The end of tradition?

[monkeyfoot]

and sadly traditional kungfu will go the way of the 'lost' skills

I only think this is true if tma continues to be taught with little emphasis on application, power and correct body mechanics etc. TMA on a large part is going stale, and this is because a lot of teachers have settled with collecting forms rather than training correctly.

But look at people like Mike Martello, Jochen and Tunks. IMO these sorta guys are the ones bringing TMA's back to where they should be. Forms are just a method of training....not the be all end all.

We're just going through a dark period with the focus being on MMA and practical training. If TMA is taught practical it will hold its own.

craig

[cjurakpt]

this is a complex issue, because so much of what constitutes "traditional" training is, IMHO, highly subjective; first off, the definition of what is "traditional", I believe, is highly situational: does it have to do with length of how long something has been around? does it have to do with the content of what is taught? or the context?

for example, let's just go back ~150 years ago in China; I would argue that very similar conversations were being held by martial arts practitioners, except it wasn't about MMA, but rather about western military technology, specifically firearms, which hit a watershed around the time of the US civil war, which saw a change from single shot to repeaters, a major advancement in terms of widening the gap between someone armed with a gun against someone without one; I can imagine that as repeaters became more available, the discussion about whether it was worthwhile spending 10 years developing knife, sword and staff skills was a common one; of course, getting one's hands on a revolver at the time was probably pretty remote, and of course the realistic need for hand-to-hand martial skill persisted well into the 20th c., but the point is that in theory, the utility of hand-to-hand was irrevocably changed by this, and no doubt engendered some heated discussion between old-timers and forward thinkers...;

so here we are, 21st c.; a totally different landscape, a totally different context; and yet the argument of "traditional" versus "modern" still persists; those of us who trained 15 to 20 years ago have seen drastic changes even in a short period of time;

personally, here's what I think: I think it's all for the best, what is happening now, in terms of the rise of MMA, and in fact, i think it's good not only for that particular skill set, but also for TCMA! here's why: it's a wake up call - for many years, i think that the TCMA world was resting on repeated layers of completely fabricated BS - for example, the idea that all this "secret" advanced silliness like dim mak or internal power existed - of course you never saw it, or if you did, it was so unfathomable that you were helplessly tossed across the room by your sifu; but let's be honest - most of that was self-fulfilling prophecy - so many of us went in with the expectation that that little old man had something special, something extraordinary; and when he offered it to us, we readily accepted, because it basically confirmed our desire to be part of something esoteric, something almost paranormal - it didn't even matter if we could ever achieve it ourselves, it as just an honor to be thrown around like rag dolls, never questioning the whole context; part and parcel of that, was this idea that you never, ever questioned your sensei/sabumnim/sifu, and heaven forbid some outsider came along expressing doubt - well, they just were blind to the reality of what was really going on;

see, here's the kicker: we basically set ourselves up for failure at the outset - in other words, and be honest, how many of you ever thought that you could one day be "as good" or better than your sifu? I'd be willing to bet not a single one, if he was an old Chinese guy; on the flip side, how many of your old sifu's ever said "I want all of my students to surpass me one day?"; probably not a single one; and to reinforce that, they kept their "advanced secrets" as a way of keeping people hooked for years, a way of trumping each success with a reminder of what you were still missing; and if you got good at 'externally", well, then there was the whole "internal" hoo doo voo doo scheme to keep you guessing...

MMA, I believe, grew up in direct response to the whole TMA artifact of "our stuff is too deadly to show / use, so just trust me when i tell you it'll work"; people got tired of hanging around in a fog and wanted to have a clarity as to what actually worked against resisting opponents, tired of the old saw about "if you really resisted what I was showing, you'd get killed by the technique in question"

so, in a word, the whole MMA revolution was founded on students no longer willing to be compliant, no longer willing to take someone's word for whether or not something really worked; of course, i am generalizing, because for every situation there is an exception, but that's about it in a nutshell...

