Is older really better

[zuti car]

As we all know , civilization progressing over time in all areas of human activities . Science in general , including natural and social sciences , technology ,society its self , quality of life , everything is better today than it was 10 , 100 or 1000 years ago . Only in martial arts there is a believe that something old is better than something new . We are all witnesses of lineage wars where everybody is trying to have a connection to some famous ancestor and we also see how "history " is changing over time and founding date of some art is pushed further back in the past .
Now , if we know that development of any given activity is directly influenced by by exchange of information and of course experiment how i is possible that people from 200 years ago had better skills and more knowledge than people today .
We also witnessing very obvious thing in martial arts , "traditional" styles, kept in secret . without any exchange with other styles are proved ineffective ,at least in sport , full contact competitions , while styles open to exchange and concentrated on gaining more experience (information) from other styles are usually more effective in a combat situation ( full contact competition , i don't have any statistics data on self defense , therefore i will not comment that area) .
Question , if we have obvious examples of modern and "ancient" arts effectiveness , why people tend to believe that some 1800's or 1600"s art is better than something new .

 

[ShortBridge]

I see your logic and there's something to it, but I could poke a few holes in it.

Orchestral instruments (or Fender basses or Martin guitars) for example tend to be more valuable with some vintage. Some of that may be sentiment, but some of it is that they were more carefully made, but craftsmen. Their market wasn't as big and they took time and pride in making them.

As they got more popular and markets grew (sound familiar to martial arts) shortcuts were taken to produce more, cheaper materials, cheaper labor, more marketing, less craftsman ship and some people feel pretty strongly that the quality of the product is lesser than an equivalent vintage instrument.

What I find odd about martial arts is the belief that if you learn what someone else learned that you'll have their capabilities. No one thinks that about anything else. Learning the bit of wing chun the Bruce Lee did doesn't make you Bruce Lee. Being Bruce Lee makes you Bruce Lee. MMA guys fall into the same trap, joining an MMA class doesn't make you Chuck Lidell.

No one thinks that if they did the drills that Michael Jordan did growing up that they could dominate the NBA. No one.

(Oh, and by the way, my dog has settled this. If I take her to the park with a new tennis ball, she will trade it in for an old stinky one, every time. What more proof do you need?)

 

[Hyoho]

What secrets? Its not about "In olden days they did it better" More about trying not to adapt the hell out of something until it no longer resembles the original. Of course if you are making money out of it the more different the better. Martial arts for some are a educational/traditional sportlike activity. In Japan that's how they have survived after being banned a few times. Best not knock it too much.

No amount of training on earth will make you into a good fighter unless you were a fighter already. Through generations we see people with varied ability pass through.

 

[K-man]

It depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you are looking for a sport then you will obviously train it using modern methods in a way that makes you competitive in your area of interest. If you are learning a traditional martial art then you will train it the way it was originally trained.

Many of us learned Latin in a past life. If we wanted a language to use in Italy we would have learned Italian.

 

[Pat M]

In my non martial art life I have a love of cars from the 70's MAZDA rotaries in particular, they sparked my interest in my youth being different from the norm and having enormous power to weight output. We have an RX8 as well and to me it is just a car. Why on earth would this be the case as it is new? So I would strongly contend you cannot generalise in this manner.

Only in martial arts there is a belief that something old is better than something new .

I love old stuff and prefer to fix than replace, I may be out of the ordinary?

Being involved in the MA is now for me more about the Art than the Martial, studying something that has a set content that will take time to absorb and perhaps master, this system is based in combat with some history however I don't need to learn to fight. That in no longer the point, I can hang out at the pub anytime I like for practice but wait that's why most do MA, so they don't have to hang out at the pub.

It's and Art ... respect it.

Wing Chun is a relatively young MA the origin myth is just that, I would suggest it was and original MMA as it is a true amalgam of various styles and disciplines brought together in the bustling melting pot of Southern China.

 

[Pat M]

zuti car

I would like to compliment you on the third really great post, this last one not as interesting as the previous two however still great. Thanks mate.

