BSL Lyrics: Shaolin #6 (The short strike)

[GeneChing]

I like to get different versions too. There's something cool about researching it that way. Get a little Wing Lam flavor, a little Lai Hung flavor, maybe someday, I'll have my own flavor. I remember my late friend Eric Ishi, a mantis player, once told me he had collected over a 100 different versions of bengbu. I totally respect that.

[Ravenshaw]

Ravenshaw,
Interesting post, but I'm just curious what motivated your decision to study with Lai. Personally I'd rather start a new style from scratch than have to learn a different "flavor" (and to me Lai's stuff just plain looks like CLF) and start all of this stuff that I've worked on for many years from the beginning again. It sounds like Lai is teaching a pretty different "shenfa" (body method) from what you have already learned. I mean, how do you see such "cross-training" benefiting your own practice? Just curious.

It's mostly a scholarly thing. I learn from the comparisons. I feel I'm firm enough in what I learned from WL that I can keep the two schools' methods separate. I'm not combining the two approaches to make a hybrid... I now have two #6's, if that makes any sense. When I do WL's 6, it's with the mechanics that WL taught me. Same with LH's. I don't feel much like I'm starting at the beginning again, since I still practice the 10 sets as WL taught me, just adding to my concept of BSL.

The second thing is that LH was a fighter, so I figured I could learn something about applying TCMA beyond what I've pieced together from my San Shou experience and the forms. My practice at the WL school left a gap that I want to bridge. I joined the WL school after he stopped teaching sparring and never recieved any instruction from him on the subject. It's not the only thing I care about - otherwise I would not have stuck with him - but it's something I need to catch up on.

BTW, I make it into Davis occasionally (currently staying with family in Yolo county), send me a PM if you ever want to see a 3rd version of these sets -- I'm BSL from Johnny So's lineage through Sifu Kisu.

PM coming your way... It'd be fun to discuss.

[Ravenshaw]

Get a little Wing Lam flavor, a little Lai Hung flavor, maybe someday, I'll have my own flavor.

Maybe someday. Right now, they're different sets entirely to me.

Didn't Sifu do that with his HG? Chiu Wai + Lam Jo? I doubt there was as much of a difference, though. LH's BSL, like beiquan said, is heavily CLF-flavored.

[GeneChing]

You've got to make the art yours somehow. Unless you have exactly the same attributes as your master - same frame, same speed, same strengths and weaknesses - your form is going to look different. I could never really play BSL like Sifu Lam because he's much lower to the ground that me and I think he has extra forearm muscles from all the HG. I think the closest of any of us was Owen, because he was almost the same build as Sifu. But to be like your master is not the point. You want to be yourself.

[hasayfu]

Ravenshaw,

Great post and thanks for sharing. I can’t follow any of the BSL technique discussions but I’d like to comment on your “cross training”

One of the many things I really appreciate about Sifu is that he encourages looking outside the kwoon. For me, it has been an invaluable training method. You will always get variations from Sifu to Sifu. Even Subitai and myself, who cut our teeth together under Sifu, approach Hung Gar differently. For a student, this is great because you can see how things are put together and emphasized differently. I’ve gained so much by training with my two Si-gungs as well as many other Hung Gar people around the world. It doesn’t mean you have to take it all but it opens your mind to things you may have taken for granted or entirely missed.

A question for the general BSL family. I’m an outsider so don’t have my facts straight but didn’t KYC send both YSM and LTH to Tam Sam to learn CLF? (enough acronyms for you?) Is that where Lai Hung’s CLF comes from or did he get it from another Sifu? IS Lai Hung the only one to have this more CLF blend?

On a similar note, while sifu does separate the different styles he teaches, he can’t help but to blend. You can see this by looking at Chiu Wai and Lum Jo and seeing where his Hung Gar fits in. This also fits in with Sifu’s philosophy that one of the goals is to maximize body efficiency and power generation. You’ll start incorporating these tendencies into your movement.

I find the shoulder comment interesting. What do you mean by raise the shoulder? I don’t box but wouldn’t a boxer still have relaxed shoulders? From wikipedia on the boxing guard, “The shoulders and arms are held without tension in order to allow quick movement.” I get the chin thing. Do you find that it’s a big difference? I ask because I don’t feel Sifu ever made us hold the head high.

[beiquan]

A question for the general BSL family. I’m an outsider so don’t have my facts straight but didn’t KYC send both YSM and LTH to Tam Sam to learn CLF? (enough acronyms for you?) Is that where Lai Hung’s CLF comes from or did he get it from another Sifu? IS Lai Hung the only one to have this more CLF blend?

Most versions of the story that I've seen do not have Yan Shangwu going to train with Tan San, only Long Zixiang. Lai's CLF comes from his training with Long, I believe.

