When Push Comes to Shove...

[mantis108]

MA forums on the net is a great thing most of the time but there are times that the pace of growth went out of control. There is a Kung Fu forum popular in Hong Kong. It is called KungFuBoard. It has regular gatherings that involve friendly sparring matches between forum members which really is a great thing. Usually they are friendly in nature. Recently, there is one such gathering that went out of control (really it's blown way out of proportion). Then the media gets involved. Now, the future of such unsanctioned events is uncertain. It would have been a great movement to revive the otherwise pretty dead HK MA community but because of egos, a good movement will possibly be banned for good.

Here's the link to new paper coverage:

HK MA forum gathering

The basic gist of that event was the following:

1) it was held at a rental facility (government operated gym).

2) 2 guys calling each other out on the forum. One guy claims to be traditionalist (older person) and a younger guy claims to be TKD base free stylist. They finally agreed to have a match after a long of fuss.

3) there were hundreds of people in attendance. Most people believe that the younger guy "won" dispite that he received a smack to the face. He returned a "controlled" kick which landed cause them to go to the ground. But the traditionalist ignored the refereeing and didn't stop (no ground fighting was allowed?). They apparantly went to the ground for a little bit (most fights end up on the ground?) with the older guy grabbing the throat of the younger guy. It took quite a number of people to seperate the two.

4) later "someone" (ego got hurt) leaked the event to the newspaper. Now, police might be looking into the matter. They might have broken the law because they didn't apply for gathering permit. They might be refused to rent public facilities for that type of gathering ever again. This could be a major blow to the movement to keep Kung Fu going and realistic in HK.

5) the Media angle is that this event was grudge match between TCMA and modern fighting arts. It's way beyond friendly match (paparazzi spin?!) This could be the straw that break the camel's back.

Internet challenges are troublesome. Anyway, I feel that we are relatively fortunate in North America having a quality forum such as the KFM. But if we are not careful, we might end up having the same fate. The North America Mantis community recent have a highly successful gathering due largely to KFM forum mantis board members organizing it. Despite of the nay sayers, it went remarkable well and lot of information and knowledge exchanged. There will be an article out on IKF magazine soon. Media coverage really is a double edged sword and public perception is everything these days.

So enjoy the forum while we can.

Mantis108

[IronFist]

Mantis108, I don't like your post. I challenge you.

[Vasquez]

MA forums on the net is a great thing most of the time but there are times that the pace of growth went out of control. There is a Kung Fu forum popular in Hong Kong. It is called KungFuBoard. It has regular gatherings that involve friendly sparring matches between forum members which really is a great thing. Usually they are friendly in nature. Recently, there is one such gathering that went out of control (really it's blown way out of proportion). Then the media gets involved. Now, the future of such unsanctioned events is uncertain. It would have been a great movement to revive the otherwise pretty dead HK MA community but because of egos, a good movement will possibly be banned for good.

Here's the link to new paper coverage:

HK MA forum gathering

The basic gist of that event was the following:

1) it was held at a rental facility (government operated gym).

2) 2 guys calling each other out on the forum. One guy claims to be traditionalist (older person) and a younger guy claims to be TKD base free stylist. They finally agreed to have a match after a long of fuss.

3) there were hundreds of people in attendance. Most people believe that the younger guy "won" dispite that he received a smack to the face. He returned a "controlled" kick which landed cause them to go to the ground. But the traditionalist ignored the refereeing and didn't stop (no ground fighting was allowed?). They apparantly went to the ground for a little bit (most fights end up on the ground?) with the older guy grabbing the throat of the younger guy. It took quite a number of people to seperate the two.

4) later "someone" (ego got hurt) leaked the event to the newspaper. Now, police might be looking into the matter. They might have broken the law because they didn't apply for gathering permit. They might be refused to rent public facilities for that type of gathering ever again. This could be a major blow to the movement to keep Kung Fu going and realistic in HK.

5) the Media angle is that this event was grudge match between TCMA and modern fighting arts. It's way beyond friendly match (paparazzi spin?!) This could be the straw that break the camel's back.

Internet challenges are troublesome. Anyway, I feel that we are relatively fortunate in North America having a quality forum such as the KFM. But if we are not careful, we might end up having the same fate. The North America Mantis community recent have a highly successful gathering due largely to KFM forum mantis board members organizing it. Despite of the nay sayers, it went remarkable well and lot of information and knowledge exchanged. There will be an article out on IKF magazine soon. Media coverage really is a double edged sword and public perception is everything these days.

