User:Mary Vaccaro

I'm Mary Vaccaro. Nabi Su is the first article I have created. Nabi Su is a modern hybrid style of Kung Fu created in New York City. I am currently working to improve the Nabi Su article. I am also planning to edit other martial arts and related articles and also contribute another article on a different subject. Please post any comments and/or advice you have about improving my articles to my "Talk" page. I look forward to your comments. Thank you.

Mary Vaccaro (talk)

Mary, I took a look. I think one long paragraph is too dense for reading on a computer screen or tablet. Better to break up into smaller units of text. Also I don't agree that the reference to when he designated Rivers and Stewart as "masters" in the system is too vague. I think it adds something to the text, breathes a little life into it because it suggests that he waited, which he apparently did, holding back for reasons of his own although, even in my day, he used to tell us that Rivers had reached the apex and no longer needed him. -- SWM

Stuart, That's a good Rivers story! Yes, one paragraph would probably be too long. It needs a natural flow. Regarding the timing reference - Wikipedia standards say we must be as specific with dates as possible, even if we don't have the complete date. For example, "May 1968," "in the mid-50s," or "in 1952, the year before so-and-so died." Also, I thought that Rivers was gone from the school many years before Min Pai died. But I'm certainly not the one who knows about this. Anyway, whatever the date, we will be occasionally dealing with official Wikipedia editors who will be marking up our article, so I think it's best to wait until someone gets a more specific date and fills it in. I look forward to continue working on this with you. It is a better article with all the info you were able to add.

Thanks! Mary Vaccaro (talk)

Mary,

I'm told by Jason and some others that Rivers left around 1978-79. I left in '76 and Rivers, who had been gone for about a year at that point, had only recently returned again as I recall. He always kept himself aloof from the rest of the school but nobody was as dedicated or accomplished as he was. When I first arrived in '71 he was not that good though. He still got beaten on the sparring floor by outsiders and by Min's earlier black belts, some of whom would occasionally return to train with us. They were the old tournament style fighters, the ones with big kicks, fancy spins and aggressive moves aimed at "scoring". Min used to tell us to test ourselves against them.

But by around '75, when Rivers left for a time, he had become so good that everyone in the school feared "crossing swords" with him. Of course, we did it anyway since you couldn't count yourself as any good unless you had tested yourself against Rivers. Still, you did that at your own risk because Min used to tell him not to be afraid to hit back if he had to and his hitting and kicking capabilities had become legendary by then in the school. He didn't have fancy technique (though he had very good kicking reach) but he was deadly with the simple, straightforward stuff.

He was the most sensitive of all of us, and the most powerful. I got five black eyes in my day, one for each year I was there you might say, although I got them in the first three years of my time there. (Fortunately I got to the point where I stopped getting injured so much.) Most, if not all, of those black eyes (along with a bunch of other injuries I took) were delivered by Rivers. I still have vitreous floaters which affect my vision from all the impacts, which bother me a bit when I get tired. By my third year there Rivers, could easily handle any outsiders who came in to challenge us. He had one deficiency though. He was long limbed and very, very limber (Min used to tell him he was too limber, that he needed to tighten up some) so it sometimes took him too long to deliver strikes and kicks but, by the time he left around '75, that didn't matter any longer. Just making physical contact with him was enough to mess you up.

When I finally left it was only because I had gotten to the point where I could go head to head with him without getting mine handed to me. I could finally walk away uninjured. Of course I knew that in any prolonged encounter he'd still beat me because he was very, very powerful by then and, even though I had gotten good at avoiding getting nailed and at delivering my own blows when I needed to, no one, no matter how good you are, can avoid getting nailed forever. And I knew that if I ever sparred long enough with him, he would nail me (and, since I was no longer easy prey so to speak, I knew he'd give no quarter). But I was happy enough to be able to stand up against him and give as good as I got by then, at least for the short periods we used to spar! No one Min ever turned out, at least in my day or among those I have seen since, ever measured up to Rivers. It's a shame, at least from my standpoint, that he has apparently given it all up!

SWM

Mary,

By the way, in case you're interested in seeing what Yun Mu Kwan looked like in the pre- Nabi Su days, I finally had the core forms videoed a little more than a year ago (just before Hurricane Sandy) -- though I had been doing them for years on my own so I wouldn't forget them.

