A Newbie's Intro

[arnisador]

Originally posted by Dronak
I don't know if that really helps explain the form's name, but I thought they were interesting points.

Thanks, that was very interesting! I have seen some moves in kata before that are of the general form you describe. I appreciate your sharing this with me--I have so little kung fu experience that it really is educational for me.

Is this book publicly available or is it something only given to people in your school?

 

[Dronak]

arnisador, the book is publicly available. I bought it from Amazon.com. The title is _Shaolin Long Fist Kung Fu_ and it's by Yang Jwing-Ming and Jeffery A. Bolt. I bought it without knowing exactly what was in it and was lucky to find that it did have a few of the forms we're learning. I don't think it's *exactly* the same as what we're doing, for one the photos show stances that are rather high compared to what we've been taught, but it's pretty close. I can annotate the differences and still use it as a reference since I've been given instruction in the details the book might miss.

Cthulhu, I agree that it can be useful to have the original Chinese names of the forms. Our teacher generally doesn't use them though because many of us in the class don't know Chinese. What I've gathered mainly from the book I have is that Linking Step Fist is Lien Bu Chuan and Power Fist is Gung Li Chuan. The third basic form, Six Closing Fist, isn't in my book and I don't recall the teacher ever saying its Chinese name. He may have, but I never wrote it down if he did. The Ambush Fist forms are, I think, Yi Lu Mei Fu and Er Lu Mei Fu for the First and Second ones respectively. The book I have also has two other forms, Shaw Fu Ien and Shih Tzu Tan, but I don't know what they translate to or if we're even going to learn them. Does that help you out?

 

[Cthulhu]

Okay, did a quick search on Google on the forms. Here's what I found from the second link:

Lien Bu Chuan - Connecting Steps
Gung Li Chuan - Developing strength
Yi Lu Mei Fu - First Ambush Form
Er Lu Mei Fu - Second Ambush Form

And the two you didn't know translations for:

Shaw Fu Ien - Roaring Tiger Form
Shih Tzu Tan - Cross step

I've seen that book at B&N, so it should be fairly easy to find for anyone interested.

Cthulhu

 

[disciple]

Oh I get it...you're learning shaolin chang quan. Me too. But it's been a couple of months and the teacher still teach us only basic moves. He said to keep practicing the basic until perfect. After 6 mo, we will have a test to see if we have it correct. I have no problem with that, cuz I know that usually in shaolin temple they require a couple of YEARS to learn the basic, at least that's how it was in ancient times.
I think the hardest thing is the deep horse stance especially after some time and you still have to practice the hand movement and some jumping kicks



salute
:asian:

 

[Dronak]

I don't think our teacher ever actually gave us the Chinese name of the style he's teaching. I think about the best we got was in translation, something like northern shaolin long fist style kung fu. I've read that Chang Quan translates into Long Fist, but I wasn't sure if it was the same style. A few things I've seen on the web give a basic form of Chang Quan that doesn't look like any of the three basic forms I'm familiar with.

I am trying to find a book or two that has more forms from the style we're learning and I know of a couple that say they're Long-Style Boxing, the brief description of which say they're Chang Quan. I was thinking of getting them, but I'm not sure exactly what forms they have. If one or more people here believe what I'm doing is Chang Quan, I'll probably go ahead and get those books because they will likely have more forms from the style I'm learning. Actually, if anyone has some specific book suggestions that would be helpful, too.

P.S. -- Yeah, we are moving very fast. Our teacher has pretty much said so a few times already. I think it's because our teacher doesn't know exactly how long he'll be able to teach us and therefore wants to give us as much as possible as quickly as possible. Your timeline isn't terribly far off from ours, I think. This first exam we had was about 5 or 6 months after we started. We had two basic forms as part of the test, maybe you'll have one instead, I don't know. But yeah, real traditional training takes way longer than we're doing now. Our class might still be going a bit too fast, but we're doing our best to keep up.

 

[disciple]

I dont think we will have any "forms" by the end of 6 mo. You said that you had a book of shaolin long fist by yang jwing ming, and the cover shows one of the basic moves we had in the class. I aslo was thinking about buying them, but I thought I dont need it just yet.
The chinese names Cthulhu and you provided sounded familiar though.

salute
:asian:

 

[disciple]

Did you start learning to use some weapons yet? It seems you know some weapons well (from another thread).

salute
:asian:

 

[Dronak]

The book has more than just some forms in it. There are sections on basic stances, hand forms (fist, palm, etc.), leg forms (same idea), basic punches, basic kicks, stretching, stuff like that. Most of the book is the five forms it contains, but there is useful stuff before that, too. When or if you buy the book is of course up to you. I'm just pointing out that it does have some stuff besides just forms.

As for weapons, no, I haven't done any training with any of them. We're still working on learning barehand forms. I don't know weapons well at all. I just remember a few of the things our teacher pointed out to us in a couple of his weapon demonstrations, maybe a few things I've read, too. Our teacher does plan to get to weapons though. I think the latest revised estimate is towards the end of the summer and he said we might get to start with either staff or sword. He said that traditionally you wouldn't even touch a weapon for 2 years minimum. And we're hoping to get to them with only about 1 year of training? Just another indicator of how fast we're moving.

