View Full Version : Obsidian
JeetKuneDo
04-17-2003, 22:07
Hello, im Obsidian. Im new to these forms. Because Im new I would like to get to know you all and your martial arts. I myself have been training in Gung Fu and Jeet Kune Do for two years.I have almost mastered nunchuckus. I have been doing a workout everyday or every other day thats two hours long. I also run 3-4 miles around the lake that I have in my back yard. I also have (or had) a teacher for A while. But he moved away so thats why im here for help with martial arts when I need it. I hope this is a helpful place..... :D
Webmaster
04-17-2003, 22:13
and what was the purpose of your poll?
Ron Rompen
04-18-2003, 10:22
Mastered nunchuka in two years?
Perhaps you would like to rephrase that. There are many members here who have been training for longer than I've been alive (and when I was born, the dinosaurs were still training), and they don't consider that they have 'mastered' their style.
Now that I've gotten that rant out of the way, welcome to the board.
If you don't have a sifu now, how do you train/improve? (This isn't a dig, this is an honest question).
I voted but have ZERO idea what the poll entails.
What is Gung fu, Kung fu?
i have never heard of this.... Please tell me!
Pretty Please with a Cherry on top
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
---
Anywayz Welcome to budoseek!
:wave: :wave:
rpnp
Okay whats the deal we have loads of lurkers and 4 people who have posted....yet only two people have voted. Myself and ??????.
because there is no reason to vote
That is the beauty of it. We have no idea what we are voting on.
Obsidian!
What is the purpose of you pole?
Please respond!
Somebody wants you to explain Gung Fu and Kung Fu!
(I've always thought these are just examples of different chinese dialects, but I'm not sure)
Where are you Obsidian?
Somebody wants you to explain Gung Fu and Kung Fu!
there is no difference between the two! Just a misspelling between western and eastern worlds. (i may be wrong)
A misspelling?
I thought they just belonged to different dialects.
Does anyone else no anything about Gung Fu and Kung Fu?
A misspelling?
i think so, but im not that sure
We'll have to find somebody and ask them.
Here we are posting all over Obsidian's thread and he's nowhere to be found.
Yo, Obsidian, DON'T BE AFRAID TO REPSPOND!
I'm going to try to find out about the whole Gung Fu Kung Fu thing in the chinese forums.
I found out from someone in the Chinese martial arts forum that Gung Fu and Kung Fu mean the same thing. They just come from different dialects Gung Fu = Cantonese, Kung Fu = Manderin.
Mandeigh Wells
04-20-2003, 10:27
also Gong Fu....
tai chi chuan = taijiquan
Hsing I Chuan = xingyiquan
Interesting, do the Japanese have different dialects as well?
socialspider
11-21-2004, 08:57
this is the best poll ive seen so far lol
When I first read the title of this thread I thought he was talking about the glassy, sedimentary rock. :rolleyes:
When I first read the title of this thread I thought he was talking about the glassy, sedimentary rock. :rolleyes:
Igneous surely? Obsidian has a very small crystal size, but is still definitely not a sedimantary rock (usually characterised by layers of different material rather than semi-ordered crystals)... In fact I think Obsidian is the end product of very fast magma cooling, resulting in some of the smallest crystals found in rocks.
Having said that, I haven't studied geology for a while, so I may be mistaken about any of this.
Semi-on topic: Japanese/Chinese to English doesn't directly translate, so there are often several ways of representing the same syllable in English, especially when such a syllable doesn't have a natural translation into English. As an example, the word "jujutsu" has several different written forms in English, though the most widely accepted (and official I believe) form is as I wrote. Other forms include the terms "jiu" and "jitsu" in various permutations.
On topic: mastering anything in 2 years is almost impossible. Keep training, and look back on yourself in a couple of decades and you'll realise how much more there was to learn. And there will still be stuff that you can't do perfectly. That's the real beauty of martial arts, skill can always increase further.
I thought the Obsidian Order is the secret police of the Cardassians in Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Oh well.
Igneous surely? Obsidian has a very small crystal size, but is still definitely not a sedimantary rock (usually characterised by layers of different material rather than semi-ordered crystals)... In fact I think Obsidian is the end product of very fast magma cooling, resulting in some of the smallest crystals found in rocks.
You know what, I believe you're right. Especially about the fast cooling of the lava on the earth's surface. Sorry, it's been awhile since I studied rocks.
Mikey Triangles
11-22-2004, 21:58
Interesting, do the Japanese have different dialects as well?
I think every language has different dialects, but Cantonese and Mandarin are basically different languages.
