I have to say that the last 3 months of pretty serious MMA training has made my kung fu leaps and bounds above what it was, and I wasn’t that bad to begin with. Not because the techniques are better, but because the training format gives me more opportunity to test them.
Not to mention I dropped 10 lbs and am now hovering around 166 lbs.
this was actually the return to the gist of the matter in martial arts.
right. I have a hard time with the theory that mysticism/philosophy was there from the beginning…you had to survive the raid from the village in the next valley over before you could ponder whether it was ok to kill to keep your wife or daughter…or even to just keep the food you had grown.
I have to say that the last 3 months of pretty serious MMA training has made my kung fu leaps and bounds above what it was, and I wasn’t that bad to begin with. Not because the techniques are better, but because the training format gives me more opportunity to test them.
which supports the idea that its’ the training, not the style…as has been said over and over before.
I’ll never give up CMA…I’ll cross train and encourage my students to do so with me or even on their own…I’ve a kid who’s going to college this fall and of all the schools in the area he’s going to, I’m promoting the bbj/mt school. of course, that way I can hopefully keep him as a kung fu student and hopefully he’ll come back with some whup ass for me.
Unification, Ch’an and Kung Fu
Hi Oso and All,
No problem. 
Hope you find it useful. I think we are getting to a point pretty much like arguing whether Church and State should seperate.
I have shared the following on the KFM Wing Chun board. I would like to share it here as well:
Traditional Kung Fu regardless of styles IMHO is without a doubt mystic discipline. It is not that different from Yoga of the Hindu tradition. Both have union of the mind-body continuum with the space-time continuum as the under lying lesson. The difference is that Yoga is coming from a Vedic perspective; while Kung Fu often takes up I Ching perspective.It is of note that I Ching is also about unification just like modern scientists who are working on the string theory trying to tie (pun intended) all things together. Chinese mystics (ie Sun Lutang) have long been the poineers of that idea. The models that they came up with are all collected under the I Ching study. In I Ching, there is a “Holy Trinity” as well. No, it is not Heaven, Earth, and Human although that’s common knowledge to most. The core (trinity) is Mathematics (Shu), Principles (Li), and Phenomena (Xiang). That’s the inner knowledge which is applied to all things including pugilism. This makes pugilism not just a casual and careless plight but premeditated and profound enterprise. The most important of all is that the mathematics properties will matches the principles as well as the phenomena under the scrutiny of I Ching. There is such a thing as anatomy (shu/mathematics) which is applied to pugilism (li/principles) and then to physical conflict (xiang/phenomena) from I Ching prespective. Personally, I would not discount so readily thousands of years (at least 5,000) of inner knowledge that makes the Chinese one of the most successful races or nations ever lived on the face of earth.
Having said that Wushu doesn’t necessarily equal to Kung Fu. Wushu (modern or otherwise) don’t have to stand up to the scrutiny of I Ching and they don’t need to have a spiritual component at all. Personally, if we talk about Kung Fu, then we need to well define it and distinguish it. So today, Shaolin Wushu is just about anything including modern Wushu and no need for it to stand up to any sort of spiritual scrutiny. But Shaolin Kung Fu on the other hand upholds the tradition of Ch’an (if there is such a tradition from a Buddhist POV). Many people say Ch’an this and Ch’an that but who have really take note about the major transformation of it by the 6th Patriarchate Hui Neng? He’s the one that really opens up the door for Ch’an to be fully blend with Chinese mind including the I Ching worldview since Tang dynasty [re: his most famous poem]. BTW, he brought it to the south too. Without him, there would be no distinct entity which we call Shaolin Kung Fu today. We will still pretty much be doing Wushu or just fighting like Conan the Barbarian. 
Just not much of sense in having a life devouted to becoming a benevolent and fully functional human being via martial dicipline that is mystical in nature these days right? Is it or is it not? I would love to be able to fight (any form of) out of my own terms and my own chosing not being dictacted by fear or pressure.
Warm regards
Mantis108
PS Thank you, Mickey for the support. 
being a superior fighter is empty without an ideal worth fighting for..
Beautifully put.
