taking KF seriously...

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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Hi everyone, I’m new to this forum.

I’ve been training in Wha Lum Tan Tui praying mantis for several years, and I’ve seen alot of people come and go from my school. People don’t like it because I’m learning from a real martial artist who believes that martial arts should be a lifestyle.

Now what I want to know is… at what point did people start thinking that martial arts is just a child’s play thing, or even an on-the-side hobby. I think it all started when it travelled to the west where eastern philosophy wasn’t regarded as “legit”. Guns and pills were considered legit. This led to the creation of the McDojo, in where building somebody’s self esteem comes first, even if it means handing them their rank.

My school doesn’t believe in that, and people come in and slack off thinking that they can get to black belt in a year, and they realize that this school isn’t Tokyo Joe’s. I just belt-tested a few newbies the other day and the didn’t know any of their stuff. They’d forget parts of their form, it was pathetic. They didn’t study at all, and they only did good on the written part of the test. Also, during the drills that we went through they didn’t push themselves at all, I was NOT impressed.

One girl went out and my instructor told her to do the “8-Chain” punch, a short, fundamental “kata-like” kung fu form that every student learns their first day. She started doing 16 Hands, the first form out of the Jut Sow mantis style. Sifu was like “that wasn’t too bad, but I said do 8-Chain punch”. And she suddenly freaked out and said “well you did tell me I had to know that!” and he replied simply with “actually, I told you to remember everything.”

People just don’t take Kung Fu seriously these days. They act like they can take a class and then walk around and say they know kung fu. I’m not saying they should make it their number one priority, but remember kung fu means energy and time, and it got that name beacuse that is what is required to be good at it. All I’m saying is if you’re gonna do something people should do it properly and apply themselves.

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although personally i aim to make kung fu(and iaido) a huge part of my life. i don’t have anything against people who do martial arts as a “2 hours a week” kind of thing. as long as they give their 100% for those 2 hours thats fine. its paying good money just to fool around or socialize that confuses me. anyways the point i was attempting to make is there is nothing wrong with hobbyists, as long as they take a serious attitude during training.

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oh and i do agree on the rest.

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I agree, kungfu is a great hobby. It’s pretty impractical for most people to dedicate much time at home for practice.

Now what I want to know is… at what point did people start thinking that martial arts is just a child’s play thing, or even an on-the-side hobby. I think it all started when it travelled to the west where eastern philosophy wasn’t regarded as “legit”. Guns and pills were considered legit. This led to the creation of the McDojo, in where building somebody’s self esteem comes first, even if it means handing them their rank.

My school doesn’t believe in that, and people come in and slack off thinking that they can get to black belt in a year, and they realize that this school isn’t Tokyo Joe’s. I just belt-tested a few newbies the other day and the didn’t know any of their stuff. They’d forget parts of their form, it was pathetic. They didn’t study at all, and they only did good on the written part of the test. Also, during the drills that we went through they didn’t push themselves at all, I was NOT impressed.

How much of your practice time is spent hard sparring, and working on fighting? How much of the belt testing is based on using application in a freestyle situation?

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lol! Not all Kwoons are McKwoons! and all Kwoons need students to pay the bills!

~Jason

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oh, don’t get me wrong!

Well yeah I mean I agree, I guess I did come off a bit prude. I mean I wasn’t saying you have to become a shaolin monk or anything, but yeah like you guys said the people who come and go to our school don’t work at all at it. They didn’t study for their test, they were in complete confusion. Kung Fu can be a hobby, but like everything that you do, it should be taken with seriousness. Obviously it doesn’t have to be your top priority, those come first, but I’m talking about the people who pay, come to class, goof off for an hour and socialize, then leave. I mean I teach the class once a week under my sifu, and it’s annoying when you’re explaining something that you’ve explained a thousand times over to a person and the only reason they’re not getting it is because they don’t care. Most people that come in just want to say that they know kung fu. Others took a year of a completely different martial art a long time ago and think they’re superstars and try to tell the instructors how to do their jobs. So yeah you guys are right, I just chose the wrong words to make my point.