I'd vote, but I can only choose one answer, and I need to check both of them! :confused:
.... Cantonese and Mandarin are basically different languages. Mandarin is the official Chinese while Cantonese is one of bizzillion Chinese dialects, and the main one in the Chinese province of Canton. They both use Chinese Characters. There are some Cantonese slangs that you wouldn't find in Mandarin Chinese.
Tripitaka of AA
11-23-2004, 01:10
Mandarin is the language of the People's Republic of China, as previously mentioned. There are other dialects but the most prolific OUTSIDE China is Cantonese. The people of Canton were those most likely to have emigrated perhaps?
Also Hong Kong uses Cantonese dialect. I'm not sure about the USA, but in Britain there are several Chinese restaurants (or walk-in takeaways) in every small town. They are, in my experience, usually speaking Cantonese, and they often have a link to Hong Kong (sometimes recent, sometimes 2nd or 3rd generation).
My former teacher is Malaysian, of Chinese descent, and he speaks Cantonese. He explained that having been brought up in Malaysia (English language is used in the Education system) he cannot "read" Chinese characters. He also mentioned once that Cantonese is like a separate language, but that it doesn't have a wrtten form. By that, I think he meant that Mandarin-speakers may not understand Cantonese-speakers, but the written language woud be using the same characters.
This also explains why some terrific Martial Arts movies come with several sets of subtitles - I saw one clip from "Drunken Master" which had been dubbed into English, had subtitles in English, Japanese, Mandarin.. all on-screen at the same time. This was a bad VHS pan-and-scan, where any long sentences went off either side of the screen... and you wonder why they never seem to bother with a decent script in a Hong Kong Movie!
So now we have establshed that there are two main dialects of Chinese likely to be encountered, we come on to the next problem... Romanisation.
Romanisation is the term used to describe the way the Chinese (or Japanese) sounds and/or characters are written down for Westerners to read. Because we all use the "Roman" alphabet, don't we! Ok, ok, I know we use U and V, when the Romans just seemed to use V.
Anyhow, there are "systems" of Romanisation that use slightly different combinations of letters to approximate the sound of the Chinese. In my lifetime there seems to have been a major switch in the preferred system for Chinese Romanisation, such that names for People and Places now look a whole load different from before. Lots of "X"s and "TS" instead of "CH" Peking is now written as Beijing. Wing Chun is likely to show up as Ving Tsun.
Of course, this doesn't mean a great deal to Chinese people, as they are reading the characters, but to a Westerner the variety of spellings can be highly confusing. Run a search on "Wing Chun" or "Ving Tsun" and you'll see...
My contribution comes from little bits of informaton picked up over the years and is certainly NOT defnitive. If you want to really know stuff, you should ask the right person... having said that, I'll offer my knowledge whenever I can... just use your own discretion when deciding how much value it merits.
Tripitaka of AA
11-23-2004, 01:17
...and I loved the poll (or "Pole", as it was memorably misspelled) :laugh:
...and I'm now considering naming my next child "Obsidian" :cool:
...and I loved the poll (or "Pole", as it was memorably misspelled) :laugh:
...and I'm now considering naming my next child "Obsidian" :cool:
I doubted that was the right spelling. I didn't think we were talking about the Earth's axes.
That would be a cool name. I wish I had it. Think that name can be unisex?
The boy practices Bong Fu
breaksallaround
07-19-2005, 15:10
The boy practices Bong Fu
so that's why he forgot to reply to the many questions regarding the purpose of his pole....hehe :laugh:
KempoCat
07-19-2005, 19:57
My former teacher is Malaysian, of Chinese descent, and he speaks Cantonese. He explained that having been brought up in Malaysia (English language is used in the Education system) he cannot "read" Chinese characters. He also mentioned once that Cantonese is like a separate language, but that it doesn't have a wrtten form. By that, I think he meant that Mandarin-speakers may not understand Cantonese-speakers, but the written language woud be using the same characters.
david, i didnt realise until the other weekend, that jee sensei was malaysian. i'd assumed that he was korean. wow, now that i know he speaks cantonese, hey i can have a natter with him :D :D
s.henson
10-11-2005, 15:51
If he has been practicing his nunchaku instead of checking the board, he is probably a grand-master by now.
TCBA_Joe
10-11-2005, 20:01
What is Gung fu, Kung fu?
i have never heard of this.... Please tell me!
