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Internet Links to Favorite Demonstrations
Commentary by Terry Dunn
Below are links to video-recorded performances by renowned masters and practitioners of Tai Chi Chuan, Qigong, Six Harmonies & Eight Methods, and select Kung-Fu styles that I have found to provide valuable reference, training aid, and inspiration on my path of learning. My comments about these various performances are presented below to explain how and why I found them to be important supplements to my training under my present and past teachers.
The selection of links below is by no means complete or comprehensive but is a small sample of favorite demonstrations. As a work-in-progress, it will be periodically enlarged. I do not imply in any way that the masters and methods selected below are superior to any other masters or methods. (Not shown here are the historic performances filmed by Robert W. Smith of Pa-Kua grandmaster Wang Su Jin, Hsing-I grandmasters Yuan Tao and Hung I Hsiang, and a dozen other greats in Taiwan in 1960.) Nonetheless, in the space available on this webpage, I hope that the following selections will provide an informative, eclectic and eye-opening overview of authentic Chinese "internal energy" martial arts for beginning students, so as to broaden their perception of these arts, and inspire them to pursue their individual paths of training and exploration.
While all advanced training in Chinese martial arts takes place between master and disciple in the private oral tradition, once students have developed high enough proficiency in any particular internal (energy) style of martial art, they can begin to learn from other styles by first recognizing in their forms and exercises the similarities and differences in the methods of energy cultivation (qigong) and the expression of that energy (kung-fu) in other arts by literally "seeing" the transformation of energy as visible changes in the luminous fibers of one's "bioenergetic field" (to use the words of Carlos Castaneda and physiologist Dr. Valerie Hunt, respectively). With more years of practice and increasing self-knowledge, comes deeper perception and greater understanding of all other arts in terms of their energetics and martial effectiveness. For the intermediate and advanced student, these masterful demonstrations may provide high standards of excellence that will inspire them to intensify their training, persevere to complete their paths of learning, perfect themselves and improve their art--even beyond traditional standards.
Finally, this selection of outstanding performances is presented here as a celebration of high art and refined culture--especially unique because Tai Chi Chuan and Chinese martial arts are, of course, functional arts as opposed to fine arts. But because they are foremost holistic arts--that first unify mind and body, and then man and Universe--these arts can be practiced to such a sublime and transcendent level that they inspire--even in the uninitiated--an appreciation of the limitless nature of human potential, its one-ness or continuity with all life, and impart perfect understanding of the nature of Ultimate Reality or the fundamental principle behind nature, which the Chinese style as the "Tao."
As seen throughout nature on every level, there is simplicity, beauty and power in an organism when its form has perfect function. The I Ching ("Book of Changes") describes this perfect fit between form and function as "simple grace" (Hexagram #22, nine in the top line):
Here at the highest stage of development all ornament is discarded. Form no longer conceals content but brings out its value to the full. Perfect grace consists not in exterior ornamentation of the substance, but in the simple fitness of its form.
The following demonstrations are thus the epitomy of grace:
TAI CHI CHUAN
Yang Style Long Form (108 postures)
by Master Tung Ying Chieh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny9biV4DQmo&feature=related
Master Tung Ying Chieh (1898-1961) was the first generation master of the Tung Family branch of the Yang Tai Chi Chuan lineage and one of the senior students of Master Yang Cheng-Fu, who fought many of his teacher's duels in southern China. The Tung family had its own martial art and internal forms that it combined with the Yang's Tai Chi. This clip shows two films of the grandmaster performing the first two sections of the Yang Long Form.
