Stupid manufacture flaw piss me off sometimes

My sifu is Dan Inosanto.

Sifu Dan is a direct student of Sigung Bruce.

So yes, the relationship is Lee Jun Fan is my teacher's teacher.

I am speaking from direct experience and not just pulling things out of my @$$ like some of the comments 'round here

Look Mak, if you want to go around questioning my authenticity or whatever, expect to have some problems.

If you want to go around saying "Bruce Lee doesn't do kung fu," and Kuya wants to go around saying, "Bruce Lee wasn't a real martial artist," then you both need to expect someone to call you on your bull$hi+.

If you are going to insult my teacher and the arts I have studied, you can expect to be called on your bull$!+, Mak.

So here it is: "You both are full of $h!+"

I am calling your bull$h!+

I dunno how much plainer to make the point: If you want to question my authenticity or abilities, or insult my teachers or arts, you are going to have a problem, Mak... pretty simple.

Oh yeah, you took my word saying Bruce Lee doesn't do kungfu and think I am BSing you? No man, even now I am still saying the same thing. What he did isn't kungfu or fitting in the kungfu traditional system theory because if you really do JKD, you know it's more of an combat art. You know wingchun (especially Ip Man wingchun) also doesn't get respected as real kungfu in China as well? It's really common. Why? Because it lacks one thing and Bruce Lee really doesn't have this as you can see from him already which is the health preserving factor in the system of JKD. It does body conditioning only, but not the health preserving part.

I can tell you that almost ALL Chinese martial arts styles (traditional) do have health preserving things in their system. JKD doesn't. It's an combat art, not saying it is not good, but just that it's not fitting into kungfu for this reason. Kungfu is not just about time and effort. If you say kungfu is about time is effort, now all the karate and other things are kungfu too then. No way. Chinese Kungfu is not like just a combat art.

You may feel offened, but seriously no Chinese martial artist in the trad. will not accept JKD is a "Chinese Kungfu", it's seriously more like a combat art system and some even promote it as a philosophy or system of martial arts on it's own. But kungfu? no.

Now let me make it clear, you can say I am BSing, but it doesn't make your words golden either. JKD really do lack this part and it's a solid fact you can't say no to as well. I was talking on a Chinese forum back then and a few wingchun guys came in a do a few promotions of wingchun seminar, man... you should see how people were saying..."WTF? Wingchun isn't even kungfu!" and then of course a big fight comes up on the forum and they start to verbal fight like you because they all fired up. But seriously yeah wingchun is NOT! It's a combat art or martial art, but not kungfu. It's not on that list man. No. But yeah, it's meant to be for fighting, it's created for fighting, and it's a combat art. In Chinese we call this a 搏擊之術 but not kungfu that's all. Don't get over worked up about it. I isn't saying your stuff is BAD, I am saying it is just not that type of thing.

Now you wanna kick my @ss? Sure. Have all the fun you want but I can ensure you I saw more JKD than you think I had. It's not BSing here. Just chill man.

Please guys just learn to respect each others opinions.
These kind of debates and arguments happen way too much in chinese martial arts forums. The "my way is the right and only way the others are wrong" is not a good mentality for mature adults to have, especially those who study the martial arts.

This is a forum for the love and hobby of swords, people like different things regardless if they are tradition or fantasy.
I'm sure the euro swords and katana guys get along right?

back to the topic on hand though...Mak have you ever considered getting a good custom made Jian? possibly one with plain fittings so they don't put any mistakes in the symbols? I ordered a Jian from Sinosword with plain fittings since I like my swords to be a little less flashy, they could even maybe work with you to engraved whatever symbols you would want on the blade or fittings.

I think most of those offshoots truthfully have more in common with Buddhism to be honest. In early Christianity there was a lot of controversy and heresy that persists even to this day. Many people and even today believe that during Jesus's lost years he traveled east into India and learned the ways of Zen Buddhism then bringing those traditions back west. It goes much further than that though and I don't want to derail your thread by explaining what Gnosticism is. The only reason why I bring it up is because Manicheanism is an offshoot of Gnostic Christianity that incorporates some Judea-Christian concepts with Zen Buddhism and was apparently very popular in Iran, India and even China. Supposedly one of the last emperors of the Ming dynasty was a Manichean.

