I feel that the general public deems it a pursuit of little kids. They also have no clue about the history, styles, etc.
Any thoughts on this topic?
Most people seem to think it’s pretty useless, something that’s done in the movies for show or people trying to lose weight.
Chinese people seem to think it’s even more useless. I’ve never met a single Chinese person outside the kwoon that considers martial arts anything more than wushu for show – non fighting.
Think about it – fighting now is guns, right? Who in their right mind would waste time on martial arts? That seems to be the public’s opinion.
true
yeah people dont know much about kung fu in general. When they go to look for schools they have little knowledge and can be easily prayed upon by those wishing to take their money for the great “art” of kung fu.
Real kung fu is not about money or belt ranks, and most if not all teachers in the US are concerned with these two aspects and not about proper training. Its sad.
People get most of their information about kung fu from films which are highly innaccurate, or worse yet from the TV show. People visit schools with quack instructors or quasi martial arts consisting of jiujitsu and karate with one kung fu kick and think its kung fu.
oh well. We aren’t in China though, so no suprize there. Since there is also a large ignorance about china and chinese culture in general, it is no suprize that people have no idea about kung fu/ gong fu.
[QUOTE=zhangxihuan;704266]Real kung fu is not about money or belt ranks, and most if not all teachers in the US are concerned with these two aspects and not about proper training. Its sad. [/QUOTE]
For those of you who recognize this it is up to you to hold strong to these values and instill them into the generations to follow.
[QUOTE=Shaolin;704271]For those of you who recognize this it is up to you to hold strong to these values and instill them into the generations to follow.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I dunno. Bottom line is nobody really fights with CMA anymore, and people are more interested in belts and ‘character’ than fighting.
Martial arts for fighting kindof went out with the gun, grenade, rocket launcher, tank, plane, missile, etc.
It also went out when schools figured out that they could make more money with less effort by catering to children and people into fantasy, rather than trying to build a strong school by attracting people who are serious about learning.
[QUOTE=rogue;704280]It also went out when schools figured out that they could make more money with less effort by catering to children and people into fantasy, rather than trying to build a strong school by attracting people who are serious about learning.[/QUOTE]
Liability really has a lot to do with it, it seems. To have a serious school there are going to be ouchies. Ouchies means potential lawsuits.
So to minimize ouchies they had to minimize the training. So now you have what is a joke, really.
Anyways, it’s not all bad, I guess. The fact that we live in a society where martial arts aren’t really needed and there’s a good police force isn’t that bad, is it?
CMA could probably learn something from BJJ, boxing, kickboxing and judo though. I mean, BJJ, kickboxing and Judo and stuff still has partner practice and somehow manages to keep a degree of martiality.
[QUOTE=lunghushan;704282]
CMA could probably learn something from BJJ, boxing, kickboxing and judo though. I mean, BJJ, kickboxing and Judo and stuff still has partner practice and somehow manages to keep a degree of martiality.[/QUOTE]
CMA does this. just look to the right places.
does ALL cma do this, no.
do some? yes.
those are the ones you pay attention too, not the others.
[QUOTE=PangQuan;704295]CMA does this. just look to the right places.
does ALL cma do this, no.
do some? yes.
those are the ones you pay attention too, not the others.[/QUOTE]
It seems pretty hard to find. The one decent school that I came across which was Mike Patterson’s school that did Xingyi and went to a lot of tournaments and stuff, well he moved to Las Vegas and only teaches private now.
I don’t know of any others. There may be some out there, but I have no clue as to what they are.
How many CMA schools do a decent amount of partner practice vs. forms? Like, say, at least 1/2 hour of partner practice or more per class? Plus sparring?
It seems very rare.
you right on the dot with that one.
rare is the key word here.
im lucky enough to live with the general manager of the school i attend (elder of me by years). if you are not recieving the partener drills you need during instruction periods, take it upon yourself, ask an elder brother to work you. if they are a martial artist they will be pleased to help.
remember, not all instruction is given by your sifu.
[QUOTE=PangQuan;704307]you right on the dot with that one.
rare is the key word here.
im lucky enough to live with the general manager of the school i attend (elder of me by years). if you are not recieving the partener drills you need during instruction periods, take it upon yourself, ask an elder brother to work you. if they are a martial artist they will be pleased to help.
remember, not all instruction is given by your sifu.[/QUOTE]
Well, my ‘older brothers’ are geriatric. LOL
No, I don’t really worry about this one. I got tired of worrying about it. But the lack of any serious partner training only enforces in people’s minds that CMA isn’t that great compared to boxing, kickboxing and things like that.
