The problem with traditional CMA is...

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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There is too much trash in this thread to sit through and read.

The problem with CMA is that there are too many guys who put their own spin on a particular art, rename it, and offer it as the greatest thing since fire.

Problem 2: There are too many schools started by guys with only 5 or 7 years experience. I’m not saying you can’t get good in 5 or 7 years. It’s just you are not that good after 5 or 7 years.

Problem 3: That same group of people exploits CMA. When they can’t make money off of their school(s) they go on the internet, claim that they can and they then offer to come out and give a one day lecture to a school and charge 5 or 10K. Not that I feel sorry for anyone dumb enough to schedule a one day lecture. How much can you learn off of one lecture? And it’s not just those guys. It’s all these guys from Taiwan and China that come over with a doctorate in human anatomy and think they know everything about martial arts. Their heads are busy with books in nice air conditioned buildings while guys like me train in 120 degree weather day after day for hours on end. They don’t breathe martial arts, and embrace the suffering one must go through to become proficient. They are bourgeoise. Their view is normative. It describes how martial arts should be. It lacks experience. Hence it is not positive. (Kind of like guys who talk about sparring that never spar).

And most of the ancient styles teach ground fighting. The trouble is you have to find a teacher who teaches an ancient style, and who is willing to teach. Most of those teachers won’t teach because the communists in China, and Vietnam destroyed their reason for teaching… And a lot of them are racist.

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Greetings,

“actually most of those guys would have a very dogmatic ways of trianing for instance standing in the san ti or horse stance for three years with no additional training just to test the students obedience and loyalty to the master.”

Reign of Terror,

Remember, I did say that one needs a balanced approach. I have met people who practice standing post and I was impressed with the accumulation of their energy. One had it so good that his fingernails were like razors. If you check the photos in the book Yin Yang Ba Pan Zhang, your eyes might be able to discern something that master had that is missing in a lot of the TCMA that I have seen. The man had leg chi. The channels were open wide and it would have made any kick from that guy devastating. Now whether the master knew this, I do not know. But it was there. That is not a casual attainment.

mickey

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I’ve only seen a few bad injuries as well. Mostly rotator cuff, dislocated shoulders and a few blown knees. oh, and one ripped cornea.

I feel that the need to know how to fight came first. Philosophical ideas were separate and got melded with the fighting discipline later. JMO.

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[QUOTE=bamboo_ leaf](but that you did the training to get to the point that you can compete)

(I will keep using the words ‘fight’ and ‘combat’ and ‘compete’)

all very different ideas with their own training methods.

[QUOTE]

I don’t think so. In the context of a martial discipline they are synonemous, or should be at least.

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RD: I suck at history. :smiley:

I’ll restate my point somewhat.

I would like to see ‘kung fu’ return the the roots of the fighting discipline that begat what we have today.

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random thoughts

It seems as if there is a growing opinion that modern chinese martial arts isn’t about fighting anymore.

less forms, more skill drills, more fighting, more basics

a divergence in TCMA with two main lines: one a martial art the other a martial discipline…i thought we already did that with modern tai chi interpretation???

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It’s all gone that way! in too many clubs, fantasy has replaced reality. It’s all about selling forms now. At an arts height, I doubt too many beyond the teachers knew of the forms. Then, they were to catalog the curriculem, not to train skills. Not that forms don’t have a good place for the student (that was a later discovery imo), but they were never practiced to the extent they are now.

I select places, like Shaolin Temple, I’m sure forms were a way of doing Qi gong while at the same time mapping muscle memory, but I doubt many outside of Shaolin practiced this on any scale. Even then, I’m sure it was the advanced students doing this, not the rank and fle.

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On the first statement - Modern Chinese martial arts needs to brush up their shakespeare in a lot of respects and return to the functionality of what it is it is attempting to propogate. If you say you are a fighting art, then BE a fighting art not an esoteric practice that doesn’t actually deal with the reality of combat in a sportive or realistic environment.

On the second statement - forms have their purpose in the early stages of training to get the student in touch with timing, force issuance, structure and general body balance. They are not effective means of teaching or learning the practical aspects of combat. Drills, force feedback work, strength and conditioning and alive training are much more effective and efficient ways of learning the actuality of fighting.

