is martial arts from before better than martial arts from now ?

[CK1980]

I dunno... I think some of the greatest would still give some of todays best a run for their money ;-) (not in terms of football, but in terms of the arts)

 

[K-man]

People are larger and stronger now, have access to a variety of systems and styles, and have the benefit of sports science.

Its like comparing a football team from early 1900s to a modern NFL team. The NFL team would demolish them and not even break a sweat. The same applies to a modern martial artist/athlete versus a martial artist from centuries ago.

Biased opinion yet again.
Sorry ... :BSmeter:

 

[Hanzou]

I dunno... I think some of the greatest would still give some of todays best a run for their money ;-) (not in terms of football, but in terms of the arts)

Well, that's only if you believe that the old masters had some sort of magical powers.

If we accept that most of the stories about the amazing feats of ancient martial artists are more than likely exaggerations told by disciples or ignorant observers, we can make a better comparison between the old and the new.

 

[CK1980]

Well I base my opinion not on any perceived "magical power" but on the theory that you never teach someone EVERYTHING you know... So take for instance an art that spans 100 years. Suppose a new generation of instructors comes about every decade... That is 10 times that an instructor has left something out of what they were taught, making the new practitioner less knowledgeable than the first practitioners.

 

[Argus]

Well I base my opinion not on any perceived "magical power" but on the theory that you never teach someone EVERYTHING you know... So take for instance an art that spans 100 years. Suppose a new generation of instructors comes about every decade... That is 10 times that an instructor has left something out of what they were taught, making the new practitioner less knowledgeable than the first practitioners.

That is based on the assumption that students will never surpass their teachers, will not grow with their own experiences, and do not develop and improve upon the system themselves. With the exception of certain historical traditions, such as the Koryu arts as practiced today, martial arts have always been a living, evolving animal, with each generation making further refinements.

These days in particular, there does exist a lot of "dilution" in the martial arts, because frankly, people don't take them as seriously as they did before, don't have practical need to test or apply them as often as before, and don't spend as long learning and studying them, and begin teaching, in many cases, before they really have a firm understanding and are qualified to do so. Now, these are all generalizations of course, but as such, I would argue that they are generally true.

You get out of anything what you put into it. So, in short, rather than going to Starbucks, learn to make real coffee!

 

[K-man]

Well, that's only if you believe that the old masters had some sort of magical powers.

If we accept that most of the stories about the amazing feats of ancient martial artists are more than likely exaggerations told by disciples or ignorant observers, we can make a better comparison between the old and the new.

I'll call you again. Show me something other that your biased opinion to back up your claim.
:BSmeter:

 

[Hanzou]

I'll call you again. Show me something other that your biased opinion to back up your claim.
:BSmeter:

I would say that modern fighting is better than this. Wouldn't you?

Chinese boxing versus American boxing.

 

[CK1980]

I see a prettier in ring bout. That's about it.

You have to understand with your example that American boxing has a very strict set of rules on what is allowed and what is not. In a real fight, those rules do not exist.

 

[Hanzou]

I see a prettier in ring bout. That's about it.

You have to understand with your example that American boxing has a very strict set of rules on what is allowed and what is not. In a real fight, those rules do not exist.

Its not just prettier, its rapid evasion with knockout power.

Do you really believe that if someone moves and fights like that at that size, the rules matter?

Now granted, if you can get him to the ground, you have a chance, but stand up? My money is on Tyson in his prime.

 

[ballen0351]

Its not just prettier, its rapid evasion with knockout power.

Do you really believe that if someone moves and fights like that at that size, the rules matter?

Now granted, if you can get him to the ground, you have a chance, but stand up? My money is on Tyson in his prime.

If your going to compare one of the best boxers of all time vs a regular martial artist of course Tyson wins. He's one of the best. But take average nonprofessional normal guy in a modern martial arts class from today vs average martial artist from150 years ago. Old guys going to win more times then loose. Modern man has more sedentary lifestyle.
If your going to make comparisons you need apples to apples not Tyson in his prime vs some random kung fun guy from the 1950s

 

[Hanzou]

If your going to compare one of the best boxers of all time vs a regular martial artist of course Tyson wins. He's one of the best. But take average nonprofessional normal guy in a modern martial arts class from today vs average martial artist from150 years ago. Old guys going to win more times then loose. Modern man has more sedentary lifestyle.
If your going to make comparisons you need apples to apples not Tyson in his prime vs some random kung fun guy from the 1950s

Both of those men in that old Chinese videos were grandmasters of their respective styles. Using the logic of some in this thread, those two guys should be superior to most CMA practitioners today, since that bout occurred 60 years ago.

