Poll: Tradition or Evolution?

[funnytiger]

Tradition is what keeps us from walking into a bar and picking a fight and using the evolution.

LOL! Right on!!

 

[kidswarrior]

Thanks to everyone who has participated in the survey or posted so far. :asian:

I really do believe I learn the most when posing questions, and certainly have learned quite a bit from this one. Hope someone else may have also benefitted.

~kidswarrior

 

[exile]

Hey... isn't that a left?

Nice one, XS!

I don’t know how others in CMA feel but I would say more no than yes to be completely honest.

Yes there are some that are looking to traditional CMA and training traditionally and it is hard training and to become effective in some (many) of the CMA styles it takes a long time and a lot of training and there are a lot of people that simply do not want to take the time.

However there are also some that think they are returning to tradition when in reality they are combining arts for example like Taiji and Karate and calling it taiji or combat taiji or martial taiji and although it is effective, it is not taiji.

And then you still have this massive influx of people coming in that really don’t want the martial arts they just want pretty movements and bragging rights. This is also why there are very few Xingyi practitioners by comparison, the form is not pretty and the training hurts.

And what is even making it worse are that there are some rather big names in CMA that are feeding into this problem and just making it worse. And of course then there is the Chinese government that is not helping things either. Pushing Wushu and Wushu rankings every chance they get

It appears that the only way you can pretty much guarantee that you will be getting a fighting CMA these days is Sanshou and the majority of that is sport and none of it is considered traditional.

However if you find a CMA practitioner that has trained hard at his or her given style, whether they have done traditional style training (meaning things like stance training) or not you are still getting effective CMA people.

This is very interesting, and in a way, I'm not surprised to learn that the CMAs, with their genuinely ancient history and (to me, anyway) incredibly complex lineage relationships and subtle parallels and differences, have a somewhat different line of development from the Okinawan/Japanese/Korean variants of karate. It will be very, very interesting to see how all this plays out over the next generation.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in the survey or posted so far. :asian:

Thank you for getting one of the all-time great threads on MT going, kidswarrior. It's a topic with great depth to it.

I really do believe I learn the most when posing questions, and certainly have learned quite a bit from this one. Hope someone else may have also benefitted.

~kidswarrior

No question about that one!

 

[Xue Sheng]

This is very interesting, and in a way, I'm not surprised to learn that the CMAs, with their genuinely ancient history and (to me, anyway) incredibly complex lineage relationships and subtle parallels and differences, have a somewhat different line of development from the Okinawan/Japanese/Korean variants of karate. It will be very, very interesting to see how all this plays out over the next generation.

Another thing, I neglected to mention is that there are some rather talented Martial artist coming out of China as well as big family named, martial artist coming out of China to the USA that are catering to Americans. They want to make a buck and they know if they tell them to go stand in “ma bu” for a hour or “santi shi” for 20 minutes or stand there hit a tree (actually this is an example I am not trying to be funny here) they will not come back and pay them money, so they lighten things up.

I had a chance to talk with one of these people and because my wife is Chinese, I trained Xingyi before and my Taiji line comes from Tung (any or all of the above, I am not exactly sure) he did tell me that most CMA people in and out of China do not take Westerners seriously as Martial Artist, at least not at first. If one proves to them they are serious then things are different and this CMA person would teach depth to those that he felt were serious and he would even arrange to help them to come to China a train if they wanted to. He would not discourage the non-serious nor would he encourage them or help as much either. But it has been his experience that the vast majority wants to collect forms and not learn depth and if you teach them depth they leave. This attitude, although I do agree with it, is not helping the situation.

Bottom-line; Why waste time teaching someone something they do not want to learn or will not train once learned. But this does in effect help the de-evolution along if you teach them CMA light.

 

[cswinsf23]

Without reading too many of the responses, the first initial thought is that tradition is positively necessary. Without tradition, would be bow to show respect? Without tradition would we wear shoes inside the school? And so on.

However, I believe evolution is key to being stonger physically. But is physical strength the most important? What happened to being well-rounded with physical strength, spiritual one-ness and being mentally invincible? The last two is what I see lacking in many schools today. Students are great and strong but their spirit is weak and they give up too easily or get upset without reason.

I'm torn between the two sides, because I trained in traditional arts for almost a decade then transitioned to olympic style sparring and workouts.

Most recently Dr. Min of UC Berkeley said something that has been on my mind since I read his article in the paper (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic.../23/DDGT8OOETA44.DTL&hw=dr+min&sn=001&sc=1000http://www.ucmap.org) - "I teach my students what they WANT to learn"

And so, I have started to ask my students before classes, what would you like to learn today?

