How do you explain the Japanese Influence on Shaolin-Do??

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Shaolin Kung Fu
21

It’s not karate it’s not kungfu it is what it is. I don’t think anybody would have a problem with it but in their advertiseing they claim to be “the most comprehensive ma” and in some articles they had awhile ago they claimed in china people told them their demo was “true” traditional shaolin, as if everyone else is not.

I think it’s the bull stories and the attempt to make themselves legit pure cma through trips to shaolin. It’s very manipulative advertiseing.

If SD said we do a mixed martial art using what we feel are the best techniques from shaolin and japanese martial arts. Then nobody would even mention them.

22

San Njie? It’s coming. In the meantime, check out the kwan dao I did.

23

jp- your pole knife form was fine, it covered the cardinal directions and displayed a few techniques reiterated through the directional changes. However as mentioned, it didn’t have any “sweep the beard”, “ride the horse” or a couple of other standards that are virtually always found in sets that deal with general Kwan’;s weapon in CMA. Pretty much all cma styles that have the weapon have those cultural peculiarities to the Generals Knife set.

SD’s. Your’s, does not. so, where did it come from taht it would leave out these albeit impractical but nevertheless meaningful aspects of the Kwan Dao performance.

ot to mention, that wasn’t actually a Kwan dao you were using. :stuck_out_tongue:

24

Kung fu

In 1972 only 5 years or so after Master Th’e started teaching, the Show kung fu was introduced to the producers . He asked what this stuff is they said Kung fu, he said OH well I think I had some of that for lunch.
So why would it benefit someone to call something that someone might think they had for lunch, how can naming something some one has not heard of help them to sell it ?? Especially in rural Kentucky. I would understand calling it Ninjitsu in the 80s or Judo in the 60s but Shaolin was not known until the early to mid 70’s I was interested and seeking to learn martial arts in the early 70’s and met one person who had even heard the name Kung fu much less Shaolin. Also many of the "Kung fu " schools at that time were “closed” so who knows what it looked like? Im pretty sure none of you guys have seen all the forms in the SD system. I have seen other Chang Chuan, Hua, Mantis and Hsing Ie along with Tiger Crane and I see many similarities between SD and the supposed CMA you guys call legitimate. Of course even the 5 or so styles of Hung Gar arent the same so which one of those are legitimate. One last thing is JEET KUNE DO CHINESE ? Well then why the DO ? KC

25

you’re an sd-er aren’t you kwaichang? :stuck_out_tongue:

26

Yes now but I am not uneducated in and have also studied many of the arts prior to my becoming a “SD” er. BTW I saw one of your form and many of the ones posted on other sights many of the forms are 80 to 90 % identical between SD and the supposed CMA forms although the CMA have a few more superfluous “waving of the arms” KC

27

hi …

hi david and anyone who cares,

why do you care so much about shaolin do and it’s history/content?

what do you have to gain by trying to prove shaolin do is or is not whatever anyone says it is?

what will you gain if shaolin do is “fake”?

what will you gain if shaolin do is “real”?

why not just practice you chosen art and accecpt that others do things a diffrent way.

as a side note to get on topic about the japanese thing, i spent a little over a week in jakarta indonesia a few years ago and meet and spoke with alot of people and one thing that was i kept hearing from locals was that “chinese stink” or “chinese should leave here” or “chinese take our jobs” etc etc etc …
from my experience it is not wise to shout too loud that you are chinese or doing chinese things in indonesia. and i would imagine things might have been worse in the past. i do know of a few cma schools there though …

chinese is a very complex language and most americans are not familiar with chinese terminoligy, think of kentucky in 1969 (i have a very limited understanding and i know a few of you speak chinese well).
why is it so bad that sin the called his school the sin the katate club? it is my understanding that it means china hand club and isnt china hand another way of decribing what we know as “kung fu” or is it gong fu … or chuan fa or fist method?
if i say i am going to do a kata or a form or a set does that change the content of the movements? there are plenty of students who do not express specific “shenfa” of the style they are doing in and out of shaolin do. why are shaolin do students held to such a high standard? i would say at any school only about 15% will be really skilled but the students that are not so skilled are still gaining benefits and i hope having a good time.

with love,

b

28

kungfu, is still not in the common mindset of people here in north america.

