Yim Shan Wu learned Lui Ho Chuan (which is very similar to NSL) from Wan Li Sheng before learning NSL from Kuo Yu Chang. Lung Tzu Hsiang learned NSL from KYC some 20 years later. After LTH almost completed his NSL he was traded as an exchange student with Tam Sam and learned North Wind Tsi’a Li Fut. Between YSW and LTH, there were slight differences but nothing really out out of pocket because their roots were NSL.
When YSW first arrived in HK, he had no place to teach but later discovered that LTH had a school in the area. Both taught together in one school but had separate students because they were teaching on different days. On one point, LTH had to leave the school on personal business for a long period of time and YSW took the duties of teaching both sessions. Two years had passed before LTH returned. He became very angry when he saw his student perform their sets because it was not the way he taught them. The students told him that YSW taught them and so LTH went to converse with YSW about the differences. After the discussion, LTH told his students that YSW taught them correctly and that it was he who taught in error. Thus, any gross deivations within the sets were corrected and thus NSL was standardized. But today one can observe that students of YSW have the purer flavor (Fluidness of NSL) while the students of LTH stresses the hardness (of the southern flavor) within NSL sets.
Now Li Hung first style is Tsi’a Li Fut before he learned NSL from LTH. When I first witnessed Li Hung’s sets some 30 years ago,and notice the difference, I asked the older generation in NSL and they stated that because LH’s roots are southern and without him realizing it, this influenced his NSL sets.
I posted a couple of notes to you privately. Did you receive them?
NorthernShaolin,
I had always understood that Lung Tzu Hsiang studied with Ku Ju-chang first, and that Yim Shang-mo came later. Is that not the case? Not that it matters, but I’m trying to get the chronology correct.
What do you know about Ku Ju-chang in his later years? He remained in China while LTH and YSM left. Did he retire form teaching? When did he pass away? Where is his final resting place?
YSM seemed to have been very active in spreading NSL throughout the world. I haven’t read much about him, however. Can you provide a brief bio tracing his activities after he left China? I know he has students in the US and many in South America also.
I’m sure the manual that you are talking about must be YSW’s personal manual which all masters had so that they can refer to it. The only manual that I have seen is the one written by LTH in the 1950’s. This manual contain the names of the moves for the 10 NSL hand sets but did not contain any names for weapon techniques. LTH was an educated man and his manual is highly valued. He had one of his students who own a printshop make enough copies for everyone in the school. The left over copies were stacked in the corner of the school and was free for anyone to take.
Does YSW’s manual contain names of moves for weapons and if so which weapons are they?
BPK,
YSW was 20 years older than LTH and he learned before LTH. This is another reason why LTH did his sets slightly different than YSW. KYC, like so many other great masters, was evolving the style. YSW left before LTH completed his studies with KYC.
Yes, KYC remained in China and before KYC retired from teaching in 1935 he sent LTH to Lien T’an Instructional Institute which was under the National Arts School. YSW already had his school in the T’ai Shan area. After helping many other masters, KYC left his government job in Canton, and went to the mountains called Chu Tao Shan and he was never heard from again until he passed away in 1952. He spend the remaining years of his life as a hermit and died a poor man with very few possessions from an overdose of opium. He was not shot nor was he killed by the CPR.
When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, LTH went to HK while YSW returned to his home in Nanking, Kwang Hsi to set up another school. He had 30 students but one by one they dropped out because of the war so he sold his farmland and worked for a convoy business of transporting bamboo and tea to Yunmen province. After WW II YSW left the escort job and went to Canton to teach in Central Park. It was here that he attracted many students. In 1957 he left Canton and went to HK to join LTH.
According to one of YSW’s closest friend, he stated “YSW never advertised that he was KYC’s disciple. He did not talk much and did not like to socialize. When LTH was alive, he would introduce YSW to many people but YSW felt out of place at social events.”
Tai Chi Praying Master, Chao Chi Chow said, " YSW is a silent person but his kung fu is highly developed."
But I can’t remember which ones. Seems to me that it was most of them. I think there were even lyrics for the BSL bench set, one of the forms Wing Lam never learned.
