SAN ZHAN AND DRAGON STRENGTH IN TERMS OF HEALTH, INTERNAL FORCE AND COMBAT EFFICIENCY
San Zhan
Question
Could you compare the Dragon Strength Set and San Zhan with regards to health, internal force and combat efficiency? If a practitioner has little time, and if all things were equal, would a practitioner get more benefit from doing San Zhan completely or from doing a part of the Dragon Strength Set?
Sifu Roeland Dijkema, Netherlands
Answer
Both San Zhan and Dragon Strength are wonderful sets – if you know how to use them. Most practitioners do not know how to use them. They just practice their outward forms.
When I learned Dragon Strength from my first sifu, Uncle Righteousness, a great fighter well respected in kungfu circles, I only learned its outward form. When I learned through his eldest son, Sifu Chee Boon Leong, San Zhan from Sifu Chee Kim Thong, the living treasure of the People’s Republic of China, I only learned its outward form.
Of course it was my fault, not my teachers’. They taught me the best they could. It was also the norm, then and also now, to learn the outward form of a kungfu set.
If one learns their outward forms, which most people do, the benefits for health, internal force and combat efficiency are little or none.
For health, the benefit is little. It provides some physical exercise for general well-being for those who are already healthy. If they are sick, practicing physical exercise, irrespective of whether San Zhan or Dragon Strength, cannot overcome their illness. If they are healthy, practicing Dragon Strength, whether the whole set or part of it, provides more benefit than practicing San Zhan.
Practicing their outward form will have no benefits for internal force and combat. As most kungfu practitioners practice only the external forms of San Zhan or Dragon Strength, or any other kungfu set, it is a main reason why very few people have internal force or can use kungfu for combat.
However, if they practice external forms of any kungfu set for a long time, like 20 years, they may haphazardly develop some internal force without their own knowing. If kungfu practitioners are involved in combat, fortunately this seldom happens in our law-abiding societies, they would fight randomly like children or use other martial art techniques they have seen or learnt. If they try to use kungfu techniques, it would be a liability instead of an asset.
However, if practitioners can practice Dragon Strength or San Zhan, or any kungfu set, as they should be practiced as genuine kungfu, the benefits for health, internal force and combat are tremendous. They will also enrich their daily life. In our school, we do this knowingly. In other schools, it is done indirectly.
Let us now compare the Dragon Strength set with the San Zhan set as genuine kungfu with regards to health, internal force and combat efficiency. Needless to say, the comparison below is my personal view. Other people may have different views.
In term of health Dragon Strength is better. Of course this does not mean that San Zhan does not contribute to health. It does tremendously. But here we are making a comparison. Both Dragon Strength and San Zhan contribute a lot to health, but the contribution of Dragon Strength is relatively more.
The same philosophy applies to internal force and combat efficiency. Both Dragon Strength and San Zhan contribute a lot to practitioners’ internal force and combat efficiency, but one art may contribute relatively more than the other.
If one can generate an energy flow, he can use movements from Dragon Strength or Zan Zhan. If he doesn’t have the skills, and most people don’t, even when they practice “chi kung”, it does not matter whether they use the movement from Dragon Strength or from San Zhan, they will still be unable to generate an energy flow. It is the energy flow that overcomes illness as well as give good health, vitality and longevity.
From the traditional Chinese medical perspective, all illness is due to energy blockage. This fact is strange to many people, especially in the West, just as for those who do not know science, it is strange that all things, ranging from tapoles to mountains, are made of atoms. Energy flow will clear energy blockage, thus overcoming illness, any illness.
As the energy flow becomes harmonious, which practicing San Zhan or Dragon Strength will provide, practitioners will be healthy. As the energy flow becomes vigorous, they will have vitality. As the energy supply becomes a lot, ensuring energy flow for a long time, they will have longevity.
Dragon Strength is a much longer set than San Zhan. If all other things were equal, a longer set will provide more opportunities for energy flow to happen.
If a person is skillful, he does not need to perform the whole Dragon Strength set. He can perform a part of it to generate an energy flow. Relatively, the movements in Dragon Strength are more conducive than the movements in San Zhan to generate energy flow.
