tibetan white crane and fujian white crane
Helen Shen
Thank you so much for sending the tapes. I just received and watched
last two days. It was interesting to see Master Lee's crane performance
at dinner gathering, which is rather different from ours.
Your crane style is so different from ours; if I show any of your style
for comparison, I will definitely talk to you first. It's so nice that
you guys record your forms. It seems that your style fights with long
movement from side quite a bit. For needle wrapped in cotton, I have
difficulty seeing the style and how the movements are applied and
related to white crane? I saw your style demonstrating Qi practice, I
hope to put our 12 Qi practice video on
http://www.taomartialarts.com/crn/crn_qi_practice.html soon for you to
compare, as well as some two persons' push hands video on
http://www.taomartialarts.com/crn/crn_two_person.html.
I have seen hung gar here and there and it's nice to see more of it. I
love weapons as well; the staff form in your tape showed the back hand
grapping and striking most of time and the staff is a bit longer than
ours. We use the staff up to the eyebrow, and I hope to put our first
staff form video on http://www.taomartialarts.com/crn/crn_tools.html
for you to compare. For me especially actually using the techniques all
out in the kendo without getting hurt or hurting someone, it is such
thrill feeling as getting into 'the mind of no mind'... We are in the
fight, the body and the mind are totally relaxed and immaterial, the
body is quiet, and the mind is peaceful, not thinking, but aware of all
things happened/happening.
It will be great if you can do a video yourself explaining some forms
and how you see things, as well as Yang Tai chi of the cheng man ching
faction? And, I am so curious about the soft style you mentioned before
and how to practice to achieve the timing and the position?
Best wishes,
Helen
Helen Shen
"... I'm going to learn your first form myself so I can have a better
idea of the differences in our styles, something tells me they are not
as much as you think, the long arm movements you saw in the videos and
the apparent longer range are not what they seem, the long arms are
more a training method to stretch the sinews and give a greater reach,
I have definately noticed, people having increased their reach by as
much as 5 inches through many long straight punches, the distance for
fighting is another misconception, TWC circles and and attacks at 45
degree angle to pressure points , arteries, eyes, etc. remember a fight
is basically in close very quickly after initial contact, so after
saying this I'm sure the shaolin white crane is similar to this. Also
before I forget the hands are the main weapons, feet next.
There is a slogan in TWC that is "train long fight short" the arms
are whipped by the waist and are basically a soft fist, not like I see
many people doing with the clinched fist, it is the soft fist with the
thumb resting on top of the second joint of the index finger, this fist
allows the hands to be fully energized , compared to the western
clinched fist which tenses the arm to the shoulder and blocks the chi,
the fist is basically a club or hard object not a live fist when you do
this. The tai chi fist is also the same soft fist. One other thing I
will demonstrate to you in the future on video is the pung block, with
the arm in a gentle curve with a relaxed shoulder, being totally
controlled by the waist, this blocking hand will block just about
anything, compared to the usual arm blocks of many styles that have no
connection to the waist. thes blocks are easily cut right through by
the hands or feet.
I really expect to find many similarities between my styles and
yours, I will let you know more about this in a few weeks, I will start
on your first form today!
...
yours truley G D Lynn"