Kung Fu Books

[driftingboat]

Any good introductory books out there? I am primarily interested in Northern Shaolin.

Thank you!

 

[Xue Sheng]

I have an old book by Yang Jwing Ming on Shaolin style but it may be out of print. But now he has one titled Northern Shaolin Sword: Forms, Techniques & Applications but I have not read it so I do not know if it is good or not.

 

[DavidCC]

Please go browse my web site at www.kungfubooksonline.com. I have selected a number of books on CMA (and other reagions) but unfortunately haven't read them all myself so I can't really offer personal reviews on them however amy of them, if you view their details page, will have reader reviews.

If you know of any good books that I should have and don't please drop me a line and I will add it!

 

[Rabu]

Hmm...

Hard to say.

Northern Shaolin as in the art taught by Ghu Rhu Zhong? Or do you mean A northern system of shaolin?

Bei Shaolin, Bak Sil Lum, Northern Shaolin....

Yang Jwing Ming has indeed authored a number of books on Shaolin techniques. I have found them to be good resource material when coupled with a skilled teacher. I have never found a book to be a replacement. If what you are seeking is some information on Northern Shaolin as a style to itself, the written works are few and far between.

The Jing Wu Mun offered a complete Northern Shaolin curriculum, and as far as I know, still does.

Master Lai Hung authored a book on 'Pek Sil Lum' (yet another western spelling of the same thing) and he has a website, though little information appears on the site.

Wing Lam also teached Northern Shaolin as a system and his site offers a great deal of information in the form of videos on the subject.

Shifu Robert Luoie still teaches, his website is here: http://www.jingmo.org/ An excellent resource.

What are you looking for? Maybe I can help by offering some opinions?

Best regards,

Rob

 

[pstarr]

Okay - I'll put in a shameless plug for my new book, "Martial Mechanics", although it isn't style-specific and the principles it presents can be applied to any percussive form.

 

[Formosa Neijia]

There aren't a lot of good books out on northern shaolin/long fist, at least not in English. I know of several good ones in Chinese that have never beed translated. This is a bit odd since Gu Ruzhang, the northern shaolin/iron palm guy, won the full-contact division of the 1928 All China championship. Why there aren't more books on the style is a bit strange.

Dr. Yang's book on long fist is the only one I can think of. It's fairly good but hasn't been updated.

 

[driftingboat]

I practice Shorinji Kempo which has its origins in Northern Shaolin. I just want to see if there are any similarities between the two. Thank you all for your input.

 

[kwaichang]

Any good introductory books out there? I am primarily interested in Northern Shaolin.
Thank you!

Try "Shaolin Fighting Theories & Concepts" by Douglas L. Wong and "Secrets of Shaolin Temple Boxing" by Robert W. Smith, if you can still get them.

Otherwise, use "google" to find along with Amazon.com.

Good hunting.

 

[Rabu]

Righto, here is a listing of books the school I go to recommends or points out as specifically northern shaolin:

Northern Shaolin Style Shaolin Number 5 - Martial Skill
by Rick L. Wing

Northern Siu Lum #7 Moi Fah The Plum Flower Fist
by Kwong Wing Lam & Ted Mancuso

Ultimate Iron Palm
by Wing Lam and Chet Brown

The Secrets of Northern Shaolin Kung-Fu
by Lai Hung and Brian Klingborg

Combat Shaolin
by Gary Tang, Al Loui & Brian Klingborg

Northern Shao Lin Twelve Tan Tui Boxing Series
by Chan Kin Man

Beginning Kung Fu
by Kam Yuen

Advanced Three Sectional Staff
by Eric Lee

Three Sectional Staff
by Kam Yuen

The Essence of the Northern Fists
by Douglas H. Y. Hsieh

 

[7starmarc]

Any good introductory books out there? I am primarily interested in Northern Shaolin.

Thank you!

Are you looking for technique-oriented books, general concepts, history?

For a general book which provides some very interesting discussion on a conceptual and historical level as they apply to modern practice, I have enjoyed Adam Hsu's The Sword Polisher's Record.His commentary is not restricted to Northern Shaolin, but is widely applicable to many of the CMA.

