Are "Grandmasters" helping or hurting the progress of kung fu?

[Wuxia007]

Everyone is aware that lately the credibility of TCMA as a practical art is being challenged by MMA.

I've studied at a kung fu school branch that was part of a system lead by a single, unquestioned, unchallenged "Grandmaster". He was a very talented and respectable one at that.
His schools were extremely well organized (Chain of command) with excellent communication. The system's Sifus and students were also very talented and well disciplined.
However, the only problem I saw was that the Grandmaster was nearly worshipped like a god who could do no wrong. Forms, techniques, teaching style, traditions, etc were never challenged, questioned, or altered except only through the grandmaster. Meaning the schools could not progress with the changing times without approval from the grandmaster. The school obviously currently teaches traditional forms that are outdated and no longer applicable to today's society and are merely taught for the sake of tradition.

On the other hand, I have been to schools that are stand-alones, with no connection or link to any other schools. There were no "Grandmasters" to oversee the quality and discipline of the school. The sifu was more liberal and constantly looking for ways for his school to adapt and progress with the changing times. Unfortunately, these schools were extremely undisciplined, sloppy forms and sloppy techniques, and an unfocused sifu in regards to the future of the school and its style. However, the environment was much more relax, no military drills like the other type, and no real chain of command.

So it leaves me with a conundrum.
If a well organized and disciplined school is being stymied by a nearly worshipped "Grandmaster", how can kung fu progress?
If a much liberal school willing to adapt but is unorganized and sloppy because it does not have to answer to a higher command, how can kung fu progress?

Back to my original question,
Do "Grandmasters" help or hurt the progress of kung fu?
Or is kung fu doomed to collapse on itself?

[SPJ]

Both linked and stand alone schools exist.

There is a 7 star mantis school near where I work.

The teachers or instructors are good. The students are mixed.

Mostly children after school.

They are taught a few moves and allowed to spar freely.

They have wooden sword and staff.

They also punch and kick with pads or mittens.

The kids just have some fun.

:)

[jimbob]

Not every "Grandmaster" is going to be blind to change or progress, and not every 'independent' school is going to have an open minded person at the helm all the time.

In general, I think students' reverence for Grandmaster figures are probably doing more harm than good, but some organisation heads don't necessarily bask in the adulation (of course, others do).

Believe it or not, there are peope who can think freely for themselves whilst staying respectful of their background and their teacher(s).

[Jimbo]

I have found with MA in general and CMA in particular, you must determine the quality of the school individually, as opposed to going by the style. Of course, there are also CMA chain schools which you can decide if the teacher/environment/quality is to your liking or not. Simply put, quality control varies widely among CMA schools, regardless if they have a 'military-like' or 'loose/informal' environment.

To be honest, the worst cases of 'grandmaster as demi-god to be worshipped' examples I've either witnessed or heard of involved some Korean MA teachers, and even that was sometime ago, back in the 1980s, into the '90s. At one school in particular that I visited, the Korean teacher actually had a personal throne set up in his office, and his students acted like brainwashed zombies. Yet despite the 'military-like' atmosphere, the quality of skill appeared very low among his students, including the black belts. With MMA's (and BJJ's) continued popularity and growth, I've noticed these types of exaggerated-claims teachers/schools seem less and less prevalent than they used to be.

[Faux Newbie]

I also find that the more military style (all doing the same thing, in lines), the more calisthenics are a focus over developing skills. Training the capacity for opposition does not work well in neat lines.

If the summary of what is being trained is "feats of strength", this is a problem, as well. This includes equating stance work with fighting without actually ever practicing it as such as a school.

Stance as a feat of strength lacks the fighting attributes of stance trained for fighting. Iron body as a feat of strength lacks the focus of iron body as a complement for fighting. Form as a feat of strength lacks the analysis to make the form useful. Weapons as a feat of strength (or other display) tends to emphasize bad habits and visible actions over solid weapons work.

That said, kung fu has survived centuries of the dichotomy between good and bad teachers. The good don't seem to just get rid of the old because it was not trained live and so doesn't seem to work, they train it live and judge it off of actually knowing it.

[Minghequan]

I say just get rid of these Titles ... just have students & Instructors as the by way it should be!

[Kellen Bassette]

I also find that the more military style (all doing the same thing, in lines), the more calisthenics are a focus over developing skills. Training the capacity for opposition does not work well in neat lines.


Martial arts are much better trained in small groups than large ones. Unfortunately, military style training seems to be a necessary adaptation to large classes.
It presents a problem. Everyone wants high quality training AND large classes...tough to pull off.

[Jimbo]

So it leaves me with a conundrum.
If a well organized and disciplined school is being stymied by a nearly worshipped "Grandmaster", how can kung fu progress?
If a much liberal school willing to adapt but is unorganized and sloppy because it does not have to answer to a higher command, how can kung fu progress?

Back to my original question,
Do "Grandmasters" help or hurt the progress of kung fu?
Or is kung fu doomed to collapse on itself?

It's really up to YOU and those you train with to progress in your own art(s). Worrying about how CMA as a whole can progress or not is kind of a waste, as even within the same styles there is often petty bickering, politics, varying quality levels, etc. If you find something that is good and workable for you, then developing in that becomes your responsibility. Nobody can be responsible for what other people/schools/styles/organizations do. CMA, or 'kung fu' will never be as popular, as prolific nor as well-organized (at least in the West) as other MA like TKD, karate, MMA, BJJ, boxing, wrestling, etc. It was that way long before the popularity of MMA, and will always be that way, like it or not.

That doesn't mean CMA are doomed to collapse. There will always be good to excellent teachers and practitioners; but you won't necessarily find them in every strip mall, gym, or even in every city/town. Sometimes you may luck out and find a quality teacher not very far away. Other times, you may have to really commute for it, if you want to learn badly enough. There's nothing exotic or mysterious about it; it's simply the way it is. But obviously, if someone is setting him/herself up as some kind of cult figure, it's best to run the other way.

[Vicius]

Why everyone is still comparing with MMA, CMA is not sport, so MMA and CMA can't compare one to another, in order to compete CMA have to get rid of the most dangerous techniques, wich MMA have prohibited for the same reason. CMA's are street fight without quarter. If you want to know how a CMA training should be you search Okinawa Karate, they have maintained the CMA tradition as it was, well... almost.

MMA are not a threath to CMA's, only if you want to win in a sportive ring. So any master who treat CMA as a sport is making some damage, and a lot of damage have been done since MA's are not so needed in the real world as they use to be, and the modern laws, and the modern way of what's good or bad.

You don't need to get the next step in CMA, you have to get the right path again, then you can think in progress. Kung Fu is self development and self progress.

[Faux Newbie]

Sportive approaches use a lot of the same things as non-sportive, the non-sportive have added things.

If one accepts push hands and sticky hands type work as valid, which are opportunities to practice things without people generally doing killing moves, then we cannot denigrate sportive training, since it is doing the same thing.

They are limited formats that have their uses if used correctly. Sportive formats in throwing tend to drive more use of throws and counters (I know, obvious), push hands and sticky hands drive bridging work and other aspects, sparring drills allow developing pre-contact sensitivity that neither push hands or sticky hands allows (watching your opponent, awareness of footwork, etc).

Any one of those, taken as a goal, is flawed, but some sportive approaches, such as sanshou or mma, are closer to drilling a holistic fighting method than others. This is not to say they are better than others, merely that they have some advantages, integrated striking/bridging/grappling, inclusion of all ranges including outside range, etc.

They are tools, and if they are invalid because they are not all inclusive, then so is push hands, sticky hands, and most forms work. I don't believe this is the case.