[QUOTE=lunghushan;704264]Most people seem to think it’s pretty useless, something that’s done in the movies for show or people trying to lose weight.
Chinese people seem to think it’s even more useless. I’ve never met a single Chinese person outside the kwoon that considers martial arts anything more than wushu for show – non fighting.
Think about it – fighting now is guns, right? Who in their right mind would waste time on martial arts? That seems to be the public’s opinion.[/QUOTE]
depends on the demographic you are talking about. My day job (I’m an IT guy) yeah, most people think it’s pointless, except for a couple that train and one or two that used to box in the military. In general, they think it’s really cool, but pointless.
women seem to love it, but not because they can learn to fight - it’s a way to get in shape.
my fellow bouncers at my night job laugh at most TMA, but respect the hell out of grappling, boxing and muay thai. the odd thing about that is that a couple of them love to watch final fu. One of them has a lot of respect for tma.
to older people, it really doesn’t matter. Regardless of what style you do, it’s all just karate.
what are you talking about.
[QUOTE=lunghushan;704282]Liability really has a lot to do with it, it seems. To have a serious school there are going to be ouchies. Ouchies means potential lawsuits.
So to minimize ouchies they had to minimize the training. So now you have what is a joke, really.
Anyways, it’s not all bad, I guess. The fact that we live in a society where martial arts aren’t really needed and there’s a good police force isn’t that bad, is it?
CMA could probably learn something from BJJ, boxing, kickboxing and judo though. I mean, BJJ, kickboxing and Judo and stuff still has partner practice and somehow manages to keep a degree of martiality.[/QUOTE]
what are you thinking? some cma are not pansys. its the way you fight. what your saying is scrap cma and go do others. my si gung fights like a kung fu person. all of my si fus and si mos fight like kung fu people. they are not boxers or kick boxers or bjj.they may some ground fighting a grappling. but who said scrap kung fu techniques like tigers and such. for boxing or kick boxing or judo
[QUOTE=dainos;704319]what are you thinking? some cma are not pansys. its the way you fight. what your saying is scrap cma and go do others. my si gung fights like a kung fu person. all of my si fus and si mos fight like kung fu people. they are not boxers or kick boxers or bjj.they may some ground fighting a grappling. but who said scrap kung fu techniques like tigers and such. for boxing or kick boxing or judo[/QUOTE]
All I’m saying is that like 25 years ago, martial arts meant martial arts, fighting. It was way more fighting oriented, the practices were harder, sparring was harder, etc.
Now it is hard to find a good fighting oriented school. There are a ton of places that do mostly forms or watered down stuff.
I asked around, and everybody told me it was because of liability, that they have to be very careful because they’re afraid of getting sued.
[QUOTE=The Xia;704263]I feel that the general public deems it a pursuit of little kids.[/QUOTE]
I had a school for a short time but had to close because I couldn’t pay the bills. Next door was a gymnastics/cheerleading school and the parents would hang around out front (not allowed inside during class) waiting for their kids.
Speaking with a few of them I realized they felt Kung Fu/Karate was something just for kids. I had guys in their early 30’s saying they were too old.
I don’t know how that image came about but I couldn’t even get them interested in Taiji, and that has an image of being just for old folks. Bottom line I think they’re all lazy.
[QUOTE=lunghushan;704282]The fact that we live in a society where martial arts aren’t really needed and there’s a good police force isn’t that bad, is it?[/QUOTE]
I don’t know where you live but the police have no obligation to protect you (and the chance of them being available to protect you is slim).
They are law enforcement and their job is to arrest the perps after the fact. That means self defense is up to you and where I live assaults, road rage, home invasions and murders are fairly common.
[QUOTE=Yao Sing;704329]
They are law enforcement and their job is to arrest the perps after the fact. That means self defense is up to you and where I live assaults, road rage, home invasions and murders are fairly common.[/QUOTE]
Must be a bad neighborhood. That stuff is way down since they had the 3 strikes laws unless you live in a bad neighborhood like Detroit or something.
