Stupid manufacture flaw piss me off sometimes

Ok, I can see where the misunderstandings are coming from, time to clear things up.

First, Kumdoalan, with respect, no more trolling, Mak's correctly pointing out how the symbolism is wrong on some Chinese swords, this is significant, especially to CMA practitioners, because there is a lot of philosophy behind the CMAs, which many people don't realise or understand.

Stickem, I think you've misunderstood Mak, and I'm guessing you're a westerner like me, or at least not Chinese. Yes, you're right, kung fu literally translates to energy time from what I’ve read, but most westerners don't understand eastern culture at all. It's not all neatly packaged into separate sections like in the west, where when you learn a fighting system, that's all you're learning!

In Chinese systems, and even to some degree in Japanese ones, the fighting systems are intermingled with philosophy, native culture, some religion, and in the case of the Chinese systems, it ties totally into their medical systems too. Concepts such as the bagua are quite complex and can feature in many types of systems, not just fighting arts.

In this respect, Mak was trying to explain that kung fu systems traditionally are not just external yang fighting arts, they also include internal (yin) system aspect that are tied in to the cultivation of physical health and have complex explanations that tie into the eastern system of medicine such as TCM. By this traditional definition, plain fighting arts would not be defined as strict 'kung fu'. He is not disrespecting Bruce Lee's fighting arts! You need to understand that in the Chinese systems the philosophy and internal aspect is quite important, and from a traditional perspective it looks like an outsider is trying to tell the Chinese what their culture is really about. Hence the need for tolerance, we are looking at things from different perspectives and cultures, hence the misunderstanding.

BTW, Bruce Lee's system was meant to be a super-effective eclectic system, he studied western boxing and fencing, wing-chun and many other styles, read western philosophy, he didn't pretend to be traditional Chinese, after all, he was part German if you read his family history. I grew up in the Bruce Lee era (shows my age!), yes, Mak is right, as kids we did imitate what he did in the movies, it was fun! I know Dan Inosanto is a FMA guy, master with the sticks, I don't know what style Bruce Lee taught him, I know it wasn't a traditional Chinese style - for us westerners, it was 'kung fu' what we called anything Chinese, that's what we called it by our definitions. All the kung fu magazines I read growing up were all about Bruce Lee back then. To the Chinese, it was something else, each to their own. So it’s OK stickem, no one is denigrating Bruce Lee, personally I'm a fan, always have been. Noticed in your sig you have the scene where he fights the karateka O'Hara, interesting movie scene!

StevenJ, you've selected tiny snippets of western esotericism only, doesn't really give a representative picture to Mak, so I'll just clarify a few points. Gnosticism is a very complex topic, there were pre and post Christian versions of gnostic systems (plural), syncretic modern ones bearing the name but little else, there's a lot of history there and controversy. Western esoteric traditions are very diverse, and the Qabalistic system is actually middle eastern, it's jewish mysticism, nothing western about it, it primarily came in a modified westernised form, as 'Hermetic Qabalah' into the western world through the 'Order of the Golden Dawn' in the 19th century, though there were glimpses of it in the western culture as far back as the 15th century in Europe. Blavatsky’s theosophical movement was all about trying to discover mystical wisdom from the 'exotic east', primarily India, the Hindu and Buddhist system and bring it back to the west. it is primarily eastern in origin. The original western mystical/esoteric systems are wide and diverse and you could fill books with just descriptions of each system alone! Since it's off topic, I'll leave it there. Just wanted to give Mak a clearer picture, that all.

Hope this clears up the confusion!

Back to sword, yes I've seen the Sinoswords jian comes in plain fittings, or in a dragon or floral engraving, but from what I understand the Sinosword jian aren't made to the same level as the Huanuao ones. Someone's mentioned Jinshi being high grade, but I've never read of destructive tests being done on them, but the quality is of a very high standard in the reviews I've read.