Of course I waited until I was over the hill to do them for the camera so I'm afraid I wasn't too good on the day my son shot the videos, but he and my wife had convinced me it was time to get them on tape. Since I may well be the only one left doing the forms as Min originally taught them in the early to mid seventies, I agreed.

You can see all but the tai chi (which I didn't do for the camera that day) on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrJ91F7nXAk3j4mdMc2DK8wJeRFft9QX7 (Although not the advanced forms he taught which included Jo Ga Quan, Moy Fa Su, Myung Bo, Bai Yuan Tao Tou along with a two man tai chi set, tai chi sword, butterfly sword, a Japanese and a Chinese staff form and the three Wing Chun forms -- Siu Lim Tao, Chum Kyoo and Biyu Tze -- all of which I dropped years ago as more or less superfluous and for lack of time to practice everything.)

I've seen the later versions of the core forms that you folks do and, for the most part, they look very, very different from what I was taught, especially Loong Quan (Dragon Fist)!

I note you folks have also dropped Shim Quan which used to be Min's primary form. I believe he adapted it from Sanchin which is a form common to a number of Okinawan and Japanese karate styles (Goju Ryu, Uechi Ryu, Isshin Ryu, Kyokushin) and can also be found in Fukien White Crane style kung fu (in southern China).

He apparently adapted it from one of those versions (probably from the version practiced in Uechi Ryu or in old Okinawan Goju Ryu) by reworking it to follow tai chi principles (he got rid of the tensing, heavy breathing, hard stances and strikes that characterize Sanchin as well as the isometrics). He also added some elements which look as if they were taken from Southern Praying Mantis (probably adopted from their Sam Bo Jin form) although there are also some eerie similarities in the middle section with another of the Southern style White Crane forms.

SWM

Stuart, I saw the videos of you, and they are wonderful! It was great to see what the old forms look like, and kudos to you for your dedication! How good it is to see you in action. Yes, the forms from the Yun Mu Kwan days look quite different from the Nabi Su forms. It is a treasure to have the videos and to be able to see what the style looked like in the early days. Thank you for the history and the stories! Mary Vaccaro (talk)

Mary,

I think the current version of the history page is misleading. The sharp break between the Yun Mu Kwan section and the Kung Fu and T'ai Chi stuff that you've introduced suggests a sharp break in the system but that wasn't the case. I joined in 1971 when it was still called Yun Mu Kwan (as it was at least until the late eighties). The t'ai chi and Wing Chun elements were already an integral part of the system, as were aspects of Hung Gar and southern Mantis. It was already the "karate" you came to know as Nabi Su, minus the form of that name and the later versions of the six core forms I still do. (Min did apparently drop Shim Quan and Iron Palm, which he replaced with Nabi Su.) We also did extensive zen sitting back then, though it preceded Min's subsequent establishment of Wellspring. So, while the system has its roots in the Shotokan clone style of Yun Mu Kwan, the changes you know as characteristic of Nabi Su long predated his adoption of that name. The way you've got the history section divided now, it looks like there was a precise demarcation between the periods reflecting the different names. That just wasn't the case.

I would go back to the earlier version where the changes are alluded to without suggestion of a clear and formal break!

SWM

Stuart,

OK. I see your point and I will take out the subtitles now and I will not touch anything else, as I see you are currently working on the article.

Mary Vaccaro (talk)

Mary,

At this point maybe it's best to just leave it alone. I have been working to make the transition you created clearer (and add more links to establish requisite bona fides) on what you set up last week. If you change it now, we'll likely have more work in clarifying.

I decided to add links to videos which exemplify things we mention in the article by the way. Wikipedia may be text dominated but, as an on-line encyclopedia, it seems to me it ought to take advantage of the kind of interactivity the Internet enables. I don't know if I've selected the best links in every case though. There are lots to choose from. I also tried to avoid anything too commercial in tone or approach but that wasn't always easy to do. Do you think it would pay to put some video clips up from Carolyn's school, too? I took a look at what I saw on-line and I'm not sure that's the way to go. But maybe we could kick this around a bit? SWM

Stuart,

1) Subtitles: The subtitles you replaced with the ones I took out are much better! That was the improvement we were looking for!