And anyways, your martial arts aren’t going to protect you from that stuff. You need a gun.
[QUOTE=lunghushan;704331]Must be a bad neighborhood. That stuff is way down since they had the 3 strikes laws unless you live in a bad neighborhood like Detroit or something.
And anyways, your martial arts aren’t going to protect you from that stuff. You need a gun.[/QUOTE]
not necessarily… In my city, the murder rate is three times higher than the national average and it has been for years. even when the murder rate was down, we were still high. we’re at a record pace this year, with 110+ murders so far. we had over three hundred burglaries in ONE WEEK last month.
[QUOTE=Yao Sing;704329]I don’t know where you live but the police have no obligation to protect you (and the chance of them being available to protect you is slim).
They are law enforcement and their job is to arrest the perps after the fact. That means self defense is up to you and where I live assaults, road rage, home invasions and murders are fairly common.[/QUOTE]
BINGO. I actually posted an incident I had here a few years ago. A paperboy was getting mugged, and I chased the mugger off. The paperboy was badly beaten though. I looked across the street and a cop was watching the whole thing. I went and asked him why he didn’t help and he told me that it wasn’t his job. He said that a cops job is to do clean up, basically. They take reports, make arrests, etc after the incident has already happened. And, since he wasn’t the officer who was supposed to be on his way to the scene, he wasn’t going to do anything. He asked me if someone had called 911. I told him yes, and he said that there was nothing for him to do. He left the scene.
Non-MAists usually completely overestimate my ability to fight based on me saying “I study Chinese martial arts” or they completely underestimate it. Its either like “oh wow, you must be soo deadly lol.” or its them laughing and thinking its useless. It seems if you study it from 10 to 25 years old, its ‘cool’, but anything past that and it becomes childish.
Like others have said. People have absolutely no clue about different styles. This review I read recently for one of Jet Li’s movies done by a non-martial artist said in the first line “Jet Li, who is a master of most of the main martial arts (ie judo, juujitzu, karate, kung fu) starred in this…”… I almost threw up, and that guy is above average cause he could list more styles than “krotty”. I always forget people don’t know about MA at all, and it leads to some confusion. For instance, one time I got a comment on my shoes (feiyues, after practice I was wearing them out) and they asked what kind of shoes they were. It went something like this
“oh, there wushu shoes”
“huh, mushu???”
“oh, ah, there chinese kung fu shoes”
“huh, chinese what?”
“there m-a-r-t-i-a-l a-r-t-s shoes.”
“martial arts? like… you mean kratty? hitting people and stuff right?”
It went on in that fashion… And for all of your benifit, I advise you to never attempt to explain chinese arts to people. Its a waste of your time. For the above reasons, I have limitted my potential girlfriends to MAists…
[QUOTE=SevenStar;704333]not necessarily… In my city, the murder rate is three times higher than the national average and it has been for years. even when the murder rate was down, we were still high. we’re at a record pace this year, with 110+ murders so far. we had over three hundred burglaries in ONE WEEK last month.[/QUOTE]
And you’re where? In Tennessee?
I hate to say it, but the socioeconomics of the U.S. are what drive the high crime rate in some areas and among some social demographics. If you factor out those areas, and those social demographics, the violent crime rate is pretty low.
Of course, if you fall within that demographic, it doesn’t help you a whole heck of a lot, I guess.
But if it were between training 1-2 hours a day in MA and spending that time on education, most people’s time would probably be better spent on education so they can get out of those social demographics and areas.
Based on Fedex and Tennessee, and the fact that you recognized the stationary and thought you might know the guy, it sounds like some HQ. It would seem probably you are in Memphis. Crime does appear to be pretty high in Memphis.
http://memphis.areaconnect.com/crime1.htm
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_4880971,00.html
Wow, guess crime is rising. Sounds like Tennessee and other states needs some 3 strikes laws.
You know, bet that’s what it is. 3 strikes laws drive criminals out of California and Washington, llowering crime there, so the criminals migrate to other areas.
They need 3 strikes laws in every state, I guess. Otherwise whatever states are left are just going to keep getting worse and worse.
Or I guess they could solve the social problems that cause crime, but that would be much harder a problem to solve.
(My vote is to re-instate public hangings for every crime from rape on up … nobody seems to like that idea though).