Most Gnostic theology goes like this. They take the ideas of Plato's Republic, mainly the allegory of the cave, and associate the demiurge the 'world' builder as the old Hebrew deity YHWH but they call him Yabaladoth who is the creator of the physical world. He is the lowest of the emanations of the true g-d the invisible unknowable g-d of the spiritual realm. They thought it was humanity's destiny to reach apotheosis by escaping their physical bodies and becoming one with the spiritual world to rejoin with the true one, the first and true highest g-d the unknowable one. The Manichean story differs slightly from this in their story as they don't really focus on the YHWH as being the deminurge but more or less that the physical world started as a break down between the forces of light and darkness. They also incorporate Zoroastrianism into it as well as ancient Judaism. Many Gnostic sects would abstain from eating any meat, except fish in some sects, and would promote abstinence as sex would cause reproduction locking more spirits into the physical world which they viewed as fallen. Manicheanism was an offshoot of this. The prophet Mani from Iran claimed to be a disciple of Jesus, around the 3rd century a few before the rise of Islam, and brought word of a new gospel. He said an angel talked to him twice in his life and sent him on this mission. They'd do all sorts of ritualistic things. They'd only eat foods that contained light of the spiritual world in them. They, like all gnostic sects, view the material as evil and spirit as good. Some groups today still practice Manicheanism under Essene Christianity.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

I know you are big into magic. Have you ever looked into Jewish Kabalism? It is the basis of magic in the western world. It is real simple, there is a diagram with three pillars with three spheres on each pillar and an additional sphere on top. In total there are ten spheres. The three pillars are strength, beauty, and wisdom and the diagram is a road map,a connection to g-d. I personally don't practice any of this before people here start labeling me a Mason but for some reason I've always been fascinated with this stuff. Magic period whether white or black has always been occult in most western systems. Traditional Judea-Christianity and Islam forbid the use of magic and sorcery and it is even stated as being bad in the old testament as well as the new. Still magicians found their way into the religion and prospered in some areas and movements like the Catharites, the Bogomils, medieval Jewish kabalism, the Knight's Templars, and the Rosicrucians. I know off topic this is but many people think they have to go east to learn magic and myth but the truth is the west has plenty of that as well.

You may also want to look up Madame Blavatsky. She created Theosophy in the 19th century traveling east into China and adopting a lot of Taoist and Buddhist beliefs then incorporating it into western culture. I don't agree with everything and I know she wrote some racist things like white people being a superior race but she did a lot for the new age movement and lot of her ideas are what gave birth to it.

Alright... like I was saying, we should start a petition or something to CASHanwei to create better quality Chinese swords designed for cutting especially a dao. The Rodell jian is really good and a great start but I think most practitioners need a dao, because most CMA require the student to master the dao first before going into jian. I still think CASHanwei is a good company and has been very responsive to forum members in the past imho. They (like almost any company in the world) follow the current supply and demand. If we tell them what we need, they'll do something. I mean hell, they can make tactical katanas and "GLOW IN THE DARK" longswords :lol: ! I'm sure they would listen to the CMA community if we all act.

Mak ~

Stop with the bull$h!+ please. I simply don't appreciate it when people insult my intelligence.

We both know that saying "he has no kung fu" or "he isn't a real martial artist" is an insult. Please don't act like it was not intended as an insult because we are not that stoopid around here.

Your backpedalling with the "that's combat stuff, not kung fu" is nonsense.

Is kung fu is supposed to be better when it doesn't work for fighting? 'cause that's the implication, Mak... :roll:

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you really saying "combat junk" (as you put it) isn't kung fu, but flowery hands that look good and don't work for fighting is kung fu?

Is it only kung fu when there is magic and curses and spells involved?!? Is this what you are trying to pass off as reality?

Fighting doesn't mater but being able to "put a hex on someone" does in the martial arts? You can't be serious :lol:

We both know kung fu means "time & effort." I'll even pull a Kuya and bust out with the Wikipedia reference:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_fu_%28term%29

I shouldn't have to explain any of this to a Chinese person. You know it already. So quit with the stoopid act, and quit with the insults, 'cause I ain't buying it, Mak.

You can't expect to rant here all day without p!$$ing of someone who knows better than what you are selling and is willing to stand up to you and call bull$h!+, Mak.

Suggest you sell crazy somewhere else, cause we ain't buying it here.

I'm really only on this website to talk about swords and stuff.

I'm not really qualified to speak on what has turned out to be such a philosophical topic.

I didn't know you guys got into such serious religious/philosophic debates here?

However I (and one or two others I believe) have felt at the start of this topic that making too big a deal over some religious imagery of an engraving is just a pretext to do something else ...and I still do.