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Thread: Ancient Sanda

  1. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I don't have the article to site, but I read something to the affect that Taiwan had maintained its' Kuoshu fights during the period that formal martial arts training was banned in China. After the Chinese government standardized Wushu taolu, there was criticism coming out of Taiwan for the lack of full contact fighting on the mainland. It was suggested that this loss of face prompted China's organization of sanda in the late '60's, early '70's.

    IYO is their any truth to that assertion?
    After the CCP vicotory in the civil war, CIVILIANS were prevented from practicing application based martial arts on the mainland. That did NOT stop the military.

    I do however have reason to doubt that this was even a universal or enforced policy. The 1954 Guangdong sports almanac listed CTS and his si-hing Lei Fei San as the 3rd and 2nd place winners of the PROVINCIAL sparring championships (both had lost to a Hsing Yi fighter)... as far as I am aware Lei Fei San nor the Hsing Yi guy were military nor was the competition a military competition???

    At the same time on Taiwan, they had the ANNUAL Lei Tai events, but as Willim CC Chen expressed to me once, that meant you got to fight ONCE A YEAR.... he said you got one, maybe two fights a year and then nothing....
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    Quote Originally Posted by taai gihk yahn View Post
    well, like LKFMDC - he's a genuine Kung Fu Hero™
    Quote Originally Posted by Taixuquan99 View Post
    As much as I get annoyed when it gets derailed by the array of strange angry people that hover around him like moths, his good posts are some of my favorites.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I think he goes into a cave to meditate and recharge his chi...and bite the heads off of bats, of course....

  2. #17
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    I'm inclined to agree with lkfmdc for the most part here

    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    (minus whatever minor, necessary adjustments are made for the gear, rules, ring,)
    However, I wouldn't consider gear, rules and ring minor. The improvement in sparring gear has allowed us to do a lot more than before with a greater degree of safety. Also advances in medicine are a major factor - just imagine what most of the pro MMA fighters might look like using pre-WWI medical methods. The rules are incredibly important and something that a lot of armchair martial artists totally overlook. These define the sport and any athlete or coach worth their salt knows how to play into them. And of course, the ring is a huge factor. Even Sunzi talked about the terrain. It's a completely different environment when dealing with a leitai vs. a cage vs. ropes & turnbuckles. But all that being said, fighting probably hasn't changed that much as human bodies haven't changed that much (we'll overlook performance enhancers by filing that in with medical advancements ), so the core is the same, just the terms might have changed.
    Gene Ching
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  3. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post

    I'm inclined to agree with lkfmdc for the most part here
    I won't tell anyone if you won't

    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post

    However, I wouldn't consider gear, rules and ring minor. The improvement in sparring gear has allowed us to do a lot more than before with a greater degree of safety. Also advances in medicine are a major factor - just imagine what most of the pro MMA fighters might look like using pre-WWI medical methods. The rules are incredibly important and something that a lot of armchair martial artists totally overlook. These define the sport and any athlete or coach worth their salt knows how to play into them. And of course, the ring is a huge factor. Even Sunzi talked about the terrain. It's a completely different environment when dealing with a leitai vs. a cage vs. ropes & turnbuckles. But all that being said, fighting probably hasn't changed that much as human bodies haven't changed that much (we'll overlook performance enhancers by filing that in with medical advancements ), so the core is the same, just the terms might have changed.
    fantastic post Gene, right on the money
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    Quote Originally Posted by taai gihk yahn View Post
    well, like LKFMDC - he's a genuine Kung Fu Hero™
    Quote Originally Posted by Taixuquan99 View Post
    As much as I get annoyed when it gets derailed by the array of strange angry people that hover around him like moths, his good posts are some of my favorites.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I think he goes into a cave to meditate and recharge his chi...and bite the heads off of bats, of course....

  4. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    However, I wouldn't consider gear, rules and ring minor. The improvement in sparring gear has allowed us to do a lot more than before with a greater degree of safety. Also advances in medicine are a major factor - just imagine what most of the pro MMA fighters might look like using pre-WWI medical methods. The rules are incredibly important and something that a lot of armchair martial artists totally overlook. These define the sport and any athlete or coach worth their salt knows how to play into them. And of course, the ring is a huge factor. Even Sunzi talked about the terrain. It's a completely different environment when dealing with a leitai vs. a cage vs. ropes & turnbuckles.
    This is all true; and playing to the rules is a very important element of sport fighting. I down played it because of the people who claim they cannot test their deadliez skillz in a sport format. I think that attitude is a cop out.

