Martial Art History - How Reliable Is It Anyway?

[still learning]

We all know that The martial arts started in a small fishing village in Korea... SINANJU!
Sean

Hello, Close but not true.....It was Eve who learn martial arts...too protect herself against Adam.

Soon there kids learns the art of fighting....man has learn to fight or flee.

than the dinos' came....weapons was introduce doing this time...

those that live near "China' ...soon realize the Chinese skill were superior....many travel their to learn Chinese fighting arts...so many people came? ...to feed them needed a bigger pot? ...hense the "wok" cooking was discover (art of cooking lots and quickly).

To know history is to learn NOT to repeat it? ......Man has never learn....so history will ALWAYS REPEAT ITSELF.

That is why we are still learning martial arts? .....so important? ...like speaking.....Aloha

PS: History 10,001

 

[Steel Tiger]

There have been some interesting answers to my little question so far. We all seem to be tinking along a similar line. Let me explain why I raised the question in the first place a little better.

Recently, I have been reading a book, The Mammoth Book of King Arthur by Mike Ashley, in which the evidence for an historical person who might have become Arthur is carefully examined. It is a vast undertaking in which each piece of evidence is examined from a number of points of view (Welsh, Saxon, Brythonic, English, French) to find possible commonalities. Even things as obvious as chronologies are questioned because of assumptions known to have been made at the times of writing and standard temporal expressions and considerations.

This led me to consider some of the recent discussion in a few fora here about history. And a question occured to me. Is it possible for us, any of us, to take the history of our arts and sift through whatever evidence there, however scant, and find the core history?

It is a strange dichotomy. People will obsess over the minute details of lineage (check out any Yang family lineage site) but are quite willing to accept some semi-legendary foundation story. Why? I guess it has to do with focussing on what you can verify and letting slide that which you cannot. But then again, one cannot leave out the nasty connotations of being able to demonstrate a connection, or lack of connection, to a particular lineage.

 

[grydth]

Just my personal thoughts on this, but I find that some of the most popular belifs may have been changed and grown over the years with the retelling of stories. I also know that if a person or organisation says something long and louad enoough people tend to see what they are saying as the truth and it is hard to change peoples minds no matter how much proof you provide

That's hitting the nail on the head..... in America, a lie retold often enough becomes the truth, well at least to the sheeple...

So much of this story telling comes from the China of the 1920's through the late 1940's - an era notorious for corruption in China. Even the noted T.T. Liang referred to himself as the Master of Five Vices when he lived in China as a government official at this time. Is there any surprise falsehood or exageration would seep into in the 'history' of the period?

 

[Xue Sheng]

There have been some interesting answers to my little question so far. We all seem to be tinking along a similar line. Let me explain why I raised the question in the first place a little better.

Recently, I have been reading a book, The Mammoth Book of King Arthur by Mike Ashley, in which the evidence for an historical person who might have become Arthur is carefully examined. It is a vast undertaking in which each piece of evidence is examined from a number of points of view (Welsh, Saxon, Brythonic, English, French) to find possible commonalities. Even things as obvious as chronologies are questioned because of assumptions known to have been made at the times of writing and standard temporal expressions and considerations.

This led me to consider some of the recent discussion in a few fora here about history. And a question occured to me. Is it possible for us, any of us, to take the history of our arts and sift through whatever evidence there, however scant, and find the core history?

It is a strange dichotomy. People will obsess over the minute details of lineage (check out any Yang family lineage site) but are quite willing to accept some semi-legendary foundation story. Why? I guess it has to do with focussing on what you can verify and letting slide that which you cannot. But then again, one cannot leave out the nasty connotations of being able to demonstrate a connection, or lack of connection, to a particular lineage.

Again talking CMA

To make it even MORE difficult, you mentioned the Yang family. They did attempt to write a branch out of the lineage but it magically returned.

They are not the only ones to try this I am sure.

