My experiences in Kung Fu – Into the Depths of my Soft Arts

Kung Fu, the words themselves draw spirits of memory forth. Set aside that Kung Fu isn’t what the arts really are called.

The early mention of the Chinese arts in Black Belt while I was in college in the late 60’s. Bruce Lee as Kato in the Green Hornet. Bruce Tenger’s book on Kung Fu, the mysterious master of kung fu on the back of comic books promising to train you to fell your opponent without any physical contact. My college roommate ordering that tome, with its instructions to strike the arm of a bottle wielding opponent, making the bottle fall and break and then throw them down on the shards of glass. Or a grad student in college from Seattle who had trained with Bruce. Somewhere in my collection is an early magazine on Kung Fu where a master in a three piece business suit uses his kung fu technique to drop attackers.

Or 1973 when ‘The Five Fingers of Death” first opened. Or later that year Bruce Lee’s movies hit the scene and then his death. And the flood of kung fu flics, buckets of blood, axe movies, knife movies.

When I began training in Isshinryu there was a nearby group teaching a Kung Fu system being taught in the Washington DC area, legitimate instruction at its source. It turned out they were students, and in turn opened their own satellite school. A while later they got a copy of Bruce Lees’ book and dropped their association to become Jeet Kune Do.

Against all those events, I saw some kung fu competitors at tournaments I attended as a new student. In fact the first tournament I attended was in Baltimore, and it was announced that groin kicks would be allowed for the kung fu competitors in attendance. In fact I lost my first fight as a white belt by being kicked in the groin, quite a painful experience. But it was Mr. Lewis’ green belts who were the ones diving to the floor with ground kicking to win their fights. Partially because our lower body exercises did teach front and side kicks from the floor.

It was as a brown belt in Penna., first competing in the advanced weapons division, that I had to compete against Cynthia Rothrock, and quite a few other very advanced dans.  Some may feel it folly to allow brown belts to compete against the Black Belts. But, if that’s where you’re moving towards, it does give one challenge.

 

On that day I began training in Tai Chi, and first got to observe the Kung Fu students, I just saw things as a different form of martial art. And when I approached Ernest Rothrock to study some forms to be a better judge, I was just trying to be honest about a set of arts that I knew were different from karate, but didn’t know how much.

Over the years I’ve developed a rather fair memory for forms, but Ernest was outstanding. I doubt he knows how many forms he’s learnt or forgotten as he focused on Eagle Claw and his other later studies.

But he chose to start me out with a Northern Shaolin form called “Dune De Kuen”. 

[BTW, all spellings are my phonetic attempt to render the forms names. I didn’t study from books and the curricula Ernest used for me doesn’t match anything his students studied.]

Dune de Kuen was normally an advanced form and I was jumping into it with no foundation or basics. But slowly between 9 to 12 months later I finished it, one ½ hour lesson a week. The Northern Shaolin style systems use very deep stances (both the high and low ones) and the term long-arm describes the manner in which the arm techniques, strikes, parries and punches, are performed.

The Northern Shaoin forms most often are done in rows of techniques, where you face one direction, and do series of movements in that direction, then you stylistically turn and go back with different techniques in the 2nd row, and so forth. The form contained long arm flowers, or spinning style arm movements to smash their way through an attacker (Shaolin arts also contains leg flowers where one spins on the floor to smash through an attackers with the flower movements of the leg).

Of course, words don’t do this study justice, but not just learning the form, I worked it and several years later chose to compete in a kung fu division at a tournament in Baltimore when I felt I had it. That’s when I saw the true knowledge of Ernest. He tore my form apart in infinite detail (something I’ve experienced many times later) and sharpened my execution and focus. In competition, I with little kung fu experience, placed in the middle of the pack, proving I could compete with kung fu. Then having done it, I set that part of my experience aside.

A year later I saw another stylist compete using a variation of Dune de Kuen in the Washington area. And as it was from that area Ernest studied the Northern Shaolin system in an instructor sharing group, its possible we had the same roots.

One detail I picked up over the years, with the incredible number of forms in the Shaolin style systems, the advancing student doesn’t spend time working on beginning forms (unless they become an instructor). As their advanced forms use the basics, their form practice contains all of the basics in their advanced workouts. This is in contrast to karate with shorter and fewer forms where basics are repeated in perpetuity.

