Getting to the bottom of Shaolin-do

[Steve McKneebar]

I've been registered on this board for quite a while and have been reading it for even longer, but if I'm not mistaken this is my first actual post, so I know I'm probably lacking some credibility. Be that as it may, I thought I'd stick my neck out in this thread and tell you guys what I know about Sin The.

I took Kung Fu, taught under the name Lung Shih Poh, for 4 years under Sifu Paul Newton at the Kentuckiana School of Kung Fu. It's a really small, non-profit school (it's fallen on really hard times lately too) that was established after Newton and the instructor he studied directly under (whose name I sadly can't remember off the top of my head, which I'm sure somewhat impeaches my credibility) had a falling out with Sin The over basically pussying the system down to make it marketable.

- The whole calling it Karate thing was supposedly part of that initially. It's common in Kentucky to see TKD and other styles marketed as Karate just because of name recognition.

- Adding tons of forms to the system was also part of that, because it made it look swankier, although the testing requirements at Sin The's schools were made less rigid. In contrast to the dozens of Shaolin Do forms, our school had one long form and like 5 short forms (basically 3 or 4 movement drills) for each belt rank, which is supposedly the way it originally was with Sin The.

- As for the blackbelt in 2 years thing, that's ridiculous. Again, that's another sissifying of the system. It took me 4 years to a green belt at KSoKF, and only like 1 in 30 students ever got their black. (A friend of mine got his in 2001 and no one else has since.) Again, that's supposedly how it originally was.

Paul didn't talk much about the specific ridiculous stuff Sin The has claimed about himself, and frankly I can see why. I know I wouldn't have stayed there for so long had I heard any of that B.S. from my instructors. The whole Sin The as a superman thing was something we were told (somewhat vaguely) from the start that we'd eventually encounter and that should be disbelieved. I would imagine that our school, or at the very least Paul and his direct instructor, are the "falling out with the club in Kentucky" that was mentioned earlier.

On a side note, I don't want to come across sounding like the KSoKF is some sort of "ultimate real Kung Fu" style or anything like that. Like every other system it had, and still has, flaws. Ultimately, shortly after Sifu Paul retired, I left the school because of disagreements with their training methods and started taking BJJ, but regardless of those disagreements the KSoKF and Sifu Paul NEVER made those kinds of assinine claims about either the style itself or the supposed superhuman abilities of its practitioners.

In any event, I hope at least some of that provided something useful.

[It is Fake]

I took Kung Fu, taught under the name Lung Shih Poh, for 4 years under Sifu Paul Newton at the Kentuckiana School of Kung Fu. It's a really small, non-profit school (it's fallen on really hard times lately too) that was established after Newton and the instructor he studied directly under (whose name I sadly can't remember off the top of my head, which I'm sure somewhat impeaches my credibility) had a falling out with Sin The over basically pussying the system down to make it marketable.
The whole calling it Karate thing was supposedly part of that initially. It's common in Kentucky to see TKD and other styles marketed as Karate just because of name recognition.

This is what I have heard myself. The reason I named the 3 (4 if you count CSC) is the rediculousness of the stament "I'm honoring my Master." Keeping the Gi okay, 4 different names no. That isn't including all of the sub groups, like yours, that are still affiliated with GM Sin The.

[edward]

2 Years isn't really enough to get to a black sash level in a Chinese style. You can do all right in a Japanese style in that amount of time, but not a Chinese style.

In a Chinese style you've got to figure that they traditionally taught 18 weapons, so with 18 weapons, or at least the main ones plus empty handed forms, there's no way you'll complete all that in 2 years. You might learn all the forms in 2 years and be able to do them like crap, but there's no way you'll be at a black sash level, even if you trained 8 hours a day.

[edward]

Oh, and I should add that the reason most 'kung fu' sucks in the U.S. (and China for that matter) is that people never studied long enough or practiced enough.

[Dr. No]

"The same mechanism can actually harm you, because you can actually develop auto-immunity in some circumstances, whereby your body will actually have an allergic reaction to itself, which can kill you or destroy your organs. I met a woman once who had an auto-immune reaction which destroyed her kidneys. You can think it's a myth, but the fact is, you're just ignorant. You need to do more research. I'm not going to sit here and Google everything for you. If you're too lazy you can sit back and go "that's a myth". But that's just being a brain-dead moron. In fact, somebody just told me that silverware originated because silver turns black in the presence of some poisons, so nobles in Europe used to use silverware to avoid being poisoned. Fact or fiction? You decide. :) But it makes sense because silver turns black from oxidation, so a strong oxidant would make it turn black faster."

---slowly gouges his eyes out with a blunt spoon---

[Dr. No]

"The skin on the outside of the hands actually burnt from the training."

sausage sizzle-fu huh?

[heng fa]

I've never heard of anyone training this hot sand stuff...the premise of it seems rather faulty.

Such a person would be easy to find don't you think....

Look at Pan Qing Fu. The guy's hands are a disaster, but he does have an ill wardrobe.

Little of the Shaolin do story adds up, and from what I have seen of their forms it has little to do with Henan Shaolin. First of all I find it hard to believe any Shaolin monastic lineage could turn completely secular, and it seems odd they would adopt Japanese anything to escape persecution. Forgetting Chewbacca for the moment. The toughest nut to swallow is the 900 forms bit. That is so far beyond ridiculous it is ricockulous.

[JohnnyCache]

This is a slight digression, but something I've always wondered: How in the hell did the shaolin brand themselves with lions and tigers by picking up a cauldron with their forearms? Wouldn't the hot pot burn their ENTIRE forearm? Is the bas-relief of the animal supposed to get burned in DEEPER YET?

[It is Fake]

I've never heard of anyone training this hot sand stuff...the premise of it seems rather faulty.

Such a person would be easy to find don't you think....

Look at Pan Qing Fu. The guy's hands are a disaster, but he does have an ill wardrobe.

Little of the Shaolin do story adds up, and from what I have seen of their forms it has little to do with Henan Shaolin. First of all I find it hard to believe any Shaolin monastic lineage could turn completely secular, and it seems odd they would adopt Japanese anything to escape persecution. Forgetting Chewbacca for the moment. The toughest nut to swallow is the 900 forms bit. That is so far beyond ridiculous it is ricockulous.

Actually one of the documentaries I saw shows a group of shaolin doing heated sand training. They are doing it quickly but the narrator talks about it being a type of conditiong. I'll look around and find out if it was A&E or Discovery. No, I don't beileve the melted baby crap.

Yeah the history is weird from the outside, watching things change and then wondering if you misheard, just imagine it from the inside. Then you start talking to people who left and realize you were hearing correctly.


Here are a couple links that talk about it.
http://www.saolimpenang.com/kftoughhand.php
http://www.shaolins.com/
http://pages.prodigy.net/david_wolfe...e_terms_T.html (Tai Cho)

[MasterKiller]

This is a slight digression, but something I've always wondered: How in the hell did the shaolin brand themselves with lions and tigers by picking up a caldron with their forarms? Wouldn't the hot pot burn their ENTIRE forearm? Is the bas-relief of the animal supposed to get burned in DEEPER YET?

That's a myth perpetuated by the "Kung Fu" TV show. They didn't really brand their arms.

As far as SD's Hua forms, the only other school I've seen teaching versions of them is http://www.littleriverkungfu.com/videos/index.html