now some will say that this perspective is really "traditional", in the sense that in the "old days", TCMA was used for real fighting, for killing; I would agree, but i would also point out that in the "old days", the preferred method of doing this was via some sort of weaponry; in other words, in the old days, you wanted as much of a technological advantage as possible, to leave as little to chance as possible; you also wanted to level the playing field as much as you could, meaning that a little scrawny guy with a knife is much closer to a big strong guy with a knife than if the two of them faced each other unarmed; which also means that conditioning is much less of an issue as well, BTW: even now, at my "advanced age", give me a stick and I have a much bette chance to be effective against a conditioned fighter in his 20's, whereas empty handed I'd be at a significant disadvantage;

add onto that the whole thing about TCMA being a "life long" cultivation - this has more to do with Chinese culture than anything else - it was probably a thrust on the part of TCMA teachers to appear more cultured, more genteel, in order to improve their social standing and to attract paying customers when they opened up shop - to be a "warrior scholar" was keeping in line with old Confucian societal ideals, as opposed to "ruthless killer for hire"; actually, not too different from the current situation, where "old time" hardcore guys from the 70's and 80's are actively cleaning up their image to attract the soccer moms and baby-boomer seniors (I mean, when you have an article about Ng Wai Hong portrayed as a kindly old sifu, it makes you jut cringe, considering where his past was - if his suburban clientele knew half of what he even allegedly was involved in, my lord!)

so, I think if you recall look at it realistically, the whole notion of what was traditional, of why things are / were done a certain way, it's very situational, and often the subtext is significantly different from the outward sheen; and as such, I really don't think that the whole issue of "preserving" any given way of doing things pro forma really is worth bothering oneself with; I mean, you can't fight the way society changes, you can only go with the flow; of course, within that, you can preserve something, but you need to be skillful; I think personally that one has to be almost 2 types of teachers at once these days: one type gives the public what it wants in general: the kiddie classes, the McDojo approach to teaching, the MMA approach to conditioning and fighting; and then, there are those people who will be like you, who want something "deeper" in their art, for whatever reason (personally, I call it cultural escapism - as my teacher says, "the local ginger is never as pungent as the foreign one")

overall, I think everyone should just relax a bit - stop bemoaning the way the next generation doesn't appreciate things the way we did - that makes us sound like a bunch of crotchety old men sitting on a porch; rather, think that they key is too recognize that all things change and evolve, and that to various degrees one must adapt to that change, and even make use of it, in order to provide continuity between the past and future; why i think this is a blessing for TCMA is that on the one hand it forces us to look realistically at our arts, to weed out the stuff that doesn't work (and to understand why certain "impractical" techniques even crept in in the first place...); but on the flip side, it enhances our ability to promote "traditional" arts in and of themselves: in other words, you can have your MMA-like curriculum to satisfy he need for immediate effectiveness; at the same time, you can teach the "extended" traditional one to those interested in the same way you were taught - those students have the option of doing both approaches simultaneously, but at least they do it without being mislead about the need to study taiji for 50 years before they can actually "use it" in a fight

in conclusion, let's not complain, but rather embrace the exciting new opportunities that the changes over the last 15 or 20 years have afforded; be true to your tradition, but at the same time, be forward thinking, and create the reality you want; this will generate anew the freshness and spontanaity that we all remember having as new students when we first set foot on the path, and enable us to inspire a new generation of practitioners with whatever it is we have to offer

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

Instead of an 80 form, decade long curriculum (like you learned), you now have a 25 form 3-4 year curriculum with more simple and effective applications and a fighting system that works well in sport and real life.

Reply]
See, here is the thing, the 80 forms are all recently made. Only a small handful of them are from the original system. The heros of Kung Fu, the REAL fighters back from like 3 generations ago made them all up to have something to teach rather than thier actual skills. We should really all stop worshiping these guys, they passed us all crap, and never the true arts. Only a few lines remained intact.

Complete styles had 10 forms, the biggest I know of had 18 (and that was a creation of many masters at Shaolin), but most were 10 and under. Many styles have only 1-3 forms, and that is all. So if you *Really* want to be traditional, you need to do your research and figure out which sets were around prior to the last 3 generations, and focus only on learning to fight well with those systems.

Originally Forms were just a diploma. You were only taught them AFTER you mastered the style so you could show that you were authentic. later they became to be used as a good way to refine body mechanics for the teachers and masters who already had them...they really did not become part of the learning process untill 3-4 generations ago when the plan was to demilitarize Kung Fu and take it's teeth away.