 

When I finished Dune de Kuen, Ernest asked what I wanted to study next. I thought it would be interesting to study something with Chinese Sweeping technique and told him. He chose to teach me Pai Lum form “Leaping Leopard”. The form was interesting, and as it was more Southern Chinese it didn’t follow the rows pattern of the northern forms, It also ended with a 4 ¼ turn spinning sweep, and this was beyond my physical capabilities. I imagine everyone got a charge from me trying to push myself around with that sweep.

When my studies moved forward Leaping Leopard was left behind.

As I was spending time on Thursday’s with my Yang Tai Chi class as well as my Kung Fu  forms class I was invited to drop down to the Wilkes-Barre school on Saturdays. When I did so I found the advanced students spent the afternoon on the floor running forms, and I got into the habit of doing the same. I spent my Saturday mornings having Breakfast with Ernest and several students, then I’d go visit several karate schools to train the morning in Shorin arts, finally spending the afternoon doing kung fu. It was the best of training times.

Several times a year Ernest would run a forms clinic for his students, and now I was studying his arts I was invited to join those clinics, too. (In fairness I must mention all of my training was commercial and I paid for all of this, and it has been worth every penny.)

 

I attended a clinic where he was teaching a basic Northern Mantis (Tai Mantis) form Sip Sau Jing (or Slip in and Hit). One afternoon - one form. It was great, one of my all time favorites. Being a Northern form it utilized much of the technique I had already studied, it had very deep dropping stances, high jumping kicks, utilized basic mantis grab and control techniques (but didn’t incorporate the more well know mantis finger striking techniques) as well as leg trapping movements too.  It isn’t a terribly long form but correctly done with focus is executed very quickly with great power.

Quite a few years later, after fighting off years of arthritis, I entered a local NH competition in several divisions. In Black Belt forms, as everyone knew I was an Isshinryu instructor, I chose to befuddle them and competed with Sip Sau Jing. I know the judges had no idea what I was doing and I enjoyed myself immensly.  Life doesn’t get any better than that.

 

In separate venue, when I completed my yang tai chi chaun straight sword form, Ernest showed me how to modify it for stick and gukra knife, showing me how different weapons would change the flow of the technique and the focus, as well as indoctrinate me into the Chinese short stick principles.

Returning from the tournament in Baltimore where I had competed with Dune De  Kuen, I asked Ernest if I could study some basic Eagle Claw (which I knew he was studying with Shum Leung, but not teaching). As we had become friends, he told me he’d discuss it with his instructor, and getting permission, he began my studies in Eagle Claw.

And keeping to his perverse nature, taught me Hon Kuen (or the 10 row walking form). This form is one of the 3 major sets of Northern Eagle Claw (Faan Tzi Ying Jow Pai).  It is a very, very long form and contains all of the techniques of the Eagle Claw system, the grabs the strikes, the kicks and all the rest (just not every possible variation of same).

I did learn the form, but the fastest I was ever able to perform it was 6 minutes (which was about ½ the speed Ernest did it). 

Eagle Claw is an incredible system of study. It took him almost 30 years to learn all of it. It is also one of the best documented Chinese systems (which may not say much either), as his instructor has written several books and offered a series of basic video’s on it too.

But I was just learning forms, and not applications, except for the kindergarten level to learn the form movement. Today I realize if I had focused on what Eagle Claw really is I would have learned tons more. But then I didn’t really know what the system was about, he wasn’t teaching it, and I was studying forms to be a better judge. 

 

I didn’t realize, yet, what the intense additional training was doing to my karate either.

After Hon Kuen, Ernest choose to teach me another 10 row form, Tam Tuie (Tom Toy) This actually was a traditional basic form (which I was learning backwards, having done very advanced forms first – probably my penance for being a karate-ka).  This is one of the 10 beginning sets of the Jing Mo (also alt. Spellings) Association, where various instructors got together, created a basic training program (all of which are really complex forms) for all the students, who would then ‘major’ in the instructors specialty. As Eagle Claw was part of the association, these forms are where the Eagle Claw styslist, traditionally would begin.