2) Videos: The videos you put in give interesting background info, and they are third party videos and not commercial, which is good. Let's not put up videos from Carolyn's school at this time, and leave it to the third party things that you have researched and found.

3) Dates: I would take out "in his later years...." because it might not be accurate, plus we are supposed to stay away from vague or relative references according to Wikipedia Guidelines. (In lieu of an actual year, a more specific approximate date, such as "in the mid-1970s", or "in the year before his death," would probably be OK.)  Mary Vaccaro (talk)

Mary,

Okay we can think about changing the phrasing, I guess. But as I recall Min never named Rivers a master in my day. It was only years later that I heard that, some time shortly before his death, he named Rivers along with Jim Stewart. Of course, as I said, I always considered Rivers a second "master," even my main teacher you might say for most of my years there. In my day Min didn't make it a practice of formally distinguishing among his black belts via assignment of rank. We wore no stripes on our belts and the way you knew someone was higher level was how old and frayed his or her black belt looked. Rivers' belt, as you may imagine, was nearly white!

Toward the end of my participation in the school, someone stole some of Min's grading certificates (I won't say who) so Min had new certificates made up, with the Yin Yang symbol he favored embossed on it and an imprint reflecting the Yun Mu Kwan calligraphy that Eido Roshi had once done for him. After that, he handed out new certificates to his black belts (something he hadn't done before) and put ranks on them (that's how I got my "promotion" to second degree, i.e., he had to issue a new certificate so I guess, by that time, he figured I was worth more than a first degree). I never saw Rivers' but I recall someone once saying Min had given him a fifth degree. I have no corroboration for that though.

My guess is that Min chose not to name a successor until he was pretty ill and knew he had to. I know that at one point he had turned over his school to Carolyn and Jim Stewart but Jim, apparently, found maintaining his end too difficult and turned it all over to Carolyn. I believe that Jim was with Min almost the longest of any of us (excluding Rivers!) which would probably explain his being designated as a "master" by Min. Jim recently told me that he started with Min in 1968 (I started in '71) though he didn't advance for a long time because he could only attend on a spotty basis and Min didn't give promotions unless you earned it. So Jim, I guess, knows a lot of the history, probably a good deal more than I do (though I was there more intensively for my five year stint than Jim was -- during that time anyway).

By the way, I've taken a crack at putting together a wiki page for Yun Mu Kwan, providing a more thorough account of the history of the style itself, from its Chinese, Okinawan and Japanese antecedents to Min's latter day changes. At some point I may move to have it accepted as a new wiki page and then we can, if you like, link the Nabi Su page to it. This will enable us to capture much more of the story without cluttering your Nabi Su page so much that it becomes too dense and unreadable. If you want to have a look, click on my wiki "sandbox" where I've put it for the time being.

SWM

Mary,

A follow up: How do I go about inserting a photo or two in the Yun Mu Kwan wiki site I'm trying to put together? Since you've already been through the process, maybe you can save me some agita! Here's the link to the proposed page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Swmirsky/sandbox

Thanks.

SWM

Mary,

It's me again. I have been thinking about your inclusion of references to the Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut kung fu styles. While it's true that Min picked up and incorporated various isolated techniques from these and other systems he encountered in the Chinatown community, and even some of their training methods, in fact it was Yang style t'ai chi that really informed his changes, at least the important, overarching ones.

The reason this matters is that the general principles of movement of the two styles in question are actually antithetical to the t'ai chi principles. Both Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut are so-called hard, external styles and Min built a system that was mainly soft (as in sensitive) and internal. The two approaches don't really mesh. Although one can generate power (and thus a form of hardness on contact using the soft approach) one cannot achieve the softness needed for sensitivity if one adopts hardness as an approach.

Classical karate itself is a hard, external system of combat, generally characterized by direct, linear strikes and kicks (although taekwondo, as we know, changed that principle of straight line movement to favor large, swinging movements not unlike those of Choy Li Fut ). Even the so-called circular karate styles, like Goju Ryu, Isshin Ryu and Uechi Ryu , which make a lot of use of circular, blocking and grabbing techniques (unlike Shotokan and its related styles), do so to augment the hard, direct delivery of the sharp strikes and kicks which they employ.

