Wudang kung fu question

[Niall Keane]

on the other hand, I was told Wudang served as a "university" a PLACE MARTIAL ARTISTS TRAVEL TO, to exchange ideas and test themselves. It was not a temple style of gung fu you knocked on the door to learn.
As such it served as a melting pot of styles.
When I think of it that way and the legend of Chang San Feng going there for 10 years and developing Nei Jia, it makes more sense. A shaolin fighter who visits hua shan learns daoist Daoyin etc. from Huo Long a member of the Tai Chi Diagram Sect. Then off to Wudang for 10 years, not meditating and dreaming up a style, but exchanging and developing his ideas alongside other martial artists seeking to do the same.
After all, after 10 years he retires to Bao Ji and teaches the monks there.
There is no mention of him ever returning to Wudang. Bao Ji is not far to the west of Xian, and Xian being where Wang Zong-yue is supposed to reside...
Anyway, simply thoughts...

[MaartenSFS]

So glad that I never went to any of these places to study, or otherwise... 真正的功夫在民间。

[dspyrido]

Anyway, simply thoughts...

Good thoughts though. A balanced view of the good and bad in china.

[MaartenSFS]

At least near the temples..

[KEND]

I thought Kang Gewu had demolished many of the more fantastic stories of Taoist MA, [also SH Wong who wrote a treatise on Chang San-Feng].The forms look suspiciously Wu Shued.
As for the long hair-I let it grow for 3 years when I left the RAF and went to college. In those days [the 50's] only bums and aristocrats wore long hair and beards. If you wear a topknot good luck to you but it doesnt turn you into a Taoist. I remember a few years ago on the tournament when wispy beards and long Chinese jackets [CMC clones]were the vogue. At the other end of the spectrum [MMA] tats and shaven heads.
I am always amused when New Age Taoists turn up in pristine white uniforms, about as far from reality as you can get

[yeniseri]

Both Shaolin and wudang are so heavily marketed by the PRC it is a total turn off. The forms were lost and re-vamped by the wushu associations for tourist money. so many forms, so many outfits, so many rip-offs.

there is a wudang version of everything now:
wu dang baji
wu dang taiji
wu dang bagua
wu dang ba dua jin
wu dang xingyi
wu dang sword
wu dang yadda yadda yadda

hard to tell what is original. cause before the wu dang explosion we had:
Shaolin baji
Shaolin taiji
Shaolin bagua
Shaolin ba dua jin
Shaolin xingyi
Shaolin sword
shaolin yadda yadda yadda

I, too, am suspicious especially when they came out with Wudang Zhaobao but I laud their performances and hairstyles associated with providing a jolly good show!

[Bo Fei Li]

Anyways, if Laozi (if he actually was a real person) and the other thinkers of daosim would be alive today, they would laugh at what has become of their thinkings…