In other words, when they were INTENTIONALLY trying to weaken Kung fu's functionality, they turned to forms training to accomplish this goal.

So if you really want to get to the hard core nuts and bolts of thousands of years of Chinese Martial arts, you need to put forms where they belong, on the back burner, and work application skills, strategy, tactics and attribute training like the old days.

[Yao Sing]

Not only that but the guys that were really good fighters focused on a small number of moves and got really good with them. The rest were for teaching peeps of different shapes and sizes.

[Yao Sing]

My last Sifu had a story about a guy training by carrying a pig. When it cam time to fight that was the only move he needed. Wish I could remember how it goes.

Also one of the instructors retold a story about a guy who would fight and win using only Second Exercise (cum na sow) from the system. In truth I can see applying it to almost any situation (standing situation for you grapplers).

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

I think the large collection of moves really came from the military. As different systems poured into Shaolin for preservation, a huge collection developed from what was once many smaller military systems form a variety of different units and Garrisons.

The founder of my style learned a lot of different things, but the system that eventually emerged from that is basically all distilled down to 3 sets (at least that is what survived to modern times according to historical documents). There are two more, but they were created by Shaolin from his notes several hundred years later....so I really don't count them.

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

You are right about the bread and butter techniques too. It is no accident that sets in my system are compiled in roads of 32 postures each. Each road has all you really need to know. Just get really good with a dozen or so of the tech from one, and be comfortable with the rest. You don't need 80 forms with thousands of techniques.

It's kind of funny, but if you look at what a lot of Chinese systems teach, and then compare to what they Say is how it should be done.

For example, you might find a school that is teaching 5 forms for each rank level (or 50 to Black sash)....but they will turn around and in the very next breath say "One sword is easier to keep sharp than Many" or "Too many swords will be all of rust, but keep only a few and they will be able to be kept sharp".

So if you listen to what they say when they are bragging about thier great masters of the past, and train like THAT your good......Do what they say, not what they do.

[Christopher M]

Maybe there's some different ideas about what "traditional" entails. I thought it meant getting knocked around every week one-on-one with your teacher in his living room or backyard. In street clothes, even!

[mickey]

Greetings,

Going commercial is one of the most difficult challenges a traditional martial artist has to face. It is subject to ebbs and flows. I would not recommend it to anyone. Even Hong Kong Sifu, back in the '70's, credit Bruce Lee in revitalizing interest in traditional chinese martial arts.

Jeffoo,

If you are really interested in passing on a tradition, you need a long range plan. Instead of going commercial while trying to reach the youth of the Chinese community, I would recommend that you join a church (Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, whatever) and make a ten to fifteen year committment there. You will gain the benefit of having "captive" participants. Parents will bring in their children to you to foster their development and you can work on developing a very strong traditional base. You can charge less money and still profit while breaking off the church a piece. And while you are doing all of that, you can focus on the search of finding that one or few students who are willing to pass on the tradition that you embrace. If your style has a temple origin, teaching in a church reinforces the sacredness of the teachings. I consider it the best way to go. And you will be in a great position to help create an even better tomorrow.

After you have made that committment, you can go commercial. If you have done a great job, you will not have to go to anybody; parents will come to you with their children, their future, for you to foster. By then you may have already found fulfillment and will not want to go anywhere else.

Just another point of view,

mickey

[sanjuro_ronin]

this is a complex issue, because so much of what constitutes "traditional" training is, IMHO, highly subjective; first off, the definition of what is "traditional", I believe, is highly situational: does it have to do with length of how long something has been around? does it have to do with the content of what is taught? or the context?