[Vicius]

In sports there is a saying, well at least in my sport that is Table Tennis, "In stress and distress you can not do, with success, what you haven't trained, in stress and distress you can not perform better than you have performed in training" at least not for sure, you always can have a lucky shoot; of course this involves more than training, it's part mental programing.

So if you train yourself to hit only certain "sportive legal" targets in the body, so the more likely you are going to do that in a distress situation, if you make your mind that the oponent can't hit or grab the ilegal targets, so you are more likely to give away those targets in a distress situation, because you don't expect somebody hit you or grab you in that place.

If you see when someone practice an Okinawa Karate technique, or a traditional kung fu technique, you do it and stop the hit at the target, but you do the hit, and aim it at the target, so you program your body and mind to instinctively do that, and for training the technique with real force you make use of dummys, or sandbags or whatever.

Look at brazilian jiujitsu, in a ring, they are great, in the street, you probably will fail, maybe there is two oponents, broken glass in the floor, or who knows, the other one have a hidden knife, that is very common, and that is undestandable because jiujitsu was made for the battlefield, and you where expected to have an armour, and with armours hitting is almost useless, and you can confront weapons or dangerous objects in the ground because you're protected all over the body. Or you can win, if the other follows sporting rules as well as you, but that's a bet I think no one will take.

[David Jamieson]

When I was introduced to Kung Fu practice there was no such thing as a "grandmaster".
There were always filial names like teacher/father (sifu) Teachers teacher (si gung) system founder (si jo) and so on like you've probably all seen or heard before.
There were literally no "grandmasters" whatsoever.

I think this term came into popular use in the late 90s or so and is now a complete cluster hump meaningless word.
sadly, some authentic dudes adopted it too, but I think that is so because of a couple of factors of mistranslation and language barrier in general where someone implied the title was same as teachers/teacher. Which is more along the lines of grampa in reality.

Nowadays you can find dozens of 20 something know nothing disconnected idiots known as "grandmaster""... It's pretty amazing.
Like a teenager calling himself sigung. equally stupid.

I personally abandoned titles, honorary or otherwise and deemed them worthless and of no meaning in any way some time ago.
Here the thing, and some of you have heard it before, "the teacher who is not also a student is neither."

Meaning, Kung Fu is either practiced and learned with regular advancement or it isn't. Even the oldest most dusty practitioner (especially the old dusty ones) knows this is true.

This term, grandmaster, is just driven by ego or stroking it on someone else because of misguided kiss ass reflexes that infect almost any hierarchical structure.

I'd rather be seen as a jerk and keep my skills developing than to be bowed down to and honoured and not have the skills.

It's the work that matters, not the certificates, not the belts, not the titles.

Use to maintain discipline in a class and so that students may know who to look to for information. That is the only useful purpose of these titles. Who is the teacher? Si Fu. Who is his teacher? Si Gung. Who founded this system? Si Jo. That's it. the rest is dreck imnsho. :)

[Smoking Gun]

The Asian 'grandmaster ' system is a Chinese confucian parochial hang over, that has more in common with foot binding, communism, polygamy, drowning unwanted female babies, and making capsules from human foetuses.

enlightened Bruce, who introduced 'gong fu', famously rebuked that 'traditional styles look good, but simply don't work', and basically trashed everything that he learnt from Asia and built a style around Western boxing, wrestling, kick boxing and modern strength training. In the West traditional Chinese martial arts were as quickly discredited as much as they had become popularised. They are totally unscientific and illogical systems, founded by narcissistic megalomaniacs that want to pretend that they are the spiritual vanguard of all combative arts.

But more to the point, why would you want to learn combat arts from a culture (China) that has proven itself incapable and unwilling to fight wars (like world war 2), in the way that sections of the West has done? It's simply not in the Chinese dna for men to voluntarily sacrifice their lives in war for freedom, or to have any success. Look at the history of the Mongols, Tibetans, Manchus, Xiong nu, and virtually every other nomadic tribal culture, that invaded, subjugated and conquered the Chinese despite being technologically and numerically inferior.

Despite what the posers on this forum say, it wasn't MMA that destroyed Chinese Martial arts, it was boxing. Most MMA fights are dreadful, and the basic combat skills are diminutive and non existent. A good boxer would beat the hell out of a 'mma' fighter, as would a good thai boxer, and western wrestler.

I reject any claims of 'martial arts' having anything to do with war, as you don't know what really ticks people to go there to begin with.

[Dale Dugas]

Enlightened Bruce is dead, buried and rotten. His kung fu sucked. period.

Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Chuck Norris outlive him and outshine him.

Stop talking like a f ucking fortune cookie and train more.

[Dragonzbane76]

A good boxer would beat the hell out of a 'mma' fighter, as would a good thai boxer, and western wrestler.

lol well the early 90's called. I think that it's been proven over and over about the absurdity of this statement, unless you are talking about the rule sets and fighting within them.

[Dale Dugas]

Utter and complete rubbish that people are wanting to listne to ANYONE who calls themselves Master, Grandmaster, Sigung, Sijo.

You do not call yourself anything but your name.

Most of these toolbags could not fight their way out of a paper bag.

Enough said.

[Faux Newbie]

First off, this is the post where SoCo can really bag on me for hassling him for being mean.


The Asian 'grandmaster ' system is a Chinese confucian parochial hang over, that has more in common with foot binding, communism, polygamy, drowning unwanted female babies, and making capsules from human foetuses.

Communism? And are you talking about placentas? WTF?


enlightened Bruce, who introduced 'gong fu', famously rebuked that 'traditional styles look good, but simply don't work', and basically trashed everything that he learnt from Asia and built a style around Western boxing, wrestling, kick boxing and modern strength training. In the West traditional Chinese martial arts were as quickly discredited as much as they had become popularised. They are totally unscientific and illogical systems, founded by narcissistic megalomaniacs that want to pretend that they are the spiritual vanguard of all combative arts.

Founded by? I'm not sure I should even expect a citation.


But more to the point, why would you want to learn combat arts from a culture (China) that has proven itself incapable and unwilling to fight wars (like world war 2)

Um, you are aware that the Chinese that took over the country were fighting the Japanese before the U.S., and more than the Chinese that the U.S. considered its allies? And that this was the reason many Chinese at the time didn't believe in the GMD? You weren't. Oh dear, you seemed to know so much about this.


in the way that sections of the West has done?

Sections of the West?


It's simply not in the Chinese dna for men to voluntarily sacrifice their lives in war for freedom

Mostly, the only wars that can legitimately be claimed, a century after their time, for freedom, are rebellions.


or to have any success. Look at the history of the Mongols, Tibetans, Manchus, Xiong nu, and virtually every other nomadic tribal culture, that invaded, subjugated and conquered the Chinese despite being technologically and numerically inferior.

Wow, in a few millennium, the Chinese were defeated a few times, but maintained the exact same cultural and largely continuous political system? Wow, what utter failure! Not to mention that between those times, the Imperial state was keeping those same nomads under control. Not to mention that, in the periods where the Manchus and Mongols took China, the mongols and the Manchus were technologically superior as far as advances in tactics and strategy, organization and training of armies, than the Chinese of the time, but could not rule China any differently than it had been ruled before. There are few civilizations to maintain that kind of continuity over that long a time, and most of those are long gone.


Despite what the posers on this forum say, it wasn't MMA that destroyed Chinese Martial arts, it was boxing.

Most of the westerners that brought kung fu to the states or popularized it had fairly extensive experience in boxing. Do you get paid by the assumption?


Most MMA fights are dreadful, and the basic combat skills are diminutive and non existent. A good boxer would beat the hell out of a 'mma' fighter, as would a good thai boxer, and western wrestler.

