Crabs in a Bucket

[pazman]

Crab Mentality

Gongfu, and martial arts in general, tends to attract some pretty interesting personalities. This isn't bad, and some of the more eccentric people are pretty funny to laugh at/with like this guy. But I can't help feeling that a lot of the community, both here and in China, has become a "bucket of crabs".

I know not everybody always agrees with members like Mr. Ross or Mr. Wang, but they have a public persona and always having something worth thinking/talking about when they post.

Others, like Robinhood/Hardwork are these virtual crab babies which have no public persona and no sense in honoring the traditions they practice.

So, what are you doing to improve the state of gongfu?

[bawang]

the biggest failure in kung fu is failing to help the little skinny nerd beat up his big strong bully.

[pazman]

the biggest failure in kung fu is failing to help the little skinny nerd beat up his big strong bully.

Yep.

What's sad is that coaching the skinny nerdy guys and training them enough to be able to stand up to jock bullies isn't rocket science. Learning how to fight with some basic skill really should only take six months of training. Some teachers might still be having their students stand in santi or learning wubuquan or some ****. Those things are worthwhile to some, but if you are training those things instead of learning how to fight, then we should call it exercise, not martial art.

Of course, guys like Robinhood can stand back and laugh at how that's just "body level" stuff, but we don't see these "mouth boxers" out there proving their game or improving the world. I wonder if Kano Jigoro had to deal with people like him.

BTW, Bawang, you do a great service to this forum anytime you bring up historical documents or your keen cultural insights. You should write a concise pamphlet to shatter people's fantasies of gongfu, so I can hand it out to the next mealy-mouthed idiot who asks me if I teach snake engine or where he can buy silk pajamas.

[bawang]

BTW, Bawang, you do a great service to this forum anytime you bring up historical documents or your keen cultural insights. You should write a concise pamphlet to shatter people's fantasies of gongfu, so I can hand it out to the next mealy-mouthed idiot who asks me if I teach snake engine or where he can buy silk pajamas.

no words can shatter the fantasy. its up to the person themselves.


there are people who find life meaningless and fantasy fills their void.

[Scott R. Brown]

no words can shatter the fantasy. its up to the person themselves.


there are people who find life meaningless and fantasy fills their void.

For some people, fantasy is more real than reality!

[Kellen Bassette]

Learning how to fight with some basic skill really should only take six months of training.

That's the truth. I don't understand why the first 6 months to a year of training wouldn't be fundamental fighting skills. After that start teaching the forms and esoteric stuff.

It should be like some sort of rite of passage anyway. Make them competent with fighting then they can have the culture, style and what not. Instead people are immediately taught the abstract parts of the art and more or less expected to "figure it out" over the next 10 years,

[David Jamieson]

I don't think that blanket statement applies either.
For one thing, you are not going to learn to fight unless you want to.

Having said that, I've seen guys train for a year that still aren't that great at fighting even in a safe environment.

too much bravado in that statement. Plus, if you got a wheezer coming in, too skinny no strength or too fat and no coordination, that six months is going to be used just to get them to a point where they are in shape and can start the training towards fighting.

If you are fit, strong, have a martial arts background etc, then yeah, by all means, if you want it you can learn to fight inside of 6 months by training to fight.

You are not going to touch on much esoteric knowledge and you won't be learning a system really if you are in a kung fu school, you'll be learning the typical stuff.

But if you stay and continue, you will learn more as time goes on. Eventually you will face the law of diminishing returns and no longer be learning big new things and instead you will be repeating old familiar things.

the only way out of that is to continually get comfortable with being uncomfortable and going and subjecting yourself to new learning and new people and new methods.

After a while, you should become somewhat refined and aware of what is best for you.

And that takes years and I don't care who you are or what you are doing. It takes years.

Even GSP wasn't great in 6 months, he has spent years refining himself as a fighter distinctly and only as a fighter. You know what, he will face decline and will fall back in the ranks as the others climb. And so will you each and if you never did get there. it's funny that you would think you still have time to do so now.