I mean, amongst people who practice martial arts, yep, which is a grand .0000006% of the population, but to most people, it’s not a given that they will have any idea of what you are talking about.

however, in the chinese community, it’s always been around and the chinese community has always been part and parcel to North and South America with many chinese having roots in these countries for more generations than a lot of euro-heritage folks.

It has little to do with history, it has little to do hairy grandmasters, it has little to do with the mixed language terms and mixed methods, it has to do with honesty and truth.

call it what it is and don’t piggy back on something because it is more popular than what you have.

It is wrong to take the ford sticker off a car and put a mercedes sticker on it and then sell it as a mercedes to someone who knows little about it.

also, when this is done, it casts a dim light on the entire body of it and causes confusion.

I have no problem with what sd does, it’s the spurious claims.

also, the parts of forms that I show through my site are not very much like sd stuff Ive seen, even when they had a whack of them up on the shaolin do site with various people demo-ing them. Those have all been taken down now for the most part for whatever reasons.

and I do appreciate differences and I do recognize differences and I feel that it is important to delineate what is and what is not when it comes to what’s what.

as for jeet kuen do, well first of all, it’s not a style, it’s a concept and it’s aimed at all martial artists from all arts. There are a lot of people who teach it as a style…but it ain’t that. The concept is designed to improve what you already have and if you came in with nothing, you certainly weren’t given that concept, you would learn teh jun fan kungfu first to get a foundation and then you would explore the concept.

by the genuine and authentic folks from the BL concepts it has always been presented as such. the main propogaters of the concept are from all sorts of styles and traditions.

jeet kuen do can be applied to boxers, wrestlers karateka, kungfu people, whoever. It’s first and foremost an american art with a chinese heritage.

Just saying, I know which guy in a picture is my blood brother and which guy is not and so do a lot of other people.

29

Ok, my use of a different weapon to do the form aside. . . .

Virtually all CMA styles have those theatrical standards, but as mentioned by others in the other thread not all of them do. I think that the peculiarities that you mention are part of the theatrical homage to Kwan, but not to the fighting aspects of the weapon itself. Aside from the chi gung aspects of stroking the beard, what are the real fighting applciations of the other standards? I’m not trying to be atagonistic, but since my verson does not have them, I’ve never been shown the applicaitons.

Let me ask this: Does my pole arm form more resemble a CMA application or that of a naginata? I mean if SD is really Japanese, wouldn’t the Kwan Dao resemble the applciations and techniques of a naginata instead?

Regarding KC, he is an SDer. He also independantly studied (and correct me if I’m wrong KC) tang lang, Hung Gar, aikido and shotkan karate prior to starting with SD. I’ve met the guy and think he has a great and unique perspective on the differences and simularities of the arts he has studied. But since we’re both SDers we can’t know or have any perspective that would contribute to an intelligent conversation in the martial arts. Please, discount anything we have to say.

30

I think the answer’s pretty simple. They use Japanese terms and uniforms because they were already in common usage at the time. “Dojo” “Kata” and “bo” are pretty much English words by now. There’s no particvular reason to not use them.

I was telling a friend about a tournment I was in. It went something like this:

“I got second in forms.”

“What’s forms”

“Prearranged solo routines.”

“Huh? OH! You mean KATA!”

As for the uniforms there IS no “kung fu uniform” The whole “Everybody dress alike” thing is very recent. Kung fu schools starting wearing the traditional outfits because students excpected to get a cool outfit when they start training. Also, its an extra sale for the school.

When Sin The started the “Kung fu uniform” wasn’t widely available or recognized. He probably used the gis because they were cheap and readily available.

WHat POSSIBLE motivation is there for a Karate guy to pretend to be kung fu? Karate is a bigger seller with much better brand recognition.

Now if he was pretending to be ninjutsu…

31

Judge,

Where are your videos?

I want to see.

