QPT - You have no martial knowledge, what a suprise (sarcasm). A test of martial skill stroll your ass down to any of the open martial art tournaments schedualed this year in the uk. If we dont meet in a test of martial skill (because you cant fight to save your life and get KO'ed first round) then make sure you find me after so I can compound your misery.

I have a personal troll, No one else on this board has one by definition that makes me the best. Yeeeah. I can set up a referal service to get the rest of you a PT too. Meynard, Shane, Kenneth, guys you want one. See how cool my one is its stupid as hell and knows nothing about MA so makes me seem more knowledgable about MA than I really am. I love my troll. Retract the first statement made by me at 02:22 I dont want to hurt my troll I want to teach it, you know thats what you want to troll.

Patrick, the fact is that among many practitioners of chinese MAs, Pai Lum is not taken seriously. Many villify Daniel Pai for his "chi power" demonstrations and such. My point in reciting what was told to me by close personal friends of his is that he was considered a good man as well as a good martial artist by those who knew him. Apparently, he was forced into these phony demonstrations simply to make ends meet as his bank account was wiped out by people he had adopted as family. It saddens me that people like to dwell on someone's failures to the point that their considerable merits are ignored. It seems to me this is more a case of Daniel Pai paying for someone else's failure to live up to their moral obligations. I don't know if they (the people who enlightened me on the truth of Daniel Pai in no uncertain terms) care for me mentioning their names, but here's a hint: they contributed some of the forms that make up your curriculum. I don't have a horse in this race, but I recite this publicly as a favor to these friends of Pai's in return for their generosity to me. They are still pained to hear the constant dissing of Pai by those who don't know the facts, while many who do won't defend his memory because they are busy cashing in on the name he made for himself with his later antics.

Qui Chu Ji: I practice Bamboo Forest Southern Mantis, and no thanks, I think this one troll on your case already has enought stupidity to go around for all of us.

i dont know whi qui is insulting me i thought he was good man i didnt mean to insult you but it seems though you all think highly of yoursleves and think the same so you all must fight the same im sorry i live in united states i didnt know you guys lived in uk but my point is that until me or one of you seriously study it for a period of time well never know because no one elses opinion matters but yours and i feel like you all know eachother but my only point is that you should respect an art nit insult it if you dislike then you do not have to speak highly of it because a real martial artist knows how to respect other schools i would never insult your schools. But there are those who take pai lum seriously and bring it to a whole new level. Hey if you guys could name a better school to train/study then the one im in right here in massachusets i would gladly switch schools to prove how pai lum is an efficient style and iron vest well again maybe i will study it serious for a couple years then well speak then ok

Patrick, I apologize if I sound insulting, that wasn't my intention. My "actually, I was insulting you" was a joke. Probably all schools number good fighters in their ranks, and what you can make a style do for you is what counts. If a school has a particular reputation among some, then that is what it has. It isn't my doing, nor does it mean I necessarily agree with that view. If you read my previous post again, you may see that I was defending Mr. Pai for the sake of some mutual friends. I never inferred that your instructors were among the ones busy cashing in on his name. And being serious here, you are absolutely correct; until I actually train for some time with a school, I cannot make an informed judgement. Also, I don't think Qui was insulting you, he was talking about the guy who posted as his "personal troll".

Stan, I don't think iron vest was intended as a purely martial technique.

im sorry oh i misread that im truly sorry so many students and practicioners all act so arroganty where i come from but they cant even hold a decent horse stance oh Qui sorry to i get confused i read and write very fast thats why when i write i make so many mistakes sorry but i was wondering if any of you know of some conditioning techniques because i find my legs are still brusing from mook work and its been a year already i am very sorry for my attitude as a student i should have been more respectful. But i ask is do any of you know any where i could find a tiger crane manual i study so many pai lum manuals. They all have different tachniques and each school is much different my goal is to be ready to fight against any style and to understand concepts and philosophies thank you for your time you all have my respect as of now
sincerely patrick
oh i thought the troll was his buddy sorry again Qui
and mr kenneth sorry for being so aggresive
i have learnt something fromyou all

patrick,

my fault. i misread the post. apologies.

Qui, you retracted quickly. It took twelve minutes for you to reconsider. Again, your words speak volumes.

In which tournaments will you compete? Which school/team do you represent?

well guys im not sure what to say anymore you all write4 very well but i cant find anyone that speaks mandarin i want to learn to speak mandarin so i can finally understand what theyre saying at chopsticks restauraunt everytime i order it tkes me 30 minute to get some rice its funny but i respect them hey iwas wonderin about
Bamboo Forest Southern Mantis iwas curious to know is what year did this become recognized and tuaght to all?

Patrick, Bamboo Forest Praying Mantis system(Jook Lum Tong Long Pai) apparently became recognized as a separate style of southern mantis during the boxer rebellion, for which it may have been modified from Chow Gar to train "suicide" fighters. It came out of secrecy in the 1950s when chinese communists wanted its single-end long staff techniques taught to its soldiers (during the Korean War) for use with their obsolete bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifles, bayonets mounted. Versions of it started being taught to a few americans in the early 1980s. Now, there are a couple dozen schools around the world, mostly from 2 instructors, Henry Yee and Jin Fun Mark. There is much controversy online about who is the "real" grandmaster of Jook Lum. I won't get involved in that, all I say this: train under both of them for a few months, that will answer your question, as far as real fighting skill goes.

