What's your opinion about this article?

[blacktaoist]

Hi All,

I like to know you guys opinion about this article. This guy seem to have photo's that is conforming to fact and truth. Looks genuine too me.

here is the link-http://members.tripod.com/~crane69/index6r.htm

I feel bad for alot of you Tai Chi lovers................:(

[Water Dragon]

2 points

1. IMO, there is no shame in losing a match to a Muay Thai fighter. Muay Thai is a helluva an art with a well deserved reputation.

2. I was always taught that stances were used as transitional positions (link your stances together to develop Gong Fu footwork) and postures were used to represent a specific principle or exercise. Why are these individuals using postures as fighting stances?

[blacktaoist]

Water Dragon-Why are these individuals using postures as fighting stances?

You have a very valid point water dragon. I just can't see Tai Chi masters from 1922 trying to fight from set postures.

from my observation of these photos, it look like the Tai chi Guy is just showing the Tai Boxer what tai chi postures look like. For all we know the tai Chi master could have been demonstrating the Yang Long form for the tai boxer. After all these are photos we are looking at.

This is just my own opinion. But I love to know if this guy have any old footage of these fights?

[Water Dragon]

I don't know, I hope so. Otherwise this is just a little disturbing to me. I was always under the impression that the Chinese simply chose not to tell foreigners what the purpose of stances and postures were for. If these guys really were attempting to fight like this, my whole theory just got blown out the water.

All I can really say is that is not how I would use stance or posture in a fight. I can't comment on if this is/isn't a valid training method as I tend to run in the other direction as soon as someone mentions this type of training to me.

Unfortunately, I can't really buy any type of "demo" argument either due to the way these two are positioned. I'm curious as to what others have to say on the subject.

[blacktaoist]

What gets me is, Why would this Tai Chi Chuan Master utilize white crane spreads its wing posture to fight with?

No Tai Chi Guy I ever met with be so dump to try to fight using that posture, Even Bad Tai Chi palyers I met and spar, was not that dump to try and use that posture in a fight.

That posture maybe can be utilize transitional from one posture to the next. But just standing there in that posture is just asking for your opponent to strike your weak points and end your life."

[Water Dragon]

DOH!!!

Go back and look at that page. The top photos were posed before the fight. The bottom two pics are the actual fight. the bottom two look good to me, even though the author thinks they are crap.

[looking_up]

Has anyone heard of these gong fu "masters" before?

Because if they were referred to as "practitioners" one would
not be as impressed hearing that the Muay Thai fighters wiped
the floor with their butts. It's the "master" part that puts Taiji
on the line as a style, which is pointless because Taiji is Taiji
no matter if people practice it correctly or not.

In any case, after reaching mastery I'm sure not as many people
feel the need to fight (at least in these sorts of public matches)
to prove to others that they have it. But they should be able to
prove it if they _have_ to.

Peace to Blacktaoist, hope to visit you one day in NY.

[blacktaoist]

Has anyone heard of these gong fu "masters" before?

Because if they were referred to as "practitioners" one would
not be as impressed hearing that the Muay Thai fighters wiped
the floor with their butts

You have a very valid point Looking out.

I just find the article interesting, being that I have read so many Tai Chi books talking about, The masters of past were so high level, one would think that even back in 1922, even the Tai Chi practitioners would have great fighting skills. With all their deep esoteric fighting techniques and philosophy how could they go wrong. But then if i look at most of today Tai Chi players, I can see why these guys got beat down.:(

[brassmonkey]

Tai Chi's a deep art not many get far it seems. If these guys are masters and what happened did happen where's the pics of them lying on the ground bleeding? Muay Thai is tough, things go both ways, Mr. Ross always had stories of high level muay thai guys getting beat down when such threads started over at mma.tv.

[Daniel Madar]

As an opposing view, while I found the articles entertaining, I have a good friend who was classically trained in one of the pre-ring muay thai styles that still exist within some families in Thailand. After he learned muay thai he supplemented it with boxing, to further develop the efficacy of his punches.

What does he do now? Why bagua and taiji.

And no, its not because hes old. He started bagua at 23.

