Is High Level Skill Still Possible

[Nebuchadnezzar]

No it is not possible.

This opinion is based on what experience?

 

[Formosa Neijia]

But I am thinking that very few, if any, have the time or desire to dedicate to CMA like Chen Fa Ke did and very few, if any, have access to the level of learning that Chen Fa Ke had. So is it possible to get to the same level as Chen Fa Ke did?

Just my POV, but two things:
1. We have no idea how good Chen really was. Outside of his students and the Chen family, we don't hear much of anything about how great he supposedly was. He didn't compete in the 1928 national leitai tournament nor the one in 1933.

2. I'm personally not interested in being as good as someone else, especially a dead person who's skills are being greatly exaggerated. My goal is to be as good as I can be.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Good points, and I agree with both. But I do know that my Taiji sifu would not compete in anything either and he is very good as compared to anyone else I have ever trained with or done push hands with. My Sanda sifu has absolutely no interest what-so-ever in competition. But then again this is from one of their students much like what we get about Chen Fa Ke. I am not a believer that just because someone did not fight in a competition that it should be used to judge their skill or lack there of. And I do not think that is what you are saying either, It is just that Chen Fa Ke did not fight in 1928 or 1933 so we cannot use it as a way of judging the truth of the stories about his skill. As far as I know Tung Hu Ling did not fight in competitions either but he did open a taiji school in Thailand at a time it meant that he would be challenged if he did. And he was challenged and he won and had to in order to have the school there.

And to be entirely honest my stand on this is "if" we use these

1. Inheriting the Real Martial Art
2. Hard Training
3. Life-Long Pursuit
4. Extraordinary Strength
5. Noble Character

As standards it is highly unlikely that anyone can reach high level skill based on what we have been told about Chen Fa Ke. Also I am just using Chen Fa Ke as an example really since that is who the article I originally read was about. However you could use anyone from old China as an example, but would a student of an accepted Shuāijiāo master or Changquan master or Xingyiquan master or Wing Chun master be using all the same criteria for mastery? Could be I don't know.

My suspicion is that there are a lot of people in old china that were damn good fighters that we never heard of and that may not have been referred to as having noble character or did not train from a young age like Chen Fa Ke. Much of the stories of Chinese masters from the old days have propaganda in them, especially when they start talking about them never being defeated. If all of these guys were undefeated who were they fighting? Certainly not each other. One of my favorite stories is of Wang Xiang Zhai because he was defeated. But that was before he came up with dachengquan and of course after that he was never defeated.

My sifu could claim undefeated as well if he wanted to but I do not think he has had a fight since he got to the US in the very early 60s. However he has told me that he was defeated by Tung Hu Ling prior to that. However he tends to tell me that by taking me out in some way and as I am laying on the ground looking up saying "Tung Hu Ling did that to me once".

I am going to try my best to be the best I can be at the arts I train as do many today. However I do not believe that many today train as much as they did years ago, if for no other reason lack of time. Also most today do not have the same access to their teacher that they use to, at least not in the US. And there are a whole lot out there trying real hard to shortcut their way to being a master and what are really the consequences today if they do?

I know for a fact my first sifu has been told by the Chen family to stop teaching Chen and stop claiming Chen lineage. But as the Chen family person said "What can I really do to him, this is America". I got the impression that China would have been much more costly to my first sifu either in pain or money. And what would it have been like in Chen Fa Ke's day? But I am going off my own post.

Can people become masters today? Yes I think so
Should I look to Chen Fa Ke and try and be just like him? Nope, if I do I will most certainly not get where I want.

But I still have a real problem believing in the 21st century at the speed we all tend to live and with the amount of distractions we have everyday that is real hard possibly impossible to get the same skill level of people like Chen Fa Ke or Fu Zhongwen or Tung Ying Chieh or Yin Fu or Sun Lutang. But I am also talking in their style. Could my Sanda (non-sport) sifu defeat any of them, possibly, but then he too trained from a very young age, in China, with a sifu that was very well trained in Sanda. But he also teaches Taiji at the YMCA and it is 24 form that he picked up somewhere in China. Could he defeat any of them with Taiji? Doubtful.

I too am striving to be the best I can be but I doubt I will ever reach the skill level of my Taiji sifu. I simply do not have the time he had when he was learning. I do not have the same access to him that he had to his sifu and there are very few people that want to learn the martial arts of it and not too many more that even want to train push hands.

 

[oxy]

I think the "mastery" problem is the same as when one is learning a musical instrument like the violin.

You can still get pretty good even if you start out older and perhaps if you practice 30 mins a day, but to get close to mastery level, you have to start out at 4 years old and practice 3 or 4 hours a day.

Personally, I think a big problem with "mastery" these days is that teaching techniques are holding people back as well.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I think the "mastery" problem is the same as when one is learning a musical instrument like the violin.

You can still get pretty good even if you start out older and perhaps if you practice 30 mins a day, but to get close to mastery level, you have to start out at 4 years old and practice 3 or 4 hours a day.

Personally, I think a big problem with "mastery" these days is that teaching techniques are holding people back as well.

