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Thread: Any Ti'Gwa in Crane, Monk Fist or Shaolin?

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    Default Any Ti'Gwa in Crane, Monk Fist or Shaolin?

    Are the crane, monk fist and Shaolin arts actual fighting arts or are they simply health exercises like the animal frolics?

    Also does anyone know what art was introduced to the far East by Chan Buddhism? I've heard health exercises but this painting appears to show fighting.

    http://www.shotojuku.com/shaolin_monks.gif

    Was ther an art from the Indian sub-continent that became kungfu? If so then what art was it? A Graeco-Buddhist-Bactrian form of pankratium? Kalaripayattu?

    I've heard the stories but I'd like a more expert opinion if anyone has the time.

    Thanks

    Mike
    Michael W. Gooch

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    Default hmm...

    As far as I know the prevailing opinion is that Bodiharma (sp?) taught something like Qigong or Yoga at the Shaolin Temple, not fighting arts.

    If I remember correctly the picture that particular technique is from is way too young to be considered any kind of authority on what was taught at the Shaolin Temple.

    I get the impression that most scholars think that the idea of Bodiharma as "father of the martial arts" is mostly invention, and not borne out by the facts.

    Also if you read the classics allegedly from Bodiharma, they don't seem to be about martial arts.

    I'm certainly no scholarly authority on anything though, this is just the impressions i've gotten reading on the subject.

    There are some threads from a while back (a year or so I think) on e-budo regarding Kalaripayat and my impression here also is that it's connection to the martial arts of the Shaolin Temple was questionable.
    I've also seen a small bit here and there of Kalaripayat and it didn't look anything like Shaolin to me.

    Personally I think that beyond the universal similarities of most fighting arts, people try to draw connections where there are none; at least not in a strictly historical sense.
    Last edited by ZachZinn; 21st May 2007 at 03:29.
    Zachariah Zinn

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    Default re

    Thanks

    I've heard that Bodhidharma was not considered the source for eastern MA. The painting does seem to show Indians practicing with Chinese.

    I'm wondering if there were any stand alone training methods in existence before TouDi. By stand alone I mean self defense (or multi-purpose) training methods that exist independant of sporting or military applications.

    Prior to the popularization of judo and karate were Chinese arts simply exercises, sports, choreography and military methods that existed only to serve their individual purposes?

    I've heard that Zen Buddhism in Japan was the catalyst that caused these methods to exist independant of the ring, theater, jailhouse and battlefield.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Japan

    Thoughts?
    Michael W. Gooch

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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by bustr
    Thanks

    I've heard that Bodhidharma was not considered the source for eastern MA. The painting does seem to show Indians practicing with Chinese.

    I'm wondering if there were any stand alone training methods in existence before TouDi. By stand alone I mean self defense (or multi-purpose) training methods that exist independant of sporting or military applications.
    You mean in Okinawa? far as I know there was "Ti"; there's seems to be alot of argument about what exactly Ti was or is, search some of the threads in this forum on Te or Ti to see what I mean. There is also some form of wrestling particular to Okinawa I think, I remember hearing it compared to Sumo, though I can't tell you where.

    I'd really reccomend searching the archived posts in this forum, there have
    have been alot of discussions on this subject. Alternately hopefully someone more knowledgable than me can chime in here.

    [quote]Prior to the popularization of judo and karate were Chinese arts simply exercises, sports, choreography and military methods that existed only to serve their individual purposes?/quote]

    Not sure what you mean here, judo and karate are Japanese terms.

    The history of Chinese martial arts makes the history of Karate look clear cut and simple, like most martial arts history, alot of it is guesswork it seems.

    I've heard that Zen Buddhism in Japan was the catalyst that caused these methods to exist independant of the ring, theater, jailhouse and battlefield.

    Thoughts?
    I was unaware of this, what Japanese ryu exist with clear conenctions to Zen buddhism?
    Zachariah Zinn

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    Default Ti'gwa

    First we have to define ti’gwa:

    Is it….