So enjoy the forum while we can.

Mantis108

In TCMA this is called releasing the fire. Early days of training you just wanna scrap and roll with everyone.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i bet you nothing comes of it.

the forum guys might cool it for a bit to wait and see, but that will likely be the extent of any change.

then again things may work differently in hong kong.

[northernArts]

Thanks for posting this. It's an interesting read and definitely relevant to this board(and others). I may repost the link to that story on another board so people can think about it.

[SPJ]

If it is going to be a game, there should be rules and defining the end points.

In the old time, there is a point end game or Dian Dao Wei Zhi.

If your face got slapped, this is it, you lose.

If you got thrown on the ground, that is it. It is the end point for Shuai Jiao or Judo.

If you got choked or touched on the throat, that is it. You are "dead".

If there are no rules or end points defined, it is not a challenge or fair game.

It is a death math or injuring each other till "when" to stop?

First of all, one of the young students of the older Kuoshu guy should be fighting so that it is fair in terms of age factor.

If it is Kuoshu vs TKD fight, then again you have to define the end points and rules.

That is to use San Shou rule, Lei Tai rule or TKD Olympic rule or just some fair rules so both may compete on skill levels.

Personally, the internet is in the public eyes.

Friendly match is not. In the old time, both would fight secretly with a mediator. If one side loses, he or she may go back and practice for rematch in some years later. Till one day, one side admit that he or she is not as skillful or Ji Bu Ru Ren and agrees to be in the down wind or Gan Bai Xia Feng.

The students may continue the match if the teachers are old or ill, so that the skills of an art are still contesting in the younger generation.

This is the old "gentleman" way.

If fights with words or without rules, it is just a brawl and nothing more. Everything else is diminshed in values. Or there is no values but 2 persons went to the darkside and end in a bitter end. nothing more.

[mantis108]

Thanks for the inputs.

So IronFist, U wanna piece of me.

I hear you Vasquez and GDA. But Beijing is quite sensitive about "underground" organization that have the power to mobilize hundreds of people. This is one of the reasons why they want websites to be registered in mainland China. I believe by law they can shut a site down for good. Whether they will arrest people is another story and remained to be seen. Although this happens in HK, which is theoretically free, who knows if this would provoke them to pressure the HK goverment to "kill the rooster to warn the monkey" So...

NorthernArt, please feel free to repost it. It's better that people aware of what internet and the forums are capable of and that they are fortunate to have the freedom of enjoying great MA interactions. These are power tools to mobilize people that's why we have to becareful not to repeat errors like that incident. It could give the governments an excuse to put their foot down.

Thanks SPJ for the detailed input, my friend.

Seriously, I think North American MA forums in general are more "mature" (thanks to MMA crowd) than the HK one. They do catch up pretty fast on the latest development of the MA scene but the prejudice against modern fighting sports is still pretty deep there. This makes it easy for people to capitalize for their own agenda.

I am all for gathering that would help broaden the view and close the gap between all sides. Good old fashion "talking of the hands" with minimal rules never really harm anyone. But grudge match spin involving the media is really a silly ego trip. I hope they learn a lesson this time.

BTW, the TKD guy is still talking tough after the incident. So... apparently, TCMA has not convince him yet.

Regards

Mantis108

[WanderingMonk]

1. it was a grudge match. that was no spin. the ref knew the old cma guy wasn't in the mood to just spar. saw it in his eyes. tried to smooth over the situation, so he spent several minutes going over the rules with the old guy.

2. the tkd guy should have expect to be some type of grudge match, he had been insulting people for a long time. so, it is very easily for someone to go beyond the rule.

3. the rule in hk is different. we all seen the horrible wu vs chan fight at maccau. that pending fight controversy caused the HK government to pass a rule to prohibit public fight/grudge match/etc. that's why the match was move to maccau and became a charity event.

sport fight event are allowed with very strict requirements.

so, everyone on the HK board knows that if a web meeting is held, they are "training" kung-fu together. the key is training. sparring is part of the training. that's legal. if they arrange "matches" to settle personal feud, that it is illegal and subject to arrest.

of course, with all this media attention, their web meeting going to go underground for a while restricted to recongize members who participated before. they don't want to get busted.

the fight, old guy showed some trapping skill. the slap occurred because tkd guy ran out of ground to retreat. the tkd guy was used to fighters step-back after ref gives the okay and then fight. the old guy went forward with his hand outstretch pretending to want a shake of hand. tkd guy tried to get his guard up and retreat but he was near the crowd which stopped his progress. this provided an opening by the old guy to slap him. this was planned. the old guy wanted to slap tkd guy and his opening was used to facilitate this. this was felt by many to be a sneak attack. then punch started to be exchange.

