Six core elements

[Tez3]

I like to read other styles sections because I learn things which are either useful for my own training or are just plain interesting. I don't expect to understand style specific technicalities but I have to admit I was left totally baffled by Hendrik's posts.

 

[Danny T]

I wish he would have given some answers to the questions. Might have been interesting to hear something logical and with real information.

 

[yak sao]

Ibut I have to admit I was left totally baffled by Hendrik's posts.

Get in line sister

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I have to admit I was left totally baffled by Hendrik's posts.

It's a bit too "abstract" for me too.

- physical (abstract),
- mind (abstract),
- breathing (inhale and exhale),
- Qi medirian flow (abstract),
- force flow (abstract) , and
- momentum (basic physics p = mv).

Why not just say:

- bend and then straight your leg,
- twist your hip,
- rotate your body,
- extend your arm, and
- ...

When Hendrik starts a thread, he should expect 50% of people who will agree with him, and 50% of people who will disagree with him. It's like when you open your window, the butterfly will fly in, but the mosquito will fly in too.

Since Hendrik did't ask

- What's your opinion on this?
- Your comment?
- Any suggestion?
- ...

May be we should not even get into this discussion in the first place. I hate those "I talk and you listen" type of threads. When someone didn't ask for your opinion and you give your opinion, it's called "to use your warm face to touch someone's cold butts".

Am I the only person who feel that way?

 

[Kwan Sau]

He just always comes across with a 'my tea cup is already full' mentality.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

He just always comes across with a 'my tea cup is already full' mentality.

It's difficult to have any friendly/meaningful discussion with full cup attitude. Of course you can start a thread just to "share information" such as "How to train iron palm". Even if you are an iron palm expert and assume that you know iron palm more than everybody on this planet, you will still need to answer people's question such as:

- Does iron palm has true combat value?
- Is iron palm bad for your health?
- Why is your iron palm training method better then my method?
- How can you prove that iron palm was invented by 1850?
- ...

 

[Transk53]

It's difficult to have any friendly/meaningful discussion with full cup attitude. Of course you can start a thread just to "share information" such as "How to train iron palm". Even if you are an iron palm expert and assume that you know iron palm more than everybody on this planet, you will still need to answer people's question such as:

- Does iron palm has true combat value?
- Is iron palm bad for your health?
- Why is your iron palm training method better then my method?
- How can you prove that iron palm was invented by 1850?
- ...

Good questions. I don't have a clue, but what you post makes logical sense to me. Surely there is only one method. To me Iron Palm means good sword hand.

 

[Kwan Sau]

Good questions. I don't have a clue, but what you post makes logical sense to me. Surely there is only one method. To me Iron Palm means good sword hand.

Transk53, I'm pretty sure KFW just meant it (iron palm example) as just that...an example. I don't think he meant to redirect or hijack the thread topic. Perhaps this thread should fade into the background.
But, if iron palm is of interest to you or kung fu wang...perhaps start your own new thread on that topic(?)

 

[dlcox]

My apologies to those that apparently found my last post (#72) offensive and innapropriate.

 

[Transk53]

Transk53, I'm pretty sure KFW just meant it (iron palm example) as just that...an example. I don't think he meant to redirect or hijack the thread topic. Perhaps this thread should fade into the background.
But, if iron palm is of interest to you or kung fu wang...perhaps start your own new thread on that topic(?)

Noted and good point

 

[Transk53]

My apologies to those that apparently found my last post (#72) offensive and innapropriate.

Thought it was fair enough.

 

[dlcox]

Thought it was fair enough.

Someone didn't.

 

[Xue Sheng]

My apologies to those that apparently found my last post (#72) offensive and innapropriate.

I had no issues with it

 

[Kwan Sau]

My apologies to those that apparently found my last post (#72) offensive and innapropriate.

I thought it was spot on, truthful, tactful, and completely relevant given the individual it was addressing. Well done Sir.

 

[Vajramusti]

Hendrik,

I fail to understand why you feel the need to denounce ancient Chinese, Tibetan and Indian theories. Only to reference them, re-organize them, re-write them, attach them to "Ancestral" Yong Chun and then refer to them as "Ancient" theories but ones not related to those from which they were obviously referenced.

You cannot continue to call them "Ancient' if they are new theories developed by you, and you cannot claim that they were not "Developed" by you but are indeed ancient, yet have no references beyond those exclusively known to you.

I fail to see your logic. You are egotistic, ethnocentric, arrogant and beligerent. You respond with the same answer every time, "You don't know, you confuse, you don't understand, etc". Yet when anyone asks you to clairify and explain in detail how the methods are different so that we may clearly understand the difference, you refuse.

You refuse to prove the effectiveness of this "Miraculous" method of generation and direct people back to lectures on youtube that still don't give clairification to their questions.

When a video illustrating applications of "Snake Engine", "Force Flow", "6 Elements", "7 Bows" etc. is presented, people ask how it is any different to what they do, aside from the renaming of terminology. Your reply that it is internal and can only be felt. When asked to clarify how that is different from commonly held understanding of traditional Chinese, Tibetan and Indian theories, you repeat "You don't know, you confuse, you don't understand, etc".