BTW, Patrick, when I was in the army taking russian, the 3 hardest languages to learn were these in this order: English, Mandarin, and Russian. Russian was complex, but English was more complex because of all the exceptions to its own rules. Mandarin had a LOT of memorization. Imagine an alphabet with a letter for every word in that language's vocabulary. But for ordering in a chinese restaurant, maybe a tourist's phrasebook would help.

See i dont want them to think im some punk tryin to look good in thier to tell ya the truth im just tryin to learn mandarin to impress this girl
she speaks mandarin and shes picking up english so we talk sometimes but ya know she stills picking it up i havnt even caught her name yet
but i see her there all the time her caligraphy is beutiful even her pen work is great but i guess ill have to master a few prhases and work hard oh and english is more complex then russian how dosnt russian sound like yeksgooven or something my step father he was a green barret can speak russsian but do you happen to know where i could acquire some more info and technique study on Jook Lum Tong Long Pai i take my studys serious i actually have 3 different pai lum manuals all southers styles is there a northern pai lum system

QPT - it always suprises me when people come online and start challenging others for 'tests of martial skill' as you have done. I fight and spar all the time both with my wing chun brothers and at tournaments also against other MA guys that dont mind mixing it up. So when I come online I dont go looking for a fight as I can get one anyday of the week. People such as yourself who go around asking complete strangers to fight, I have one question what are you trying to prove?

Kenneth - what wepons do you southern mantis stylists use. Do you use any two person sets/exercises for conditioning or sensitivity.

Patrick, trust me on this, you don't have to speak it like some university professor. If they see you are making a sincere attempt, they will likely be tickled to death and appreciate your efforts. In fact, you can use your wanting to learn mandarin as a reason to hang out more with her. Try those tape/booklet combo courses, you know, the kind that supposedly "crash-loads" the info into your subconcious. As for Jook Lum manuals, I don't know of any that exist. I think it is next to impossible to learn from a book. Paul Whitrod has some excellent Chow Gar Southern Mantis tapes, however. I've seen one and it was pretty exhaustive in explaining its material, though I may have been helped because I have familiarity with the subject.

Qui, we have Tiger-Fork, Single-Ended Staff, Butterfly Swords, Gen (Sai), and something much like a judge's pen. We don't have 2-person "sets", but rely heavily on chi-sao type drills that gradually turn into free-fighting.

Qui, what happened to your bravado? Didn't you promise a first round knockout? Suddenly you're too noble to fight?

You've already proven my point.

QPT - hello I am your personal troll brought to you by learning qui's way the fastest most effective way to learn TCMA today. My list of services include:
1) constantly changing my user name to get stupid points across
2) attemps at sarcasm
3) general smack talk
4) challenging real MA guys to fights over the internet with no intention of doing so.
like all trolls I am a greasy/skinny teen who sits in my room at my PC all day, geting my kicks out of pissing off large/mean fighters at the other end of the world. Hurrah.

Kenneth - yeah looked up some stuff on Bamboo forest southern mantis, sounds like a realy good system lots of two person training. Is there a haka connection similar to chow gar and chu gar. I have seen the sai used in iron ox southern mantis which often uses a butterfly stance is your set similar. Do you do wepon fighting/demo's sword vs pole etc. What would be some aplications of the Hat yi sau.

Qui, there is only one form, the 108 techniques (in which some of the techniques, even their number, may vary between teachers), but there are other simplified versions of it: a longfist version, a groundfighting version, and a couple of weapons versions. As so many techniques are "soft" and require an opponent's energy to practice on, just repeatedly executing the form does little to develop fighting ability. Many instructors will develop shorter forms from the 108 to teach piece-meal, or different combos but the heart of training is application drills with a partner (I hate to use the word "sparring" because to most it imparts an image of fighting with limitations, or a less-than-serious mindset). Jook Lum, along with Bak Mei, Lung Ying, Chow Gar and Iron Ox, is a Hakka art. Unlike Chow Gar, it is softer, with Wing Chun-like adherence to covering the centerline with elbows and knees moving in unison, and has Bagua-type stepping strikes and crushing steps like Hsing-I. There are no "demo" forms, basic training is endlessly repeating basic conditioning exercises, and you'll have to explain what Hat Yi is as learning chinese names for techniques wasn't something I put a lot of effort into.

I had heard of three step push and nine step push ( basic stance practice with some hand forms) then a two person set where you initially break off at various section (latter it is supposed to be sticky like chi sao with no lose of conection). I had also heard of the philosphy of using three arms, an arm is from shoulder to elbow, elbow to wrist, wrist to finger. the middle arm would control and strikes would be made with first and third arm segments. I found it difficult to find any info on the wepons appart from what wepons were used and reference to a butterfly stance? dont know if that makes any sense. Hat yi sao(cantonese spell not sure of Hakka) means begger fist. Elbows cover the ribs hands seem to be in some form of mantis claw? maybe not to sure.

i did not intend to learn from a book kenneth i simply study all various arts i have fun reading them and imagining the techiniques i plan to make and cover all manual for which every poitn of attack can be defended and all defense can be attacked it hard to explain but its a goal since my original goal was to be the first all american 9th dan recognized in tae kwon do but someone beat me to it though there is alot to learn and my master does not limit me to only asking him did you guys ever hear of wai lum and is it a northern style i see alot of women joining it and i cant see why alot of guys arnt enjoying anything they got to offfer?