 

[Flying Crane]

I practice Shorinji Kempo which has its origins in Northern Shaolin. I just want to see if there are any similarities between the two. Thank you all for your input.

It's been my understanding that Shorinji Kempo does not use kata/forms at all. I've never studied it so I could be mistaken. Is this true?

Shaolin and other Chinese arts tend to be highly form-focused and teach thru that method. The essence and quality of the movement is very clear in the forms of the system. If Shorinji does not use the same, or similar foms, then it immediately suggests something fairly different.

I watched a class or two of Shorinji Kempo in San Francisco. I did not see any kata, and what I observed gave me the impression of something rather different from Shaolin.

 

[Colin_Linz]

Shorinji Kempo does have forms, we call them Hokei. The concept is a little different than kata. It is true to say that our forms are not very complicated when compared to other arts, and that there is less emphasis on them. Our main emphasis is on pair form training. As to our resemblance to Northern Shaolin styles I have little knowledge. I would think that there may be some superficial resemblances. Here are some links you might be interested in.

http://www.treefox.co.uk/kempo/history/history1.htm

Check the bottom right picture. The Japanese delegate is Doshin So. The photo was taken a year before Doshin So died, when he returned to the temple in 1979. I have seen video footage of Doshin So demonstrating Shorinji Kempo to a group at the temple. By way of interest only, Jet Li’s movie “Shaolin Temple featured a few of the instructors from our Hombu, one of these sensei was Yamasaki sensei.

http://www.authenticshaolin.com/songshan2.html

Do a search for Doshin So in this document and you will find a short section on one of his Chinese teachers.

http://www.yiquan-academy.eu/free/engyiquan101.pdf

 

[Flying Crane]

Shorinji Kempo does have forms, we call them Hokei. The concept is a little different than kata. It is true to say that our forms are not very complicated when compared to other arts, and that there is less emphasis on them. Our main emphasis is on pair form training. As to our resemblance to Northern Shaolin styles I have little knowledge. I would think that there may be some superficial resemblances. Here are some links you might be interested in.

http://www.treefox.co.uk/kempo/history/history1.htm

Check the bottom right picture. The Japanese delegate is Doshin So. The photo was taken a year before Doshin So died, when he returned to the temple in 1979. I have seen video footage of Doshin So demonstrating Shorinji Kempo to a group at the temple. By way of interest only, Jet Li’s movie “Shaolin Temple featured a few of the instructors from our Hombu, one of these sensei was Yamasaki sensei.

http://www.authenticshaolin.com/songshan2.html

Do a search for Doshin So in this document and you will find a short section on one of his Chinese teachers.

http://www.yiquan-academy.eu/free/engyiquan101.pdf

I am loosley familar with the history of Shorinji Kempo in that the founder studied in China, perhaps at Shaolin. I'm not in a position to either deny or verify that claim and I am certainly willing to accept the claim as true on face value. After all, many people from other nations have studied in China, and at the Shaolin temple.

I would suggest you search around on Youtube and look for videos of Shaolin longfist and similar methods. Take a look at the type of movement contained in those forms, and see if it is similar to how you guys move in Shorinji. Even tho you guys use a different method of forms, the way you move in comparison to what you see on the videos ought to give you some sense of whether or not it is similar or just plain different. Also keep in mind that similar techniques are found in many arts, regardless of national origin. So simply finding a few similar joint locking techniques, for example, isn't necessarily proof of a connection between particular styles.

Did Doshin So have training in something prior to training in China? If so, perhaps that was the foundation of the art but his experience in China would still have had an influence. I don't know, I'm just speculating and giving some suggestions on how to look at the situation and what to consider.

It's an interesting question, one that I have wondered about myself and I would be curious to know if you discover anything definite.

 

[Colin_Linz]

I've seen clips of ChiNa and these look quite similar, but then so does some Diato Aki Jutsu waza.