by Master Tung Hu Linghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSnob4PTJKo&feature=related
Master Tung Hu Ling was the son of Tung Ying Chieh and the second generation master of the famous Tung branch of the Yang style lineage. It is rumored within the Tung school that Tung Hu Ling had surpassed his father in the art. Third generation master, Tung Kai-Ying, is one a most eminent instructor and is based in Los Angeles. His son, Chen-Wei, this year took on the mantle of "Master". I have many close friends who have been studying with Master Tung Kai-Ying since the 1970's. Master Tung has always been gracious, cordial and forthcoming when I visited him at his classes over the years. (The radiant Master Mary Chu, who learned from Master Tung Kai-Ying's grandfather, Tung Ying-Jie, in China (starting at the age of 45 when she was deathly ill) taught Tai Chi for more than 20 years at the UCLA extension program, was a good friend and mah-jong partner of my beloved late mother, Jean Dunn, who studied with Madame Chu for a short time.)
by Master Fu Zhong Wen
(Long Form Part 1:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIpKW6AnKYw
(Long Form Part 2:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-tLF_hZAEE&NR=1
(3rd section of Long Form:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amLUZmuTRhE
Fu Zhong Wen (1903-1994) was a student of Yang Cheng Fu. This footage of his Long Form practice is one of the better general references for students studying the 108-posture Yang Family Long Form.
by Master Andrew Chung
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW-p0E24q4o
This older film footage of Master Chung from 1988 shows him practicing the Yang Family Long Form. It is one of the cleanest performance of the Long Form that I have found on the internet. It shows the form from opening to just before the "kicking series" in the second section. A good reference for beginners.
Yang Style Short Form (37 Postures)
created by Professor Cheng Man-Ching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjV9bx9unxQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl2mvyjHYS0&feature=related
Grandmaster Cheng Man-Ching was the last student of Yang Cheng-Fu. In the Tai Chi world, Professor Cheng is acknowledged for developing the "yin" or yielding aspect of Tai Chi combat to its highest degree--such that his manner of Yang Tai Chi is so profoundly soft and subtle that many masters and authorities in the martial arts world (including the society that maintains the histories of all martial art lineages) do not even consider Cheng's Tai Chi Chuan to be Tai Chi anymore--but a totally different form of martial art onto itself.
The 37-posture Yang style Short Form was created by Professor Cheng Man-Ching to enable his students in the West to learn T’ai Chi more easily. The form is a distillation of key postures and movements of the classical 108-posture Yang Family Long Form. A few of the key differences between the Short Form and the Long Form are that there is no "centering step" (central equilibrium posture) in the transitions between postures, there are naturally less repetitive movements, certain "sit-stance"("cat-tance") postures are held with the feet in perpendicular placement, total relaxation is paramount in Cheng's form, and the Cheng's principle of "beautiful lady's wrist" is unique and distinctive to the Short Form. (No clear version of this footage of Prof. Cheng is available on the internet, so you will have to come to my class in Los Angeles to see a clip.)
Yang Style Short Form (60 Postures)
created by Master William C.C. Chen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHGDq_8dCuc
Master William C.C. Chen was another senior student of grandmaster Cheng Man-Ching and a classmate of Masters Benjamin Lo and Abraham Liu. He was a professional boxer before he met Prof. Cheng and integrated his boxing with his Tai Chi Chuan for self-defense applications. Master Chen's tai chi kung fu is quintessentially in the school of Cheng Man-Ching. The production values of this video are creative, with a moving skyscape behind Master Chen's form demonstration, which is, of course, impeccable.
Yang Style Tai Chi Sword
by Professor Cheng Man-Ching.
This version is part of the color film produced in NYC by the Professor's students, begins at approximately 2:40 into the video clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4603FB2mh4&feature=related
This second version shows Professor Cheng's form more clearly as the entire body is consistently framed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGzBITVQVEE
I learned a nearly identical version of this sword form from my first Tai Chi teacher, Master Abraham Liu, who was a senior student of Professor Cheng, and practice it religiously.