But just as Min abandoned that sort of thing in karate, he also left it out of the disparate elements of Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut that he picked up and put into his system over the years. The one really important common thread, binding all the elements he adopted, was t'ai chi movement, i.e., the principles of sensitivity, of guiding/redirecting opposing force, and of development of a central bodily axis around which the energy of an opponent could be guided and redirected. The hard movements of Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut seem to work against that!

So perhaps it's a little misleading to mention those styles in the same breath, so to speak, with T'ai Chi and Wing Chun, both of which did play a key part in his approach. ( Wing Chun favors small, direct moves and angled defenses and attacks based on sensitivity, not unlike t'ai chi , and, of course, t'ai chi , itself, is all about sensitivity and giving way without giving up ). They were the two most important contributants to Min's revised system. The isolated elements he adopted from Hung Gar, Choy Li Fut (and perhaps even from Southern Mantis ) were a sort of window dressing, added in particular places but always done with attention to the t'ai chi principles which override the hardness of these other styles. I think that was Min's real innovation!

So maybe it would be better to leave out explicit mention of them since that can be a bit misleading?

SWM

Stuart,

Photos: I'll be happy to help you with the photos. The main thing is to find photos that are free use / open source / not copyright protected, or are old enough to have an expired copyright. If you can't find that type of photo, you will have to assert that there is no better "free use" alternative available. You will fill out a form describing the photo's copyrights and how you came upon it, and why it would be fair use, and not a copyright infringement. There are 2 different areas for uploading, depending on the rights that your file does/doesn't have to protect. Let me know what type of photo you have (open source, etc.) and we'll discuss. It's not hard, it's mostly about avoiding potential copyright infringement. The worst thing that happens is you upload it and an editor takes it down.

Your Sandbox Article: Your Yun Mu Kwan article looks great! Once you have it, we can link to it, and perhaps shorten the Nabi Su article somewhat. The two articles will clearly complement each other.

Nabi Su Forms: Regarding Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut: Forms from these styles are still part of the Nabi Su repertoire, and as you say, the Nabi Su animal forms incorporate many moves from those styles. Nabi Su is not as soft as you might imagine. You are describing an early part of the evolution as you witnessed it. This is great information, but you must remember, the style continued to evolve for decades after you left. For the student encountering Nabi Su today, there is a wide range of hard and soft movements. There are Karate style blocks and punches. There is Iron Palm, also called Ki Su. There are weapons forms, some hard, some soft: Japanese Jo, Japanese Sai, Chinese style Bo, escrima sticks, butterfly knives, lightening sabre, fan, spear. Whether done with weapons or empty hand, some forms are done with "softer" circular moves, some done in "harder" Karate style, some are Hung Gar forms, some are Wing Chun forms. There is Tensho, which looks very much like a form I learned in Go Ju Karate. There are "old" forms from the 1970s including Shim Kwan and Yun Mu Moy Fa. There are the Nabi Su Five Animal forms that kept evolving through the early 1990s. As Min Pai trained his students, Nabi Su still does - all black belts do Tai Chi, while beginning Kung Fu students generally do not do Tai Chi. These varying ways of movement and methods of training are part of the Nabi Su style today. Nabi Su is a modern hybrid Chinese-style martial art that we call Kung Fu. This article is about the Nabi Su style, and a description of the style properly includes forms and influences that are part of it as it is currently practiced. What your input has highlighted is an interesting trait of Nabi Su in that its totally incongruous influences have resulted in a truly unique and cohesive new martial art style. The history you have added is very rich and is a valuable contribution to the Nabi Su article, however, please be careful not to confuse the resultant Nabi Su style with its history, which obviously had varying focuses over the decades in which it was developed.

