Ming He Quan (crying/calling/whooping crane)

[chenyaolong]

[chenyaolong]

[Franklin]

the first stone that they restored with the crane on it was pretty awesome looking...

the tiger pig and the other crane stone - i would rate as so/so...


did you guys get to take a look in the cave that they used for cultivation retreats?

[Bhassler]

I have to admit to being a bit disappointed the crying crane guys weren't more fighty. Eric Ling, who was featured prominently in the documentary "Needle Through Brick" (filmed in Malaysia), seems to be quite the scrapper, and I know he studied crying crane in addition to some other arts. I had a brief exposure to it myself from another practitioner, and could tell right away there was something missing from a martial standpoint, so it would have been cool to get a real glimpse of it. I thought Su Yin Han showed a bit more, and it seemed like Zheng Qin Yong could have shown more, had there been more time or had he known you better.

[chenyaolong]

the first stone that they restored with the crane on it was pretty awesome looking...

the tiger pig and the other crane stone - i would rate as so/so...


did you guys get to take a look in the cave that they used for cultivation retreats?

I dont think the cave has been used in a long time. I think the nun was refering to the distant past.

Yea, it would be nice if they had some funding to restore the stones properly.

[chenyaolong]

I have to admit to being a bit disappointed the crying crane guys weren't more fighty. Eric Ling, who was featured prominently in the documentary "Needle Through Brick" (filmed in Malaysia), seems to be quite the scrapper, and I know he studied crying crane in addition to some other arts. I had a brief exposure to it myself from another practitioner, and could tell right away there was something missing from a martial standpoint, so it would have been cool to get a real glimpse of it. I thought Su Yin Han showed a bit more, and it seemed like Zheng Qin Yong could have shown more, had there been more time or had he known you better.

I thought Yu Dan Qiu was pretty good on the whole, I mean some of his applications were a bit contrived, but he definitely had very strong structure and decent power. If you watch episode 1 of Jesse's series, there's a bit more footage of him.

Zheng was probably the most conservative, he didn't wanna show much.... which is understandable as we were only there for like half an hour. I've been talking to his student from Moldova, and he said Zheng takes a very long time to warm up to people.... if you search Zheng Qing Yong White Crane on Youtube, there are a load of videos in Russian about him. Should paint a better picture of him.

[Franklin]

I dont think the cave has been used in a long time. I think the nun was refering to the distant past.

Yea, it would be nice if they had some funding to restore the stones properly.

yeah-- i did not think they are using it now

just thought it would be cool to get a glimpse of the cave they used to use for stuff like that..

one of my teachers lived and trained at a taoist temple in loufushan- before the cultural revolution
he mentioned to me that - they had places for people to do retreats for defined periods of time- where they dont see anyone-
(not sure if it was full darkness or not)
just get food passed to them - and pass out the empties and the fulls...

Franklin

[taiwandeutscher]

Zheng was probably the most conservative, he didn't wanna show much.... which is understandable as we were only there for like half an hour. I've been talking to his student from Moldova, and he said Zheng takes a very long time to warm up to people.... .

Not surprised here! There are numerous very secretive Crane groups down in southern Taiwan. They don't show or tell much in front of outsiders, and they ask horrendous amounts of tuition money, even from their brethren and fellow Taiwanese.

[chenyaolong]

I dont think the cave has been used in a long time. I think the nun was refering to the distant past.

Yea, it would be nice if they had some funding to restore the stones properly.

yeah-- i did not think they are using it now

just thought it would be cool to get a glimpse of the cave they used to use for stuff like that..

one of my teachers lived and trained at a taoist temple in loufushan- before the cultural revolution
he mentioned to me that - they had places for people to do retreats for defined periods of time- where they dont see anyone-
(not sure if it was full darkness or not)
just get food passed to them - and pass out the empties and the fulls...

Franklin

They still have those kinds of places in China, just much further away from prying eyes.

[chenyaolong]

Zheng was probably the most conservative, he didn't wanna show much.... which is understandable as we were only there for like half an hour. I've been talking to his student from Moldova, and he said Zheng takes a very long time to warm up to people.... .

