Video Clip Series: Marvelous Techniques Beget Marvelous Techniques

MARVELOUS TECHNIQUES BEGET MARVELOUS TECHNIQUES

Just as when you think you have defeated your opponent, he defeats you with an apparently simple movement

Displayed in the training hall of the first Shaolin Wahnam school in Sungai Petani, Malaysia was the following poetic couplet:

Marvelous Techniques Beget Marvelous Techniques
Wondrous Skills Generate Wondrous Skills

This poetic couplet was taken from the poetic saying of the Venerable Harng Yein, who was the most senior disciple of the Venerable Chee Seen, the First Patriarch of Southern Shaolin Kungfu.

When you think you have defeated a Shaolin master with a marvelous technique, all of a sudden you find yourself marvelously defeated. This is marvelous techniques beget marvelous techniques.

You have dedicated yourself to develop a kungfu skill that gives you wondrous results. Then you discover that this leads to other skills that give even more wondrous results. This is wondrous skills generate wondrous skills.

This video series give some examples of marvelous techniques.

Please click the pictures below to view the videos

Defeating your Opponent when he Thinks he has Defeated You

What could you do when you are caught in a difficult situation like the one shown in the video clip? Here is how you can turn a difficult situation into victory, manifesting our Shaolin Wahnam saying of “marvelous techniques beget marvelous techniques”. Sifu Roland is so impressed, or amused, that you can see him smiling away.

Another Marvelous Technique

Here is another marvelous technique. If an opponent moves in to attack your groin after you have kicked, instead of moving back or moving in, you can deflect his attack with your leg, grip his arm and counter-attack with your kick. This is a variation of the pattern “Yellow Oriole Drinks Water”, and of “Rising Dragon Galloping Tiger” in the Monkey Set.

Yet Another Monkey Trick

The Monkey is full of tricks, or marvelous techniques. As Sifu Roland moves in with a “hanging fist”, you can move back to deflect the attack using “Separate Leaves to Search for Flowers”, followed with “Rising Dragon Galloping Tiger” as a counter-attack. You trick an opponent to move in to attack, then counter-attack when he least expects it.

Don't Hand your Defeat to your Opponent

Charles makes the same mistake of adopting a disadvantageous stance. In kungfu terms, this is handing your own defeat to your opponent, without him doing anything extra. He just needs to exploit your disadvantage, but in today's low level of combat, not many martial artist know how to do so. Sifu Roland is well trained, he exploits the situation.

Just Move Back a Step

If you are caught in a difficult situation, in kungfu or in real life, and you do not know what to do, just move back a step. A Monkey stylist is agile, but not clumsy. He is also not flimsy. He is very mobile and at the same time very solid.

Turning a Difficult Situation to your Advantage

There are many ways to get out of a difficult situation if you know how. Not only this, a master turns a difficult situation to his advantage. Acquiring the knowledge, skills and techniques to do so is one of the main aims of this course.

Dim Ching or Pointing out the Essence

Charles learns very fast. He turns a difficult situation into his advantage and successfully counter-strikes his opponent. In kungfu culture there is a term called “dim ching” (Cantonese), which literally means “point essence”. It means that a student is at first all confused, but when his sifu points out the essence, he becomes “enlightened”. Without “dim ching”, students may remain kungfu gymnasts or crude boxers all their life.

You can view all the videos above by clicking the picture or the caption below

Marvelous Techniques Beget Marvevous Techniques from Wong Kiew Kit on Vimeo.

Grandmaster Wong’s Home Page

Special Shaolin Kungfu Course -- Part 31

16-22 April 2007