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2006

Southern Shaolin

The home page of Sifu Wong Kiew Kit's school in Malaysia is packed with information, photos, and videos. These include a beautiful clip of the Ho Family Flowing Water Staff, a grainy-but-worth-it clip of the Pa Kua Staff of Fifth Brother, and two clips of staff use in an old kung fu movie [1] [2], which I can't say I find very interesting.

The Sifu also has an extensive section titled Can Kungfu be used for fighting?

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Five Tiger And Sheep Staff

A beautiful wushu form (Wu Hu Qun Yang Gun), performed confidently and without tension by master Hung Ting Seng. The movements are broad, with many sweeps, and an overall mixture of attack, defense, and touches of theater that make for a satisfying form to watch and perform.

Part of the 'Wushu Series of Master Hung Ting Seng.' The video method used for instruction involves repeating each movement twice, then once in slow motion, then one more time at regular speed. It is a good method, but would be even better if it were indexed. The camerawork is simple, straightforward (which is good!). The traditional music used is very nice, and a relief for those of us who find the usual wailing guitar soundtracks annoying. In chinese, with chinese subtitles, and an english voiceover.

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Qimei Cudgel (Qi Eyebrow)

A classic Shaolin staff form -- classic in the sense that it mixes many familiar Shaolin stances, attacks, defenses, and spins. The instruction is excellent, with repeated movements, slow motion, and a few examples of applications. The instuctor is experienced and capable, though personally I find his performance a little wooden (my wife doesn't agree).

This VCD is part of what I call the 'Sports' wushu series, mainly because that's the pretty much the only English word anywhere. All the VCDs in this series have similar qualities. On the plus side, most of the practitioners are highly skilled, and the instruction sections are lengthy and patient (useful even for someone who doesn't speak the language). On the down side, the production values of these discs are consistently low: The video is grainy, the music is inane, and the indexing is virtually non-existent. In Mandarin, with Chinese subtitles. You can usually find them cheap ($7 or so).