[blacktaoist]

HeyDaniel Madar,

I think Tai Boxing is a good martial art, and have respect for their Fighting methods. But I wonder if These Master Tai boxers in 1922 ever fought any Ba Gua Zhang or Hsing I masters from that time, I would love to know the outcome of such a match.

[looking_up]

Also, if someone could educate me about this:

Do Muay Thai fighters maintain their ability to fight and improve
their skill into old age? Or is the career of a Muay Thai
fighter short and sweet resulting in debilitating health problems
in the future that no one seems to talk about...cause past
victories are nothing when you die broken and forgotten.

[Daniel Madar]

Hey BT, how are things.

I do not know of any historical records of bagua/hsing-i guys fighting muay thai, though this is the first taiji vs muay thai I had ever heard either.

In Thailand it is understood that Muay Thai is strictly a competition style, and not really a fighting style, though its a relatively fine difference. If Bamboo Leaf is reading this, perhaps he can corroborate what I have been told?

One of my friends thai associates in fact did not use Muay Thai or any orthodox system at all. He practiced muay chin, or "Chinese fist". From what I understand, he fought from orthodox stances and had no troubles at all. Oddly he did not know the chinese name of his system, so I can not tell for sure what it was, though I do know it was not wing chun.

Looking_Up, from my understanding the rigors of competition fighting in Muay thai, particularly in the lower rankings can be completely physically devastating. Especially if you keep losing. That being said, it can also happen to any fighter. I am not so certain that their training methods alone are as debilitating as most people think, but I can not say for certain.

-Daniel

[bamboo_ leaf]

Hi Daniel,


Lived in Thailand for a couple of yrs. The people that I knew who either played muy Thai as a kid or the local people working out in the many parks seem to have a different opinion then what is expressed here regarding the Thai arts.

Mostly the impression I formed was that they view the Muy Thai much like we view boxing. Compared to IMA both arts are very simple. This is not to say inferior or easy to master just that they tend to be very physical arts and for the most part don’t progress beyond this.

There is a lot of CMA and IMA being practiced in Thailand at lest in many parks in Bangkok. The Thais respect both arts, the ones I spoke with regarded CMA and IMA arts as real MA. Not sport. A lot of Chinese from the Mainland China are teaching there as well as local Thai Chinese, they don’t play. I would say that there out look in practicing is more long term, as here you can find the teacher for what ever calls you.

The Thai fighters are very young, mostly poor and hungry; they do this for a living for as long as they can hold up. Their toughness is well earned, it hurts just watching them clash and take the body shots. But remember most of these guys are below 125lb. Taking a shot from say Mike T. or some one like him would put them down very quickly.

So if you play with a Thai boxer, you better know that there is no in-between. These guys can take it. You had be better able to give it. you can't compet with them on their ground, if your skills arn't to good as "black taoist" says then ya got problems.


david

[Kevin Wallbridge]

I notice that all of the "well known" Chinese masters are from Hainan Island. Until it began to develop as a special economic zone this place was the definition of backwater. A few starving fishermen and rubber plantations were all it consisted of. There were no masters there, no high level teachers, just a few practitioners that probably ranked with your average part time Taijiquan players anywhere. Now for their part did the Thai bring their small town nobodies, or did they have their best in the land there, that day at the Rose Garden?

Go to the local community center and grab the Taiji/kung-fu teacher, throw him in the ring with a professional kickboxer, and what result do you expect?

This kind of information really displays the best and worst of martial arts on the internet. Its great that information is being diseminated freely and dialogue can arise over this information. However it also reveals how distorted conclusions can arise from that information. In the article in question the author does include the fact that these Chinese all came from a remote place far from the centers of wisdom and training in Chinese martial arts, yet this central fact is largely missed in the discussion.

[blacktaoist]

You make good points in your posts Kevin Wallbridge, that are conforming to fact and truth.

There were no masters there, no high level teachers, just a few practitioners that probably ranked with your average part time Taijiquan players anywhere. Now for their part did the Thai bring their small town nobodies, or did they have their best in the land there, that day at the Rose Garden?