 

[exile]

But it has been his experience that the vast majority wants to collect forms and not learn depth and if you teach them depth they leave. This attitude, although I do agree with it, is not helping the situation.

Bottom-line; Why waste time teaching someone something they do not want to learn or will not train once learned. But this does in effect help the de-evolution along if you teach them CMA light.

This has come up before, and is central to the whole current state of the MAs. When the evolutionary pressure comes from survivability under street conditions, you are going to get MAs of a very different character than when the pressure comes from the drive to make a buck (lots of bucks if you do it right) in the sportotainment world or the analogue of `Stars on Ice' professional spectacles made up of glitzy slick tricks. Modern Western society doesn't have the major dangers and grave threats that the Asian town street held a century ago—I believe it was Bushi Matsumura, the father of linear karate, whose father was beaten to death by drunks in a mid-19th Shuri alley, and there seem to have been others amongst the great pioneer karateka who had been witnesses to or victims of this kind of violence. Law enforcement being pretty thin on the ground back then and there, you pretty much had to be respnsible for your own survival.

These days, with courts, LEOs, security guards, restraining orders and a huge judicial system, the normals of culture have changes so profoundly from the preceding picture that it's virtually impossible for us to recover the mind-set of the MA pioneers. You had to make many of your own clothes, grow much of your own food, and provide the major part of your own justice and security back then. CMA (or JMA/KMA/FMA/...) lite fits a significantly different set of prorities. These days, people are much more worried about gum disease than violent attack (at least to the extent that they're motivated to take action to prevent one or the other). That's the main reason I think why the MAs are able to shift their focus to generating $$ from media exposure...

 

[Flying Crane]

What I'm wondering about—this is something you, Flying Crane and other CMA practitioners would know—is if there's a comparable movement within the Chinese arts of the same sort, the recovery of effective combat techniques and the realistic training of those techniques. I have no idea at all of how things are in the traditional Chinese combat arts... do you have any information about anything along these lines, guys?

Wow, I've been away from this thread for quite a while, I should be checking back more often. I'll have to go back and read thru it all and see just where we are now.

As to this point, yes, even in the Modern Wushu crowd there is a movement to reclaim the effective use of the art as a combat method. My sifu mentioned that there are some prominent wushu people, I believe Jet Li being among them, who feel that the combat usefulness of the art should not be completely lost, and they are working to reclaim that aspect of the art. I don't know precisely what they are doing about it, but it is something I recall my sifu mentioned.

I personally believe, however, that the proliferation of the BUSINESS of martial arts, as well as it's ENTERTAINMENT and SPECTACLE aspects will continue to ensure a proliferation of flashy, amazing, entertaining, and worthless Chinese martial arts. But if you search hard enough, you will find that the good traditional ones are still out there, just in smaller numbers and with a lower profile. At least if I have anything to say about it...

 

[Flying Crane]

This has come up before, and is central to the whole current state of the MAs. When the evolutionary pressure comes from survivability under street conditions, you are going to get MAs of a very different character than when the pressure comes from the drive to make a buck (lots of bucks if you do it right) in the sportotainment world or the analogue of `Stars on Ice' professional spectacles made up of glitzy slick tricks. Modern Western society doesn't have the major dangers and grave threats that the Asian town street held a century ago—I believe it was Bushi Matsumura, the father of linear karate, whose father was beaten to death by drunks in a mid-19th Shuri alley, and there seem to have been others amongst the great pioneer karateka who had been witnesses to or victims of this kind of violence. Law enforcement being pretty thin on the ground back then and there, you pretty much had to be respnsible for your own survival.

These days, with courts, LEOs, security guards, restraining orders and a huge judicial system, the normals of culture have changes so profoundly from the preceding picture that it's virtually impossible for us to recover the mind-set of the MA pioneers. You had to make many of your own clothes, grow much of your own food, and provide the major part of your own justice and security back then. CMA (or JMA/KMA/FMA/...) lite fits a significantly different set of prorities. These days, people are much more worried about gum disease than violent attack (at least to the extent that they're motivated to take action to prevent one or the other). That's the main reason I think why the MAs are able to shift their focus to generating $$ from media exposure...

Absolutey positively the truth. As long as we in the West live in a fluffy, coddled society where we are essentially taken care of, our martial arts will always be inferior. There is no real reason for them to be any more than that. Our lives are never really put on the line, so we never need to rise to that challenge.

If we go thru a period where our societal and governmental establishments crumble and our judicial and law enforcement networks become ineffective, then we will see a rise in the quality of our arts, as some will figure out that they need to be better than that. If we are put into real danger and manage to survive it, we will learn and take steps to correct our inadequacies.