On the third -Martial art should be martial, martial discipline… isn’t that tied to practice? Self discipline can certainly be attained in any number of ways. Doing without having to think about what to do is the fruit of time and effort in a given skill set required by the task.

textbook techniques invariably never mete out to that and must be adapted to fit the scenario. The more you pull apart, drill and find wanting material from within forms, the more you will narrow the skills that work for you consistently as high percentage techniques.

btw and fwiw, people who train martial arts but can’t stomach being hit shouldn’t be training martial arts. It’s not your cup of tea if you can’t drink bitter.

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I would like to see ‘kung fu’ return the the roots of the fighting discipline that begat what we have today.

Reply]
Then limit your forms practice to 40 minutes 2-3 times a week (because it fits Covert Baily’s weight loss modle), and do indvidual two man drills, and sparring applications of the form’s techniques the rest of the time instead.

It’s pretty simple, Forms should be seen in the same context as weight lifting, or cardio training. Make the CORE of your practic about learning the fight strategy, and USE of the form’s techniques the rest of the time. THAT is what traditional Kung Fu is. What we see in most “Traditional” schools today is not actually traditional, it is mostly a modern teaching method.

You want real traditional, get back to the core of things.

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On the first statement - Modern Chinese martial arts needs to brush up their shakespeare in a lot of respects and return to the functionality of what it is it is attempting to propogate. If you say you are a fighting art, then BE a fighting art not an esoteric practice that doesn’t actually deal with the reality of combat in a sportive or realistic environment.

Right. The problem is the proliferation of schools that say they are but aren’t.

On the second statement - forms have their purpose in the early stages of training to get the student in touch with timing, force issuance, structure and general body balance. They are not effective means of teaching or learning the practical aspects of combat. Drills, force feedback work, strength and conditioning and alive training are much more effective and efficient ways of learning the actuality of fighting.

Agreed. ‘less’ not ‘no’

On the third -Martial art should be martial, martial discipline… isn’t that tied to practice? Self discipline can certainly be attained in any number of ways. Doing without having to think about what to do is the fruit of time and effort in a given skill set required by the task.

I’m trying to distinguish between ‘art’ and ‘discipline’ by saying that the pure practice of forms for forms sake and exercise is fine and you can call it a ‘martial art’ and yes there is plenty of discipline in being an artist. But training for fightings sake is different and maybe some distinction should be made. Of course, all the people doing a ‘martial art’ would **** and moan some more about they are really doing a fighting style.

textbook techniques invariably never mete out to that and must be adapted to fit the scenario. The more you pull apart, drill and find wanting material from within forms, the more you will narrow the skills that work for you consistently as high percentage techniques.

[B]agreed. The path in my school for a form is

solo -> two man -> one steps -> situational sparring -> free sparring

And I don’t especially break down every move from every form. I impart what I think are fundamental techniques from the set first then will hit on a few I like and on the way through all that teach the student how to break it out themselves so they can find their own favorite things. [/B]

btw and fwiw, people who train martial arts but can’t stomach being hit shouldn’t be training martial arts. It’s not your cup of tea if you can’t drink bitter.

I agree with that as well. I’m steadily working on a way to teach the Pong Lai material so that the bitterness is added in slowly. I am trying to build a commercial school so I don’t want everyone to run screaming from the room the first night they do arm drills.

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LOL, I doubt I do more than an hour of forms work a week. Well, more then that if you count time spent teaching the forms.

Luckily for me I have students at every level of the curriculum so I’m contantly teaching, and thus learning, every form every week. I only spend my time on the latest form I’m working on.

but, yes, I agree.

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Oso

Do you agree with my ‘backyard historian’ opinion of the change from the battlefield discipline to the ‘vehicle for spiritual transformation’? If so, what is your opinion of when that happened?
There a notable shift occurs in the 16-17th in the literature. That’s about when you first hear of ‘qi’ being mentioned in conjunction with martial practice, except for with swordplay, where ‘qi’ comes up much earlier.

I agree with the ‘spiritual transformation’ bit and a lot of that is certainly why I got involved in the first place. But, why leave behind the combat discipline? Why not keep both? the Dog Brothers motto comes to mind “Higher consciousness through harder contact”
In an ideal world, we do keep both. But either path alone is very challenging. Both together is doubly challenging. Perhaps that’s why it’s so rare and beautiful to witness a manifestation of this for real, which relates to the main issue of this thread. With so few ‘real’ examples, fakery can promulgate easily.

but, for me at least, there is enlightenment in striving against someone as hard as you can and knowing they are doing the same and at some point a victor is decided. it really doesn’t matter who wins, but that you did the training to get to the point that you can compete (not meaning sport comps especially) against someone at that level.
Again, that’s ideal. To be honest, I’ve only reached this point a few times in combat. And I’ve never gotten there when I’ve lost.