Pat

 

[zuti car]

When we talk about "traditional" ,how we determine what is traditional ? Wars in the past , as well as today made constant changes if fighting technology in general . Strategies , weapons technology ,military training ,all that progressed over time , form stone axes and fighting without any order to space programs highly coordinated military actions that include enormous number of people ( some countries have more military personal that my country have people ). If we look in the past , we can see that "traditional" didn't play any role in conflicts and people adopted new and better ways to kill the opponents without second thought . For most part of its history, CMA cannot be separated from the army , only the second half of 19th century and final replacement of old weapons with fire arms pushed CMA into civilian hands and made it some kind of upper class activity . That is the time when CMA finally changed their focus from weapon training to empty hands training. All , now known as traditional ,MA their final shape got in the period from 1850's to 1930's . In this period there was a lot of mixing , exchanging , innovating , there is no martial style older than 1880's in its final form , no matter what the legends say . How come these styles became "traditional"? My opinion, only styles that refuse to change , to evolve , to grow , they become "traditional" and "original" . Emphasis in these cases in not on functionality and efficiency but on something else , that is why we have constant changing of "histories" and constant pushing back trough time the origin date .

 

[Orange Lightning]

My take on it - People used to fight differently before today. Older styles are supposed to be methods made from the gathered data of real combat. People needed to actually use MA to actually fight and survive. They were more immersed in it back then.
Basically, methods were made, and they were actually tested and used in the higher stress situations. And because people apparently used it and survived whatever situation they were in, it worked, and it's still around and popular. We don't fight so much using melee weapons anymore. Rarely, if at all. So there isn't any certainty in whether or not the training methods and techniques will actually work when they need to. Compared to the old styles, which apparently worked for their situation, they must be effective to at least some degree.

About the popular comment - Generally, when something is popular in MA, it is supposed to be because it's effective. Loads of people didn't practice certain methods or use certain weapons because they heard about much the didn't work. The chose them because of how effective they've heard or found it is. The weapon combination of Shield and Spear is a great example. It was an extremely popular combination found all over the world. Or even just the spear by itself was great. In a situation where you life depended on it, ineffective styles literally couldn't survive, or would the styles reputation would be tarnished by its lack of success and people would choose to practice and use other things. When the majority of people come to any kind of consensus, odds are it's good in some way, or there is truth to be found.
There are obviously exceptions to that. Using a weapon in each hand? Not common compared to other things, but it can be effective. Context is everything. Especially so with weapons.
Today, this doesn't apply nearly as much. Most people don't need that level of verification today, or arts are almost impossible to discredit in any meaningful way because of what I've mentioned above. Even with anecdotes of failure, there are a lot of variables as to why the failure occurred, and there aren't nearly enough to accurately determine the effectiveness of certain things for certain tasks.

I think then, people tend to associate a MA's age with its credibility. People fear the unknown. You know that old arts where used. You know they can be effective. With new arts, unless they've faced this brutal testing, are one more thing you don't know for certain. Rationale may dictate that it should be effective, but you don't know for absolute certainty that it will work as intended, as it's needed.

 

[zuti car]

My point is, old arts actually arn't that old , and they rarely faced life threating situations . What old arts looked like we will never know because they died out with invetion of fire arms . Really old art were weapon arts , empty hands training if there was any , usually served as a peraparation for weapon training , but in most cases there wasn't any empty hands training. "Traditional" arts we know today are invented since 1880 till 1930. Ba Gua, Tai Chi ,Hsing Yi , White Cranes , Wing Chun , Choy Lee Fut ... all of them are created in the second half of 19th century . Hung Gar , Bai Mei , Hakka Mantis , just to mention the most famous ones are invented in the first decades of 1900"s. Wudang styles actually were never practiced in Wudang before 1928 ( I am not sure about the year , I have to check it again , but I think it should be correct) . Any style who put emphasis on empty hands cannot be found prior to 1850's . About real fighting experience , founder of the arts didn.t have it . It was popular at the time to practice kung fu , just like on the west in 1980's . We all know what happened and what good and even more , bad things regarding unqualified instructors with a lack of fighting experience ,mistification , magic ,invetion of endless leves of drilss , techniques ect., happened . Same thing was going on in China during the last years of Ching rule and republican period .

