Quote Originally Posted by Hitman View Post
Dear all,
Before this thread becoming another Hardwork vs other people, let us get back to the real issue - real kung fu.
wtf is real kung fu supposed to look like?
it's a very good question; although I would say the real question is what is real fighting supposed to look like?

but for the moment, let me address your analogy:
Quote Originally Posted by Hitman View Post
Imagine that you have spent several years learning German (TCM) and hoping that one day you may go to Germany (martial arts tournment). When you eventually arrive in Germany (tournament), you are expected to use what you have learnt in your class to communicate (fight) with the local German population (competitors). Would you abondon everything you have learnt in your German (TCM) classes and trying to communicate (fight) with other people with your self style sign language (untrained kick boxing/ boxing technques)? etc.
(TCM).
respectfully, I find your analogy is a bit biased in the sense that it doesn't start from a reasonable premise:
if you learn German in a class taught by an actual German native speaker who is off the plane from Berlin and who was trained in how to teach functional German to English speakers, than you will have no problem applying what you learn if you go visit there yourself in 6 months to a year, including contemporary idioms that the local population is using;
OTOH, if the person teaching you German has never even been there, was never trained to teach, and "speaks" German because he has spent his entire academic career translating Goethe, you're going to get off the plane in Berlin and maybe have some idea what's going on reading sign posts, but as soon as you start trying to talk to the locals, you are going to be in trouble, and start fumbling for your Berlitz guide;
first case: functional, realistic approach to MA training (which can include TCMA, if it's relieved of certain aspects); second case: McDojo's, McKwoon's, and sadly a lot of "real/authentic" TCMA as well;
Verstehen? basically, if what you learn is appropriate to your needs, you won't need to switch to something else; if you want to fight, you might want to learn from someone with a little bit of actual experience, regardless of how "deep" the intrinsic nature of their given style is - you don't need to be a classical German scholar to get around Berlin; OTOH, if you want to get into the richness and depth of a classical style, you might be able to do that without ever having been in a street fight or even competed in a tournament; it's really a question of what one wants to do - of course, one might actually find a teacher with both practical fighting experience as well as classical knowledge of a traditional system - they don't preclude each other, but the specific skill sets may vary greatly - meaning that even having studied a "real" system, including forms, so-called "internals", health practices, meditation, calligraphy, etc. etc., you might surprisingly discover that when one "uses" what one learned in actual fighting, it's not going to look all that different in application than what you might see someone who trained boxing use...

Quote Originally Posted by Hitman View Post
TCM practitioners who have spent 4 -20 years training should be able to show some kung fu skills, instead of fighting like amatuer boxers and kick boxers.
FYI, TCM is the abbreviation for Traditional Chinese Medicine - I believe that you mean TCMA (although it's pretty funny when you read it the first way); anyway, your range of 4 - 20 years is huge! quite frankly, if one has trained well and realistically, assuming one has some basic strength, coordination, etc., one should be able to "use" what has been learned to a reasonable degree after ~6 mos. (for someone who is already physically fit, coordinated, aggressive, etc.) to a year (someone who has to develop basic attributes and account for being less innately coordinated and / or has been socialized to be passive, etc.); to take 4 to 20 years to be able to "use" something is not only too large a range, it's too long - I mean, wasn't the whole point of WC initially to teach someone to be able to fight effectively in a very short period of time? regardless of what one believes will be the long-term end results of 30 years training in a "traditional" style, that should not preclude actual fighting skill from occurring as soon as possible, meaning by a most about one year;

Quote Originally Posted by Hitman View Post
This is not an insult. l too had fought like a human punching bag, boxer and kick boxer before I learnt any martial arts. After learning several different martial arts and spent several thousand hours training I still fought like a human punching bag, boxer and kick boxer. Does this not tell you that there is something seriously wrong with my martial arts training?
if you spent thousands of hours fighting like a "human punching bag", implying that you just got hit all the time, sure, something is very wrong; OTOH, if you spent thousands of hours and skillfully and successfully fought "like" a boxer / kickboxer (be it in the ring or the street), then I wouldn't say that you wasted any time, regardless of what you were learning;

Quote Originally Posted by Hitman View Post
I can only call myself a wing chun expert after demonstrating to myself that I can apply my wing chun technique in fights. At the moment I am still a beginner in wing chun.
admirable, but I would suggest that being able to "use" what you learned in a street fight, IMPE, shouldn't be a criteria for "expertise", that rather it is a sign of "proficiency", meaning that you can apply what you hav learnd as a means to a desired end; "expertise" implies full understanding of a topic on a deep level, where one has the ability not only to use it, but also to teach it in its entirety, as well as to modify it and progress it according to one's own experience;

Quote Originally Posted by Hitman View Post
Judo practitioners fight like how they were trained in judo tournaments.
Wrestlers fight like how they were trained in tournaments.
Boxers fight like how they were trained in tournaments.
Kick boxers fight like how they were trained in tournaments.
Thai boxers fight like how they were trained tournaments.
If those non TCM practitioners can apply what they have learnt in their classes in tournaments, then you would expect the TCM practitioners to do the same.
you would, but if you train something totally contrary to instinctual, natural human combat, and have never trained in a live, pressured situation, when you get into a "real" fight, you are going to see lot if not most all of that "training" go out the window real quick; all of the above start from almost day one training in context of how they would actually be using what they learned, and this response is what's going to "kick in" when they are under pressure, and because a large percentage of what they use in competition also has relevance to "thee street", the cross-over isn't so hard: they have trained both context and content in a way that will give them a good chance in a real fight; if they modify their training for "the street" specifically (cross training), they will do even better (e.g. - judo guy learning MT)

Quote Originally Posted by Hitman View Post
There are people who fight like the actors in Shaw Brother's films, but they are very small in number, e.g. the late sifu Wong Sheun Leung & sifu Yip Man.
my first TCMA sifu (Chan Tai San) never looked like a Shaw brothers movie when he was teaching fighting, and he was somewhat well regarded within the TCMA community...

Quote Originally Posted by Hitman View Post
If you are a real kung fu master then you do not need to hurt your weaker opponent in order to defeat him, e.g.
more a contrivance based on Chinese cultural notions of what a "master" is supposed to be capable of; c.f. Confuscian "superior man" and all that; look, fact is that if there is a significant difference in skill, this can certainly happen; the closer two people are in skill (assuming that all other attributes are equal), the more difficult this is; see, it's very solipsistic: what is a hallmark of a TCMA master? he can defeat his opponents without hurting them; why can he defeat his opponents without hurting them? because he is a master; no analysis of approach, circumstances, cultural baggage, etc.

Quote Originally Posted by Hitman View Post
Grandsmaster Yip Man defeated Sifu Wong Sheun Leung using wing chun techniques without hurting him.
so you have heard; all stories of this nature should be taken with a large grain of salt; although, if you have two people doing the same system under the same cultural constraints, then it is certainly more plausible that this could occur, given that if you know what someone else knows and are better at it, it is much easier to anticipate them and shut them down (indeed, the "looser" would be conditioned to "know" when he was beat as well, so you need to consider that); OTOH, if a western boxer came along, while the TCMA guy might still win, the ability to do so without hurting him would be much less, if not non-existent

my belief is that successful fighting looks pretty much the same across the board, with, of course, some variation; it's about being fit / conditioned to start, then training high-percentage content in a context-appropriate manner; all the other stuff is largely irrelevant - there are no shortcuts, no "secret" techniques per se, and skill can be acquired in a reasonably short period of time; of course, refinement of skill can continue for decades, and there are certain skill-sets that will take longer (e.g. - listening, sticking, etc.), although not decades if you are training correctly;