Kung Fu was made for self defense or for war?

[clfsean]

But your understanding of Southern Kung Fu is spot on.

I don't think I'd give the "spot on" seal of approval. The linear techniques are matched by just as many rounded techniques... Sow, Pow, Kahp, Chinji, Kum, Heurng, etc...

The Southern Shorthand falls pretty much within the linear description, but look at Choy Lee Fut. Linear but plenty of circles. Hung Ga I belive has a fair share of circles. I've seen some tournament footage of Jow Ga & saw plenty of strikes that I use in CLF that weren't linear.

 

[7starmantis]

Yeah, its really hard to "label" a style as "so and so" because its "northern" or "southern". Most systems dont really fit in that box is the problem.

7sm

 

[funnytiger]

I don't think I'd give the "spot on" seal of approval. The linear techniques are matched by just as many rounded techniques... Sow, Pow, Kahp, Chinji, Kum, Heurng, etc...

The Southern Shorthand falls pretty much within the linear description, but look at Choy Lee Fut. Linear but plenty of circles. Hung Ga I belive has a fair share of circles. I've seen some tournament footage of Jow Ga & saw plenty of strikes that I use in CLF that weren't linear.

In my experience with Southern Kung Fu (which admittedly is mostly Jow Ga) I would still agree with RD description of Southern Kung Fu. But again, I've only had 2 years to observe and practice the art. I've also noticed that some Jow Ga schools have non-traditional Jow Ga movements and techniques. Often adopted from other styles to make the style "more rounded".

:salute:

 

[RavenDarkfellow]

Jerry>> Great response, I agree 100% !

Fumanchu>> *sighs* You obviously didn't even read my post. You started in some arbitrary place, and decided you didn't like what you saw, and thus decided it would be a good idea to insult me. How do I know this? You obviously didn't even read the beginning because if you had, you'd have known that what you "quoted from me", was ACTUALLY quoted from another website, which I listed above that particular portion. Those weren't even my words, and had nothing to do with the point I was making in the argument-- so even if I had said them, your point would be moot. If you want to debate with me, take some time and effort, put thought and attention into your arguments, don't decide to insult me on some triffling matter.

Funnytiger>> Thank you for the compliment.

 

[Trainwreck]

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the fact that the Shaolin monks developed a martial art in large part because their strict monastic vows forbade them from carrying any weapons.

 

[j_m]

I do not believe (nor am I trying to impress upon anyone else) that Bodhidharma (Daruma, Ta mao, etc.) was the founder of all martial arts.

Really? Even if that's what you meant you still wrote this :

From what I've gathered, nearly everyone seems to concur that Bodhidarmha (a.k.a. Daruma, and at least two other names) was the originator of the martial arts.

I'm not quite understanding why the distinction?

7sm

Point taken... it doesn't really matter. I, and I 'm assuming the rest, will train as we already do regardless of any historical debate. I'm not hear to try to convice anyone of anything... I was stating an alternate point of view to, what I believe to be, just one of the many many myths still circulating the internet and some "smaller" martial arts circles. My sources are teachers I've had, Chinese history books they let me look through, and a couple of Chinese martial arts and history books I have on my shelf. If you're really a martail arts history buff I highly recommend The Spring and Autumn of Chinese Martial Arts-5000 Years by Professor Kang Ge-Wu.

But, for those that like to read stuff on the internet I ran across a few articles for you:

http://martialarts.about.com/od/history/a/ShaolinMyth.htm

"There are a lot of mythical, mystical, misunderstood and misrepresented aspects of the martial arts. The Shaolin Temple is possibly the biggest...
There is much debate about whether Damo/Bhodidharma existed. The evidence thus far seems to lean in the direction that Damo did exist, did travel to the Shaolin Temple, and did pass on some teachings to the monks there. There is also little doubt that the Shaolin Temple did spend some significant part of its history linked with the practice of the martial arts. However, there is little actual evidence to suggest that Damo taught the monks anything directly to do with fighting, despite the oft-repeated claims. "


http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ADM/holcom.htm

"Students of the Chinese martial arts like to repeat the legend of
Bodhidharma. [20] The story goes that in the early sixth century the Indian
monk Bodhidharma founded the outer school--one of the two major divisions
in the Chinese martial arts--at the Shao-lin monastery in Honan. The other
major division, T'ai-chi ch'uan, is said to have spun off from this later.
[21] If true, this would make Shao-lin the oldest such school in China, and
Bodhidharma the father of the Chinese martial arts. The martial arts,
however, existed long before this time, and it is now clear that this
legend is spurious.