 

[exile]

Wow, I've been away from this thread for quite a while, I should be checking back more often. I'll have to go back and read thru it all and see just where we are now.

As to this point, yes, even in the Modern Wushu crowd there is a movement to reclaim the effective use of the art as a combat method. My sifu mentioned that there are some prominent wushu people, I believe Jet Li being among them, who feel that the combat usefulness of the art should not be completely lost, and they are working to reclaim that aspect of the art. I don't know precisely what they are doing about it, but it is something I recall my sifu mentioned.

My sense is, these things start informally, in a kind of disorganized way, with people muttering to each other about not getting any respect and why is that, and, well, it's because we're not perceived as street-effective, and maybe that's the sign of a real problem... and then a few of the mutterers start trying to rethink their training and the way they use the techs from their art and the principles that those techs implement, and get together in each other's schools and garages and whatnot, and voila, a movement is born. That seems to be the way it happened in the karate-based arts. So it's likely that something similar is happening in the CMA world. If the pattern has anything in common with the O/J/KMA development, it's likely that the movement back to indigenous technical basics and fighting application will happen somewhere other than the country of origin—in Karate/TKD, it's been UK people primarily who've led the charge. It wouldn't surpise me at all if the CMA `combat revival' gets going in North America first.

I personally believe, however, that the proliferation of the BUSINESS of martial arts, as well as it's ENTERTAINMENT and SPECTACLE aspects will continue to ensure a proliferation of flashy, amazing, entertaining, and worthless Chinese martial arts. But if you search hard enough, you will find that the good traditional ones are still out there, just in smaller numbers and with a lower profile.

I think you're right about that, that the traditional CMA combat arts will always be numerically overshadowed by the glitz bandwagon. But you folks who are serious about the combat content of the CMAs will probably increase in numbers as well, and so we'll have two separate tracks, just as there are signs of developing in TKD and other karate-based arts: an international sports entertainment version and a combat version honed and resharpened to be effective under realistic attack/defense situations.

At least if I have anything to say about it...

That's all it takes, or at least, that's most of what it takes: the determination to pursue and continue the art with both eyes on its original grim purposes. It comes down to will in the end, as with so many things...

 

[Adept]

Without tradition, would be bow to show respect?

Is there a good reason to do so, apart from the fact we've always done so?

Without tradition would we wear shoes inside the school?

So long as it doesn't ruin the floor, why not?

 

[Flying Crane]

But it has been his experience that the vast majority wants to collect forms and not learn depth and if you teach them depth they leave. This attitude, although I do agree with it, is not helping the situation.

OK, OK, I will be the first to step up and admit that I am guilty of this to some degree. I collect forms. I like to feel that I am trying to gain something in my skill and understanding from learning them, but I like them and I have learned quite a few.

I guess I am trying to learn as much as I can, with the thought that later I can spend the appropriate time in dissection. Probably not the best way to prioritize, but there it is.

Now then, there are the people who collect the forms, but can't even remember one from the other. They keep learning new ones, but don't practice the old ones, and can't remember them a week later. Those are the people who can't stay focused and really don't learn anything.

With my own, I do practice them ALL on a regular basis, so I think I'm on a good track in that respect. Over time, they all improve and my understanding of them improves, even if it is slower than if I focused on just two or three.

 

[Xue Sheng]

This has come up before, and is central to the whole current state of the MAs. When the evolutionary pressure comes from survivability under street conditions, you are going to get MAs of a very different character than when the pressure comes from the drive to make a buck (lots of bucks if you do it right) in the sportotainment world or the analogue of `Stars on Ice' professional spectacles made up of glitzy slick tricks. Modern Western society doesn't have the major dangers and grave threats that the Asian town street held a century ago—I believe it was Bushi Matsumura, the father of linear karate, whose father was beaten to death by drunks in a mid-19th Shuri alley, and there seem to have been others amongst the great pioneer karateka who had been witnesses to or victims of this kind of violence. Law enforcement being pretty thin on the ground back then and there, you pretty much had to be respnsible for your own survival.

These days, with courts, LEOs, security guards, restraining orders and a huge judicial system, the normals of culture have changes so profoundly from the preceding picture that it's virtually impossible for us to recover the mind-set of the MA pioneers. You had to make many of your own clothes, grow much of your own food, and provide the major part of your own justice and security back then. CMA (or JMA/KMA/FMA/...) lite fits a significantly different set of prorities. These days, people are much more worried about gum disease than violent attack (at least to the extent that they're motivated to take action to prevent one or the other). That's the main reason I think why the MAs are able to shift their focus to generating $$ from media exposure...

