Relative Racism and Chinese Kung Fu

[Ray Pina]

Yesterday Bawang posted: "lol @ silly gwailos trying to find kung fu in shanghai and taiwan"

While that is definitely in the neighborhood of "Silly *****s trying to find hamburgers in the U.S." it doesn't account for folks like B.K Frantzis and the recently deceased Robert Smith.

I personally was put in touch with some good BJJ by an Australian who lived in Asia for 7 years and moved to San Juan, PR three years ago. He put me in touch with the South East Asian BJJ Federation.... which has a school in Shanghai.

I also have friends at Renzos who get paid to fight and run seminars internationally.... I always ask if they've seen anything worth following up on.

But in the end, it comes down to the almighty dollar. One can get a 16 year old girl for the night in Guanzhou for $175 .... they send them to your room unrequested (offer never taken). $1,000 for anyone who can produce a Chinese boxer of note, willing and able to demonstrate against a novice western boxer..... the Taiji man I trained with had power and listening skills but nothing worth of note. And my host found and paid for him because he knows of my interest and doesn't need my money. He's a Shanghai multi-millionaire.

Finding TCMA in China is easy. Finding good TCMA.... as likely as in Nebraska. All the Kung Fu we see here that is nowhere near modern standards: where did it come from?

[David Jamieson]

Pretty much anything Bawang cracks about needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

racism is at play in all corners of society in all societies to some extent.

China is a big place, It is the largest country in the world population wise and the third largest country geographically and a great deal of that population still lives in the rural areas of the country.

China's social constructs are very different as well and the idea of shopping around for martial arts is made easier in the same way that shopping for shoes is made easy.

It takes a bit of effort just to find out where you can get a pair of manolo's and then, it will take some money to get them.

Walmart offers a shoe that looks kinda like it for cheaper and it's readily available.

Sorry for the shoe analogy, but it does apply here. As an aside, reading your post it seems a slight bit racist in and of itself!

Zou Shiming for instance has plenty of western boxing skills. TO the tune of Olympic gold medal skills in western boxing.

I think people need to move away from the idea that Kung Fu is sport. It can have that component, but overall, it ain't sport. San Da is sport.

[Snipsky]

I just don't get it. if people hate kung fu so much why are they here on a Kung Fu forum? to bully us? WTF?

[Ray Pina]

What's the bullying?

Someone said westerners couldn't find instruction in Asia.... I pointed out two popular examples (Frantzis/SMith) well before the age of internet and global mindset.

The other example is, if westerners can't find "the good stuff" then where is it? There's no shortage of CHinese American teachers in the US/Canada. Everyone on here learned Kung Fu with a link to China at some point.

This isn't bullying. It's critical thinking.

It's not unlike American teachers saying they deserve more money and someone pointing out that American kids aren't ranked in the top 10 globally in math or science. Nowhere else do people request a raise for a worse performance.

Some people get upset when their shortcomings are pointed out. Sorry, but one can't control how others react to stimulus. Some get better. Some complain and want things dumbed down to a new standard.

Doesn't mean I hate American education or Kung Fu. I don't like the trends I see in both.

[hskwarrior]

Doesn't mean I hate American education or Kung Fu. I don't like the trends I see in both.

Kung Fu is a personal quest. Kung fu has everything you may need in it. its up to you to train them. yeah i agree as well, i don't like the trends in SOME kung fu. Regardless, I don't keep those trends i may not like. i'll work it so whatever i teach should be without those trends.

for myself, i agree with the idea if you hate kung fu so much then why come to a TCMA forum? i really don't get why. Why not go to one of those MMA forums, they love to bash kung fu don't they? what i said here is in general. not picking you out Mr. Pina.

Mr Pina, what is it you consider GOOD STUFF in the realm of Kung Fu?

[sanjuro_ronin]

Good kung fu is easy to find as long as you KNOW what to look for and what good kung fu is.
You can find it in almost every part of the world.
The issue is that bad kung fu is more readily visible.

I don't see a need to go the China to find good kung fu, just as there is no need to go to Japan to find good judo or Okinawa to find good karate, etc.

[Ray Pina]

Kung Fu is a personal quest. Kung fu has everything you may need in it. its up to you to train them. yeah i agree as well, i don't like the trends in SOME kung fu. Regardless, I don't keep those trends i may not like. i'll work it so whatever i teach should be without those trends.

for myself, i agree with the idea if you hate kung fu so much then why come to a TCMA forum? i really don't get why. Why not go to one of those MMA forums, they love to bash kung fu don't they? what i said here is in general. not picking you out Mr. Pina.

