Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
First I apologies to any Kung Fu San Soo people that read this, I do not know who Master Sam Silva is and all I know about Jimmy Woo is that Kung Fu San Soo in the US comes from him so if I am a bit off the mark here I am sorry but this is what my take on this is from the article that I read and I was surprised at the similarity.
I was reading an article recently “Freeze the Mind” by Master Sam Silva. It is about Jimmy Woo and Kung Fu San Soo and I noticed something that is pretty prevalent in Xingyiquan. Due to the training style of Xingyiquan where in Santi you tend to focus on one point one tends to develop what has been called, by some Xingyiquan masters of old, “a poisonous look”. The intent, or at least my understanding of it based on my little experience in Xingyiquan, is to scare your opponent before the fight ever starts. And I can tell you that my last Xingyiquan Sifu could scare a person with a look and the gentleman I meant in Beijing that was in his 80s, a Buddhist, considerably smaller than me Xingyiquan master scared the hell out of me with this look. So I know it exists.
What caught attention in the article by Sam Silva was what he says was Jimmy Woo’s favorite phrase “freeze his heart” meaning stop the persons heart with fear or, I assume, in other words make the aggressor fear what he just came up against, loose confidence and choose retreat over aggression.
Is this actually overtly trained in Kung Fu San Soo?
Also as a note; I am aware that many styles of martial arts can develop this but generally it is a side effect and not directly trained, or at least that is my understanding of it. Xingyiquan trains it and it appears that Kung Fu San Soo does as well. However I have read that at higher levels of Xingyiquan that although the initial look is poisonous the face that is seen by an opponent during the fight can be rather relaxed and sometimes smiling. I can imagine this could shake up an opponent a bit as well, fighting like hell only to see the other guy smiling at you. I guess I should just chalk it up to psychological warfare of the old masters, but I do find this whole thing rather interesting.
I was reading an article recently “Freeze the Mind” by Master Sam Silva. It is about Jimmy Woo and Kung Fu San Soo and I noticed something that is pretty prevalent in Xingyiquan. Due to the training style of Xingyiquan where in Santi you tend to focus on one point one tends to develop what has been called, by some Xingyiquan masters of old, “a poisonous look”. The intent, or at least my understanding of it based on my little experience in Xingyiquan, is to scare your opponent before the fight ever starts. And I can tell you that my last Xingyiquan Sifu could scare a person with a look and the gentleman I meant in Beijing that was in his 80s, a Buddhist, considerably smaller than me Xingyiquan master scared the hell out of me with this look. So I know it exists.
What caught attention in the article by Sam Silva was what he says was Jimmy Woo’s favorite phrase “freeze his heart” meaning stop the persons heart with fear or, I assume, in other words make the aggressor fear what he just came up against, loose confidence and choose retreat over aggression.
Is this actually overtly trained in Kung Fu San Soo?
Also as a note; I am aware that many styles of martial arts can develop this but generally it is a side effect and not directly trained, or at least that is my understanding of it. Xingyiquan trains it and it appears that Kung Fu San Soo does as well. However I have read that at higher levels of Xingyiquan that although the initial look is poisonous the face that is seen by an opponent during the fight can be rather relaxed and sometimes smiling. I can imagine this could shake up an opponent a bit as well, fighting like hell only to see the other guy smiling at you. I guess I should just chalk it up to psychological warfare of the old masters, but I do find this whole thing rather interesting.
Last edited: