Drunken Monkey

i find it interesting that you insist that the simple date/note of a time-period (that i am have asked for numerous times) is a vast amount of info that would be too big to post.

i can't really answer that question.

kung fu refers to chinese martial arts. just as 'country' refers to a particular land mass but not neccessarily somewhere specific like spain. kung fu=chinese martial arts but kung fu isn't a martial art. so, who else on this forum did you have in mind who would debate this topic? *edit- added a little extra* Clarify: Is kung fu a martial art? Does the word mean martial art? Kung fu "itself" not a martial art? no not really no

do you?

nope. you said a certain member here (not particulary me) will agrue-debate that. i assume that was me you were refering to as no one else has ever discussed this. Kung Fu itself is not a martial art that is what he said. if it was me that was going to debate that then that would mean i hold the position that kung fu IS a martial art. that was not what i had said previously. hence, you had not understood what i had said. if you had, this comment by you would not have been made.

depends on what you want and what you want from it. at the end of the day, if what you want is to learn shaolin forms and you can afford it, then there is no reason why you shouldn't go for the shaolin camp thing. personally i wouldn't. as i've said, the majority of mainstreamish styles left china a long time ago and you'd find them dotted around the surrounding outposts as it were. only problem is, the nature of the outposts mean that if you go there to lstay long term and train and live, it'll cost you. a lot. the yip man wing chun school in hk offers a sort of summer training. i think it's HK$5000 but that's just for lessons. again, living, unless you go for the ymca is going to cost you but that's on the other end of the road at the tsim sar tsui end and quite a trek. also, in the summer, the weather is best described as oppressive. the good thing though, is being on the nathan road you'd be close to lots of little food places that are dirt cheap. but then again, don't rely on them knowing english. trust me, the level of english there is not that great. they have a really screwed up way of teaching english. and then again, wing chun is probably as different to shaolin fist as you can get within the chinese styles so maybe not your cup of tea. one of the most respected white crane schools is in tai wan and might be more your thing but i don't have much info about them except that the linage is possibly the most 'pure', as it were. they've taken foreign students before but usually those who already have a base in their style. i'll ask around and see what i can dig up for you. general warning though, from what i have experienced, china itself probably has more 'mcdojo' schools that the rest of the world combined. the rest of them are then going to be wushu schools. if you want a more 'fighting' art, it most probably wont be in china.

......i don't do peaches.

i like his outfits

and in that one line, you have shown to me that you have not understood a single word i have said on this matter.

well, i know how the chinese naming 'works' as it were. just curious as to how you guys define your terms. cool. makes more sense than the chinese poetic terms 'jealous concubine presents secret gift'....? WTF?

we're not talking about the same trick. there isn't a line tracking the (crossbow) bolt. this is done on a stage in front of an audience and a line would be clearly seen. the target is an apple. if the bolt is reeled in, i can't see how it would hit the apple, especially at the speed at which it happens. i think you'd have to see the one i'm talking about. and for the second bit. but is the kid still in danger if the guy is effectively swinging the nunchaku three/four inches in front of his nose consistantly?

ahhh, i get ya..... sorry for walking down the wrong alley. hmm, not sure if i can help much on that front. i have absolutely no idea what things cost. well, i do know that my solicitor costs me £20 per phone call i make..... which is why i normally let things drag on until he can't wait any longer he calls me instead.

Guro is the title associated with the filipino arts.

this is going to sound really cynical but i think friends in high places help. of course i'm talking about already established and respected individuals, not just the dude on the panel of whatever association. i mean, when someone who genuinely is respected for ability/knowledge/experience is truely willing to say good things about you, well, that says a lot. now i know that this isn't really neccessary, as at the end of the day, your rep is down to you but you'd have to be a bit naive to think that it doesn't help. and y'know, anything to help things go smootly is good as long as it is genuine. on a more personal level, i think patience is vital. i know that i'm a bad teacher cos i am known to go through things too quickly, mainly cos i want to have more people around me that i can train with a bit harder..... it's easy to say that you should work the basics forever but when you're teaching someone, there's always the want to see them do everything. i always have to fight the urge to show people things they're not ready for. and then there's patience for those who aren't learning as quickly as you'd like them to. again, this is similar to the above situation. integrity. stick to your guns, as it were. there will be lots of pressure to do such and such. when money's involved things get complicated. which leads nicely to 'be realistic'. in an ideal world you can pick your students but if your club depends on the income to survive then maybe you need to keep that annoying kid who talks too much and works too little. a little simplistic but i think you get what i mean.

hey. i mean absolutely no offence by this but i am fascinated by the names you guys have for movements. where do they come from?

nope. i'm just trying to see why you think you know more about the etymology of chinese than i do.

