Talk:Liu Seong Kuntao

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Contents 1 Cultural and Etiquette influences 2 Wikified 3 Notability 4 System History

this article will eventually have a list of schools and practitioners of Liu Seong. anyone who wants to be listed can post their basic info here. -kuntaokid

any other comments or questions can be posted here as well.-kuntaokid

Okay, belay that, i am not removing the article.-kuntaokid

Question: one day my isp was blocked, due to my attempt to delete, i assume. but a message said there are multiple authors on this page. where is this list of authors? how can i view it? thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kuntaokid (talk • contribs)

Greetings Kuntaokid. I am not an Admin, so I don't know anything about ISPs getting blocked. The history of an article lists all the changes made to a page over its lifetime, when those changes were made, and who made them. The history of a page can be found at the top of the page on one of the little tabs above the article name. A direct link for this page's history can be found here. --Llort 20:42, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Llort, thank you. Sorry to keep violating protocols here, i am new to wikipedia. I think i know my way around a little better now. -kuntaokid

[edit] Cultural and Etiquette influences

This article briefly goes into traditions that influence practice of the art, and says:

"The Liu Seong system is culturally derived from the arts of China and Indonesia, and accordingly has tactical elements of both. The adopted cultural aspects, primarily school etiquette, may vary between Chinese and Indonesian terminology and practices, and may even include elements of both."

However, from what I've seen from training with a number of people in this system, many of the "terminology and practice" aspects of the art come from Japanese culture. I don't know if it's because of the considerable exposure Master Reeders had to Japanese arts, because of the common terminology changes implemented in Indonesian martial arts when Japan took over and banned non-Japanese martial arts, or because Master Reeders felt that American students were more familiar with Japanese terminology and etiquette. But for whatever reason, much of the etiquette and even more of the terminology used by most teachers of this system are of Japanese origin. I'm not sure how best to fold that into the article (if at all) without giving the impression that the art itself may have Japanese roots, which it clearly doesn't. - Erik Harris 13:38, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Greetings Eric,

I avoided that for just that reason. wasnt sure how to address it. maybe a paragraph could be inserted to explain this as well. I have also heard that it was easier for master reeders to translate from Japanese to English, rather than from Chinese to English. one potential reasoning in addition to those you indicated above. Our terminology is limited to begin with and it is mostly english and japanese, with some indonesian terms like titju or kumbong. the japanese is used in regards to hand strikes and not much more as far as i know. it also seems that alot of the english terminology is a translation of essential chinese concepts. and in many ways, most elements of the system are nameless.

another point to consider is that is has been stated that master reeder's kuntao was fujian white crane. which is often quoted as being the basis of most karate styles. i didnt really want to get into stating this theory in the article...

as well, from what i understand, one teacher in the art has studied other silat systems and learned and applied terminology from those systems to the liu seong system. Essentially he studied the roots arts and found the proper names for many of the movements, or at least what they are derived from. -kuntaokid

thanks for the edit. i can definately use the help. -kuntaokid

[edit] Wikified

Wikified as part of the Wikification wikiproject! JubalHarshaw 17:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

Some dates to the founding and birth (death?) of Reeders are necessary. For all a casual reader knows this art was founded yesterday and is practiced in one place. Until that's addressed there will be a question of notability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PRehse (talk • contribs)

Done (birth/death years listed). Pinning down the date of founding would be tricky to say the very least. Like so many other family systems, its history is one of constant evolution, compounded by the fact that the system, if that word really applies, is sometimes referred to as a "broken mirror art." If you go to three different teachers within the art, you'll likely find three different versions of the art (partly due to differing personalities, but largely due to the very individualized nature of Reeders' teaching. He taught everyone something a bit different), though the ties between them will be clear. Also, I'd note that anyone who read the article and saw that the three dated references are from 1986, 1996, and 1997 will know that this system was not "founded yesterday." :) I'll also add something about where the art is practiced, in general terms so as to avoid turning this into a link farm.

As I've stated on the WikiProject Martial Arts talk page, notability is really tricky in martial arts. Some arts have a long, public history, but a large number of arts trace their roots to secret societies and possessive (secretive) families or communities. Documentation often doesn't exist or is closely guarded, even in unquestionably-notable systems, and often, the documentation that is available for those and other systems is unreliable (due to issues of pride, nationality, superstition, cultural tendancies for hyperbole, etc, etc). Nearly everyone who has spent a decade or so in Indonesian martial arts communities in the United States (at least) is familiar with Reeders and his art, but documented references are hard to come by (I added the only four publicly available documents that I'm aware of - two books by practitioners of the art, and two articles by people outside the art). Honestly, by overall notability requirements suitable for an encyclopedia, the vast majority of martial arts articles on Wikipedia should be deleted. -Erik Harris 14:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. OK so I knew it wan't founded yesterday but I think some sort of case for notability needed and was made. CheersPeter Rehse 00:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] System History

A few back-and-forth reverts on the List of martial arts article has caused me to look at this article in a different light, and see a significant problem with it. The article, as written, makes it appear that Willem Reeders created the Liu Seong Kuntao system, and makes it appear as a distinctly new system. Given that the art's heritage goes back many, many generations, that's clearly not true. The art undoubtedly underwent significant evolution in Reeders' time (the infusion of Indonesian influences), and he was ostensibly the first to bring the art into the public, but I'm not convinced that such evolution qualifies the art to be a "modern" system (arbitrarily defined [by who?] as less than 100 years old). How do we correct this without resorting to original research, given that the art was basically unknown before Reeders' time, and even now, its practitioners largely keep to themselves, severely limiting the amount of historical information available to the public? We pretty much "credit" Reeders with the systems that he taught (Kuntao and Liu Seong/Siong Royal Chuan Fa), but also acknowledge that the systems themselves predate him. I've made a few minor edits to try to help clarify this, but I think to really "fix" it, many sections will need more substantive changes, and additional publicly-available sources of information are also needed, as hard as they are to come by for any historically-secretive art. —Erik Harris 15:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

the problem is that you cannot identify the core art. master reeders did blend and modify what he learned. what was it before it was the liu seong system? this is why i was clear on the point that what really identifies a system is the tactics employed. this art combines or has available within in its basic framework, many tactics, drawn from various sources. so it did not exist before willem reeders compiled and taught it, as it is a reflection of his knowledge and experience. and if you really want to split hairs, NO ONE is doing the liu seong system, per se. we have chapters that are centered on entirely different aspects of the art..chuan fa, silat, kuntao, tibetan taichi, and perhaps even more than that. So which is it? He had karate students as well....

i hardly think that people get the impression that master reeders drew this art out of a vacuum, obviously it is predated by existing methods that he learned. so it is an amalgam of various strategies and tactics, and in truth, may be more correctly viewed as a set of principles moreso than any catalogue of technique.

mike.