[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvTxH11O2HU"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvTxH11O2HU[/ame] This is based on the horsecrap that is Lin Kuei in "China's Ninja Connection" Seriously Obkae, just make up anything you want because the real thing flat out does not exist
Not that it matters with the timelines of the books mentioned, but... Leung Tings original book Skills of the Vagabonds (the first edition) was first published in 1983. No, I do not have a copy of the book. I just remember seeing the advertisement back in the 80's.
Mmm there is so something fishy going on here here though. After a leisurely day of looking some interesting stuff has emerged. If the china/ ninjutsu connection is utter rubbish, the underlying elements may have some veneer of truth. It seems like the authors of the 1980's may have used some genuine historical knowledge and then added some fictional stuff it to make it more exciting and make a totally bogus/tenuous connection to Japan. Regarding the 'vagabonds' it seems to have been a genuine trope used in fictional wuxia stories about a vagabond/beggar sect who acted as some sort of undercover intelligence gathering society. I havn't read the stories so I can't comment on them. Here is the wiki on them, though I can't tell how accurate it is. Martial arts seemed to be a fundamental part of the storytelling. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars'_Sect Now surfing around I did find in some corners that something known as 'Beggar style' kung fu may have existed. Apparently the word Vagabond/Beggar is used interchangably. One of the more verbose articles was done for Kung Fu magazine by a certain Salvatore Canzonieri. Article can be read here: http://www.bgtent.com/naturalcma/CMAarticle28.htm The article is uncited, as it was a magazine job and make the usual mistake of citing Sun Tzu as a major inspiration for all chinese martial arts, but then gets to the nitty gritty and describes the art itself which it claimed to be an mixture of northern and southern styles as well as a hodge podge of more exotic skills. I don't know how much credence to give the article, but it does go into a lot of detail including forms. Thing is I get the impression that he's taken a lot of information toghether from various sources and cobbled it toghether uncritically. As for Salvatore himself, he doesn't claim to teach it but has been active for quite a long time. His website can be found here: http://www.bgtent.com/CMAQigongSchool/index.html His school is very...esoteric. Looking further i to this I was quite surprised that Terry Brown of HEMA claims he had a background in beggar kung fu. Now Terry is like a grandad in the english HEMA movement and while I have never met the man I know him by reputation and for a guy who has dedicated his life to reading and researching historical manuscripts on european martial arts and double checking his facts I very much doubt he would make this up. Apparently he learned it when he was stationed in Singapore: http://www.terrybrownenglishmartialarts.com/my-kung-fu-background/ Again the same elements surface. Used by travellers/tinkerers. An eclectic mix of north and south. Terry actually commented on this on MAP many years ago. For further details check this thread: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85187 So what's the truth? Perhaps greedy 1980's writers who merged ninja with fictional wuxia tales which in turn were based on a misunderstanding of a genuine eclectic martial tales? Hate rabbit holes. My head hurts.
However one of the huge problems with CMA history is the tendency for Wuxia tropes to be presented as fact. The existence of tropes is not necessarily indicative of historicity, but is likely due to the extensive plagiarism that existed in Chinese literature. Tropes can often be more useful as an indicator of political feeling, so for example in the late Qing in the aftermath of the Taiping rebellion Shaolin characters were violent trouble makers, whereas in the Republican period they were nationalist heroes.
The other problem with vagabond in Kung Fu, relating to your Terry Brown reference, is does it just mean Hakka?
Mmmm...so the wuxia beggar sect is in keeping with the socio-political discourse of the time they were written rather than having any genuine link to the genuine beggar kung fu. Just shows what damage to history fiction can do. Its a sobering thought.
You have me at a disadvantage there. My only in depth CMA knowldge stretches only really as far as Taijiquan - not sure what Hakka is (sub-school?) Hannibal, could you enlighten us what was in the book you are speaking of? I can't find a decent copy of it. Was it just badly plagiarised takamatsuden stuff or was it totally made up?
The Hakka or guest people are a culturally distinct group predominantly in Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi, but also in other regions and throughout the SE Asian Chinese diaspora. They have several martial arts systems notably SPM, Bak Mei and Lung Ying.