The second most vital experience one can gain from martial artists is the awareness that martial arts is full of egotistical morons who join a school to make themselves skilled, but instead stay with it to feel special and tell everyone else why they are wrong. The first most vital experience is recognizing the value of the martial artists who don't fall into that trap. Thanks for your vital and excellent help with the second.


I reject any claims of 'martial arts' having anything to do with war, as you don't know what really ticks people to go there to begin with.

Excellent first post. I especially like your ending with a refusal to engage any actual sources or ideas about the development of these arts. Books are for the debbil.

[Jimbo]

James "Lights Out" Toney sure beat the hell out of Randy Couture. :rolleyes:

[Faux Newbie]

Pankratian is clearly the real deal.

[Vicius]

Smoking Gun have some good points.

Well gong fu, as we know them, have nothing to do with war, tha's for sure, in war you use primarily weapons, and the movements permited in a war fighting are not so wide like in gong fu, -just guessing, I'm not an historiar- so maybe the most simple and direct techniques could have some use in war, I mean ancient kind of war. So if gung fu have nothing to do with war, why we should measure it with a chinese state incapable of wining a war? Thats a mather of armies, governments and the population.

I think gung fu have a bunch of crap in it, like any art that have passed large social and political periods of peace, and was combined with religious credences, and philosophical issues... ohhh and chinese opera, I almost forgot the chinese opera. So chinese -and I'm going to say it this way- fighting arts, where not destroyed, it´s like one boxer that is defeated by another boxer, you can't say that box was destroyed, just one fighter was better than the other, better trained, more strong, that have specialiced his techniques and can use them with success.

I, sincerily, don't give a **** if anyone think's that chinese fighting arts are good or bad, or if everybody quits or starts to practice Chinese fighting styles tomorrow, I'm not going to earn more money for that; but I like the talk :). And I wish Smoking Gun could talk more about this following:


Most MMA fights are dreadful, and the basic combat skills are diminutive and non existent.

because it looks interesting. Maybe another thread or PM :)

[Faux Newbie]

Korean Civil War was not entirely a loss for the Chinese armies. The beginning of every new dynasty, often some successful war involved. Chinese fought as Manchu bannermen, fought in the Mongol fighting forces, fought against Japan in China. Lots of warfare. Like every civilization, some wins, some losses. And some combat training.

[Smoking Gun]

Korean Civil War was not entirely a loss for the Chinese armies. The beginning of every new dynasty, often some successful war involved. Chinese fought as Manchu bannermen, fought in the Mongol fighting forces, fought against Japan in China. Lots of warfare. Like every civilization, some wins, some losses. And some combat training.

Sigh.. I'm not going to answer your contested claims on Chinese democracy, medical cannibalism, subjugation my nomadic Tibetan tribes..but I will say you are idiot for denying the extent of the Mongol subjugation/genocide of the Han Chinese. No other culture was beaten into complete submission/humiliation than like the Chinese by the Mongols. No other culture has gone through more dynastic change/usurpation of power, along with democide, than the Chinese. Read about the Chinese generals who made meat sauces from human blood (to be consumed) then smeared over war drums during the zhou dynasty. The modern totalitarian state originated in China (one of the pearls of asian civilisation), the CCP is nothing other than a modern re-manifestation of the ancient Chinese political system.

There was no mass Chinese resistance to the Japanese during ww2, only a spattering of resistance by chinese communists .. over 20 million Chinese were murdered by fanatical 'bushido' japs who took delight in bayonetting babies and then toasting them, gang raping women like a pack of rapid dogs, and gorging women with bayonets up their uteruses like out of a disgusting horror movie. The 'heroic' chinese resistance is about as real as the Long march - a chinese communist myth to try and make chinese culture sound brutal and heroic. Does that smash your martial arts pipe dream of a vicious warrior culture to pieces?

Bruce Lee was a 'master' for telling people to practice styles/techniques with real application and aggression. The thing he taught is to practice each and every technique in training with full force and power, which is counter-logic to 'gong fu' - a set of fluffy calisthenic 'like' movements performed in silk pyjamas.

The UFC doesn't allow boxer/thai boxers into the tournament because they know that they would knock the living hell out of them in two minutes. MMa fighters hit with half the power of boxers/kickboxers. It's about as intimidating as a group of white belts with tattooed pit bulls brawling.

You can get your asian values and **** off! Go and work for the confucius institute

[lkfmdc]

The UFC doesn't allow boxer/thai boxers into the tournament



Is that why they have had Cro Cop, Patrick Barry, Antoni Hardonk, Bas Rutten, Alistair Overeem, etc etc etc in the UFC

[Smoking Gun]

And I wish Smoking Gun could talk more about this following:



because it looks interesting. Maybe another thread or PM :)

Yeah I used to watch the UFC in the early days (15 years ago) but take a look at the atrocious bellator MMA. It's like watching a bunch fans of son's of anarchy in a stupid bar fight.

[Smoking Gun]

Is that why they have had Cro Cop, Patrick Barry, Antoni Hardonk, Bas Rutten, Alistair Overeem, etc etc etc in the UFC

there is nothing to fear in a mma fighter except being taken to the ground, and even there they are lacklustre.

UFC is extremely corrupt, with an entrenched culture of match fixing and steroids.

[Smoking Gun]

Is that why they have had Cro Cop, Patrick Barry, Antoni Hardonk, Bas Rutten, Alistair Overeem, etc etc etc in the UFC

Not one single person you mentioned is a professional boxer or thai boxer. Just Dutch mma 'kick boxer' fighters, with glaring connections to the corrupt/criminal dutch martial arts world.

[Dale Dugas]

More verbal diarrhea from net ghosts.


8648

[Faux Newbie]

Sigh.. I'm not going to answer your contested claims on Chinese democracy, medical cannibalism, subjugation my nomadic Tibetan tribes..but I will say you are idiot for denying the extent of the Mongol subjugation/genocide of the Han Chinese. No other culture was beaten into complete submission/humiliation than like the Chinese by the Mongols. No other culture has gone through more dynastic change/usurpation of power, along with democide, than the Chinese. Read about the Chinese generals who made meat sauces from human blood (to be consumed) then smeared over war drums during the zhou dynasty. The modern totalitarian state originated in China (one of the pearls of asian civilisation), the CCP is nothing other than a modern re-manifestation of the ancient Chinese political system.

There was no mass Chinese resistance to the Japanese during ww2, only a spattering of resistance by chinese communists .. over 20 million Chinese were murdered by fanatical 'bushido' japs who took delight in bayonetting babies and then toasting them, gang raping women like a pack of rapid dogs, and gorging women with bayonets up their uteruses like out of a disgusting horror movie. The 'heroic' chinese resistance is about as real as the Long march - a chinese communist myth to try and make chinese culture sound brutal and heroic. Does that smash your martial arts pipe dream of a vicious warrior culture to pieces?

Bruce Lee was a 'master' for telling people to practice styles/techniques with real application and aggression. The thing he taught is to practice each and every technique in training with full force and power, which is counter-logic to 'gong fu' - a set of fluffy calisthenic 'like' movements performed in silk pyjamas.

The UFC doesn't allow boxer/thai boxers into the tournament because they know that they would knock the living hell out of them in two minutes. MMa fighters hit with half the power of boxers/kickboxers. It's about as intimidating as a group of white belts with tattooed pit bulls brawling.

You can get your asian values and **** off! Go and work for the confucius institute

Every era in which there was not a dynasty based on one or the other of the Northern nomadic people, the Chinese were actively subjugating the Northern nomadic peoples. And there were more of those eras. This is basic history, just because you don't want it to be that way doesn't change the fact.

Are you saying the Long March didn't happen? Care to cite a source on that?

Also, you might want to keep in mind that a great many Japanese atrocities were in retribution for resistance from the Chinese.