Core history.... It depends on how far you want to go back. Some arts can trace themselves back to a founder and be fairly certain of whom that is but many cannot. It comes down to how far you can go back historically, bagua goes to Dong Hai-Chuan, Taijiquan goes to Chen Changxing, Xingyiquan goes to Ma Xueli and Dai Longbang. Do they go further back, very likely. I am certain Yiquan's founder is Wang Xiangzhai but does Wing Chun start from a female monk teaching Wing Chun or did Xingyiquan come form Yueh Fei, I have no idea.

 

[tellner]

To make it even MORE difficult, you mentioned the Yang family. They did attempt to write a branch out of the lineage but it magically returned.

They are not the only ones to try this I am sure.

It's more common than not. How many times have you heard "Oh, well he only studied for a few months and never got very far," or "Yes, but she wasn't part of the inner circle. She only had permission to teach beginners"?

 

[Xue Sheng]

It's more common than not. How many times have you heard "Oh, well he only studied for a few months and never got very far," or "Yes, but she wasn't part of the inner circle. She only had permission to teach beginners"?

A lot, but the Yang family tried to write out another member of the Yang families childern and all his students

 

[ggg214]

sorry for my interrupting.
may i ask you all that: does the history really help you in MA training?does the lineage really help you in MA practising?

 

[exile]

sorry for my interrupting.
may i ask you all that: does the history really help you in MA training?does the lineage really help you in MA practising?

Yes. It does, actually.

Here's just one example, from my neck of the woods. The fact that Taekwondo and Tangsoodo are demonstrably derived from Japanese karate, as a huge mass of careful peer-reviewed historical research makes clear, has immediate consequences for the technical understanding of KMA hyungs, whose combat application can be understood in exactly the same terms that progressive research on bunkai for Japanese kata (themselves best understood in terms of the applications maintained in their own historical sources in Okinawan karate/tuite) points to. Learning the realistic applications of the Shotokan karate kata subsequences which have been mixmastered together in TKD hyungs, but which are still clearly identifiable, gives you a kind of skeleton key to the technical content of these hyungs. And no, you probably wouldn't recover these applications just from studying the KMA hyungs in isolation, because the tradition of bunkai analysis in the KMAs has been lost for several generation, a casualty of the dilution of the original Okinawan kata bunkai when karate was exported to Japan, and the subsequent further likely withholding of information from Korean students of a Japanese art, given the ethnic bigotry of the Japanese towards Koreans (and pretty much everyone else).

The Rosetta stone too could be seen as just a 'piece of history'—but it was the skeleton key that unlocked Egyptian hieroglyphics. The historical sources of Korean MA patterns in earlier Okinawan arts gives us a powerful tool for unlocking the resources encoded in the Korean forms that derive from these arts. So yes, history counts for a lot in the MAs so far as training and knowledge of the combat applications of the art are concerned, I'd say.

 

[Steel Tiger]

sorry for my interrupting.
may i ask you all that: does the history really help you in MA training?does the lineage really help you in MA practising?

I don't think it is an interuption, but a perfectly valid question. I think Exile has outlined the need for an historical understanding in the Okinawan/Japanese/Korean martial set quite well. Lineage might not be so helpful with your practice, but it can help you to understand why what you might be doing is so different to others practicing the same art.

As Exile pointed out things can be omitted, either on purpose or accidentally, and meaning can be lost. Why, for instance, do so many arts have flying kicks? The party line pretty much across the board is that they were developed to unhorse cavalry. Its not really a very satisfactory explanation. Afterall, how high can even a fit healthy person jump without a long run-up and an absurdly extreme technique (Fosbury Flop anyone)? But it does throw up that image of the defiant unarmed peasant dealing with a haughty overlord. The reason for these techniques has been lost to the romantic image. But if we can search through the history of the various arts that have such techniques we might actually discover what they were for (probably just a powerful way to take someone's head off).

From my own experience. I was taught a Tiger form when I was first beginning as way of an introduction to CMA methods and techniques (I still teach it today for that very reason), but it is very different to any other Tiger form I have ever seen. Why? Well unfortunately I don't really know. My teacher and I have speculated that it has some influences from Kalari.

Now this form has number of jumping or flying techniques which are very like some Kalari moves. Unfortunately the history of my school of bagua has been brutally truncated so I may never really know why the form includes a jumping Crane kick (front kick) and a Whirlwind kick (jumping, spinning lotus kick).