Yang Style Push-Hands (Tui-shou) & Martial Applications
by Fu Zhong Wen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flJtKBTlKL8&feature=related
(Tui-shou & Da Lu) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjSYTBbH2Rw&feature=related
The first clip shows Master Fu Zhong Wen exercising "fajing" to tremendous effect. Even in his late years, the tremendous soft power from his Yang Tai Chi is obvious. The second clip shows Master Fu pushing hands with a student and practicing the four-corner exercise known as Da-Lu, consisting of interlocking and repeating: "step-back with arm-bar, attack with right palm, turn 90 degrees and attack with shoulder stroke, retreat and cover with cloud-hand."
by Master Kurt Wong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-RDcMUmBSw&feature=related
by Jeng Shean Chih
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GII5YGgbsyM
A student of Huang Hsing Hsien living in Taiwan, Jeng Shean Chih demonstrates the martial applications of the major postures of Prof. Cheng's Yang Short Form in sequence as they appear in the form.
Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan
Ma Yueh Liang (1901-1998)
Interviews:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaYrNNkeyq8&feature=fvw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlimAL14ksM
Forms:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDjuq7ZWwyY&NR=1
Push-hands:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHQv6fLpIoI&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_gmMqzf2I8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fIucL-Q4vo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk4jjrrFzlg&NR=1
Grandmaster Ma Yueh Liang was one of the great Tai Chi teachers of the past century. From 1919 until 1942, he was a student of Wu Chien-Ch'uan, whose father, the great Wu Chuan-yu, was a senior student of Yang Lu-Ch'an and Yang Ban-hou. In 1914, Wu Chuan-yu and his colleagues Yang Shao-hou, Yang Ch'eng-fu and Sun Lu-t'ang promoted the benefits of Tai Chi Chuan training on a national scale by founding the Beijing Physical Culture Research Institute. In 1928, Ma's teacher moved to Shanghai and in 1936 founded the Wu Chien-Ch'uan T'ai Chi Ch'uan Association on the 9th floor of the YMCA building to promote and teach what has come bo be known as the Wu style of Tai Chi Chuan. Ma Yueh Liang became deputy director of the Association.
Ma had roots in both the Chinese traditions and western science as he was a medical doctor who graduated from the Beijing Medical College in 1929. Ma Yueh-liang married Wu Yinghua, the daughter of Wu Chien-Ch'uan, and after Wu Kung-i (Wu Chien-ch'uan's eldest son) relocated his branch of the Wu Association to Hong Kong in 1949, they continued to operate the Shanghai Chien-ch'uan Tai Chi Chuan Association until their passing in the late 1990's.
One cannot overstate the importance of Ma Yueh-liang and his wife in preserving Wu style Taijiquan in China throughout the tumultuous years of Mao's Cultural Revolution and in resurrecting it afterwards. Even at an advanced age, Ma Yueh-liang was chosen as one of the 100 Best Martial Artists in China. Together with the other descendents of Wu Chien-Ch'uan, Grandmasters Wu Kung-i and Wu Kung-tsao, they proliferated the practice of Wu style Tai Chi Chuan throughout China, Southeast Asia and Canada, America, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Today, the Wu Family Association still has its international headquarters in Hong Kong and is directed by Wu Chien-ch'uan's great-grandson, Wu Kuang-yu. More information on Ma Yueh Liang and the Wu style lineage can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Yueh-liang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Chien-ch%27uan
The first of the seven links listed above is documentary footage from Bill Moyer's "Healing and the Mind" series that captures Master Ma's explanation of Tai Chi's profound health, cultural and philosophical benefits at the sprite age of 91. Even more inspiring is the second clip, which is an interview of a radiant Master Ma and his wife, Madame Wu Yinghua, in their 90's. The third clip of is Master Ma performing the Wu style fast set and Madame Wu performing the slow form. The last four links at the top are of Master Ma's formidable Tai Chi Kung-Fu skill demonstrated through push-hands, filmed at various stages of his life.