Some recent scholars have expressed doubt that Bodhidharma ever lived at
all, and the infrequency with which legitimate early historical sources
mention him is worthy of note. "


http://www.hungkuen.net/history%2Ddamo.htm

"Damo: Conspiracy of Ignorance

Many martial artists will have heard the story of Bodhidharma or Damo. In the story, this Indian monk arrived in China, eventually making his way to Shaolin temple on Mt. Songshan. There he found the monks' physical condition poor and so unable to sit in prolonged meditation. At first he was so disgusted that he retired to a cave to sit in meditation for nine years. Then a monk named Hui Ke cut off his own arm to show that he had grasped Damo's deepest teachings. Damo then agreed to teach the "Marrow Washing" and "Tendon Changing" classics as well as the 18 Lohan stances, a series of exercises meant to improve the monks' ability to meditate. Many tellers add that these exercises were derived from martial routines familiar to Damo from his youth in a warrior caste family. In any case, the story concludes that these exercises were to blossom into Shaolin kung fu and are therefore the root of kung fu. It's a good story. What a pity it is a fake. ... "


http://www.humankinetics.com/products/showexcerpt.cfm?isbn=0736045686&excerpt_id=3398

"Myth 1
Damo (Bodhidharma) invented Shaolin Kung Fu.

Fact
Damo did not invent Shaolin Kung Fu. The Eighteen postures of Arhat represent health exercises based on yoga. Collective masters and missionaries were referred to as Bodhidharma. Their true contributions to the temple were Chan Buddhism and renewed impetus for health development.

Fact
Many of the monks present in the temple at the time of Damo’s arrival already possessed martial skills from previous military and private backgrounds and, by the temple’s own admission, were freely trading kung fu knowledge with one another.

Fact
The tolerant environment and self-sufficient attitude of the Shaolin Temple set it apart from other Buddhist temples. The method of Hou Chuen San Sau (mind understanding through bodily experience) was the key component to stimulate the growth of martial skills within the Shaolin Temple. Their environment and attitude permitted ready absorption of military and martial knowledge from the best of Chinese culture and leadership. Ample evidence exists to suggest that the monks received as much kung fu as they gave in the first few centuries of the temple’s existence. 150 years after Damo’s death, the Shaolin warrior monks had already earned a reputation as formidable fighters.

Myth 2
All Chinese Kung Fu comes from Shaolin.
..."


http://www.ryukyukenpo.org/About%20Ryukyu%20Kenpo.htm

"One thing we can be certain of is: Bodhidharma (Ta Mo, Da Mo, Daruma) did not bring Chinese Boxing to the Shaolin monks, from India, in 649CE. This is a modern 20th century myth, brought about by a widely popular Chinese novel The Travels of Lao Ts’an, first published in Illustrated Fiction Magazine between 1904 - 1907. In the book the fictional character Liu Jen-fu learns boxing from a monk he met on Omei Mountain. When he asks his teacher for the source of his art he is told “The T’aitsu style that you have learned from me was handed down from the Dharma.” There is no written reference concerning his involvement with anything other than introducing Chan (Zen) Buddhismto China. All else is pure fabrication. On a secondary note: It has often been claimed that a second Shaolin monastery was built in Chiu-Lien-Shan, P’u-T’ien-Hsien, Fu-Chou-Fu, Fukien province. There is no evidence that this temple ever existed, and in fact the Chiu-Lien-Shan is located in Kwantung province. A Chinese scholar named Hsu K’o wrote the Ch’ing Pai Lei Chao in 1917. This work is a 48 volume collection of folk tales and fables which includes stories of the Heaven and Earth Society [Triads] which refer to the legendary Fukien Shaolin Temple. Unfortunately some martial art’s historians have regarded Hsu K’o’s work as history and have used it as a source."