 

[Xue Sheng]

everything is better today than it was 10 , 100 or 1000 years ago .

But everything is not better than in was 10 , 100 or 1000 years ago, some things are, but not everything

 

[Vajramusti]

But everything is not better than in was 10 , 100 or 1000 years ago, some things are, but not everything

-----------------------------------

good point

 

[kung fu fighter]

As we all know , civilization progressing over time in all areas of human activities . Science in general , including natural and social sciences , technology ,society its self , quality of life , everything is better today than it was 10 , 100 or 1000 years ago . Only in martial arts there is a believe that something old is better than something new . We are all witnesses of lineage wars where everybody is trying to have a connection to some famous ancestor and we also see how "history " is changing over time and founding date of some art is pushed further back in the past .
Now , if we know that development of any given activity is directly influenced by by exchange of information and of course experiment how i is possible that people from 200 years ago had better skills and more knowledge than people today .
We also witnessing very obvious thing in martial arts , "traditional" styles, kept in secret . without any exchange with other styles are proved ineffective ,at least in sport , full contact competitions , while styles open to exchange and concentrated on gaining more experience (information) from other styles are usually more effective in a combat situation ( full contact competition , i don't have any statistics data on self defense , therefore i will not comment that area) .
Question , if we have obvious examples of modern and "ancient" arts effectiveness , why people tend to believe that some 1800's or 1600"s art is better than something new .

I would be in total agreement with you if no knowledge was withheld, however in my opinion martial arts of the past were more advance in comparison to the watered down arts being practiced today due to the fact that the goal was to seriously maim or kill the opponent not to win a combative sport bout. to further illustrate my point what happens when the toughest MMA fighter such as Randy Couture get poked in the eye accidentally? they immediately stop fighting or slow down completely, their mma training goes out the window because this is illegal in mma, but perfectly good on the streets or battle field. Certain knowledge (aka Secrets) were purposely withheld for immediate family members only in order to have an advantage. You've got to remember this was a time when martial skills were were the top weapon at the time since guns were not readily available. I believe in the ancient knowledge of the past combined with modern training such as MMA. neither one by it's self will give the complete picture.

In terms of cars, imagine if all the we had to work with was the body of the most advance car of the year 2000 without the engine or know how of how to build one. Think about how much time and effort would be needed to develop an engine, and how far behind they would be in terms of technology of that engine. Another good example is computers, imagine if i removed the knowledge of the microchip and other key components of the most advance computers of the 1990's, what would the computers be like today?

 

[Orange Lightning]

My point is, old arts actually arn't that old , and they rarely faced life threating situations . What old arts looked like we will never know because they died out with invetion of fire arms . Really old art were weapon arts , empty hands training if there was any , usually served as a peraparation for weapon training , but in most cases there wasn't any empty hands training. "Traditional" arts we know today are invented since 1880 till 1930. Ba Gua, Tai Chi ,Hsing Yi , White Cranes , Wing Chun , Choy Lee Fut ... all of them are created in the second half of 19th century . Hung Gar , Bai Mei , Hakka Mantis , just to mention the most famous ones are invented in the first decades of 1900"s. Wudang styles actually were never practiced in Wudang before 1928 ( I am not sure about the year , I have to check it again , but I think it should be correct) . Any style who put emphasis on empty hands cannot be found prior to 1850's . About real fighting experience , founder of the arts didn.t have it . It was popular at the time to practice kung fu , just like on the west in 1980's . We all know what happened and what good and even more , bad things regarding unqualified instructors with a lack of fighting experience ,mistification , magic ,invetion of endless leves of drilss , techniques ect., happened . Same thing was going on in China during the last years of Ching rule and republican period .