One of my great regrets in life was missing the opportunity to meet Grandmaster Ma while he was still alive in November of 1993 during my first trip to China with my parents. My late mother, Jean Dunn, was Shanghai-ese and close friends with Master Ma's niece, Cece, but the week that we were in Shanghai, the grandmaster was teaching in Beijing. Cece told us that amongst decades-full of advanced Tai Chi skills she had witnessed her uncle perform, most profound was what she called "Tai Chi fei fa " ("flying method"), where once she was watching Ma standing on one part of a training field, and in less than the time to blink, she said, he was suddenly standing in the very far left edge of her peripheral vision more than 40 feet from his original position.
Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan
The Chen Family style is the oldest of the five major styles of Tai Chi--Yang, Wu, Wu/Hao, Sun, and Chen. Each style is named after the martial arts family that created them. (The Yang style was created by Yang Lu Chang, who was a coachman for the Chen family and was taught the Chen's secret art.)
Grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qNPs8kMhqw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJuudvIMZs0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI5q7QI14wk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxxebP0u31g
Grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang is current lineage holder of the Chen Family style of Tai Chi Chuan. He is the nineteenth generation grandmaster of this system. His grandfather was the famous Tai Chi grandmaster Chen Fa-k'e whose martial career was legendary.
The first two clips show his performance of the Chen style form; the third clip shows his demonstration of fajin" (release or issuance of the energy of the sinews). The uninitiated observer might think that the "fajin" movements by Master Chen look like karate. But the quality of Master Chen's movements and body mechanics is incomparable; his form is impeccable. The entire body is relaxed and every movement issues extraordinary, devastating power. In 1981, during one of Chen Xiao Wang's first visits to America, he rose to a serious challenge by Hung Gar master John Yee of Concord, California (who we all knew very well through Shaolin circles) and defeated him. Master Chen appropriately responded to the violence of Master Yee's technique by dislocating the latter's shoulder.
Master Qichen Guo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rax_eAhFvGI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pgkP9jkJzY&feature=related
I first met Master Qichen Guo in 2004 at the World Tai Chi Day celebration in Pasadena. He gives masterful form demonstrations every year without fail. One of my favorite demo's was of what I call his small frame "fajin" form, where in transition between each classic Chen posture, he performed the normally hidden "fajin" technique. The first link shows him leading his students through the form at the 2007 World Tai Chi Day in Los Angeles (I have better footage of him that I took in 2004-5). The second link shows his expert martial applications of the Chen form.
Master George Xu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvuuQpidiIc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbEsjXtYzg&feature=fvw
Master George Xu is a prominent teacher of Chen style Tai Chi, Honan Hsing-I, and Lan-Shou. In 1984, he won the national Tai Chi form competition in China with his signature Chen Form. My friend and former classmate Bill Helm was his student for many years and brought George Xu down to teach numerous workshops at the Taoist Sanctuary in San Diego. Throughout the late 1970's and early 1980's, I joined the Taoist Sanctuary on several field trips that visited Master Xu's classes in San Francisco along with those of other masters. I also took several classes with Master Xu in 1986 alongside my friend and student of his, Jeff Roth. To this day I regularly practice and teach many of the warm-up and conditioning exercises that Master Xu taught us at the start of his workshops. Besides Chen Tai Chi Chuan, Master Xu excels at Hsing-I (Honan) and his favorite fighting style, Lan Shou, along with numerous classical weapons. He is known for his Taoist Eight Immortal Swordplay.
Wudang Tai Chi Chuan
by unknown Taoist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kKbcQT7oo8&feature=related
This footage was taken by a German documentarist and shows a very beautiful and elegant--as well as powerful--Tai Chi Form performed by one of the monks at the Wudang Mountain Taoist enclave. This form of Tai Chi may be the closest to what Chang San-Feng originally created.
There were at one time 128 Taoist temples on Mount Wudang. Many temples near the foot of the mountain were inundated with the completion of the enormous Three Gorges Dam and Reservoir.