"Skills of the Vagabonds" by Leung Ting (there was also a sequel "Behind the Incredibles" which I didn't read) In fairness most of the book looks at the tricks and scams that were used to convince people that they had magic powers - akin to half the nonsense pedaled about ninja - but the actual "kung fu" was bloody awful - the opening technique was a leaping "karate kid" front kick followed by a reverse punch IIR correctly it also had "yellow dog scratches the sand" - which consisted of picking up dirt and flinging it at an opponent....stunning!
Well...flinging dirt I suppose it kind of a bit like Togakure ryu Metsubushi...It will be interesting to see where Leung Ting sourced his material from, if it was from Li Hsing (aka Randall Brown) in which case its highly suspect stuff, or if he predates it and sourced it from elsewhere. Either way I've looked into it a bit more and it seems Canzonieri's article borrows for good or ill from Leung Ting's book. Either way it seems to differ from Terry Brown's system, at least in the forms.
Like this? (01:43) [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFigVGEGCCk"]Malaysia Wenwu Arts Association - Hakka (Vagabond) Tiger Fist - YouTube[/ame]
Botta Dritta, Thank you sooo much for sharing that extensive research. I was especially taken in by this right here: Thank you so much for sharing! That page explains the Red Amulet Sect that was mentioned before, and why others have compared them to European gypsies. That page even claims that one of the members of the Amulet Sect went to Japan during the 6th century and played an active role in the formation of ninjutsu. This is exactly the type of information I am looking for. Thank you so much.
You're welcome. Just treat the article with a pinch of salt however. I havn't been able to verify exactly where he got his all his information from.
George Kohler had mentioned earlier that Leung Ting wrote his book on vagabonds before Li Hsing or Midway Games published their ideas on Chinese ninja. Midway Games seems to have been inspired by Li Hsing, who mentioned the "lin kuei" (forest demons), but does Leung Ting also mention the "lin kuei" specifically? Or does he just mention the beggars/vagabonds? Also concerning the beggars, The Red Amulet Sect of Beggar Style Kung Fu allegedly had a school in Guilin City in Guangxi province. Guilin City, or Kuei-lin, is basically "lin-kuei" backwards. I wonder if Li Hsing invented the idea of the fictional lin-kuei based off of information he gathered from Leung Ting's books. Just a curious thought. Also, it was mentioned that Leung Ting was a practitioner of Wing Chun Kung Fu from the Yip Man clan. I remember a story by Yip Man's son, Yip Chun, who mentioned a character named Cheung Ng, or Tan Sau Ng (beggar hand Ng) who was nicknamed for sitting on the docks and doing Red Boat Opera performances while holding his hand out for money. Tan Sau would later be incorporated into Wing Chun as one of their techniques. It makes me wonder if Cheung Ng might not have been a member of the Beggar Sect and if perhaps there isn't some sort of truth about the Wing Chun theory of being an assassin's style. Again, just a thought. I'm not presuming anything, I'm just suggesting a possible link. Concerning some of the other martial artist's views on this style, I must admit that even from an inexperienced novice point of view, it does not look very good. But what is there to see? Modern practitioners and Yang Feng Kung Fu or Wing Chun Kung Fu masters that nobody really knows much about? To some people, this style might seem very silly. But when looking at the history of it and what the masters have said concerning Beggar Style Kung Fu's past, it does ring like a deadly and effective style. So perhaps maybe it's not the style that has failed to progress, but the practitioners themselves who aren't very good. Just something to think about. It does say on that webpage that Fan Shui Wai was a beggar stylist who engaged in no-holds-barred duels and once killed a Thai boxer. If that's true, then beggar's style kung fu was obviously a devastating style in the past. If today's practitioners are merely the front page of these rare and hard-to-find styles, then I strongly suggest that other martial artists do not judge a book by its cover. There might be something worth learning from every style, if only we are willing to open our hearts to it. Anyways, thank you all again for all of your help. Always smiling, ~Obake~
Again brother I'm sorry but we don't actually have a source for the claim about the Amulet Sect traveling to Japan by 500 AD. Worse is that nothing in that article is sourced, leading me to believe much of it is false. Interesting side note, 'Red Amulet' is not even associated in Chinese history with assassination whatsoever it was a Buddhist sect devoted to Vajrakilaya, which has nothing to do with gypsies or Ninjutsu.
