Question about a couple of famous kung fu sifus

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

I have never met Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming or Liang Shou-yu, and I have never seen their kung fu in motion. I have read many articles and books they have authored.

I am a little confused by some comments made on this forum. I have read that Dr. Yang’s Longfist is modified, simplistic, and heavily flavored with White Crane. I have read the same thing about his tai-chi. People post criticisms about Liang Shou-yu teaching minimal basics and promoting a questionable lineage for his Bagua.

Are they skilled and passing on legit skills, or is it a little less than what we are led to believe?

I do not know, so I am not condemning anybody.

PS I have never heard anybody speak negatively about Dr. Yang’s White Crane skills.

I don’t get mad.
I get stabby.

2

dunno about his longfist, but his tai chi and chin na are awesome. he comes here like every year or so. He was here last month, but I was unable to attend this time around.

“You ain’t got enough calcium to have a bone to pick wit me,
like a Gracie, I’ll choke a ***** out wit his own gi” - Rass Kass

3

I heard his chin na skills were amazing, but I also heard that they were White Crane more than Tai Chi or Shaolin.

I also read soemwhere on this forum, maybe posted by Crimson Phoenix, that he saw Dr. Yang fold a heavy bag in half with a circular swinging crane strike. :eek:

I don’t get mad.
I get stabby.

4

yeah, I believe it is more white crane based. I wish i could fold a bag in half with a crane strike - or any strike for that matter!

“You ain’t got enough calcium to have a bone to pick wit me,
like a Gracie, I’ll choke a ***** out wit his own gi” - Rass Kass

5

Liang’s bagua IS of “questionable” origin, but that isn’t a particularly damning claim.

The man definitely has the skills himself. As for his teaching, I think he teaches some extremely excellent qigong methods, but that his bagua has a little too much modern wushu flavor to it for my tastes.

6

hehe, yes, it was me…geez, it was impressive, but the most impressive aspect to it is that he started like 9 inches away from the bag…it wasn’t even a large swinging stuff, it was a quick, direct ridge hand…I heard Yang’s master stopped teaching white crane when one of Yang’s co-student killed a guy with the same technique (he broke a guy’s rib with it and the rib pierced his heart ouch…).
I can easily imagine that…
As for Yang’s longfist, no, there is no White crane in it and it is kept very close to Nanjing Kuoshu Longfist…Li Mao Ching is still in contact with Yang, some friends of mine who were in YMAA’s first summer camp in Hungary and Li was there to check everything…
So if this style appears simplistic to some, well, they have to reffer to Nanjing Longfist.
There are many aspects to this composite style, including among others some mantis, some cha muslim boxing, one taizu changquan form, and the gong li quan from Jing Wu. I can see it’s simplistic only in the basic levels…
For the Qinna, he teaches both Taiji and WC qinna in his seminars and they are really different…there are also some Longfist Qinna, but he says it only accounts for 20 something % of the qinna he teaches for external arts.

As for Taiji, I am not versed in it, but one sure thing is that the flavor of his taiji is very different from the one of my bagua sifu…I would say that people saying there’s a lot of WC in his Taijji are right…I think he never denied it anyway…

All I can say is that from meeting him several times and even practicing with him I was always convinced of his great skills and genuine desire to share…he’s also a very gentle, funny and humble man.

7

WHat do you mean by “fold a bag in half” with a crane strike?

JWT

If you pr!ck us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that the villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. MOV

8

If the man can teach you how to do that. Does it really matter where it comes from?

Seriously, think about it.

Dr. Yang Yes, I can teach you how to hit hard enough to fold a heavy bag in half. It’s a White Crane technique.

Student Wow Dr. yang, that’s good stuff. But since it’s not technically Long Fist, I think I’ll pass.

You may take my life, but you will never take my Freedom

9

I have had only the briefest of interactions with Dr. Yang, but have found him to be a truly sincere individual who is very open and honest about himself and his art. He doesn’t slag the Japanese and Korean arts as if they’re somehow inferior, and his instruction is very precise and thorough. His senior students are also excellent instructors in their own right.

