Good article from Paul Rackemann.
Is Traditional Chinese Kung Fu practical for fighting? - Rackemann Wing Chun
Is Traditional Chinese Kung Fu practical for fighting? - Rackemann Wing Chun
The problem with "traditional" martial arts.
- Thread starter KPM
- Start date
jobo
Grandmaster
I think he makes some good points, clearly king fu, must have been better in the past or it wouldn't have caught onChina originally or the west.
I wouldn't be so dimissive of kata, but certainly the requirement for alive fighting is true. With out there's a real problem with techniques that have no value being developed or past on.
But the glaring issue with some of the challenge matches I've seen is the size and strength of the mma opponent, that sortOf physical imbalances takes some getting over no matter he Art your using,
So perhaps the inbuilt issue, is the one that comes up a fair amount on here, that size strengh, fitness isn't required with tma, in general and kUng fu in particular.
That skill will out Fox strength, which is a maybe in the general run of things, but a defiantly not, if you opponent also has good skills, as is the case with these challenge matches
hoshin1600
Senior Master
i didnt read the posted blog article yet, i am only addressing this comment and the sentiment at large.
when i fist started my martial arts journey i had the belief that martial arts had the purpose of creating fighting ability and that was supposed to balance the advantage of strength. skill over comes strength. i now see otherwise. this mantra of skill over coming size and strength i believe is a myth put forward by the early arts in the west like judo. however when you dig into karate and perhaps kung fu you see a historical practice of strength training. weight lifting did not come into the common consciousness until about the same time as karate was being developed in Okinawa. a common thread connecting many of the old masters stories about starting karate training was "i was a small and weakly child, often sick with bad health....karate cured me of all this and i became a strong karate person" so after many such tales it can be deduced that karate was seen AS A METHOD OF STRENGTH BUILDING and over all fitness. it was not a method of replacing fitness but one of giving fitness. if we remember that there were no Planet fitness or Gold's gyms around and that bar bells and such were not common, you can look around the Okinawan dojo and see a multitude of rudimentary fitness equipment. i would then assume that the same methodology was prevalent in China.
jobo
Grandmaster
I don't think we are disagreeing ? , I'm sure that a pursuit of physical fitness was a thing in the early ma, and that has to a large part been lost in the modern/ western manifestation,
You can get good strength with out barbells, just lifting yourself and Or various heavy objects will do it, perhaps not as well or as conveniently as a fully equipped gym,
But that aspect seems to be LACking as well from a lot of tma, but what has changed greatly is our understanding of performance training, it's not just a case of doing the excersise, it's how it's done and how often.
If I go to the boxing or mmA s gym then a see people devoting a great deal of time to bench pressing or squats or hours of pounding a heavy bag.
I visit to a tma, has little in the way of fitness/ strength training, certainly it will improve fitness, if your not very fit to start of with, you won't prepared you to fight like hard training of someone who is training to fight, with out that you always loose to a mma, buff who has
Headhunter
Senior Master
There's only one thing wrong with traditional martial arts....bad teachers. Any style can work if taught properly.
hoshin1600
Senior Master
i do not think we are disagreeing. i was only pointing out that strength building WAS a part of older martial arts. i have no idea how or why this was lost. however if you train in a traditional Goju or Uechi dojo then your chances of getting the strength training is good. the Shorin styles not so much.
this clip shows many of the traditional exercises. skip to 35:27 for the equipment.
Edit: the chishi stone on the end of the stick is one of my favorites. the one i used to use was about 25 pounds. (not sure how to convert that to UK measurements)
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
I don’t really see much wrong with traditional styles. There ARE a lot of poor teachers, and a lot of people do not train in a quality manner, but that is a different issue altogether.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
I once saw a Chinese Xingyiquan Shifu teaching in China that stopped his students when doing partner drills because, as he said, they were dancing. he wanted reality. HIs words
我讨厌跳舞 (Wǒ tǎoyàn tiàowǔ - I hate dancing)
Another thing my brief exposure to JKD opened my eyes to many things in Xingyiquan that, IMO, had fallen prey to Bruce Lee's Classical mess. Does not mean Xingyi, as taught is ineffective, it does mean that it could be more effective. Another thing I have seen more than once as it applies to both Xingyiquan and Taijiquan, is a person teaching an application that does not understand the application, or a person deriding the application, while doing it wrong, who also does not understand the application.