By the way, if you even dig into Chinese medic, the first step they teach you is not medicine, it's not about sickness, it's about yin yang, 5 elements, i-ching, 9 stars and 28 constellations -- ASTRONOMY! After understanding these, then you go into Wang Di Nei Jing which is all about using astronomy to understand nature, human body and the relationship between human body and nature, then to space.. and understand the pattern of things. Basically you learn MORE than just i-ching. Then go get into some herbs and pressure points which relate to astronomy as well.

Hey, you might think, I am just here to learn medicine! Why are you telling me all these mysterious crap!?

Hey man, no! That's Chinese wisdom from the past, from finding of time and space to astronomy studies and how they go from there to find medical theories and formed Chinese medics!

Really, if you look at fengshui, Chinese medics, acupuncture, chinese massage, Chinese KUNGFU, Chinese music, chinese calligraphy, etc,.. it's ALL related to the same basics which is yin yang, 5 elements, bagwa, i-ching, constellations and so on.. they are ALL bonded together like that just like a huge database.

Bruce Lee's art isn't even going into this path at all, he try to explain things with physics, science and a VERY westernize approach to training as well. Therefore, he is not even into Chinese kungfu, the old school way, nope, and wingchun isn't even in that kungfu category as well if you ask. Wingchun is a combat art designed for fighting only and it was designed to fight smart with less force because it was a female who started it and have to win the muscles of males, so she went speedy, fast and intelligently fighting style. That's what it is, it's a combat art, not kungfu.

That's a big difference.. and it's not just a play of words, it's really to categorize things in order to understand the culture and what Chinese martial art is really about.

There are many many sects that you can see in Chinese kungfu which ALL relate to these same basics as a foundation - hung gar, mantis, wu dang, xing yi, bagwa, hup ga, mok ga, jue ga, chow ga, tai chi, etc,.. all of them share the same basics and run the same path but in different approach and forms but somehow these ancient wisdom were not treasured anymore since the Mr. Mao came into play in China and China republic starts.. yeah, politics.. and they destroyed MANY Chinese ancient wisdom and say they are BS, they promote science and that is why during Bruce Lee's time, everybody is hyped into western technology, science and if you know English you are like praise like GOD in your culture already.. it's a SHAME to be a Chinese back then,.. if you only eat dim sun and noodles, you are not cool, you need to know some ENGLISH stuff, dress in western clothing and that is the COOL stuff. So you can really see why Bruce's influence is all from the west mostly,.. and wingchun.. well ip man is a rich kid who doesn't complete a system and went to HK already to teach, how many "ancient science of Chinese" does he know anyway? none and really none. So in his system, you see people talking about the triangles, the directions, exactly like Bruce Lee's physics approach only, but nothing related to the traditional path.

I don't know if anyone here study Japanese stuff but if you even go into Japanese cooking, Japanese art, Japanese martial arts the traditional way, they seems to have similar things happen too...

Blackhorn is right, things aren't packed in s small package in Chinese culture, it's all linked together, like a tree with thousands of branches and rooted to the same base at the bottom. Bruce Lee's art is not from the same tree, it's another tree with similar leafs, but the roots is not linked. Doesn't mean his tree is rotten or anything, it's just different.

OKAY... now seems like we all can't stop on the magic and stuff... isn't it fun? hahaha! I just started this ranting thread and look at how many flower it blossomed! I enjoyed reading this reply too, it's quite interesting because I don't do any western magic and seems like it is VERY different from eastern magic too. Well, to sum up Taoist magic (the real thing) in one word is all about "effectiveness" and no BS. Sort of like the sword care (trying to relate to sword more) thread.. some people go all out to rituals and stuff that go very fancy and lots of procedures, bowing, etc,.. but Chinese Taoist magic is like the way with rubbing alcohol, wipe and clean, re-lube, that's all.. That's kind of thing. It works well and cut the crap out with no fancy theories and doesn't work at the end... That's why Taoist magic isn't even classify as a religion if you use the world's religion definition in dictionary.com ...!

Anyway.. BACK TO SWORDS!

I promised I did try my best to relate magic to swords above! At least I tried!

