ANYTHING POSITIVE TO ADD TO THIS THREAD,FUK OFF!!! OH AND BY THE WAY READ MY QUOTE BILLY,ITS MEANT FOR YOU.
Whatever you think i am or want me to be, i am.
oh and,Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you are an a$.
TWS
Not flaming here at all (seriously), I’m just wondering how it came to be that bagua and taiji were being tought in the Shaolin Temple? Or were they? It just seems odd (though not impossible) that two fundamentally (understatement) taoist arts would be trained and passed on by buddhist monks.
bagua did not originate at the temple,but was later adopted into the temple as was many other systems. pakua is relatively new when compared with other systems that have been around for centuries. since the shaolin temple was not entirely buddhist, in my opinion before i joined SD, it supports the clain that pakua was there later on,plus the origins of pakua are a mystery. it was believed that a monk taught this to him while on his travels,there are those who state that the monk was a Taoist monk others think it was maybe a shaolin monk,the principlea are taoist yes but that, i believe, is dong hai chuans’ contribution to the system. who knows for sure,since we all can recognize that shaolin was at the forefront of martial arts study it would there fore be logical to assume that a variety of things were taught there,this all goes back to my theories that the Shaolin temple was in fact a military training center for the emperor and his armies. the buddhist aspect of the temple is there yes but as i have been stating before THERE IS NO FIGHTING ASSOCIATED WITH BUDDHISM. What part of that dont you understand.
are we so wrapped up in fantasy that we cannot even begin to see the obvious here. As all of you so eloquently state about my apparent system being fraudulant and fake.
Many respects, Willow sword
Whatever you think i am or want me to be, i am.
oh and,Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you are an a$.
If a monk taught this system to dong hai chuan then pakua has been around alot longer than we realize. China has kept itself relatively secret for the past 100 yrs or so since the openeing of its doors thanks to Nixon. but when we look at the broad perspective of chinese culture ,population,poltics and the shaolin temple hopefully we can see a diverse and extensive grouping of systems within thier fighting techniques. it is also believed that pakua was created at wudang. which is a taoist order. the claim that shaolin martial arts was practiced there as well as other temples can be disputed till the moon blows up but again as i stated earlier when you look atthe range of diversity in the culture of china ,you see the systems being utilized and taught everywhere there. or so we are told. could it be that what GM sin knows are some of the Secrets that the temple had due to his teacher ie chang ming? That if a temple dedicated to preserving these fighting arts and being so diverse as it was that
just about every type of fighting with the exception of some was taught there? i can buy this thoery and agree with it fot it makes sense to me. the only thing specific to shaolin is the 5 animal fists, and the i chin ching muscle tendon changing classics taught by Ta Mo,the rest is an accumilation and an adoption of other systems. we have discussed this before on other threads that when new regimes were being created and the old generals were being killed off,some of them escaped to the temples to live in seclusion and eventually taught thier fighting techniques to the monks. but going on my theory that the shaolin temple was a military training center for the emperors one can also see that fighting,being a central focus in the temple,was studied extensively and anyting that was of value to them was accepted,such as the story of how the praying mantis system came to be at the temple. hopefully my ideas here are a testament to my knowledge and dedication to this art through the SD school. whether you want to believe that what we have is an authentic system that keeps true with the original teachings there is irrelevant to most of us at SD. it is interstin to me that BILLY PILGRIM as well as others state that the animal systems and styles that are taught at SD look nothing like the styles represented…i wonder if what you are learning is the TRUE WAY THE SYSTEMS ARE DONE? You believe in whatyou are doing to be true ,yes? so are we…but that does not make our system any more greater or lesser than yours and i apologize for those naive souls in our organization that tell you this,instructor or student. No two tigers will look alike and o to cranes will either,even though they are both tigers and both cranes. so our movements are more power oriented and focus on the strike as well as the movement but this is typical of COMBAT forms. and your tiger looks like something else other than ours. i have seen other styles and when i compare i do not state that " hey that looks nothing like what i do that sucks" how arrogant and naive of a thing to state about another system. really kids i would implore you all to stop with the mouth boxing and get with the notion that what YOU ALL DO is not WHAT EVERYONE ELSE DOES.
MAny Respects ,Willow Sword
Whatever you think i am or want me to be, i am.
oh and,Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you are an a$.
I think there is a fine line of distinction between things that follow the same principles but have different interpretations, and things that seem to follow the gross motions / or not even that and claim to be the same thing.
WTS, I’m looking forward to meeting you someday, because I think it would be really cool if SD had some nifty gems tucked in it. BUT - everyone who does any CMA looks at Sin The’ and goes WHOA - karate man. Not - hmm combat style. Karate man is the response.
