Can I get the readers digest version of how the Wu Tang and Shaolin arts differ in terms of origin and time line, core philosophies and how they were intertwined in Chinese culture?
Wutang mountain ( Wudang / Wudan , Cantonese = Modong) is the center of Chinese Taoist Internal Martial Arts: Tai Chi, Bagua , HsingYi / XingYi. Taoism ( philosophy and the religious spinoff) has been around for 4000 and 2000 years respectively. Taoists developed gunpowder, acupuncture, herbalism, magnetic compass. The basic tenet of Taoist ways is to observe and copy nature and live according to it’s grain. In martial arts terms , this is why you see people learn by imitating animal fighting. Taoist Martial Arts says " Pain is NO Gain" whilst training Internal Martial Arts emphasise using minimum effort for maximum damage. Use opponent’s force/momentum and gravity. Develop Qi( chi). Use efficient Body mechanics. Body is loose, limber and swift .IMA does not need size, youth or maleness to dominate in a fight. An enemy's attack is not blocked , but diverted and requiring less force. " May 4 ounzes move a thousand pounds" is a Tai Chi proverb. No shouting is needed. Brute force is not necessary to detroy enemy. Shaolin ( Sil Lium in Cantonese) is the center of Buddhist External Martial Arts ( Hung Gar, Wing Chun, Choy Li Fatt etc) Buddhism was first introduced to China circa 100AD, and monk Damo ( Boddidharma) from India brought it ( 650AD) to Shaolin Temple located in the Song mountains. When Indian Buddhism was mixed with local prevailing Taoist ideas , Chan ( Zen) Budddhism was born and it is uniquely Chinese in origin. Concepts of “Emptying the mind” , strive to return to original nature, stillness , eliminating desire were original Taoist ideas absorbed into Zen Buddhism. External Martial Arts emphasise pain tolerance, harsh conditioning, developing big muscles to conquer opponent. Body is hard and tight ( to withstand blows). EMA needs practitioner to be big, young or male to dominate a fight.Brute force is needed. Fighters tend to yell ( Ki-ai ! etc) to release force and intimidate opponent. An enemy's attack is usually blocked, hard on hard and that requires more force. Shaolin EMA say " No Pain No Gain" There’s a big myth floating around that Damo brought Kung Fu to China ( Shaolin temple) in 650AD. This is absolute rubbish as archeological evidence includes drawings , swords, text that prove the existence of Martial Arts 2000 years before Damo’s arrival. Secondly, if Kung Fu came from India, how come it didn’t flourish in India? My Taoist teacher explains that before Buddhism arrived in China in 100AD ALL martial arts was Internal. AS Buddhist philosophy is much in tune with working hard, slogging and pain tolerance, Internal Arts were changed over time by Buddhist mentality. Taoism is opposed to these ideas of working too hard, pain tolerance... as it is unnatural. This was the start of the split into IMA and EMA and that began with the coming Buddhism in China . It would be wrong for me to omit mentioning that over the centuries, EMAs borrowed and incorporated many IMA principles….like Chi /Qi and accupunture, Dim Mak. Keep in mind that EMA was originally IMA but lost many of the efficiency principles over 1400 years and substituted with brute force techniques so characteristic of EMA.. Keep in mind that Wudang is only 2-4 days walk from Shaolin temple, so obviously there was a lot of intercourse of ideas Shaolin monks have stayed at Wudang temples and vice versa. Keep in mind that Chang San Feng ( Tai Chi founder 1300AD) was first a Shaolin master, migrated to Wudang, then realised how unnecessarily difficult EMA was and developed IMA Tai Chi in accordance to Taoist principles of "Wu Wei" ( No Unnatural Action) …( Refer Tao Te Ching) Hope this helps.....
I don't believe that before the arrival of buddhism there where only IMA Look at Chinese wrestling ... more then 2000 years old and seems to me to be external. I agree with the rest of the statement. Also concerning the Shaolintemple. Damo brought first and for all breathing excersises. A lot of styles that where practised by the monks was imported from elsewhere. that's also the reason why you find several styles with a seperate branch in Shaolin. I found a vcd about Shaolin baji Quan.... this is a moslim style of fighting... Just making a point
I believe that it is impossible for an art to be all external or all internal-- virtually all chinese martial arts have components of both. There is a philosophic difference between the Wudan and the Shaolin arts, no doubt, but to say that all "external" arts require young, strong males, and entirely use force on force is a little internal-centric. That said, I agree with soggy's rundown on the basic history of it.
External martial arts empahasize pain tolerance, harsh conditioning. develop big muscles, the body is hard and tight. You need to be big young and male and brute force is necessary. I dont think this is a complete truth. Some of the top southern proponents i.e YC Wong, Doc Fai Wong, Yee Chee Wai and some of there students as well, were not big men and were very fluid in there movements. I know they had some softer system training as well. This would not be possible if they relied on brute force. Yea the training can be hard and a little muscle will get put on but it wont be that restrictive to your movement. There are no purely internal or external arts, one must follow the other and be balanced. There are teachers who distort this a bit, that is another discussion.
