New long videos of Shaolin Jingang Bashi

[jonathan.bluestein]

[shawnsegler]

Looks like some real deal.

Nice stuff.

S

[I am...]

Great videos. I look forward to the day where we stop applying the western term "master" to people however. Most NFL or Olympic level athletes are not referred to as masters, something to think about?

[windwalker]

Great videos. I look forward to the day where we stop applying the western term "master" to people however. Most NFL or Olympic level athletes are not referred to as masters, something to think about?

edited:

just sharing some thoughts,


No need to think about it.
The connotation is different.

A journeyman is an individual who has completed an apprenticeship and is fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman

A master craftsman or master tradesman (sometimes called only master or grandmaster, German: Meister) was a member of a guild. In the European guild system, only masters and journeymen were allowed to be members of the guild.

While guilds as such do not exist, many trades continue the apprentice-journeyman-master model. Carpenters, electricians, pipefitters and plumbers are notable examples. Even in academia, the tradition survives, with elementary, middle and high school completing general education; with post secondary degrees awarded in the Associates, Bachelor and Master levels; and PhD students as apprentices, post-docs and associate professors as journeymen and full professors as masters.

I feel the term is ok as long as its not self applied. Many use it to donate a skill level above most or themselves. Most master level people I know do not refer to themselves as such, others refer or confer the title to them showing respect or acknowledging skill.

a friend of mine wrote some thoughts on this

Many martial arts instructors these days adopt professional titles, such as master or grandmaster, to improve their credibility or solely to impress their students. Some even invent titles to make themselves appear more accomplished than their competition, or even their own teachers.

However, legitimate martial arts titles have nothing to do with self-promotion. Instead, such titles should be the result of a lifetime spent promoting your system and students.

In China, all martial art instructiors are called sifu or shifu in Mandarin. Some Northern Chinese call their teacher by the term laoshi or losi in Cantonese. Many third-generation students call their teacher's teacher si-gung or tai-laoshi. The fourth-generation students often refer to the first-generation teacher as tai-sigung or si tai gung.

http://plumblossom.net/Articles/Inside_ ... /July2005/

[nicklinjm]

Thanks for posting Jonathan, looks like a very interesting system, I especially like the sweeps combined with strikes about 2 minutes into the Soft Hands video!

As for Master, personally I think we should just use the chinese words shifu / laoshi, after all karate people use Sensei and it means pretty much the same thing at the end of the day.

[Overlord]

I love it.

[chenyaolong]

It is a very interesting system.... from watching your clips, it seems it has a huge amount in common with Taiji/Meihua Mantis, could you explain a little about the origins, I'm wondering if it is related to old Luohan Quan in anyway, which if so, could explain the similarity to Mantis.....

*I know a lot of northern systems are similar, but apart from Tongbei, this is the most similar to Mantis I have seen.

[jonathan.bluestein]

In the near future I shall publish a very long and thorough article about this art, with many pictures and videos. It will appear on my friend Rick's excellent blog:
http://cookdingskitchen.blogspot.com

[chenyaolong]

In the near future I shall publish a very long and thorough article about this art, with many pictures and videos. It will appear on my friend Rick's excellent blog:
http://cookdingskitchen.blogspot.com

I'm looking forward to it.

[onebir]

I've heard of a neigong called 'Jingang Li' from (or persisting in) Shandong. Sounds like it's (some of?) the standing methods of this style?

Vids (from chenyaolong's channel):

[chenyaolong]

I don't think they are related. That Qigong system consists of mostly standing postures, and 3 moving forms (sun, moon and heaven), where you step in the pattern of those Chinese characters while doing breathing excercises. I stopped training it because it was very time consuming and was full of esoteric stuff ie: if you open your Buddha eye you will be able to see peoples internal organs and auras

[onebir]

I don't think they are related. That Qigong system consists of mostly standing postures, and 3 moving forms (sun, moon and heaven), where you step in the pattern of those Chinese characters while doing breathing excercises.

Fair enough - weird/wild idea stepping out hanzi as qigong

I stopped training it because it was very time consuming and was full of esoteric stuff ie: if you open your Buddha eye you will be able to see peoples internal organs and auras

Odd - they seem to do a lot of breaking in the doco, and some of them have quite calloused (/deformed) hands, which you might get from external Iron Palm/Hand. Seems quite remote from trying to open your Buddha (Third?) Eye...

So now I even wonder if the Jingang Li you were doing is the same as the one in those docos!

To confuse things further, I recently heard of two other Shaolin Jingang styles/forms that have been transmitted outside the temple (Minjian styles): Shaolin Jingang Powerful Palm & Shaolin Jingang 12 Kicks (打力金刚掌、 少林金刚十二腿). Needless to say they don't seem to be in Jonathan's write-up of the late Master Zhou's style...*

*Syllabus listed out at the end:
http://cookdingskitchen.blogspot.co.il/ ... l-art.html

[chenyaolong]

Yes, breaking is a big part of it, the Buddha Eye stuff is regarded as advanced/secret/inner door whatever you wanna call it. It is the same style as in the video, it was quite big in the early 90s in Shandong during the Qigong fad that gave birth to Falun Gong etc. It sort of waned out of popularity after the banning of Falun Gong as people didn't wanna associate themselves with esoteric practices.

I initially trained it as it was offered as an optional extra class at a kung fu school I was at during my early days in China. Initially I enjoyed it, the meditation was nice, and breaking things was fun, but once it got into the esoteric stuff I said goodbye.

[onebir]

Yes, breaking is a big part of it, the Buddha Eye stuff is regarded as advanced/secret/inner door whatever you wanna call it. It is the same style as in the video, it was quite big in the early 90s in Shandong during the Qigong fad that gave birth to Falun Gong etc. It sort of waned out of popularity after the banning of Falun Gong as people didn't wanna associate themselves with esoteric practices.

I initially trained it as it was offered as an optional extra class at a kung fu school I was at during my early days in China. Initially I enjoyed it, the meditation was nice, and breaking things was fun, but once it got into the esoteric stuff I said goodbye.

Fair enough - makes sense.

The lower level (?) esoteric stuff may have some 'applicability' tho whether it's worth the time required to train it IDK. (I met someone who claimed he could sense intention (as qi) slightly before movement. I didn't see him demonstrate that, but he was able to tell me (almost in passing) when I finally 'got' something doing zhan zhuang, even though I didn't move etc. So I think there was something in what he said.)

[Ron Panunto]

I wonder how strong those orange bricks really are? It appears that they would break if you looked at them the wrong way.