I am mildly tired of reading about people claiming that traditional martial arts will die, or traditional styles, or traditional wushu, etc. etc. It will never die. To put it simply, there will always be students dedicated to a particular style, regardless to it’s relevance or effectiveness in the modern world. People claiming that the end of TMA is near should just stop and think about what they are saying. The invention of guns and modern weapondry has made martial arts pretty much obsolete. If you wish to kill somone, simply pull a colt 44 on them and shoot them. Still, martial arts survive. They survived the cultural revolution, when kung fu had to be practiced and taught in secret, when you would be put to death for practicing kung fu. It has survived this, yet people are still worried that MMA and such will cause TMA to be a thing of the past. That’s ludicrous. Part of the reason i enjoy learning a TMA is that i can be proud in the fact that i am learning a historical art, that has been passed down through history and It just provides a sense of pride. The advent of MMA may cause Traditional martial arts to become much more uncommon, but they will never die. All it takes is one person who knows that art, and for him to pass it on for it to survive. Look at archery. It is an uncommon practice wherever guns can be easily obtained. Yet there are still people who devote there lives to perfecting there archery, even if it would be easier to use a gun. It’s an archaic skill, yet it is still practiced. You may say that modern archery is much diffrent than traditional archery, I can recall watching a television program in which an archer using a traditional english longbow and the entire outfit was called in for a demonstration. There will always be traditional martial arts, as well as traditional styles, even if it is just for the romance of being part of a thousand year old tradition. Anyway, that’s just my two cents. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
Commercialism and propogation of styles
There are series of articles on world daily journal, a Chinese paper in north America.
Shaolin temple is sending monks the world over to demo Kung Fu/Wushu. It has modern hotels and many schools nearby. It is a tourist attraction. There are bus stops etc.
On the other hand, Chen Jia Gou is still doing the things the old way. Only pick a selected students to transmit. It is less well know. May be not even a bus stop. The people is conservative. The village is still very closed door.
So which is the way to go?
watered down, flashy, wushuish, commercialism–
or Kung Fu for a selected few and not money making?
MMA, San Shou/San Da, Lei Tai or Kuo Shu meets are simply platforms to fight with rules.
They have nothing to do to replace or diminish TMA.
My 2 cents.
The performance TCMA may never die but the true combat TCMA will gradually die. Back in the old day, there were no TV and Kung Fu training was the sole entertainment available. People devoted time to enhance the basic and build foundation. Today, there are so many thing to do. People prefer to spend time in sparring instead of building the foundation. So the modern day CMA guys have less foundation than the old timers.
In CMA there are certain ability that require painful, tedious, and long training time to be effective (such as Ma-Hua). People in nowday, nobody are willing to go through those training and their ability may work against average opponents but won’t work against any strong opponents.
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Back in the old days, people spent years to polish a single technique. Today we spent years trying to learn as many forms as possible.
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Back in the old days, people spent years on equipment training. Today we stay away from those painful, tedious equipment training.
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Back in the old days, people went to school to learn and then came home to practice. Today we go to school to learn and practice and doing nothing at home.
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Back in the old day, people traveled around the country to challenge others to polish their skill. Today we treated challenge as bad CMA behavior.
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Back in the old days, people practiced “several time a day”. Today we practice “several time a week”.
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Back in the old days, SC master spent life time on Ma-Hua. Today that technique is no longer be used or even heard.
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Back in the old days, Baiji master spent life time on “Tiger climb the mountain”. Today that technique is no longer be seen or even heard.
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Back in the old days, XingYi master walked from city to city to develop his Beng Chuan. Today we only practice Peng Chuan in our form.
We are just not as crazy as the old timers in TCMA training.
Hate to break it to you, but traditional Chinese Martial Art (TCMA) is pretty much already DEAD, ice cold, rigid, smelling like grandma
Master of the old tradition were equally skilled in striking and grappling. Real TCMA was a fighting art that integrated perfectly striking and grappling.
I can probably line up 500 current Kung Fu students in the NY/NJ/CT tri state area and you know what, not only can most not throw or know what a throw is, they can’t fall correctly either
Today, “kung fu” is about some mystical feel good about yourself BS… why I have no idea, but they look down on fighting..
At San Da tournaments these days you see NO TCMA schools entering fighters. It’s all modern San da gyms, MMA fighters, Muay Thai guys, etc
Master Chang Dung Sheng died about 20 years ago, is there anyone on the horizon who looks to replace him??
Chan Tai San died but a year ago, anyone gonna fill his shoes?
The Yang Tai Chi family used to be a famous FIGHTING family, now Tai Chi is old ladies doing standardized in the park
Teh Shaolin monks? For Gene’s sake I won’t even go there…
I may be a liberal democrat but you are the extreme left wind communist. 
I really do hate it when he calls me a communist :mad:
That mean “You are ahead of me”. Not a bad comment at all.
[QUOTE=-disciple-]I am mildly tired of reading about people claiming that traditional martial arts will die, or traditional styles, or traditional wushu, etc. etc.
THere is no traditional wushu. It’s all modern dancing.
Isn’t it great!!! I love dancing too. Throw some kung fu moves in.
Talking about Kung Fu dances.
My favorite is the drunken boxing.
cartwheel, flying kicks, mid air rolls etc Yawn and a big Yawn.
If you do Kung Fu dance and not including drunken moves, you will not survive even the street crowds in front of the temple. You have zero audience.
Hate to break it to you, but traditional Chinese Martial Art (TCMA) is pretty much already DEAD, ice cold, rigid, smelling like grandma
Ha! Someone must never have experienced REAL Wing Chun!