And I see I am again expecting people to read my mind and use the meanings I have for phrases in my insane little noggin.

Let me explain more thoroughly.

Nothing to do with effectiveness in combat or expecting someone to be able to go out and beat people up. These guys are very aware it is the 21st century and rather happy about it too. Heck they don’t want to walk out their door and get challenged regularly either.

It is more to do with seriousness in training, not just coming in taking a class or two and running off and proclaiming mastery because you had a class with a specific master from China. Or as they see (or at least the guy I talked to sees) a lot of people showing up to the seminar/workshop/class that have not trained much if at all for the last several months.

And then there are those they see that are serious that will train without being watched that are going to work on the forms and the concepts and try and gain a deeper understanding. Or just simply are trying hard to learn, or have natural talent, these are the people they take seriously.

For example Taiji, someone goes to a taiji class/seminar/workshop of any given taiji family member or master.

If you know nothing, say so for crying out loud don’t come into a class held by a Taiji family member and try and bluff them. They WILL know you are not truthful.

And if you do train with them listen to what they say, this is not a social event. If they say stand in “ma bu” do not decide this is the perfect time to take a break, go for coffee or the bathroom (unless of course it is necessary at that time).

After you have trained with them do not go off and start teaching unless they say so.

If you train with them when they return do not expect them to go over the same thing again in depth, if you didn’t train it after the last seminar that is your problem.

These are the types of things I am talking about as forms collectors. They have no more interaction with taiji or CMA than a coin collector has with the coins he/she collects, nothing wrong with coin collecting but it is simply not the way to think about CMA.

This is what is very much helping the de-evolution. There are a lot of people out there that feel just because they trained with Master X or went to a Seminar with Sifu Y from China that they now know what they are doing and then they go off and teach BAD CMA.

But the ones that try and work and listen are the ones they take seriously and those are the ones to later train with. But there are fewer of them than the others I have been talking about.

It is the people that are out there learning martial arts and not training them or learning them properly that turn around and then teach what they know that are causing the problem and watering down CMA and thereby causing this de-evolution that I am talking about. They teach 2 friends and they teach 2 friends and they teach 2 friends and so on. If you are 1 person training as best as you can and likely doing a very good job at it and then you go out and teach the correct form and I am willing to bet that your class is smaller than the guy down the street teaching CMA light. face it his stuff is easier and taking form your response, the likelihood of EVER having to use what you learn is low therefore if you learn good CMA or bad CMA it matters little in defense. However you do end up with a lot of people latter touting the ineffectiveness of a given art and again they are both right and wrong. What they see done by a specific person that was trained poorly is ineffective but the same style done by someone trained correctly is effective so again it is the martial artist not the art.

I believe I said this to a Wing Chun guy on MT once when I was returning to Wing Chun (my brief reintroduction that is) if I were to go out and get in a fight with someone and try using just Wing Chun I would likely get my butt kicked. and the person that kicked my butt would go off and tell everyone how ineffective Wing Chun was. However if that same person then walked into my old Wing Chun school and challenged my ex-Sifu he would likely get his head taken off and after he got out of the hospital go tell everyone how effective Wing Chun is. But then Wing Chun is a bad example for de-evolution since usually the training is hard and the forms are not pretty and it sometimes hurts so CMA light people tend to not go to that type of CMA. Same goes for Xingyi, Xingyi classes tend to be small, the training is hard and hurts… a lot.

 

[Xue Sheng]

OK, OK, I will be the first to step up and admit that I am guilty of this to some degree. I collect forms. I like to feel that I am trying to gain something in my skill and understanding from learning them, but I like them and I have learned quite a few.

I guess I am trying to learn as much as I can, with the thought that later I can spend the appropriate time in dissection. Probably not the best way to prioritize, but there it is.

Now then, there are the people who collect the forms, but can't even remember one from the other. They keep learning new ones, but don't practice the old ones, and can't remember them a week later. Those are the people who can't stay focused and really don't learn anything.

With my own, I do practice them ALL on a regular basis, so I think I'm on a good track in that respect. Over time, they all improve and my understanding of them improves, even if it is slower than if I focused on just two or three.

This is why I need to myself over and over again, type exactly what you mean and do not expect others to understand your own little demented thought processes. But sometimes I just don’t listen to me... Sorry about that.

When I say collect forms I am not referring to training multiple forms or studying with multiple teachers or any such thing (if I were I would be talking about me as well). If you are trying to get different perspectives to your training by learning multiple forms that in my opinion is great and not what I am talking about and certainly not what the guy I referred to was talking about.

If you are training forms and working at forms and trying to feel where the energy is going to and coming from, rooting and trying to get your forms correct you are not what “I call” a forms collector. That is a CMA person or a martial artist.

