Here’s a good measure of things
not everyone in my school fights, far from it… but I DO have fighters here
but MORE IMPORTANTLY the stuff the fighters train, the techniques, the methods, etc the whole rest of the school trains exactly the same (different intensity levels for sure). When they go and watch a student from here fight, they see the same stance, same footwork, same attacks and same defense they are learning and practicing in class…
if not, there is somethng wrong
[QUOTE=golden arhat;806227]dude you didnt answer his points at all ![/QUOTE]
i thought it was obvious that i was trying to avoid a question by LKFMDC, which would side track the point of this thread into the same old discussions which have beaten to death.
So that it doesn’t appear that i can’t answer the quesiton or have something to hide, i will gladly answer LKFMDC’s question. The anwers is all of the 100.
[QUOTE=lkfmdc;806280]Here’s a good measure of things
not everyone in my school fights, far from it… but I DO have fighters here
but MORE IMPORTANTLY the stuff the fighters train, the techniques, the methods, etc the whole rest of the school trains exactly the same (different intensity levels for sure). When they go and watch a student from here fight, they see the same stance, same footwork, same attacks and same defense they are learning and practicing in class…
if not, there is somethng wrong[/QUOTE]
And I don’t see why it would be any different anywhere else.
Fighters comprise a small percentage of the people that train in most gyms, more so nowadays ( aside ones that cater just to pro fighters).
The training and sparring should eb the same, heck a pro doesn’t even go balls-to-the-walls every time, only ups the intensity when training for a fight, so they pretty much train and spar like everyone else, to a degree.
[QUOTE=Tai-Lik;806284]i thought it was obvious that i was trying to avoid a questions by LKFMDC
[/QUOTE]
it was embarassingly obvious, just like your ducking the issue of your own art
Do you think Jow Biu and Jow Lung considered themselves fighters?
Why did Dean Chin think full contact fighting was important enough that he took his students all the way to Taiwan to compete?
Why don’t you offer any full contact at your tournament?
LKFMDC, lets not waste everyone’s time or disrespect this forum with your punk a$$ comments:D
if you want to conversate or debate respectfully, i’m all for it. i hate to see good threads and conversation get off track. If you have a problem with that just pm me and i’ll set up a time where we can a discussion face to face:)
LKFMDC wrote:
it was embarassingly obvious, just like your ducking the issue of your own art
Do you think Jow Biu and Jow Lung considered themselves fighters?
Why did Dean Chin think full contact fighting was important enough that he took his students all the way to Taiwan to compete?
Why don’t you offer any full contact at your tournament?
okay this is where i didn’t want this topic to go, lol.
Of course Jow Biu and Jow Lung considered themselves fighters.
My sifu supported full contact fighting and so do most of us from him. The topic of thread wasn’t about full contact;)
we haven’t offered full contact during our tournament for two simple reasons. one, INSURANCE. Two we wanted experience in running tournaments first. we have announced during our tournaments future full contact divisions.
The only thing embarrasing i see is you being a grown man and an allegedly experienced in martial artist, behaving like a child when other people come on this forum and make comments you disagree with;)
your hilarious man:)
[QUOTE=Tai-Lik;806316]
LKFMDC, lets not waste everyone’s time or disrespect this forum with your punk a$$ comments:D
if you want to conversate or debate respectfully, i’m all for it. i hate to see good threads and conversation get off track. If you have a problem with that just pm me and i’ll set up a time where we can a discussion face to face:)
[/QUOTE]
throws out a childish insult and then a veiled threat, we must have hit a nerve :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Tai-Lik;806316]
Of course Jow Biu and Jow Lung considered themselves fighters.
My sifu supported full contact fighting
[/QUOTE]
thanks for finally addressing direct questions
[QUOTE=Tai-Lik;806316]
The topic of thread wasn’t about full contact
[/QUOTE]
sure it is, it’s about the demise of TCMA, the fact they are no longe fighting is a big part of their demise… at least if you are concerned with the essence. If not, well, then why even bother with this thread?