I intentionally simplified the explanation because I didn't want to go into detail, and it's off-topic, to answer your question, you're only referring to Ceremonial/High Magick which constitutes a small minority of the western esoteric traditions and is quite intellectual/theurgical in focus and uses the western derivative of the Qabalah/Tree of Life as a model. Many traditions, particularly the nature besed ones predate these European Middle Ages systems markedly and use indigenous systems that truly belong to those cultures. The systems drawn supposedly from the Greek and Egyptian systems are quite modern derivatives/reconstructions based on misinterpretations and mistakes in earlier historical understanding. Plenty of material to research if anyone want to look further into it. Too much to go into, I'll leave it at that...

===================== BORDERLINE CUT OFF O.T. , BACK TO SWORDS FROM NOW ON =========================

Maybe this line helps!

www.kultofathena.com/product.asp ... i+Chi+Jian

YOU GOT IT!

hahaha.. now you want to ask me the MAGIC part or the KUNGFU part of this sword finger?

For magic, yes it does matter because a wrong handsign won't work and your magic power will turn out very sucks and not even working at all with the wrong fingers..

For kungfu, YES it does matter how you hold it too. But then, I won't emphasize too much to beginners I teach because they don't get it anyway. So let them do it naturally first and tune them back later on.

This swordfinger is from chi kung, initially, I already explained, kungfu is not just a combat art, it's life preserving and health preserving as well with the foundation build on Chinese medics, astronomy, chi kung and so on. In Chi kung, we have something called Dao-Yin 導引 which is to use body movements to lead your internal chi to run thru a different meridian and by doing so, you are not only exercising the external body but also the organs and allowing your movements to strengthen your organs as well.

The sword finger is a way to lead chi to flow in your lung meridian (from the thumb and up the arm..), large intestine (index finger and up the arm).. and the heart meridian (middle finger and up the arm..).. By gripping the sword finger in different manner, it's like telling your chi to stop here, flow here, go here, flow there..etc,. By doing so in the form, you feel one very big effect and that is the building of chi, meaning you build MORE "post-heaven" chi inside your body by doing the sword form and as a result, you get healthier, and you can do a lot of kungfu (like 8+hrs nonstop) without really getting tired. I used to train 6hr straight or even 8hr straight and have no problem at all. Not even tired except need to eat and go to washroom, but I can go on and on and on. That's one benefit of doing the swordfinger right.

In a lot of chi kung, there is the cultivation of using swordfinger to point and lead chi to a different meridian as well such as the Yi Jin Jing does have that (the taoist version) and a few other not-so-common taoist chi kung use this as well.

In medic, we use the swordfinger to do massage by "injecting chi" to a pressure point which as a result is to speed up the healing process. When the person have something wrong inside at that spot, and my swordfinger point to it and do a certain breathing to inject the chi, they will feel the reaction inside such as heated up, burning, vibrating, chilling out or something like that. This is what Taoist medic have and normal medics don't have. Not a lot of Taoist know this though. It's something I do and I did it for a lot of people already. The sicker you are, the more you felt.

Even in Hung Gar, you see they have that one finger up thing right? That's the position to push chi to the lung meridian and if you did it right, you will feel things too.

The swordfinger is NOT to brace the wrist. this is really non-sense because in kungfu, you must have strong wrist power to weld a sword for real combat.. if you don't have that power yet and need assistant, the master should tell you to train more on the basics to gain the power first before you weld the sword and ask for injuries. Using 2 fingers to brace the wrist isn't a smart choice too. At least you fingers aren't made of folded steel or something like that.

For those who wonder what is pre and post heaven chi I talked about..

theexorcist.hubpages.com/hub/Wha ... oist-Magic

Enjoy an article. This is CHI KUNG BASICS, nothing mysterious and scary. If this concept isn't even there for a chi kung practitioner, their chi kung can be trashed. This is like learning plus and minus in math, alphabets in English... and I have no idea why so many people still think "chi" is something mysterious when it's such a simple thing. Just because you can't see it? Now is heat, gas, nitrogen, and UV or ultraviolet mysterious? It's not. Read the article to learn what is "chi" and why there are the pre and post heaven chi.