OP
OP
A bag doesn't hit back when I punch it and that hasn't stopped me from landing the same punches to someone's face.
Awesome Kung Fu Kick used in MMA
- Thread starter JowGaWolf
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Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Hmmm...you mean the same way traditional martial arts in the US disappeared when the UFC got started?
Oh my mistake, that never happened...
It does if you don't watch out for the back swing after you've hit it.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
I don't know anything about this match, or who the participants were.
However, the 1970s would have been deep within the era of Modern Wushu, developed and promoted by the Communist government as a cultural performance art and a very deliberate move away from effective fighting martial arts. This movement was begun in the 1950s, and did a lot of damage to traditional Chinese fighting systems. Practice was forbidden, people disappeared for disobeying the government, people starved, and a lot of good Kung fu was forgotten, that much is true. This was a movement by the government to take over control of martial activity and eliminate effective fighting methods. Much of the good Chinese fighting methods that managed to survive did so because people were able to escape china and continue on elsewhere like Taiwan, Hong Kong, USA, Australia, Europe, etc.
And the government began this martial purge long long before UFC and the rise in popularity of MMA in anything like its modern form.
So it is entirely possible that these participants were based in performance wushu, and would not be surprising if they cannot fight. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the government didn't have a hand in setting it up to guarantee failure for the Chinese fighters, to further their control of all physical education in china. It would have been propaganda to support the theme that all old things are bad and must be done away with.
Hanzou
Grandmaster
Well no, since no one ever made the argument that TMAs have disappeared, and Kung Fu declining in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong is actually occurring.
Seeing Bjj getting practiced in an ancient Kung Fu temple is quite telling.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
So I took a few minutes and read thru the attached article.
There is some truth in it, but there are also some very questionable conclusions being drawn because a lot of history is ignored.
The takeover by the communists brought in some very tough times in china. Oppression, paranoia as neighbors spied on and reported each other for unapproved activities, starvation, disappeared people, and a propaganda that focused on the elimination of old culture in favor of new. That propaganda was the basis for a lot of the atrocities during that era, and included the suppression and elimination of traditional martial arts, in favor of the performance-oriented and very deliberately not combat -effective Modern Wushu that was invented by the government.
So the government, for political and propaganda reasons, began to kill off traditional martial arts in china in the 1950s. That process began well before the modern popularity of MMA and the UFC. For decades now, it has been increasingly difficult to find quality traditional Chinese martial arts, in china. Modern performance wushu has become the norm, is actively supported by the government, and is even used in places like Shaolin Temple in a fraudulent deception portrayal of martial arts. Yes, the monks also do modern performance wushu, but they don't want you and I to know it.
As an aside, one of my Sifus visited shaolin in the 1980s, and demonstrated some traditional long fist material. A couple of very old monks commented to him in private, that they remembered when that stuff USED TO BE practiced at Shaolin.
So, the government has taken a very active role in dictating activity in china, including martial arts. In recent decades the government has woken up to what is going on in the world around them, and they know a money making opportunity when they see one. With the rise in popularity of MMA, they see an opportunity for money and prestige, so they jump right in. They are developing their own version of competition martial arts in a desire to compete and take a piece of that pie. It is State sponsored, and they go for it. Nothing about this is surprising. That is exactly what china does.
But without some understanding of the history before all of this, it is easy to make some very uneducated and erroneous conclusions. Traditional Chinese martial arts are not being abandoned in favor of MMA because of a perception that they are ineffective. The truth is, they were being eliminated at the direction of the government long before now, so the good stuff is already hard to find in china. And, the government wants people to do MMA and similar competition type stuff, because they want a place internationally, for national pride, so there is still a lot of propaganda around that.
Seriously Hanzou, you are uneducated about this stuff. I am offering you an opportunity to get some of that education. But you need to be open to receiving it, and you need to stop acting like an expert in things about which you are ignorant.
There is nothing wrong with ignorance, so long as you are open to being educated when the opportunity arises.
But refusing an education and choosing deliberate ignorance is stupidity on a whole other level.
Make your choice.
OP
OP
This is true even for today. I'm also sure that there were people who see a technique performed and then try to imitate the technique without understanding how the technique really works. I run across many videos of people teaching kung fu techniques on you tube, and instantly I can tell that the mechanics for the technique are wrong and that the person really doesn't understand what he's doing, yet in his mind he does. As a result these same people open a school thinking that they know kung fu.
In my mind this is what wushu is like. It's a visual imitation of something real. A fake gun may look real, feel real, but lack the small things that allow it to function.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Yup, and modern wushu is alive and well today, so there are all kinds of people involved in that, who cannot fight, and were never meant to.
Or, if you forget about the bottom ring and do an upward instep kick.It does if you don't watch out for the back swing after you've hit it.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Ouch!