[QUOTE=Tai-Lik;806316]
we haven’t offered full contact during our tournament for two simple reasons. one, INSURANCE.
[/QUOTE]
I addressed this once before, you can’t afford $700 or so dollars to do the event?
Now, I admire that you wouldn’t do the event without insurance, but insurance is not a big deal, so I guess we’ll be seeing full contact at your event real soon…
BTW, I’m not the one whose underwear gets in a bunch simply because people are discussing things on a discussion forum
Man, you get awefully defensive awefully quickly…
TMA succombing to american marketing and superficial mindsets
what we have seen in this country is a mindset of marketing martial arts to the average joe and jane that does not necessarily reflect the art itself, but more of a weekend activity to engage in with your family and learn some “kARATE” and some “Kung fu” yadda yadda yadda. Teachers have had to model their arts to fit with the times and the people in this country and the MAJORITY of the people in this country would walk into a serious fighting school and walk right back out and take their money to the local TKD school where the kids wear green sequin gi’s and do musical kata OR they go to the school that claims itself as the all knowing shaolin school and plays on the fantasies of those who grew up on david carradine and the TV show and why? because…ITS FUN AND FAMILY ORIENTED. Those TKD schools and the others like it Make the money whereas the Fighting schools close up shop within a couple of years because they are not pulling in the students or the $$ they need to stay afloat. Im not saying that the TKD schools and the ones like it are THE SCHOOLS TO BE AT. But you gotta admit they got all you “REAL FIGHTING” schools:rolleyes: scrounging at the bottom of the barrel.
i find it funny as hell to.
As to TMA on a steady decline? Maybe Gene is right and it is on the rise(in his section of the country and city) in the rest of the country i see the exact opposite. because of what i stated above, i feel that people in general are not looking to go to a “fighting” school. Some are MOST are not, in my opinion.
The point that i am making with all this is that this country is a Money making and wheeling and dealing country and it eclipses the GOOD schools that are out there doing things in the traditional way and teaching the traditional ways and conducting themselves in a manner that goes beyond most of us on this forum.
i feel that those people you will find out in the park teaching for nothing and have another career that brings the bread and butter in. We cant all be chuck liddels or matt hughes etc etc. Most of america is not like that.
Peace,TWS
[QUOTE=The Willow Sword;806321]
But you gotta admit they got all you “REAL FIGHTING” schools:rolleyes: scrounging at the bottom of the barrel.
i find it funny as hell to.
[/QUOTE]
What’s funny is how out of touch with the industry you are.
There are three major consutling firms for commerical martial arts studios, right now all three are pushing MMA packages and telling their clients they have to jump on the MMA bandwagon or they are going to suffer
Say what you want about Tiger Schulman, he is the most successful Karate school owner in history. He dwarfs all the taekwondo and sport karate places. Yet he’s dropped uniforms, he’s dropped kata and gone totally MMA
The biggest single school monthly EFT (monthly electronic billing) in the country right now is Renzo Gracie
If anyone is scrounging for business, it’s the kung fu schools
[QUOTE=lkfmdc;806242]The obvious observation and point is that most TCMA schools aren’t fielding fighters of any sort…
a place dedicated to San Da will have between 4 and 12 people getting ready to compete at any given time
Shuai Jiao students all “wrestle”, many do stuff like judo also
a BJJ school will have it’s students competing in BJJ tournaments
anyplace doing MMA has students competing
why is it when a TCMA school goes to a tournament, it’s students do forms and not fighting?
you aren’t saying that TCMA isn’t about fighting are you? Seems you’re saying the opposite, so then, why doesn’t that ethic manifest itself in practice?[/QUOTE]
You learn martial arts for one main reason: self defense.
Secondary is health, relaxation, learning an art, etc.
I think that are plenty of TCMA teacher in many areas that can indeed teach this well.