Doshin So had a varied background. His uncle had taught him some Jujutsu, and after he returned to Japan he studied a little Hakko Ryu for two years while he formed Shorinji Kempo. When you look at the time he spent in China, it was quite a long time, most of his early years in fact. However Shorinji Kempo is more a total re-examination of his experiences. He developed the teaching methodology, which in my experience is quite unique. He also re worked the techniques so that what he taught was a single homogenised system, rather than individual techniques from here or there. It's also true that Shorinji Kempo has evolved over the years since his death. I know that even in just my training the techniques are taught a little differently to when I first started in 1988. I think it is a reasonable to expect a developing art to take on the aesthetics of the culture, and in this the Japanese are quite different to the Chinese. Certainly the demonstration video of Doshin So at the temple for the local masters had more of a Chinese feel to it than the way we see Shorinji Kempo now.

I think the main link is really one of philosophy. His desire in creating Shorinji Kempo was to be able to recreate the Shaolin Temple method of using martial art training to form bonds and understanding between people, and to also use it as a method of attaining enlightenment. In this Shorinji Kempo has a lot of common ground with northern style Chinese Zen/Chan.

 

[DavidCC]

Stanley E. Henning... Those are some great articles! Thanks Colin!

The evidence that Chinese boxing was transmitted from Fujian to Okinawa
in the mid-1700's was recorded in Big Island Notes (Oshima Hikki)
(c.1762), long before any of the myths concerning Fujian boxing had appeared.
According to this source, a Chinese the Okinawan's called "Gong
Xiang Jun" (Kusanku - this may have been term of respect associated with
an official title, but its specific significance remains to be determined) had
some of those accompanying him to Okinawa demonstrate a form of boxing
similar to that found in the Wubei Zhi (Encyclopedia of Military Preparedness)
(c. 1607). The boxing illustrated in the Wubei Zhi was taken from
Ming General Qi Jiguang's Jixiao Xinshu (New Book of Effective Discipline,
so this association seems to confirm that what was transmitted was likely
Short Hitting, which was prevalent in Fujian at the time.
Chinese boxing was thus Transmitted from Fujian to Okinawa in 1760's, to
the main islands of Japan in the 1920's to become Karate, and then to Korea
to become Taekwondo by the 1950's. It was likely a form of Short Hitting,
related to that illustrated in General Qi Jiguang's 32 forms and similar
to what came to be known as Yongchun boxing. - Stanley E. Henning

Of the Chinese martial arts, boxing, the most basic, is also the least understood. A form of no-holds-barred weaponless fighting, variously combining strikes with the hands, kicks, holds, grappling, and throws, boxing was originally called bo, known as shoubo in the Former Han (206–224 B.C.), and only much later, in the Southern Song (A.D. 1138), by its present name, quan.
The Han History Bibliographies contain an entry on boxing or shoubo
(distinguished from the military sport of wrestling, jueli , in the commentaries), categorizing it as one of several military skills, bing jiqiao , "to practice hand and foot movements, facilitate use of weapons, and organize for victory in offense or defense."1 In other words, boxing was viewed as a military hand-to-hand combat skill that served as
a form of basic training to prepare troops to use weapons, but that alone was only a weapon of last resort; however, these same skills spread throughout the population and were often embellished with less practical performance-oriented techniques, disparagingly described by Ming general Qi Jiguang (1507–1587) as "flowery methods" or huafa .2 It is generally in this latter form that Chinese boxing, under the guise of the none-too-descriptive term kung fu or gong fu (meaning "effort" or "skill"), has become known worldwide in recent years.
China Review International: Vol. 6, No. 2, Fall 1999
(c) 1999 by University
of Hawai'i Press

The origins of what is perhaps the oldest school (ca. 1674) of
jûjutsu, the Kitô-ryû or Rise-Fall School, are memorialized in a stone tablet standing in the precincts of Atago Shrine in Tokyo—the Kitô-ryû kempô hi or Rise-Fall School Boxing Method Tablet. In jûjutsu's early years, the term was apparently sometimes used interchangeably with kempô (quanfa in Chinese) or boxing.

Also, the individuals credited with developing the Kitô-ryû were said to have associated with the Chinese expatriate Chen Yuanyun (usually pronounced "Chin Gempin" in Japanese) (1587–1671), who, according to the Kitô-ryû tablet, was the source of kempô.22 He was a Renaissance man of sorts, a calligrapher, author, and potter, who once lived in a monastery in Tokyo (then Edo), and whose remains rest in the precincts of a temple in Nagoya.

(c) 1999 by University
of Hawai'i Press