    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    But all that being said, fighting probably hasn't changed that much as human bodies haven't changed that much (we'll overlook performance enhancers by filing that in with medical advancements ), so the core is the same, just the terms might have changed.
    This being, the main point of my statement....
    Quote Originally Posted by YouKnowWho View Post
    This is 100% TCMA principle. It may be used in non-TCMA also. Since I did learn it from TCMA, I have to say it's TCMA principle.
    Quote Originally Posted by YouKnowWho View Post
    We should not use "TCMA is more than combat" as excuse for not "evolving".

    You can have Kung Fu in cooking, it really has nothing to do with fighting!

  5. #20
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    Some people just aren't competitors

    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I down played it because of the people who claim they cannot test their deadliez skillz in a sport format. I think that attitude is a cop out.
    There is a place for those who don't compete in contemporary martial arts. For example, I am a big supporter of Tai Chi as therapy and for the elderly. My mom takes it and she's never going to compete, never going to use it in a fight, but it keeps her healthy and happy and that's just fantastic. So competition isn't the 'be all, end all' for martial arts. However, I agree with you, Kellen - the ol' too deadliez argument is reactionary. And sport combat is awesome, in every form, when taken to its highest level. I even love top level wushu taolu. But then, I love rhythmic gymnastics. It's all about skillz. And competition is one of the greatest arenas to showcase skillz. It's honest. You have to play by the rules.

    Quote Originally Posted by lkfmdc View Post
    I won't tell anyone if you won't
    I'm getting so tired of you telling me this.
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  6. #21

  7. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    There is a place for those who don't compete in contemporary martial arts. For example, I am a big supporter of Tai Chi as therapy and for the elderly. My mom takes it and she's never going to compete, never going to use it in a fight, but it keeps her healthy and happy and that's just fantastic. So competition isn't the 'be all, end all' for martial arts. However, I agree with you, Kellen - the ol' too deadliez argument is reactionary. And sport combat is awesome, in every form, when taken to its highest level. I even love top level wushu taolu. But then, I love rhythmic gymnastics. It's all about skillz. And competition is one of the greatest arenas to showcase skillz. It's honest. You have to play by the rules.
    I don't think everyone should compete...but I do believe MMA or sanda sparring is one of the best and most practical means to test your TCMA fighting skills.

    I do however, want elderly, Tai Chi cage matches...with the option to use walkers and canes as weapons...
    Quote Originally Posted by YouKnowWho View Post
    This is 100% TCMA principle. It may be used in non-TCMA also. Since I did learn it from TCMA, I have to say it's TCMA principle.
    Quote Originally Posted by YouKnowWho View Post
    We should not use "TCMA is more than combat" as excuse for not "evolving".

    You can have Kung Fu in cooking, it really has nothing to do with fighting!

  8. #23
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    Been there, done that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I do believe MMA or sanda sparring is one of the best and most practical means to test your TCMA fighting skills.
    It's certainly one of the safest and socially condoned methods.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    walkers and canes as weapons...
    We already use canes. Lots of canes. Obviously I need to develop a traditional Shaolin walker set.
    Gene Ching
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  9. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post

    There is a place for those who don't compete in contemporary martial arts.
    I have said this before, the discussions here quickly get off track due to language. "Sport" and "competition"... I prefer the words that Kano used in Judo; randori and shiai

    Shiai/competiton is NOT for everyone, clearly so... but when people are young and in good health if they are doing martial arts they should be doing "randori" or working "alive"

    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post

    For example, I am a big supporter of Tai Chi as therapy and for the elderly.
    Definitely, and the hing-dai and I are working on a theraputic version of the Gam Gong Lihn Gong for people interested in health but not necessarily combat

    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post

    the ol' too deadliez argument is reactionary.
    that is one word for it
    Last edited by lkfmdc; 10-24-2013 at 09:24 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by taai gihk yahn View Post
    well, like LKFMDC - he's a genuine Kung Fu Hero™
    Quote Originally Posted by Taixuquan99 View Post
    As much as I get annoyed when it gets derailed by the array of strange angry people that hover around him like moths, his good posts are some of my favorites.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I think he goes into a cave to meditate and recharge his chi...and bite the heads off of bats, of course....