During the 1990s, I made a personal survey when I was touring around the world to TCMA teachers about why they might be reluctant to teach true self defense to students (what you call fighting, whatever).
Top reasons they gave:
MOST people who enroll in classes are not interested in putting or are not able to put in the time and effort to learn how to defend themselves efficiently and effectively. Except for a few students, most get turned off when applications are shown and start dropping out.
Insurance fears make many teachers afraid that a student will get hurt and sue them.
The law is clear about attackers attacking the attacker being illegal so it hinders them and they fear being blamed legally for an incident. (remember, most TCMA are immigrants to the country they are teaching in).
People don’t stick with classes long enough to even learn the fundamentals, so it is impossible for them to suddenly be able to defend themselves if they don’t come to class often enough.
they do have a very small circle of top students that stick with them long enough past the fundamentals to learn and handle self defense/fighting skills.
Kids parents want to see them just getting belts and push this at the expense of fighting skills, which the parents frown on.
The many mcKarate and McTKD schools in the area grab most of the younger people who want to just kick and punch for an hour 2-3 times a week. These people are satisfied with that and don’t want to learn TMA that require more out of the student than mere calisthenics.
If enough people want to learn it, they would teach it, they would love to teach it in fact.
So, it’s a two way street here.
it’s not just that teachers are not teaching it.
I think there is a lot of silly stuff going on in here.
TCMA is about fighting. Period. It is about combat. Period. It is about self-protection (self-defense, self-offense…however you prefer to label it). Period.
Without that it is not a martial art.
Many train to protect themselves on the streets.
Sparring within the kwoon can be very dangerous and intense…a sort of competition if you will. Not a tournament or full-contact match obviously, but also a great way, if done properly, to test yourself and to learn.
How about Tony Blauer? The guy is very successful but I don’t think he’s a ring/cage fighter and many of his concepts are top notch IMHO. Does that mean what he teaches isn’t martial arts?
Some styles focus on sparring and fighting…others on self-defense including methods to restrain without hurting. Some do both.
My number one reason for beginning down this road was to learn to protect myself…not to fight in a tournament or a cage or a ring. This means I am not training for a specific time and date, but rather for all. This affects my daily mindset deeply.
Demise of TCMA? I don’t think so. If you ask me, every generation had dozens if not hundreds of students who didn’t understand the arts…that is fine…it is the nature of human competition that some will excel while others will not. Doesn’t mean those who aren’t the most dedicated cannot train properly and gain benefit…it just means that often those who don’t go on to form a larger group than those who do…and they yell in unison so that often that is all that people can hear.
As long as those few that really care seek to preserve the arts and to share them with others, and the gold inherent is maintained, I don’t think they will ever die.
Think about it, TCMA or TMA in general have survived the gun, the nuclear bomb, tanks, revolutions left and right, etc…and somehow people think that the popularity of sportive combat is going to do it?
Do people actually think the arts were invented to fight for comptition or money? I can see why these could be good for testing oneself in a safe environment or to make a living if it was presented…but don’t kid yourself, the training is designed for violence, not sport.
Sal,
My response would be that while they may claim those things, maybe even believe them, they are WRONG.
More specifically
Then explain Tiger Shulman, Renzo, my gym, the Xtreme Couture gyms, etc… all places where TONS of people show up, and while they may not be all fighters, they train hard, train real, and the places certainly make money
If you actually inverstigate, insurance is easy and cheap
A fear that a student will get hurt and sue them is possible, but irrational. They’d have to be responsible of negligence.
There are tons of instructors now who were born and rasied here and aren’t afraid of “big brother government” coming after them, yet still don’t teach it.
If people dont come to class or there is no retention, that’s an instructor’s fault
Oh, a very small circle get quality training, the rest get crap? :rolleyes:
Visit Team Quest, or SBGi, or Renzo’s and see tons of parents very happy that their kids are getting quality real training…
Excuses are like noses, everyone has them and they all smell 
[QUOTE=lkfmdc;806329]
Excuses are like noses, everyone has them and they all smell :p[/QUOTE]
Technically, only brown noses smell.
