[QUOTE=bawang;1234818]you cant have meaningful relationship with someone you pay money for.
just like a prostitute doesn’t love you, when you pay money for a sifu, hes not your real sifu.[/QUOTE]
Yes and No. Sometimes you pay not out of a sense of obligation, but out of the realization that it takes real money to pay for that building you’re using, or those new shiny weapons that you practice with, or having clean mats in good repair… and sometimes it’s just a matter of respect in the sense that you acknowledge that there is a value and a worth to what that teacher is transmitting to you.
It’s a different story if the guy’s just a shyster and he’s ripping you off.
[QUOTE=MightyB;1234820]Yes and No. Sometimes you pay not out of a sense of obligation, but out of the realization that it takes real money to pay for that building you’re using, or those new shiny weapons that you practice with, or having clean mats in good repair… and sometimes it’s just a matter of respect in the sense that you acknowledge that there is a value and a worth to what that teacher is transmitting to you.
It’s a different story if the guy’s just a shyster and he’s ripping you off.[/QUOTE]
when I think about my first sifu, I sometimes cry. its something you cant understand.
jingwu is a joke. if you want to know the real story of kung fu, ask about the boxer rebellion.
Whenever you take a system of H2H combat that was designed to be trained on a 1-on-1 basis and customized to the individual and teach it in a class/group environment you get Jing wu simply because that is the ONLY way to get any results and the military is a perfect example.
And to further the military analogy:
What happens when you pass “basic training”?
You get 1-on-1 specialized training.
The issue is never the group environment per say, that is the only way to train multiple people, the issue was that when people outgrew it, there was ( typically) nothing for them.
[QUOTE=bawang;1234830]when I think about my first sifu, I sometimes cry. its something you cant understand. when someone doesn’t charge money, it is a sacrifice. he tears out his heart to you. he is your life coach and second father. going out eating some pork buns doesn’t make you “connected”. then again, maybe some people don’t know what having a real father feels like in the first place.[/QUOTE]
Sacrifice goes both ways. With that being said - I haven’t had to pay for kung fu for years, yet I still pay for the reasons I outlined previously. Be careful with your assumptions.
jingwu is not important. jingwu is worthless. if you want to know the real story of kung fu, ask about the boxer rebellion.
The story is the Boxer Rebellion forced modernization on the Chinese and almost literally killed the realz kung fu. Peasants were duped into shamanistic deity worship and told they were impervious to bullets. The few legit kung fu masters who participated were ostracized and or killed. The ones who didn’t participate we’re ostracized and forced into retirement, and or lost heart in kung fu effectiveness, and or lost the military and government’s faith in kung fu training…
[QUOTE=MightyB;1234833] Sacrifice goes both ways. With that being said - I haven’t had to pay for kung fu for years, yet I still pay for the reasons I outlined previously. Be careful with your assumptions.[/QUOTE]
ok
[QUOTE=MightyB;1234833] The story is the Boxer Rebellion forced modernization on the Chinese and almost literally killed the realz kung fu. Peasants were duped into shamanistic deity worship and told they were impervious to bullets. The few legit kung fu masters who participated were ostracized and or killed. The ones who didn’t participate we’re ostracized and forced into retirement, and or lost heart in kung fu effectiveness, and or lost the military and government’s faith in kung fu training… [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=sanjuro_ronin;1234832]Whenever you take a system of H2H combat that was designed to be trained on a 1-on-1 basis and customized to the individual and teach it in a class/group environment you get Jing wu simply because that is the ONLY way to get any results and the military is a perfect example.
And to further the military analogy:
What happens when you pass “basic training”?
You get 1-on-1 specialized training.
The issue is never the group environment per say, that is the only way to train multiple people, the issue was that when people outgrew it, there was ( typically) nothing for them.[/QUOTE]
It’s not the group training that’s an issue and the Jing Wu did a lot of great things and made it possible for some of the greatest masters to get exposure and make a living teaching full time.
But I think the notion that an accumulation of forms somehow equate to rank or skill was started in that system.
[QUOTE=MightyB;1234837]It’s not the group training that’s an issue and the Jing Wu did a lot of great things and made it possible for some of the greatest masters to get exposure and make a living teaching full time.
But I think the notion that an accumulation of forms somehow equate to rank or skill was started in that system.[/QUOTE]
jingwu said weight lifting is bad, doing tan tui will make you strong. its a garbage organization with garbage martial artists.
its also gave birth to proto-wushu, teaching forms as choreographed movement.
are you educating me on the boxer rebellion?[/QUOTE]
no, just presenting a counter view point.
By late in 1899 inter-community violence was breaking out between chinese Christians (often armed with modern western rifles) and anti-foreign Boxers (armed with spears and swords) in Baoding. The area saw repeated massacres in February and March of 1900, when things started to spiral out of control. Some of the most important violence of the early Uprising happened along the Baoding-Beijing railway to the east of the city.
Joseph W. Esherick reviews events in and around Baoding in his groundbreaking study The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (1987). Most of the Boxers were impressionable country youth rather than sophisticated martial artists. Many of them relied on spirit possession and magical formula for their military power, not years of formal training. Still, it is undeniable that many martial arts schools in the region were caught up in the violence. Others foresaw tragedy on the horizon and tried desperately to distance themselves from the coming cataclysm.
