Drunken Monkey

.....which is why i say learn it first or learn it last..... i guess it's down to wing chun being about how to apply the principles as opposed to doing moves. granted there are sets of movements/techniques but they aren't used as they are learnt. i really don't know what i can say to help you 'separate' wing chun from your HRD. my sifu was always worried that the other things i learnt would corrupt my wing chun. instead it has always been the other instructors who get annoyed with wing chun.... isn't it amazing how the totally unnatural elbows-in position is so easily absorbed by our bodies as being a natural and instinctive reactive position and once absorbed, how hard it is to shake off....(?)

let's see. my first sifu wasn't/isn't an educated man. he learnt his kung fu in a different age in a different world to mine. i know and understand things that he cannot imagine. for all intent purposes i am the smarter person. he can still teach me a thing or two....hundred.

what do you mean? a word for drill or routine? there isn't really a word for drill (a drill or to drill - unless you mean drill as in the tool... ). 'a drill' is the same as 'a routine' which is the same as 'a set' and is usually 'tou' (as in kuen tou) or 'sik (as in 'sup sik'). 'to drill' is the same as to learn/practice and is covered by 'lien'.

ok, let's ignore the initial posts and look at something else. i wouldn't have let him grab my lapel. if you were going to do something, be it a fake or whatever, it should've been done before he was able to complete his grab/grip/hold. if you are only trying to make him loosen his grip AFTER he has made it nice and tight, then you are playing catch up, a situation that you shouldn't be in.

hehe.... all i said was honesty. how you choose to use it is up to you.

remember that my romanisations are my own and are what i think best approximates the sound of cantonese. to practice=lien excercise=tay cho (although this is more for the modern/western version of exercise) you can't use 'lien' by itself to say training. to make the complete term, you have to add the thing you are leaning. so you can't just say 'i'm going to go lien'; you have to add the subject. e.g lien kung=practice things that aid in your progress in your 'art'. lien kuen=practice punch/hand/boxing skills/forms lien mo=practice specifically fighting aspects lien dar=practice hitting/being hit and this is different to 'learning' which is 'hok' but the same kinda rules apply. you might notice that these things are very very similar in nature but in principle/philosophical perspective, they are fundementally different whilst mainitaing a degree of overlap. i.e you can learn to hit better by practicing forms or vice versa.

one word. honesty.

well, i say it'll get really complicated cos sometimes it just doesn't make sense. for example, you might've seen some characters that have three 'dimples' on the left hand side. this is called 'three points of water' (cos they somehow are derived from the character for water) and usually feature as the key 'figure' in characters that something to do with water. the character for 'sauce' has it as does the character for 'soup'. now this kinda makes sense. what doesn't make sense is the other part of the character and more specifically where/how you get the other part..... and sometimes, i'm sure it's just a big joke as to how the character is derived. like i said; it'd be easier if i could just show you.

whoa.... what's going on today? so many people agreeing with me! guys, stop it please, i'm not used to it......

this movie is rated GF hey warlock, you missed a bit. It is a historical event... turned into legend through time... re-written to make a better film.... and then put to the screen thousands of years after.

why give a fake kick when you can kick for real?

hehe, that's another reason why chinese is a little more complex. things ar sometimes when spoken to when written. i mentioned this before, there are many words that don't exist in writing. or if they do, it isn't a straight one for one wording. take the 'bong sau' from wing chun. that 'bong' doesn't exist in writing. instead you use two other words that are conceptually correct but neither is the actual word. But, if you were in a Etymology class. And the discussion or chapter is on interpretations (not the translation kind), you get a big green check depends on the level at which you are looking. if you take it to be 'green veg' you are only correct at a basic level (when looking at chinese from an etymological perspective). to get the really big tick/check, you need to 'disect' the actual character into it's components and 'read' them (the characters) from the constituant parts. but let's not get into the constituant parts of chinese characters, that bit gets really complicated and i need to be in front of you with a pen and paper to explain.....

well, this is also why i get quite annoyed. many people 'translate' from singular terms not knowing that the chinese langauge simply doesn't work like that. it gets worse when people derive 'meanings' for things from romanised versions, taking the romanised word to mean something that it doesn't originally. i.e pa kua=old man hanging..... so yes. you're right, people might translate the chinese into what is a possible reading but that reading will still be wrong. if you were in a interpreting/translation class, if you wrote down that cheng gwa=green vegetable, you'd get a big red cross.