I was trying to be nice… the real quote is
“excuses are like a-- holes, everyone has them and they are all full of s–t”
happy now? 
[QUOTE=lkfmdc;806336]I was trying to be nice… the real quote is
“excuses are like a-- holes, everyone has them and they are all full of s–t”
happy now? [/QUOTE]
What about someone who just pooped?
Before training, of course.
[QUOTE=lkfmdc;806262]I’m old, I have numerous injuries, I’ve survived cancer THREE TIMES, so my competition days are well behind me, even then I was a b-level amateur, but I did something. Today, not all my students fight, but about 10% does (around 20 students ready to fight at any given time)…
TCMA schools are full of young in shape people. They can do astounding forms performances, many are great gymnasts… surely one or two students in a school could fight full contact, no? :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
So, wait, you are judging that TMA is dying by the number of TMA people entered into full contact tournaments?
That is not accurate.
How can you ever know if that figure is going up or downing nationally or internationaly to say that a whole genre is dying? Locally maybe you can make that estimation.
During the 1990s when I was judging tournaments in Ohio, there was TONS of full contact TMA people entered representing AND USING skills from Hung gar, shuai jia, Xing Yi, Ba Gua, and so on. Full contact, rules being only: no groin strikes, no knee breaks, no eye or throat gouges.
In fact, the russian team used XY and the tournament winner one year knocked out a PROFESSIONAL thai kick boxer who was from Thailand. The kick boxer won all his matches up to to the top rung and so did the XY guy, meeting for the final title match.
When he came to, the kickboxer jumped up and cheered like he won and his coach ran over to tell him he lost. He looked totally shocked. He was knocked cold and didn’t even realize he had been out.
XY - a TMA won against a pro kickboxer.
But the guy actually used XY, he didn’t know anything else.
He was from Brooklyn or Queens.
AND, in the private classes I take, there a police men there, body guards, prison guards, and a law enforcement trainer, they have been going to TMA classes with me for the last 10 years. They are there in official capacity for their jobs, getting credits or tuition paid. They also studied judo, aikido, and the like.
I talk to them all the time about what they are allowed to do and what they have to do to stay alive in a confrontation. The said they are not interested in what the ring does only in what the street does.
(I learned cool stuff from them like defense against car antenna strikes, all the places knives can be hidden and used at angles you don’t expect, how you have to keep you mind also on preventing your gun from being taken when fighting, how to finish a move so that the perp is in position to be handcuffed, how to fight in a stairwell, when they are not allowed to retreat, etc. All great stuff for street defense not valid in the MMA ring. )
The ring is a sport, plain and simple. MMA doesn’t need to be only for the ring, and when it is not in the ring, taaa Da! It becomes TMA again.
TMA works on the street, I have used it over and over since the 70s, the only reason I am alive today.
The reason why i agree with TMA declining
this is sad.
http://www.professionalmartialartscollege.com/faculty.asp
here is also an interesting article
http://www.usadojo.com/articles/history-karate-america.htm
PEACE,TWS
[QUOTE=Sal Canzonieri;806338]
So, wait, you are judging that TMA is dying by the number of TMA people entered into full contact tournaments?
[/QUOTE]
Again, depends what you define as “dying” or “demise”
To me, when a so called martial art loses all it’s fighting, then yes I’d say it is “demised” (is that a word?)
So the lack of students participating in any form of fighting is AT LEAST ONE INDICATOR…
BTW, I work around the nation, with a lot of sanctionig bodies and events, my observations are anything but “local”
[QUOTE=Sal Canzonieri;806338]
During the 1990s when I was judging tournaments in Ohio, there was TONS of full contact TMA people entered
[/QUOTE]
In the 1970’s and 1980’s every kung fu school I knew had a box of boxing gloves in a corner somewhere…
There was always a rivalry with Muay Thai and attention to events in Asia (Taiwan lei tai, Hong Kong open etc)
If there was “fighting” going on it was always full contact
Today, what do we see? We see forms and point sparring…
Both the USAWKF and USWU dropped san da altogether from their national events…
[QUOTE=Sal Canzonieri;806338]
The ring is a sport, plain and simple.