I think thats just what them tai boxers did, got a few part time low level external and internal martial art practitioners to fight him. I just can't see how internal masters or even external masters of Chinese boxing are getting beat down easy by tai boxing. Hey, we are talking about the 1922, doing them times chinese Masters I hear would practice for hours just to kill time, so my Sifu told me.

Have you guys ever seen fighting black kings? Its a movie about a few USA karate fighters that travel to fight within a full-contact tournament in japan.

Anyway they have a few Chinese guys fighting in the tournament, before they fight you, get to see these chinese guys demonstrate their kung fu forms and how they train before a full-contact fight. the forms they were perfoming was hung Gar and Wing chun. If you rent the movie you can see for yourself these guys were low level kung fu practitioners. These practitioners were not the best, but the japanese made it seem like they were.

the movie trys to make it look like Kung Fu is no good for fighting.

[RAF]

http://www.wutangcenter.com/Matute.html

Argue what you may about the tournament, validity etc. etc. etc. but someone with CMA skills beat some Thai boxers. This has been posted before but it is no less valid that what was posted regarding the defeat of the 1922 masters.

Goes round and round and round as though there were some definitive way prove the superiority of a martial arts system.

[Daredevil]

Somewhere on the 'Net is a link about that Baji guy who made the rounds in Thailand .. can't find it for the life of me, though.

Anyway, these things go 'round and 'round. The thai and chinese have a long tradition of fighting between themselves (both sides like to go out and prove their mettle with the other crowd) and as I understand it it tends to go like this: fights in Thailand, Thai boxers win ; fights in China, Chinese guys win. ;)

As another interesting tidbit, once per year the Thai and Burmese send one of their fighters to fight in a no-holds-barred match held on the border between the two nations. The two nations are long time rivals of each other and maybe this is just one of the manifestations of it. Don't know how it usually goes, but I thought it was an interesting thing.

[Daniel Madar]

While I can not guarantee the validity of the first story, I have seen photographic evidence of the second. Details may vary, I am telling it as I remember it

1st story:

At a certain point in time two french Savate players where on martial arts journey. When they arrived in Thailand, they issued a general challenge and worked their way up the ranks of Muay Thai fighters, beating all of them. The king of Thailand was upset and send his general to fight the frenchmen. Unlike the prior players, the General studied Ler Drit. He fought and killed both Frenchmen, and restored national honor.

If true, this story demonstrates several things.
1. Historically, muay thai was not invincible.
2. The older styles of fighting in thailand were/are stronger.

2nd story;

In the early 20th century, and American wrestler went to china and began to defeat chinese martial artists using western wrestling methods...

(sound familiar?)

Finally, he came up against Wu Jien Quan, one of the more famous taiji practitioners. He was defeated, and then became wu jien quan's student.

[lloyd]

Mike Patterson would probably disagree.

I remember reading his comments in a discussion about fighting in Thailand. If I remember correctly then he fought there against Muai Thai fighters during the 70's. He mentioned that the guys are tough and he got much more punishment than he thought he would get but won. Also he said that today the level is not as high as it was back then.

Anyway, I think that there are and were other CMA people who could have won these matches.

[Stacey]

Just as pro baseball player regardless of body type have a certain athletic look, these "kung fu masters" do not. IE- Kung Fu guys have muscular legs, buts and backs...at least. From my perspective, they were bad and the guy would get his ass kicked by anyone. He looked stiff, his chi was in his chest...he wasn't even settled well into his postures.

His low stance could be mobile if he opened his hips.


Muay Thai does typically win against kung fu in kickboxing tournaments. Put the two together in something like sport jujitsu.

effective kung fu has everything that Muay Thai does and more. Even more, yes thats right, more intricacy in kicking and counter kicking, better trapping, knees and elbows I think are equal, except that in CMA they train joint breaking, chin na, throwing, chokes etc.

Any style thats 50 yrs old or more can be painted as the best, most undefeatable style....so what?



CHECK THIS OUT.
look at the "low innefective stance"...then look at the picture below it. The Muay Thai guy is in a similar stance at the same height, only with better posture and the kung fu guy is in a crappy (I don't know what to call it...not even a good transition)

They both keep their hands down.