The point is though the majority of people today live a easier lifestyle, the people who do train to fight are stronger, faster, and technically superior than their old school counterparts. They have the physical advantage, an endless supply of knowledge from a wide range of martial disciplines, along with the advancements of science and modern medicine. Again, its like a football team from 100 years ago going up against an NFL team, or even a college football team. The difference in athleticism is simply too large to overcome.

 

[seasoned]

Well, we really can't ask the person who started this thread what he meant by before vs now, because he's now a "banned user". But I would guess that considering martial arts goes back centuries, that, 60 years is still considered young when talking "before". My point unofficially, would be to discuss the topic, but as a suggestion, not get into bashing arts...........just saying, food for thought.

 

[K-man]

I would say that modern fighting is better than this. Wouldn't you?

Chinese boxing versus American boxing.

If you qualify your statements you will find people agreeing with you. If you make sweeping generalisations it just makes for disagreement. Even with these videos you are comparing apples and oranges. If you want to discuss boxing, sure. Tyson was great but was he better than Sullivan? Sure training methods are much better now and all the dietary stuff, but was one really better than the other? What about Jack Johnson? He retired undefeated. You can discuss this type of thing endlessly. We don't have to 'accept' anything.

So why compare it with those Chinese guys. Were they fighting for a world championship? What were the rules they were fighting under? There is no comparison possible.

The other thing is, your posts have all been dominated by your addiction to competition. Some MAs are for sport and some are designed to destroy or kill. In between there is a great overlap.

But this is a Martial Arts forum and although boxing is technically a martial art I think most members of the forum think of martial arts as CMA, Karate, Jujutsu, Ninjutsu, BJJ, Judo etc. As Karate is my principle focus I'll look at that in terms of this discussion.

Karate as we know it probably began about 150 years ago in a feudal society where violence was a real possibility. What you were training for was to protect your life and that of your family. So I would suggest that in those days you had to be more effective at what you did than we have to be now.

Karate was practised differently up to about 100 years ago. The hands were more open and the spear hand was the preferred option over the punch. Those guys were pounding their fingers into buckets of hot sand, then pebbles, then rocks until they were like iron spikes. We don't do that now. I would therefore suggest that the old practitioners were therefore better able to strike that way.

Before it went into the schools, karate was a comprehensive martial art covering all aspects of fighting. Most of that has disappeared from modern practice so that what you see now is but a shadow of what it was. Most karate you see now is sport based and dominated by punches and kicks. Old style karate was in your face stuff. No comparison here ... the old was far, far ahead of what you mainly see now.

Because karate was previously a close range system it also taught striking to vital points, Kyusho. Very few schools teach it now. Even in Okinawa it is only taught at high levels and those people will deny its existence in many places. Once again the old being more comprehensive than the modern style.

Finally if we look at body conditioning, the training a hundred years ago was pretty brutal. Punching and kicking rocks, pounding your firearms against trees and rocks, being belted with bits of wood etc to increase the density of your bones. Today we would be normally too concerned about future health problems to undertake such training, so again the old style practitioners were much 'harder' than most of today's practitioners.

Now how would one of those guys go in the ring against a modern Kyokushin practitioner? Well, without rules I'd go for the old style guy anytime, regardless of weight which is the big difference now. The old guy was training to kill someone to preserve his own life, and the mentality then was that he was prepared to die to do that. A bit hard to compare the two!

We can discuss whether new is better than old but we cannot make categoric statements.
:asian:

 

[CK1980]

Hmmm, I don't think anyone was bashing any particular art. I do however, stick by my original opinion that a champion from their time will still out perform a newer generation fighter...

We can "what-if" and we can make exceptions all we want... But if you take any ONE art, take a master of that art from 100 years ago and put them against a master of that art by today's standard, the older master will win IMHO hands down...

Yes, today there is much more in the way of cross training between arts and there are many amalgams that encompass some of the best techniques available... But, if you take a pure art (one with no cross training or incorporating from other arts) the older masters will be better than the newer.

