Shaolin Wahnam Lineage

[Andy]

Actually, the burning from which the Five Elder's fled was possibly the (or a) Southern Shaolin Temple, in contradiction to my earlier statement.

The history is quite murky with all of the bannings of Shaolin/martial arts in Imperial History, as well as political upheavals at the change of dynasties; Yuan, Ming, Qing, Republic, Mao Tse Tung....

There are three claimants as Southern Shaolin temples; one in Guangdong and two in Fujian ...and the Northern temple has been destroyed more than once.

[Andy]

I was wondering why I couldn't find Jiang Nan in listings of the Five Elders...

Your version would also have made him very, very long lived

[Frederick_Chu]

Your version would also have made him very, very long lived

Ha ha, that's what happens when I don't apply logic to my thinking.

Looks like I'll need another sheet of paper to complete my lineage chart! Here's hoping I can get another, neater draft done for tomorrow.

[Andrea]

Dear Sidai

I really like the idea of a chart which includes the sets and their roots.origin... .

The following Q&A might be helpful too. Sigung explains there which sets he learned from who: http://www.shaolin.org/answers/ans06a/apr06-2.html

Best regards
Andrea

[Andy]

Yes - thanks for putting this all together, Fred.

It will be a great reference when completed

[Jimbeaux]

I like what you're doing. It's going to be really nice when it's finished. Thanks!

Cross Roads should be under Great-Grandmaster Ho Fatt Nam.
It's interesting to note that when Grandmaster Ho Fatt Nam's son (unfortunately his name escapes me) came to visit us in Frankfurt, he demonstrated Cross Roads at Four Gates and he used One Finger Shooting Zen as the energy form at the beginning.

http://www.shaolin.org/video-clips-4/four-gates/four-gates-01/overview.html

“Cross-Roads at Four Gates” was the fundamental kungfu set of the southern Shaolin Temple. It was transmitted by the Venerable Jiang Nam to Sifu Yang Fatt Khuen to Sifu Ho Fatt Nam to Sifu Wong Kiew Kit, who now teaches it in our school, Shaolin Wahnam.

To help you in your research, the cup fist is used for black tiger under Uncle Righteousness (as in the Triple Stretch set), while Grandmaster Ho Fatt Nam used a level fist for black tiger (as in Cross Roads).

[Frederick_Chu]

Version 2!

Dear all,

Attached to this post is roughdraft number two for the lineage of Shaolin Wahnam. For this post, I tried using the most recent information I could find from Sigung's Q&A (since many sources, including the current abbot of the Shaolin monastery, deny or obfuscate the southern temples) about Venerable Chee Seen's story and the southern Shaolin temples. To try and somewhat simplify matters, I just took the burning of the Northern Shaolin temple as "the" burning because it left us with the Five Elders.

I also found some references on the internet about the Fujian temple (Southern temple number one) having been established during the reign of Taizong of Tang (600's) and that Venerable Chee Seen fled from that one to establish the Nine Lotus Mountain temple (Southern temple number two).

Because of spacing, the section with the Ten Great Disciples of Southern Shaolin and the Ten Tigers of Canton was a bit messy. I'm also trying to figure out how to organize things to be a little bit more chronologically spaced (aesthetically, I don't like how Dong Hai Chuan's lineage is placed in the top right corner where Lohan Quan is). Once I get more time later this week (naturally, I just had to start this project in the first week of school, ha ha), I'll go back over my sources to get more concrete dating and organizational schemes.

I'm also looking to try and find a more clear lineage for the Choi Li Fatt of Yik Kam, who was the kung fu tutor of the Choe Family. If I can't find anything, I'll try to trace back the three "mother" systems of Choi Li Fatt (Choi, Li, and Fatt family) and then just "squiggly line" it to Yik Kam. If I remember right, Choi Li Fatt came around somewhere in the mid-1800's...

I put the image on my Imageshack account here: http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9...lineagever.jpg. The image should be visible below, if I'm tech-savvy enough.

Thank you Sigung and everyone on this thread for your support, critiques, and information! Hopefully once all the lineages are hammered out, one of our more artistic family members can draw out a nice lineage scroll for us.

edit: just realized that I didn't put put arrows from the "mother" styles of Wuzuquan (Fujian White Crane, Bodhidharma, Monkey, Taizu quan, Lohan quan) to Wuzuquan. That'll have to appear on version 3...

[bonuscap]

Hi Frederick , hope all is well with you and the family just wanted to say this is really impressive well done mate can't wait for the final draft
It gives me such great respect for the depth of our school and the art we practice keep up the good work

Best wishes
Chris

[Leo Shaolin]

Dear Frederick,

Thank you for your great work!

It would be great to have this as a wall scroll when you are finished. If you need any help to make a poster or scroll out of this, just contact me! I can't say how artistic I am, but I am willing to help.

