"The Spirit of Kung Fu" from Si Fu Leo Au Yeung.

[bawang]

Good to hear. Most TCMA schools seem to be getting more MMA inclined these days.

i wrote this like 5 years ago but let me repeat again, at 17 after high school i left home to big city 1000 km away with the goal of training kung fu , meeting people, and working at chinese restaurant to support myself financially. this was what my first teacher did in the 70s. i changed my mind within 5 months and went to college after meeting a bunch of fuked up people and the realization that my teacher was still working at restaurant at age 50 and can only be intimimate with prostitutes, as a direct consequence of pursuing a career in kung fu instruction. i met tons of people from all martial arts since my youth.

i mock arrogant kung fu people after witnessing too many naive people trying to use kung fu and get seriously injured along with unbearable humiliation. unless you have experienced it, you cannot understand the feeling of tremendous shame and loss after dedicating yourself for YEARS, putting in hard work, trusting in someone, investing time and effort, only to be destroyed mentally and physically.

[MightyB]

i wrote this like 5 years ago but let me repeat again, at 17 after high school i left home to big city 1000 km away with the goal of training kung fu , meeting people, and working at chinese restaurant to support myself financially. this was what my first teacher did in the 70s. i changed my mind within 5 months and went to college after meeting a bunch of fuked up people and the realization that my teacher was still working at restaurant at age 50 and can only be intimimate with prostitutes. i met tons of people from all martial arts since my youth.

i mock arrogant kung fu people after witnessing too many naive people trying to use kung fu and get seriously injured along with unbearable humiliation.

This I can agree with... unfortunately you do sometimes have to take the good with the bad. I've met some people with real skillz in areas that I personally wanted to improve that had questionable skills in the area of practical fighting ability. They'd say things that I knew were untrue and I'd just grit my teeth and keep my mouth shut. In the end, I felt it was worth it, but that's something you have to determine for yourself and each situation is unique. All of the really good competitive MMA guys I know do this too (take the good with the bad, keep their mouth shut, etc. I saw it in Judo when a top BJJ guy came in, donned a white belt, and humbly listened to a top thrower's comments about newaza. He put up with it even though he knew the newaza wasn't up to par with his BJJ because he was there to learn take downs. He got very good at takedowns btw)

[sanjuro_ronin]

are you still teaching sanjuro, how is training man.

Nah, life is far to complicated and busy for me to train anyone.
As for myself, after my SPM teacher left for Macao I was kind of "what now", but as He said before I left : You already know more "hows" than even me, you just gotta find out the "why" ( I think He might of read that in a fortune cookie...).
So, I train and I teach those that wanna learn ( some cops I know and a few bouncers when we get together) and try to find "my way".

[bawang]

This I can agree with... unfortunately you do sometimes have to take the good with the bad. I've met some people with real skillz in areas that I personally wanted to improve that had questionable skills in the area of practical fighting ability. They'd say things that I knew were untrue and I'd just grit my teeth and keep my mouth shut. In the end, I felt it was worth it, but that's something you have to determine for yourself and each situation is unique. All of the really good competitive MMA guys I know do this too (take the good with the bad, keep their mouth shut, etc. I saw it in Judo when a top BJJ guy came in, donned a white belt, and humbly listened to a top thrower's comments about newaza. He put up with it even though he knew the newaza wasn't up to par with his BJJ because he was there to learn take downs. He got very good at takedowns btw)

the thing is you are resigned to the situation of kung fu, and i am prepared to shape it to my vision. kung fu is now a very tiny cult sport/hobby, if you dedicate yourself to it and put work in, you WILL have a say and you WILL be somebody. but you must put in the work.

if you cannot find mr myagi then become him.

[MightyB]

the thing is you are resigned to the situation of kung fu, and i am fully prepared to shape it to my vision. kung fu is now a very tiny cult sport/hobby, even smaller int he coming years. if you dedicate yourself to it and put work in, you will have a say in the future of kung fu. if you cannot find mr myagi then become him.

you are overlooking the "faults" of some kung fu people because you feel you cannot change anything, only what you do. i verbally urinate on them because in 20 years i know i will have my say and the power to shape and influence kung fu and they already dont matter to me.

true, but I say you don't have to urinate on them. You can ignore them, or try to see if they have anything of value to offer just in case there's a nugget that maybe they're not even aware of... like the first video in this thread - he talked about using angles and he slightly moved forward on the intercept. That's something I was aware of, and did a little bit in my own interpretation of MA, but after watching the vid, I put more effort into moving in while moving off line just to see what would happen. Like I said, I'd do it (move in while cutting the angle) instinctively before, but now I'm trying to be more aware of it to analyze how it effects my opponent.