IMO what you present is not "Revolutionary" as you and others call it. It is simply a marketing ploy.

New Age mumbo jumbo that only drives a wedge further into the Yong Chun family. It does nothing to unite. I don't care that you want to be different from everyone else, let your freak flag fly. Don't expect me to acknowledge what you do as legitimate Yong Chun let alone the original ancient method from which all other lines descend.

 

[Vajramusti]

I had no issues with it

Ditto.
It's unproductive to discuss things with Hendrik in a sustained way.
He apparently has a problem. The compassionate thing is to just let him go.
Hi monologues will show up on the net. There could be bits and pieces of insight in them.

 

[Vajramusti]

My apologies to those that apparently found my last post (#72) offensive and innapropriate.

--------------------------------------------------------
It was ok with me.Fair.

 

[Argus]

It's a bit too "abstract" for me too.

- physical (abstract),
- mind (abstract),
- breathing (inhale and exhale),
- Qi medirian flow (abstract),
- force flow (abstract) , and
- momentum (basic physics p = mv).

Why not just say:

- bend and then straight your leg,
- twist your hip,
- rotate your body,
- extend your arm, and
- ...

It's not so much the quality of being "too" abstract, but rather the underlying definitions and assumptions that determine whether or not an abstracted principle is sound, useful, or has any basis in reality. Without a doubt, abstractions -- even very abstract ones, can be useful, or even vital for accomplishing certain tasks.

I am a programmer, but thank goodness I don't have to write all of my programs in binary. Thankfully, I can code using more the more abstract languages of English and Mathematics. In fact, whenever I write a program, I am utilizing abstractions of abstractions of abstractions, built upon yet more abstractions. And I use these abstracted languages to build my own abstract architecture.

I notice that you're fond of very specific lists, and so I think these examples might be interesting for you. Let's consider that I want to write a program dealing with a number of animals. I have, perhaps, a cow, horse, chicken, bird, dog, cat, fish... and who knows what other animals I might like to add. Now, I could write code defining every single one of these animals, and every single function and characteristic they have, but imagine how much work that would be? And what if I have to compare them, or place them in the same list? It's comparing apples and oranges, and I would have to treat each and every "animal" individually.

So instead, what I can do is create an abstract class of "animal." Now, this isn't a thing that can exist in the real world (-- I mean, what would a generic, abstract animal look like anyway?). So in fact, I can't have an instance of an "animal." But I can have an "animal" that is a dog, and an "animal" that is a cat, etc., and they can all be compared in like terms. I can also save myself a ton of work by making abstract hierarchies of animals based on families that share similar characteristics and functions, so that I don't have to redefine the same characteristics of each and every new animal that I add. So, for example, I can define:
Animal -> Bird -> Sparrow
Animal -> Bird -> Seagull
Animal -> Bird -> Chicken
All birds share many of the same characteristics and functions. So this way, I only need to redefine the look and sound of each bird, and deal with any minor exceptions (for example, over-ride Chicken's "fly" function). That saves me a lot of work, and we also have a useful "Bird" class that we can also use to categorize (or compare) different kinds of animals or birds.

Now, what relation does this have to martial arts? Well, abstract principles, concepts, and ideas can be very useful here too. I believe that many martial artists, and sometimes entire arts, fall into the trap of having a specific response for every kind of specific attack that might come one's way. A "if he does this, you do that" mentality. On the surface, it sounds nice and simple, but it can create a lot of problems -- both specific, and more general. For example:

I might practice responding to a hook with a tan-sau and a punch, because that's what my teacher taught me. But will that work for every hook punch, and is that the only viable response to all hook punches, or even the best response to any specific hook punch given in any specific situation? Absolutely not. Some "hooks" might resemble wild, blunt, extended haymakers. Another hook might come more squarely from the outside. Yet another hook might come in on a tighter line. Some might be aimed high, some might be aimed low. Some might be delivered at a distance, while others might try to pass around one's guard at extremely close distance. Some might be directed at the target, while others are aimed sideways past it. Now, you could try to come up with a response for every single kind of hook punch one might encounter, or you can come up with a more generalized approach that simply recognizes the angle of the incoming attack, and intercepts it in whatever way happens to be most direct or convenient for you, using any number of tools at your disposal to accomplish your goal of deflecting or evading that punch and countering with your own. You might also consider yet broader, and more abstract goals that your art utilizes, such as keeping forward pressure on, filling in the gaps, covering one's centerline, and applying simultaneous attack and defense by utilizing every hand as a potential attacking hand, regardless of what it, or the other, is doing. That kind of big picture thinking, utilizing a more flexible approach and focusing on more general, bigger-picture goals during the course of a fight can be vital to applying your art effectively -- especially in the context of an art such as Wing Chun, which is often trained and applied too "narrowly" or "technique centric" in my opinion.

