Martial Arts

EmptyForceOfChi,

Your description of Shaolin Gong Fu has made me interested but it isn't really a self-defense martial art right? Since from what I understand you have to learn long forms but what is the purpose of that? You don't really learn how to react to specific attacks right?
 
s0meguy said:
EmptyForceOfChi,

Your description of Shaolin Gong Fu has made me interested but it isn't really a self-defense martial art right? Since from what I understand you have to learn long forms but what is the purpose of that? You don't really learn how to react to specific attacks right?
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shaolin gong fu or shaolinquan, is to condition your body to the maximum level of human endurance. it is everything rolled into 1, internal, external training, strength of body and min. and hardcore conditioning training combined with a deadly combat art.

it can be used very well as a self defence art. but dont get shaolin confused with wushu. the drawback with shaolin is that you wont find many real shaolin temples in the west. luckily for me we have a real shaolin temple right here in london. lead by my master sifu shi yanzi, a great man and warrior alike. but shaolin is a lifetime commitment, it is traditional and does not teach direct street defence for example how to dissarm guns and knives etc. it teaches ultimate conditioning and real combat though. and how to weild a number of deadly weapons. spears, swords, staffs and a manner of weird and wonderful tools of death.

it is the most demanding training i have every taken part in, the sessions are brutaly difficult, we have 5-6th dan karate masters comming in and struggling with the basics. the first thing you will learn, is horse stance, horse stance and some more horse stance. and you will practice that until your legs fall off. you will have to combine your shaolin training with real street defence sessions though. but in my opinion shaolin is the best conditioning training you can do. after 2-3 years of doing it you will not be the same as before. you will have ascended to new levels of strength. the long stance is great for distance training and knowing your limits and restrictions. the old chinese systems were seperated between south and north. northern form and southern form. northern for tall people and southern for short people. the northern style was mainly for kicking and long strikes, to take advantage of the long body frame, the southern style was for shorter people, with was all about hand speed upper body strikes and fast pace. nowdays they have evolved into 1 form in many places. but the general rule applies in my opinion. if your tall practice a long northern style, if your short practice a short southern style.

but there is a saying that goes "a good hand fighter will beat a good leg fighter" basicaly saying somebody who uses his hands well will beat somebody who uses his feet well. but ofcourse you combine the 2 and compensate.

here is a link to my temple.
http://www.shaolintempleuk.org/


peace.
 
Well there actually is a Shaolin temple in Amsterdam.

geez all the options! Looks like I'm going to combine Krav Maga for it being adapted for use in modern 'street' fighting with some other martial art. I've test lessons scheduled for Krav Maga, Aikido, Wing Tsun and Wing Tjun (is there even a difference other than the name Wing Tsun being trademarked?) Eskrima and I'm going to see if I can sign up for a test lesson of Shaolin GF
 
s0meguy said:
Well there actually is a Shaolin temple in Amsterdam.

geez all the options! Looks like I'm going to combine Krav Maga for it being adapted for use in modern 'street' fighting with some other martial art. I've test lessons scheduled for Krav Maga, Aikido, Wing Tsun and Wing Tjun (is there even a difference other than the name Wing Tsun being trademarked?) Eskrima and I'm going to see if I can sign up for a test lesson of Shaolin GF
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yeah man thats the spirit, go and try them all out and see what works best for you.

wing tsun and wing tzun are one and the same, its just the translation from chinese to english thats all. and it is usualy called wing chun in the west. jeet kun do has its roots in wing chun and other chinese systems, but it was changed to adapt to modern times and self defence.

i always suggest people mix up the systems, if you stick to a single system you can master it and become good. but then you have limited yourself and drilled in set patterns. and as mike quoted from bruce earlier, "be like water" bruce lee was right, to be like water means you can change and adapt to your enemy. dont be predictable and easy to read, always be able to transform your system to meet the needs of the situation.

rock Vs water.


peace.
 
I've also seen people harden certain parts of their body by letting others repeatedly attack them or repeatedly attack something with them such as hitting a concrete wall hundreds of times with a newspaper between the wall and the person, letting someone repeatedly attack certain weak parts of the head, stomach, back, or even balls. Is this a Shaolin Gong Fu thing (the guys that I saw doing this sure looked like Shaolin monks)? I wonder how this works and is there a result other than psychological (being able to withstand pain for longer)?
 
s0meguy said:
I've also seen people harden certain parts of their body by letting others repeatedly attack them or repeatedly attack something with them such as hitting a concrete wall hundreds of times with a newspaper between the wall and the person, letting someone repeatedly attack certain weak parts of the head, stomach, back, or even balls. Is this a Shaolin Gong Fu thing (the guys that I saw doing this sure looked like Shaolin monks)? I wonder how this works and is there a result other than psychological (being able to withstand pain for longer)?
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yup thats shaolin, getting monks to kick you in the balls over and over is serious. they can retract the testicles nearly all inside themselves. personaly i have never attemped this training before, and i dont think i ever will. thats a bit too extream for me!.