OP
OP
statements of ignorance.
TMA's have disappeared
The Shaolin Temple Tagou Wushu School has 35,000 Students
Source: Kung fu hustle: Where to learn martial arts in China - CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/13/travel/experts-guide-to-learning-kung-fu-in-china/
Seeing BJJ getting practiced in an ancient Kung Fu temple is quite telling.
Thinking about the future of Kung Fu
"One of the main points that I attempted to emphasize is that the Chinese martial arts have always shown a great deal of flexibility and adaptability. A lot of what we currently think of as “tradition” is really not all that old and was introduced as a successful “market adaptation” at some point in the not to distant past. Indeed, “evolving with the times” is perhaps the oldest and most important tradition of Kung Fu."
"Secondly, I think that we cause some confusion by comparing the state of the traditional Chinese martial arts today to the 1980s or 1990s when China was in the grip of “Kung Fu Fever.” In truth these were exceptional times when unprecedented numbers of people took up the martial arts. They are not the sort of decades that you really want to use as a “baseline” to set your expectations by."
"In the grand scheme of things the traditional Chinese arts have always been somewhat marginal. They have always struggled to find upwardly mobile students. So perhaps our current situation is not as dire, or at least not as novel, as some have claimed."
Very good read that discusses Kung Fu in ChinaSource: Some thoughts from Professor Ben Judkins of Kung Fu Tea - The Last Masters
"People are saying that "kung fu is dying"?" Answer
That's what I should have said. Fortunately, there was nobody in that part of the dojo at the time.
On a side note, I'm apparently not the only one who did that. I went in one time and saw someone had duct-taped a focus pad to the bottom of the bag. Genius.
Hanzou
Grandmaster
I do believe that my argument was that Kung Fu is in decline. Nothing you said above contradicts that assertion.
Hanzou
Grandmaster
Who said that?
Yes, they practice Bjj there, so that number isn't surprising.
Yeah, his answer is that Kung Fu is evolving. Essentially meaning that they are modernizing and in same cases being forced to integrate Bjj, boxing, western wrestling, and MMA.
For some that is a sign of Kung Fu dying in China and abroad.
I thought you were asserting that MMA's growth and the incursion of WMA (like boxing) was responsible for much of the decline. Did I misunderstand you?
Adaptation isn't a sign of a dying art. It's a sign of an art that can live. To be effective, an art should continue to grow after inception. Failure to do so is often based on a logical fallacy. I've forgotten the term for it, but it's an assumption that the progenitor was somehow a genius beyond the ken of those now practicing the art, so his approach must be the only right approach to the art. Nearly every art I know of has seen changes in my lifetime - adding techniques, dropping techniques, adopting suitable techniques from other arts where the principles applied fit within the framework, etc.
For purists, adaptation may seem to be death of an art, but that IMO is a misunderstanding of what defines an art.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Your assertion is that Chinese martial arts is junk, and that is why it is in decline, and it is being driven out by the popularity of MMA.
Don't pretend it's otherwise. Don't pretend you are misunderstood. That's ********.
The only answer that you are in a position to give is "thanks for the information, I didn't know that".
Kung Fu is allowed to evolve. Kung Fu is not about what you learn, it is about how you put your mind and body into it.
Are we talking about specific systems then that may be a whole different matter, but to claim that Kung Fu is some traditional thing is strange given that it most likely is as modern as anything else. Downside is that there are a lot of places where Kung Fu is believed to be some noble historical fairy tale and somehow they forget the very essence of Kung Fu...
You are supposed to dedicate your life to becoming better. Training 3 hours a week and eating a donut every now and then to celebrate your healthy lifestyle choice is not Kung Fu and never will be no matter how traditional the system you study is.
Also Kung Fu is fading in Hong Kong along with many other traditional lifestyles due to the cost of rent. In such an environment it is hard to compete unless you are sport oriented where people can invest in your business for marketing purposes or fighting profits.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Then you need better sparring partners.
OP
OP
Once again your ignorance.
Shaolin Tagou Martial Arts School | Learn Kung Fu in China
http://shaolintagou.org/
"Shaolin Temple Tagou Martial Arts School (or Shaolin Tagou Wushu School) is the best and the biggest kung fu academy in China. teaching students from around the world in all different styles of Chinese Martial Arts. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced martial artist, whether you want to stay for a month or a year – we kindly invite you to learn Kung Fu from our highly distinguished Shaolin Masters."
All of the following styles of Chinese Kung Fu are part of our weekly training schedule. This is what is taught at the school Kung Fu Styles | Shaolin Tagou Martial Arts School
hmmm. Looks like those students were there soley for bjj. They must have picked up the Kung fu techniques like you picked up the "oblique kick" technique. They just saw someone do and said "Hey I can figure this out" yep. I learned in 2 days.
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