SIX HARMONIES & EIGHT METHODS ("LIU HE BA FA") BOXING
Also known as "Water Boxing", Six Harmonies & Eight Methods boxing was created in the during the Sung Dynasty by Chen Hsi-I, a famous Taoist of Huashan who also is credited with having created the Tai Chi ruler art and other methods of qigong. Liu He Ba Fa is one of the most beautiful martial arts I have ever seen; I feel most fortunate to have learned two versions of this art from two excellent masters. The 6H/8M form trains the practitioner to respond naturally and most fluidly to multiple opponents approaching from all directions; its martial techniques frequently shift from front to rear as well as from side to side. This art's cultivation of internal energy is, of course, very complete, and very refined--according to "six cooperations," and "eight methods." Here are performances by four great masters of this wonderful art:
by Master Andrew Chung
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDeieEMAVPE&NR=1
This is my favorite demonstration of Liu He Ba Fa that I have seen thus far--besides that of my teacher, Master Chan Ching Kai in New York. Like a great jazz classic, everytime I view this, it teaches me (many) new variations of the form that I practice. Master Chung's Water Boxing Form demonstrated in this clip is a combination of the form I learned from my first teacher, the late Dr. York Why Loo, and my present teacher, Master Chan. As far as form can reveal function, Master Chung's form reveals real kung-fu at a high level. I will be viewing this footage for a long time.
by Master Peter Ziboce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYga-oL6jOw&feature=related
This demonstration of the first section of the 6H/8M Form is thrilling to me because Sifu Ziboce very clearly shows how he directs the internal flow of qi through his movements. His expression of this art is also very "musical," as confirmed by his other demonstrations on his website.
by Master Liu Xiaoling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEVmueWDJM4
Liu Xiaoling is one of the most famous Water Boxing masters in China and the world. His name in China is almost synonimous with Liu He Ba Fa. His form, however, is completely unrecognizable to me based on the two versions of the Form that I have learned.
by Master Yun Yin Sen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEVmueWDJM4
Master Yun Yin Sen is also one of the most renowned practitioners of 6H/8M. This is clearly seen in his performance of his "Standing Form", which is the same classic 510 posture 6H/8M form--only it is performed standing in place without any change of stances. This is an advanced method of practice in Water Boxing to increase internal energy development and to perfect martial skill.
HSING-I CHUAN
by Master Andrew Chung
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCG1PKhOZNI
No words are needed here. Master Chung's Hsing-Yi speaks for itself.
Master George Xu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7J_ceq4Kto&NR=1
I was present at this demonstration in 1983 with my fellow kung-fu teachers from the Taoist Sanctuary. We visited Master Xu's class in Golden Gate Park. He is wonderful at breaking down the martial applications of the movements in classical forms and styles such has Hsing-I, Chen Tai Chi Chuan, and Lan Shou.
(section to be continued)
PA-KUA (BAGUA) CH'UAN (EIGHT TRIGRAM BOXING)
Ba Gua Zhang Masters Demonstration
Various Masters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fueL5DsMMU&feature=channel
This is a very nice compilation of high-level Pa-Kua Chuan demonstrations filmed in Beijing, including performances by: Li Zi Ming, Lu Zi Jian, Hung Zhi Chang, and Ma Chuan Xu. Although much of the film footage is degraded, the kung-fu artistry is no lost.
Pa-Kua Zhang Post Training
Master Adam Hsu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ReAqOl970U
This clip shows Master Adam Hsu's traditional Pa-Kua training using vertical posts. If you watch very carefully each time Master Hsu contacts a post, you can see his energy vibrating through it.
Master Adam Hsu is a versatile, high-level kung-fu master who has taught a wide range of excellences for more than 30 years in San Francisco: Chang Chuan ("Northern Long Fist" style), Ba Ji Chuan (" Eight Ultimate Fist"), Pi Gua Zhang ("Splitting Deflecting Palm"), Ba Gua Zhang ("Eight Trigram Palm"), Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan, the very rare Mi Zhong Chuan ("Lost Track Fist"), Xing Yi Chuan (Hebei style), and several styles of Tang Lang Chuan ("Praying Mantis Boxing"): Seven Star, Six Harmony, and Eight Step styles.