Mun, Mo, Sun is an ideal, not something that is necessarily achievable.
I have seriously met guys with less than 1 year in with sportive combative arts that have a far better understanding of the meat and potatoes of combat than same time in people I’ve met who are just finishing up their first or second form in a system, have had no mat time, don’t do a lot of resistance training and tend to be wrapped up in the mystical aspect.
That’s because there is too much emphasis on Tao Lu, rather than Xing, Jin and San Shou. Tao Lu has value but it is only one part of the equation.
The problem with traditional CMA?
Well, in my opinion, too many people talking about a problem and not fixing it. If, for example, the Shaolin you learn seems lacking in application (assuming thats what you want in a MA), you learned, say, Xiao Hong quan but your teacher didnt bother to teach you apps, mix it woth something or use some imagination. You might be amazed how much you discover on your own or with a few partners. CMA, just like any MA, were not handed down to us from the gods, people made them up.
The fight-compliant nature of a MA was brought about by human practitioners just as it has more recently been made devoid of it. CMA is not an entity, it is a concept. the entity of CMA is the people who practice it, and as an entity it wont go anywhere unless people start putting their money where their mouth is. If you abandon the MA you want to learn because some jock with a buzzcut told you something else is better, that is lack of character on your part, not the MA you were practicing.
sorry if i sound a bit ****y, but man i just cant believe how much garbage is said on this subject by both parties.
Anyhoo, my 2 cents
Greetings..
Somehow i sense that there is a feeling that MA and philosophy are exclusive to one another.. they are not. As in all things, there is an unhealthy imbalance when one or the other is radically favored.. There is Martial Art, and there is methodical violence.. Art, being the difference..
They found themselves doing antiquated things that hadn’t been proven in generations and came from a time when the whole idea of combat was different in a cultural sense (mostly) and had an ethics and morals system attached to it to prevent its students from actually using it except in the most dire of situations.
This is a description of TCMA, “Traditional”..part of its purpose is exactly “to prevent its students from actually using it except in the most dire of situations”.. casual use of real and deadly harm should be discouraged.. As a traditional art form, i approve of preserving TCMA.. i also approve of using currently practical methods of enhancing self-defense goals.. cross-training is a beneficial supplement to a comprehensive self-defense system.. but, i am also of the opinion that in all things, a harmonious spiritual philosophy will balance the potential for aggressive violence..
Oso:
I’m just short of words to describe exactly how I feel. It’s different then that for me, it’s not just being able to beat the crap out of someone…I’ve never beaten the crap out of anyone in my life.
Likewise, i know what you mean.. i have competed in some very brutal formats, but never have i used unnecessary force to prevail.. i have engaged in street situations and never have i left an oponent without an honorable exit option.. and, in agreement with David J., i am equally certain of the educational value of “pain”.. losses at the extreme level of competition are usually quite “educational”.. heck, even wins are “educational”..
Violence should not be elevated as an art form, it is a social plague.. Martial Arts should be the civilized response to uncivilized violence.. without a philosophy or code of ethics that promotes harmony, MA becomes just methodical violence.. MA purists often insist that MA/CMA needs no values, philosophies, or codes of ethics to be an effective fighting system, and i agree.. but, few would disagree that the doctrine of “survival of the fittest” leaves only one man standing, the new “target”.. Philosophies and codes of ethics are for the benefit of all, including the players.. it is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.. Ultimately, what benefit is there to being the “baddest man alive”? money? ego? looking over your shoulder for the next guy that wants that title?.. or, for the unlikely event that you may get to use those skills for real self-defense? i am in complete agreement with developing practical self-defense skills.. but i have seen success mutate into boastful egocentric aggressiveness, a quality not consistent with TCMA or social stability..
As far as realistically concluding a conflict, i have not seen any practical applications from TCMA schools i am familiar with.. techniques end up with instructions like, "then you can do this, or this, or this with no resistance and “floppy” examples of “this”… with no actual subdue and immobilization training.. more focus on decisive conclusions, less on elaborate options.. Like in sparring, when the oponent goes down or signals defeat, step in and carefully continue to demonstrate the concluding techniques.. (including dialing 911 if the situation warrants it).. like after the tap-out, release some of the pressure and set up a safe exit.. i know several people (including me in certain situations) that carry the plastic “cuff-straps” in their hip pockets.. In today’s society, with today’s technology and the evolution of MA, sending your students out with only forms as self-defense should be a criminal offence..
