The Tradition of White Crane

Tradition is an important part of Chinese Culture.........everything is based on that which came before and the preservation and understanding of the past is very important.  Modern Wushu is sort of a break from this tradition...............in the past when you became a master of Kung-fu you were the transmitter of knowledge from the past and expected to past it on to the next generation. Modern wushu has little to transmit.........you don't need to past on compulsory forms or individual forms.....in the past forms contained the key to a style and it's application.............modern wushu has little of anything to past on.........the question though that does come up is who is passing on the traditional forms................wushu has captured  the interest of a whole generation.........Chinatown once populated by dozens of Kung-fu schools is now just 3 major schools and most of them just Lion Dance.........Wushu Schools on the other hand are on the rise and much bigger than Kung-fu schools.  Kung-fu is part of the Cultural Gems of Chinese Culture......Wushu a modern sport.........their goals similar yet different.  Where this is going I don't know, but I have been thinking about this for some time.  Our family practices Tibetan White Crane, sometimes known as Lama or Hop Ga, it was a style brought from Tibet to Guangdong during the 19th Century........modified by Grandmaster Ng Siu Chung into it's current form..............this syle nowadays rather rare............most of the Contemporary Wushu practioners have never heard of or seen this style of Kung-fu.  It's an important part of Chinese History because it is the only Tibetan Martial art preserved for posterity....even the monks in Tibet have never seen this art..........but we can trace it back directly to Owdacktow..........a monk from Tibet who went to preach Buddhism in China.  So my uncle who is a master of this style has been sending me students on occasion to learn this form.  I on the other hand have been concentrating most of my time on Contemporary Wushu............so it leads me to worry about it's continuation..........he no longer teaches students and I have forgotten many of it's forms.........you can only contain so much knowledge..........and I never thought you could ever forget a form..........Well, I must admit I am very happy for Youtube....while it's not the perfect solution.....there are many examples of forms I know on the internet..............sorry to say most of them not very good............good thing with what I recall and looking at Youtube....I have been able to reconstruct some of the forms!!  Yay!!  So I can still past on what I recall........the rest well it will have to wait until I have more time to pursue my uncle.  Why even keep the tradition.....one reason is that it holds the key to raising human potential..............Master Zhao Da Yuan, my Bagua teacher has said on many occasion that we are lucky if we are even able to sniff some real Kung-fu..........he said too often modern teachers only have time to either work on form or practice simple applications.........different from the past when your life depended on how well you did your technique.

Following is a video of my Classmate Chen Xiang during a test at Stanford Research Institute, where they are trying to measure how much power he could generate.........he can generate almost twice the power of any elite athlete they have measured.  Yet this is extraordinary.........our teacher Grandmaster Feng Zhi Qiang can throw us around like rag dolls........that's real power!!

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN88QIsMHqA So enjoy the video..........and I will continue this perhaps at another time....anyway some food for thought!!