In the early 1980's, the martial artists from the Los Angeles and San Diego Taoist Sanctuaries made several annual field trips to San Francisco and visit Master Hsu's Pa Kua weekend morning classes at the Golden Gate Park "Panhandle." An one-time friend in the 1980's, Jeff Roth, was a gifted Bagua practitioner (--I would say he was a prodigy) who studied intensively with Sifu Hsu for a short time. One night, while walking with him through a public school playground in his neighborhood in San Francisco, my friend played Master Hsu's Linear Bagua Form for me, repeatedly striking a metal basketball stanchion with different parts of his arms and torso, causing this 10-inch diameter metal pole planted in concrete and asphalt (supporting a basketball net and backboard) to wave back and forth in the air like it was a willow branch--displacing more than one foot at its top--and ringing loudly and deeply like a bell continuously for more than one minute. My friend, who had also studied Yang Tai Chi and Xing Yi with the Lee Brothers in Denver, Colorado and had terrific fajin skill, said that Master Adam Hsu demonstrated Bagua's fajin at a level that he couldn't understand how it was being done.
Bagua Dao (Knife)
Sun Zhi Jun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmwSDJ4XkFA&feature=PlayList&p=AA8539F3A82E5684&index=74&playnext=8&playnext_from=PL
Sun Zhi Jun performing his Bagua Big Knife form in 1984.
SZJ's Baguazhang Basic Palm Striking Method
Sun Zhi Jun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5qZa0UAlgg&feature=PlayList&p=AA8539F3A82E5684&index=73&playnext=7&playnext_from=PL
Sun Zhi Jun demonstrating basic palm striking methods of Bagua.
SZJ: Singapore Bagua Seminar
Sun Zhi Jun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrPmAxE0WpY&feature=PlayList&p=AA8539F3A82E5684&index=66
Sun Zhi Jun leads students in training exercises and masterfully demonstrates many Bagua fighting applications.
Yin style Baguazhang - applications to mother palm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bDzB0SObHg&feature=related
QIGONG
There are hundreds of styles and systems of Qigong (Internal Energy Cultivation)--as many as there are styles of Chinese martial arts. The following is just one example of an authentic qigong method.
Hua To's Frolic of the Five Animals
by Sifu John Fey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X_ul0EmIdM
As the youtube.com caption explains, this demo by John Fey was given in 1988 at Taoist priest Share K. Lew's* 70th birthday celebration. John Fey is an excellent instructor of Chen style Tai Chi Chuan, Pa-Kua Chuan, Northern Shaolin, and other arts such as Frolic of the Five Animals. In 1985-86, I learned the first section-and-a-half of the Chen style Old Frame Form from Sifu Fey, and also a qigong exercise known as "Silk-weaver's Exercise."
*Master Share K. Lew teaches Tan Tan Pai (Taoist Elixir Method) Kung-fu, a southern Taoist/Buddhist school of martial, healing, and spiritual arts with origins in the Tang Dynasty that is attributed to the legendary Taoist saint, Lu Tung Pin. Master Lew, I believe, is one of the only two temple-trained, fully ordained Taoist priests residing in America--the other one being Master Kuan Sai Hung of the Huashan sect (whose novelized biography called "The Wandering Taoist" was written by his student Deng Ming Dao (Mark Ong) and published in the early 1980's). [These two eminent Taoists had a warm and cordial meeting in the late 1980's. Master Lew told me then how impressed he was at Master Kuan's perfectly youthful looks at age 63, and the fact that he spoke six languages, numerous Chinese dialects, including Master Lew's village dialect from Toishan!] From 1974 until 1983, I studied Tan Tan Pai martial and healing arts under three of Sifu Lew's senior students--Sifus John Davidson, Carl Totton, and Bill Helm. I later received vital corrections from Master Lew on the Tai Chi Ruler art that I had learned from John Davidson. To this day, I regularly practice the Tao Tan Pai five animal forms--tiger, dragon, snake, crane, and monkey--and have special affinity for the snake, crane and monkey forms. Tao Tan Pai also has interesting weapons forms besides the classical Chinese weapons such as: sawhorse, hoe, chopsticks (or daggers), and cane (or umbrella) sets. By Master Lew's edict, no videotape or film recordings of any Tao Tan Pai forms have ever been published. (So don't expect to see any Tao Tan Pai forms on Youtube anytime soon!)