These are just some examples of how abstract thinking can be useful, and even vital to applying your art. But as with anything, abstractions can be misapplied, unnecessary, or even so poorly (or vaguely) defined as to be meaningless. In the case of Hendrick's abstractions, I find them to be the latter -- too vaguely defined -- at least, as they are presented -- to carry any meaning or provide useful insight.

Of course, he's welcomed to provide more informative definitions if he likes. He may have some good points somewhere, but most of his content is just too vaguely presented for me to judge.

 

[dlcox]

It's not so much the quality of being "too" abstract, but rather the underlying definitions and assumptions that determine whether or not an abstracted principle is sound, useful, or has any basis in reality. Without a doubt, abstractions -- even very abstract ones, can be useful, or even vital for accomplishing certain tasks.

I am a programmer, but thank goodness I don't have to write all of my programs in binary. Thankfully, I can code using more the more abstract languages of English and Mathematics. In fact, whenever I write a program, I am utilizing abstractions of abstractions of abstractions, built upon yet more abstractions. And I use these abstracted languages to build my own abstract architecture.

I notice that you're fond of very specific lists, and so I think these examples might be interesting for you. Let's consider that I want to write a program dealing with a number of animals. I have, perhaps, a cow, horse, chicken, bird, dog, cat, fish... and who knows what other animals I might like to add. Now, I could write code defining every single one of these animals, and every single function and characteristic they have, but imagine how much work that would be? And what if I have to compare them, or place them in the same list? It's comparing apples and oranges, and I would have to treat each and every "animal" individually.

So instead, what I can do is create an abstract class of "animal." Now, this isn't a thing that can exist in the real world (-- I mean, what would a generic, abstract animal look like anyway?). So in fact, I can't have an instance of an "animal." But I can have an "animal" that is a dog, and an "animal" that is a cat, etc., and they can all be compared in like terms. I can also save myself a ton of work by making abstract hierarchies of animals based on families that share similar characteristics and functions, so that I don't have to redefine the same characteristics of each and every new animal that I add. So, for example, I can define:
Animal -> Bird -> Sparrow
Animal -> Bird -> Seagull
Animal -> Bird -> Chicken
All birds share many of the same characteristics and functions. So this way, I only need to redefine the look and sound of each bird, and deal with any minor exceptions (for example, over-ride Chicken's "fly" function). That saves me a lot of work, and we also have a useful "Bird" class that we can also use to categorize (or compare) different kinds of animals or birds.

Now, what relation does this have to martial arts? Well, abstract principles, concepts, and ideas can be very useful here too. I believe that many martial artists, and sometimes entire arts, fall into the trap of having a specific response for every kind of specific attack that might come one's way. A "if he does this, you do that" mentality. On the surface, it sounds nice and simple, but it can create a lot of problems -- both specific, and more general. For example:

I might practice responding to a hook with a tan-sau and a punch, because that's what my teacher taught me. But will that work for every hook punch, and is that the only viable response to all hook punches, or even the best response to any specific hook punch given in any specific situation? Absolutely not. Some "hooks" might resemble wild, blunt, extended haymakers. Another hook might come more squarely from the outside. Yet another hook might come in on a tighter line. Some might be aimed high, some might be aimed low. Some might be delivered at a distance, while others might try to pass around one's guard at extremely close distance. Some might be directed at the target, while others are aimed sideways past it. Now, you could try to come up with a response for every single kind of hook punch one might encounter, or you can come up with a more generalized approach that simply recognizes the angle of the incoming attack, and intercepts it in whatever way happens to be most direct or convenient for you, using any number of tools at your disposal to accomplish your goal of deflecting or evading that punch and countering with your own. You might also consider yet broader, and more abstract goals that your art utilizes, such as keeping forward pressure on, filling in the gaps, covering one's centerline, and applying simultaneous attack and defense by utilizing every hand as a potential attacking hand, regardless of what it, or the other, is doing. That kind of big picture thinking, utilizing a more flexible approach and focusing on more general, bigger-picture goals during the course of a fight can be vital to applying your art effectively -- especially in the context of an art such as Wing Chun, which is often trained and applied too "narrowly" or "technique centric" in my opinion.

These are just some examples of how abstract thinking can be useful, and even vital to applying your art. But as with anything, abstractions can be misapplied, unnecessary, or even so poorly (or vaguely) defined as to be meaningless. In the case of Hendrick's abstractions, I find them to be the latter -- too vaguely defined -- at least, as they are presented -- to carry any meaning or provide useful insight.

Of course, he's welcomed to provide more informative definitions if he likes. He may have some good points somewhere, but most of his content is just too vaguely presented for me to judge.

Nice post, well defined. I like how you used what you understand as a reference for explanation. It was easily followed and understood and I find myself in agreement with your analysis.

 

[mograph]

It's not so much the quality of being "too" abstract, but rather the underlying definitions and assumptions that determine whether or not an abstracted principle is sound, useful, or has any basis in reality. Without a doubt, abstractions -- even very abstract ones, can be useful, or even vital for accomplishing certain tasks.

Yep. Abstractions are models, and models are useful, as are heuristics (shortcuts) ... as long as we don't mistake the model for the phenomenon, or the map for the territory. Thanks for the post, Argus.