I’ll have to dig around and see if I can find our translations. Unfortunately I don’t have the Chinese, just the translations, so you’ll have that Wing Lam/Gene Ching interpretation. I’ll post them when I find them, assuming I still have an electronic version.
By all accounts do you know if KYC, Was a religious man?, What you Wrote made me think, possibly the then current war got to him, so he became Recluse?, Sad & interesting History.
May i ask you another question on lions roar, here is a link to a indepth history, Do you have any history on any of these characters, such as sing lung or the wong bros, anything about thier students mentioned?, you would care to mention, Anything that would help me build a referance point in, documenting lr’s oral history, into more then legend!
That will be great if you can find the electronic version. Most interesting about the lyrics. If it is too much to post you can always either fax or e-mail with attachments to me. I’m most interested in seening what you have.
Diego,
I do not know first hand if KYC was religious. From what was told to me and later validated by what I’ve read, he was tired of teaching and meeting challenges from the southerner who wanted to make a name for themselves. And this was after he helped so many other southern masters establish their schools and promote CMA in the area.
When I get a chance, I’ll read what is on the web site but many times legend is all we have left and there is no possible way to validate one way or another. This is especially true when history goes back more than 100 years and there is no written documentation. Remember, all legends contain some truth.
Basically, how did they Spar?, like for the 1928 Nanjing Eliminations?, Do you have any accounts, how they prepped for the Events!. KFMAG did that Feature on Muslim kf’uist Wang ZiPing!. It had a Cool little Section like Half a Page, How He Trained for Four months, Preparing for a Fight. With I think a Russian Strongman?, SLT’s Hsingyi Book has a Few Good Cccounts!.
I’m just Wondering, How did Masters of Late Ching Era- Early Communist; Spar!. From accounts, Did They Work similar to Professional Thaiboxers?.
Also, thats kind of Harsh, but Ironically Funny, about the Southerns and GRZ:cool:
NS - I haven’t had the chance to search for that file yet. I know I compressed it all into a single .doc file. It might be fun to post it all here bit by bit. But after I show you mine, you have to show me yours
DG - My understanding about Nanjing is that it was basically no-holds-barred fighting on a lei tai, but I also heard that there were elimination rounds previous to these fights that involved forms. I always thought that was an interesting notion, echoing old fencing duels. Back in the day, you were also scored on form in fencing tournaments. I could imagine using forms as a criteria to judge skill and elimating the fighters who were just plain reckless. It makes a lot of sense in a form-driven martial art. You got to keep in mind that these old tournaments were nothing like ours today, no safety gear, no insurence, nothing like that. It was more like public duelling, more gladitorial, people got seriously hurt.
In HopGar Lineage they say WongYanLum moved to off the head i think canton and set up a leitai stage, then for the next three months challenged all takers, and defeated 150 men, making him the #1Canton TenTiger?, Now it never mentions who he beat, Did they bother with certian criteria like no eye shots?, and the basic assumption is to throw your opponent off the stage like sumo is my understanding" without humping your opponnent of/off? course;) "
That is Interseting the fencing correllation.
Any one have more storys, How did the old school monks scrap each other by all accounts before the temple was shut down?.
What SLT wrote in his book is what was taught to him and was true in the 1800’s where transportation of goods and people were very difficult. Appearance of clothes usually gave an idea where people came from and traveling long distance was in general, very rare for individuals.
Gene is right about the 1928 National Tournament. It was a no holds, all out fight. There were three rules: no eye gouging, strikes to the groin or spearing of the throat. No protection was to be worn and as a result many bones were broken and numerous noses busted open. Blood was everywhere. And individual’s reputations fell according.
Many highly respected masters had much to lose and gave reasons that they were too old to compete so they had their best disciple enter instead.
Most fighters, including KYC, stated before the match that they were going to use their best techniques within three to five moves. If their techniques did not work then their opponent was better than they were. In other words they were so confident in their abilities that they need no preparation as we known it today. These men were 100% martial artist and were trained fighters to begin with. This was a different time when CMA was a means of making a real living and their skills were constantly being tested. (We’re talking about the 1920’s here).
Interesting fact that as the fights progressed to the final few fighters, many of them changed their strategy and started to use quicker techniques. The majority of the final 13 used Hsing-I techniques instead of their main style to win their matches.