Is the discussion about China specifically? I was speaking in general.
I don't know about the history of China, but I would wager that guns were still uncommon things to encounter back then. Not unlike living in France or Japan, or any place where you can't get the top of the line gear that the military and law enforcement use. So... hand to hand would still be a big deal.
Didn't China's weird weapons come from even longer ago? Hook swords and deer antler blades and so on? Aren't there arts for those?

 

[Dirty Dog]

If older is inherently better, there are a few of us who are ready for our World Championship belts any time now...

 

[Xue Sheng]

When we talk about "traditional" ,how we determine what is traditional ? Wars in the past , as well as today made constant changes if fighting technology in general . Strategies , weapons technology ,military training ,all that progressed over time , form stone axes and fighting without any order to space programs highly coordinated military actions that include enormous number of people ( some countries have more military personal that my country have people ). If we look in the past , we can see that "traditional" didn't play any role in conflicts and people adopted new and better ways to kill the opponents without second thought . For most part of its history, CMA cannot be separated from the army , only the second half of 19th century and final replacement of old weapons with fire arms pushed CMA into civilian hands and made it some kind of upper class activity . That is the time when CMA finally changed their focus from weapon training to empty hands training. All , now known as traditional ,MA their final shape got in the period from 1850's to 1930's . In this period there was a lot of mixing , exchanging , innovating , there is no martial style older than 1880's in its final form , no matter what the legends say . How come these styles became "traditional"? My opinion, only styles that refuse to change , to evolve , to grow , they become "traditional" and "original" . Emphasis in these cases in not on functionality and efficiency but on something else , that is why we have constant changing of "histories" and constant pushing back trough time the origin date .

No legends but there are historical facts; You have an interesting discussion here, but your history is a bit off in some cases. And most Chinese arts are labeled Traditional based on Lineage

- Baguazhang comes form Dong Haichuan who lived from Dong Haichuan (13 October 1797 or 1813 to 25 October 1882
- Xingyiquan historically tied to Ji Jike (1588–1662) as first verified practitinoer
- Taijiquan origin is Chen Wangting (1580–1660)
- More Taijiquan: Yang Taijiquan origin is Yang Luchan (1799-1872) however much of the Yang stlye you see today comes from Yang Chengfu (1883–1936)
Wu style is historically interesting interesting because it split into Southern and Northern Wu and it is possible that Nortern Wu has an origin that has not changed much since its Wu Jianquan (1870–1942) who is the son of the first Wu style practioner Wu Quanyou (1834–1902)

There are many reasons why Martial arts changed in China and most of those were based on money not guns, you may want to check out Kung Fu tea and read some of the research papers he has done there, they are rather good. There is a lot there on Wing Chun as well since he is a Wing Chun guy

 

[Xue Sheng]

If older is inherently better, there are a few of us who are ready for our World Championship belts any time now...

older is not inherently better...that is unless I'm older than you... then of course older is inherently better

 

[wtxs]

... partial quote ...

In terms of cars, imagine if all the we had to work with was the body of the most advance car of the year 2000 without the engine or know how of how to build one. Think about how much time and effort would be needed to develop an engine, and how far behind they would be in terms of technology of that engine?

We don't need to develop no stinking motor!!! Being the super martial artist, we already have the "snake engine", just shoe horn that baby in and slliiide on down the road.

Sorry ... couldn't help myself, the devil made me do it.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I still think this ancient weight training is better than all the modern weight training that we can see in today's modern gym. It achieves the "body unification" and develops the twisting power that you use both your arms and your body as "one unit".

 

[yak sao]

I still think this ancient weight training is better than all the modern weight training that we can see in today's modern gym. It achieves the "body unification" and develops the twisting power that you use both your arms and your body as "one unit".

Man...I bet his wife is always giving him jars to open.

 

[zuti car]

But everything is not better than in was 10 , 100 or 1000 years ago, some things are, but not everything

name one thing taht ins.t better today that it was 100 or 1000 years ago ?