all i asked was when did india/egypt have an organised army/fighting force? you've already given examples of what would qualify so i guess that means you have an idea of when such a type of organised fighting existed in india/egypt. how is that asking for vast detail? and no, i'm not tired of this. in fact, it kinda interests me to see how long you can go without actually answering questions.

yes anomlaies are few (nowadays), but going back to the structure/orgin/interpretation/mis-interpretation. Not as the like of it nowadays grammatically and in terms of the forms of the characters used, not much has changed since it was standardised all them thousands of years ago. it follows taht not much has actually changed in the language bar regional dialects with respects to pronunciation. the base grammer is still correct i.e it only sounds slightly different, everything else is the same. Interpretation/misinterpretation/confusion you're kinda missing the point here. i'm talking about specific meanings of certain parts that constitute a particular character, not the character itself. this is also only with respects to the origins of the word and doesn't actually have much baring on the meaning of the word/character. yes, knowing the structure of mandarin makes communication easier but this example defies your suggestion that different pronunciations makes a difference to understanding. Taking each per origin, would lead to find that one or more did not particulary existed long ago. Those that were, had a one singular meaning, those after, a distintion had to me made. and again, this is my point. what you say applies to english. it doesn't apply to chinese characters. if you know how chinese characters are 'constructed' you would know what i am talking about.

but i have asked a specific question. on more than one occasion i might add.

but seeing as everyone is reading the same characters with the same meaning, how is there misunderstanding? if you don't understand verbally, the written form will always be understood. how you read it out doesn't really make a difference. from what i know, the real problem with chinese etymology is that a lot of the origial regional characters have been wiped out and in some instances, what we use now is not the original intended character (for the region). but generally, the chinese we have now is standardised so the anomalies are very few and very far between. however, this doesn't really matter as we can still 'see' where the character comes from by looking at the constituant parts. but this is where another problem arises. certain characters, especially those that originated in the north have elements from another language. as a result, there might be some confusion about what that particular part might originally mean. certain words that are spoken, can or are interpreted, or mis-interpreted. you'll find that this rarely happens. two of the kitchen staff at one of my uncles restaurants speak a dialect of mandarin that i've never heard of. one waitress speaks with a shang-hai dialect and my aunt only knows grammatical mandarin. my uncle only speaks cantonese but knows how mandarin is structured. they can all communicate perfectly. again, this is because there is a context involved. mis-interpretations in the same language only tends to happen when you take singular terms. and again i go back to my example. if i were to just say 'pear' out aloud, you won't know if i meant 'pear', 'pare', or 'pair'. but that same word, said within the context of a conversation, would be understood perfectly.

so does that mean that you don't actually know either? no offence but this is something that kinda bugs me. you ask a lot of questions here which we all happily answer but whenever someone poses a question to you, you have a hard time returning the courtesy. all i asked for was a date. even just a rough date. i'm not asking you to list the entire historical time line. I do not want to take up post space for a India-Egypt history lesson-perform some concise and detail research on your own. are you really sure you want to use this as your answer? after all, does this now mean that whenever you ask a question we can all say, "perform some concise and detail research on your own"? I do not want to take up post space for a India-Egypt history lesson but you'd happily take up post space with (whatever) god knows how many "good points"?

From several etymology courses, it is not merely the study of "word origins", but also of word interpretations and misinterpretations. How people interpret and/or mis-interpret words as well. now this is where it starts to get complicated again. in order to understand what a chinese word/character means you have to know it's origins. part of this involves taking apart the actual character and depends on you first knowing the language and knowing where it comes from and how it was formed. chinese etymology is quite different to etymolgy of english. my knowledge of the language comes from the little that i have learnt. i know how to 'see' what the character means and possibly more importantly, why. From these collegiate courses, I had presented many martial art terminology in a effort to "stump" my professors. In fact, one such, had challenged the students to summit words that were difficult to elaborate per etymology. This same professor, had to seek other collegues (as far as Eastern-China/Chinese) on those that I had presented. His findings were interesting and I noted them.[i/] can you actually give an example? cos i can only imagine that you were providing chiense terms in english form for him to look at. not exactly the same as looking at the etymology of chinese characters/words/language. and again, the meanings of these characters/terms is pretty much fixed. i.e the character for flower is the same where ever you go and the meaning is the same. in the written chinese language, there are no variations bar the modern simplifications. the mis-interpretations only come when you try to translate into another language that doesn't relate to it directly.

Everything is not "Chinese". where did this come from? i.e who said that everything was? and my original question was when did egypt/india have an organised army/fighting force?

and what do you know about chinese etymology?

but that's the point. look at the floor in that clip. it's quite clearly covered in water from previous attempts. i.e shows that there was quite a lot of practice before the final one was filmed. yes i know the use of a child is questionable but how do you know that the child is actually in any real danger of being hit?