LIN BO KIN. TOM TOY. EIGHTEEN TECHNIQUES. SHAOLIN #1-10. NINE-PROVINCE EYEBROW HEIGHT STAFF. DOWN CHOP, HANGING THRUST SINGLE BROADSWORD. DRAGON MOVEMENTS STRAIGHT SWORD. DOUBLE DAGGER. FIVE TIGERS CATCH THE LAMB STAFF. DRAGON HEAD CRUTCH. LIFTING-UP BLOCK, CROSSING-DOWN BLOCK SPEAR. SPRING AUTUMN LONG HANDLED KNIFE. SPINNING DOUBLE BROADSWORD ON THE GROUND. TWIN FLYING DRAGONS STRAIGHT SWORD. TIGER HEAD DOUBLE HOOKS. THREE-SECTION STAFF. SPINNING CHAIN WHIP THE GROUND.
What I plan to do is post them as new threads every once in a while. It may seem like a time consuming method, but my intentions are to increase a little traffic here on our shaolin forum and I think that each one might warrent some discussion. It will be really interesting if others can post their versions of lyrics. I hope you all join in!
great idea Gene! although i can’t imagine these will be of much interest to anyone who doesn’t know the sets, and since i think most of the BSL practitioners check this forum regularly, i can’t see how it will increase traffic too much.
anyway, i will be waiting eagerly for your posts, since i have not had the opportunity to learn any of the “official” names of the moves. if i could only see them in chinese!
bq: I’m afriad I no longer have the Chinese. But I hope it will bring more BSLer’s to this forum.
rs: Northern Shaolin and I were discussing the 18 earlier on this very thread. I posted our first set yesterday and will do another in a few mintues. The rest are coming - stay tuned!
you rock, Gene! kudos again, i’m excited to see all of this information being shared so freely. i only wish that i had something of my own to contribute, maybe in a few years…
Hi Bei Quan;
I believe a martial art does one of two things over time evolves or de-evolves. If the martial art is field tested in real life situations and emphasis is kept on maintaining the essence of the style as it was intended by the founder I expect it will evolve. Exponents of the most well known kung fu styles distinguished themselves in trials of combat. Some as dedicated and patriotic military men, some as body guards, some as prize fighters, some as prolific teachers who would take on any challenger. They understood the key moves from the essence forms and they were able to actualize them when needed.
De-evolution occurs when key moves in the essence forms are not truly understood by a teacher for what ever reason or perhaps the style is learned from a teacher who placed more emphasis on pure forms training with out consideration of how to actually apply the essence movements in a real life combat situation. Also consider the factor that different Northern Shaolin teachers learned from YSM and LCC at different points on the time line and at different stages in their teaching career. The insights YSM pass on to his earlier students surely differed from the profound insights of the later years of his life.
The important thing for us as modern practitioners is to develop a personal work ethic and habit of daily challenging practice preceded and followed by deep introspection and meditation on understanding the message the style has for your body and spirit. Slowly you will live the essence of the style as it was intended by the founder. Placing emphasis on the differences between the various branches of NSL only gives birth to divisionism and elitist attitudes. I prefer to focus on the fact that we are all practicing a rare and beautiful style and that makes us brothers on a level only another Northern Shaolin practitioner would truly understand.
Nice post BTW.
Lokhopkuen
>>>>i’m just curious what others here think of this issue. i’ve noticed that in general, every BSL school that i’ve observed does their forms slightly differently. however, within other systems of MA, there seems to be a bit more continuity – especially among certain styles; for example i’ve seen lots of people perform Zhaquan #4 and it always looks almost exactly the same; however there are books and reference materials galore for this form. same with the Tiger/Crane set; although i see differences in emphasis between schools, the movements all look pretty consistent – again, there are a number of printed materials and diagrams of this form. perhaps the fact that a form or style is documented has a kind of “standardizing” effect on the way that it is passed down within the tradition?
I agree with you completely but this strays a bit from the point I was attempting to make.
Lokhopkuen
>r.(shaolin) Most CMA’s were born in the battle field.
Prize fighting, brutal as it was and is, is not the same as combat.
The game is totally different as are the stakes.
r.
But I hope it will bring more BSLer’s to this forum.