I think that is where most people are coming from on this. Not ‘this isn’t exactly like what I do’, but ‘that looks nothing like anything else with that name, does not follow the same principles, and in fact, looks very questionable.’
Hey, I’m open minded, but even you have to wonder about this. Either the stories of it being original are true, or a good chunk of this was made up by Sin.
And, this is my last post on this. I’m bored with it, and I don’t see any point in these threads any longer.
Everybody go out and buy the book ‘True Beleiver’ and I’ll feel like my job is done.
I am a big beleiver in luck. The more I work, the more luck I have.
I believe Illusionfist when he says you have a different “flavor” than other SD guys, but you certainly seem no different than any other I’ve encountered.
I mean, it was only a matter of time before you threw a public tantrum(or another tantrum I should say)…and all because someone did the unthinkable…ask you a couple of technical questions about what it is that you’re doing…questions you still can’t answer by the way.
I don’t know why you care what everyone else says, I mean, we are all just a poor misguided lot who are doing modern wushu, remember! I don’t have the good fortune you do to have access to authentic Shaolin Kung Fu, I mean, I live in a city that only has three SD franchise schools, so you can imagine the bind I’m in!
You are right about one thing though, I certainly am a dipsh!t…oh, and whenever you can answer a single one of these dipsh!t’s questions, just let me know…
Since you sort of asked a question, I’ll grant you an answer, even though you are not as forthcoming…I understand though, you guys have ancient monastic secrets to protect, you can’t just be opening up schools on every street corner teaching anyone with a buck…
Some of the differences between what I do and what you do is…
What I do was never called “karate”, and doesn’t look like it either.
What I do doesn’t have Shotokan katas integrated into the curriculum and doesn’t contain any Japanese weaponry.
What I do has some similar principles in other systems, I can look at those systems and see a relationship, the antithesis of SD, which can find no commonality between any other CMA…Which brings me to my last point…
All of you SD guys keep making this a personal thing and saying, “just cause it doesn’t look like what you do, doesn’t mean it ain’t Chinese!” That, of course, is exactly right, problem is that I’ve never said anything like that. My problem is not that it doesn’t look or act like what I do, my problem is that it doesn’t look or act like any other CMA, it doesn’t even look or act like the versions of other CMA’s it has “collected” over the years, yes, like Bak Mei, like 7*, etc…
I mean, I still haven’t met one person who studies these systems who recognizes the SD versions, not one…
By the way, are you including yourself in the list of “naive souls” whom you are apologizing for? I seem to recall you telling a Bak Mei practicioner on this very forum that he was learning wushu, because he had the audacity to look at the SD “Bak Mei”, and call it what it is..
The animal systems are not taught at the SD schools. Each animal system is comprised of a lifetime of material. That is why mastery of multiple animal systems is not recognized by terms laid out under precommunist Shaolin era. Mastery of a system was defined as Life devotion. the endeavor to master more than one system was a
contradiction to the definition of mastery. As well if you had been excepted into an animal system the other masters would not take you on as a student let alone a desciple. If you guys have any of the animal systems(and I’m not willing to concede that you do) your knowledge
is by far incomplete at best.
Replying to billy:
No Shotokan kata. I studied karate for a year, I have a friend who instructs. He thinks the long forms we do are entirely impractical as they aren’t linear enough. Went into detail earlier about the whole, “Why was it called karate and what’s with the Japanese elements?” You can look it up if you want. What weapons do you imagine (besides, perhaps, the katana) the Japanese had access to that the Chinese did not?
For the most part I’ve been able to avoid taking anything said “personally”, despite several attempts at personal attack.
Couldn’t the fact that it doesn’t “look like the forms it’s collected” indicate that MAYBE “it” didn’t collect those forms? No one’s EVER told me of a video or book that they were certain GM Sin took material from. If anyone can, I’d appreciate it…I need all the help with the forms I can get.
It surprises you that TWS reacted to an attack on the authenticity of SD? Why? You expected him to accept a judgement of a RealPlayer online video by someone he doesn’t know? I’m glad TWS met with illusionfist and the two of them found common ground and at least a bit of mutual respect. It gives me a bit of hope for SD’s future as a part of the kung fu community.
Maybe, maybe not. If he were to come forth and give TWS the “thumbs up”, saying what he did definitely had CMA style I’m fairly certain he’d come under attack.
“That government is best which governs least.” – HENRY DAVID THOREAU
thankyou and many respects to you and your students.