Soggycat did that come from a source or your pentium 5 type brain? I would be interested in a source that goes further into detail on the subject. BTW, that was THE perfect answer to my question. For those who are not in the U.S. or are too old to remember the term "reader's digest version" means short and to the point ala the pocket sized magazine of the same name.
It depends how one defines Internal and External. I guess a good way to view it is with a Continuum, 100% Internal on one side ,100% External on the other side. Shaolin styles, Karate TKD, Muay Thai are clustered close to the External pole, Taiji and Bagua closer to the Internal Pole. Wing Chun ( depending on who teaches it) can be quasi Internal. It is absolutely true that External Arts do not favour old weak or female. Consider the following logic. Take 2 fighters who have studied Karate from the same teacher for 10 years. One is Male , 25 yo and 6’ 2” The other is also Male and 25 but 5’6” Do you need to be a Rocket Scientist to predict the outcome of this fight ? Infact, these 2 will never even be put in the same weight class in Competition rounds ! The fact competition uses a weight/size class system is evidence is tacit admission that the height , weight. Size , strength do make a difference in an External Martial arts 2nd point: A Korean TKD/ Hapkido Instructor friend of mine told me about an interesting fight in Korea, a public demo broadcast on TV matched 4 Female Olympic Judo fighters with 4 ordinary men of equal weight , height size. Only one of the women were able to throw these men who had NO Martial Arts training. 3rd point . Having been to several Karate –Open styles championships in Sydney, I have notice an amazing number of 12-14 year old boys running around proudly displaying their Black Belts. They are what, 5’4- 5’6” ( 1.63-1.67m). Do you really believe these guys can win a fight with a 6’ tall man?
Like I said, if you had been reading with your glasses <grin>, none of what I say about the shortcomings of External Arts comes from me. I am not “expert” enough even though I spent several years in EMA ( TKD, Karate , Kick Boxing) before migrating to IMA. All that I have express here, to the best of my ability, I reproduce as accurately as I can, comes from the 3 Internal Arts Masters whom I’ve studied with . All 3 are born in China, each have minimum 30 years IMA experience teaching. 2 of them had done Shaolin before realising that it had serious disadvantages ( health and fighting) 2 of them are no taller that 5’5” ( 1.65m) , only one is 5’9” ( 1.75) All of them have real life street encounter experience. Hope you find this useful. Please don’t ask me to disclose their names, they don’t have the time or interest in sorting out the genuine students from the myriad nutcases that try to contact them in Sydney.
Err, I wonder if you realise that Doc Fai Wong practises “Empty Force” , which I believe belongs to the Internal Martial Arts Camp? Also merely quoting names of External Martial Arts teachers is not sufficient proof that External Arts is superior. You off course might have heard that famed Kyokushin Karate founder Mas Oyama never lost a fight in his life , but came to a draw with a Tai Chi master in a famous 1950’s public match in Hong Kong ( ask some older HK people about it)….when the match was discontinued because it was going no where. The diff is Mas Oyama was 30 then , the Tai Chi man 60 I agree that there's no Purely Internal or External, but better to say Mostly Internal etc
Bravo. However, Soggycat seems to have bypassed this basic concept (Yin/Yang, Yang/Yin). Please refer to: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27804&page=3
I hope you are not suggesting that Baji Quan was brought to China by the foreign Moslems. That would be incorrect. There are many KungFu styles like Cha Chuan ( not Chang Chuan), 10Animal Hsing Yi ( not 12 animal), Baji, Piqua, Tan Tui etc that were popular in Moslem dominated provinces in China ( mostly Western China, Xinjiang side etc) These guys were already doing these style long before Islam came to them after 700AD. 10% of China is Moslem, and they are known as the "Hui" people, to distinguish them from the dominant "Han" people. Have a look at this: http://www.plumpub.com/info/Articles/art_TMmuslimkf.htm http://cclib.nsu.ru/projects/satbi/satbi-e/statyi/mosl.html
I never implied any method as more superior than the other, and yes doc fai wong was a tai chi student of i beleive fu zhong wen.
no .... i didn't mean that... I was just pointing out that there are a lot of other styles out there that , if you look at there history, have nothing to do with Shaolin ... but you can find Shaolinstyles like them. For instance ... Baji. I do know about de hui people and stuff... My teacher is Huimin. ( Chinese moslim ) greetz
The taoist internal arts use the image of a practitioner as being like a field to which many water pipelines support. The image of the water is here the QI. So if the pipeline is not open or is constricted no water can flow to the field. The standing practices strenghten the structure of the "pipeline". Then continual drill practices (form) can cause the water to flow. Like any poetical image this shouldn't be overweighted to much. After all that's "empty" or open. That could be a Shaolin Buddhist view.