[Ravenshaw]

A question for the general BSL family. I’m an outsider so don’t have my facts straight but didn’t KYC send both YSM and LTH to Tam Sam to learn CLF? (enough acronyms for you?) Is that where Lai Hung’s CLF comes from or did he get it from another Sifu? IS Lai Hung the only one to have this more CLF blend?

KYC and TS did trade students, to my understanding. I don't think YSW was one of them. Here's Lai Hung CLF lineage for reference. It looks like his Buk Sing comes through TS, but through someone other than LTH. I think CLF was LH's first style.

On a similar note, while sifu does separate the different styles he teaches, he can’t help but to blend. You can see this by looking at Chiu Wai and Lum Jo and seeing where his Hung Gar fits in. This also fits in with Sifu’s philosophy that one of the goals is to maximize body efficiency and power generation. You’ll start incorporating these tendencies into your movement.

Agreed.

I find the shoulder comment interesting. What do you mean by raise the shoulder? I don’t box but wouldn’t a boxer still have relaxed shoulders? From wikipedia on the boxing guard, “The shoulders and arms are held without tension in order to allow quick movement.” I get the chin thing. Do you find that it’s a big difference? I ask because I don’t feel Sifu ever made us hold the head high.

Chin down, shoulder raised to protect the chin. I do this in San Shou as well, which has boxing hands. The shoulders aren't tense, necessarily, so it's still possible to be relaxed with raised shoulders. I can only think of one movement in BSL where Sifu told us specifically to tuck the chin (shivering rooster from #3 and #7, if I remembered the movement name correctly), otherwise he generally holds his head high. Not all movements at the LH school must have a tucked chin, but he has shown me to do so when punching, so when I'm at his school, that's how I do it.

[Ravenshaw]

You've got to make the art yours somehow. Unless you have exactly the same attributes as your master - same frame, same speed, same strengths and weaknesses - your form is going to look different. I could never really play BSL like Sifu Lam because he's much lower to the ground that me and I think he has extra forearm muscles from all the HG. I think the closest of any of us was Owen, because he was almost the same build as Sifu. But to be like your master is not the point. You want to be yourself.

Agreed. I'm huge compared to either of my BSL teachers and much younger. There's enough different between schools that keeps the sets separate for me, though my own personal expression of each method is still present. But that's a more subtle thing than the gross differences that I mentioned in my post.

[David Jamieson]

kungfu like a wineskin changes shape depending on the amount of contents inside.

that's a cool perspective to have on the variants.

[Ravenshaw]

Sifu WL doesn't seem to have the clip on his site.

Funny, the only clip I can find is from what appears to be a Bryant Fong student. Fong is also from the YSW lineage and his set is like the WL #6, but he modified it to give it some wushu flair. You'll see what I mean.

[David Jamieson]

max-

i have a pdf of duan da from northern longfist. It isn't exactly the same form as whats found in ku yu cheong bsl. some elements are same though.

that clip of bryant fong is a radical departure from how i learned the set. Interesting flavour though.

[beiquan]

Here (clicky) is a clip of me doing #6 at a tournament about 4-5 years ago. just for comparison.

[Lokhopkuen]

Lazy old guy style http://www.harmoniousfist.com/videos/tunda.mov

[GeneChing]

I'm so pleased to see this old thread get new life with such a vital exchange of ideas. It's a prime example of the positive side of web forums. Perhaps in the future, we can do this with all the BSL lyric threads. It'll give us something to do.

Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, there is no web footage of my sorry rendition of BSL#6. My rendition was mediocre at best and has clearly suffered from neglect in recent years. There's only two extant videos that I remember of my #6: one is in the Jinan International Traditional Martial Arts Tournament 1991; the other is footage of me doing it as part of a tourist performance alongside the monks at the Shaolin Wushuguan in 1996, and only the other people who were there might have copies of that. So you'll just have to do without. I already assault you all with my prolific writings and rantings. It would be presumptuous to torture you with my crappy BSL.

[Ravenshaw]

Perhaps in the future, we can do this with all the BSL lyric threads. It'll give us something to do.

Hopefully some others can get us going on those... I haven't finished LH's #4 yet , though I already see some major differences. For instance, LH doesn't do the swinging backfist > swinging down punch > uppercut that WL does.

I met up with beiquan just a few hours ago, but we didn't have time to dig too deep on anything as we both had time constraints.

I already assault you all with my prolific writings and rantings. It would be presumptuous to torture you with my crappy BSL.

If yours is crappy, I hate to think of what that makes mine.

FWIW, your example is still one I try to check myself against, even though I haven't trained with you for... ****, 4 years, if you don't count the visits you made after your departure. The way you taught/presented things always struck a chord with me and had a lot of influence on my early BSL development.