Oh yeah, and yes we do hard sparring. We ease into it, though. First he’ll teach us a technique and we’ll do it slow and easy so we can get the motion properly, then he taught us boxing because he’s a professional kickboxer, too. Then after we were comfortable with both he’d set a 2 minute round and we’d have to try and only apply our kung fu applications instead of just boxing stuff. It’s difficult but it’s helped ALOT. There’s this one guy who’s really big and he used to be a boxer, and he also doesn’t know restraint. He broke my nose once, haha.

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I don’t disagree with what you think is wrong with the majority of people who take up martial arts.

I’m curious if these students were given promotion or not?

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i definatly think training is under prioritized though. society says work and getting an education should be my highest priority. but my greatest happiness is in martial arts. in the last year or so i have realised how clouded my priorities are. why would i spend my youth working so that i can enjoy a comfy life and have time to train when i am 60? i used to always miss class because i was studying or my employer had convinced me to take a conflicting shift. but why? a person only lives once. i say if you have a certain interest go for it. luckily i now have a job that i love that allows me to persue my dreams at the same time. but i still have to remember where my priorities lie.

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Originally posted by Brad
[B]I agree, kungfu is a great hobby. It’s pretty impractical for most people to dedicate much time at home for practice.

How much of your practice time is spent hard sparring, and working on fighting? How much of the belt testing is based on using application in a freestyle situation? [/B]

what does that have to do with his post?

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I agree with the sentiments of the post. Been there.

But you should really use the [rant] [/rant] tags when making a post of this nature. :smiley:

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what does that have to do with his post?

If you’re refering to the first part, that was in response to neit’s post. The second part had to do with knowing what sort of school he goes to. A lot of Wah Lum students that I’ve come across have been trained in a fashion closer to a typical McDojo type school than a “real martial art”. If he came from one of the form oriented/competition oriented schools, the rant would be pretty hypocritical seeing how much he criticizes “McDojo’s” and the like.

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Personally, I’m growing very disatisfied with Kung Fu myself these days … too much theory. Everyone’s an expert. Then there’s a tournament, and advanced men’s fighting doesn’t allow face contact?

How do advanced fighters fight without face contact? How many set ups and traps rely on you defending the face strike?

How does one play chess without checking the king?

Do you think a chest blast is a deterant to a guy who weights 240 lbs.?

It’s a joke. The more I see what’s out there the more I’m left thinking that MMA is the only true forum left. You can call it “low level” but they’re doing it. Kung Fu likes to talk one way, practice another and theory you do death.

And then when there is fighting, it’s no different than TKD rules … no this, no that. Don’t take down. Don’t elbow. Don’t face strike.

The arts are dying. If Kung Fu is worth saving you need to force a revolution. You want to enter “Advanced” fighting? You better be equiped to handle everything and everything. If you’re not, you are either not “advanced” or your training is lacking.

I don’t want to come off as being negative. But this has been on my mind and I no longer care about Style A or Style B. I’m 30 years old and I want the good stuff and I want it now. I don’t want theory. Theory is for the guys building the rocket. I want it pre-made and ready to hop in and go.

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lee kwan shan - what you’re saying is pretty typical of ALL schools. Some guys will claim their students are all pretty hard working, but that’s completely subjective. However, most people don’t put a lot of time into working on their art outside of their classes. You’ll find alot of people take martial arts to accomplish two things - to get in shape and to get supposed self defense skills. Tha majorit of the people who shoot for those two goals don’t realize and usually aren’t willing to put in the time and effort to learn the art and to make it effective (ironic considering the self defense part.)
There’s also a large majority out there who take classes as a hobby. Usually it starts with either one or both of the above mentioned goals, and/or a certain enjoyment in martial arts/action films. Most of those people sort of come and go when they realize that getting good, even if it’s just to show off, takes time and energy and a whole lot of effort.
On top of that , I don’t know a whole lot of people who are capable of affording to train full time. Most people work roughly 40 hours a week to survive, and many others have personal lives that tend to require a certain amount of their time.
What it comes down to is that in our modern busy times, most people do the martial arts as a hobby at best. You’ll find a fee dedicated individuals who train as often and as much as they can, but they are the minority.

