SimonM
04-18-2005, 03:43 PM
Although I agree with many of Zhang Lipeng's opinions regarding martial arts, both historically and now, I feel that he seems unfortunately cynical regarding the nature of martial arts. I wish to address certain points he made in his article.
300 years ago, the master did not look at your size. They trained all sizes - tall, short, skinny, fat. He looked at your spirit, your self-esteem. They did not look at your body. If you want to do it, anything is possible. So the master will teach you if you're a little bit bigger, he'll teach you something else.
My Sifu does still teach this way. Perhaps it has to do with his history. As Zhang Lipeng points out
Chairman Mao wanted martial arts ended. He saw his bodyguard, Shi Xuyu, was so good at training in martial arts. Can you imagine if somebody else - in China there are so many people who can do training very well - if somebody else used him, then what? So that's why he changed them to martial arts.
My Sifu's father was similar to Shi Xuyu, he was a general in an army that opposed Mao. However unlike Xuyu he did not join Mao, rather he fled Hangzhou to Hong Kong. My sifu was trained by his father and by other pre-communist Sifus (such as Wong Sil Jang, a student of Lam Si Wing) and then moved to Canada for University. He liked it so much here that he decided to stay. Although I pay great respect to my Sifu I am not naiive enough to believe that he is one of a kind. There are other Sifu's who were trained in Chinese Martial Arts devoid of Mao's interference even in the same telephone area code as my sifu (I doubt that Pan Quing Fu was trained first in modern Wushu for instance).
Now these Sifus may face the problem that North American students, for the most part, do not have the dedication to the martial arts to practice them in a manner that Zhang Lipeng would call Kung Fu. But occasionally somebody does develop that dedication.
Anyway at my Sifu's school are everyone from short and thin to the bulky and tall. And he does customize teachings to a certain extent. I happen to have a bit of a natural affinity to Hung Gar and he has taught me more Hung Gar than a lot of other people at the school (including parts of the Iron Thread, something he has only taught a few people any of at all) while others have recieved more training in other areas (Wing Chun and Staff - I am a bit clumsy with the staff - come to mind) but have not had my training in Hung Gar. So some Sifus still will tailor the teaching to the student in order to ensure the continual improvement and progress of their skills by exploiting their strengths and by drilling the basics enough to limit their weaknesses.
Zhang Lipeng: It is. It's the spirit. It's over. It's over.
It's not over though. I see it every day so clearly in my brother, he nearly took the tip of his pinky finger clean off in a weight lifting accident yesterday, the ER doctor told him he was lucky that he didn't have to have the top joint amputated. Today he was back to training again, he just wasn't using that one hand. And that spirit is infectious. I've always been fascinated by it, I even started doing it in a half-hearted sort of "gotta lose some weight" way before he did but his passion has, over the last two years, passed to me. So even if the spirit of Kung Fu seems to be fading, it is not over and won't be so long as someone remains who understands the importence and dignity inherent in a skill honed with hard work, time, perserverence and patience.
you don't need martial arts to protect the country.
Actually many people have suggested that the changing nature of warfare has increased the significance of close combat skills in the last five years.
You don't need martial arts to protect your life. Nobody's going to kill you. In history, everybody would carry a big knife, a straight sword. It didn't matter where you went, if you went into a restaurant you would still carry a knife because you always had to defend yourself. Right now, if you want to kill somebody, you shoot him - you have a gun
In Canada this is not the reality. In fact in most parts of the (developed) world aside from the USA this is not the reality. Guns are highly regulated, expensive and if the user is caught after shooting someone, even if their victim survives, they generally face very harsh penalties. For some reason this is not enough of a deterrent to stop the rediculously high levels of gun crime in the USA but in Canada (for certain) and I believe in most of Western Europe and large swaths of Asia (Japan, probably China, South Korea) the levels of gun crime just aren't anywhere near as high. However stabbings are regular occurances, ESPECIALLY at nightclubs. Someone was killed in a stabbing at a bar just over a week ago in sleepy London, a city of 300,000. Self defense with melee weapons and against melee weapons is still very much a reality.
You can defend yourself better than people with no training, but you cannot fight against 20 people. It's not possible
This I agree with 100%. I am always getting down on people who train in a manner that will not encourage the development of real skill in a fight. I strongly agree in the importence of stress testing techniques and I will always pick an ugly but effective technique over a beautiful but useless one. Also I recall one person who defended the poor performance of TCMA in events such as the UFC by claiming that TCMA was designed for multiple opponents specifically, this sort of claptrap has always bothered me.
Can you imagine every day a small guy training with swords for twenty years - do you think he's gonna fight with you for twenty minutes? As soon as he moves his swords, you don't even know what's going on, you're already finished. It's over.
True with weapons. One mistake when fighting with swords or knives and you are dead, no second round. However this is not necessarily true in bare-hand challenge matches. Remember the infamous Bruce Lee vs Wong Jack Man match? About the only thing all parties CAN agree on is that it lasted about 20 minutes to half an hour. And that was not a modern UFC style match; according to Jack Man potentially lethal or maiming techniques were employed in the fight.