(Qigong section to be continued)
KUNG-FU
Eight-Step Praying Mantis Kung-fu
Master Kurt Wong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpcCfGWxY58&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZSCLlvgP8w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25mU4L9NcHs
Master Kurt Wong's filmed workshops in Oslo, Norway show that he is a very seasoned master instructor of Eight Step Praying Mantis Kung-Fu and Chen Tai Chi Chuan.
Northern Praying Mantisng
by Master Bow Sim Mark
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdsfTDCxwEo&feature=related
One of the foremost woman martial artists in America is Master Bow Sim Mark, who has taught at the National Wushu Research institute in Boston for the past 30 years. She teaches Tai Chi, Pa-Kua, Hsing-Yi and Northern Shaolin Boxing. (I studied with Madame Mark for one year while I was attending graduate school in Boston in 1980.) Madame Mark is the mother of Donnie Yen, who studied her martial arts and then trained with the Beijing Wushu Team for several years before being discovered by Hong Kong film director Wu-Ping and becoming a notable action film star.
Taoist Eight Immortals Sword
by Master George Xu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x1IQepZs4s&feature=related
This rare and dazzling double-edged sword form was created in the Sung Dynasty (approximately the era of the Crusades) and reflects the genius and martial virtuosity prevalent in China then. Master Xu with his super-athleticism and dexterity does this form great justice.
"Old School" Kung-Fu
Southern Shaolin Five Animals Kung-Fu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHJj-wWturE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxi2Y7MhMMQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6SXDS6KJlI&feature=related
by Grandmaster Ark Yuey Wong
The first two clips are film footage of grandmaster Ark Wong's Sil Lum Five Animals Kung-Fu. In the first 53 seconds of the clip he performs the Salutation Form, which every student learns as a beginner. It is followed by the "Combination" Form. 5 Animal/5 Family style is a southern longarm system of Chinese Kung Fu. This style was created by 5 Sil Lum (Southern Shaolin) Masters from Guantong Temple, in Canton, China. It was passed from Lam Ark Fun to Ark Y. Wong, who brought it to the USA in 1940's. The grandmaster sadly passed away in 1987.
I never had the pleasure of studying for any signficant duration with Grandmaster Ark Wong, but visited his school on Daly Street near Chinatown, Los Angeles many times during my eleven years of training under Sifu Douglas Wong (no relation), Sifu Albert Leong and Sifu William Henderson. In 1983, I earned a black sash (instructor's certification) in Sil Lum 5-Animals Kung-fu after a traditional eight-hour-long "examination." The Sil Lum Five Animals Form, consisting of an 86-movement salutation followed by dragon (34 movements), tiger (80 movements), snake (82 movements), leopard (75 movements), and crane (70 movements) acting--totalling 437 movements--is one of my favorite Shaolin forms and a specialty. Snake was the grandmaster Wong's spiritual "ally"; snake acting was his forte. Sifu Douglas Wong told me that when the grandmaster once performed the snake section of the 5-Animals Form, he did Movements #22 through #37--sixteen techniques involving ten stance changes(!)--in a blinding blurr that took less than 2 seconds and stopped time for all who witnessed it. In the mid-1970's, I witnessed the grandmaster during a Chinese New Year's celebration in Los Angeles perform the 45th movement of the crane section--normally a back-kick (with back of the right hand facing the inside of the left ankle of the weighted leg)--kick his right sole straight upward in a perfect vertical "splits." He was 67 years old at the time. On another occasion in the late 1970's, while accompanying the grandmaster with Douglas Wong's school to give a demonstration at a Las Vegas resort hotel, I observed Ark Wong take aside a younger classmate, Juan Berlini, for a quick impromptu lesson, touch him lightly above the brow with his index and middle finger, and caused him to teeter and collapse to the floor (without losing consciousness). During that same weekend, I noticed that whenever Grandmaster Wong was seated, he always had both hands over his knees, with the thumb and index fingers touching the shallow "valley" inside the kneecap.
