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Originally Posted by
Sal Canzonieri
The gun was considered the downfall of all martial arts, and that's why the emphasis shifted to martial arts for health.
Well, gun isn't the downfall of all martial arts. If it's so, we (TCMA) wouldn't have to deal with Judo, BJJ, MMA, or even San Shou, remember these are benchmark testing ground for effective hand to hand combat that came AFTER the advent of firearms. The real problem is that irresponsible TCMA teachers that hide behind excuses (ie firearms) and misdirection (ie psuedo-philosophy). The fact is TCMA devolved instead of evolve.
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For the average person doing martial arts, they aren't going to encounter anything that dangerous in their lifetime, so they practice martial arts for staying fit and relaxing.
This is mainly a problem of consumerism in TCMA. I don't want to put the blame solely on Bruce Lee but in the North American market all the new generation Kung Fu or TMA guys had a little JKD complex in them if you ask me no small thanks to the on and off screen successes of Bruce. He has become a large than life legend that all Kung Fu or TMA guys secretly or openly idolize or fantazied to become. People don't generally come to TMA for fitness. They thought they are coming to get a self preservation insurance policy. It is the irresponsible teachers that convince them that they should be getting a fitness and fantasy plan which will carry them all the way to retirement [and of course they have to pay a long term contrat for that].
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Always in martial arts history those that needed more than that, learned more than that.
People in general don't understand the difference between arts and crafts. You get crafts from McDojo and Mckwoon. Crafts is about comfort zone and conforming. Arts is about transcending and non confornming. Arts is also about thousands of failures before one success. You won't have a business if you sell arts.
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I don't understand this new hatred against forms, I mean all they are is a method to memorize the movements, you never were supposed to learn forms and not do applications and drills, they are two sides of one coin.
Most people don't understand the heart and soul (or keys) to the system. They see a form and they see patterns of movements. They don't see meaning of a form - strategic advantage of patterns of movement (tactics) from the style's attribute (technical keys) point of view. This problem is definitely the low quality of teachers in TCMA.
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I think the main reason people aren't being taught to use the moves in their forms correctly is that teachers are afraid of getting sued if a student gets hurt.
Yet another excuse to hide inexperience in fighting and teaching. No one has sued Judo, BJJ, Boxing, Muay Thai, MMA, or San Shou schools for that matter in North America yet. They have their "athletes" go as hard as they can and we have seen injuries that are career ending. Now of course, we can argue that they don't teach dirty tactics such as eye gouging and such but realistically, you won't have much student left if you do spar that way all the time. But is it really impossible to take out all the "dangerous" techniques in your style and allow the style to be effective? Look at Judo, it took out most of the "dangerous" techniques from Ju Jitsu and remains effective. There really is no valid excuse for TCMA to hold onto those so called dangerous techniques and refuses to evolve.
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Plus, its up to you to deeply ponder the movements and see what works with them. The teacher can't do anything for you if you don't take the time to work with the forms you learn and see what makes them tick.
It's not about the patterns of movements (tactics) not even the strategy for that matter. It's in the attribute (technical keys) of the style. The teacher must know how to training the specific attributes of the style (ie striker strikes, grappler grapples, etc). To borrow a JKD concept term, it is the attribute training and the energy drills that are important. Those are the key areas that make a style work.
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Where is your effort? I think the teacher is responsible to teach you correct body mechanics, first and formost, then strategy via forms, then some application to open your eyes to possibilities. There are hundreds of application per movement in each form. After that point, it is up to you ONLY to use the movements and analyze them and make them natural to you so that you can bring out countless applications to them.
I am sorry, the above statement is just where the problem begins. While it is true that there are myriad of applications and counters to any given movement, fighting is a subtle science and exact art that doesn't simply always revolve around that line of thinking. This is where conditioning (athleticism) and attribute training come in. It's not about conforming through reasoned or scripted responses. It's about spontaneous exchange of information in energy form. Phyiscal confrontations usually evolve without a script and the energy evolves as well.
IMHO a good TCMA teacher does not need forms (routines) to teach fighitng. He needs personal experiences in fighting and in understanding the style specific attribute training to teach fighting ideal through a game format but definitely not solo repetition of finite techniques, meaningness tactics or hollow strategy.
[quoteI think the problem today is laziness.[/quote]
that I agree 120%
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MMA is no miracle stuff, there isn't anything that they teach in MMA that hasn't already been taught in traditional MA everywhere.
I also totally agree with this.
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I'm sure that once the get bored of the hard work involved in MMA, people will drop it too, like they do with everything.
MMA, like many other martial sports, it has a clear defined goal and a well develop game format. TCMA can do that if it develops a "game". If you want to say Chin Na is the best game of your style, then you should be able to use Chin Na against a resistive opponent no matter what he or she does. If it's a combination of striking, kicking, throwing, and grappling (like Mantis does), well great, get a format that has all those. You don't feel like calling it UFC, Pride, NHB, call it whatever as long as you are using all those that you claim is what your style is about (without the damaging or lethal stuff of course).
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I have seen this happening every 3 years since I first started doing martial arts in the 1970s.
A year of people finding out "something new and better" and then a year of everyone joining, and a year of people dropping out one by one as it becomes hard work to keep it up.
There has been the equivalent to MMA since way back then, always something new coming along to "speed up" learning how to fight without forms:
Jimmy Woo's San Soo, JKD, and on an on.
But always, those that really understand traditional martial arts and what almost 5,000 years of development is conveying, always are still there.
All I know, I have used traditional martial arts (CMA) since the 70s in self defense all over the world, and it never failed me.
That's great about you and your stuff. But what about your students? Could they all use that? We have seen or heard of tone of good fighters in TCMA but is much success in the ring for these good fighter's students or grand students? I am not questioning your ability to teach but it's not a model that is common to most TCMA. Hell, there just isn't a standard in TCMA for all we know. So...
Warm regards,
Mantis108