Iron Crotch

[Greg]

Really need a school house rock video of the Chinese and their use of the number 5.

I should have taken a picture of the table where we did the tea. It had some odd things going on including a drain to a bucket. There might have been a small fountain in the table. I was hoping for an interesting tea pot but it was just an electric kettle you find in any home in the 1970s. Still, I was very glad they took time out to start that way. It was very welcoming.

I did tell them about my Bodhi mishap and they laughed. I also went down the Shifu/Sifu sitiuation to point out how ill equipped I was for this task.

Thanks for the articles. Who knew your entire writing career would be focused on making sure I didn't mess up? Well, more than I already have.

[Drunk Monk]

Really need a school house rock video of the Chinese and their use of the number 5.

Yeah, but it'd be pentatonic scale and thusly would sound out of tune...

Thanks for the articles. Who knew your entire writing career would be focused on making sure I didn't mess up? Well, more than I already have.

I'm here for ya. 

I had this thought about your comments on not getting what you want. Patrick and I were amused at this because we let go of that long ago. We agreed it was one of the many lessons working on KFTC gave us - not to be attached to where we think the story is - that's just a gateway. We were reporters and documenters first and foremost, not storytellers. Chinese culture is so old and convoluted that if you are looking to confirm your assumptions, it'll only frustrate you. At the same time, the culture is so rich that once you learn to listen to it, once you have enough context, you just follow the story and it tells itself.

[Greg]

Are you saying my quest to get interesting stories told well isn't the approach to use with the Chinese culture?

I'm all for letting stories take me where they lead, that has always been the case. But I also need them told well. If you write a story for print, you can edit the pull quotes so they are readable. But if I'm going to show the film of that, the person telling the story has to do a good performance on top of that. When I'm saying I'm not getting what I want, most of the time it is because the performance is bad. Or the story is so convoluted, I won't be able to edit it in a way for it to make sense. Bryant Fong starts every sentence with 'So'. Every one. That is an easy fix. But Master Fong has the benefit of already having his ideas and stories in English.. There is much more fluidity to his narrative.

Shi Yanxing still needs to translate in his head before the words come out. His performance is much more hesitant. And he stops before he gets going. Many times he would give very brief answers that would end abruptly. Like I said, I think he felt pressure to do well which made him nervous. The early part of the interview was rough as he gathered his thoughts. The later sections were smoother as he gained confidence. After we were done, Shi Yanxing told me had so much more to say. That he written out the answers before hand. But during the interview when it came time to speak, his carefully prepared thoughts deserted him.

For instance, when we were just talking during our pre-filming tea, he brought up the three branches of Shaolin: Buddhism, Martial Arts, and Medicine. He mentioned it very nicely and succinctly, a real insight into Shaolin. Later when I asked him to repeat it, the speech was very wordy and didn't have quite the poetry of the earlier statement. I wish I had filmed what he said at tea. It was a bright moment that I look for when cameras are rolling.

And some of it was just knowledge. Some writer guy I know told me about the origin of the character for Qi, steam rising from a pot. It's a very evocative, to me, image that helps explain Qi. I wanted Yanxing to talk about that but I don't think he knew about that so he merely parroted back what I had said to him. My bad. Yanxing didn't know about that so he wasn't the person I should be asking about that.

I want my subjects to perform well in the best light I can give them. When this doesn't happen, I don't get what I want.

Grrr. Bark. Bark. End rant.

[Drunk Monk]

Told well is the rub, isn't it? You wanted a local English speaking Shaolin monk. Yanxing has a better grasp than most here. 

As a writer, I do have that luxury of correcting the speech, or at least making it grammatically correct (because no one speaks correctly on a grammatical level, and it's far worse for ESL speakers). But later, I tried to preserve that 'accent' when transcribing because I felt it gave more color. 

The Chan Wu Yi (Zen, martial arts, medicine) has been propounded by the Abbot for the last decade plus. He's done a lot of work to bring forth the medicine, establishing a new series of halls devoted to a research clinic and produced several OTC medicinals. Keep in mind that Yanxing is a Yan, a disciple of the abbot, so he touts this three treasures notion. 

The rising steam is Chinese character radical breakdowns. It's not widely known, more of a scholarly thing. A lot of martial arts are folk traditions, a.k.a. mingjian. That is in part why I suggested that you read 72 consummate arts, to get a sense of how wildly abstract this field can be. It's a lot of interpretation and variation. That old game of Chinese whispers couldn't be more real. 

You got a chuckle out of me with Bryant's 'so' prefix. You're spot on there.

[Greg]

Yanxing was part of the troop at the Szechaun benefit that did the strike to the groin. He knows the monk who did that. He's gone back to China.

[thatguy]

What if you sent them your questions in advance so they would be somewhat prepared with answers when you try to capture them on video?

--tg

[Greg]

I do send them the questions in advance.......

[Greg]

Here's an old piece I did that covers the 5 types of qigong, just in case I had not shared it with you before: https://www.kungfumagazine.com/index.php...rticle=471
Note that the 5 types are not universally accepted as so, although the Chinese have a penchant for 5s. Here's another piece I just wrote about 5s: https://ymaa.com/articles/2024/07/why-do...ve-seasons

The old article is familiar. I think I might have read it when it first came out. I read because of the boxing on the platform in the water.

I had one of my interviewees talk about the five types of Qigong. He actually said there were four types of Qigong and then proceeded to list the five types.

[Drunk Monk]

I had one of my interviewees talk about the five types of Qigong.  He actually said there were four types of Qigong and then proceeded to list the five types.

Haaaaa... 

I feel I could answer every one of your posts here with 'welcome to my world'. Who was it?

[Greg]

Dharam Singh Deutsch, GM2 disciple.

[Drunk Monk]

Ah. Not sure I remember him.

Didn’t know GM2 took any disciples. That’s a formal term. Some use it loosely and incorrectly, which is translation error. In mandarin, it’s tudi, and it means the student underwent a baisee ritual.

[Greg]

Dharam referred to himself as a disciple but maybe more according your terminology he was a student. I latched on to him because he was an American studying Qigong and Iron Crotch. He was one of the first interviews I did.

[Drunk Monk]

Yeah, that gets tricky. We have a student at Lam Kwoon who claims to be a disciple but Wing Lam said that he never baisee-ed and no one has taken him to task on it. There are several authentic disciples of Wing Lam, including CF & LCF, but not me.

You’re in a minefield with this one. Tread warily.

[Greg]

He seems more reasonable than the mind reader.

[Drunk Monk]

But who can better withstand a kick to the jewels?

That was a funny comeback. Mind reader indeed. Is he still ghosting you?