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I went with my wife last night to Lukang, one of Taiwan's oldest cities, for this year's Lantern Festival. We happened upon a Lion Dance shop. These lions, we were told, are in the tradition of Fujian province, a bit different from the Guangdong lions we use in Shaolin Wahnam.
Those who have attended Sifu's lion dance courses will remember the secret of the cross or square movement of the lion. The boss in the shop has been in the business for 30 years. He revealed the key movement of this type of lion, and that is 'figure 8'. Also, he said the movement is in the shoulder, whereas I would say the principle movement of the Guangdong Lion is in the waist. Each town in Taiwan has a different lion head design.
We are very grateful to Sifu for this rich tradition. Check out the Fujian Lion and compare!
"Then how could chi kung overcome diseases where the cause is unknown or when there is no cure? The question is actually incorrect. The expressions "the cause is unknown" and "there is no cure" are applicable only in the Western medical paradigm. The expressions no longer hold true in the chi kung paradigm. In the chi kung paradigm the cause is known, and there is a cure."
Thank you Sigung and Sifu Robin for continuing this thread for so long.
I look forward to the next installment.
Sigung: This is a great exercise for women, because it makes them beautiful and radiant. Student: And what does it do for men? Sigung: It makes women beautiful! Smile from the heart!
I'm sorry it's been a while but I assure you it will have been worth the wait!
And so we move on to.... Chapter 6,
One of my favourite chapters so far! where we find out more about Sifu’s journey into Kung Fu and in particular his realization that a Kung Fu students must be able to fight using Kung Fu.
I think you will love it!
Chapter 6: FLOWERY FISTS AND EMBROIDERY KICKS
Decorative Kungfu Form
If you have read this far, you would probably think that by now I was quite a kungfu exponent. I thought so myself. People were very impressed with my kungfu demonstrations, which represent beautiful forms in motion. Those who knew my master well, as well as many senior kungfu exponents who used to comment on our performance, constantly reminded me that I was my master's best disciple.
But I was never proud, despite all these praises which I honestly believed I deserved. I carried on practicing kungfu diligently, and continued to seek advice from my seniors humbly. But what I never realized was that I was far from being a kungfu expert -- I was not even a real kungfu student!
The primary aim of kungfu is effective fighting. The other aims are to promote health and fitness, and to develop character. I couldn't fight well. I also did not have much kungfu force. Despite about ten years of kungfu training, I could not break a cement brick -- nay, not break even a simple sugar-cane. I was not very fit either -- not as fit as what I believe kungfu exponents should be. For example, I could not run around a football field without feeling breathless. I did not do very well in the physical fitness programs my physical education teacher introduced into my school.
I remember that as a boy scout, I once had an endurance hike to see how far we could go with only two dollars and a packet of flour. We were not allowed to hitch-hike, or to accept any lift from anybody. My partner for the endurance hike was my school days best friend, Soon Hoe Choon, who is now a successful busi¬nessman in Australia. We were walking beside a railway track from Nibong Tebal to Bagan Serai at night. I felt so weak that I had to stop a few times along the way, and each time we stopped to rest, a swamp of hungry mosquitoes would gather around us for their supper. In our boyish ignorance we thought that the railway track was the shortest distance between two towns, not knowing that the trunk road, with certainly less mosquitoes, was running parallel nearby. Each time Hoe Choon would urge me on, teasing with the discomforting but truthful comment that it was shameful for a kungfu exponent to be so weak.
Nevertheless, my kungfu training did make me healthy. I was quite a sickly child at first, but since practicing kungfu under Sifu Lai Chin Wah, I was very seldom sick. My kungfu training also made me more patient, tolerant and courageous. Though it is difficult to say whether I had these qualities earlier, there is no doubt whatsoever that kungfu training enhanced them.
Yet, looking back with hindsight over my early kungfu training, I realized that for about ten years I was not learning real kungfu -- I merely learned beautiful kungfu form in terms of demonstrative, decorative kungfu patterns and sets. Apart from my solid horse stance, which later contributed greatly to my subsequent kungfu development, I did not develop any kungfu force or skill, such as being able to strike an opponent down with one blow, or to have the stamina of playing a game of football without feeling exhausted.