In term of internal force, Dragon Strength is also better. For those who attended the Dragon Strength course in Penang in 2014, they used the techniques of Dragon Strength to develop different types of internal force, like those of Yang Style Taijiquan, Chen Style Taijiquan, Flower Set, Siu Lin Tou, Triple Stretch and Iron Wire.
The internal force in San Zhan is more restricted. For want of a better term, we may call the force derived from practicing San Zhan, Wuzuquan internal force. Because of the way San Zhan is constructed, it is not feasible to generate a variety of internal force as in Dragon Strength. With understanding and skills, a Wuzuquan master may generate internal force similar to that in Flower Set and Siu Lin Tou, but it is not feasible to generate internal force like that in Triple Stretch and Iron Wire.
Not only there is a great variety of internal force in Dragon Strength, it is also relatively easier, for both students and masters, to generate internal force in Dragon Strength than in San Zhan. This is because of the ways the techniques of the two sets are arranged.
Here, we are talking about internal force in general. In other words, it is easier to generate internal force using Dragon Strength than using San Zhan, What about a specific type of internal, namely Wuzuquan internal force? It is naturally easier to generate Wuzuquan internal force using San Zhan than using Dragon Strength, because the patterns in San Zhan are arranged in a particular way to generate Wuzuquan internal force. Nevertheless, a skillful Dragon Strength master can generate internal force similar but not identical to Wuzuquan internal force faster using Dragon Strength than using San Zhan!
In term of combat efficiency, whether Dragon Strength or San Zhan is better, depends much on the level of practitioners. At an early stage, a Dragon Strength practitioner is more combat efficient than a San Zhan practitioner. Indeed, because of their subtlety, many San Zhan practitioners may not know the combat application of the patterns in their set, whereas the combat application in Dragon Strength is more straightforward.
At an advanced level, when a San Zhan practitioner has understood the sophistication of San Zhan, he is more combat efficient than a Dragon Strength practitioner. The sophistication of San Shan is such a high level, that almost any pattern in the set can be applied to counter any attack! This may not be possible in the Dragon Strength set, where certain patterns are used against certain attacks.
However, at the marvelous level, a level very few practitioners can reach, a Dragon Strength master is more combat efficient than a San Zhan master. As soon as an opponent makes a move, or even before an opponent makes a move, he is struck, often without knowing how or where the strike comes from.
Because it is a longer set, there is more variety of attack and defence in Dragon Strength than in San Zhan. Dragon Strength covers all the four modes of attack, whereas San Zhan covers only three. Kicks are not found in San Zhan, but there are counters against opponents’ kicks in Dragon Strength.
Both sets focus on strikes. At an advanced level, Dragon Strength focuses on dim mark with the dragon fingers, whereas San Zhan focuses on strikes with the palm and the fist. In defence, Dragon Strength minimizes an opponent’s force, whereas San Zhan wards it off.
The answer to the question whether a practitioner, if he is short of time, would get more benefit from practicing the complete set of San Zhan or practicing a part of Dragon Set would depend on the purpose of his practice, and on the part he chooses from Dragon Strength, even when other things were presumed equal.
If the purpose is to develop Wuzuquan internal force, obviously he will have more benefit practicing San Zhan than practicing a part of Dragon Strength or even the whole of it.
If his purpose is to develop any internal force, he will have more benefit if he practices a part from “ta chong”, i.e. “developing internal force on stance”, at the beginning of Dragon Strength Set. If he chooses a part from combat sequences at the end of the set, he will have less benefit.
But adopting a theoretical example, most people will gain more benefit practicing a part of Dragon Strength than practicing the whole of San Zhan. By practicing an earlier part of Dragon Strength, they may develop some internal force, by practicing a later part they may learn some combat application. Most people do not have any benefit in internal force or combat application even when they practice the whole of San Zhan.
Even if they just practice their external forms, i.e. without any benefits of internal force and combat application, practicing a part of Dragon Strength, because there is more variety in the movement, they will get more health benefit than practicing the whole of San Zhan.
This does not mean that San Zhan is not beneficial. As mentioned earlier, we are here making a comparison. and therefore speaking relatively.
Even when we consider San Zhan by itself, it is a very useful and beneficial set. It has remained the same set for many centuries and over different continents. But it needs a great teacher to bring out its usefulness and benefits.
Dragon Strength
This question and answer are reproduced from the thread Wu Zu Quan -- 10 Questions to Grandmasrter Wong in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.
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