Mary Vaccaro (talk)

Mary,

I take your point that Nabi Su is not the "karate" I remember. I've worked out several times now with Jason and his crew, two of those times including Arny Lippin and once with Jim Stewart, both of whom predate me with Min Pai and were around long after I was gone and so were part of the changes. I have to honestly say that there isn't much difference between what they are doing and what I do, aside from the forms. In my day we did hua quan (flower fist), loong quan (dragon fist), hok quan (crane fist), seh quan (snake fist), fu zhaou (tiger claw), and pao quan (leopard fist), as well as shim quan (Min Pai's adaptation of sanchin) and iron palm (his adaptation of tensho). We also had an assortment of advanced forms which the black belts practiced including, of course, a variant of Cheng Man-Ch'ing's tai chi form, and several forms taken from various kung fu styles: cho ga quan (fist of the house of Cho), moy fa su (plum blossom hand), myung bo (clear step), and bai yuan tao tou (white ape takes the peach). And of course, there were the weapons forms: a Japanese and a Chinese long staff (or bo) form, a butterfly sword form, a tai chi sword form, plus a two-person tai chi form. Oh and also the three Wing Chun forms, of course!

When I "retired" from active practice I decided to give up most of these because 1) I didn't have the time to do them all when I practiced; and 2) I had no one to practice the two man set with and lacked the weapons or space to use them in any case. Since Min's own core forms were really a mix of elements adopted from all of these and since it was clear to me by then that his versions of the kung fu forms he was teaching us were not precise replicas of how these forms were actually done in the styles from which he had taken them, I didn't feel I was giving all that much up. Sometimes I do regret having dropped the "advanced" stuff, however, because I get a little bored with just the core forms these days, but I don't believe dropping them hurt in terms of my practice. For years I practiced basics (like we used to do in class) and the core forms I knew and nothing else and this approach has stood me in relatively good stead (though my health has declined with age).

Anyway, I grant that Nabi Su may be quite different from the style I practiced. The later versions of Min Pai's forms certainly are. They're all but unrecognizable to me at some points. But I haven't seen a significant difference between myself and those old line practitioners I've practiced with in recent years, even if they do the new forms and nabi su (which wasn't created in my time). Bottom line: From what I've seen, the key elements which Min Pai elaborated on in later years were already in place when I trained under him in the early-mid seventies. However, as you note, I really can't add much to the parts of the page you've built beyond the history section and so I have largely stayed clear of those areas (except for some grammatic and stylistic considerations which I hope makes things a little better).

I'm a little leery of your idea that the style is hard and soft! To the extent that, when one strikes, one has to produce power which is a kind of hardness, of course, you can say something like that. But my own experience after years of practice leads me to the view that you have to practice softness (i.e., in a relaxed, sensitive way using the breathing as the fiber that binds everything else together) or else you cannot get the requisite sensitivity. I came from a hard, Shotokan background before Yun Mu Kwan, and Min Pai used to constantly exhort me to give that up, to become relaxed in my movements, to "breathe down," not to tighten up or try to make my movements hard. It took me several years to get that but when I did I realized what he was telling me. Although sometimes my forms may look "hard" to outsiders (and sometimes I probably don't do them as well as I should and so outsiders may be right at those times!) I always try to do them with a kind of aliveness that requires relaxed motion in keeping with the tai chi. I guess what I'm trying to say is that to produce hard you have to be soft in the way Min Pai taught, based on his experience with tai chi. And that means avoiding both the kinds of forced hardness you get with Shotokan and the heavy breathing isometrics of styles like Goju ryu, Uechi Ryu, Isshin Ryu and Kyokushinkai! That sort of thing certainly toughens one up and can produce a lot of power but it's the antithesis of tai chi. I think Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut are also hard in a way that is antithetical to tai chi. If Min Pai had really built them into the later system in a way that sacrificed the tai chi principle, then you are certainly right that it is not the system I learned.

Anyway, feel free to comment on the Yun Mu Kwan page I'm trying to build and to offer your emendations. I agree that if we can get it into shape and accepted on wiki you can drop some of the material in the history section I've added and link, instead, to the other page. I certainly could use your help!

