How Important Is Lineage?

[DrunkMonk]

If your school doesn't have a long lineage, or hasn't kept real good records of who all the previous masters were, does this mean that its not legitimate? Do all legitimate schools have lineages?

Thanx

Andrew

[joedoe]

Lineage is important mainly when it is claimed. It bothers me when schools make up some c0ck and bull story about their lineage. Lineage is a way to gauge what you are getting. Kinda like how some universities are considered better than others based on the calibre of past graduates.

Otherwise, lineage is not that important if what you are learning is worthwhile.

[Chang Style Novice]

Lineage is only important inasmuch as it is a guarantee that you are learning something worth knowing.

[Laughing Cow]

Mongrels also got a lineage.
;)

IMO, lineage doesn't guarantee much it only shows from whom your teachers has learned and his teacher from whom.

It does not show if your teacher or even his teacher is actually qualified/certified to teach or if he has a good grasp of the material taught to him.

Lineage is a good starting point to start your research, but lineage by itself IMO is useless.

And becoming more and more a waste of time considering we are getting more and more politics in CMA these days.

Cheers.

[Vapour]

It's all depends on what you mean by the word "lineage"

Among (some) traditional chinese masters, they differentiate students between normal students and closed door students. To become closed door student, you have to go through certain religious ritual and only then your instructor become sifu. You only get full transmission of the knowledge of the style afterward. Full transmission could be neigon practice or secret forms or it could be tiny bit of detail in the technique which was left out in the normal lesson.

So if your style has this baishi system, lineage is very very important. If your style doesn't, it's more of a issue of respect to the predecessor which is no less important.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Vapour
It's all depends on what you mean by the word "lineage"

Among (some) traditional chinese masters, they differentiate students between normal students and closed door students. To become closed door student, you have to go through certain religious ritual and only then your instructor become sifu. You only get full transmission of the knowledge of the style afterward. Full transmission could be neigon practice or secret forms or it could be tiny bit of detail in the technique which was left out in the normal lesson.

So if your style has this baishi system, lineage is very very important. If your style doesn't, it's more of a issue of respect to the predecessor which is no less important.

Baisi is not necessarily a "religious ritual". In fact, it's very rarely religious at all.

[SevenStar]

Royce would choke lineage.

[SevenStar]

seriously though, no, it doesn't matter, IMO. Lineage is not what I look at. What I look at is whether or not the school has anything to teach me that I find useful. If they do, and they are good at it, and I am properly taught, who cares what the lineage is?

[joedoe]

Lineage in and of itself is not that important unless someone claims a particular lineage and their claim is false. Then I would have trouble trusting that school/teacher because of their false claims.

[Serpent]

Agreed. If a school/teacher doesn't claim a lineage, then no worries. But, if the school/teacher does claim a lineage then it is very important that the claimed lineage is authentic.

[SevenStar]

yeah, I agree with you there. That's more of a trust issue than a lineage issue though

[Vapour]

Originally posted by SevenStar
Royce would choke lineage.

Interesting point. I've been to their site. Though BJJ doesn't use the word lineage, they make it very clear about where and who they got their jujutu. For them, lineage is about respect to the past and that's all.

As long as lineage is about the respect, it's fine. When it's used as "my dad is better than your dad" kid of thing, that is where the problem starts.

[Vapour]

Originally posted by Serpent


Baisi is not necessarily a "religious ritual". In fact, it's very rarely religious at all.

No what I meant was that to become a baishi student, you have to go through an initiation ritual which is often religious (daoist) in nature.

In our organization, to make taijiquan as martial arts works in real fight, it is expected that you get hit at least once by the opponent to create opening. So learning Neigon and being able to absorb hit is fundamental to fighting tactics in our style.

In our school neigon is taught to the closed door student only. (btw, I'm not yet a closed door student.) But thing about our school is that this closed door student thing is not so closed as the most people think. It's more like once you got a black belt, they ask you whether you want to become closed door student. (o.k. this didn't come off right, it's not that too easy but you get my drift :-)) Idea is that if you keep your arts too secret, it's one sure way to make the art extinct as lots of martial arts style in China has become.

[dezhen2001]

why get hit once ot create an opening:confused: why not open your own door!:confused:

neigong or no neigong... if someone stabs you so u can have an opening its not much use.

dawood

[davethedragon]

IMO Lineage is not that important- one of the things i noticed when studying wing chun were the differences in the lineages the slight difference in weight distribution in the wsl lineage and in the leung ting for example. not huge differences essentially but the teachers i met made such a big deal dismissing one lineage as useless an not "real" wing chun.
the basic principles of wing chun IMO are the same but people tend to want to stamp their superiority on a certain lineage.
Lineage doesnt amount to much when in a real combat situation.

[yenhoi]

What do you mean legitimate?

Do your hands care in the ring or street?

:eek:

[Water Dragon]

Lineage is very important. Lineage guarantees that you have access to a solid training method. A good lineage includes high level people who are still alive and kicking, not just some long dead master.

Remember though, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

[Vapour]

Originally posted by dezhen2001
why get hit once ot create an opening:confused: why not open your own door!:confused:

neigong or no neigong... if someone stabs you so u can have an opening its not much use.

dawood

O.K. I didn't come off right again. Taijichuan is close fighting method. Most technique is applied in the distance which is akin to judo where we apply various technique including lock and throw. So the fundamental importance in our empty hand fighting tactic is to get into that vicinity in the first place.

If you do Xingyi for example, opening your own door is what exactly one do. In taijichuan the technique is there in form such as raise hands. And if your opponent is really crap or your skill level is master class, you can let him attack, evade and do a flipping magic like aikido

But in reality, if your opponent is experienced, I don't think they give you that kind of opening. Lot of people use kick as a inital opening especially in sparing competition but I think when the grab and throw is allowed, experienced practioner would break you because you are not rooted right. When I did a bit sparing with Tkd guy, my natural reaction to kick was to grab it which he told me is against the rule of sparing.

In our style, we are expected to move forward at the moment the opponent attack. While it is nice if we can evade or parry opponent attack at this point, in realistic term, that depend on difference in you and your opponent skills. You block and often you get hit.

So basically, I didn't mean we let opponent hit us. There is a saying that there is no attack or defence in taijichuan. Most of taijichuan techniques are counter and that is partly because the tactics we emply. Being hit is a result of our tactic which we perpare for by doing neigon.

Oh, and if my opponent has knife but I don't, first thing which come to my mind is "where the **** is exit?!!" :)