Below is my reply to an e-mail I got from a freind of mine. I thought I’d copy it here to see what type of discussion ensued from it.
Jason,
Very interesting perspective.
I have to say i somewhat disagree on a point. It’s not that the traditional arts are misunderstood, it’s that they are taught WRONG!.
Through years of research into the Chinese arts, i have learned that originally they were taught very differently than today. Training consisted of basics, basics, basics. Students where not taught forms, but two man applications to the techniques, which were drilled to the point of absolute mastery in small groups as small as 3, but rarely larger than 9.
My system originally consisted of 32 loose techniques that were used in any order, or combination the fighter saw fit at the moment. when it was developed in 960 AD, it had no forms at all. You just learned a few techniques, and mastered the strategies, and tactics of fighting with them, then learned a few more till you eventually learned and mastered all 32 of them. The rest of the training was hard conditioning, and Qi Gong. the Qi gong was really the essence of the style as it in reality was all the fundamental body mechanics used in the techniques isolated into 8 core drills. The phenomenal health benefits were purely a side effect, and never the original goal.
If you fast forward to 1279 AD, when the Sung dynasty fell, you will find that forms had begun to take shape and the practice spread widely…but not to students. Forms practice was for TEACHERS to record their curriculum’s in a nice orderly, and progressive manor.
Though it is believed to have originally been an invention of the temples, the practice of forms development for recording a systems core curriculum was most likely spread by military trainers to make it easier for them to remember their curriculum’s, and Maintain much of their conditioning. The soldiers going though the training never learned the form, they still got Basics, conditioning and endless two man drills combined with strategy and even free fighting. They ONLY learned the form IF their military career brought them to the point of being trainers…even then, the form was of their own creation based on their battle field experience.
I don’t think forms started to be preserved generation after generation until those military personnel retired, and went home to their various villiages and began teaching the civilians. It was their Civilian students that rose to the level of teachers that preserved the forms taught to them by the former military trainers. Even then, the TEACHING of them was still only to those who were at a level that they began teaching themselves. the students still got Basics, conditioning strategy and endless two-man fighting practice.
Now, in the Temples things were different because they were testing the integrity of their students, so many would put them through grueling conditioning, and extended practice of basics, but once martial lessons were taught, it was still not forms. Those were basically for the teachers.
Fast forward to the Qing dynasty and the advent of commercial schools. THIS is when forms first came into being. It’s a relatively modern thing. The masters all started doing this because they began teaching large numbers of people, and really didn’t want to teach their secrets to just anyone…but of course wanted money. It was also a way of really dragging out the curriculum so what used to be taught in months, now took years. This is also when alot of the practice of drilling techniques in the air for extended periods of time came into being. Only a Master’s inner door disciples were taught correctly. What used to be correct teachings, were now billed as “Higher form”, or Higher levels of the arts.
At first one learned a form, and then applications, and then strategy and how to fight with them. But as time rolled on, it got to be more and more and more form oriented, and further, and further away from the original teachings. You eventually go to today where the masters are nothing compared to their forefathers because of generation after generation of degradation.
It’s gotten to a point now where only the very few learn the applications, and HOW to fight with their style. Many of them are still secretive, and only teach their closest Friends and family the real goods. Most fighting to day is simplistic San Shou, and not the depth of the original systems. That is really lost, except to the few…when it used to be wide spread to anyone who had gone through the military, or their students after they retired.
Now you have styles that originally had 1 long form, or many 3 AT BEST that was practiced only by the Master, and the teachers under him, to systems haveing a hundred or more forms to learn and hardly any application taught being practiced by everyone to the excusion of actually learing the style. It used to be learning a form meant being a competant fighter with the techniques…now it’s just means memorising the choreography…actually understanding is optional if it’s even avalaible.
Anyway, it’s not about martial arts vs martial way, or Fight vs health, its about teaching right, VS teaching wrong, at least with the Chinese arts.
Today, if you want to recover the skills of the past, you really have to reverse engineer your style, and study it’s principals (If you Can even figure that out anymore), and then when you teach, teach the old way.
What is Billed as Traditional Kung Fu in most schools today is actually a very modern system. To get real skills, you need to go back to the roots.