SWM

Stuart,

Yes - describing "hard" and "soft" does lead to a lot of confusion. Your description is well taken. And Kudos to you for maintaining all the forms you did. Doing the "basics" is the most valuable part of practice - it was true then and it still is true now. Your love and dedication to the martial arts has come to fruition - even though you say you lost many forms - and even aged a bit over the decades - you're still in the game and your love for the art shines through! This is the real martial arts success story. I look forward to our continued work together and learning more Yun Mu Kwan history. Thanks, Mary

Mary,

Please take a look at the draft Yun Mu Kwan article now. I've added references to Jim, Carolyn and Wellspring. Since much of this has to do with events that were way after my time with Min Pai, I don't want to get anything wrong. Plus, I don't want to cause any problems for Carolyn or Jim. I said only a bare minimum but I felt it necessary to bring reference to Min Pai's career to closure with his passing and that involves what happened to his school and style. Please look, especially, at the last section The Later Yun Mu Kwan.

Also I'm not certain which photos to select (I'm assuming Ray Korff would be amenable to that -- do you think he would be?). Photos will be necessary, I believe, to break up the heavy text orientation as well as to give some vitality to the article. Any advice you can provide on that score would be appreciated!

Anyway, here's the link to the page in my "sandbox" in case you have any trouble (unlikely) getting to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Swmirsky/sandbox#The_Later_Yun_Mu_Kwan

SWM

Stuart, Everything in the last section looks fine to me. Korff allows us all to use his photographs, just be sure to give him credit in the photo caption. Great work! Mary Vaccaro (talk)

Mary,

Thanks. I'll start looking for appropriate photos then. Any likely impediments I can expect when inserting them into the article?

Aside from that I guess I can now take a rest since the message I got from wikipedia is that they are backlogged on reviewing new articles by more than a month. Sounds like the Veterans Administration!

SWM

Mary,

I see this message on the sandbox site for Yun Mu Kwan:

"This sandbox is in the Draft namespace. Either move this page into your userspace, or remove the template."

Do you know what they mean? What do they expect me to do? I don't know what moving to my "userspace" amounts to, or what it means to remove the " template."

Presumably you've been through this part of the process already so please advise.

Thanks!

SWM

Stuart,

I just saw your note. I used the "Articles for Creation" method. (Go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation ) It was a lot of work establishing notability. Do not use YouTube references unless they are very relevant. Instead of YouTube, use references to third party published sources. Better to have a few good published references then many YouTube references. (Too many less desirable references devalues the entire article and then editors miss the several good references and say you don't have any.) For your article, Martial Arts books and magazines would be best. I just wrote a similar reply on your User page. I hope this info helps. Mary Vaccaro (talk)

Mary
I'm going to try this again. You kind of inspired me to give it another go. I have tried to use the comment section in the re-submission to explain to whoever may ultimately review that my use of the YouTube links is for the purpose of illustrating, not documenting veracity of the claims involved. YouTube seems to have been the sticking point with the two editors I drew. I think they are not recognizing the real distinction between offering a picture (or, in this case, videos) of what one is describing and offering evidence of some claim. Illustrating and documenting are NOT the same thing. I could, of course, just remove all the YouTube links but I think that would undermine the quality of the article since I still believe a picture beats thousands of words! Anyway, we'll see how this goes. If it still gets rejected for the same reason, I'll just place it somewhere else.

Thanks for the encouraging comments though!

S. W. Mirsky 14:30, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Mary
I received this notification today:

Dear Swmirsky, The Wikipedia page File:Eido Tai Shimano Roshi with Min Pai and students at Nabi Su in 1972.jpg has been changed on 3 July 2014 by Stefan2, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eido_Tai_Shimano_Roshi_with_Min_Pai_and_students_at_Nabi_Su_in_1972.jpg for the current revision.

I don't know how to deal with it since it seems to be intended for the Nabi Su site which you've set up and which I won't presume to interfere with, given that my attempts to augment it with historical information haven't really gone over very well. I'm sorry if my input caused any problems. I was just trying to be helpful. So I will stay out of the way from here on.

At some point though, perhaps we can correspond by e-mail since you have familiarity with a later stage of Min Pai's career than I do and I continue to be very interested in the history of the style.

S. W. Mirsky 12:23, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Stuart,

yes, now I am having nothing but trouble with the editors, even the photos. I'll be trying to take care of it one issue at a time. Here is my email address. Send me an email as soon as you receive it, so I know you have it, then I will delete this note, so my email doesn't go public: Mary Vaccaro (talk)