Good luck with your reliance on non peer reviewed histories on the internet to inform yourself.

[Faux Newbie]

Okay, this just hit me.

Did you cite the frikkin Zhou Dynasty to find cruel practices?

Really?

You mean, people in ancient times found inventive ways to be cruel? Thanks for this ground breaking study! Hell, you could have gone much more recently in Eastern or Western societies and found as much.

By the way, where is your evidence that no other people has been subjugated more? Are you counting the carthaginians? Would you say that the continuance of Chinese culture has paid off more for the Chinese, or for the Mongolian people? How about the Manchus, run in to many Manchus lately? Got a lot of Xiongnu friends bragging about their domination of the region?

[Faux Newbie]

And MMA fighters include a great many dedicated individuals who train their skills with thoughtfulness and courage. And some dedicated individuals who are not so thoughtful about their training， but at least have the courage to fight those who do. And, of course, some idiots.

It's very easy to say who you are better than, proving it is the important part.

[Dragonzbane76]

there is nothing to fear in a mma fighter except being taken to the ground, and even there they are lacklustre.

lol funny. everything is dictated by rule sets. MMA has open rules compared to thai or boxing. you sir are an idiot. Lackluster? I would say more than half are BB in BJJ or have wrestling backgrounds. I wouldn't call that lackluster. Seriously have you been living under a rock?

[Smoking Gun]

Every era in which there was not a dynasty based on one or the other of the Northern nomadic people, the Chinese were actively subjugating the Northern nomadic peoples. And there were more of those eras. This is basic history, just because you don't want it to be that way doesn't change the fact.

Are you saying the Long March didn't happen? Care to cite a source on that?

Also, you might want to keep in mind that a great many Japanese atrocities were in retribution for resistance from the Chinese.

Good luck with your reliance on non peer reviewed histories on the internet to inform yourself.

Yeah I've got a whole library on Chinese civilisation/culture. I buy books from "china books' all the time. I've attended different lectures, listened to many experts.. there was a recent documentary on the historical veracity of the long march. A lot of Western academics are sceptical of the exaggerated claims of the chinese communists, with their filtered, censored, revisionist history of this and other histories.

20 million murdered by Japanese military is no mere retribution but a deliberate out right cleansing/holocaust. Delude yourself son, with your shaolin warrior fantasies, even the British kicked the **** out of the Chinese during the opium wars, whilst the rest of the European countries tore it up during the Qing. The Chinese were defeated. Do I have to post photos of the Chinese being murdered by the fanatical japs? There is a strange twist of historic irony when a small nomadic tibetan culture invades and conquerors a monolithic sized China. China is the size of 1.6 billion, and Tibet 5million. Do your maths son, look at the humiliation and embarrassment of an empire being torn apart by nomadic pastrolists.

There has been a continuous line of cruelty and tyranny running deep in China from the Xia dynasty up until the present day. I can't glean any of the fruits you speak of when you compare it to the ancient european world which did in fact experiment with law, republicanism, assemblies, equlity of sexes, secularism (at certain points). Chinese history is just a continuous line of mad megalomaniacal rulers acting like despots with their enfoffements and prison camps. Why don't you do a search on the Chinese that went around stark naked (because of poverty) up until and during the republican era?

[Smoking Gun]

lol funny. everything is dictated by rule sets. MMA has open rules compared to thai or boxing. you sir are an idiot. Lackluster? I would say more than half are BB in BJJ or have wrestling backgrounds. I wouldn't call that lackluster. Seriously have you been living under a rock?

Maybe you should compare some boxing vids to mma and whatever other prison sex brawling culture you can think of. You don't think that a 'certain' scum bag boxer would have wiped the deck of these idiots?

[Smoking Gun]

[QUOTE=Dale Dugas;1270496]More verbal diarrhea from net ghosts.

Show me some peer reviewed studies that tcm actually works, and I might start to take you half seriously.

:cool:

[Kellen Bassette]

Maybe you should compare some boxing vids to mma and whatever other prison sex brawling culture you can think of. You don't think that a 'certain' scum bag boxer would have wiped the deck of these idiots?

If straight up boxers could win in MMA they would. The rule set doesn't work for orthodox boxing...you need mixed martial arts skills to compete in mixed martial arts...but I doubt your even being serious with this ridiculous nonsense.

[PalmStriker]

Smoking Gun have some good points.

Well gong fu, as we know them, have nothing to do with war, tha's for sure, in war you use primarily weapons, and the movements permited in a war fighting are not so wide like in gong fu, -just guessing, I'm not an historiar- so maybe the most simple and direct techniques could have some use in war, I mean ancient kind of war. So if gung fu have nothing to do with war, why we should measure it with a chinese state incapable of wining a war? Thats a mather of armies, governments and the population.

I think gung fu have a bunch of crap in it, like any art that have passed large social and political periods of peace, and was combined with religious credences, and philosophical issues... ohhh and chinese opera, I almost forgot the chinese opera. So chinese -and I'm going to say it this way- fighting arts, where not destroyed, it´s like one boxer that is defeated by another boxer, you can't say that box was destroyed, just one fighter was better than the other, better trained, more strong, that have specialiced his techniques and can use them with success.

I, sincerily, don't give a **** if anyone think's that chinese fighting arts are good or bad, or if everybody quits or starts to practice Chinese fighting styles tomorrow, I'm not going to earn more money for that; but I like the talk :). And I wish Smoking Gun could talk more about this following:



because it looks interesting. Maybe another thread or PM :) :) Don't you mean "Kung Fu"?

[Vicius]

Well actually I don't like calling kung fu/gong fu to chinesse fighting systems, kung fu doesn't mean fighting, if you have some kind of kung fu that can be used to fight is one thing, or if you develop some kung fu to fight, but there are people that knows a form, and he says he "knows kung fu", that's bull****.

And I don't know what's your problem Smoking Gun, many people have been conquered by other and you can not discredit all their legacy, the Romans conquered all Europe, and I don't see anyone saying that the germans are people without fighting spirit, or the British, or the Spanish, that where also conquered by the Muslims.

[Faux Newbie]

Yeah I've got a whole library on Chinese civilisation/culture.

And how many of those books are by scholars that are well respected in their field?


I buy books from "china books' all the time.

You have a credit card, congratulations.


I've attended different lectures, listened to many experts..

None of whom you can actually name.


there was a recent documentary on the historical veracity of the long march. A lot of Western academics are sceptical of the exaggerated claims of the chinese communists, with their filtered, censored, revisionist history of this and other histories.

Again, what is the name of this or what experts were used in it? There's not that many China experts whose expertise applies here, if you have such a large library and know so much about it, these names become pretty familiar pretty quickly.

The problem is, there were quite a few survivors who seemed to carry on a consistent story, whether they later were less pleased with the party or not, whether they stayed in China or not, on what occurred on the march. There are apocryphal stories, to be certain, but the idea that the march did not occur, that it did not occur in relation to actions of the Nationalists, is a bit out of the bulk of scholarship on this topic.


20 million murdered by Japanese military is no mere retribution but a deliberate out right cleansing/holocaust.

No, the Japanese wanted Chinese to act as workers, just as they had expected of the Koreans and the Ainu and other Asians they considered their lesser brothers. Unrest in China caused them to seek to root out political enemies, which required ever increasing repression that drove ever greater numbers into opposition, just as would happen in the ROK when they carried on Japanese policies toward dissidents in later years.

Japan needed Chinese workers to work in Manchuria, and the communists endangered that. The Japanese leadership's entire Asian co-prosperity sphere was a necessary condition for competing against the West, Japan could not populate China with Japanese workers, not could it count on Korean workers, as they also were creating unrest in North China and agitating. The repression was not much different that the actions of the ROK later, overreaction to political dissidents that ultimately fed into and benefited those dissidents.