I did not know how to use kungfu application for actual fighting. I did not even know how to release the hold if someone gripped my arm, nor to block a kick when a taekwondo novice attacked me. Thirdly, I did not learn any kungfu theory: I had not even heard of, least of all understood, some of the very useful prin¬ciples that past masters had recorded for the benefit of succeeding generations.
In short, I had deceived myself; thinking that I was quite deep in kungfu when I was actually superfi¬cial. The Chinese have a special term for this type of kungfu that is good for demonstration but ineffective in actual fighting: they call it "flowery fists and embroidery kicks".
Below are some pictures of Wushu, a demonstrative form of Kung Fu that could rightly be called "flowery fists and embroidery kicks".
I think you will agree that it seems strange that so many people around the world who practice Kung Fu have forgotten the simple fact that is the title of the next installment.
Best
Robin
Kungfu is for Fighting
These statements mentioned above can be very sensitive and hurting. My schoolmates who still practice kungfu the way I did, may legitimately feel that I belittle or even despise them, implicitly suggesting the inferior quality of their kungfu; though, of course, I never had (and never will have) such intentions. The irony is that the public generally considered (and still consider) their level of kungfu high. Judgment is normally based on demonstration, and also on the number of years one has learnt kungfu; it is almost never based on actual fighting or even friendly sparring. As far as I know, more than 80% of those practicing kungfu nowadays do so in this manner -- learning only kungfu form, and neglecting force training, application and theory.
It was no wonder that when karate, and later taekwondo, were introduced into Malaysia, they took the scene by storm, many people flocked to learn these new, more practical martial arts, because it was not uncommon to find senior kungfu students defeated by comparatively raw karate and taekwondo beginners in free sparring! The simple reason was that while sparring constituted a basic feature in karate and taekwondo, there was virtually no sparring in kungfu training!
Hence, years later after I had the rare oppor¬tunity to learn real kungfu from another master, Sifu Ho Fatt Nam who emphasized force training, appli¬cation and theory, I took the trouble to return to my old school to teach my former schoolmates the fighting aspect of this wonder martial art, and impressed upon them that the real test of good kungfu is actual fight¬ing, not decorative demonstration. I sparred with them and easily beat them with the very patterns that they had learnt, so as to show my former schoolmates how useful these kungfu patterns were, if they knew their appli¬cation. I impressed upon them that merely knowing the application was only the beginning; the road to good fighting kungfu is practicing the application many, many times over.
I also emphasized the great importance of force training. In fact, the term "kungfu" refers to force or skill, not to techniques. I showed them that many of their kungfu patterns which appear flowery or redund¬ant were actually meant for developing kungfu force, if they knew how to co-ordinate proper breathing with their kungfu movements, and how to channel qi (intrinsic energy) from their "dan tian" (energy field at the abdomen) to their hands. When they broke their first bricks in testing their force, they were simply overjoyed.
My statement that I find my early kungfu training ineffective for actual fighting may appear paradoxical and unkind to my first kungfu master. Whenever I had to say this statement, especially when I wanted to help dedicated kungfu students, who unfortunately had followed the path of "flowery fists and embroidery kicks", to revert back to real kungfu, I was tormented by this dilemma of whether to tell the truth and risk the possibility of hurting those close to my first master, or to chose the easy way of keeping quiet.
I am a firm believer of truth and sincerity. When I am faced with promising students who have put in a lot of time and faith in kungfu, but who have followed the path wrongly, I feel that -- being one who has gone through the same tedious path, but who has the good fortune later to be saved from the wasteful detours -- I have the moral duty to help these promising students by telling them the "right" way to kungfu training. And I am much comforted, not so much by the appre¬ciation of these students, but, most importantly, by the fact that not a single person has ever mentioned or implied that I have been unkind to my late master. In fact -- more so now than before -- my master's family and friends maintain that I am his most outstanding disciple.
Below please find pictures of Sifu training force with One Finger Shooting Zen and of Si Gung Lai Chi Wah. Sifu was Si Gung’s best disciple.
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