Now, look back to the videos that were linked earlier... You are taking a CMA fight and comparing it to a boxing match... In their own right, each one has its arena where it excels. But in the others realm, each one is inferior. So, I would say this-- Find a video of a CMA fight from 50+ years ago and a CMA fight from <5 years ago... Compare the techniques and make a decision based on that... Or take a Tyson fight and compare it to a Rocky Marciano fight... Two champions from the same arena but different times... My money would be on Marciano.


__Edit__
I think its funny that K-Man said basically what I was saying only faster than I said it.

 

[Langenschwert]

With regards to modern vs. ancient masters, it's not so much a matter of older being better, it's a matter of a professional vs. an amateur. Mike Tyson was a professional, so he's going to perform at a very high level. Older-style boxers (or for that matter modern ones) who had day jobs to worry about would not perform at his level. A 16-year squire from the 1400's would kick my *** in a longsword bout, since he's been doing it from a very young age for many hours a day and is expecting to defend his life with it. He's a professional, albeit a very young one, and I'm only an amateur who is also approaching middle age. You see the same thing today with musical prodigies. Likewise a battle-tested samurai would destroy a modern iaidoka.

Don't underestimate older training methods. As I've said earlier, medieval battlefield digs have shown training stresses on the skeletons comparable to modern-day olympians. They had their stuff down cold.

-Mark

 

[ballen0351]

The point is though the majority of people today live a easier lifestyle, the people who do train to fight are stronger, faster, and technically superior than their old school counterparts. They have the physical advantage, an endless supply of knowledge from a wide range of martial disciplines, along with the advancements of science and modern medicine. Again, its like a football team from 100 years ago going up against an NFL team, or even a college football team. The difference in athleticism is simply too large to overcome.

Again your talking professional athletes vs normal people. FFootball players 100 Year ago worked real jobs during most of the year and only played football a few months. Players today train and work out all year long. But again if we go apples to apples a normal martial artist today vs normal martial artist 200 yrs ago. Old guy trained to save his life. Modern guy trains for fun.

 

[Argus]

Both of those men in that old Chinese videos were grandmasters of their respective styles. Using the logic of some in this thread, those two guys should be superior to most CMA practitioners today, since that bout occurred 60 years ago.

The point is though the majority of people today live a easier lifestyle, the people who do train to fight are stronger, faster, and technically superior than their old school counterparts. They have the physical advantage, an endless supply of knowledge from a wide range of martial disciplines, along with the advancements of science and modern medicine. Again, its like a football team from 100 years ago going up against an NFL team, or even a college football team. The difference in athleticism is simply too large to overcome.

The video description is in error, and quite bias:

Published on Oct 22, 2012
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Even in centuries past, not every self proclaimed "master" or their students had substance. It was pretty common, even in 1950's Hong Kong, to find completely unqualified people teaching gong-fu.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Not much change in the grappling art. people did this 1000 years ago. Today, they still do the same thing.

http://imageshack.us/a/img689/8172/sc1p.jpg

 

[chinto]

hanzou, the bout I saw in the video I saw hesitation as they did not want to badly injure or kill each other. the white crane system and tai chi chwa are systems, like Karate and others, designed to kill, maim, and cripple. in a ring bout that is NOT the idea! there for there are a huge amount of such systems that are not allowed! If you have ever seen a TMA practitioner defend himself, its over very very fast and the attacker is usually hurt fairly badly. ( not just a bloody nose and bruises) real fights do not take minutes, they take seconds!

 

[Xue Sheng]

.

That's your proof :lfao:

I have been over and over this video....the first guy you see is my Shigong (Tung Ying Chieh) and he was not in the fight...he had one of his students there that is my Shifu and he was not in the fight either...and both my Shigong and shifu thought the fight was pathetic as did the majority of the people there..... this is not proof of anything but your lack of knowledge of CMA history. IT was billed like the Ali Fraser fight and the people bought tickets to see it and the majority of those wanted their money back

Both of those men in that old Chinese videos were grandmasters of their respective styles. Using the logic of some in this thread, those two guys should be superior to most CMA practitioners today, since that bout occurred 60 years ago.

Wrong again...one was the head of the Wu family in Hong Kong at the time and absolutely no one there could understand why he was fighting and not the younger Wu. The other was a person trained in his art but not the head of any school and neither were ever called Grand master, not even the elder Wu....there are no grandmasters in China...the term does not exist there.


There use to be some old school lei tia matches on YouTube and those were pretty brutal....if you can find them look to those not the silliness you are currently using as proof for your flawed premise