Delude yourself son, with your shaolin warrior fantasies

I was wondering when the ad hominem attack was coming. All talk, no fact, you are.


even the British kicked the **** out of the Chinese during the opium wars, whilst the rest of the European countries tore it up during the Qing.

Both of these were in the Qing, and one was the result of the other. And now they are considered a great power by U.S. experts. So what?


The Chinese were defeated. Do I have to post photos of the Chinese being murdered by the fanatical japs?

I have not disputed that there were defeats in Chinese history. No state has existed as long without also facing defeats. Again, what is your point?


There is a strange twist of historic irony when a small nomadic tibetan culture invades and conquerors a monolithic sized China.

Tibetan? The Tibetans didn't invade and conquer China. Are you talking about the Mongols? Manchu?


China is the size of 1.6 billion, and Tibet 5million. Do your maths son,

Do your geography, Tibet didn't conquer China.


look at the humiliation and embarrassment of an empire being torn apart by nomadic pastrolists.

If you are talking about the Mongols, then we are discussing more than pastoral folk, but military leaders who defeated a lot more leaders than those of China, who had advisors from all cultures, including a number of Chinese advisors who were well respected for the skills by the Khan, and who were a massive cavalry force, just like the Manchu.

In the case of the Manchu, again, they had non-Manchu bannermen from many regions, they made use of cavalry in the North and ground troops and boats to gain access to the South. Hardly simple nomads at that time in history.

From there, the Manchu were acclimated over time by the imperial system.

The Mongols could not hold the territory because the need for the imperial system's bureaucracy meant adoption of Chinese customs, which made it easy for chieftains in the steppes to attack the authority of mongols living as Chinese.

In the periods before and between these periods, the Chinese played nomadic chieftains one against the other and employed their cavalries in their armies.


There has been a continuous line of cruelty and tyranny running deep in China from the Xia dynasty up until the present day.

BS.


I can't glean any of the fruits you speak of when you compare it to the ancient european world which did in fact experiment with law,

I'll just assume you mean rule of law, as in precedent.


republicanism, assemblies, equlity of sexes, secularism (at certain points).

Aside from ascribing a whole mess of stuff to all western powers during those times when it doesn't apply, it is amazing that you break out secularism. I'll assume you count Confucianism as a religion.

And despite all that, 1/3 of the wars in the world at any point in that time were in Europe. This wouldn't end until the U.S. and Russia made Western Europe a nuclear hotspot not to push. Not one day before. Plenty of torture in all that time, plenty of cruel Kings, ending with nationalism and conflict of empires. Equality of the sexes is a joke in almost that entire period. Guillotines. Etc.


Chinese history is just a continuous line of mad megalomaniacal rulers

Bleh. Generalizations. These do not historical analysis make.


Why don't you do a search on the Chinese that went around stark naked (because of poverty) up until and during the republican era?

You seem to be extending your history back to one period, and then applying it retroactively to all periods, including periods in which China's economic status was dominant, including to the Brits.

I am highly amused as you go from "the Chinese are weak and have always been weak" to "their leaders are cruel, and WOMEN'S RIGHTS!" I will give you credit for being a feminist.

After every period in which cavalry from the North took China, the Chinese took total control of those regions again, divided these Northerners, used the ones that were loyal to them as cavalry, and made it harder for such people's to retake China. The Xiongnu's approach for taking China would no longer work by the time of the Mongols, the Mongol approach no longer worked by the time of the Manchu. In each case, a more technological China required a more advanced force to take it, which could be said about a great many places across the world that contributed to global development worldwide in both the East and West.

Your entire premiss is that your society is only good if others are bad. Your society is based on a melange of eastern and western ideas, from China's bureaucracy to Iroquois ideas on democracy and warfare to Indian and Persian math to a huge number of other factors, all of which form the basis for your life, whether you like it or not.

I do support the fact that you are a feminist.

Now again, what were the sources for your info?

[Dragonzbane76]

Maybe you should compare some boxing vids to mma and whatever other prison sex brawling culture you can think of. You don't think that a 'certain' scum bag boxer would have wiped the deck of these idiots?

as ten others and myself have stated, it's all rule sets. If I took a "mma" guy and put him in the ring with a boxer and they were only allowed to do boxing rule set then yes the boxer would probably win. Reverse that and the mma guy will probably win. Anyways I think your trying to troll, if your life is that boring that you have to say dumb things then maybe you should go play in traffic.

[Smoking Gun]

And how many of those books are by scholars that are well respected in their field?



You have a credit card, congratulations.



None of whom you can actually name.



Again, what is the name of this or what experts were used in it? There's not that many China experts whose expertise applies here, if you have such a large library and know so much about it, these names become pretty familiar pretty quickly.

The problem is, there were quite a few survivors who seemed to carry on a consistent story, whether they later were less pleased with the party or not, whether they stayed in China or not, on what occurred on the march. There are apocryphal stories, to be certain, but the idea that the march did not occur, that it did not occur in relation to actions of the Nationalists, is a bit out of the bulk of scholarship on this topic.



No, the Japanese wanted Chinese to act as workers, just as they had expected of the Koreans and the Ainu and other Asians they considered their lesser brothers. Unrest in China caused them to seek to root out political enemies, which required ever increasing repression that drove ever greater numbers into opposition, just as would happen in the ROK when they carried on Japanese policies toward dissidents in later years.

Japan needed Chinese workers to work in Manchuria, and the communists endangered that. The Japanese leadership's entire Asian co-prosperity sphere was a necessary condition for competing against the West, Japan could not populate China with Japanese workers, not could it count on Korean workers, as they also were creating unrest in North China and agitating. The repression was not much different that the actions of the ROK later, overreaction to political dissidents that ultimately fed into and benefited those dissidents.



I was wondering when the ad hominem attack was coming. All talk, no fact, you are.



Both of these were in the Qing, and one was the result of the other. And now they are considered a great power by U.S. experts. So what?



I have not disputed that there were defeats in Chinese history. No state has existed as long without also facing defeats. Again, what is your point?



Tibetan? The Tibetans didn't invade and conquer China. Are you talking about the Mongols? Manchu?



Do your geography, Tibet didn't conquer China.



If you are talking about the Mongols, then we are discussing more than pastoral folk, but military leaders who defeated a lot more leaders than those of China, who had advisors from all cultures, including a number of Chinese advisors who were well respected for the skills by the Khan, and who were a massive cavalry force, just like the Manchu.

In the case of the Manchu, again, they had non-Manchu bannermen from many regions, they made use of cavalry in the North and ground troops and boats to gain access to the South. Hardly simple nomads at that time in history.

From there, the Manchu were acclimated over time by the imperial system.

The Mongols could not hold the territory because the need for the imperial system's bureaucracy meant adoption of Chinese customs, which made it easy for chieftains in the steppes to attack the authority of mongols living as Chinese.

In the periods before and between these periods, the Chinese played nomadic chieftains one against the other and employed their cavalries in their armies.



BS.



I'll just assume you mean rule of law, as in precedent.



Aside from ascribing a whole mess of stuff to all western powers during those times when it doesn't apply, it is amazing that you break out secularism. I'll assume you count Confucianism as a religion.

And despite all that, 1/3 of the wars in the world at any point in that time were in Europe. This wouldn't end until the U.S. and Russia made Western Europe a nuclear hotspot not to push. Not one day before. Plenty of torture in all that time, plenty of cruel Kings, ending with nationalism and conflict of empires. Equality of the sexes is a joke in almost that entire period. Guillotines. Etc.



Bleh. Generalizations. These do not historical analysis make.



You seem to be extending your history back to one period, and then applying it retroactively to all periods, including periods in which China's economic status was dominant, including to the Brits.

