TCMA for combat only

[YouKnowWho]

So if you ARE into combat but BARE handed then I think you will want to focus on your 'defanging the wolf' techniques. ...

Why would you (general YOU) get into fight? Because you may think that you are not man enough if you don't fight? Why would you think that you may not be man enough? Because you don't know whether you can truly handle your opponent or not.

When you don't know that your punch is strong enough to knock your opponent down, or your throw is skillful enough to take your opponent down, you will be more likely to accept the fight just to verify your self-confidence. If you have confidence in your "finish moves", it won't hurt your self-confidence to back up and avoid the fight.

You have to have fighting ability before you can talk about "inner peace". Without the combat ability, the "inner peace" is only a lie to yourself. There is a big difference between:

- Can do but don't want to do, and
- want to do but can't do.

After you have WMD, you can then talk about world peace. There is no country on earth that talk about "world peace" and not owns WMD and that's for sure.

[YouKnowWho]

One XingYi master used to say, "If you are scared, I may be more scared than you". When his opponent was scare to be killed, the XingYi master was scared to kill his opponent and spend the rest of his life in jail.

To have combat ability can mean great "inner peace" but not the other way around.

[Drake]

Sorry, but this sounds like fantasy world garbage concocted by people that live in their parents' basement watching Bruce Lee marathons all day.

If you get into combat, real combat, and not some fantasy world from 1800s China, you will be shot. Probably more than once. No roundhouse, sow choy, pek choy, or sweep is going to save you, regardless of whether or not you practiced it 1000 times with burning fire all around you.

If you are doing martial arts for anything other than health, fitness, or fun competition, you are delusional.

[ginosifu]

Sorry, but this sounds like fantasy world garbage concocted by people that live in their parents' basement watching Bruce Lee marathons all day.

If you get into combat, real combat, and not some fantasy world from 1800s China, you will be shot. Probably more than once. No roundhouse, sow choy, pek choy, or sweep is going to save you, regardless of whether or not you practiced it 1000 times with burning fire all around you.

If you are doing martial arts for anything other than health, fitness, or fun competition, you are delusional.

What if I just want to keep a traditional fighting art to pass on to my kids. It has nothing to do with trying to fight with todays gun happy society, but of preserving an ancient fighting form for future generations.

Maybe just maybe either my self or someone I teach it to might be able to subdue an intruder or stop a rape in progress or stop that parent from beaten down their kid etc. I said this before here on the threads... I stopped a guy from beatin his wife... You are right that weapons do prevail nowadays but hand to hand is still something to keep in your back pockets for those "Just in Cases"

ginosifu

[YouKnowWho]

No roundhouse, sow choy, pek choy, or sweep is going to save you, ...

My SC brother Victor Ke used his combat skill to save his job.

Two guys in Victor's company always looked for trouble on his. During department meeting, those 2 guys accused him to have Chinese accent and couldn't understand his presentation. Onetime Victor brought his prototype to his manager's office, those 2 guys broke his model as if it was an accident. Victor called his wife and asked her how much money that they still had in the bank. He told his wife that he might have to get into a fight and that could cost him to be fired that day. He and those 2 guys meet in one place, Victor used his "foot sweep" to take both guys down on the ground. After they got back up, they left and never bother my friend any more. Victor could keep his job for another 20 years and retire from his job after that.

When Victor was young, a local gang group wanted him to join in their gang. He didn't want to and had to fight all the gang members one after another (tradition in Taiwan). After he had defeated all the gang members one after another, they left him along and never bother him any more.

My SC brother Cheng Hsing-Ping used his TCMA skill to take a knife away from a guy who tried to rob a girl in NYC China town. It was a big news in newspaper and TV news.

There is no way that I'll say that combat ability is useless in 21th centry.

[Syn7]

There is a time for everything and the time of real Kungfu finished ages ago because there is no need for it anymore and people who are still in the business of killing use other far more efficient tools.

No reason why you can't use guns, flash bangs, shields etc in your training. I mean, if you have the need to be a proficient killer, shouldn't you approach it the same way as you would with a sword? Practice practice practice. Acquire whatever skillsets meet your goals. That is kung fu. Modern tools doesn't change any of that. Just know your limits and work within them. You can't use a chi blast to stop a bomb from killing you, but you can sure as hell get your run and jump on, or use tools to minimize or prevent the damage. Or just know you're in a bad spot and back off. I'm sorry, I just don't see the difference between that and old style bladed weapons training.

You either learn to defend yourself in less harsh situations, or you go all out and become a brutal killer. The rest is just a dance. I'm not pointing any fingers, so nobody get their panties in a knot over this, please.

[YouKnowWho]

If combat skill is nothing more than just to be able to cover my head and not been knocked out by my opponent's punches, that's good enough reason for me to spend several hours daily to develop that skill.

I may be able to obtain my health from different sports. I can only develop my combat skill through MA training.

[Drake]

If combat skill is nothing more than just to be able to cover my head and not been knocked out by my opponent's punches, that's good enough reason for me to spend several hours daily to develop that skill.

I may be able to obtain my health from different sports. I can only develop my combat skill through MA training.

You need several hours a day for that?