The fact of time is that, no matter what you're training, in 20yrs you'll be the Miyagi by default (instructors retire). Then it is your time to ad your influence to the martial arts.

[bawang]

The fact of time is that, no matter what you're training, in 20yrs you'll be the Miyagi by default (instructors retire). Then it is your time to ad your influence to the martial arts.

thats not the case with america. american culture is disposable and transient, it never repeats itself. in the 90s people still ackowledge kung fu, even if they saw it as a joke. today most of the millenial kids dont even know what kung fu is.

also with the dawn of internet and social networking, you cant really mentally abuse and milk someone and get away with it. the "endure suffering to learn oriental secret" angle also isnt there. student retention just isnt there. like i said before the old ways are not sustainable.

You can ignore them

after seeing someone choking on their own blood while spasming from neuron short circuit because they put faith in chop socky, i cant quite say the same. the kicker is after that the same people who taught him mocked him.

[MightyB]

i mock arrogant kung fu people after witnessing too many naive people trying to use kung fu and get seriously injured along with unbearable humiliation. unless you have experienced it, you cannot understand the feeling of tremendous shame and loss after dedicating yourself for YEARS, putting in hard work, trusting in someone, investing time and effort, only to be destroyed mentally and physically.

Well, that does suck and there's no excuse for that deception you endured.

But, here's the good news, and it sounds like you found a place - there is good MMA in your area. A lot of these people trace their MMA roots to Dan "the Beast" Severn - in addition to being a pioneer in MMA, he really was a great wrestler. The BJJ in Lansing is solid (Machado lineage), it comes from East West Martial Arts out of Canton MI. And the Judo in MI is actually quite good. Lansing/MSU is central in that world. Hopefully you found a good Gym to cross train and have fixed the Kung Fu.

[Jimbo]

I've always felt that, in general, if you want to study CMA, it's better to have a solid background in non-CMA fighting styles first, such as karate/boxing/kickboxing, judo/wrestling, or any others. Most of the best CMAists that I've personally known had extensive experience coming in, and it certainly helped me. There are exceptions, of course. And as with choosing any art/school/teacher, you must be picky...doubly so for CMA.

[Pete]

there is something called future shock, when society progress too fast for previous generation to adapt. then people hold on to relics from the past to ground them mentally.

most these people into kung fu are baby boomers. they hold on to their 1970 version of kung fu for nalstalgia, but it is a sickly nalstalgia. 1970s era kung fu is broken and is not sustainable for continuation of the art.

every few months some random guy comes and promotes a video with brazen title like "heroes of kung fu" "legends of shaolin" which consists of noodle arm transsexual form drills and the person looks like they are on disability assistance. videos like this caters to boomers. but in 20 years they will not matter. they will be gone like locusts, swept away by the winds of time. by then the few kung fu people left will have to clean all the sh1t stains that they left behind.

that means you and me. but probably just me. i have seen many come and ultimately go, and i dont blame them.

that's more like it! i can understand where your coming from now...and i agree. i honestly feel a little sick when i see some of the kung fu guys out there who look terrible to start with, then you see they are teaching people that ****

i'm gonna be there to clean that **** with you by the looks

the thing is you are resigned to the situation of kung fu, and i am prepared to shape it to my vision. kung fu is now a very tiny cult sport/hobby, if you dedicate yourself to it and put work in, you WILL have a say and you WILL be somebody. but you must put in the work.

if you cannot find mr myagi then become him.

posts like this are much better... quite motivational there man

[Kellen Bassette]

i am prepared to shape it to my vision. kung fu is now a very tiny cult sport/hobby, if you dedicate yourself to it and put work in, you WILL have a say and you WILL be somebody. but you must put in the work.

I agree, the old business model doesn't work. You see people rethinking their Kung Fu training all the time. There's an entire generation whose perception of Kung Fu is based on movies. This is why I think it's important to use the history to demonstrate that Kung Fu really was about fighting.

How the next generation perceives Kung Fu depends on what we are training, teaching, putting out there.

Kung Fu is so vast, we're always having arguments about what it is, what is or isn't traditional, we can put forward the best or worst of it, each generation decides the future tradition.

[A Joyful Proces]

Well Part 3 is now up, this one looks at choy lay fut, hung gar & the tid sin kuen, iron wire fist... martial arts as passed down through Lau Kar Leung.



Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nLBqmahkf0

Ta...