Agreed and I do honestly beleive that a lot of the problem today which goes right to "Inheriting the Real Martial Art"

 

[Formosa Neijia]

Much of the stories of Chinese masters from the old days have propaganda in them, especially when they start talking about them never being defeated. If all of these guys were undefeated who were they fighting? Certainly not each other.

The reason I brought up the 1928 and 1933 leitai tourneys was because it was one of the few time that different styles openly fought each other. But many teachers were ....(ahem)....unwilling to try it out themselves so they let their students participate. Interestingly enough, NO taiji people period participated. That drew some criticism about just how good the Chen's, etc. really were.

Despite all the rhetoric you hear about these tourneys, three more things need to be mentioned:
1. external styles like Northern shaolin did VERY well. Gu Ru-zhang, the shaolin guy, won his division.
2. to my knowledge, no IMA guys placed.
3. A long-time BGZ guy that was there said that he never saw a clean technique used in the tourney. in other words, the fighting was not as clean as a lot of people like to imagine.

I say all this because we hear lots of stories about IMA guys back then, but much of it is myth, like that surrounding Chen Fa-ke. If I had a dime for every "undeafeated" IMA guy at that time... You get the picture.

Perfecting the art side of the styles is an open question. I can't answer it but then no one really knows how good Chen Fa-ke was. no mater how good you are, you will never measure up in the eyes of Confucian-obsessed, past-worshipping Chinese culture.

As far as fighting goes, you have a much better chance of perfecting that aspect than at any time over the ast 100 years IMO. There are so many chances for people to test their material these days. But people don't take advantage of it. Much like they didn't enter the 1928 and '33 tourneys.

The more thngs change....

 

[Xue Sheng]

you will never measure up in the eyes of Confucian-obsessed, past-worshipping Chinese culture.

All I can say is my Sanda sifu does not seem all that Confucian-obsessed or past-worshipping nor does my Taiji sifu and my first sifu most certainly is not and you have a range of ages there from 70s to late 40s. But I do understand what you are saying and get the point. It does have a Confucian/ancestor worship base but then you have that in just about every Chinese society on the planet.

And thank you I did not know much about the 1928 and 1933 leitai tournaments other than they happened. I now will have to look more into those.

I am not surprised that there were no Taiji people there. They can be an arrogant lot and could think it beneath them they also could be afraid of loosing. (You can look to the Wu Gongyi vs. Chen Kefu match and see a great example of why many Taiji should not hop in a ring, but my sifu and his sifu were both there and they too thought it was a pathetic show of martial arts.) And of course Taiji tends to me more defensive than aggressive.

I am however surprised that there were no Xingyiquan people there.

 

[oxy]

No mater how good you are, you will never measure up in the eyes of Confucian-obsessed, past-worshipping Chinese culture.

Past-worshipping is not exactly a Chinese-only thing. Actually, a lot of Western religions cannot stand on their own without making a myth of how much things were better than the past and things now are decadent.

As far as fighting goes, you have a much better chance of perfecting that aspect than at any time over the ast 100 years IMO. There are so many chances for people to test their material these days. But people don't take advantage of it. Much like they didn't enter the 1928 and '33 tourneys.

I think with a modern understanding of body structure and not relying on vague and unhelpful catchphrases like qi and root people do have a better chance of perfecting.

 

[JadeDragon3]

Why not?

Y'know, MT is a discussion board; the idea is to share opinions and talk about them. A series of "NO", "YES", and "I DUNNOs" with no more to it just gets dull and boring...

I've noticed a few opinions by various posters in this thread and elsewhere, and I'd really be interested in hearing WHY folks feel the way they do...

High level of skill is not possible today because people want to learn MMA fighting and not stick to one specific art. The days of the Bill Wallace's, Chuck Norris's, Jeff Smith's, Benny "the jet" Urquidez, etc.... are gone. Those are the ones that were dedicated to their art. Now days you got people jumping from one style to another learning a little bit here and a little bit there.

 

[Xue Sheng]

High level of skill is not possible today because people want to learn MMA fighting and not stick to one specific art. The days of the Bill Wallace's, Chuck Norris's, Jeff Smith's, Benny "the jet" Urquidez, etc.... are gone. Those are the ones that were dedicated to their art. Now days you got people jumping from one style to another learning a little bit here and a little bit there.

Globally or regionally?

And I do tend to agree that many do not take the time to learn a style before jumping ship for another style these days. I know this is an issue in the US but is it the same in Europe, Russia, China, Africa, Middle East, Australia, Japan, etc?

 

[JadeDragon3]

I think globally.

 

[jks9199]

High level of skill is not possible today because people want to learn MMA fighting and not stick to one specific art. The days of the Bill Wallace's, Chuck Norris's, Jeff Smith's, Benny "the jet" Urquidez, etc.... are gone. Those are the ones that were dedicated to their art. Now days you got people jumping from one style to another learning a little bit here and a little bit there.

So, an MMA fighter or someone who's trained in several arts can't have a high level of skill?

I disagree. In fact, I think some of the examples you've given weren't any more highly skilled than many of the MMA fighters today.