I am highly amused as you go from "the Chinese are weak and have always been weak" to "their leaders are cruel, and WOMEN'S RIGHTS!" I will give you credit for being a feminist.

After every period in which cavalry from the North took China, the Chinese took total control of those regions again, divided these Northerners, used the ones that were loyal to them as cavalry, and made it harder for such people's to retake China. The Xiongnu's approach for taking China would no longer work by the time of the Mongols, the Mongol approach no longer worked by the time of the Manchu. In each case, a more technological China required a more advanced force to take it, which could be said about a great many places across the world that contributed to global development worldwide in both the East and West.

Your entire premiss is that your society is only good if others are bad. Your society is based on a melange of eastern and western ideas, from China's bureaucracy to Iroquois ideas on democracy and warfare to Indian and Persian math to a huge number of other factors, all of which form the basis for your life, whether you like it or not.

I do support the fact that you are a feminist.

Now again, what were the sources for your info?

What you say is complete hogwash unsubstantiated history garnered from the Chinese Communist annals.

Do a search on China books.. they only carry academic titles.

Yes son, the Tibetan's certainly did conquer the Chinese capital Chang'an, going so far as to set up a brief dynasty, before abandoning the capital 763.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=As_4aQjGaUEC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=Tibetan+conquest++Chang’an&source=bl&ots=JRAW740EZr&sig=J-w7gFMyufrQcaieP8d7I1qq5PE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JN2WU5yQJYarkwXkiICQAw&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Tibetan%20conquest%20%20Chang’an&f=false

Are you going to deny the gas chambers or are you going to burry your head in the sand and continue to engage in communist revisionism? The Tibetan's did in fact invade and harass the Chinese for long periods of time, even the Dalai Lama has mentioned this, something the communist's will try to deny. The point is that a massive monolithic empire was still vulnerable and intimidated by small nomadic cultures, which bursts the bubble of an unrelenting chinese warrior race. And your still acting like the Mongolian conquests were a mere blind spot on Chinese history, when they were in fact a major destabilising force, in much the same way the nazi's were for the Jews.

I'm laughing and shaking my finger at you when you try to deny the Japanese holocaust and racism towards the Chinese during world war 2. The Japanese had an extreme fascist ideology with a racial extremism comparable to the Nazis. When 20 million people are killed, it's a holocaust. Maybe you should do some research on Japanese militarism before world war 2 - there was a strong unified ideology that the chinese were a subhuman race to be worked as slaves before being packed off as cattle to the slaughter house. Wicked and trully evil.

If you want to read about secularism read about King Alfred or even the Magna Carta. Have you ever heard of the Thing or Moot? Even Francis Fukuyama has argued that China is to be credited with founding the first truly monolithic tyrannical state. A lot of Chinese are ambivalent to democracy - look how diminutive the chinese pro democracy movement is in the West. It is basically restricted to the Falun Gong. Western civilisation is a combination of Judaeo- Christianity and Greco Roman culture, and doesn't have the underlying Chinese influence you say. Civilisation began in the Middle East. China from its very ancient period had trade networks with the Middle East, who in fact influenced the Chinese with science technology, art and law! Metallurgy, city building and agriculture did not in fact originate in China.

You can call me a feminist, but your nothing but a western chinese sinophile, who slavishly reads his history books from the xinhua news agency.

[Smoking Gun]

The Long March myth is being compared in reconditeness (by western academics), to the similar myth of the mass Jewish exodus from Egypt. It's fiercely contested history, since it is not scientifically substantiated.

[Faux Newbie]

What you say is complete hogwash unsubstantiated history garnered from the Chinese Communist annals.

Funny, coming from a guy who has so far only misquoted one source. I am familiar with the major scholars in this field, know some of them, and none are big on Chinese Party propaganda.


Do a search on China books.. they only carry academic titles.

I am quite familiar with them, I get emails from them regularly seeking to sell books. I've read a number of the books they carry, but generally try to restrict myself to those written by noted scholars in the field. Not all academic titles are equal.


Yes son, the Tibetan's certainly did conquer the Chinese capital Chang'an, going so far as to set up a brief dynasty, before abandoning the capital 763.

And this is where your revisionist approach becomes clearer. You earlier stated that they conquered China, now you say they took Chang'an. You omit that this lasted for fifteen days, and your own source notes how China, after fifty years, sewed dissent amongst the Tibetan alliance. Additionally, you apply this as a stain on all Chinese history, despite the source you use clearly pointing out that, once this ended, never again was Tibet able to do anything like this.

You don't conquer China by never touching the North China Plan, or the South reaches of the coast. You lied to make a point, son.


Are you going to deny the gas chambers or are you going to burry your head in the sand and continue to engage in communist revisionism?[quote]

I'll explain a bit further how you are using revisionism to suggest an alternate history that supports your point. And wait with great patience to see you cite a single major scholar in this field.

[quote] The Tibetan's did in fact invade and harass the Chinese for long periods of time, even the Dalai Lama has mentioned this, something the communist's will try to deny.

Here it is. Your source cites CHINESE sources on the war with Tibet, in freeking 763 AD. The communists don't seem to be denying that. They may not play it up a lot, just as we don't do a lot of bragging about the War of 1812. The Romans faced similar troubles, and their empire ceased to exist. The Chinese empire didn't.


The point is that a massive monolithic empire was still vulnerable and intimidated by small nomadic cultures, which bursts the bubble of an unrelenting chinese warrior race.

This same flawed logic can easily be used to describe the romans as warriors, the vikings as warriors, pretty much every empire. All empires have had similar difficulties with their far frontiers. You posit an unrelenting monolithic nomad threat as a counter to a monolithic warrior culture that you argue simply to have a point. The nomads, divided, were not a threat, and that is usually how they were kept in the background through much of history, be it Chinese, Roman, or British history. Or American.


And your still acting like the Mongolian conquests were a mere blind spot on Chinese history, when they were in fact a major destabilising force, in much the same way the nazi's were for the Jews.

I am not acting that way, I am explaining to you how they fit in a pattern in which the efforts required for these nomads to conquer China grew more and more difficult to achieve, through advancements in approaches to warfare, politics, and economics as well. And how these nomads, at the point where they conquered China, were not mere tribes without advanced, for their day, approaches to warfare. Europe was terrified of Genghis Khan for a reason.


I'm laughing and shaking my finger at you when you try to deny the Japanese holocaust and racism towards the Chinese during world war 2. The Japanese had an extreme fascist ideology with a racial extremism comparable to the Nazis. When 20 million people are killed, it's a holocaust. Maybe you should do some research on Japanese militarism before world war 2 - there was a strong unified ideology that the chinese were a subhuman race to be worked as slaves before being packed off as cattle to the slaughter house. Wicked and trully evil.

The Japanese co-prosperity sphere was racist, the actions taken in Korea, China, and in Japan, towards non-Japanese were certainly heinous, but the fact is that the basis was never similar to the German Final Solution. The bulk of the population in Manchuria was still Chinese, and much of the killing was based around stopping resistance, an extreme right overreaction that would often be repeated during the cold war. They certainly worked Chinese laborers under horrible conditions, even to death, but they saw themselves as the saviors of the Chinese, and their war efforts depended on them and other groups. Japan's population could not act as the totality of wartime manufacturing, they were too few, and so, unlike the Nazis, total extermination was not the goal. I have never denied that what Japan did then was racist, slavery in the Americas was racist, but wiping out the workforce was not a common goal, something you seem to believe to be so. The Japanese considered the Ainu perhaps even lower than the Chinese, a race that had not kept up with evolution, they probably could have wiped them out, but they did not. The reason is based in the fact that the Ainu had little power to fight back, the Chinese could and did resist, which is well documented by historians from the PRC, Taiwan, Britain, the U.S., etc. It was a source of great popularity for the CCCP among the Chinese people, which is also well documented by many sources of different political stripes, though the CCCP were not the only ones fighting or resisting the Japanese.

