To me, David Carradine represents all the wrong things that people look for in TMA. He represents a shallow esotericism for the sake of feeling “cool”. They then call it “philosophy,” or more appallingly, Buddhism and Taoism. He represents an obsession with hierarchy and formalities that reflect said shallow esotericism. He represents corny 50s TV morals rolled into fortune cookie form that become the virtues of the “philosophy.” The 50s TV morals seem to be the major hook for soccer moms, and the shallow esotericism to the LARPers. However, they are both part of the same strand. But guess what? This isn’t limited to TCMA, as much of the talk on this forum seems to assume.
JMA has tons of mcdojos and LARPers and the situation with KMA looks the worst. Believe it or not, there was once a time when Tae Kwan Do meant hard training! So TCMA is not alone. I’d also think that there are far less schools that claim TCMA then JMA and KMA. Sure, there are bad apples, but there are still plenty of good schools out there. If you are in one, surely you must know of others. The CMA world is rather connected. So obviously you must know that there is good stuff being taught out there.
Then we come to the MMA vs. TCMA thing. Why do TCMA people let it get to them to the point they start questioning what they do? As mentioned before, CMA isn’t only a grouping of styles, it’s an inter-connected community. It’s not really part of the MMA world. CMA have their own tournaments available to them if they want to. Why go MMA? Not to mention, what if someone doesn’t care about competing? That doesn’t make them bad martial artists. There are loads of skilled MA who don’t do sport fighting.
And how’s about all this chest-thumping that MMA seems to be bringing on? Honestly, as stated before, I am anything BUT for stupid David Carradine style shallowness and morals. But come on! Constant bragging, posturing, and taunting are not qualities I admire. Maybe it’s just me, but anyone notice lots of dumb jock types getting into MMA? Coincidence? I think not. Frankly, if I wanted to watch that kind of thing, I’d turn on pro-wrestling. They’ve had years of practice to perfect those antics lol. Why fall prey to that? This, and the sloppiness of many MMA players (come on, UFC striking does not look like Muay Thai from Thailand to me) turn me off to it.
My point is for the TCMA people on this board. If what you do is worthwhile, why do you care what MMA people on the internet have to say? The fact is that there are good TCMA schools out there. To me, the worth of TCMA is self-evident. I don’t really care what MMA people think about it. I really don’t like these TCMA vs. MMA threads, but it appears that all this internet talk has gotten to people. If I can get at least a few posters to do what I decided to do awhile ago, this thread will have been a success. What is that you may ask? Largely ignore the MMA propaganda, and go back to talking mostly about TCMA. After all, this IS a Kung Fu forum!
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