for example, let's just go back ~150 years ago in China; I would argue that very similar conversations were being held by martial arts practitioners, except it wasn't about MMA, but rather about western military technology, specifically firearms, which hit a watershed around the time of the US civil war, which saw a change from single shot to repeaters, a major advancement in terms of widening the gap between someone armed with a gun against someone without one; I can imagine that as repeaters became more available, the discussion about whether it was worthwhile spending 10 years developing knife, sword and staff skills was a common one; of course, getting one's hands on a revolver at the time was probably pretty remote, and of course the realistic need for hand-to-hand martial skill persisted well into the 20th c., but the point is that in theory, the utility of hand-to-hand was irrevocably changed by this, and no doubt engendered some heated discussion between old-timers and forward thinkers...;

so here we are, 21st c.; a totally different landscape, a totally different context; and yet the argument of "traditional" versus "modern" still persists; those of us who trained 15 to 20 years ago have seen drastic changes even in a short period of time;

personally, here's what I think: I think it's all for the best, what is happening now, in terms of the rise of MMA, and in fact, i think it's good not only for that particular skill set, but also for TCMA! here's why: it's a wake up call - for many years, i think that the TCMA world was resting on repeated layers of completely fabricated BS - for example, the idea that all this "secret" advanced silliness like dim mak or internal power existed - of course you never saw it, or if you did, it was so unfathomable that you were helplessly tossed across the room by your sifu; but let's be honest - most of that was self-fulfilling prophecy - so many of us went in with the expectation that that little old man had something special, something extraordinary; and when he offered it to us, we readily accepted, because it basically confirmed our desire to be part of something esoteric, something almost paranormal - it didn't even matter if we could ever achieve it ourselves, it as just an honor to be thrown around like rag dolls, never questioning the whole context; part and parcel of that, was this idea that you never, ever questioned your sensei/sabumnim/sifu, and heaven forbid some outsider came along expressing doubt - well, they just were blind to the reality of what was really going on;

see, here's the kicker: we basically set ourselves up for failure at the outset - in other words, and be honest, how many of you ever thought that you could one day be "as good" or better than your sifu? I'd be willing to bet not a single one, if he was an old Chinese guy; on the flip side, how many of your old sifu's ever said "I want all of my students to surpass me one day?"; probably not a single one; and to reinforce that, they kept their "advanced secrets" as a way of keeping people hooked for years, a way of trumping each success with a reminder of what you were still missing; and if you got good at 'externally", well, then there was the whole "internal" hoo doo voo doo scheme to keep you guessing...

MMA, I believe, grew up in direct response to the whole TMA artifact of "our stuff is too deadly to show / use, so just trust me when i tell you it'll work"; people got tired of hanging around in a fog and wanted to have a clarity as to what actually worked against resisting opponents, tired of the old saw about "if you really resisted what I was showing, you'd get killed by the technique in question"

so, in a word, the whole MMA revolution was founded on students no longer willing to be compliant, no longer willing to take someone's word for whether or not something really worked; of course, i am generalizing, because for every situation there is an exception, but that's about it in a nutshell...

now some will say that this perspective is really "traditional", in the sense that in the "old days", TCMA was used for real fighting, for killing; I would agree, but i would also point out that in the "old days", the preferred method of doing this was via some sort of weaponry; in other words, in the old days, you wanted as much of a technological advantage as possible, to leave as little to chance as possible; you also wanted to level the playing field as much as you could, meaning that a little scrawny guy with a knife is much closer to a big strong guy with a knife than if the two of them faced each other unarmed; which also means that conditioning is much less of an issue as well, BTW: even now, at my "advanced age", give me a stick and I have a much bette chance to be effective against a conditioned fighter in his 20's, whereas empty handed I'd be at a significant disadvantage;

add onto that the whole thing about TCMA being a "life long" cultivation - this has more to do with Chinese culture than anything else - it was probably a thrust on the part of TCMA teachers to appear more cultured, more genteel, in order to improve their social standing and to attract paying customers when they opened up shop - to be a "warrior scholar" was keeping in line with old Confucian societal ideals, as opposed to "ruthless killer for hire"; actually, not too different from the current situation, where "old time" hardcore guys from the 70's and 80's are actively cleaning up their image to attract the soccer moms and baby-boomer seniors (I mean, when you have an article about Ng Wai Hong portrayed as a kindly old sifu, it makes you jut cringe, considering where his past was - if his suburban clientele knew half of what he even allegedly was involved in, my lord!)