old guy had zero preparation to deal with low round house kick to the legs. he was eating it and when he tried to avoid it by leaning forward to strike with his legs held back, he got swept off his feet.

the tkd guy didn't want to hurt the old guy, so he change the angle of his high round house kick which went over the old guy's head. the old guy thought he dodge a kick intent to do him harm, went for a tackle and took the tkd guy to the floor. proceed to choke him wih his bare hands, and ten guys rushed up to break up the fight.

sometimes people do takes posting on forum very seriously. so, if you meet in person, expect the unexpected.

[AndyM]

Sounds like bad commentary, of two kids playing their first game of Tekken.

[mantis108]

Hi WM,

Thanks for the detailed account of the incident, my friend. You know I think the old guy has really poor judgement and a lack of interest in common good. It's a lose lose situation regardless of the outcome if he enters to settle a score. But there are all kinds of people in the world, eh?

Looks like the forum hosts are trying their best to put things back on track. I hope they will continue on. It's a good thing.

Warm regards

Mantis108

PS would you have the clip in question?

[WanderingMonk]

Hi WM,

Thanks for the detailed account of the incident, my friend. You know I think the old guy has really poor judgement and a lack of interest in common good. It's a lose lose situation regardless of the outcome if he enters to settle a score. But there are all kinds of people in the world, eh?

Looks like the forum hosts are trying their best to put things back on track. I hope they will continue on. It's a good thing.

Warm regards

Mantis108

PS would you have the clip in question?

Hi Mantis,

yes, I have the clip in question, well, 85% of it. Had to do some hacking to get it to play.

I don't know. the tkd guy was out of line. He pushed the enevelop too far. the way he carried on, someone was going try to do something. I don't necessarily agree with the old fella in what he did, but I understand what drove him to do it. If I was in HK and not dealing with some issues, I wouldn't mind fighting him myself.

the media spin wasn't necessary, someone might be trying to get some publicity. Hk kungfuboard is the biggest HK kung-fu forum and one of the biggest in the chinese language web. so, maybe someone is trying to get some exposure.


AndyM

no, it wasn't a great fight. the old fella wasn't a good fighter. built like a tank, but lack fighting experience. but, he is in his 60s and went into fighting a 25 year old at his peak. he fought for what he believes in. I respect that.

[Vasquez]

1. it was a grudge match. that was no spin. the ref knew the old cma guy wasn't in the mood to just spar. saw it in his eyes. tried to smooth over the situation, so he spent several minutes going over the rules with the old guy.

2. the tkd guy should have expect to be some type of grudge match, he had been insulting people for a long time. so, it is very easily for someone to go beyond the rule.

3. the rule in hk is different. we all seen the horrible wu vs chan fight at maccau. that pending fight controversy caused the HK government to pass a rule to prohibit public fight/grudge match/etc. that's why the match was move to maccau and became a charity event.

sport fight event are allowed with very strict requirements.

so, everyone on the HK board knows that if a web meeting is held, they are "training" kung-fu together. the key is training. sparring is part of the training. that's legal. if they arrange "matches" to settle personal feud, that it is illegal and subject to arrest.

of course, with all this media attention, their web meeting going to go underground for a while restricted to recongize members who participated before. they don't want to get busted.

the fight, old guy showed some trapping skill. the slap occurred because tkd guy ran out of ground to retreat. the tkd guy was used to fighters step-back after ref gives the okay and then fight. the old guy went forward with his hand outstretch pretending to want a shake of hand. tkd guy tried to get his guard up and retreat but he was near the crowd which stopped his progress. this provided an opening by the old guy to slap him. this was planned. the old guy wanted to slap tkd guy and his opening was used to facilitate this. this was felt by many to be a sneak attack. then punch started to be exchange.

old guy had zero preparation to deal with low round house kick to the legs. he was eating it and when he tried to avoid it by leaning forward to strike with his legs held back, he got swept off his feet.

the tkd guy didn't want to hurt the old guy, so he change the angle of his high round house kick which went over the old guy's head. the old guy thought he dodge a kick intent to do him harm, went for a tackle and took the tkd guy to the floor. proceed to choke him wih his bare hands, and ten guys rushed up to break up the fight.

sometimes people do takes posting on forum very seriously. so, if you meet in person, expect the unexpected.

this is called releasing the fire. have we had a grudge match on this forum?