TCMA was not conceived with MMA or Muay Thai or Kali/Escrima as comparisons.. it was a cultural competition of styles within a largely closed society.. it evolved into a beautiful and practical art-form.. but, it never expected Tito, or Shamrock, or even Bruce Lee.. there is no issue with enhancing TCMA, but certainly there is an issue with losing this link to the past..
Be well..
I think the problem with Traditional CMA is two fold, it’s traditional, and it’s full of Traditional CMA’ists.
Greetings..
If you abandon the MA you want to learn because some jock with a buzzcut told you something else is better, that is lack of character on your part, not the MA you were practicing.
Precisely.. you may want to supplement your art, but most well established arts have merit.. and, much of the merit is manifested in the depth of training and dedication..
Be well..
The charlatans of any art will reflect badly upon the whole spectrum, but that doesn’t mean all CMA have these problems.
Many people who move away from their teachings, or claim the validity of what they were taught is limited, and those who do this that actually become great fighters, art denying what they were taught. CMA is a vehicle for transmission of ideals across the generations and contains within it many different techniques, exercises, etc that work for a person or do not. However, in order to teach the next person, it would seem necessary to have more techniques than just the ones that work for you, wouldn’t it?
My Sifu tells me time and again that what works for him might not work for me and vice versa. This is why there is such a spectrum of techniques in any CMA.
Two major problems I see in CMA are as follows:
The Spiritual element is sometimes seen as often the only way or the best way for the means of achieving skill or enlightenment. Why should one pursue a combat study in order to cultivate enlightenment if that does not apply to them? Spiritual beliefs and ideals are what prevents one from using what they are taught to bolster their ego or to belittle others. At the core, your Sifu may be moslem, christian, or buddhist or taoist, but in the end those core lessons of being a decent person, cultivating positivity and virtue are integral to a study which consists of learning how to hurt and kill people. Why would one want to learn all this to actually hurt someone. I feel secure in what I am being taught and in what my Sifu can and does do. But that doesn’t mean I am invincible, no, heck if anything were to happen to me I would try my best to give 100% to defend mysefl, nothing less and nothing more. Conversely, I am not going to try and purposely hurt someone or prove my worth by stepping up to every challenge offered. I am a citizen of a modern nation and combat has been proven to be barbaric year after year, we see the pictures, we have friends and family dying for combat. It is useless, but to not prepare yourself would be unwise.
The second point is in relation to the development of closed-door training, advanced curriculum, senior students, black sashes, etc. This labeling has allowed for many to seize it with the ideas that they are great! Ego of so many practioners gets in the way. Do I think these components should be gotten rid of? No, never. They only add to the system by requiring people to achieve ranks and levels of skill they never even knew existed but what I feel these labels do is force us, as students, to accept our humility and to force our character to accept it without growing too swollen. This to me is a character development that puts stress on the student to not develop an overinflated ego. Not sure if this was the intent but it seems to keep those that are prone to become egomaniacs out of the way. I can’t imagine being a Sifu, imagine the mental discipline to not believe day in and day out that you aren’t a champ? Especially when we see the skills and abilities that many have developed.
To sum this up I feel the problem is the student mentality and the lack of respect and paying of dues as time goes on. We are all only too eager to accept lessons and gain skill but once we come to a wall that stares blankly in a manner we do not understand, we move on complaining that the other stuff was no good or only had limited value never considering that it made us who we are. It is what and who you are as a student that makes or breaks a martail art. I think this is why many arts have died… where have all the good students gone??
In an ideal world…
In an ideal world, there is no need for a Kung Fu revival by means of Bruce Lee’s JKD. Furthermore there is no need to have a dispute between Original JKD and JKD Concept being the “one” true and pure form of JKD. But such is Men’s affair and the reality of CMA.
