The downfall of Traditional Gung Fu

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Southern Chinese Kung Fu
1

I’ve been thinking alot about this lately, and i wnted to see some of your opinions.

First, i’ve always presented myself as a fighter…not for sport…but for survival. So i too am likely to pay attention to modern martial trends, but i like to stay traditional…now until recently i had a different game plan on my teaching. but this question popped up im my mind while driving the other day.

since mma has exploded as it has, i was wondering if anyone felt that mma will become to downfall to traditional martial arts? i no longer teach forms first like the old days. but if a tcma school isn’t keeping up with the times…does that mean that style will ultimately become extinct because of mma?

2

Good question but I don’t think TCMA will suffer hugely. MMAs has been around for a while, just recently the media has placed more emphasis on grappling and it has exploded. Look at TKD, it exploded years ago but it didn’t spell the down fall of TCMAs.

I personally feel TCMAs are being watered down due in part to falling prey to the tempo of the day ie) MMAs and the trend to take a little from here and a little from there without ever prefecting either. To me this is watering down systems of TCMA.

Mixing TCMAs isn’t necessarily new or a modern trend but the time invested in one style seems to be diminishing; therefore, the return will have a cummulative diminishing effect full circle.

Modern day society is probably having the worst effect on TCMA. We lose precious living history every 10 years as the Elders of many systems either retire or pass along. I don’t feel this gap is being filled. Youth are being pulled away in different directions and who will nowaday learn stances and basic techniques for 6 months or more? Then again, for those that teach, this is something that must be realised and incorporated into Today’s training methodologies.

I believe most people are drawn to any style of MA because of the person teaching; this being more true for student retention, which is always a problem to any kwoon any style. People will try different kwoons and different styles of MAs but they generally stay due to the head instructor and the facility.

I also believe it is getting harder for teachers/masters to find that 1 person out of 100 students that has what it takes to become an indoor student. Today that is a rare breed: it comes from a belief in the head teacher & the style. Is there enough of these practitioners out there in Today’s transient world to stem the bleeding?

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:cool:

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nah i don’t think so.

but you’re right. it’s hard to fing that student with just as much passion as you.

all we could do is keep looking.

hsk

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One hinderance i see in the continuation of TCMA in its true form, some traditions are out dated IMO

many years ago, one would not teach a student much material at the beginning because you didnt want this guy taking off after he proved he was loyal and betraying your styles secrets to enemies.

this was a matter of life and death. if you fought with your martial arts, the more secrets you hold the more un predictable you are.

this is not the case in the modern world. yet this mindset is not being dropped. people are still not teaching you the real deal until you have been around long enough.

this is causing people to stray to things like MMA because they can be taught effective technique and how to apply it RIGHT AWAY.

instead you have a lot of old school TCMA guys trying to be secretive and hold out the material like thier masters did to them and all the way back in the tradition.

I understand the point of not wanting to give someone material to harm others before you think they can handle it. but if you dont give out the good stuff, your students will just go somewhere where they can actually learn to fight and not just dance around for 5 years until the good stuff starts showing up.

I think this mindset is a disease. Modern people want to see effectiveness and utilization or they wont buy into the hype so much. They will just go to the places that will teach you how to fight right away. because well, thats what a lot of people want.

especiall when you talk about adult students. this isnt ancient china. not all of us will begin training as a child and have our psyche formed for us by our teachers. we are already set in our ways, understand right from wrong, and dont need any moral lessons.

we want to learn to fight. thats why we are um in a fighting school…right? so when you get these guys who just want to teach you form and stances for ever and string you along…

well this is the problem. Its getting hard to tell the teachers who are just withholding based on out dated ideals and the total BS schmucks who dont actually have it.

because they often will teach you similarly for the first while, until you find out your teacher is BS or you find out hes the real deal.

either way precious adult years are deteriorating away because the teachers teaching in the MODERN world are using old ideas on how to form the basis for what to teach who.

sometimes people just need to change with the times and not be so static in their presence.

5

we emphasize different stuff then mma. you know so i am not worried. there will always be people who want to learn chinese kung fu.

mma fan boys want to do mma but 90% of them just talk crap.

6

People need a firm grasp of what they are trying to achieve and also a firm understanding of fact vs fiction when it comes to “traditional” martial arts

At least 50% (I’d say much more) of what people associate with “traditional” is less than 100 years old (much less than 80 years old)

For a teacher who wants to attract and keep students, using methods that were originally designed to discourage students and “weed out” all but the most dedicated are counter productive

The idea that just because your teacher, si-gung or dai si-gung did it then it must be “better” is an obvious obstacle. We live in the 21st century, why train like we are living in the 19th?

The real difference between “traditional” martial arts (Tma) and “Modern/Mixed” martial arts (Mma) is not WHAT they train, it is HOW they train

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[QUOTE=lkfmdc;760911]People need a firm grasp of what they are trying to achieve and also a firm understanding of fact vs fiction when it comes to “traditional” martial arts

At least 50% (I’d say much more) of what people associate with “traditional” is less than 100 years old (much less than 80 years old)

For a teacher who wants to attract and keep students, using methods that were originally designed to discourage students and “weed out” all but the most dedicated are counter productive

The idea that just because your teacher, si-gung or dai si-gung did it then it must be “better” is an obvious obstacle. We live in the 21st century, why train like we are living in the 19th?