Best wishes,
o\

Leo

[Leo Shaolin]

Dear Frederick,

I found Yik Kam's Lineage at the Martial Arts Lineage Project:

http://www.malineage.com/martial-artists/Yik-Kam

I am not sure about the credibility of the project, but maybe this helps...

Best,
o\

Leo

[Frederick_Chu]

Dear Sifu Leo,

Thank you for the link! Some of the names are corroborated with Sigung's Q&A, so I think I'll add them. Looking at some of the names on the list you mentioned also led to more information about the Yip lineage of Wing Choon. I'll update my third version and post it once I get to a working scanner. I updated it earlier due to the August 2012 Part 3 Q&A which talks about Sigung learning Eight Immortals techniques from Sitaigung Ho Fatt Nam, among other things.

Who knew "kung fu genealogy" could be so much fun? It's a blast tracking down where arts came from and the personalities & philosophies of certain traditions.

[Frederick_Chu]

Hi all!

Here's version three of the lineage tree. I was able to put in Yik Kam's lineage back to Yim Wing Choon as well as back-trace Yik Kam's Choi Li Fatt lineage back to the Choi, Li, and Fatt styles. Hopefully things are a little bit neater this time around.

The next issue I want to tackle is the identity of the various Monkey styles. Some form of Monkey style appears in Wang Lang's Praying Mantis style, Bai Yu Feng's Wuzuquan, and Sitaigung Ho Fatt Nam was a specialist in some form of Monkey style himself. I don't know if any of these Monkeys are the same or where they come from (North Shaolin, Fujian Shaolin, Nine Lotus Shaolin, from "Daoist" kung fu styles, or elsewhere), so any insight would be appreciated!

I'm also planning on removing the previous versions (at least the first one) due to errors and not wanting to give people bad information. Plus, I don't want to wind up wasting forum bandwidth on out-of-date stuff!

The image is also hosted on my ImageShack.us account, here: http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/919...lineagever.jpg

To Sifu Leo, I too, would love to have a wall scroll of this! Might be that I have to break out the old calligraphy skills...

Okay, that's enough out of me for now. Time to focus on microbiology and bacterial genetics.

[Frederick_Chu]

Dear family,

I'm sorry about committing the internet sin of triple-posting on the forum, but I just keep running into wonderful information after the edit limit

Sigung just sent me a private message in which he explained a little about the origin and qualities of the Monkey sets in the Shaolin Wahnam lineage:

I think I'm going to have to use a bigger sheet of paper next time.

I think that's enough posts for me today, time to get ready for dance class!

Dear Frederick,

The Monkey Style is found in various kungfu schools, and they are quite different.

The Monkey Set of my sifu, Sifu Ho Fatt Nam, and the Monkey Sets of Bai Yi Feng and of Wang Lang are different, though they were all from Northern Shaolin and may had the same source.

Other people may think we are crazy, but my sifu told me that his Monkey Set was taught to him ny the Monkey God, Sun Wu Tong, himself. the Monkey God appeared to my sifu in his dreams and taught him the Monkey Set. It has characteristics of Northern Shaolin Kungfu.

The Monkey Style of Bai Yi Feng was older than that of Wang Lang.

Of these three Monkey styles, that from my sifu looks the most like a monkey's movements, and that from Wuzuquan (Bai Yi Feng) looks the least. The stance of the Wuzuquan Monkey Style is quite upright, possibly influenced by the Lohan Style in Wuzuquan.

There are two other well known Monkey styles, one from Tai Seng Pek Kua Moon and the other from Hap Ka Kungfu. "Tai Seng" means "Great Sage", and refers to the Monkey God, who was given the title "Great Sage Equal to Heaven" by the Jade Emperor. Pek Kua means "Chopping and Hanging Fists" and is a style of Northern Shaolin.

Hap Ka Monkey Style is upright and powerful. It manifests an Aoe rather than a small Monkey. This style was derived from Lama Kungfu or Tibet.

The Monkey Set we have in Shaolin Wahnam came from two main sources, one from my sifu, Sifu Ho Fatt Nam, and the other from a sisook in Uncle Righteousnss lineage.

As there are different Monkey styles and they are quite different from one another, differentiating them by place of origin or respective progenitors is a good idea.

Best regards,
Sigung.

[Jimbeaux]

You may have already seen this, but just in case...

This Q&A: http://www.shaolin.org/answers/ans99b/nov99-1.html

has an extensive description of the temple/monastery burnings as well as the Five Elders and the 10 great disciples. The description starts on question 7 and continues into the next Q&A series.

I wonder if we have any skilled IT guys who can put the final product of your work into an interactive map??

[Frederick_Chu]

Thank you for the link, Jimbeaux! I did use information from that page, though looking more closely at it, it looks like I forgot a few links between people such as from Pak Mei being Li Pa San, of Li Style kung fu. That'll have to be updated in my next version.

I've been kept busy by my studies this past week, so I intend to carve out some time later today to see if I can't transcribe a lineage chart onto my large sketchbook to make things neater. Then I'll have to find a scanner on campus large enough to scan it!