Perhaps entity is not a good word. As far as I am concern Kung Fu is a process that is quantifiable and measureable. It can be standardized and expressed by any practitioner regardless of physical attributes (weight, height, race, etc…), That to me makes it an entity. I don’t want to sound like an elitist or something but this is why traditional systems have manuscripts, forms, applications and even specialty training (so-called Kung/Gong) to safe guard the systems. These are the stuff that Bruce Lee thought was a good idea to discard with. However, the same dispute happens and where exactly is JKD going? Surely anyone can go through the same process that he did and reinvent the wheel but then don’t mock tradition teaching just because it wasn’t readily available. BTW, he has his own brand of spirituality mixed in there as well. XMA and Modern Wushu has plenty of forms too and they can create application for them for all they want. Yet, they are still hollow and devoid of meaning because they have strayed far away from the guidence of tradition.
All I am saying is when it comes to Kung Fu, indepth study and guidance of capable teacher(s) is a must; otherwise, we might end up following the same foot steps of Bruce Lee in reinventing the wheel. It not necessarily a bad thing, just that it’s not necessary.
Mantis108
PS In all fairness, it would help a great deal if Bruce Lee finishes what he started. But it properly is Karma …
Not all art is beautiful. If that is Tank’s expression - or his best way of expressing it - then so be it. It has been pretty successful for him. Regardless, that expression is not for me to judge. we each have our own style.
so you think surviving a streetfight is winning? Im willing toi bet 95 percent of people who fight on the street survive.
Then they all won - they are around to fight - or not fight - another day. they may have gotten effed up, but they will live. They aren’t pro fighters - they have no win loss records, so the concept of “win and lose” is irrelevant.
but does what you do with it have to be spiritual? Even outside of the context of competition - let’s say my ultimate goal is to teach… granted, when you teach, you put your soul into it - you do the same when you compete. But is that still the same spirituality?
that is true. And that is not unique to tcma.
At the end of the day, it is the student’s nature that chooses the path.. Martial skills with a spiritual balance.. or simply a venue for expressing an inherently violent nature..
not necessarily. favoring competition does not qualify one’s personality as inherently violent.
being a superior fighter is empty without an ideal worth fighting for..
the ideal is bettering yourself. If you are going to be superior, you have to continually strive for it, or you will fail.
Spirituality and swords
I’ve been enjoying this thread - it’s quite thought-provoking.
In response to Sevenstar - For me personally, whenever you use the word “art” there is an implication of spirituality. Perhaps I read too much into it, because that isn’t overt in the dictionary definition, but for the sake of making my point here, let’s overlook that. Now the word ‘martial arts’ has entered the common vernacular as a broad term referring to any fighting skill, from performance wushu to military killing tactics. I can’t think of another usage of the word ‘art’ that is like this; for example when we say ‘culinary art’, we are refering to something a bit higher than home cooking. Since that distinction doesn’t exist for martial arts, perhaps this is the cruz of this whole thread. Some of us are defining it as high art - and that’s rare, even in Rennaissance periods. Others are using it as a generic term for all fighting arts, thus Cardio-kickboxing is a martial art. So the answer to your question lies in where you draw your lines. For me personally, I certainly hold the philosophy that martial arts can be practiced devoid of spirituality (although, just to muddle things, I would also say that going to church can be devoid of spirituality too.) But then, this is under the parameters of the second pop vernacular definition, not by ‘artistic’ standards.
Dang, can I waffle or what? I should have gone into politics…
As for Pangquan’s comments on why qi is connected with sword before empty hand fighting, well, my feeling is it’s Freudian.
I think ideals are swell and all, but practically speaking, they are a fools game.
We don’t live in an ideal world, we certainly don’t have an ideal culture and teh state of martial arts is less than ideal.
For me, a lot of anything has to do with objective. Afterall, it’s in keeping with Zen to have purpose in motion and intent in stillness.
Not really about “kungfu” so much as it is about classicist and antiquated methods, thinking and driving forces behind a practice.
If one lives in this time and wants a better way to achieve the goal they have set, then there are options to do this. In the traditionalist quagmire of method and training, the whole concept gets fuzzy in the trappings and bindings of crud that have built up around the method over the years. The baggage of former generations being laid squarely on the new.