If however you are training form after form after form and telling everyone about how many forms you do and all the forms you are doing are not right and basically suck then you are what I would call a forms collector.

So if I were to make a guess here Crane, based on what I have read in your posts, and I read a lot of them. You are by no means a forms collector by my strange little definition.

Sorry about that.

 

[Flying Crane]

...So if I were to make a guess here Crane, based on what I have read in your posts, and I read a lot of them. You are by no means a forms collector by my strange little definition.

Sorry about that.

Hey, no worries, and I certainly didn't take it personally.

I really agree with what you are saying, esp. with the clarification you gave in the prior post. I see that kind of think way too often, and it is just lously CMA.

Often, Chinese martial arts simply have a lot of forms in them, so we end up learning a lot. It fills out the complete system and, as long as you keep practicing them and working on them and doing your best to understand them, then you are on the road to progress. But if you just learn them quickly and then do them once a month with half-assed intention, just enough so you don't completely forget the lame bit that you have, then you are a forms collector and you haven't learned anything.

I do love forms, I think this is where the essence of a particular system comes out, what makes the system Mantis or Crane, or Hung Gar, or Tiger, or whatever. It is seen in the forms and is what makes a systesm unique, and I love 'em. Good stuff, if done with good intent and dedication.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Hey, no worries, and I certainly didn't take it personally.

I really agree with what you are saying, esp. with the clarification you gave in the prior post. I see that kind of think way too often, and it is just lously CMA.

Often, Chinese martial arts simply have a lot of forms in them, so we end up learning a lot. It fills out the complete system and, as long as you keep practicing them and working on them and doing your best to understand them, then you are on the road to progress. But if you just learn them quickly and then do them once a month with half-assed intention, just enough so you don't completely forget the lame bit that you have, then you are a forms collector and you haven't learned anything.

I do love forms, I think this is where the essence of a particular system comes out, what makes the system Mantis or Crane, or Hung Gar, or Tiger, or whatever. It is seen in the forms and is what makes a systesm unique, and I love 'em. Good stuff, if done with good intent and dedication.

I think we are on the same page here.

 

[Flying Crane]

I think we are on the same page here.

never doubted it. :asian:

 

[CuongNhuka]

Is there a good reason to do so, apart from the fact we've always done so?
So long as it doesn't ruin the floor, why not?

There is a good reason to bow. With a little thought it could be made into a painful wrist lock/wristlock and sweep. Depending on how one bows. It has the same idea (also) as tapping gloves in boxing, and the hug that comes after. It's to show respect to your opponent. The bow during training is to show respect to the founder of the art and the one teaching you. Bowing is just Asia's way of shaking hands.

As for the shoes, yes. There are two reasons. One, it shows good hygene. Two, there is always a chance you will be caught without shoes on. The way one moves there feet in traditional arts (and maybe MMA, I couldn't say) conditions the soles of your feet. Most Chinese Arts, and many old school Korean and South-East Asian arts will use shoes in training. And if nothing else you don't were shoes in MMA training either. In fact the main reason one would were shoes in Wrestling matches is because the mats like to grab feet. That's a good way to twist your ankle.

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

I always figure the reason we trained bare foot is because shoes make it damn difficult to learn the footwork to begin with, so you go without them to learn the technique.

 

[exile]

I always figure the reason we trained bare foot is because shoes make it damn difficult to learn the footwork to begin with, so you go without them to learn the technique.

I think it's good to train both with and without shoes, to train your pivoting/balance abilities so that you can do it both ways. If push ever comes to shove in a real situation, you're unlikely to be barefoot (unless a beach volleyball game goes very badly sideways, of course :wink1

I also think it's useful to train on a variety of surfaces. A gym or dojang floor is probably not where your next unsought violent encounter is going to take place. I've found it very useful to train kicks for balance, for example, on the slightly sloping, somewhat cracked asphalt of my driveway, just for that reason. I actually think that part of `reality-based' training isn't just training `alive' against oppos simulating seriously dangerous untrained attackers, but also training in inconvenient places. Training barefoot on a good surface is very useful to develop a kind of holistic sense of what movements should feel like when performed correctly, but once you get that kinaesthetic `click', it's probably useful to start stressing it a bit by trying to recreate it in (much) less-than-favorable environments...

 

[cswinsf23]

I always figure the reason we trained bare foot is because shoes make it damn difficult to learn the footwork to begin with, so you go without them to learn the technique.

Its a show of respect. I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and assume you are not asian. Ask your instructor why you don't where shoes in the dojang or your school.

99% of asian households don't where shoes in the house; your school should be just as sacred.