Shaolin White Crane Gong Fu Basic Training 1 & 2 (Kung Fu) Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming

Rating:
Summary: A valuable White Crane reference
Review: The White Crane is a southern chinese kung fu style, and Dr. Yang's presentation sets the standard. As the Long Fist style forms a backbone for many northern chinese arts, so the White Crane style is a parent art from which many southern styles developed (including Wing Chun, Japanese and Okinawan Karate and famous family styles like Hung Gar, Choy Li Fut, etc.) so it is worth studying.

Included are sections on basic training (drills that break down the standard stances and techniques into simple easy to understand movements) and application drills (chi sao or sensing drills). The large number of practical applications derived from these basics is simply amazing.

This is mainly a reference material, as Books and DVDs do not make good primary instructional material for martial arts, so plan on attending a seminar or finding a good local school to get the most from this DVD.

Rating:
Summary: As real as it gets!
Review: This is very traditional Kung Fu as it was taught in ancient times, with deep Qi energy theory and training included. The author is a leading scholar on the topic of the arts of Shaolin and has been a pioneer in bringing authentic Kung Fu to the West. The DVD has multiple languages of narration and subtitles and plays on all DVD players in all countries because Master Yang is on a mission to keep these arts alive, and to spread them throughout the world.

With this video a Karate practitioner can trace back the roots of their practice to its origin in Shaolin temple, and learn many martial applications for fighting, which are often lost in modern day Kata.

I recommend training the White Crane Hard and Soft Qigong first for about 6 months to get a feel for the movements, which later get applied as 'Jin' or 'Power' patterns. Then, the 'Jin' patterns are put together forming a sequence. Training the Qigong first teaches you to lead the Qi energy throughout the body to be used later while fighting or in the sequences, which is the true secret of explosive power in real Kung Fu.