For the record. Kung Fu bothers me but it has a special place in my heart, always will.
I never said my master was a bad teacher. On the contrary, he imparted a lot of information and body memory into my thick skull. My classmates: loved and respected each and every one of them.
My issue was coming back after fights I lost and being reprimanded for all these mistakes I made.
Can’t fault them for not supporting my dream. Can’t fault them for not offering to be in my corner, literally. I can fault them for talking ****.
Let me make it clear that Master Chan is a true warrior in its fullest sense. A great man with great technique. But if you’re not willing to go out or prepare to send one of your students to go, you have NO RIGHT to discuss the faults of BJJ, TKD or any other combative that you FEEL is low level.
There are tons of people pouring their hearts and souls into their training and putting it on the line. It’s waaaaaaayyyyyy too easy to be the king of NYC within the confines of your small training hall in which your word is law and your students too… gullible? … to question such outlandish claims. It’s actually promoting a dishonorable mindset.
He is my master and always will be. I love and respect him. But I tell my own flesh-and-blood father he’s full of **** when he’s talking out of his a$$. I tell him he’s wrong for throwing a receipt on the ground moments after leaving the diner. And why. Not for the pollution. For not being a man and taking responsibility for all his actions. Regardless of how small.
An eager martial artist full of love who wants to come see your technique… and you turn him away?
I’ve learned some wonderful things from Kung Fu… first among them, sticking. Thank you Wing Chun and Southern Mantis.
I learned power generation and structure. Big up to Hsing-I. I love it. Wish I learned Ba Gua’s footwork. That was what I wanted and would have been willing to pay $800 for a private lesson for. If I would have gotten to at least see my master.
Truth is though. I get to train and incorporate all of those principles every single day training jiu-jitsu. Kung Fu doesn’t have exclusivity, patents on that technology. Its just those things are a given, acquired naturally in the training. All my one year BJJ training partner white belts can stick, read, collapse, press, left. sweep, name it.
Truth is, I’ve never seen a kung fu school train hard enough to be competitive. I don’t consider what Coach Ross does or San Da “kung FU”… I have too much respect for it.
It was time for me to leave and be among fighters. Train with fighters. Hang with fighters. Training harder then ever and I’ve brought all the stuff I like with me.
Ray,
Your generalizations are based off the fact that your feelings got hurt. Come on, man. That’s the real reason for this particular rant. Why can’t you just say that it bothered you that your old master wouldn’t welcome you back with open arms? Instead you use that as evidence that kung fu schools are closed off.
If you got more involved with your feelings instead of being so disconnected from them it might solve some of your issues.
[QUOTE=MysteriousPower;880993]Ray,
Your generalizations are based off the fact that your feelings got hurt. Come on, man. That’s the real reason for this particular rant. Why can’t you just say that it bothered you that your old master wouldn’t welcome you back with open arms? Instead you use that as evidence that kung fu schools are closed off.
If you got more involved with your feelings instead of being so disconnected from them it might solve some of your issues.[/QUOTE]
Besides that fact, I would agree that kungfu schools tend to be more closed off. Everyone there wants to live in a god-forsaken kungfu movie, they’re great to watch sometimes but we live in reality.
So all these kung fu players who fancy themselves “experts” wouldn’t get their a$$ kicked if they really believed it and acquired the courage to go out and participate in a collective combative reality where people actually strike each other?
Hasn’t been my reality so far. And I would say I’ve ventured deeper and longer than most looking for it.
I would have to agree with much of what Xiao3 Meng4 had to say. I love the culture & diversity of CMA but truth be known when it comes down to fighting aspect (& the training that goes into it) a very large percentage of CMA ‘Masters’ have their heads up their ‘a s ses’, in my opinion.
I would also agree with Xiao3 Meng4 that typically a Wushu or Sanshou CMA school is generally a positive environment. And I would agree that many, not all but many so called traditional CMA are centered on things like power, control, money & greed and feed on gullible individuals.
Many the garden variety CMA Sifu & their schools here in Vancouver are complete paper tigers. So few of them will produce competitive fighters and many are supposedly about being ‘traditional’ and teaching CMA for fighting yet they don’t actually spar. I used to listen with an open mind when most ‘traditional’ CMA Sifu talked about how Wushu or Sanshou wasn’t real or this or that or how their styles were the real deal… now however I really believe when it comes right down to it in so far as fighting goes most of them and their students would have their heads handed to them in any sort of level of sparring / fighting with the average MMA / Kickboxing / Sanshou school.
All of this being said I do believe their are some decent traditional CMA Sifu and schools, they just aren’t the norm.
[QUOTE=MightyB;881468]The question is… why are there so many paper tiger schools- and what can WE do about it?[/QUOTE]
for the same reason there are so many mcdojo’s
CMA isnt alone in this. You will find that a variety of ‘traditional’ martial arts are being exploited this way.
CMA has such a large variety and abundance of outlets, it certainly seems to be the MOST exploited, due to the population within the CMA world.
some of it has to do with romantacism. plain and simple. people romantacise about being this bad ass martial arts guy so they go train, but never actually want to bleed or break bones. This in turn causes them to gravitate towards others of the same ilk.
IMO what we can do about this is to continue to educate people.
Fortunately modern wushu is and has been drawing a very distinct line between itself and martially applicable practices.
TCMA is a product of the society and culture in which it was created. That traditional society (what the May 4th and later communists called “feudal” even though it was not truely a feudal society) is sectarian, xenophobic and superstitious. And that included the educated! Among the undeducated of course we had even worse conditions! :eek:
Well into the 20th century, taditional schools viewed themselves almost as cults and viewed all other schools and methods as the enemy. You don’t cross train because you don’t give the enemy your “combat secrets” :rolleyes:
Much “theory” was based upon superstition and plain ignorance. You didn’t spar because the techniques were deadly. You never applied the scientific method to your suppositions
Some might also argue that once it became a business, it benefitted you to discourage students from visiting the competition and testing your methods left you open to potential failure and financial ruin. We do know some schools crumbled when a sifu didn’t mean the test of a challenger.
Much maligned here, the MMA approach in fact is valid science, can you reproduce your results under the same conditions over and over again. If your theory is disproven, you move on and find the actual answer. MMA peopel cross train, the expose themselves to new material, they IMPROVE.
I’ve said it many times before, there is much practical, in fact excellent, fighting material in TCMA. The problem is that no one in the TCMA world is practicing in a way that gives them access to the attributes necessary to use the material.
Furthermore, since they haven’t tested the proposition, many people in TCMA are focussed on the crap, and aren’t aware which material IS the good material
My finding is that most people that “do” gong fu, don’t even do it. They sometimes will even strut like they really know something. When you push hands with them, they are self analytical and get confused really easy. They also usually come from schools that don’t have any gloves in them, and not because they barenuckle box.
That said, some people that do nothing but gong fu, really terrify me.
[QUOTE=lkfmdc;881515]I’ve said it many times before, there is much practical, in fact excellent, fighting material in TCMA. The problem is that no one in the TCMA world is practicing in a way that gives them access to the attributes necessary to use the material.
Furthermore, since they haven’t tested the proposition, many people in TCMA are focussed on the crap, and aren’t aware which material IS the good material[/QUOTE]