......and er.... wing chun has a way of turning everything into wing chun..... anyway. complete beginner. go for it. just don't have any big ideas about what you're gonna learn/do and just go and see what they have to offer. in any case, if you don't like it you can always leave.

What about bell pepper or other green vegetable? that's kinda it. for a green pepper, it's something else. (cheng jiu) as i mentioned way before, it's one of the idiosyncrasies of the chinese language. if you don't know it, you won't be able to figure it out no matter what the context. hence, if you don't know the language you will give bad/wrong translations. taking 'jiu'. with one 'prefix' it's banana (heung jiu) with another, it's pepper (cheng jiu) with another, it's peppercorn (fa jiu) so while you can read the characters separately to get a basic version of things, you have to know that the two characters together mean something, in order to really understand. What about bell pepper or other green vegetable? what about them? 'cheng gwa' ONLY refers to cucumber. And, someone may take that interpretation, and/or mis-interpretation, per context of the description again, that's why i say you will only mis-understand IF you don't know the language. if you do, you will know that 'cheng gwa' is cucumber and nothing else. (which is why i say that while it is true that in one sense it is a correct translation, it is at the same time, very wrong.) if you want to say 'a vegetable of the non-leafy kind that is green' (if taht is what you mean by the second above quote) the grammar involved is different. in that case, it is 'cheng sik gor gwa' (green coloured vegetable of the non-leafy kind). going back to shaolin/sil lum. if you want to say a young forest or a little forest, the grammar is different. so while sil lum DOES translate charcter for character into little/young forest, it DOES NOT mean A little/young forest. so going back to shaolin-do (shaolin way. while the characters do translate directly to 'little forest way' it doesn't mean little forest way.

popular chinese saying. roughly translated. if you try, you have a chance, no matter how small. if you don't try, you have no chance at all.

In that case it will be: Young Forest Way and that's the difference between a good translation and a bad translation or difference between translating directly and translating into meaning. another example. 'cheng gwa' cheng=green gwa=vegetable (of the non leafy kind....) so translated directly you get 'green vegetable'. but it actually means 'cucumber'. anyway. i didn't really read that much of the website. it's not the sort of thing that interests me. i had a look at their syllabus and the order in which things are taught is kinda odd. some of the later things taught are considered fundemental training. ****edit**** the immortals. it's a chinese thing. not necessarily traditional buddhist characters but in the chinese versions of things where buddhist, taoist, ancenstral worship, historical figures 'worship' etc etc all mix to form the 'culture', some taoist characters were said to have been 'enlightened' and hence feature in some buddhist stories. one of the famous 8 immortals was a taoist before enlightenment. but um, i don't recall them doing any destroying......

i have no idea about what the shaolin-do school is like. from the website i have several 'problems' but they don't neccessarily mean anything. actually, if it is traditional shaolin way (even if it includes da-mo's teachings) it wouldn't go beyond stretching and yes, meditating. lots. and chopping wood. and sweeping floors. and writing scriptures. a lot of what's on their syllabus is quite 'modern' * * * ahhhh, jeet kune do is slightly different. his 'do' is the short form for 'do-lei' (as in philosophy/principles). so while 'jeet kune do'='way of the intercepting fist' (in english) it is closer to being 'philosophies behind the interecpting fist'. and then when you take the book 'the tao of jeet kune do', you can see it actually means, the way of the philosphies of the intercepting fist. and shorin do is romanised from the japanese. again, a slightly different case. my knowledge of the japanese (culture and related) is very limited. all i know is learnt from a previous girlfriend and um, most of which can't be repeated/mentioned in the presence of minors but it was um, good fun learning.