so, I think if you recall look at it realistically, the whole notion of what was traditional, of why things are / were done a certain way, it's very situational, and often the subtext is significantly different from the outward sheen; and as such, I really don't think that the whole issue of "preserving" any given way of doing things pro forma really is worth bothering oneself with; I mean, you can't fight the way society changes, you can only go with the flow; of course, within that, you can preserve something, but you need to be skillful; I think personally that one has to be almost 2 types of teachers at once these days: one type gives the public what it wants in general: the kiddie classes, the McDojo approach to teaching, the MMA approach to conditioning and fighting; and then, there are those people who will be like you, who want something "deeper" in their art, for whatever reason (personally, I call it cultural escapism - as my teacher says, "the local ginger is never as pungent as the foreign one")

overall, I think everyone should just relax a bit - stop bemoaning the way the next generation doesn't appreciate things the way we did - that makes us sound like a bunch of crotchety old men sitting on a porch; rather, think that they key is too recognize that all things change and evolve, and that to various degrees one must adapt to that change, and even make use of it, in order to provide continuity between the past and future; why i think this is a blessing for TCMA is that on the one hand it forces us to look realistically at our arts, to weed out the stuff that doesn't work (and to understand why certain "impractical" techniques even crept in in the first place...); but on the flip side, it enhances our ability to promote "traditional" arts in and of themselves: in other words, you can have your MMA-like curriculum to satisfy he need for immediate effectiveness; at the same time, you can teach the "extended" traditional one to those interested in the same way you were taught - those students have the option of doing both approaches simultaneously, but at least they do it without being mislead about the need to study taiji for 50 years before they can actually "use it" in a fight

in conclusion, let's not complain, but rather embrace the exciting new opportunities that the changes over the last 15 or 20 years have afforded; be true to your tradition, but at the same time, be forward thinking, and create the reality you want; this will generate anew the freshness and spontanaity that we all remember having as new students when we first set foot on the path, and enable us to inspire a new generation of practitioners with whatever it is we have to offer

Well said.
Period.

[Scott R. Brown]

Very well said Chris!

I only have one comment,

I don't know if I should compliment you on getting it all into one post or to criticize you for making it so short!

[KFNOOB]

cjurakpt---- what do you currently train in. I assume you are advanced and you are reflecting back but what would you do if you were beginning today, knowing what you know?

Would you go to JKD, Judo, BJJ or the likes? Would you do the same as you did only dismiss the forms?

Great work, makes one think.

[cjurakpt]

Well said.
Period.

thank you

Very well said Chris!

I only have one comment,

I don't know if I should compliment you on getting it all into one post or to criticize you for making it so short!

well, you know if I get too much positive feedback I start that whole self-sabotage cycle thing, so it's probably for the best if the latter...

[Scott R. Brown]

thank you


well, you know if I get too much positive feedback I start that whole self-sabotage cycle thing, so it's probably for the best if the latter...

LOL!! In that case.....


Try a little harder next time!! You are lagging behind!

I recommend saying the same thing three or four different ways in the same paragraph. I find it works well for me!

[cranky old man]

l started training before most of you were born probably before any of you were. l have read all of your opinions and agree with most. but not all . l started when most styles had as little as 3 or four kata in japanese styles watched while some have over 10 being added my first style had 4 . when l first learned pak mei l was taught 3 sets . the rest l learned in the event l was to teach which was never my goal. l remember when people started to be a forms collector thats when clubs started to become money makers ,the more forms you could teach the money you made. the old clubs taught to fight that was the tradition . we made fun of clubs offering huge numbers of forms. we have watched forms being added as commercialism became the norm. fighting or learning to,became less and less part of training . being banged up and bruised after a class was the norm not now . one thing about mma and other such sport fighting on t.v. as l see it bull**** artists are being forced into proving what they do . which in my young days was the norm and if they fail hopefully will be closed down. so what l see we had tradition that was to learn to fight. not listening to we are to dangerous to fight others and other silly stories. so most are taking about what we discussed back then as we saw it changeing into what you think is old tradition but isnt in most cases really old tradition . old tradition was to learn to fight . and older styles who in some places still are taught have few forms at all because the teaching of it isnt for money. martial arts was for fighting not becomeing more spiritual . in my life l have seen tma go from good to bad and now some are coming back to the basics thats a good thing . for tma you dont need to have large numbers to keep it alive just a few of quaulity.