Staff work Recommendations

[Bruce W Sims]

Dear Folks:

I'm doing work on Korean Staff work and could use some well-recommended resources on SHAOLIN or Northern Chinese Staff traditions. I have a copy of the 4 volume "Shaolin Encyclopedia" but things move so fast in our media age that some of you may have seen a book, tape or disk that I may have missed. Any help would be much appreciated.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[nuxia]

Looking for answers on this one, too. There doesn't seem to be a lot of Shaolin training and information on sparring and stick fighting around beyond two person sets and forms. Tell me if I'm wrong, please!

[David Jamieson]

If you are doing Korean staff work why look for Chinese materials? That would then no longer be korean and instead you would be learning Chinese materials.

As for materials and resources. You have your teacher and you have your practice.
Outside of that, if you want more, there must be hundred of staff videos aviable to look at. even on the internet.

[GeneChing]

We used to do an all Korean mag called Dojang. After eight issues, we became frustrated that everything kept defaulting to China. I think a Korean stylist can discover a lot by researching Chinese methods. Then again, I think a Chinese practitioner can discover a lot by researching the methods of other cultures too.

There's a fair amount of staff sparring material, but it's only practiced in the traditional schools. There's been some effort on revitalization in weapon sparring, with marginal success (see our 2002 November/December cover story The Muslim Master of the Old Empire: An interview with Grandmaster Ma Xianda)

As for staff resources, Bruce, here are some videos for your perusal:
Shaolin Drunken Staff Form
Nine Continents Staff

[David Jamieson]

just don't make the white crane / tkd connection or all the white crane and crane derivative people will be apoplectic about it.