32

Thanks JP. I enjoyed dinner. It is well known that the Chinese community did not want to teach the Gwailow??, the real Kung Fu so if this is true perhaps what you are learning is just flowered up moves to resemble what they once were. Anyway I am happy with what I do and believe from my own experience that it is real CMA. In Japanese there is a term called Bunkai it means to breakdown or analyze the moves of a kata,form, dance, whatever, anyway as far as my art SD is concerned I can take any move from a form and show an application for it. I would find it hard to believe from what I have seen of the CMA forms displayed on the web that the moves can be applied that easily. The Shaolin were fighters as well as Holy men so I feel the moves would be more direct in their application. This being said I will continue to believe that what I do is a Unique CMA derived from the way things were once done not as they are done now or are being taught in some schools now. Since there is no way to prove or disprove it then lets say we are both right and SD is an art of Chinese Origin that you are not familiar with. KC:)

33

Man can we move these Shaolin-Do threads to another forum ?..has nothing to do with Shaolin Kung Fu!! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

34

i wonder how large the chinese community was in lexington kentucky from 1965 to 1980?

35

http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41609

Or just look a couple of threads down. It’s the one called “shaolin-do video” :stuck_out_tongue:

36

I just took the time to watch DJ’s kwan dao form http://www.davidjamieson.com/kunglek/klkf/olvids.htm

I understand that it was just a part of a form but in it, I see nothing different that would make it CMA if what JP did wasn’t. I assume the point that he stops and makes a breathe in/out motion is the “stroking of the beard”. Also, the charging sequence seems better suited for a spear than a bladed weapon. Otherwise, all the cuts, slashes and what not are in the SD form. (We just do them with a little more speed and power:p )

The other links that somebody posted, yeah, they are nice. But they could also be open for a lot of critiques. Thankfully, I am not a nit picker.

37

shouting down your detractors en masse doesn’t make your point any more valid.

drifting off into the minutia of a single form doesn’t answer any of the questions or sufficiently rebutt the complaints of those who are your detractors.

sd-er’s I give pause and think about what I learn and where I am learning it from and who I am learning it from.

keep in mind that the man with one eye is king in the land of the blind.

and I’ve probably spent too much time arguing with you about it already.

(“we do ours with more speed and power”…nice :stuck_out_tongue: lol )

38

Ok, well let’s examine the basic “SD is teh inauthentic!!!oneoneone!!” reasons:

  1. Japanese trappings: gi, “dojo”, “kata”.
  2. “Forms are obviously karate with tiger hand thrown in”
  3. “omgz! 900 forms, who can remember that!”
  4. “omgz! Hairy grandmaster! History fake!”

Did I get it all? GT was obviously addressing #2. I just looked at the video myself, and like he said, aside from the stroke the beard thinger (reminds me of a move in drunken spear though), the basics are the same. The “around the head” move that JP did is even in your black tiger staff kata. While this doesn’t instantly refute #2, it does weaken the arguement.

Feel free to bash us on #1, 3, 4. That being said, I would say that any of you that are calling GM Sin a liar have obviously never met the man. Anyone that spends even a short amount of time with him knows that he’s a genuinely nice guy, and certainly not the type that would go about living a lie for 40 years. Perhaps he, or someone back down the line was lied to. I think that you will find that most SD students care little about that. For the most part, we follow the man - not the lineage.

GT/JP: Check out his demo of his black tiger set. Beginning looks very similar to the beginning of tiger/crane kata. It’s freaky.

39

shouting down your detractors en masse doesn’t make your point any more valid.

David, I have always tried to answer the detractors and never shout them down. And I was only making a valid observation concerning the way you did your form versus the way JP did SD’s. No critisms (other than the playful one at the end hence the :stuck_out_tongue: ) just trying to see what made yours CMA and what made ours not CMA.

drifting off into the minutia of a single form doesn’t answer any of the questions or sufficiently rebutt the complaints of those who are your detractors.

Not sure what keeping an armed reserve of civilians has to do with this :smiley: , but we were discussing a single form.

40

David, I’ve never shouted on this topic (except maybe at MK a long time ago :smiley: ) I thought we were having an rational conversation on this topic. Just because we don’t agree 100% with your postion doesn’t mean that our position is irrational. And I asked you some legitimate questions that you haven’t answered yet:

  1. Does my “pole arm” set display CMA techniques or JMA (such as a naginata)?
  2. Aside from the chi gung aspects of stroking the beard, what are the real fighting applcations of the other standards? Other than performance and homage to the General, why do them? Why is it ok for some of them to be removed and still be considered a Kwan Dao set.
  3. Why, other than the performance standards of stroking the beard, etc) was your form CMA and mine was not?

Thanks for getting back to me and furthering our rational conversation.