    Te and related arts (Mark Bishop-Zen Kobudo)

    An old term for Okinawan weaponry or kobudo (John Sells-Unante)
    Or,
    The plebeian form of percussive impact [referred to as "Te" or "Di"] introduced to Okinawa from the old Kingdom of Siam during its early period of inter-cultural commerce (Patrick Mccarthy)?

    Then we have to ask ourselves is Ti (te) a hard rigid prototype of Karate or a ‘soft’ all encompassing method/art/way? For the first describes what was to become Toude and the latter describes a still existent and preserved method mainly in Motobu Udundi and Bugeikan styles as well as some old aristocratic family styles of the non commercial type.
    Michael Powell

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    Default

    I agree that people try to draw connections where there are none. There is far too much conjecture about martial arts history with a very limited amount of truely historical evidence to support it in any really true academic sense, except by a few and even then conjecture still seems to come into it.

    As for Crane, especially White Crane (Hakutsuru in Okinawa), this is one such Chinese martial arts system that has influenced Okinawan Karate and there are Crane martial arts systems which are fighting systems, but there are a wide variety of schools and offshoots. There is also health aspects to Crane and exercises for health based on the movements of the Crane. as for Monk Fist that is another Chinese fighting art believed to have influenced Okinawan Karate.

    Whether Crane was originally an exercise in Shaolin is not clear, its certainly ben weaved into the history of Shaolin. But that history (the legend of Shaolin if you like) is one that will have been constructed by interweaving mythical tales with historical facts, with each obscuring the other. The Crane that has influenced Okinawan Karate is mot likely of Ming dynasty origin at the earliest.

    Ti'gwa, according to what Mike has posted from the McCarthy (?) reference at http://www.koryu-uchinadi.com/origin...hting_arts.htm
    merely suggests yet another variation for yet another fighting art.

    If Ti'gwa comes from the Kingdom of Siam (Now Thailand), and the definition is correct, and Crane in a Chinese martial art, this would make it unlikely that there would be any Ti'gwa in Crane.

    There is indeed a lot of argument over how the term Ti, di or Te is used and exactly what it describes. There is also some debate about whether Toudi and Ti are the same thing or not.

    So what have we Toudi = possible Chinese origin,
    Ti'gwa = Possible Siamese origin and
    Ti/di = possible Okinawan origin. This latter one would have a great deal of difficulty avoiding being influenced by Chinese martial arts.

    Ti means hand, thats what the kanji shows, the most it can mean in martial terms is a way of fighting with the hands, here is an interesting source source for this: Hokama's History and traditions of Okinawan Karate which states on page 21 : 'Chinese Kenpo utilises techniques that principally employ the open hand (Shi to) [surely this is Te] and Ti relies on the bones of the fist (Ken Kotsu)'.

    I get the impression that the translator made a mistake in the quote above here, and it should be the other way round: Kenpo after all means Fist way/law and Te means hand. Thats a nice clear dichotomy, but unfortunately it is too neat. As fighting with the hands could easily include and in all probability does include fighting with the fists as well. It is all Hypothesis with little empirical evidence to back up any of the stories, whether or not you are talking about Shaolin or Te or even Ti'gwa.

    The term Ti or Te also describes concepts within Okinawan Karate styles as well as systems that have been designated or variously described as Te styles (the two which Mike refers to).

    As for the form of wrestling peculiar to Okinawa that can be compared to Sumo you may mean Tegumi, its an Okinawan form of sumo, but Tegumi is an old native form of Okinawan grappling from which modern Tegumi (Okinawan Sumo) is said to orignate.

    Shoshin Nagamines book Translated by McParthy, P (2000) Tales of Okinawan Great Masters published by Tuttle has a whole third section on Tegumi.
    There is also a good section on here http://seinenkai.com/art-sumo.html which explains the links between Tegumi, Sumo and Karate.


    Regards
    Chris Norman

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