  10. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    Obviously I need to develop a traditional Shaolin walker set.
    Do it. Then we can take bets on how long it will take Sin The to lift it, perform it incorrectly and claim his version as the original.



    I will not derail my own threads, I will not derail my own threads, I will not...
    Quote Originally Posted by YouKnowWho View Post
    This is 100% TCMA principle. It may be used in non-TCMA also. Since I did learn it from TCMA, I have to say it's TCMA principle.
    Quote Originally Posted by YouKnowWho View Post
    We should not use "TCMA is more than combat" as excuse for not "evolving".

    You can have Kung Fu in cooking, it really has nothing to do with fighting!

  11. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    Modern Chinese military experiment with sanda began in the 1920's. Muay Thai adopting western rules began in the '30's, about the same time as the founding of the oldest Karate schools. Just for some perspective on the age of sanda as a curriculum.
    Hi,
    To add to the original discussion, Sanda is a more recent term to describe free fighting, unlike Sanshou which is much older. Professor Ma Mingda has a good article on this. Also scholar Lin Boyuan demonstrates that the term Sanda appeared in official publications after the reds took over, if my memory is correct sometime in the 1960s.

    Combat sports like western boxing were banned in China in 1959 and the last traditional martial arts competition in China took place in 1955 or so. It took several years before some of this practices were allowed under the guidelines of the Sports Department (boxing was allowed in the 1980s).

    Regarding the statement of a standardized Sanshou (not Sanda) program in the 1920s at the Whampoa Military Academy, it is not accurate. At the Academy there was a H2H combat program based on a traditional Chinese martial art, in this case Xingyiquan. The program included the five elements, linking form and a two person set. The actions from the 5 elements were applied to empty hand, dagger, rifle-bayonet and western type saber fighting.

    Other traditional systems such as Lien Bu Quan were used for commando training, Qing Nian Quan for basic training, pici etc. However it appears the Guoshu Guan did try to create a standarized set of techniques/rules to be used in the leitai, but at the time of the first National Examination, those who fought did so using the skills learnt from their repsective martial arts style. And here lies the difference between what was taught to military units during the republican period vs. the PLA.

    At some point the PLA started to develop their own training methods based on traditional and maybe modern methods of training, one of the old routines (1960s?) differs from the routines taught nowadays. The PLA teaches some units and civilian students the Junti Quan routines of which there are 4, the Wu Jing has their own set of empty hand and weapons routines such the dagger (with applications), riot police also have their own routines with baton, baton-shield, there is also bayonet fighting etc. In short, the PLA’s training methods do not come from a specific martial art as was the case during the republican period and the term Sanda was first used after the comunist take over.

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    Some conversation in the Shaolin forum about sanda existing, (or not) in old Gong Fu, has derailed the dead horse beating that was going on. I thought maybe we could discuss the topic here....
    sanda means free fighting. there are some longfist 2 man forms called two man san da, two man san shou

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  13. #28
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    Two-person forms are usually called duilian.

    And there are taolu for sanda.
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  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    And there are taolu for sanda.
    Don't remind me.

  15. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by lkfmdc View Post
    After the CCP vicotory in the civil war, CIVILIANS were prevented from practicing application based martial arts on the mainland. That did NOT stop the military.

    I do however have reason to doubt that this was even a universal or enforced policy. The 1954 Guangdong sports almanac listed CTS and his si-hing Lei Fei San as the 3rd and 2nd place winners of the PROVINCIAL sparring championships (both had lost to a Hsing Yi fighter)... as far as I am aware Lei Fei San nor the Hsing Yi guy were military nor was the competition a military competition???

    At the same time on Taiwan, they had the ANNUAL Lei Tai events, but as Willim CC Chen expressed to me once, that meant you got to fight ONCE A YEAR.... he said you got one, maybe two fights a year and then nothing....
    This is correct... Lei Tai events were annual in Taiwan when I was there. But how many fights you got depended on your division. I would say on average I fought 3 to 6 times per year. But some divisions were more sparse than that for certain.

    We did train all year for the next year's event, but if you wanted to fight outsiders prior to the next contest you kinda had to resort to picking them in the street. Not that I would know anything about that... I just heard.
    One of these days the world is going to become so politically correct that it will scare itself out of existence.

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