[Drake]

What if I just want to keep a traditional fighting art to pass on to my kids. It has nothing to do with trying to fight with todays gun happy society, but of preserving an ancient fighting form for future generations.

Maybe just maybe either my self or someone I teach it to might be able to subdue an intruder or stop a rape in progress or stop that parent from beaten down their kid etc. I said this before here on the threads... I stopped a guy from beatin his wife... You are right that weapons do prevail nowadays but hand to hand is still something to keep in your back pockets for those "Just in Cases"

ginosifu

You are right. I left out preserving heritage and tradition. Good catch.

[xinyidizi]

My SC brother Victor Ke used his combat skill to save his job.

Two guys in Victor's company always looked for trouble on his. During department meeting, those 2 guys accused him to have Chinese accent and couldn't understand his presentation. Onetime Victor brought his prototype to his manager's office, those 2 guys broke his model as if it was an accident. Victor called his wife and asked her how much money that they still had in the bank. He told his wife that he might have to get into a fight and that could cost him to be fired that day. He and those 2 guys meet in one place, Victor used his "foot sweep" to take both guys down on the ground. After they got back up, they left and never bother my friend any more. Victor could keep his job for another 20 years and retire from his job after that.

When Victor was young, a local gang group wanted him to join in their gang. He didn't want to and had to fight all the gang members one after another (tradition in Taiwan). After he had defeated all the gang members one after another, they left him along and never bother him any more.

My SC brother Cheng Hsing-Ping used his TCMA skill to take a knife away from a guy who tried to rob a girl in NYC China town. It was a big news in newspaper and TV news.

There is no way that I'll say that combat ability is useless in 21th centry.

Considering that one is very lucky and there are no guns involved the only skills that are useful for real combat situations are those that don't hurt your opponent like qinna, wrestling, ... but TCMA is mostly not about them. Most TCMA or probably any other striking arts are dangerous and hurting your opponent means a big lawsuit. My friend used his TCMA in a bar fight and broke one guy's bones. His dad gave that guy a lot of money to drop the charges. In another bar fight he broke someone's jaw and sent that guy to coma for many days. He was lucky the guy didn't die. This time he went to prison however his dad paid that guy lots of money again and they released him.

[Kellen Bassette]

Every time that I have heard what our previous generation could do, I always believed that they didn't train TCMA for health, ... IMO, the reason that our generation is not as good as our previous generation because we are just not serious enough.

I feel your generation screwed it up, lol...your older than me...

It's actually a cyclical problem. I got a book from mainland China, written in the '30's lamenting the same problem. The current generation is too focused on forms and performance...our teachers were fighters who partner trained always...we won't be able to beat Japanese Judo or Western Boxing without partner/combat training, ect...I also came across something similar from sometime in the 1800's I believe.

You see cultural shifts between favoring performance or combat training during certain generations, probably may have been regional reasons as well...I think the extended periods of war always helped keep the arts real/world combat focused...maybe not because they could use bare hands against weapons, but maybe because it kept them in a warrior mind set??? Who knows...

[Kellen Bassette]

If combat skill is nothing more than just to be able to cover my head and not been knocked out by my opponent's punches, that's good enough reason for me to spend several hours daily to develop that skill.

I just spent almost a month with this is the primary focus...training everything else, but my guard number one on my mind. I tend to keep it to wide and eat more punches than necessary.

Sometimes even after years, you just got to go back, rework the basics and fix bad habits that inevitably develop.

[Syn7]

If combat skill is nothing more than just to be able to cover my head and not been knocked out by my opponent's punches, that's good enough reason for me to spend several hours daily to develop that skill.

I may be able to obtain my health from different sports. I can only develop my combat skill through MA training.

Uuuhmm, sort of. Advanced skills anyways. You can learn a lot about tumbling and agility through other activities that would transfer over well. But yes, if you want a strong punch, you have to hit something a lot.

[Kellen Bassette]

Why would you (general YOU) get into fight? Because you may think that you are not man enough if you don't fight? Why would you think that you may not be man enough? Because you don't know whether you can truly handle your opponent or not.

Fighters fight bro. Doesn't need to be any deeper than that. Little boys wrestle and spar naturally. You can tell who has fighting spirit and who doesn't when they're just kids.

I don't believe you can make a fighter. You can teach them everything they need to know and some people will still freeze up. Fighters want to fight and test themselves; others want something else from the art...there's a lot to attract various people.
Those who aren't fighters make excuses why it can't or shouldn't be used. Fighters ignore them and fight.

After you have WMD, you can then talk about world peace. There is no country on earth that talk about "world peace" and not owns WMD and that's for sure.

Nice insight.

[Kellen Bassette]

When I practiced XinYiLiuHe they advocated spitting in the opponents face as a precursor to punching them. They also use to suggested sniffing the air before making the decision to enter combat. I think it is to engage ones instinct.

That's interesting...one of my teachers would have us take a real quick deep breath through the nose before doing a form/sparring. He said it was like an oxygen high, if you do it fast and hard.

Don't know if there's anything to that at all, but it seemed to make you focus a lot better. May just be a mental thing...but people get cured by placebos sometimes, so who knows.