Create the form.
Again I find some common ground. My Sifu would definately approve of his advice within the context of the question asked by Barbara Malvik.
300 years ago, the master did not look at your size. They trained all sizes - tall, short, skinny, fat. He looked at your spirit, your self-esteem. They did not look at your body. If you want to do it, anything is possible. So the master will teach you if you're a little bit bigger, he'll teach you something else.
My Sifu does still teach this way. Perhaps it has to do with his history. As Zhang Lipeng points out
Chairman Mao wanted martial arts ended. He saw his bodyguard, Shi Xuyu, was so good at training in martial arts. Can you imagine if somebody else - in China there are so many people who can do training very well - if somebody else used him, then what? So that's why he changed them to martial arts.
My Sifu's father was similar to Shi Xuyu, he was a general in an army that opposed Mao. However unlike Xuyu he did not join Mao, rather he fled Hangzhou to Hong Kong. My sifu was trained by his father and by other pre-communist Sifus (such as Wong Sil Jang, a student of Lam Si Wing) and then moved to Canada for University. He liked it so much here that he decided to stay. Although I pay great respect to my Sifu I am not naiive enough to believe that he is one of a kind. There are other Sifu's who were trained in Chinese Martial Arts devoid of Mao's interference even in the same telephone area code as my sifu (I doubt that Pan Quing Fu was trained first in modern Wushu for instance).
Now these Sifus may face the problem that North American students, for the most part, do not have the dedication to the martial arts to practice them in a manner that Zhang Lipeng would call Kung Fu. But occasionally somebody does develop that dedication.
Anyway at my Sifu's school are everyone from short and thin to the bulky and tall. And he does customize teachings to a certain extent. I happen to have a bit of a natural affinity to Hung Gar and he has taught me more Hung Gar than a lot of other people at the school (including parts of the Iron Thread, something he has only taught a few people any of at all) while others have recieved more training in other areas (Wing Chun and Staff - I am a bit clumsy with the staff - come to mind) but have not had my training in Hung Gar. So some Sifus still will tailor the teaching to the student in order to ensure the continual improvement and progress of their skills by exploiting their strengths and by drilling the basics enough to limit their weaknesses.
Zhang Lipeng: It is. It's the spirit. It's over. It's over.
It's not over though. I see it every day so clearly in my brother, he nearly took the tip of his pinky finger clean off in a weight lifting accident yesterday, the ER doctor told him he was lucky that he didn't have to have the top joint amputated. Today he was back to training again, he just wasn't using that one hand. And that spirit is infectious. I've always been fascinated by it, I even started doing it in a half-hearted sort of "gotta lose some weight" way before he did but his passion has, over the last two years, passed to me. So even if the spirit of Kung Fu seems to be fading, it is not over and won't be so long as someone remains who understands the importence and dignity inherent in a skill honed with hard work, time, perserverence and patience.
you don't need martial arts to protect the country.
Actually many people have suggested that the changing nature of warfare has increased the significance of close combat skills in the last five years.
You don't need martial arts to protect your life. Nobody's going to kill you. In history, everybody would carry a big knife, a straight sword. It didn't matter where you went, if you went into a restaurant you would still carry a knife because you always had to defend yourself. Right now, if you want to kill somebody, you shoot him - you have a gun
In Canada this is not the reality. In fact in most parts of the (developed) world aside from the USA this is not the reality. Guns are highly regulated, expensive and if the user is caught after shooting someone, even if their victim survives, they generally face very harsh penalties. For some reason this is not enough of a deterrent to stop the rediculously high levels of gun crime in the USA but in Canada (for certain) and I believe in most of Western Europe and large swaths of Asia (Japan, probably China, South Korea) the levels of gun crime just aren't anywhere near as high. However stabbings are regular occurances, ESPECIALLY at nightclubs. Someone was killed in a stabbing at a bar just over a week ago in sleepy London, a city of 300,000. Self defense with melee weapons and against melee weapons is still very much a reality.
You can defend yourself better than people with no training, but you cannot fight against 20 people. It's not possible
This I agree with 100%. I am always getting down on people who train in a manner that will not encourage the development of real skill in a fight. I strongly agree in the importence of stress testing techniques and I will always pick an ugly but effective technique over a beautiful but useless one. Also I recall one person who defended the poor performance of TCMA in events such as the UFC by claiming that TCMA was designed for multiple opponents specifically, this sort of claptrap has always bothered me.
Can you imagine every day a small guy training with swords for twenty years - do you think he's gonna fight with you for twenty minutes? As soon as he moves his swords, you don't even know what's going on, you're already finished. It's over.
True with weapons. One mistake when fighting with swords or knives and you are dead, no second round. However this is not necessarily true in bare-hand challenge matches. Remember the infamous Bruce Lee vs Wong Jack Man match? About the only thing all parties CAN agree on is that it lasted about 20 minutes to half an hour. And that was not a modern UFC style match; according to Jack Man potentially lethal or maiming techniques were employed in the fight.
Create the form.
Again I find some common ground. My Sifu would definately approve of his advice within the context of the question asked by Barbara Malvik.