Fujian White Crane Kung-Fu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jgrHMONssk&feature=PlayList&p=64E03D1C66053BBC&index=3
by Master Huang Hsing Hsien
As the successor to Master Cheng Man-Ching, Master Huang was more renowned for his Yang Tai Chi Chuan, as he began giving impressive public displays of his powerful push-hands skill starting in 1975 in Taiwan. But before he met Professor Cheng Man-Ching and learned his Tai Chi, Huang was already a famous master of White Crane Boxing with more than 3,000 students in Fujian Province. After he completed his training under Prof. Cheng Man-Ching, Master Huang eventually moved to Malaysia where his Tai Chi academy was widely attended. Among his private students was the King of Malaysia. This filmed demonstration of his soft and lithe White Crane Kung-Fu is at an age when he had also mastered Yang Tai Chi Chuan and shows his high level of internal energy cultivation.
Southern White Tiger Kung-Fu (Bai Fu Pai)
by Grandmaster Doo Wai
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH3QeNoqmn8&feature=related
The first link shows a couple of sections of Grandmaster Doo Wai's White Tiger Kung-Fu forms that I filmed and edited in 1994 at a warehouse facility provided by one of my students in Los Angeles. The second link presents slow-motion footage of the grandmaster's demonstration of a basic White Tiger form filmed in 1972 by Sifu Douglas Wong, my first kung-fu teacher. If you watch this rare footage carefully, you will see that Bai Fu Pai is a pure, internal martial art. Its roots are Taoist--not Buddhist, and it's body mechanics and fighting techniques are closely related to Southern Praying Mantis Kung-Fu and Bak Mei ("White Eyebrow") Kung-fu. You will not find a demonstration of this caliber from among recent generations of practitioners.
A peer of Taoist Master Share K. Lew, Master Doo Wai's knowledge in classical kung-fu, Qigong, Meditation, energy-healing, and especially Chinese herbology is vast and authentic. He is the sixth generation grandmaster of his family's kung-fu system and healing and medicinal arts. He took on the mantle of "grandmaster" at the age of eighteen years, which is quite inconceivable on one hand and yet makes perfect sense on the other to all those who have witnessed the range, depth and power of his kung-fu. Besides Bok Fu Pai, the grandmaster is fully versed in at least two other schools of southern Chinese Kung-fu. I first met the grandmaster in the summer of 1976 when I was training at Sifu Douglas Wong's White Lotus Kung-Fu School. After running into him by chance in 1991 at a conference in Pasadena, California, I studied with him until 1996, along with a small circle of fellow martial artists/friends that I had invited and organized to study. During these years, I studied the grandmaster's energy healing coupled with the Flying Phoenix Celestial Healing Chi Meditations, a medical qigong system attributed to Taoist Feng Tao Teh of Ehrmeishan (as taught in the Chi Kung For Health DVD series), the Ten Hook Eagle Claw Form of the White Tiger system, the Ten Thousand Buddhas Meditations (also an Ehrmei Mountain art), and Eight Sections of Energy Combined, a legendary Buddhist system of martial qigong, which the grandmaster learned outside of his family tradition--from a senior monk at the Goddess of Mercy Buddhist Temple in Macao. This last art, "Eight Sections Combined" is a complete (southern) school of internal martial art that is nothing like the system of calisthenics that have been popularized for several decades as "Eight Pieces of Brocade".
M a©2009 Terence Dunn
(This Kung-Fu section to be continued)
©2009 Terry Dunn