I believe that to know something, to understand it, you need to know as much as you can about it. That includes the history, even the bits that are patently wrong, or lead to bad technique. But this is where the discerning mind comes into play to be able to determine what should be reatined and what should be discarded. But you can't do that without the data.

 

[exile]

I believe that to know something, to understand it, you need to know as much as you can about it. That includes the history, even the bits that are patently wrong, or lead to bad technique. But this is where the discerning mind comes into play to be able to determine what should be reatined and what should be discarded. But you can't do that without the data.

Boy, does that ever deserve to be carved in stone over MartialTalk's entrance portal!

 

[terryl965]

I can get in touch with the people you claim to have trained with. I can look at your passport to see if you entered Korea. I can talk to other people who were there. If you got a piece of wallpaper I can write to the issuing body and ask if it's real.

:rofl:

Yes but how many people really does that, my point is American are so gullible and believe what they are told as one has said eventually a lie becomes truth for so many.

 

[Xue Sheng]

sorry for my interrupting.
may i ask you all that: does the history really help you in MA training?does the lineage really help you in MA practising?

To put it simply yes and no.

Does lineage mean anything if you have a good Sifu?

Likely no but it does help in sorting out real from fake sometimes.

There is a gentleman from Shandong province, that is a graduate of Shandong Normal University, that lives and teaches near me. He claimed he learned Chen style Taijiquan from the Chen family. He didn't learn anything from the Chen family and I had a Chen family member tell me that. But you can also look at his Chen form and compare it to anyone form the Chen family doing the same form and see differences. That means if you REALLY want to learn the Chen style of the Chen family you do not go to him. But in my area he is the largest CMA school there is. He makes tons of false claims about who he learned from or what he learned. So in this case lineage matters. Also there are a few Yiquan people from Beijing within a 4 hour drive form me. 1 has a true lineage to the founder and the other 2 were lied to by their Sifu as to his lineage. Their Sifu was called on this in Beijing and had to admit his false claims. He did learn form Wang but not as much as he claimed.

Lineage is a good indicator in the US of real and fake in some cases in others it is over rated in my opinion. My Xingyiquan Sifu does not know his lineage more than he learned form his Sifu. His Sifu from Fujian would not tell anyone his lineage because he did not want to (as I have been told he said) Embarrass his teachers. And form what I can see and have felt (ouch) my Xingyi Sifu knows his stuff. So even without knowing his lineage I would happily train Xingyi at his school.

 

[YoungMan]

Not only do I not mind if someone wants to verify the info about myself I have provided to them as far as credentials (rank, certificates, people who know me and trained with me, issuing bodies etc.) I actively encourage it. My motto is "Don't take my word for it..."
The best way to discover the truth is to see it for yourself.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Yes but how many people really does that, my point is American are so gullible and believe what they are told as one has said eventually a lie becomes truth for so many.

This deserves reposting based on the above

Oh, yes, the American Dream: Promote yourself until you've drowned out the voices of reason. :headbangin:

 

[YoungMan]

True story: one instructor who teaches at a University about 40 miles from me lists former WTF President Dr. Un Yong Kim as one of his instructors on his resume, despite the fact that Dr. Kim has never practiced Tae Kwon Do.
Yet if you point this and other discrepencies out, his students refuse to believe it. What can you do?

 

[Jdokan]

I don't believe anything in the printed format...I instead go to the zoo and ask the questions directly from the "horses mouth" if you will.....For years I've stood in front of the Tiger cage....He has yet to tell me the truth either.....:duh:

 

[exile]

BTW—an update on the Henning discussion of the seemingly spurious Bodhidharma/MA connection legend whose e-version I quoted from here: it's now come out in print in Classical Fighting Arts, entitled 'The Imaginary World of Buddhism and East Asian Martial Arts', v. 2, #12, 2007. There's an excellent two-part series on the evolution of kata and bunkai by Harry Cook in #s 11–12, just as a little bonus there... CFA is really good. Much closer to Journal of Asian Martial Arts than to any other MA publication, though I don't know what their peer review policy is...