but the other training your talking about i do that all the time, nail a newspaper to a brick wall, and punch it 1000 times per day. this is part of iron fist training. when they hit each other over the head and strike each other, that is not actualy part of the conditioning training. that is to test the defence and takes place after you are conditioned to a certain degree and level. the bodyparts that are struck are already conditioned with various other iron methods.

i do iron fist, iron sand palm, golden palm, steel jacket and a few other conditioning methods. shaolin is a seriously deep system with so many sub systems involved. there is not enough time in 1 mans life to even study and master them all. just the animal forms alone would take a lifetime to master. without all of the other forms and iron conditioning methods.

you can keep yurself busy for 100 years just learning shaolin, and still have another 200 years worth of training to complete before you have even accomplished 40% of the overall training in shaolin. most monks started training at the age of 4 years old. and run up a mountain before breakfast every morning. then back to the temple for 14 hours of training per day.

i started martial arts at the age of 4 also, but i have not studied shaolin gong fu for anywhere near that long. i am still a rookie in the eyes of a master and the eyes of myself. i have done martial arts for 18 years and i dont even consider myself half decent. then you get some guys who call themselves a master after 7 years of training, thats laughable.

we all are students tillt he day we die.


peace.
 
Imo any martial art that is practiced well makes fists or other parts bleed.
But bending the spine doesn't sound too good.

p.s. You talk like an amateur, Karate nowadays mostly sucks.
 
Avatar said:
Imo any martial art that is practiced well makes fists or other parts bleed.
But bending the spine doesn't sound too good.

p.s. You talk like an amateur, Karate nowadays mostly sucks.
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thats cause I never tried it, I only did Judo as a martial art. Judo as a pacifier martial art. Bend their spines, makes them fall hard, squeeze them till they cant crawl. rawwwwr
 
I studied Tang Soo Do when I was younger. I think just about any martial art is helpful if you practice it. The highest skill is being able to avoid fights in the first place.
 
EmptyForceOfChi said:
ofcourse he is, just like a doctor with a MD is still a doctor with a MD regardless of who is around,

but does having a black belt mean you are any good? in my opinion i think it doesent mean much. all that matters is experience and your skill. because nowdays you can gain a black belt in under 5 years. and after 5 years of training you have no way mastered the art of combat. back in the old days, people were black belts because the wite belt they trained in got so dirty over years of practice that it turned black.

its just a gimmick nowdays to gain students. giving children ranks and awards is the mcdojo way.


peace.
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You are absolutely right!!
I have been into judo for many year on a very high level...I usedto refuse getting other collors of belt...cause my 'lower collor belt' confused the black belt...and in many cases the psychologicaly game came out in my favor
 
draqon said:
thats cause I never tried it, I only did Judo as a martial art. Judo as a pacifier martial art. Bend their spines, makes them fall hard, squeeze them till they cant crawl. rawwwwr
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Hi Dragon,

where you into competition?
I think the beauty of Judo is psychologicaly game...feel what your opponent is going to do even before he/she was thinking of doing it...

Rei! :)
 
Jujitsu/hapkido/judo are good. I like and practice a blended form (elements of different styles) called Lung Fu Do. There is disarming in this style with a philosophy of not being the aggressor, though I usually eschew that as I am more of a grappler and given my build and strength, I go in close and hard.

Eskrima is fun, but it is essentially Philipino stick fighting that provides a basis for knife and short sword fighting.
 
Well I just went to Krav Maga and the training was brutal lol. Like every muscle in my body hurts like.. well really bad (and I loved it).

But anyways... I really liked it. You basically train every aspect of your body thats needed during a fight. He focuses on making the defense/disarming (of things like knives and guns) attacks a reflex and you learn to keep track of your surroundings and act accordingly. To defend and quickly take out a bunch of people one by one while defending from the others so that you can take on several enemies practically at once. You learn moves that other people might use against you (learn your enemy) such as moves used by karate, boxing and other martial arts such as judo and jiu-jitsu. They're very easy to counter if you're allowed to fight 'dirty' and they are not used to that (which is what krav maga is all about: in order to survive your allowed to do anything). The simple 'moves' are all about destroying the opponents ability to attack as quick as possible without giving him the time needed to respond. No matter who you're defending against... he won't know what hit him until he wakes up in a hospital. On top of that the training this guy gives is very intensive and its a good work out for both the physical body and the mind.
 
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Ive learned that aikido and ju jitsu are extreamely efective in fighting, after all, how many real fights do you see where the fighters do a flying spin kick or whatever? Ground fighting is key
 
EmptyForceOfChi said:
tell me your area and i will see if i can look up a good realistic self defence system for you. or some kind of military training system, dont get me wrong im all for traditional martial art forms, but today they dont incorperate reality training for todays streets. because they have not been updated for hundreds of years to compensate. i take traditional systems and uprade them for todays world.


peace.
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Hey Chi, I randomly stumbled upon this thread while looking around for a good place to start. I'm simply overwhelmed by the amount of chooices out there not only in forms but also in studios. I'm quite a ways from you (Mountain View, California), but any help you could offer on finding a "good self defence system" in my area would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance, just reading your posts helped narrow my search quite a bit.

Cheers, Jason
 
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