[/QUOTE]
but MMA isn’t just about the ring or the cage, it’s about HOW you train, and the standards you apply and the outlook you have
reaping the benefits
personally, I think TCMA is reaping the benefits of what the old school masters have sewn- you know with holding quality instruction because of fear, nationalism, prejudice, paranoi- etc…
We all have heard the stories of the instructors with holding their best teachings from the foreigner gwai-lo, now it’s paying TCMA back in spades. A lot of TCMA stuff don’t work because the “masters” failed to teach the stuff that worked. Now there isn’t anything to pass on because of all the bunk and the huge number of mis-informed gwai-lo teaching bunk.
We’re not stupid- (well, most of us aren’t) we go with what works and you can only be deceived for so long before you look elsewhere. Some people keep their heads in the sand with excuses- I mean what would you do if you devoted your best years to a crappy system and learned the terrible truth really late in life? It’d suck, and you wouldn’t want to face it right? Well- I see a lot of that.
Benny the Jet was a traditionalist, so was Bill Wallace, Don Wilson, and Joe Lewis. I’d say the Gracies are traditionalist- hybrid traditionalists, Mifune was a traditionalist-
You can be traditional and an MMAer at the same time. It’s easy- fighting is just Shuai, Na, Ti, Da - that’s it. Whatever your base style is- it’s not good at all ranges. Supplement with a complimentary style. Plain and simple- you’re lying to yourself if you think your MA can do it all 'cuz it can’t. If your base is striking- then supplement with a pure grappling style- two traditional styles makes you a good MMAer.
Check out what Shou Yu Liang and Tony Chen are doing- I like it. These are two traditionalist with a great approach to training. You’d have to read Kung Fu Elements and check out Tony Chen’s article about MMA in the PRC in Kung Fu Magazine to get what I’m talking about.
The B
Demised? ~sure its a word
IMO- the simple fact that we have several men on a discussion board talking about the changes that need to be made in many cases regarding the training methods and habits of TCMA/TMA is a sure indicator that there are those involved in TMA that are concerned and are looking to change things to the way they should be.
Changes like this do not happen over night. they rarely happen in one generation. usually changes on that large of a scale are made through hard work, time, dedication, and love.
Demised? IMO ~ no
In the process of opening its eyes to the situation at hand? yes
Thats just me, But I highly doubt I am alone.
[QUOTE=lkfmdc;806343]Again, depends what you define as “dying” or “demise”
To me, when a so called martial art loses all it’s fighting, then yes I’d say it is “demised” (is that a word?)
So the lack of students participating in any form of fighting is AT LEAST ONE INDICATOR…
BTW, I work around the nation, with a lot of sanctionig bodies and events, my observations are anything but “local”
In the 1970’s and 1980’s every kung fu school I knew had a box of boxing gloves in a corner somewhere…
There was always a rivalry with Muay Thai and attention to events in Asia (Taiwan lei tai, Hong Kong open etc)
If there was “fighting” going on it was always full contact
Today, what do we see? We see forms and point sparring…
Both the USAWKF and USWU dropped san da altogether from their national events…
but MMA isn’t just about the ring or the cage, it’s about HOW you train, and the standards you apply and the outlook you have[/QUOTE]
hmm, okay, I guess I haven’t seen that cause i am not involved outside of my own studies.
Well, so, what can be done about it?
It being that a number of MA schools aren’t teaching more than forms, etc., instead of self defense/fighting skills?
Why don’t people ASK these schools why they aren’t teaching self defense, etc?
There are schools that do teach everything, how are they doing?
It seems to be a post-2000 thing for fighting skills teaching to be dropped.
Why?
What’s the factors involved?
Is it solvable?