The real difference between “traditional” martial arts (Tma) and “Modern/Mixed” martial arts (Mma) is not WHAT they train, it is HOW they train[/QUOTE]

you must have been reading my mind when you wrote this. dang you even said it better than i did and in less words.

Get outa my head!

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[QUOTE=Shaolinlueb;760905]
mma fan boys want to do mma but 90% of them just talk crap.[/QUOTE]

hehe, this made me lol

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[QUOTE=PangQuan;760912]

Get outa my head![/QUOTE]

I knew you were going to say that before you wrote it :stuck_out_tongue:

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lol, you better head over to the main forum and regulate on the seeing the future thread. :eek:

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[QUOTE=lkfmdc;760911]

The real difference between “traditional” martial arts (Tma) and “Modern/Mixed” martial arts (Mma) is not WHAT they train, it is HOW they train[/QUOTE]

This is a great point. The techniques are all there (well, for striking and throwing), it’s just where you decide to put the emphasis. Other styles might have more efficient ways of training particular techniques/attributes, so we adapt that into our training regimen.

For example, I just got the NY San Da video #2. David Ross presented a way of pad training that is a great improvement on the old pad drills that I’ve been using for years, and will definitely incorporate into my classes. I’ll modify it a little bit here and there to my CLF style, but it’s the method that I’ll be using. If you’re a teacher, btw, you really need to get this video. It will change your outlook on pad drills.

-123

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MMA has developed into a style that takes pieces of Muay Thai, Boxing, Greco-Roman Wrestling, BJJ, and sometimes Judo and puts them into a blender. MMA gets its material is from those styles. And I don’t usually see them learning those styles completely either. Sometimes I see it with BJJ. But that seems to be the exception. I’ve never seen, for example, a MMA guy conditioning his shins against banana trees like Muay Thai fighters do. That said, MMA does not train the same material as TMA (with the exception of the arts mentioned). For example, fu jow training is not a part of MMA. And that’s just scratching the surface. TMA have different concepts, training, techniques, and purposes then MMA.

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i saw that :stuck_out_tongue:

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yeah, i agree about the pad training but i haven’t seen dave’s video.

i always take the combo’s out of the sets and drill them against pads to give them something to strike.

tcma never really emphasized mma type of training. but i’m open to it cause i want my students to be the best fighters they can without leaving our system.

under dino salvatera you only learned hand forms, andthe students began to spar to learn to use our stuff… but dino salvatera won’t stnd there holding a bag while you strike. but i do.

i just hope tcma masters hang on to what they got.

hsk

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[QUOTE=hskwarrior;760944]yeah, i agree about the pad training but i haven’t seen dave’s video.

i always take the combo’s out of the sets and drill them against pads to give them something to strike.

tcma never really emphasized mma type of training. but i’m open to it cause i want my students to be the best fighters they can without leaving our system.

under dino salvatera you only learned hand forms, andthe students began to spar to learn to use our stuff… but dino salvatera won’t stnd there holding a bag while you strike. but i do.

i just hope tcma masters hang on to what they got.

hsk[/QUOTE]

more tcma teachers need this type of mindframe.

16

well thats why im working at modernizing my choy lee fut. as a student of dino s, i saw what my school lacked and filled in the gaps. we never practiced applications, only forms. we never drilled techniques, we theorized about them.

but in my school i incorporate pad work, light grappling, and applications and also train them as realistically as possible for street encounters.

if they trained for sport thats a different ball game. my new approach is if you want to fight for sport, learn no forms, but absorb the knowledge.

from now on, forms in my school are least important.

17

sounds like you might want to turn to bak hsing :smiley:

seriously, forms do not need to be least important in a curriculum, one needs to remember they are a tool amongst many. TCMA especially CLF went hog wild on forms. too much emphasis is placed on forms without application in real life situations.

that is interesting Frank. your sifu did not drill techniques or teach applications? the students just got together and sparred?

nospam
:cool:

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TCMA is fine. It’s even better when it is trained in a realistic atmosphere at levels that everyone is capable of comprehending.

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hey Dave, How goes? Long time no se…er read :rolleyes:

hope all is well with you and yours.

here is a clip about change - it’s a very interesting listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmrX3VfG1ZQ

..change can be many different things..

nospam
:cool:

20

the only think sifu dino ever did was drill basic punches, kicks. but never any applications, never any kind of drills except two man spar forms.

yeah, we used to sparr alot and very wildly. eventually we began to understand our gung fu in a different manner. discovering it for yourself is a method of learning that i find interesting. yeah you can show me how to use gung fu, but if i don’t own my gung fu i will always be doing YOUR gung fu.

and buk sing is hung sing so i’d be in the same place.