The idea of extending filial piety rules into the mix even though you only have 4 or 6 hours worth of class a week. That is fairly ridiculous, especially in a western culture sense and also in the context of all these people who establish these structures based on what they think it might have been like 100 years ago in their kungfu fantasy. I mean come on, How many guys are out there who can’t speak a lick of chinese language, know very little of the history and yet insist on hanging banners everywhere in chinese, wearing chinese robes, or worse, buddhist robes, and propogate methods claiming they are fighting methods but clearly, they are pretty much useless practically and tactically.
I have found huge chunks of the martial arts I learned in “traditional” environments to be wholly useless in a live setting training in realistic scenarios. It’s not because I don’t understand the techniques, it’s not because I haven’t practiced them, it’s because they are antique. It will still work under ideal conditions, but it doesn’t hold water otherwise.
There was some good in a lot of it. But overall, I get more out of my martial training now than ever before simply because of the addition of aliveness to training and testing of technique as opposed to just supposing it should work.
Where I got my kungfu lessons from formerly there was sparring, but it was metered and monitored and highly controlled. We didn’t pay a lot of attention to working athletically and efficiently in that sense. There was little force feedback work and most of the focus was form. This whole structure collapsed under the pressure of serious practicality when it came down to it. The same goes for the Karate and TKD lessons I got although the tkd did have more emphasis on getting in the ring, I found it ultimately to be training to fit the tkd venue and not the realities of modern livin in the big city.
There are components that are missing in martial arts schools that they really need to step up and look at. The reason traditional martial arts are getting dominated by mma in pretty much every venue is because they have in many ways lost focus of what teh purpose of martial art is and have in many respects turned what was once useful and practical into an antique that is quietly gathering dust and rusting. Nice to haul out and show your friends. Even has value to some who would be willing to bid on it and in fact might even have some function after all these years, but, from a combat perspective, there are far better mechanisms and methods available in my opinion.
Kungfu schools need to on the whole get their collective sh1t together and get into the times. You can have the antique and the modern in the same garage and get value from both. If you don’t upgrade your equipment and skills, you won’t be able to keep pace into the times ahead.
Oh, and the face games are seriously hurting the ability of traditional martial arts to progress forward. Singularly one of the biggest barriers to the collective development of TMA is the face games.
I have found huge chunks of the martial arts I learned in “traditional” environments to be wholly useless in a live setting training in realistic scenarios. It’s not because I don’t understand the techniques, it’s not because I haven’t practiced them, it’s because they are antique. It will still work under ideal conditions, but it doesn’t hold water otherwise.
KL, I’m not being a smart ass but how do you mean antique and what kind of ideal conditions did they have back then that we don’t have now? What kind of realistic scenerios are you talking about?
This is an excellent thread. Many critical issues are mentioned.
I checked and checked bios and references to siphon out records and oral legends.
All these are in notes. Basically I demystify the myths in the styles I practice.
Functionality and forms. Forms are dissected in and out in each move or posture. Meaning taking them apart bits by bits and placing them back. Analysis and analysis, hand, eye, body, mind/intent, steps or Shou Yen Shen Fa Bu. etc. Why and how again. Would it work on what conditions. From cooperative to resistend training partners. Take the notes and drill over again. What if the opponent counter or move this way and that way what is the counter counter move. Feed back from sparring and take the notes and analysis. So you have a real understanding of what if then what. The practitioner make the arts alive or gives live to the arts. Forms, theories and methods are dead. We breathe air and life into them.
Close door policy or exclusiveness. If some style or school of MA does not take students openly and does not want to an open dissemination or discussion of their fighting methods. Well, you have to figure a way to “open” the door and get in.
My point is that for our own sake and the future gen, it is entirely up to us, to correct these deficiencies and bring everything open to the public if we could.
The most open styles are usually most popular styles, survive the longest, attrack more talents to propagate and advance their styles such as Mantis, Ba Gua, Tai Chi, etc etc.
Everything starts from within us to correct the without in the arts.
“Whole chunks” is very vague. Can you give us a better example?
And , what mysticism?