So, straw man on your part, there. Never said that the Japanese did not do numerous and horrendous things in China, but the story of all that is a bit more complicated than the one you wish to present.


If you want to read about secularism read about King Alfred or even the Magna Carta. Have you ever heard of the Thing or Moot? Even Francis Fukuyama has argued that China is to be credited with founding the first truly monolithic tyrannical state.

Which state? If it is the Xia, which is mostly prehistory, then this is meaningless, as there could have been others, it could have been a norm, and we cannot prove it. Since you earlier use the Xia as the basis, I will assume this.

Which is all kind of irrelevant. Fukuyama has pretty well proven that he is not able to predict outcomes of global forces any more than a host of others using a host of other frames of reference. He is interesting, but considering that he pushed for invasion of Iraq as policy and then was surprised by how that worked, and apparently had no sense of what role liberal economic policies would play in it, I tend to find his analysis has required him to constantly both adjust his positions and retrench himself in the work that made him famous, which has not translated well.

That said, his prediction was ballsy.


A lot of Chinese are ambivalent to democracy

Some are, some aren't.


- look how diminutive the chinese pro democracy movement is in the West. It is basically restricted to the Falun Gong.

No. And the Falun Gong is not only not a particularly democratic group, but they are basically a wannabe emperor and his followers. Sorry, they use the U.S. to attack the PRC, and certain people in the U.S. buy into all that, but falun gong are NOT typical of pro democracy Chinese.


Western civilisation is a combination of Judaeo- Christianity and Greco Roman culture, and doesn't have the underlying Chinese influence you say.

Western countries, through Britain, absorbed legalist practices into their bureaucracies from the eighteenth century on. We won't even cover the fact that the Greco part of Greco Roman culture was influenced by regions East and West of it, I wouldn't want to mess with your ideals of totally discrete cultures too much, which is, at this point, little more than a nationalist myth. The British, French, and later, the U.S., adopted many native American practices in warfare. We won't mention math, it all gets really messy once we look at how math was developed. There is no discrete culture, they are all hybrids, and China, among others, has a large number of influences.

A tremendous amounts of Benjamin Franklin's quotations are from Chinese sources. Are you saying the idioms of Ben Franklin have no impact on U.S. culture?


Civilisation began in the Middle East. China from its very ancient period had trade networks with the Middle East, who in fact influenced the Chinese with science technology, art and law! Metallurgy, city building and agriculture did not in fact originate in China.

Not sure what your point is here. You are aware that there are developments in each of those fields that DID originate in China, right?


You can call me a feminist, but your nothing but a western chinese sinophile, who slavishly reads his history books from the xinhua news agency.

I knew you'd take that as an insult. Great job on proving how backhanded your admiration for Western development of woman's equality really is. You only cite it if it can help you not like Chinese culture, right?

[Faux Newbie]

The Long March myth is being compared in reconditeness (by western academics), to the similar myth of the mass Jewish exodus from Egypt. It's fiercely contested history, since it is not scientifically substantiated.

Again, which scholars? Because I know a number of major ones who have no great love of the CCP that have never once suggested what you are saying. Not one of them. Name these "western academics".

[Faux Newbie]

No need to reply, For something that is so hotly contested, I see nothing about it on a cursory search of the databases, or even a Google search. I'm not even seeing conspiracy theories about it. I think your western scholars are also 6' tall rabbits that no one but you can see.

Plus, MMA is good.

[lkfmdc]

Not that this really needs to be said, but I have a master's degree in Chinese history from one of the top schools in the country, NEVER heard that the long march was contested... but this IS the internet LOL

[Faux Newbie]

Not that this really needs to be said, but I have a master's degree in Chinese history from one of the top schools in the country, NEVER heard that the long march was contested... but this IS the internet LOL

That's the thing. Google doesn't even yield a conspiracy theory saying so. That is almost historic. I fully expected to find a furry subculture devoted to raccoon based porn fan fiction on the falsity of the Long March. Nothing.

[Smoking Gun]

lies, lies, lies, full of North Korean style revisionism, holocaust denial, communist propaganda from an obvious Chinese sinophile, with a clear bias towards living juvenile 'communist' fantasies. Why don't you pack up your foul little life 'comrade' and head for the former 'confucian' north korea where your double think, group think, manipulative historical logic, which is similar to North Korean state claims of democracy, workers councils and elections will be welcome. Better still, spend the rest of your like in a chinese labor camp.


the only person engaging in deliberate lies, deception, chicanery and manipulation comrade is your self! I'm not going to get into internet hyperbole, you bluntly denied any Tibetan conquest of China,to which I provided the historical evidence, and now you once again trying to engage in political spin doctoring, to save your embarrassed little face by stating, 'but oh it was only for 16 days'. Your like a disreputable little creep that has been caught stealing, that turns around and says 'but I never stole anything, you stole that item, it was never in my pocket!' when the action was in fact caught camera. I'm not interested in Chinese finicky creeps that are engaging in unnecessary nit-picking.


No, more Lies, The Roman empire was ruined by internal civil war, but was later revived as the holy roman empire.

They were a significant threat to the Roman empire.. so much so that they become part of the alliance of the holy roman empire.


Actually there is plenty of documented evidence that the Japanese had a clear xenophobic policy towards china. 20 million people is astonishingly high number of deaths, which is in fact an industrial death camp. Genocide! Your like a Jewish 'nazi' that denies any anti-semitic policy towards the Jew's, despite the voluminous documented evidence, stories and accounts that exist. Why don't you read about the Japanese biological experiments that were performed on Chinese civilians.


What are you trying to say now comrade, the Xia was a republic with constitutional monarchy? Europe did (at a very early period) in fact have elected kings (for a short period), rights as free men, which by comparison in China did not exist. The Xia was the first Chinese dynasty, but there has been a continuous culture of absolutist rulers in China throughout it's entire history, including to the present.


I'm not interested in Fukuyama too much (he is Japanese and naturally doesn't know what it means to be a liberal), but I quote him because he is popular amongst 'political scientists' and his ideas have proven to be out right treacherous, unfounded and ultimately disastrous for the US. THe US should be focusing its security concerns on China, Russia and Japan, and the insidious sinophiles that are secretly trying to pull down the West.


Well comrade, name another group beyond Falun Gong. Try typing Chinese 'pro democracy' movement's on the web, and see how many organisations you can trawl through. They are virtually non-existent. There is in fact, a large pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, but asides from that, I haven't heard of anything.


Well that (your claims on Benjamin Franklin) is the biggest load historical whitewashing I have ever encountered. Comparable to Nazi German claims that Blond Europeans built Asian civilisation. They (the American founding fathers) were influenced by the Magna Carta, Greco roman politics/ethics (aristotle), the english classical liberal tradition (Hobbes, Burke, MIll, Locke), etc, English/French constitution governments. Legalism was actually known for its arbitrary use of power and punishment, which allowed Chinese rulers to supersede any kind of balance to power. THe sons of Liberty used the Magna Carta has their foundation for any kind of democratic precedent.

Did you know comrade that ancient China did in fact engage in more murder, rapine, democide than any of their counter parts such as Rome, Greece, MIddle East India, etc? No you didn't because you have learnt your history from a North Korean communist hand book, that denies any form of state censorship, suppression of truth in its history to this very day.