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yes, really. One of the first things you realize through competition is that you will not always win. What you are talking about is a possible, yet unlikely consequence of losing. That however, doesn’t change the reality.

also the thing about forms is how else would you teach a kung fu class without teaching them first. I mean forms is the offensive techniques of the style and without them if you just ask people to sapr they will just use sloppy brawling or fight like kickboxers (which they will do anyway, but not in theory).

the same way you train in any other style - teach them the techniques, show them the applications and have them drill them. shuai chiao guys do it. Other cma styles could as well.

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Wow…what can I say…I’m flattered. :smiley:

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yes, really. One of the first things you realize through competition is that you will not always win. What you are talking about is a possible, yet unlikely consequence of losing. That however, doesn’t change the reality.

I was talking about schools that almost always only win, and are expected to win, or schools where the opponent is so far outclass you’d be embarassed to lose. So shure the coach might not kick you off, but youll be so embarassed you won’t want to come back if you lose sometimes. I knew a girl who didn’t come back to train cause she lsot the fight and the coach was always so hard on ehr, yelling at her/etc. expecting her to be a female (the only female in the class) champion.

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This is completely relative to whom you ask. I for example, see plenty of “art” in mo. Is it just fighting? sure it is. But how many different ways is there of expressing a fighting style? you have people in the exact same system that choose to use totally different techniques, which makes them totally different fighters. This expression is indeed art.

Any fighter who steps into a ring can tell you that you have to have spirit to fight. Developing that fighting spirit is a byproduct of proper training. That is by no means inherent only to cma. Also, there is PLENTY of intellect involved. fighters don’t just go in and slug it out. The successful ones have a plan and can think on their feet quick enough to alter that plan if need be.

You might win a fight but if you walk away with a broken hand or missing teeth did you really win? That is where Mun and Sun come in. They take it to a higher level of mind and spirit against body.

In the street, if you survived, you are a winner. In the ring, a ‘w’ is a ‘w’, so yes.

Everyone has something to work on. Mostly I see bad attitudes that prevent people from ever even approaching the other aspects.

Or lack of desire for them. For example, I have no desire to gan spirituality from ma… I have church for that.

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Gene, thanks.

Qi as in ‘breath’ or ‘Qi’ as in…oh, energy for lack of a better word.:wink:

I still have this whole ‘chicken or the egg’ question in my head about the ‘energy’ aspects and when the idea of ‘qi’ as energy came about. Is it said differently when meaning ‘breath’ or ‘energy’?

why would it show up in swordplay first?

Everyone, know that I’m not knocking anyones attempt at enlightenment by any process.
More power to 'em. I figure enlightenment will hit me doing what I do and being who I am or it won’t. :stuck_out_tongue:

Fu Pow, de nada, it was some good shiat.

RoT: That’s just an example of a bad coach. As a coach, or teacher, you should still try to help each athlete/student reach the goals they won’t. Some people who want to fight might end up being the underdog in every fight they get in. If they keep coming back then the coach should keep training them. But, the environment has to be a…nurturing one (ya’ll shuddup: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=nurture )

I’ll keep teaching/coaching anyone who has the desire no matter what their real ability…but at the same time keeping them realistic about their abilities.

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there is a saying that you cannon judge the heart of a fighter until his first loss. If after you lose you are too embarrassed to return to your school, then you were never a fighter in the first place. It shows that you lack heart. You are a coward who ran away from a defeat. A true fighter would be motivated by the loss - he would be driven to train even harder.

The girl in question may have had an abusive coach - not all coaches are good. Or, she may have just cracked under all the pressure that was on her - I don’t know her, so I can’t tell. Heck, she may not have really wanted to fight in the first place.

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Mo

I agree with Sevenstar…but I wonder if that perspective (of pure ‘mo’ as art) perhaps comes from people who have competed and practiced at a physical endeavor outside of the CMA world.

I think even if you take two people, same body type (weight, height), same style, same technique, same level of ability and have them both demonstrate the technique you would still see two different things because the art of what we do is demonstrated by how we feel about the movement.

I’ve said this before but I think martial artists of all persuasions need to read and watch some Martha Graham

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.

Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/martha_graham.html