 

[arnisador]

Originally posted by Dronak
The title is _Shaolin Long Fist Kung Fu_ and it's by Yang Jwing-Ming and Jeffery A. Bolt. I bought it without knowing exactly what was in it

Surprisingly, so did I, many years ago--it's on my shelf (as are books about many other arts I've never practiced but have wondered or been curious about). Now I have a better idea what you're doing!

 

[Dronak]

Yes, that book will give you an idea of what I'm learning. There does seem to be some differences between the forms in the book and what our teacher is teaching us, but they don't seem to be huge. Things like there's an extra punch the book doesn't have or the book has a kick where we don't. The basics of the forms appear to be the same from what I can tell. The stances shown in the book are too high compared to what we do though. E.g., for Mountain Climbing Stance we were told that the goal is to have the front leg's shin perpendicular to the ground and the thigh about parallel to the ground. The author's pictures don't have his thigh anywhere close to parallel to the ground. Still, since I'm not using the book for instruction, it's OK. I use it more as a reminder of what I've learned and a place to put some notes.

I've been trying to find other books that have more forms from the style we're learning. I forget if I mentioned that in here before or not. If so, sorry for the repetition. The problem is it's very difficult to get details of what's in books (e.g., names of forms) so I either don't get any or buy them blind (like I did for this one) and hope they have what I want. If so, great, if not, then I have to decide whether to keep them or return them. Two books by Cheng Huikun on "Long-Style Boxing" look like they may be what I want, but nowhere on the web can I find a list of forms in them to make sure. The descriptions mention being Chang Quan which I believe can be translated as Long Fist, but I also think that's a rather general term. I don't know if that Chang Quan would be the same thing as the Long Fist we're doing. *shrug* I'll decide on something sooner or later. There's no big rush on it.

 

[Dronak]

BTW, if a moderator thinks I should be splitting this thread into new one(s) at some point, feel free to let me know or split it yourself if you can and want. It just seems to me that it fits fine here in the thread I originally started talking about my learning.

We got a little better idea of why our teacher is pushing us rather hard and fast. For one, his intention is to teach us as if we were all going to become coaches/teachers. Of course we still can't teach until he decides we're ready and some of us may never become coaches. He wants us to have that mindset for learning though, to think like we're going to be teachers. He has said that he will eventually expect us to help teach the new students in the class, so I guess we'll all probably be doing that later on. He seemed to indicate that in the future, he may just teach mainly the older students (as in the ones who've been there the longest) and have them teach the newer ones. I think this would help keep things moving since he doesn't have to personally teach everyone everything. I think he said that since some of us are learning different forms than others, the plan is to have us specialize in teaching the forms we learned directly from him. There are certainly some advantages to being in the first group here and getting almost everything straight from him.

He said that he does plan to give us as much as he can as quickly as he can. We kind of gathered that already, but he specifically said so this time. This almost necessitates using a non-traditional teaching method which might not go over so well with everyone so he kind of impied that we should sort of keep quiet about that. In that case, let's just say that he's hoping to give us all of his knowledge, etc. in a much shorter time than it took him to gain it. Not that we'd be as good as he is having progressed so quickly of course, but we would have the same general knowledge of things he has. And that appears to be his main goal, passing on the knowledge he has.

It also sounded like he has an even bigger goal of starting some sort of long fist organization. I think he was saying that there is one or one is starting in Taiwan, but there's nothing like that here in the US and I think he's hoping to be part of creating one. I really didn't get too much out of that section of today's little chat, so I'll just have to let you know more when/if I hear more about it. I thought this might be of some interest to those of you who are sort of tracking my progress. I know I liked hearing a bit more about why we're going so fast and I thought you might, too.

 

[arnisador]

Originally posted by Dronak

It also sounded like he has an even bigger goal of starting some sort of long fist organization.

Interesting about the training you to be trainers! It sounds like you're getting a unique experience. Hopefully the group of you will fan out after college and spread the art.

 

[Dronak]

Yeah, knowing that he's training us as if we were all going to be coaches does help put things in a better perspective. I think it's fairly common for people to change locations after college, so this would help spread the art. If he gets us to the point where he feels we could do some teaching, we would be able to help spread the art when we moved on. I kind of thought the long fist organization thing was meant to be more like a governing body, a sort of headquarters for the style, rather than a branching-out group of teachers, but we'll see I guess.

 

[Dronak]

Originally posted by arnisador

I'll be curious to hear why Ambush Fist is so named.