我讨厌跳舞 (Wǒ tǎoyàn tiàowǔ - I hate dancing)
Another thing my brief exposure to JKD opened my eyes to many things in Xingyiquan that, IMO, had fallen prey to Bruce Lee's Classical mess. Does not mean Xingyi, as taught is ineffective, it does mean that it could be more effective. Another thing I have seen more than once as it applies to both Xingyiquan and Taijiquan, is a person teaching an application that does not understand the application, or a person deriding the application, while doing it wrong, who also does not understand the application.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
This statement is too general. Work against who? In what circumstance? All martial arts are certainly not created equal! There are some martial arts, that no matter how well taught or performed, are simply not going to work well against someone doing an art equally well taught and performed, but that is more suitable to the circumstance. I just do not believe that a high level Tai Chi guy is going to be successful in ring competition against an equally high level Muay Thai guy!
As Rackemann pointed out, "traditional" styles very often don't include any "live" training. They very often don't spar. Some do. But those are often the ones that have "updated" the curriculum to some extent to be more "modern."
JR 137
Grandmaster
Other than live-blade sword arts and the like, what are these “traditional styles” that aren’t sparring? I’ve heard about them, yet haven’t come across any.
We also need to define sparring a bit. Dancing around and playing tag with oversized protective equipment is sparring, but does it really teach anything useful in actual combat? I’m not bashing protective equipment, I’m bashing wearing stuff that falsely teaches the students they can take a punch, and the punches they’re throwing wouldn’t kill an ant. And I’m bashing stopping and resetting sparring every time the slightest contact is made.
But not doing any sparring at all? I’ve never seen it.
mrt2
Brown Belt
You make a good point. At my school, we spar with chest protectors, headgear, gloves, and shin/instep pads. In my past practice, we had none of those things. When wearing the pads, it allows for more contact. But at the same time, you don't get the feeling of getting your punch or kick blocked hard. And, with the chest protector, you don't pay as much of a price when you leave yourself completely open and get kicked in the solar plexus. On the other hand, at my former school, I suspect many of us got a little too used to pulling our punches and kicks, so that in a real, full contact situation, all those years of practice might be rendered useless.
I suspect in TMA, there is a missing element that has, literally, gotten lost in translation. Think about it. In the example of Karate or TKD, these arts used to be practiced by mostly fit young men who might have come into the practice already knowing something about fighting. In the 40s through the 50s, the first generation of Americans who learned these arts were soldiers. Again, fit young men who already had some experience with combat.
But today, who learns TMA? I would wager it is 80% children. You going to do full contact drills with children? Not if you want to stay in business long..
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
How the training is conducted is an issue about the instructor and is a separate issue from he system itself. You don’t blame the style for poor training. If poor training is being done, you blame the instructor.
And for the record, I am utterly unconvinced that sparring is a necessity for developing good skills.
Sparring can be a useful tool in the training toolbox. There are lots of ways to spar and they are not all created equal. Some are good, others are useless. But sparring in any form is not an absolute necessity for developing good skills. It is given more importance than it deserves.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Martial D
Senior Master
I get him, although he gets a lot of flak from more traditional schools. The more I do MMA the less my WC looks like WC. It also gets way more effective along that same curve.
You didn't bother to read my entire comment. I said....... "simply not going to work well against someone doing an art equally well taught and performed, but that is more suitable to the circumstance." And ring competition is certainly going to be one circumstance when a well-taught Tai Chi guy is not going to do well against a well-taught Muay Thai guy! Here's another.....in a full-out fight with weapons, a well-taught BJJ guy is simply not going to fare well against a equally well-taught Kali Ilustrisimo guy! Here's another....a well-taught kickboxer is simply not going to fare well against a well-taught judo/jiu jitsu guy in a tight space that makes striking difficult.
Let's see ...
Aikido (just about all branches other than Tomiki Aikido)
The various Bujinkan arts and their offshoots
Many (possibly most) koryu arts
I'm not so up on the CMA scene, but I believe most branches of Tai Chi don't do actual sparring (push hands can be sparring-adjacent, but it's not really sparring)
This. ^^
There's a pretty pervasive overstatement within parts of TMA of how much skill can overcome physical advantages. If I face a young, strong, athletic 20-something with no prior training, I can probably still handle him pretty well in most situations. Make him a trained college wrestler, and that starts to be less certain. Make him a fit, experienced MMA fighter, and it's less likely. Same goes if he's a fit, experienced Kyokushin fighter or Judo player.
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