Stranger: what happened...

[Mr Punch]

to your question about the arts in japan?

chinese arts have some good teachers here, and there seems to be some real quality, but in competition i've only witnessed derision, no matter what the result. they don't tend to advertise their dojo here but still have a reasonable if not exactly mainstream following.

[Stranger]

Mat,

CZ didn't delete it, I did. I hadn't gotten a response in a few days, and I thought it was because of the argument that happened on the thread between other parties hijacking the thread. I was going to try again on the main board since the topic had transitioned to CMA.

Thanks for the concern and the helpful information.

The CMA direction of the question was inspired by me wondering if national predjudices had held back the studying of CMA in Japan. I hope if this discussion goes on, it doesn't get hijacked by another argument.

[Stranger]

Mat,

Are there any specific styles of CMA that have enjoyed more popularity than others in Japan?

[Kempo Guy]

Are there any specific styles of CMA that have enjoyed more popularity than others in Japan?

My guess would be Yi Quan in the form of Tai Ki Ken (as taught by the late Kenichi Sawai).

Other than that the Neijia arts as taught by Wang Shu Jin seems to have a pretty good hold in Japan due to Wang's numerous trips to Japan (and I believe Wang Fu Lai the current lineage holder of Wang Shu Jin's arts visit Japan fairly regularly, I know he speaks fluent Japanese).

Chen style Tai Ji seems to have gained some popularity as well.

It's been a while since I lived over there but I don't think it's changed all that much...

KG

[Mr Punch]

Yeah, mostly it's taichi oriented.

One of the seemingly endless Chen family lives in Saitama, about 30 mins from Tokyo. Taiji Monkey would be better to ask about that cos he's his sifu.

The largest ongoing kf class I've heard of is a student of Lo Man Kam's named Chen En, who teaches a mix of Wing Chun, Chen style and Lo's few Choy Li Fut additions. It's pretty eclectic, and although the class is quite popular it's still tiny compared to the native arts, and the students seem to lose interest whent hey reach a certain level, maybe even more so than the usual drop-out rate in native arts (which incidentally I would have said is lower than in the West).

I met a guy who demonstrated his inch-punch on me, which I have to say, was a shocking experience... a hell of a lot of power (pulled of course for my benefit - but still powerful and unbalancing), but he didn't train anymore and he couldn't or wouldn't tell me the name of the style or sifu, but he said it was Chinese and the sifu didn't really have a name for it. This is typical of a lot of the smaller Chinese schools here I've found... they don't advertise, they're very quiet and secretive and seem to have a good level of instruction.

But outside of taichi with its usual varying levels of martial emphasis... still not learnt in any great numbers.