http://www.nardis.com/~twchan/henning.html

"
While Shaolin was the ideal symbol to represent the more numerous, popular styles of boxing, this gave rise to serious misunderstandings and, as a result, later works, beginning with Zhang Kongzhao's boxing manual (1784),[7] attributed the origins of Chinese boxing to Shaolin Monastery, (there is no mention of Bodhidharma until much later - c. 1900). At the same time, the mythical Zhang Sanfeng, blessed with sainthood by a Ming emperor, provided the ideal counterpoint to Shaolin boxing. After all, since Zhang himself could not be proven to have ever existed let alone anything he was claimed to have done, it could not hurt to claim he also invented a style of boxing.

Why does there appear to be such concern to associate Taijiquan with the Zhang Sanfeng legend between 1912 and 1921, over 60 years after the style of boxing practiced in Chenjiagou village had been given the name "Taijiquan" and exposed to the big city? The answer may lie in a combination of events which began with the earliest reference to "The Dharma" or Bodhidharma as the originator of Shaolin boxing in a widely popular novel, The Travels of Lao Ts'an first published in Illustrated Fiction Magazine between 1904-1907.[23] This was soon followed by a book titled Shaolin School Methods, which appeared as a series in a Shanghai newspaper in 1910.[24] This book, of unknown origin but written in an anti-Manchu secret society tone, expanded on the Bodhidharma story and, in 1915, was altered further and published as Secrets of Shaolin Boxing under the pseudonym, Master of the Study of Self Respect (probably an allusion to anti-Manchu and anti-imperialist feelings).[25] According to Tang Hao, this book was so popular that nearly 30 printings had flooded the market by 1919, and it has influenced other authors ever since, beginning with Guo Shaoyu's History of Chinese Physical Culture (1919), which was the first popular Chinese book on this subject.[26] It is not difficult to see how Taijiquan masters may have felt hard pressed to compete for popularity against such a publicity blitz in an increasingly commercialized environment. Under these conditions, Zhang Sanfeng was a made-to-order counterpoint to Bodhidharma."


http://www.shindotrust.com/directory_essays/shinseido_essays/bodhidharma_myth.htm

"
Two persistent and popular myths

"The Chinese martial arts, or Wushu as they are called in China today, are a fascinating yet little understood and inadequately researched aspect of Chinese history. Now comprising Chinese boxing and various weapons techniques practised in China primarily as a form of exercise and sport, they are all too often wrongly associated outside of China with mystic, martial monks in their mountain monasteries, and called by the non too descriptive term ‘Kung Fu’. This misunderstanding has arisen as a result of two widely accepted, deeply ingrained, and hard to quash myths. The first one attributing the origins of Chinese boxing to the Indian Monk, Bodhidharma, who, according to tradition, is said to have resided in the famous Shaolin Monastery around 525 AD. The other myth attributes the origins of Taijiquan, or Chinese shadow boxing as it is sometimes called in the West, to the mythical Taoist hermit, Zhang Sanfeng, whose dates have never been confirmed, but who is variously said to have lived during the Song, Yuan, or Ming Dynasties, sometime between the tenth and fourteenth centuries AD. The groundless nature of these myths was exposed as early as the 1930s by the pioneer martial arts historian, Tang Hao (1897-1959), and his contemporary, Xu Jedong; however, their persistence to the present continues to be revealed in numerous books published on the subject in Chinese as well as other languages... (H)"

Your turn.

There you go buddy... enjoy some more "scholarly" readings.


As for me... I'm done with this thread... I'd rather be training anyway :jedi1:





jm

 

[clfsean]

JM... well done.