I gave about as much of an answer as I could when you posted this, but I now have something else that might interest you. In the third batch of moves our instructor taught us Saturday, two of them involve grabbing knives that would be on your body and throwing them at your opponent. The first is taking one from your left leg, like a boot knife maybe?, by running your left hand along the leg while it kicks. In the form that's follow by a vertical palm strike rather than something more like a knife throwing action. The second one involves making 1/2 turn away from the opponent while getting a knife from your side, sort of under the left arm on the ribs, then turning back around to face him and throwing the knife from overhead. I'm thinking this one might be more for throwing stars or something similar rather than what we usually think of as a knife (handle and blade). It would seem a lot easier to hide throwing stars on your body than a knife, but I don't actually know for sure. The teacher just said the moves were for grabbing knives. The first move is a little easier to get than the second. The second involves a lot of arm circling and balancing on the 1/2 turn to face the opponent because it's kind of like your spinning around as you throw the knife. It's a bit harder to coordinate. I thought you might find that interesting. It seems to be shaping up to be a rather interesting form, but it does already appear noticeably harder than the previous ones we've done.

 

[arnisador]

That's neat! I have heard of such applications of forms before but not often.

But then, who's ambushing whom?

 

[Dronak]

I don't know. Maybe when I remember I should ask our teacher whether the Ambush Form is so named because you're the one doing the ambushing or because it trains you to respond to being ambushed. I get the impression that it's meant as a response to an ambush because I don't think martial arts training was meant to make you the aggresor. Plus the book I have listed an application of the first move as pulling two attackers off balance and if necessary kicking a third. That would seem to imply you're the one getting attacked.

As for the knife applications, I agree they're interesting. I don't know how many moves in barehand forms could be used to get/use weapons. My experience and knowledge is too limited right now. Our teacher will usually show us an application of a move if he thinks it will help us understand it better and thus learn it faster. That's probably why he added in these knife applications. Without knowing that it wouldn't necessarily be obvious (not to us beginners anyway) why we're doing the moves that way.

 

[Dronak]

Our instructor recently received some sort of certification recognizing his teaching level (or something or other) from some organization I can't remember. Great, huh? I think it was something like the International Martial Arts Training Center, but I'm not sure. I think he said this is the first one done for a Chinese martial artist, so that's pretty cool. He mentioned again about how he has this big plan for spreading the art and training us to become teachers so we can help if we want to. Of course he's not going to force us to do something we don't really want to. But this summer he said he was going to have some special class for training people to teach the first level, so to speak. He said that would basically be Six Closing Fist, Power Fist, Linking Step Fist, and tan tuie routines 1-5. I think the plan for this class is for him to make sure that we've got everything exactly the way it should be so that we wouldn't teach anything wrong and also to show us some applications of everything so that we'll know those, too. I think he wants to start some sort of teaching certification levels and this would be the first one. He said older students may need to help teach newer students whether or not they've taken a coaching class, but the ones who do take the class and learn things well enough would be able to teach outside of our classes. I'm kind of interested in the coaching class just to make sure I get all the details right, but I haven't learned the Linking Step Fist form yet, so I'm not sure if I could do it. He might only want people who have learned all three forms in there, I don't know. Anyway, I think that's the main news from class recently. Just passing things along for those who are interested in how things are going here.

 

[arnisador]

This is interesting as a cultural phenomenon! I take it your sifu really loves the martial arts. How old is he? How long has he been here in the States? Has he taught other groups here?

 

[Cthulhu]

Dronak,

Go for the coaching class! I've always believed that you don't know something unless you can teach that something.

Getting the opportunity to teach really helps your own training.

Cthulhu

 

[Dronak]

arnisador, I don't think I can exactly answer all your questions. As for his age, I'm not a great guesser, but I'd say maybe in his 30s. Papers we have say he's had 18 years of training and he's talked about doing MA while in high school. If he started in high school when he was say 18, another 18 years of training puts his age around 36. Chances are he started somewhat earlier than that and is somewhat younger. I think he's also mentioned having a masters degree. I guess a range then would be say mid 20s to mid 30s. I'm not sure how long he's been here in the US. All I can say from the background papers I have is that it probably wasn't any earlier than 1985 -- a note says he won the National Chin-Nien Cup Chinese Martial Arts Competition in that year in Taiwan. As I recall, he got that masters from a school here, so he must have been here for at least a few years already. I know that he does teach some tai chi classes out in Virginia, but I don't know if he's taught long fist to other groups.

Cthulhu, I generally agree. You know that you've really learned something well if you're able to teach it to someone else. That's why our department likes everyone to be a teaching assistant at some point, I think. Besides the obvious experience of teaching a class, that is. I'm interested in that coaching class from what he said more so that I know I'm doing everything correctly than to know I can teach it to others, but being able to teach would be a plus, too. Still, as noted, I haven't learned one of the forms that's planned to be included, so I'm not sure if I can take the class. He might want me to learn the form first before doing the coaching class, but then again he might feel that I can learn it from that coaching class and let me do it. I don't know, I'll have to see. That's still a few months away though and I'm sure we'll get more details as the summer gets nearer.

Oh, as a little aside, we've finished off the first section of the Yang style tai chi form we're learning. The sheet we got lists 100 moves and there are 21 in part one (the shortest section of the three). It's nice to have reached a marker like that. I wonder how far we'll get before the summer. Almost certainly not all the way through, but I wonder if we'll finish part two, up to move 58. I'll see in a few months, I guess.