My experience was in his chin na sessions, and they do seem heavily influenced by White Crane. I have no qualms with that however.

10

What I meant by “folding a bag in half” is the following situation…he was at the dojo for his week seminars and there is a heavy leather bag…I mean HEAVY LEATHER, the kind of bag that has not been changed since 30 years (the dojo started with karate in the 50s), filled with I don’t know what but it’s hard.
He then shows the proper jing of the technique he was teaching the seniors on the bag, that direct, linear ridge hand…he puts his hand in a ready, relaxed position like 8-10 inches from the bag and shoots the hand. For a second, the bag FOLDS at the level of the ridge hand like there was an hinge on it, getting an angle like 30-40 degrees.
Then the bag bounces back…we were all flabbergasted, but then he nods his head and tells the guys “see?? I’m not a good master, when done correctly, the bag isn’t supposed to mave back but bounce vertically”.
We were all wondering if he was serious or joking, but he was really not satisfied with the strike…needless to say, everyone who saw that were giving each others a kind of “I’d like to be that bad” or “he really is crazy”
:smiley:
Then he showed many cool things about the different types of jings and how the bag reacts depending if the power penetrates or not, and told some great stories about his master who must have been truly incredible…which I believe easily since his own master (that is Yang’s sifu’s sifu, grandfather in practcice, Jin Shao Feng) was one of the only three men Wang Xiang Zhai said had real gong fu in China :eek:

11

funny…

My own sifu, Wai Lun Choi, demonstrated something similar in class. Using Lama Pai strikes he would fold a 120 lb. bag easily. Then he would laugh, and say you try it. I would, and accomplished the same feat. Then he would do the techniques again, and the bag wouldn’t move at all. When asked what he was intending to demonstrate, he said “Stand behind the bag, and hold it firmly.” I was the lucky one picked for this assignment. He then used one finger, lightly resting against the bag, and suddenly “surged”. The bag never moved, but I certainly did. I bounced off the wall three feet behind me. Funny… and scary.

Best regards,
R. Drake Sansone
(swmngdragn@home.com)
http://www.liuhopafa.com/
“Train, or go to hell.” Terry W.

12

Water Dragon

I wouldn’t care where that ability came from either, if I could learn it. I couldn’t even fold a heavy bag with a bat. :frowning:

I was just trying to figure out what exactly he is teaching. I never thought he didn’t have skills, just curious how much of it was aside from his impressive White Crane skills. A “little bit less” was a poor choice of words applied to the Dr. Yang portion of the question. I meant “a little something different” in his case.

Has anybody trained with Liang Shou-yu? Is it modern wushu or “the real deal”?

I don’t get mad.
I get stabby.

13

That wasn’t a cut at you. It was an observation on a type of thinking I have seen here and there.

You may take my life, but you will never take my Freedom

14

I haven’t studied Northern Shaolin at all, so I’m not qualified to make any comment on that.

As far as Dr. Yang’s Taiji, I think he would be the first to admit that his White Crane influences it. I think he specifically said in the “Taiji Chin Na” book that he adapted a good portion of those locks from his White Crane. I say “adapted”, though, not transferred. I just finished up a 16 week Taiji chin na class, and we learned the techniques from pushing hands, and Dr. Yang would occasionally show how those locks would be applied slightly differently in the Shaolin styles. I think Dr. Yang’s approach is that the softer techniques of White Crane are of pretty much the same theory as Taiji, and can be adapted without much difficulty. Also, from my experience, Dr. Yang does not really embrace the idea of arts being “pure” or “original”. One thing he always says is “If you study as long and as hard as I have, and you end up teaching everything exactly like I did—then you’re a pretty bad student”. His approach is that arts have to be changing and creative to be alive. Don’t quote me on this, but I think he said he’s changed about 15% of his Taiji form from what he was taught, based on his understanding and preferences. But, he always stresses that you have to have a deep understanding of the art before you change things.