 

Tam Tuie actually originated with the Chinese Muslims. The form can be 10, 12 or 14or more rows of kicking techniques, with spinning long arm techniques. The rows consist of sets of 3 series of techniques. And the kicks are straight legged and very low, to break legs, etc. (remember they do this with boots on).  The kicks are very powerful, and I’ve learnt there is are several different ways they are done. About 20 years later Ernest showed me a way where the toes are drug across the floor to slingshot up on the end to strike from a different angle, than the original straight kick out way I was originally taught.

Tam Tuie is actually a complete martial arts system in itself. Northern systems like Eagle Claw incorporate these kicks as well as the long range, jumping Northern Chinese jumping and spinning kicks too.

Then Ernest had another forms clinic and taught another of the Jing Mo basics, Kung Le Kuen or “Power Fist”.  Not a long form, it was full of interesting techniques, and retroactively I was learning some of the basics of the systems I was studying.

 

That summer RoyBlackwell, my first Dan student, returned from Texas to visit. I paid for Ernest to teach him a green belt form from the Pai Lum system (I had seen his students do hundreds of times), the form Lung Lek Kuen or “Supple Dragon”. Watching those classes I focused myself and learnt the form as if I was studying it. Then those Saturday afternoons it was in the mixture of forms I was running with the guy’s, and unlike most of my training, a form I could run along with his advanced students.

Now don’t get the idea I was a kung fu student. I was teaching Isshinryu two days a week, training with various karate-ka 4 days a week and going to 15-20 tournaments a year. Kung fu was my hobby from karate.  Of course as the years progressed Ernest was the instructor who spent the most time with me over the years too, and I wasn’t a ‘kung fu’ student.

Actually he began to draw me out, asking questions like “Why does karate do this?”. Things he could have explained to me but never did and instead made me work to try and figure things out. I remember when I tried to explain to him the kata in Isshinryu had to have more than just punches and block. Heck he could have shown me the world, but he didn’t for he wasn’t taught that way either. Instead he helped me focus my thoughts.

Ernest and I began traveling to major tournaments together (only if they offered Kung fu only divisions, and with the one exception I was competing with my Isshinryu). He was divorced from his wife and enjoyed competing (without the students along). I saw him in his private practices. 

He’d do dozens of forms a day with a different set every day of the week. I couldn’t begin to know how many forms he knew. I saw him do straight sword forms for several hours without repeating a form. I guess he may have done 25 different types of Chinese weapons.  If anybody gets the idea I studied a lot from him, forget it. I never scratched the surface, as valuable as my studies were.

Of course most of the sets he taught me he wasn’t teaching his advanced students. They were studying Pai Lum then, and only the occasional other sets he’d show. I’d often see them watching him teach me or me practicing. 

I also saw how he’d tune his practice for competition. I’m sure this was one of the factors behind Cynthia Rothrock, his technique focusing plus her own natural abilities, helped her become a tournament champion. As well as many other advanced students.  In fact his strongest suit, IMVHO, is his ability to work extremely advanced level training for his most advanced students.

I actually woke him up years later at 3am when I figured out how karate could be applied. Something I then didn’t see until years later when I met Sherman Harrill (except in my own efforts).  Aside, the training I was receiving at the same time from Tris Sutrisno covered the same ground, but it wasn’t from the use of the kata the way I follow today. Tris’ technique was something else.

Now if Ernest had shown me how Eagle Claw really worked, the rest would have been much easier. But I wasn’t a kung fu student, just a friend, and I was focusing on a more general knowledge, how the forms worked, to become an honest judge.

In fact I think I was in the middle of a war between Tris and Ernie in those years. Each would have been happy if I had formally become their student (which didn’t happen) but I was simply a friend training. In turn they each tried to throw as much at me as possible, perhaps trying to influence my friendship, but I fooled them, I studied and learnt all of it, as much as was humanly possible. The other thing was how similar in content Tris’ deep study was to what Ernie’s deep study. The difference between high level karate and high level kung fu became narrower and narrower, except in their vastly different execution.

 

Not to leave me hanging, Ernest then began to teach me Peng Tsu Dune De Kuen (or as he called it the Greater Duen De Kuen).  A very nice, very long, very complex Northern Shaolin set, that also incorporated another sort of flower, with jumping spinning inside crescent kicks one after another in multiple directions.  Also beyond my abilities, but the form had some great technique.