Mr Pina, what is it you consider GOOD STUFF in the realm of Kung Fu?

The thing I always found most valuable from TCMA is its trapping and sticking. It's unorthodox and catches many westerners not exposed to it by surprise. Also the way you can combine "short power" with trapping/sticking and get a strike in while others are pulling back.... so essentially it's a timing thing. It's not a 1....2 rhythm. It's a 1(jam)..1.5 (hit) rhythm.

Believe it or not, I really like Chinese culture in general and its martial arts, particularly Hsing-I and Taiji.... I know I'd like Ba Gua but bummed I didn't get to see more of it.

I liked Wing Chun until I learned Hsing-I.

[hskwarrior]

The thing I always found most valuable from TCMA is its trapping and sticking. It's unorthodox and catches many westerners not exposed to it by surprise. Also the way you can combine "short power" with trapping/sticking and get a strike in while others are pulling back.... so essentially it's a timing thing. It's not a 1....2 rhythm. It's a 1(jam)..1.5 (hit) rhythm.

Believe it or not, I really like Chinese culture in general and its martial arts, particularly Hsing-I and Taiji.... I know I'd like Ba Gua but bummed I didn't get to see more of it.

I liked Wing Chun until I learned Hsing-I.

You sound like you'd be a good fit for Choy Lee Fut.

[RenDaHai]

Y
But in the end, it comes down to the almighty dollar. One can get a 16 year old girl for the night in Guanzhou for $175 .... they send them to your room unrequested (offer never taken).

I hope you mean 175 chinese rmb or your getting ripped off!

Shanghai has some good masters, but few proper schools. Usually a few guys meeting in a park.

In Shanghai XinYi LiuHe is a great style to look for. I used to know a place but I don't know if its still there...

[GeneChing]

You sound like you'd be a good fit for Choy Lee Fut.

I bet you say that to all the guys....

[hskwarrior]

I bet you say that to all the guys....

Yes, to catchers only. LOL

[Ray Pina]

Shanghai has some good masters, but few proper schools. Usually a few guys meeting in a park.

In Shanghai XinYi LiuHe is a great style to look for. I used to know a place but I don't know if its still there...

I figure that's the case. On the Kung Fu side of things of my two favorite teachers, one didn't have a school but used his brother's school after hours for our sparring (a Southern Mantis man trained under Milton and Norman Chin) and the other was my master, who was long retired but had a Stradivarius repair business/training hall a bunch of flights up on Bowery St.... and then just built a training hall in his back yard. I had a hard time finding him in NY with perfect command of English and a Chinese American friend pointing the way.

There's good stuff out there. We just need to demand more of ourselves.

[Jimbo]

Having trained CMA in Taiwan and the U.S., I know you can find good kung fu, but you have to look for it. And you have to know what you're looking for, for your own goals. Some people actually have the idea that when you go over there, everyone is doing kung fu; that behind every corner and every bush is a KF fighter and schools up and down every block.

Well, everyone there does NOT know kung fu. A lot of the people I met in Taiwan didn't know much more about CMA than most Americans. I encountered some people there who put down CMA and extolled the superiority of TKD and/or Japanese arts. Ironic, because my ancestry is Japanese.

I was lucky to have found a good northern-style teacher there, but prior to finding him, I wasted 3 years with an old teacher who, although he possessed good skills, was not a good teacher. At that time in my life, I wasn't sure what I was looking for, just that I wanted to learn kung fu, and went with the first teacher I was brought to. I was aware that you needed to look for it, but I got complacent. I was naive and stuck it out, patiently waiting for the 'good stuff' that never came...not just for me, but for anybody I saw there. It was my own fault for staying so long, but live and learn. Under my second northern-style teacher, I made rapid progress and had many great experiences with that group.

Back in the U.S., I was very lucky to have access to a very good CLF teacher; I was actually introduced to him by a friend who was one of his top students. So it goes. For some people, access to good kung fu will be more difficult due to location/lack of choices. You may simply have to travel whatever distance to get what you're looking for.

[Cory Nyenhuis]

Not hard to find good TCMA in Nebraska.

[Taixuquan99]

Bawang is right. Westerners studying kung fu in China are notorious for being ripped off, unless they have connections or are themselves well informed on the topic and selective.

Money sometimes just makes matters worse for foreignors trying to study kung fu there.