Rooftop Matches

[TenTigers]

I think we've all seen the vids on the rooftop matches.
Does anyone know the origin of these vids?
Who is in them?
Yeah, they look like true2form crap.
But, is this all there was to the fights?
Do we judge all rooftop fights, Challenge matches, etc and therefore, TCMA by one poor clip?
Yet, there are idiots out there who do exactly that.
For all we know, these were complete no-talent tools..who had a camera.

[Vajramusti]

I think we've all seen the vids on the rooftop matches.
Does anyone know the origin of these vids?
Who is in them?
Yeah, they look like true2form crap.
But, is this all there was to the fights?
Do we judge all rooftop fights, Challenge matches, etc and therefore, TCMA by one poor clip?
Yet, there are idiots out there who do exactly that.
For all we know, these were complete no-talent tools..who had a camera.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wang Kiu who was briefly a student of Ip man filmed some of them.Atleast one had WSL as a referee.Most were imo young kids trying things out.Not much to learn from them.

Many real challenge matches were never filmed- but are part of oral histories.

joy chaudhuri

[lkfmdc]

For obvious reasons, there is not a lot of footage of fights from the "old days"

HOWEVER, that does NOT mean that what we have can not be instructive

The roof top matches were by all accounts young guys, student level, in what amounted to an informal dick waving contest.

On the other hand, we have the infamous "white crane vs wu tai chi" debacle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S19VsB7__v0

These were guys who were supposed to already be high level, one already a "master". In fact, Ng Gung Yi was supposed to have a "rep" from many challenge matches

Leading up to this, people thought someone was going to be killed, it was two "deadly" people with high level skills and it was going to get out of hand

What do we learn from it?

1) In 1953 there were already a lot of schools who were NOT sparring but thought they were deadly

2) There is no reason to doubt that Ng Kung Yi had in fact closed door matches before this, leading us to seriously question what those must have looked like

3) As I have stated before, Chan Hak Fu realized this was not a good performance and changed the way his students trained, instituting sparring with boxing gloves and in the 70's he had some decent fighters

MORE ON THIS IN A BIT

[lkfmdc]

Now history is context and context is everything

The "white crane vs wu tai chi" debacle was in 1953 and the roof top matches early 60's (?)

But let's remember that 1937 to 1949 wasn't exactly a prime time for the development of kung fu

I don't believe there are movies of the 1920's and 1930's lei tai events, but my educated guess would be if you saw them they would look better than the 1953 fight. Maybe not astounding, but certainly better

But you might also notice that the winners of these things all did ALIVE training. Shuai Jiao certainly trains alive and many of the participants had also studied western boxing

John Wang shares a story regarding these that is on point; the winner of one of these was criticized for not using "real kung fu technique" (sound familiar) by a "master" of an "internal art" (funny how consistent some of this stuff is!)

The winner's brother said to the critic, why don't we fight? And the critic declined

From Kennedy's books and the translation of "Chin Na Fa" we also see that there was a long tradition where those who embraced theory but didn't do actual fighting criticized the methods of those who fought. And, conversely, a strong tradition among the actual fighters that there was too much theory without practice

In some respects, examples from Kennedy's manuals read almost like the forum postings of today

[bawang]

in people hypnotized by lies in kung fu, they often show a naive childlike quality

i find there is a similarity in mindset with star trek and star wars fanatics

[TenTigers]

in people hypnotized by lies in kung fu, they often show a naive childlike quality

yep, but this IS the KF Forum...

[Frost]

I think we've all seen the vids on the rooftop matches.
Does anyone know the origin of these vids?
Who is in them?
Yeah, they look like true2form crap.
But, is this all there was to the fights?
Do we judge all rooftop fights, Challenge matches, etc and therefore, TCMA by one poor clip?
Yet, there are idiots out there who do exactly that.
For all we know, these were complete no-talent tools..who had a camera.

well what should we judge the era by if not the footage we can see with our own eyes...hearsay....?

the point isnt that those clips were bad, but that someone thought the fights were good enough and high profile enough to record...were only the poor matches worthy of filming?

[bawang]

you guys really need to understand the cantonese culture.

guangdong has a deeply ingrained culture of corruption and darkness, right down into everyday life.

[TenTigers]

the point isnt that those clips were bad, but that someone thought the fights were good enough and high profile enough to record...were only the poor matches worthy of filming?

dunno...some people think true2form is Kung-Fu.

[lkfmdc]

well what should we judge the era by if not the footage we can see with our own eyes...hearsay....?

the point isnt that those clips were bad, but that someone thought the fights were good enough and high profile enough to record...were only the poor matches worthy of filming?

read or re-read my two posts, and if we get a good discussion going I'll continue my point

[lkfmdc]

you guys really need to understand the cantonese culture.

guangdong has a deeply ingrained culture of corruption and darkness, right down into everyday life.

it isn't just cantonese culture, there is BS and corruption in ALL Chinese martial art, there is a "fraud culture" in the north as well

[bawang]

it isn't just cantonese culture, there is BS and corruption in ALL Chinese martial art, there is a "fraud culture" in the north as well

it is nowhere near as bad as in guangdong

[lkfmdc]

it is nowhere near as bad as in guangdong

you're trolling again

the "spirit boxing" thing was a northern invention, not actually teach any kung fu and convince poor farmer kids spirits will make them warriors

tons of cons and scams up north

[bawang]

in the past 200 years only 2 martial exam winners came from guangdong. almost all 120 winners were from north. there was never a strong martial tradition in the south.

the "spirit boxing" thing was a northern invention, not actually teach any kung fu and convince poor farmer kids spirits will make them warriors

yihe rebels practiced meihua quan and hong quan. the"spirit boxing" was westerners trying to descrbie hard qigong.

[lkfmdc]

in the past 200 years only 2 martial exam winners came from guangdong. almost all 120 winners were from north. there was never a strong martial tradition in the south.

or, the cantonese didn't give a crap about what happens north of mid-fukien

which is STILL the case