Not surprised here! There are numerous very secretive Crane groups down in southern Taiwan. They don't show or tell much in front of outsiders, and they ask horrendous amounts of tuition money, even from their brethren and fellow Taiwanese.

There's a few very interesting styles I came across some clips of from Taiwan when I was looking for more stuff on Fujian styles. They seem to take two combinations of styles like 太祖化鹤, 罗汉化鹤 etc. Would love to check them out... but like you say, probably not gonna be easy.

On a similar note, a lot of people keep saying Malaysia is a good place to go for Hokkien and Hakka arts, but I haven't seen much particularly impressive online. I tried and failed to get in touch with Eric Ling. People keep pointing me to I Liq Quan, but it's not really in line with the theme of my channel.

[Franklin]

They still have those kinds of places in China, just much further away from prying eyes.

i don't doubt it...
i am sure there is still a lot of stuff off the beaten track...


one of my friends - who worked in the herb room of the acupuncture school I went to in the US
was originally from sichaun

they were telling me they have friends and family back home who are into taoist stuff
and every so often they will run across a mountain taoists that no one knows how old they are and just live out in the wilderness...
and other weird stories
the gist was -- there is a lot of stuff still practiced -- its just not in the public eye

franklin

[Bao]

they were telling me they have friends and family back home who are into taoist stuff
and every so often they will run across a mountain taoists that no one knows how old they are and just live out in the wilderness...
and other weird stories
the gist was -- there is a lot of stuff still practiced -- its just not in the public eye

You don’t need to go to the mountains to hunt down Daoists. Good stuff could be found anywhere. Just think about it. If you have a good position in society, come from a good family and have no need of earning extra money, there’s no reason to teach in public. A lot of things have been kept within families, earlier sometimes because of traditions, today sometimes just because there is no reason to teach anyone else. The public history of Chinese martial arts is the history of public teachers only. And what is in public today is only the tip of the iceberg. How do we know this? One of several reasons is because we know that historically famous and legendary teachers had a whole bunch of students. We have many names of students of famous masters in different texts and books. But only very few of them taught in public. But there must have been many who taught others. So where are the rest of the lineages today? Here, and there, and everywhere. But they don’t teach in public.

[chenyaolong]

Agreed, even in Shanghai there are quite large circles of people practicing Neidan. I had a casual interest in it, and got talking to some people, but it became quickly apparent that you are only "allowed in" if you are very serious, and I suspect have lots of cash.

[Bhassler]

I have to admit to being a bit disappointed the crying crane guys weren't more fighty. Eric Ling, who was featured prominently in the documentary "Needle Through Brick" (filmed in Malaysia), seems to be quite the scrapper, and I know he studied crying crane in addition to some other arts. I had a brief exposure to it myself from another practitioner, and could tell right away there was something missing from a martial standpoint, so it would have been cool to get a real glimpse of it. I thought Su Yin Han showed a bit more, and it seemed like Zheng Qin Yong could have shown more, had there been more time or had he known you better.

I thought Yu Dan Qiu was pretty good on the whole, I mean some of his applications were a bit contrived, but he definitely had very strong structure and decent power. If you watch episode 1 of Jesse's series, there's a bit more footage of him.

Zheng was probably the most conservative, he didn't wanna show much.... which is understandable as we were only there for like half an hour. I've been talking to his student from Moldova, and he said Zheng takes a very long time to warm up to people.... if you search Zheng Qing Yong White Crane on Youtube, there are a load of videos in Russian about him. Should paint a better picture of him.

Thanks for the elaboration on Yu Dan Qui-- I didn't mean to imply his stuff was bad, just a different personality type than some of the xing yi guys, for example, who couldn't talk without punching someone to illustrate their point. Those types of guys tend to not have contrived applications. And, of course, some applications are more for teaching purposes than actual use.

And thanks for the tip on the Zheng videos. I had seen some of those when just the shorter teasers were on youtube. I thought the guy was interesting then, without knowing who he was, so I guess it's good that I'm at least consistent in what I like...

I really enjoy your channel-- thanks, and keep up the good work!

[GrahamB]

Just to interject, there's a strong hermit tradition in China, on sacred mountains. This documentary from Bill Porter (Redpine) takes a look at it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpqaI_Py_zc