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Originally posted by EvolutionFist
How do advanced fighters fight without face contact? How many set ups and traps rely on you defending the face strike?
Didn’t you say last week that you don’t allow face contact in class, and would even get mad if someone hit you hard in the face on accident?

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I don’t want to come off as being negative. But this has been on my mind and I no longer care about Style A or Style B. I’m 30 years old and I want the good stuff and I want it now. I don’t want theory. Theory is for the guys building the rocket. I want it pre-made and ready to hop in and go.

then why don’t you switch to MMA if that is the answer to your dreams?

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Master Killer, I didn’t reply to your comment in that last post because I thought you perhaps typed it off quick in the moment and would realise, that if I’m fighting in full contact events on a regular basis that of course I train with full contact blows TO MY FACE.

What you missed in that post of course was the point. That you train full power, full force to TEST materials. But there is also a time when you are learning and training materials.

Take a concept like horse in Hsing-I. One of it’s principles is to trap or hook the hand (somewhat like WC Fuk Sau) and then shoot the same hand in to hit, while controlling the arm with the elbow.

To train this, me and my sparring partner will play light, shoot straights and hooks into each other’s torso at say 50 % power but with speed. We’ll brush each other’s heads but try to avoid straight face contact but slips happen. At 50% its cool.

The point of the drill is to see if you can capture the arm, control it, and slip your own attack in.

If you feel good about it, maybe you’ll try it next time when you play full power. Understand that difference?

I also made it clear though that I won’t complain if you try to headbutt me when we are rolling and working on technique. Just understand that you signed a contract by that behavior stating that you understand that’s just went live. And if I turn it around, I’ll knee you right in the face… I have good sparring partners, and this crap is never an issue (only when a friend or a friend shows up occassionally).

…

Red, you are absolutely right. I have long said here that I don’t like being associated with “Kung Fu”, because I believe I’m doing something different than what that implies to most.

I’m sporting a bum knee which I’m retsing before a surf trip. When I get back I’m preparing training for a serious San Da run. When I prove myself there, I will focus on MMA events. I need to walk before I can run, and there are serious fighters at Mr. Ross’s events. They aren’t fooling around.

That is by far the best MA venue I’ve been associated with so far: classy, well run, but serious.

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does this mean you’re done with “kungfu”? Traditional kungfu that is?

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Originally posted by red5angel
On top of that , I don’t know a whole lot of people who are capable of affording to train full time. Most people work roughly 40 hours a week to survive, and many others have personal lives that tend to require a certain amount of their time.
What it comes down to is that in our modern busy times, most people do the martial arts as a hobby at best. You’ll find a fee dedicated individuals who train as often and as much as they can, but they are the minority.

Unfortunately, that’s the case for me. I’m a 28 year old business professional who would LOVE to have more time to train every week. But I have clear-cut priorities, and I can’t afford to place Kung Fu any higher on the list–it’s pretty much at 4th behind God, family, and work. But I also do train on my own when I have time and bust my tail in class to get better.

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most expedient means of defense/attack = guns.

just my opinion, and what seems to me to be the final conclusion to this thought line…

I’m 30 years old and I want the good stuff and I want it now. I don’t want theory. Theory is for the guys building the rocket. I want it pre-made and ready to hop in and go.

Anything before you start arming yourself is really just games. They can be serious games, very true, but once you step up to that other mode of thinking- this is my life, I am in some heavy situations, and other people in this circle are carrying, etc, my opinion is that it is pretty easy to see the difference between the two modalities. This might come off badly, but one is sort of like a fantasy mentality of turning yourself into some kind of sick uberwarrior ready to dis any sucker who dares to step, while the other recognizes why you hit on a 16 when the dealer’s got a 10 or face card showing.

That is also why I think a lot of people say that at first, kung fu is about fighting, but then it turns to be about something else.

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Reggie, I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing the martial arts as a hobby as long as the one approaching it that way understands his potential will always be low, and he won’t, honeslty be a good representation of the art.
What I mean is, if it’s a hobby for you, understand that you’re a) not going to be as good as you could be and B) not going to be as good as others who put in the time to train will be.
My only issue with the hobby thing is that I’ve met to many hobbyist who seem to think they have more then they do.