So I guess the point I’m making is that the fact that Dr. Yang’s styles may look different than other teachers is in line with his overall philosophy of the arts, at least as I understand it. In the chin na class, I’ve always found him fully able to give painfully convincing reasons for his preferred methods :).

I’ve never met Liang Shou Yu, but I think he gave a few seminars at YMAA right before I started in 1998, and I know Dr. Yang and the students thought very highly of him. From what I’ve read of him and about him, and who he’s studied with, I would tend to think he’s got a pretty deep understanding of all the aspects of CMA–to imply that he’s just a “performance artist” would seem grossly inaccurate to me—but I have no firsthand experience.

15

Liang shou you

LSY is the real thing but there are a few problems. He still carrys on the “old school” mentality of only teaching PHD’s of some kind.

Which YWM is. In engineering. A PHD in china is totally different than one in the usa. Most Dr’s are average to below average intelligence. Carpenter level of intelligence.

There are only 400 people in the world with a PHD in accupuncture. My mothers teacher is one of them. Its no cakewalk, even if education is free over there.

But, YWM seems to always attach his image to LSY’s. It gets rather annoying. YWM says in a tai chi book: “We dont use strength” and then in LSY’s bagua book he’s standing there with bricks on his arms.

I mean you know it was a pose. Stand there, hold bricks, take a picture. But really.

LSY is probabaly too nice of a guy. Has to be with his skills, which I have only heard of by reputation. I’m told he makes everything look like “tai chi”.

I’m told the way he sets up throws with a fell technique (he has to he’s to small) looks more like ballet.

That should tell you something. If YWM makes things look like white crane, then thats his “specialty”. The chinese have a saying: “one specialty, many skills”.

The chinese also have another saying: “Chicken feathers and garlic skins”.

We used to call them “shoulder bugs” or “butt barnicles”. I saw a webpage where sigman had his name attached to LSY as a “translator” of one of his webpages.

I mean come on. Anyways. Enough about “hanger ons”. I think its a mark of quality and status.

Reminds me of a story my mother told me. Her guru is asked by another guy in his group: “Why are guru’s always surrounded by kooks and weirdo’s?” (paraphrase)

He smiles and says: “The wettest logs have to be closest to the fire”

You can quote me on that.

Turiyan gold, Brahmin caste, Ordos clan
“A Brahmin, coming into existence, is born as the highest on earth, the
lord of all created beings, for the protection of the treasury of the
(natural) law. Whatever exists in the world is (by right), the
property of the Brahmin; on account of the excellence of his origin
(primogeniture and eminence of birth) The Brahmin is, indeed, entitled
to it all” --C1V99-V100 The laws of manu

16

Turyian, here’s an arab proverb for you:
If what you want to say is not more beautiful than silence, shut up…

  1. Yang had a pHD from a US university, not in China, fool
  2. Your remark about chinese phDs is stupid (understatement)…just do a medline search for chinese names and chinese journals…
  3. if you knew what you’re talking about, you’d know why there are these bricks/weight exercises in bagua…they don’t train muscles, they train body structure…it’s with by using body structure/anatomical arcs that Cheng Ting Hua could walk the circle with buckets full of water in his hands with the arms extended without even getting short breath…I bet most of us can’t even hold such filled buckets in our hands with the arms extended, and for those who can, they can’t hold it long…and the guy (Cheng Ting Hua) was far from being a bodybuilder, he was just using principles that have to be trained patiently for years…it is these principles that bagua practionners train when they use bricks…Yang is right when he say about Taiji “we use no strenght”…plus, notice he just said that about taiji…I saw him holding a very heavy staff at the tip and move it about without problems and when he gave it to a student, the guy dropped it from the weight…White Crane is a soft-hard style, it has therefore jings soft as taiji’s, but also jings that require heavy muscle workout (not body building, the chinese way of densifying muscles without changing the volume).

Next time you break silence, make sure what you say is worth it… :rolleyes: