Things that make me say hmmmmm
these are my random thoughts lately....
I've been spending a lot of time researching and analyzing Filipino Martial Arts lately which is making me question a lot of my assumptions about Chinese Martial Arts.
For instance, like I posted earlier in this thread - key repetitive movements...
FMA claims it's a war art (as opposed to other martial arts) and the way you know it's a true war art is because it starts with weapons first - bare hands are a last resort. Yet - FMA uses sticks and knives - they claim they're a lineage of Lapu Lapu (famous for killing Magellan), yet the war weapons of their past were similar to other war weapons found everywhere which are: spear, shield, bow & arrow, and blow gun (which you don't find in modern Escrima). This leads credence to the claim that Escrima is a modern martial art which is derived from the street fighters and gangsters of Cebu. It's a modern street art. As a matter of fact, they didn't have forms until they were created and introduced by the Doce Pares club. Forms in FMA are just key repetitive movements that are linked together.
Could this be the case of our Chinese Martial Arts?
Let's examine, again these are my random thoughts -
Earlier footage of martial arts (film clips) are pretty much of street performers doing forms. The early *fight footage from TCMA is pretty underwhelming.
When you look at weapons, the historical war weapons forms (double edged sword, single edge sword, staff, spear, halberd) are common to pretty much all CMA and are very similar. Deviation in the weapons forms happens with uncommon weapons (an example would be a hook sword) which don't have archeological evidence of use in war.
When you start to look at common unarmed martial movements among war arts the world over - it looks like Shuai Jiao, or Ju Jitsu, or Sumo, or Wrestling with basic chin na. These styles of fighting are two person drill based - they don't really have forms.
When you use a dao (single edge sword) the weapon is chambered behind a lead empty hand. Yet - if you ever watch or participate in weapons sparring - no one does that. The blade takes the lead - The empty left hand being in front does make sense though if you were to have a shield. Just something that makes me go hmmmm.
If you reverse grip a knife (blade is down) almost everything in 7* still works in exactly the same way it's traditionally taught, except now it's a whole lot deadlier. And - the right hand lead (common bare-hand fighting stance) now makes more sense (with a knife).
After the boxer rebellion - CMA was almost dead. It was revived by the Chin Woo. The Chin Woo used linear forms based teaching because it was easier to teach groups. They did practice a simulated knife fighting sport in the Chin Woo. Could the simulated knife fighting sport be the *realz?
Maybe TCMA is a modern take on street fighting arts.