one man
D_Glenn wrote:Two Circles, I met Kurt Wong, a wutan baji teacher in Canada. He was telling me stories about Li Shuwen. Some think he was a sociopath. And he did have handlers, so to speak, who escorted him around the towns. So it might be a case, where students know he’s a sociopath, but he’s really good at martial arts, so they want to extract all of his teachings. And ignoring incidents where he kills people for essentially no reason, other than to test him, and then hide him from the authorities.
Have you heard stories of Li Shuwen?
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D_Glenn wrote:Bob, you were one of the ‘some people’
One of the stories I heard was that Li Shuwen and his friend were at a restaurant he liked to go to. Someone recognized him and came up to challenge him. Li just kept eating and didn’t acknowledge him. His friend intervened and was trying to convince this guy that under no circumstances would he ever want to challenge Li. He pleaded with him to give up and go away. But he kept insisting. Okay if then if you really want to then. Do it. Without saying a word. Li jumped up and using his Pi strike, crushed his forearm through collarbone and most of ribs on his left side and then pulled his hand out and they left. Li was more upset about the fact that he could never go to his favorite restaurant again.
Bob wrote:One would not even have to go to Indonesia to find that type of behavior.
Road rage is all around these days - a significant number of martial artists I know pack a gun with them just about every where they go - doesn't take much to set things off. The consequences are horrible.
twocircles13 wrote:GrahamB wrote:Thanks - it was interesting to dive into Bajiquan for a bit, there's a lot of depth there
I finally made time to listen to both of these podcasts.
Well done on both counts.
I’ve not had a lot of exposure to Bajiquan outside of my own tradition, so it was nice to hear the perspective of Miika and Rikard. Everything that was said was right inline with what I was taught by my Wutan teachers. It was a fun renewal of the art for me.
I thought the second interview was with Rikard and Miika again, until I started looking for it and was directed to the Heretics podcasts.
I have to say that this was my favorite Heretics podcast. I thought you both were spot on with your observations and information.
I loved your discussion of the origins of Bajiquan. I don’t remember the exact wording. I’ll have to go find it. But, we should treat the origins of all martial arts that way. With very few, mostly modern, exceptions, no one man created a martial art, and those that did stood on the shoulders of giants.
The only thing that I was taught concerning the origins was that Bajiquan was likely Baziquan and staff (巴子拳棍) mentioned as being famous in his day by Qi Jiguang in his 1560 manual.
Damon also mentioned the Hui people. It’s not a popular view today, but I think there is evidence the influence of the Hui was a catalyst that invigorated CMA in the Ming Dynasty and may have given birth to CIMA. The Khans of the Yuan Dynasty imported conquered educated of Indo-Persian lands and others as engineers, scholars, and even elite soldiers. With the collapse of Yuan, for the most part, the Ming Dynasty embraced these peoples. Many were integrated into Chinese society and others maintained an Islamic (Hui) community.
Their influence on weaponry is blatant. The talwar had a strong influence on dao development. Middle Eastern bows and archery revolutionized both Mongolian then Chinese archery. Chinese military strategy was forever changed. But, these were evolutions of technologies of cultures that dated back to the Parthians and ancient Scythians.
I’m a bit of a heretic myself, I guess.
D_Glenn wrote: And one of the things that he was emphasizing to me is that all his life, he thought the stories of great Gong Fu masters was just a myth. But after seeing Dr. Xie and Jinbao, that he realized it was all true. And that he felt like he’d been lied to. And now he was too old to start over. Him telling me the story about Li Shuwen was because now he realized that the sort of power that could break through multiple rib bones, actually does exist. I had already dedicated my life to studying ysb. But he solidified that decision because he told me I will never find anyone better.
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