It would appear that Sun was in the later camp. By moving his family to Shijiazhuang they avoided the brutal waves of inter-community violence, and later western retaliation, that tore Baoding apart. It would certainly be interesting to know the fate of his Baoding students from this period, whether they too fled or if they stayed to fight. Cheng Ting Hua, Suns Bagua teacher and the individual who sent him on his quest to study Daoism, was shot and killed by German troops during their sack of Beijing.
His new home was also far enough from the capital that he could continue to practice and teach the martial arts in the years after the Uprising. This is significant as schools were being closed and martial artists were forced underground across the country. In this period public sentiment turned decidedly against boxing and the traditional martial arts came closer to extinction than they have been before or since.
As a young man Sun Lu Tang was very interested in the practical applications of his fighting arts, something that is still reflected in the basic structure of Sun Taiji. He fought in a number of challenge matches and worked as a guard and bodyguard. However, later in his career he claimed that the martial arts were really for health maintenance and self-cultivation. He famously told his students that if they wanted to fight they should get a gun. One wonders how much of this shift in his attitude had to do with his philosophically inspired wandering, and how much of it can be attributed to the utter destruction of Baoding (and the murder of Cheng Ting Hua) during the throws of the Boxer Uprising.
The Jingwu added a modern, Western spin to traditional Chinese weightlifting, and imported Western-style barbells and dumbbells for their members to use.
[QUOTE=bawang;1234843]I have the 1920s jingwu tantui article where they said lifting weights is bad, so I don’t know.[/QUOTE]
I hear ya man… too many inconsistencies in the historical record probably due to the size of the organization. I really want to read the Kennedy book now. The part about Pici stick fighting seems very interesting. From the bit I could read on google books, it presents some good counter arguments to my assumptions about the Jing Wu and it’s influence.
the boxer rebellion was not based in superstition. the leaders of the boxer rebellion knew exactly what they were doing. this is the ultimate result of the power of kung fu on someones mind. that’s why the kmt guoshu program removed all religious and combat aspects out of kung fu. this is why even some rational westerners go crazy after training traditional kung fu.
indoctrination methods in kung fu like carrot on a stick, smoke and mirrors, advancing meaningless ranks, hidden secret at the end of training, excruciating painful exercises, come straight from white lotus.
“Two things which impeded kung fu are the instructors themselves. Many follow blindly to the way they were taught. Some are not open minded enough to accept other styles as their equal and overcome the superiority syndrome. We must bear in mind that in every style there is benefits for everyone to gain.”
"The position of Sifu is not for the purpose of the Sifu to show off but to cultivate new students and to help persevere the Chinese martial arts.”
“The knowledge of martial arts is not just reading a few ancient novels of martial arts. It is important to the martial art cultivation of a person. One can never make great achievements if one confines the learning to one style and pay no respect to the strong points of other styles. Therefore a martial artist must have a broad knowledge and he must be modest technically, not contenting himself with one style of his own and negating other styles. In short, one must have a rich knowledge of martial arts.”
Does this sound like a deluded fairy dancer? Or is this the same horn some of you guys are blowing?
Diminishment of the idea of one person in time or small parts of an overarching concept is in my mind the game of a dull mind. In the end you aren’t anyone else but you. If you enjoy what you enjoy, you don’t have to justify yourself to anyone, ever.
If they don’t like what you do? Screw them, they aren’t being invited to do it. If guys from on world want to change another to be more like there’s? All the more reason to resist that.
The whole presentation of “kung fu” is bad because of the reasons given is shoddy and not well thought out. If you are a Kung Fu person and you think it’s bad, then change yourself, make your Kung fu what you think it should be instead of trying to find a place in someone else’s experience. Find your own if you think yourself better. While you really work on it instead of blowing hard as many do, your own sense of ridiculing others where it is not merited will disappear.
[QUOTE=David Jamieson;1234855] While you really work on it instead of blowing hard as many do, your own sense of ridiculing others where it is not merited will disappear.[/QUOTE]
I am so glad you have decided to change your ways, fdavif jamesion. I am proud of you. it takes a lot of courage to write an apology like that.
[QUOTE=bawang;1234857]I am so glad you have decided to change your ways, fdavif jamesion. I am proud of you. it takes a lot of courage to write an apology like that.[/QUOTE]
Jim, you are such a troll. lol
Read an old newspaper then take out your racist anger on old white karate men.
That is your Kung Fu.
[QUOTE=David Jamieson;1234862]Jim, you are such a troll. lol
Read an old newspaper then take out your racist anger on old white karate men.
That is your Kung Fu.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=David Jamieson;1234862]Jim, you are such a troll. lol
Read an old newspaper then take out your racist anger on old white karate men.
That is your Kung Fu.[/QUOTE]
what the hell does racism have to do with anything?
[QUOTE=bawang;1234849]the boxer rebellion was not based in superstition. the leaders of the boxer rebellion knew exactly what they were doing. this is the ultimate result of the power of kung fu on someones mind. that’s why the kmt guoshu program removed all religious and combat aspects out of kung fu. this is why even some rational westerners go crazy after training traditional kung fu.
indoctrination methods in kung fu like carrot on a stick, smoke and mirrors, advancing meaningless ranks, hidden secret at the end of training, excruciating painful exercises, come straight from white lotus.[/QUOTE]
Yes, there is truth here.
Lots of “visualization” techniques and such can cause mental issues, not to mention when you start delving into the “animal possession” stuff and “sun dar”.