Pretty Please with a Cherry on top
Its dialect differances. When I was in China, and said that I practiced Kung fu they had no clue what i was talking about. i said Gung fu. they knew what i was talking about. my guess is its regional. China is so big that even hello is differant. Niho is pronounced quite differantly there as well depending on where you go.
oh... hi new dude! welcome
TroyRoget
10-12-2005, 00:14
Interesting, do the Japanese have different dialects as well?
Well, there's Okinawan, but since that's approximately 73% the same as Japanese, it's in a blurry area between being a dialect and being a different language entirely. There are also a lot of variations in the writing system, mainly due to the many ways in which the Chinese character set was adapted to the Japanese language in the early days when it was introduced. However, spoken Japanese doesn't have as much dialectic variance as Chinese for the simple reason that the area in which it is spoken spans far less space and contains much fewer cultural groups.
I've attempted to learn Japanese (specifically the Okinawan dialect) a number of times but there are few aids for this and I'm busy with many things (not the least being martial arts!) and so it has turned out that I've learned much more about Japanese than learning actual Japanese. I hope to change that soon.
Antares33
10-12-2005, 00:24
From what I understood from my ill fated semester of Japanese in college, dialects differ quite a bit in Japan, both regionally and between males and females.
As I understand it, many male American students sound quite... uh.... flamboyant to Japanese people because they have had principally female Japanese instructors.
From what I understood from my ill fated semester of Japanese in college, dialects differ quite a bit in Japan, both regionally and between males and females.
As I understand it, many male American students sound quite... uh.... flamboyant to Japanese people because they have had principally female Japanese instructors.
Heh, I'm in Japanese in University, for my first time. .. . not going so well..
But anyways I can agree with that whole post :laugh:
It's amusing picking up on the different nuances that females use, and using them in front of the teacher :up:
ling hou
11-07-2005, 11:41
Ok about Chinese Romanization.
There are basically 2 different types. But five in total.
Wade Giles and Pin Yin
Wade Giles is the older version.
Pin Yin is the modern standardized Romanization of Chinese (putong hua).
Neither is perfect in Pin yin the X is pronounced as Sh as in sheep. And Q is pronounced as Ch as in Cheap.
I will give the differences between the two.
Wade Giles PinYin
K G both sounds are somewhere between a K and a G
P B
TS C The WG, is less confusing
T D Some where in-between the two
CH Q Chi, Qi both sound the same
And the list goes on and on…..
So gung fu is for pin yin and kung fu is for Wade Giles….but both are pronounced as g u ng fu, and the U makes an almost a OO sound.
In regards to dialects many words are romanized differently for the different pronunciations but have the same meaning.
Like the word Sifu (see-fu) (Guang Zhou Hua, Cantonese) or Shifu (shure-fu) (PuTong Hua, Mandarin).
You could imagine the difficulty in teaching oral English here in China. :burn:
Yang Wei Xin
01-11-2006, 17:38
What am I doing?
btw, in San Francisco, the dialect primarily spoken is Cantonese.
and you can't misspell chinese, cause they use characters, not words.
GodofGamblers
01-11-2006, 18:38
Com'on guys, i think the purpose of the poll is fairly clear. Either you like kung fu/gung fu/wushu whatever or, as you're doing it you have misgivings while practising... i.e. 'what am i doing?'.... "way of the Dog? why did i choose this?... What IS this?".
GodofGamblers
01-11-2006, 18:40
There are over 80 languages in China; for political and cultural reasons we put them all under the label 'Chinese' but in fact some are as distant as English and German, for example.
I once heard that "kung fu" actually means "skill", so it could apply to anything, for example, cooking, gardening, etc.
if this is true then to say that you study "kung fu" could, thus, lead to confusion.
Rokto Obotar
01-11-2006, 19:23
When I first read the title of this thread I thought he was talking about the glassy, sedimentary rock. :rolleyes:
chrono did you google that?
There is no point he probally forgot about this forum. Which Ibelieve we should all stop posting here especialy if mister 2 year nunchuka is trying to master another weapon in a record breaking 2 year time. Hes probably training...
chrono did you google that?
No, I took Geology about a year and a half ago. Of course, I forgot that it was igneous instead of sedimentary. ;)
Yang Wei Xin
01-12-2006, 16:25
There are over 80 languages in China; for political and cultural reasons we put them all under the label 'Chinese' but in fact some are as distant as English and German, for example.
I once heard that "kung fu" actually means "skill", so it could apply to anything, for example, cooking, gardening, etc.
if this is true then to say that you study "kung fu" could, thus, lead to confusion.
usually translated as
"learned skill"
"skill and energy"
"time and energy"
"hard work"
but most people know what you mean, altho in china i think it is usually referred to as wushu.
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