The Long March is being disputed by any free thinking individual, and there has been an interesting reports on it on the BBC recently. Don't make me pull out the list of achievements of Britain such as the Orwell who warned of Chinese Democracy, with its thought police, double think, oppression and prisons. We (the West) are free thinking individuals, who reject any slavish 'eastern' values of subservience to authority, family, culture and leaders with a violent fist..

[Faux Newbie]

Excellent troll post, but perhaps overplayed. Now, what sources specifically are questioning whether the long march occurred? I'm actually interested, I find crazy people FASCINATING.

[Faux Newbie]

I'm not going to get into internet hyperbole

That is really the satirical heart of your post.

[Faux Newbie]

Look, I''ll continue to pretend to buy into your troll if you can just provide these sources, I want to find the group too crazy for a google search to turn up. We'll do this quid pro quo, I give you something, then you provide the source.

You know, you're absolutely right, if a real Kenpo stylist had shown up to the first UFC, there wouldn't even be MMA, we'd all learn effective 14 move combos that can stop ANYONE!

Your turn.

[Dale Dugas]

Moutboxers suck.

Who gives one toss about all the verbal drek he is spewing?

Means nothing about martial arts, or learning to be effective with what you are learning.

Fly fly little net ghost, fly fly.

[Kellen Bassette]

THe US should be focusing its security concerns on China, Russia and Japan, and the insidious sinophiles that are secretly trying to pull down the West.


You think Japan should be one of the U.S.'s top security concerns?????

As amusing as it is, I'm not really following your logic with the whole "Chinese are weak, pathetic sick men of Asia," and also "Evil Sith overlord tyrant dictators."

You must be aware that currently, China occupies Tibet and Manchuria, not the other way around?

You seem to give a lot of weight to the Mongolian conquest of China. It was certainly impressive, but are we to forget that they spread their empire as far as Europe? A whole lot of people fell to them, but in the end it was a bit of anomaly. We haven't seen a whole lot from the Mongols since the Empire collapsed.

Alright I'll let you get back to explaining how this relates to your obviously true and logical opinions of MMA being a talentless bastion of unathletic slobs who can't fight for crap. :rolleyes:

[lkfmdc]

The Holy Roman Empire was nieher HOly, nor Roman, nor an empire

[David Jamieson]

The Holy Roman Empire was nieher HOly, nor Roman, nor an empire

you left out "Discuss"... :p

[Dragonzbane76]

The Holy Roman Empire was nieher HOly, nor Roman, nor an empire

touché...good sir touché...:)

[Dale Dugas]

Smoking gun,

I would love to spar with you. Where are you at?

[MarathonTmatt]

You think Japan should be one of the U.S.'s top security concerns?????

As amusing as it is, I'm not really following your logic with the whole "Chinese are weak, pathetic sick men of Asia," and also "Evil Sith overlord tyrant dictators."

You must be aware that currently, China occupies Tibet and Manchuria, not the other way around?

You seem to give a lot of weight to the Mongolian conquest of China. It was certainly impressive, but are we to forget that they spread their empire as far as Europe? A whole lot of people fell to them, but in the end it was a bit of anomaly. We haven't seen a whole lot from the Mongols since the Empire collapsed.

Alright I'll let you get back to explaining how this relates to your obviously true and logical opinions of MMA being a talentless bastion of unathletic slobs who can't fight for crap. :rolleyes:

This is why I at least leave my ranting to the Off-Topic threads on those lonely nights...

[wenshu]

Care to cite a source on that?


Yeah I've got a whole library on Chinese civilisation/culture. I buy books from "china books' all the time. I've attended different lectures, listened to many experts.. there was a recent documentary on the historical veracity of the long march. A lot of Western academics are sceptical of the exaggerated claims of the chinese communists, with their filtered, censored, revisionist history of this and other histories.

Asked for source,

"I watched a documentary."

I like this guy.

[Faux Newbie]

Asked for source,

"I watched a documentary."

I like this guy.

I am still reeling at the fact that the Chinese propaganda that I have been brainwashed in is apparently too soft on the Japanese.

[SteveLau]

A good topic being unfortunately trashed. No thanks to those who did so.

Do "Grandmasters" help or hurt the progress of kung fu? Well, the answer is in the way that the title being used.




Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[Dale Dugas]

As I mentioned before, we have way too many fools who are claiming high rank and using titles that are not appropriate. 30 year old Sijos? Not. 25 Year old Grandmasters? Not.

who cares about your title. Put your money where your cakehole is. That is the only thing that matters.

anything else is hubris.

[YouKnowWho]

Do "Grandmasters" help or hurt the progress of kung fu?

When my teacher was still alive, people called him "master". After my teacher passed away, people called him "grandmaster". The term "grandmaster" always mean "dead people" to me.

In Chinese culture, no matter how much that you

- love your parents, you just don't hang their pictures on the wall when they are still alive.
- respect your teacher, you just don't call him "grandmaster" when he is still alive.

[Dale Dugas]

My Baguazhang teacher taught us that a master is someone who practiced his entire life to perfect their art/system. When they passed there were called Master. If they were the Head of the system, you would call them Grandmaster.

Similar to what you mentioned above, Wang Shifu.

[Wuxia007]

As I mentioned before, we have way too many fools who are claiming high rank and using titles that are not appropriate. 30 year old Sijos? Not. 25 Year old Grandmasters? Not.

who cares about your title. Put your money where your cakehole is. That is the only thing that matters.

anything else is hubris.


Sometimes I wonder if an instructor being a good fighter is more or even as important as being a good teacher.

In my experience, I have studied at a school where the instructor didn't use, or at the very least, emphasize titles. He appeared to be a very good well-trained fighter himself but failed to be able to communicate those skills well enough as a teacher for me to gain much, if anything, from his lessons.

But at another school where the instructor emphasized titles, I had no real idea if the instructor was a good fighter because he rarely, if ever, showed off his personal skills for the class. However, with that said, he had great communication and teaching skills that it didn't matter because I walked away from his lessons with the confidence that I had progressed as a martial artist.

IMO, I don't think it matters much if an instructor is a proven fighter if he can't teach it properly.

I don't know, maybe this is one of the positive sides of having a title-emphasized school system with a grandmaster in that it implies a level of teaching quality.

Would you pay tuition to attend a university that didn't emphasize structure within its school system?

[Faux Newbie]

Sometimes I wonder if an instructor being a good fighter is more or even as important as being a good teacher.

In my experience, I have studied at a school where the instructor didn't use, or at the very least, emphasize titles. He appeared to be a very good well-trained fighter himself but failed to be able to communicate those skills well enough as a teacher for me to gain much, if anything, from his lessons.

But at another school where the instructor emphasized titles, I had no real idea if the instructor was a good fighter because he rarely, if ever, showed off his personal skills for the class. However, with that said, he had great communication and teaching skills that it didn't matter because I walked away from his lessons with the confidence that I had progressed as a martial artist.

IMO, I don't think it matters much if an instructor is a proven fighter if he can't teach it properly.

I don't know, maybe this is one of the positive sides of having a title-emphasized school system with a grandmaster in that it implies a level of teaching quality.

Would you pay tuition to attend a university that didn't emphasize structure within its school system?

The problem with the university comparison is that the requirements for degree are peer reviewed. In most schools, one person, for any number of reasons, can give rank. This often leads to people having rank for their ability to kiss up, their perseverance(but not knowledge or skill), etc. The styles where this is less common tend to be ones that focus on producing fighters who fight in tourneys.

Also, skill in contact definitely impacts the degree of accuracy of what is being taught. Without some contact to judge, many people are quite fond of the grace with which they do form, but if that grace does not carry over to contact, then it is a false grace.

I think a mix is good. Good fighters don't necessarily know enough to produce fighters that fight differently than themselves. Having teaching skill without deep content from contact experience (which can come from different approaches) can only by dumb luck produce good fighters, imo.