Then to give me some weapons work he began to teach me a Chinese 3 section staff form. My ambition or eyes had no limits. Even though I was a poor one, you could begin to make a case I was some sort of kung fu student ,as well as a karate-ka and a tai chi player too.

Right after finishing that form he had to move to Pittsburgh, which is another long story and not germane). I still trained in the local schools (and began teaching a tai chi class in Scranton) and continued studying with him, but the complexity of Hon Kuen caused me to break it into 3 forms of 3, 3 and 4 rows.

On trips across Penna., I saw him teach his advanced students a complex Pai Lum form, Lift Hands to the Sky. Later I would play with the opening as a fun way to drive some students mad on Kusanku. One has to keep one’s brown belts in line after all.

I also remember working on the 3 sectional staff with him and nailing the back of my head quite soundly with one spin that I missed. It gave me a very loud klunk. He told me once he KO’s himself in the groin with that weapon. All weapons training tends to bite one if you’re not careful. I once saw him working a steel whip, where he’d be spinning and wrap the whip around his neck, continue spinning and spin it off on the end. He got his timing wrong and ripped the skin off his neck with the spin. Just for those who consider Chinese weapons wimpy.

With his moving to Pittsburgh, I didn’t go much further with him in new forms. But at Wilkes-Barre on those Saturday afternoon forms workouts, his senior students shared a bit of their students studies with me. I learnt the Advanced Pai Lum form – Pai Lum. I later learnt this was the form George Dillman used back when he got the reputation of being a forms competitor in the late 60’s early 70’s. He studied it from Daniel Pai.  

Pai Lum is a very interesting southern style Chinese form. Its not very long and is done somewhat in a star pattern.  It became a favorite practice of mine.

I also Studied their under black sash forms for Chinese Short Staff and Chinese Staff.

But time passed and I had to move to New England, away from their schools.

Not having kung fu people to work with, forms far too advanced for my students, and the onset of very painful arthritis a year or so later, eventually much of this was put to rest, and instead of intense regular training, became episodic training.

Those deep stances which did so much for my Kusanku and Bo studies, began to stop because of joint damage I suffered.  There was no room to swing a three sectional staff, and as work took more time I had to make choices which I’d keep and which would slowly slip away.

I regret everything and I regret nothing.

 

Ernest and I became faster friends. At Pocono martial arts summer camps he’d teach the Northern Cotton Palm form, Kwando, the first few rows of Hon Kuen and eventually a Northern Shaolin White Crane form (which I totally understood from my previous training).  And when the time came my ongoing tai chi studies advanced, he taught me much, much more unto this day with my studying Wu Tai Chi Chaun too.

We’d begin to vacation together on occasion with our families. He taught me a 2 man set, the first real practical application of the Northern Shaolin technique. But not having anyone to practice with (beyond the nature of my karate students training) I only retained my notes. The stuff was interesting and a contrast to the Sutrisno 2 person sets I studied.

 

Later he’d do clinics with my students in Derry, and teach a Jing Mo Association 2 person set (another of the original 10 forms). It’s really neat, but again just not enough time.

Once he reset his program to teach Eagle Claw, he began to teach me the Eagle Claw 2 person principles (basic sets) and a piece of the 108 locking form (for 2 people).

Alas we learn much, but there’s just not enough time to take advantage of what he’s shared.

In time I did come to understand much from the 2 person Eagle Claw training these past few years, and can see the Eagle Claw within the Isshinryu system. One of the important fascets of the Eagle Claw principles, you see how much the lower body checks are employed in the locks.  Then training with Sherman you’d seem him do the same (just not describe what he was doing), and much of the arts began to flow together.

Ernest tells me it isn’t how much I forget which is important, but the context these studies offer my training, which is important.  Of course if I’ve set aside a few forms, he’s set aside hundreds just to focus on Eagle Claw.  Several time I’ve even had to share with him forms he taught me (as he no longer runs them) so he could film me for his records.

I really didn’t cross-reference this with my Tai Chi studies with Ernest. That is a separate topic.  These Northern Chinese arts are very, very complex. IMO, most people would be better served in Karate training. But for those who want to push themselves to the maximum, these systems can go the distance

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Disclaimer – The Chinese arts are so vast I don’t pretend my studies are fair characterizations of their depth. This is just what I’ve seen and done.