There's my .02

[YouKnowWho]

That's the truth. I don't understand why the first 6 months to a year of training wouldn't be fundamental fighting skills. After that start teaching the forms and esoteric stuff.

It should be like some sort of rite of passage anyway. Make them competent with fighting then they can have the culture, style and what not. Instead people are immediately taught the abstract parts of the art and more or less expected to "figure it out" over the next 10 years,

This is the problem for the TCMA. The window to test your combat skill is small. The day that you have a full time job, get marry, and have kids, the day that you don't want to get injury in full contact testing. On the other extream, you can still develop your "snake engine" when you are 80 years old.

Which one should you develop first? Combat skill or snake engine?

[Robinhood]

This is the problem for the TCMA. The window to test your combat skill is small. The day that you have a full time job, get marry, and have kids, the day that you don't want to get injury in full contact testing. On the other extream, you can still develop your "snake engine" when you are 80 years old.

Which one should you develop first? Combat skill or snake engine?

You always do external first, you will progress fast in the beginning , but peak out quickly, then you look for other ways to progress further, if you want to progress.

[Flusher]

This is the problem for the TCMA. The window to test your combat skill is small.

The problem for TCMA is that the majority of folks doing just that, aren't doing so well.

[PalmStriker]

That's the truth. I don't understand why the first 6 months to a year of training wouldn't be fundamental fighting skills. After that start teaching the forms and esoteric stuff.

It should be like some sort of rite of passage anyway. Make them competent with fighting then they can have the culture, style and what not. Instead people are immediately taught the abstract parts of the art and more or less expected to "figure it out" over the next 10 years,

Kungfu in a nutshell.

[IronFist]

Yep.

What's sad is that coaching the skinny nerdy guys and training them enough to be able to stand up to jock bullies isn't rocket science. Learning how to fight with some basic skill really should only take six months of training. Some teachers might still be having their students stand in santi or learning wubuquan or some ****. Those things are worthwhile to some, but if you are training those things instead of learning how to fight, then we should call it exercise, not martial art.

Of course, guys like Robinhood can stand back and laugh at how that's just "body level" stuff, but we don't see these "mouth boxers" out there proving their game or improving the world. I wonder if Kano Jigoro had to deal with people like him.

BTW, Bawang, you do a great service to this forum anytime you bring up historical documents or your keen cultural insights. You should write a concise pamphlet to shatter people's fantasies of gongfu, so I can hand it out to the next mealy-mouthed idiot who asks me if I teach snake engine or where he can buy silk pajamas.

Snake engine?

[GeneChing]

I also administer this forum, but I often wonder if that really does anything to 'improve the state of gongfu'.

Funny thing, I remember 'crabs in a bucket' as a test in lion dancing. The hongbao would be placed in a bucket under a pile of live crabs. One of my lion dance instructors told me of this test, but I've never seen it first hand. He said the solution was to take the rod or butterfly sword (kept in traditional lion dance heads, just in case) and smash the top crab. Then the other crabs would swarm over the corpse to devour it.

Hmm, how oddly metaphoric. Nice topic, pazman. Good timing.

[SPJ]

genie in a bottle

genie is all powerful

however he or she may be confined in a bottle.

your fu may be good against many things

however, no matter how powerful they are, there is a counter measure.

[Jimbo]

There's a lot of great knowledge shared by many CMAists, but IMO the kung fu community has always been rife with negative gossip, politicking, etc. I've seen it both in Taiwan and the U.S. I never saw anywhere near the same degree of that when I did Kenpo, JMA, or KMA.

Many years ago, I also participated in some of it, but at some point things changed, and I saw such sniping for the waste of time it is. It's not even entertaining, IMO. Because non-constructive sniping is always based on jealousy, insecurity, and egotism. Meanwhile, the rest of the MA world think the inter-CMA sniping and maybe CMA itself is a joke if they think of it at all.

My CLF Sifu told us that he avoids the political squabbles because it takes energy away from what is important, and that's training.