 

[Xue Sheng]

So, an MMA fighter or someone who's trained in several arts can't have a high level of skill?

I disagree. In fact, I think some of the examples you've given weren't any more highly skilled than many of the MMA fighters today.

Where I do believe you can have a highly skilled MMA fighter my take on this, based on the example of Chen Fa Ke (although I am beginning to regret using his name for this example), is that due to the number of people cross training and training in things like MMA of for MMA the high level of skill in a single traditional MA is getting harder to find because so few take the time anymore to learn any of them completely.

Taiji for example some say it takes 6 years of training just to start understanding how to use it and Bagua is said to be 4 years and Xingyi 2 years and many today simply do not want to put in the time.

And then later if someone wants to teach or train a TMA they bring all the prior training with them and likely will, out of habit, use what they learned previously instead of taking the time to figure out how a given application is suppose to work in that specific style.

And PLEASE I beg you NOT to turn this into a MMA vs TMA argument post :asian:

 

[JadeDragon3]

So, an MMA fighter or someone who's trained in several arts can't have a high level of skill?

I disagree. In fact, I think some of the examples you've given weren't any more highly skilled than many of the MMA fighters today.

I think that there are some really talented and skilled MMA fighters but very few. A lot of them rely on the ground and pound method. What skill is there in that? Plus how many of these MMA fighters have any real kicking skill other than kicking to the thigh? I bet most of them couldn't get their leg higher than their waist (hense the reason for so many leg kicks). There are so many other facets of martial arts besides fighting. I'm taking into account the whole package that martial arts offers, not just the fighting aspect of martial arts. How many of these MMA fighters do you HONESTLY think could kick higher than their stomach? I'd venture to say not many. What does this say about thier flexability? To me it says they don't have any at all. How many MMA fighters would you say have actually attained a black belt in any one style? for that matter attained anything higher than a 1st degree bb? I would say the percentage is low. Very few MMA fighters come to mind when you ask is there any high skilled martial artists in MMA. The ones that do come to mind are Royce Gracie (or any Gracie for that matter), Oleg Taktarov, Ken Shamrock, Mark Vale, Dan Severn, Matt Hughes, Broc Lesner (only because he was an NCAA wrestling champion in college), Mark Coleman, and Randy Couture. Those are about it. The others don't impress me as far as being skilled in martial arts. Let me ask you this.....Is Tank Abbot a skilled martial artist? He's got a pretty good win loss record. I'd say he's a skilled brawler not martial artist.

 

[JadeDragon3]

So, an MMA fighter or someone who's trained in several arts can't have a high level of skill?

I disagree. In fact, I think some of the examples you've given weren't any more highly skilled than many of the MMA fighters today.

You and I are talking about 2 different things here. I don't think an MMA fighter can have a high level of skill as a martial artist, as a fighter maybe but not as a martial artist (a true martial artist). Remember, MMA is not a style of martial art. It's more of a concept like JKD was or is. MMA takes the best techniques from the most effective styles such as Muey Thai Kickboxing, Western Boxing, BJJ, and Wrestling and training in these areas. There are no forms to learn in MMA like there are with specific systems such as kung fu, shotokan karate, or ishin ryu karate, etc.... There is also no weapons training in MMA. In my opinion MMA fighters can not obtain a high level of skill in MARTIAL ARTS because they don't study a martial art, they study or train in fighting. As stated before there are so many different facets of Martial Arts besides fighting hand to hand combat.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Not that this is not an interesting discussion but now that you are into MMA and comparing it to true MA you are off topic and I would really appreciate this not degrading into MMA vs. TMA. If that is what you wish to discuss start a topic on it since the topic ofthis post is;

Is High Level Skill Still Possible

Thank You :asian:
XS

 

[JadeDragon3]

Well then Xue Sheng, yes a high level of skill can be obtained in MARTIAL ARTS because I have attained it myself (not to be bragging). After all I am the reflection of perfection and the number one selection.

 

[Formosa Neijia]

And thank you I did not know much about the 1928 and 1933 leitai tournaments other than they happened. I now will have to look more into those.

I am however surprised that there were no Xingyiquan people there.

There were. But I don't think they placed.

 

[profesormental]

Greetings.

"High level skill" is something that I equate with optimal performance of martial movements.

MMA or sport fighting does require skill, yet it relies more on athleticism.

High level skill improves with age, as the finer motor skills are cemented and can be used under adrenal stress syndrome.

Also, high level skill has to do with sophistication of basics. This means that every movement is simple, yet so much details and subtleties are executed each time that it becomes "sophisticated".

That is why someone with this high level skill seems to hit so hard or bend someone like a pretzel without apparent effort.

Hope this helps. There is a lot more on this.

Juan M. Mercado

 

[Formosa Neijia]

BTW, I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not but Kang Ge-wu's book Spring and Autumn of Chinese Martial Arts covers the 1928 and '33 tourneys. That's where I got the lst of winners. You can get the book at Plum Pubs and I highly recommend it.

There was also a link on my old forum about it:
http://groups.google.com/group/form...63039af8bc23b?lnk=gst&q=1928#f1763039af8bc23b

Some useful stuff there.