REAL Wing Chun, it’s the flan of martial arts!
TMA will always be around its still very affective for seld defence, fitness, enjoyment and art. Mma and boxing are great but a lot of its practitioners dont have the art side to there training which is still what a lot of people want and do MA for.
There will always be room for both
That was an awesome post mate. It seems that our approach to kung fu is exactly like mine.
There will always be traditional martial arts, as well as traditional styles, even if it is just for the romance of being part of a thousand year old tradition.
Thats exactly what gets me going everytime I train, the thught that I am doing something that is hundreds of years old…its definatly a romantic thing.
craig
But…
Hi all,
Will like to jump in here if I can.
My opinion is CMA is not as effective as more modern type of defense systems, Krav Maga, Systema, etc.
CMA to me is taught as more of a “culture” instead of the true martial aspects.
The more modern defense systems prepare one to defend themselves I believe more efficiently than tradtional CMA’s.
Although I believe if CMA’s were taught right they can be devasting.
There are even some CMA’s that so called “modified” or intergrated to ensure better effectiveness for defense. The schools and teachers that are open minded seem to “produce” a better product.
The tradtionalists are tradtionalists and don’t want to break tradtion.
In todays world, I believe it’s time for CMA to stop riding the tradtion path and become open minded to make their art more refined.
Marc
THere is no traditional wushu. It’s all modern dancing.
HAHAHA
disciple
there are those that can still read, write, and speak latin. I guess to you it’s very much alive and ppl shouldn’t say it’s a “DEAD” language right?
All it takes is one person who knows that art, and for him to pass it on for it to survive
something doesn’t have to be literally dead for people to label it dead. what they mean is it might as well be dead since it has become so scarce/uncommon. get real. TMA has been dying a long time now…just like VHS. current MMA type arts and wushu is DVD.
I dont think tma will ever die it will just evolve in 100 years time wing chun,hung gar etc all mite look different. Its not a matter of cma not bein street effective its a matter of it bein taught to use effectivly. I love training hard specially when its a smal class and my sifu says now were gonna train like i used to i love it because i no theres gonna be pain.Pain tells me ive done somthing. Perception is reality.
So long as there are people who want to learn it for whatever reason, it will be around.
As long as it is maintained inside of direct families from father to son, it’s gonna be around.
There’s room for everyone, TMA have been radically adapted for the times they exist in anyway.
People may call it dead if they like. A lot of people just don’t know any better, that’s cool.
I personally think it will need to continue to be flexible and adaptive as I’ve said again and again in these forums for the past while. And it will need to shake off the crackpoit stuff left over from wide eyes watching too many tv shows and movies and getting into the reality of martial training.
I’m sure it will do well so long as there are people who want to learn and people who are able to teach.
I’ll have to disagree with you on this one LKFMDC. There are still a few of us left. Hell, YOU!
Master of the old tradition were equally skilled in striking and grappling. Real TCMA was a fighting art that integrated perfectly striking and grappling.
I can probably line up 500 current Kung Fu students in the NY/NJ/CT tri state area and you know what, not only can most not throw or know what a throw is, they can’t fall correctly either
So far I haven’t been all that impressed with the grappling skills of the guys I have played with. But I have only found two people to play Shuai Jiao with here in China. One of them didn’t know breakfalls and the other one thought that a one foot height difference was an unsurmountable advantage. However in the defense of TCMA grappling I train pretty much exclusively in TCMA (I did some wrestling and Judo in elementary school but… come on, that was elementary school) and I was only average at grappling at my school, there were much more skilled wrestlers than me there. And I enjoy both striking and throwing and chin’na.
Today, “kung fu” is about some mystical feel good about yourself BS… why I have no idea, but they look down on fighting..
Man, yet again I am thankful I landed in NBDMA and not some other Gong Fu school if that is how it is.
At San Da tournaments these days you see NO TCMA schools entering fighters. It’s all modern San da gyms, MMA fighters, Muay Thai guys, etc
That is really sad. However it means that we traditionalists who are left have to assess how we are going to make our styles competitive. It does not mean that it is time to start singing a funeral dirge for TCMA. I remember my Sifu’s comment on Muay Thai: good legs, weak fists. There is no reason why a TCMAist who is properly trained should not be able to compete with these people. If those people who are training TCMA are NOT training properly for this than the problem is that these schools have ceased to be traditional but are still claiming that distinction.
The Yang Tai Chi family used to be a famous FIGHTING family, now Tai Chi is old ladies doing standardized in the park
I’m learning Yang Taiji right now. My Chinese Sifu does teach applications. Often after he shows an application I remember two methods of doing it; the pretty form way and the real combat way. They often look quite different. However some people DO still remember that Yang Taiji (and Chen Taiji) were about fighting, not geriatric aerobics.
Teh Shaolin monks? For Gene’s sake I won’t even go there…
After visiting Shaolin and seeing the monks for myself I am not entirely willing to dismiss their Gong Fu as devoid of any merit. And yeah, there is a lot of new Wushu in it, but there are still some guys in and around Shaolin practicing traditional stuff too.
Besides there is more to Shaolin than just Gong Fu. They have a perfect vehicle to spread the Ch’an Dharma through their fame. Communication of the dharma is one of the most important duties of Buddhist Clergy. People in the Gong Fu community sometimes forget that the Shaolin are priests as much (or more) as/than they are fighters. 
There will always be those that want all martial arts watered down to render them ineffective. Usually as part of a self fulfilling prophesy.