and that's what's been bugging me. yes. when you romanise some words from the chinese langauge, you get the same spelling but that doesn't change the meaning of them original words. even if you mis-read the romanised versions, that also doesn't change what the original chinese means. what i mean is, while yes, i know that if you don't know the langauage that well you might mis-read the romanised versions but that point doesn't mean much when I am not mis-reading them nor am i mis-translating them to you guys. and well, also, using si-gung as an example. if you didn't know the language you might think that the 'si' is the same as in temple and that the 'gung' is the same as in kung fu when in fact it isn't/they aren't. you mis-reading it, thinking they are the same, doesn't make it so.

Are we talking about Dao/Tao? Or is there another Chinese "way"? let's see. in chinese the term 'do/tao/dao' means something very specific, as i have said before. translated, 'do' comes as being something along the lines of 'way of' but that version of way of isn't the same is the intended english equivilant. i.e 'do' (way of) does not mean method (way of). as i have said before, it is primarily to do with taoism or thoughts of that nature. Way per interpretation- This is your way. This is my way. Do it my way. Do it your way. This is the Japanese way. This is the Chinese way. This is the way it was. The way of Shaolin or this is Shaolin's Way (which how do they know what was the "way" in Shaolin) Or this is (or is not) Shaolin's way Are we talking about a course of conduct or action? Or are we talking about an aspect, particluarity? Or In a position to become upon? Or act like, resemble, per imitation? everything here is talking about method of doing things and that is exactly it. 'do', while it does kinda mean 'way of' (when translated into closest english equivilants) it doesn't mean 'method' (as the above describes). in addition, 'shaolin' but itself isn't a form of tao. which is why 'shaolin do/dao/tao doesn't work. i.e shaolin method/way would be right but again, why shaolin do/dao/tao isn't and this is something that arises when looking at it from a pure chinese langauge point of view. if it is a mixture of japanese and chinese words then the question arises, why? and again, i still wonder why they didn't just keept to 'english' terms and use 'shaolin way'. as for shaolin jutsu. um....

If I can state, that actually si (shi) the sound like a "sh" or "zh" can translate itself as teacher. In Mandarin, the translation could be many-temple-monastery,four, to die, to resemble....fu, taken on many others, louh, or old. well, that's the thing. this statement isn't quite true. possible just bad wording. 'si' doesn't translate to the other terms. they are all different terms that just happen to be romanised the same. if you go back to the original forms you will see/hear that they are all different. the romanised form 'si' is used for many words. but that doesn't change the meaning of si-fu as the 'si' and the 'fu' are two very specific words that do not mean anything other than 'teacher/instructor' and 'father/patriarch'. what i mean is, 'si' only has extra meanings when read in english. in chinese they (four, temple, etc) are all different. the only possible area for confusion arises when you read the romanised words and try to work out which chinese character/word it is supposed to be. i.e the translation is wrong if you think it is something other than the correct character. simply equates to: pair, pare, pear. and maybe pier/peer/peer. anyway. what do you think is more important? the ability to do or the ability to teach (you to be better)?

but seriously relies on you having exceptional base skills. it's not something you learn from the word go. unless of course you want to do wushu.

i know. but i'm sure you know how many kids like to think they can get good by themselves from copying books and whatnot.

Elbows to larger opponents whom have some level of skill or ability are probably not the best choice but this can be said for anything. we are talking general case here. by submitting a specific example, you have changed the parameters of the discussion. simple answer from me. yes elbows work. and how you get them to work depends on how good you/other is and what your intention is.

but as far as i can se, you ARE just arguing for the sake of it. Who stated that they did "Traditional Shaolin Arts they do. on their website. And how do you know what is the correct "English" form? an example of your 'pointless arguing that doesn't actually deal directly with what we are talking about. simple question for you. is 'shaolin way' wrong by way of meaning, structure or form?