Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit's Home Page on Shaolin Kungfu, Chi Kung, Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) and Zen. The Twelve Bridges of Iron Wire Set. This photograph as well as the three below are reproduced from Sifu Pavel Macek's website at which means Lam Family Hoong Ka Kungfu. Sifu Pavel Macek is directly decended from Grandmaster Lam Sai Weng's lineage. Hoong Ka Kungfu is famous for its "bridges", or powerful forearms. The master best known for his powerful bridges was Thit Kiew Sam. It was recorded that he could let six able-bodied adults hang on each arm, yet walked for over a hundred steps. How did Thit Kiew Sam train to have such powerful arms? It was not through lifting weights and other mechanical means, but through practicing "Thit Seen Khuen", or the "Iron Wire Set".
Thit Kiew Sam taught this set to Lam Fook Seng, who in turn taught it to Wong Fei Hoong, who then taught it to Lam Sai Weng, the patriarch of your lineage. Through his generosity, Lam Sai Weng recorded this invaluable set for posterity in his classic, "Thit Seen Khuen" ("Iron Wire Set"), penned by his disciple Chu Yu Chai.
An analogy may make this clear. Video Clip Series: Shaolin Iron Wire Set. Grandmaster Wong demonstrating the iron Wire Set "Iron Wire" is a famous set in Southern Shaolin for training internal force. It is easy to practice it wrongly, hence one should learn it from a competent teacher. The video series showing the set is meant as reference for those who are attending the Iron Wire Course at the First Shaolin Wahnam Winter Camp at Helsinki, Finland from 25th to 26th January 2010. It also gives an idea of what this well-known but seldom seen set is like. It is not meant to be self-teaching material. The set demonstrated here is different in some aspects from that shown by the famous Hoong Ka grandmaster Lam Sai Weng.
Shaolin Iron Wire - Shaolin Greetings The size of the video clip is 768 kb Click here to download. Shaolin Iron Wire – Part 1 The size of the video clip is 921 kb Click here to download. Shaolin Iron Wire – Part 2 Right The size of the video clip is 1480 kb Click here to download. Shaolin Iron Wire – Part 2 Left The size of the video clip is 1440 kb.
Video Clip Series: Intensive Chi Kung Course of January 2006. Is chi real? Can you develop internal force? Can you really expand into the Cosmos? Many people today do not believe that chi and internal force are real. What is alarming is that even chi kung and Taijiquan teachers, whose arts specially involve chi and internal force, regard them as myths. On the other hand, the term “spiritual cultivation” has become fashionable. Even the most brutal of martial artists regard their training as spiritual cultivation. The Intensive Chi Kung Course enables course participants to have direct experience of chi, internal force, spiritual expansion and more in just three days! Yet, the course gives much more. Tapping Energy from the Cosmos “Lifting the Sky” is considered a wondrous exercise in Shaolin Wahnam because it can be used to achieve so many different purposes ranging from attaining good posture and freshening up for an important occasion to cleansing injuries and enjoying inner peace.
The size of the video clip is 2.86 MB. Click here to download. Wu Wei and the Void. Anthony Korahais Shaolin Wahnam USA Students at the Intensive Chi Kung Course in Malaysia enjoying “Wu-Wei” The following discussion by Sifu Anthony Korahais is reproduced from the thread That was Zen, this is Tao in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum on 6th and 7th January 2005. Wu Wei and the Void “Once the ‘seed’ of the visualization has been planted in the depths of the sub-conscious mind and establishes a permanent ‘root’ there, the continued use of the visualization is no longer necessary as the deeper mind will perpetually work to manifest the visualization until it is similarly programmed to do otherwise.” — Sifu Stier Sifu Stier, Here I think you are referring to the progression from “you wei” (conscious visualization) to “wu wei” (spontaneity). For example, in Dantian Breathing, we first “think of” breathing in good energy and breathing out negative energy.
Amazingly, Sifu Wong's students learn to do this not at an advanced level, but often in their first year of practice! Video Clip: Selection from Iron Wire Set. Selection from the Iron Wire Set The “Iron Wire Set” or “Tit Seen Khuen” is regarded as a treasure in Hoong Ka (Hung Gar) Kungfu, and is used for internal force training. It was invented by the great Shaolin master, Tit Kiew Sam, who was famous for his powerful forearms, and generously made known to the public by another great master, Lam Sai Weng. In his young days Sifu Wong practiced this set daily for some time, and developed tremendous internal force. However, this set can easily be wrongly practiced as an isometric exercise instead of as an internal force exercise. Here, Sifu Wong demonstrates a typical section from the “Iron Wire Set”.
Sifu Pavel Macek, who is from a direct lineage of Grandmaster Lam Sai Weng, has kindly provided a rare picture-series of the set demonstrated by the Grandmaster himself, and can be accessed here . You can find a description of the “twelve bridges” of the “Iron Wire Set” at Answer 5 of the May 2007 Part 2 of the Question-Answer Series. Video Clip Series: What You Learn in the Intensive Shaolin Kungfu Course — Part 4. Great Kungfu is a Process of Spiritual Cultivation It is fashionable for many martial artists today to say that their training involves spiritual cultivation. Even when their art is explicitly brutal and aggressive, they would still call it spiritual! Indeed it is hard to imagine how an art can be spiritual when the sole aim of its practitioners is to cause as much hurt to their opponents, often in a barbaric manner. But what is spiritual cultivation? The meaning is actually straight-forward.
It means the cultivation of the spirit. Logically, if an art has no concept of the spirit, or its practitioners do not believe in the existence of the spirit, then spiritual cultivation becomes irrelevant. Genuine traditional Shaolin Kungfu and genuine traditional Taijiquan are a class apart from all other martial arts, because originally they were practiced for spiritual cultivation, whereas all other martial arts were originally practiced for combat.
Spiritual cultivation is non-religious. Video Clip Series: Glimpses of the Iron-Wire and Taming-Tiger Course 2010. Grandmaster Wong demonstrating the Iron-Wire Set The Iron-Wire Set is much valued by Grandmaster Wong, but as our Shaolin Kungfu syllabus is quite full, he does not include it as basic training. Hence he teaches it as a supplementary course for those who wish to use it to develop internal force. The Iron-Wire Set is very powerful, so it is not feasible for course participants to practice it continuously for a long time. This gives a rare opportunity for Grandmaster Wong to teach another famous Southern Shaolin set, Taming-tiger, as a bonus. Because of the different nature in the training of the two famous kungfu sets, more videos are shown here for the Taming-Tiger Set than for the Iron-Wire Set. Please bear in mind that the number of videos or the amount of time spent in training does not reflect the relative importance of the arts involved.
There are a few reasons why we consider Iron-Wire to be more important than Taming-Tiger. Click here to enter Click here to enter.