 

[RavenDarkfellow]

JM>> THANK YOU. That, is at least, a respectable argument which I will consider, and can appreciate. I'm still a little frustrated that you're still taking:

Originally Posted by RavenDarkfellow
From what I've gathered, nearly everyone seems to concur that Bodhidarmha (a.k.a. Daruma, and at least two other names) was the originator of the martial arts.


(Please forgive the italics, they won't turn off since having copied-and-pasted the above)

so literally. I said "NEARLY EVERYONE" which in hind-sight is apparently not entirely true. It would have been more accurate to say "Many People", I concur. Also, I already explained that I didn't mean ALL martial arts ever, concerning what he founded.

I do appreciate your research, however, and we will have to just agree to disagree. I don't mind being disagreed with, I just don't like empty criticisms and insults with nothing to back them up.

 

[j_m]

I guess this will be an addendum to my last post

JM>>

I do appreciate your research, however, and we will have to just agree to disagree.

Agreed :supcool:

And if any of my posts came across as an insult I apologize... as that was not my intent.




jm

 

[Trainwreck]

Bravo, bravo to all sides of this debate for maintaining civility and good scholarship!

 

[rox]

Fact
Many of the monks present in the temple at the time of Damo’s arrival already possessed martial skills from previous military and private backgrounds and, by the temple’s own admission, were freely trading kung fu knowledge with one another.

The Shaolin monastery WAS indeed a martial 'university', then? If monks could join freely and share martial arts...

 

[RavenDarkfellow]

JM>> No hard feelings! Ja Ne!

 

[Fumanchu]

rox,

It doesn't make sense that a temple is the university of martial arts. If there were a university, it would have been the military.

 

[7starmantis]

rox,

It doesn't make sense that a temple is the university of martial arts. If there were a university, it would have been the military.

Why is that?

7sm

 

[Fumanchu]

Because the military is purely in the business of fighting while a temple is in the business of worship / religeon. The threats faced by the military is far greater than that faced by the temple.

The temple only has to guard it's temple grounds while the military had to guard its borders.

If the threats faced by the temple had been severe, you would have seen huge walls constructed around the temples like medieval cities in Europe or in the middle east. But we see nothing of that sort at shaolin temple.

The chinese had been good at constructing walls for defence to protect it's borders if there's a justifiable threat.

The palace / ruling authoristies are a lot richer than monks at the temple. Who do you think has the cash to hire the best body guards / fighters or trainers. Look at sports clubs today, where do the top players and good coaches go to? Look at the military today, isn't it the rich nations that have the best weapons and training?

 

[7starmantis]

That makes very good sense on the surface. While I'm not saying the military wasn't a great place MA were cultivated, you can't rule out other places simply because the military has high need or usage for MA. Threat doesn't equal solarity in MA training.

7sm

 

[Fumanchu]

7starmantis,

I understand what you're saying and I agree that the military is not the only place that uses martial arts.

What I'm saying is the most effective martial arts would be found in the military because of what they had to face.

Various towns or say Shaolin temple would have their own fighters to deal with bandits and the like, but they do not need to face professional fighters or a serious invading force.

Whilst shaolin has kung fu, I do not think they are a university for kung fu.

 

[brothershaw]

I would thikn the military would be the place for specialized martial arts training not among the common soldiers but the special forces of the time, security details etc. THe common soldier just like today would get minimal training.
On an interesting website the author believes that the best martial arts to train in would have come from bodyguards ( palace), they would probably have trained the most, and tested thier stuff quite often. Thier is some validity to this theory.

 

[rox]

I don't see real need for hand combat in the military. They would probably center their training in long range weapons, archery and such, right?

I personally think that, in a battlefield, shields make a great difference.

 

[Fumanchu]

Rox,

What Brothershaw said is quite correct. It depends on what part of the military you're referring to. Some soldiers are only taught afew moves to fight in formation, but not all aspects in the military is to fight in formation. The palace body guards are highly trained in unarmed combat as well. And not all missions you can overwhelm with superior numbers.

Bottom line is the military needs to excel at all aspects of combat and the need is greater than other centres outside the military.