Why is Lineage so important to some people?

[joedoe]

Lineage is important mainly when it is claimed. It bothers me when schools make up some c0ck and bull story about their lineage. Lineage is a way to gauge what you are getting. Kinda like how some universities are considered better than others based on the calibre of past graduates.

Otherwise, lineage is not that important if what you are learning is worthwhile.

[Chang Style Novice]

Lineage is only important inasmuch as it is a guarantee that you are learning something worth knowing.

[Laughing Cow]

Mongrels also got a lineage.


IMO, lineage doesn't guarantee much it only shows from whom your teachers has learned and his teacher from whom.

It does not show if your teacher or even his teacher is actually qualified/certified to teach or if he has a good grasp of the material taught to him.

Lineage is a good starting point to start your research, but lineage by itself IMO is useless.

And becoming more and more a waste of time considering we are getting more and more politics in CMA these days.

Cheers.

[Vapour]

It's all depends on what you mean by the word "lineage"

Among (some) traditional chinese masters, they differentiate students between normal students and closed door students. To become closed door student, you have to go through certain religious ritual and only then your instructor become sifu. You only get full transmission of the knowledge of the style afterward. Full transmission could be neigon practice or secret forms or it could be tiny bit of detail in the technique which was left out in the normal lesson.

So if your style has this baishi system, lineage is very very important. If your style doesn't, it's more of a issue of respect to the predecessor which is no less important.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Vapour
It's all depends on what you mean by the word "lineage"

Among (some) traditional chinese masters, they differentiate students between normal students and closed door students. To become closed door student, you have to go through certain religious ritual and only then your instructor become sifu. You only get full transmission of the knowledge of the style afterward. Full transmission could be neigon practice or secret forms or it could be tiny bit of detail in the technique which was left out in the normal lesson.

So if your style has this baishi system, lineage is very very important. If your style doesn't, it's more of a issue of respect to the predecessor which is no less important.

Baisi is not necessarily a "religious ritual". In fact, it's very rarely religious at all.

[SevenStar]

Royce would choke lineage.

[SevenStar]

seriously though, no, it doesn't matter, IMO. Lineage is not what I look at. What I look at is whether or not the school has anything to teach me that I find useful. If they do, and they are good at it, and I am properly taught, who cares what the lineage is?

[joedoe]

Lineage in and of itself is not that important unless someone claims a particular lineage and their claim is false. Then I would have trouble trusting that school/teacher because of their false claims.

[Serpent]

Agreed. If a school/teacher doesn't claim a lineage, then no worries. But, if the school/teacher does claim a lineage then it is very important that the claimed lineage is authentic.

[SevenStar]

yeah, I agree with you there. That's more of a trust issue than a lineage issue though

[Vapour]

Originally posted by SevenStar
Royce would choke lineage.

Interesting point. I've been to their site. Though BJJ doesn't use the word lineage, they make it very clear about where and who they got their jujutu. For them, lineage is about respect to the past and that's all.

As long as lineage is about the respect, it's fine. When it's used as "my dad is better than your dad" kid of thing, that is where the problem starts.

[Vapour]

Originally posted by Serpent


Baisi is not necessarily a "religious ritual". In fact, it's very rarely religious at all.

No what I meant was that to become a baishi student, you have to go through an initiation ritual which is often religious (daoist) in nature.

In our organization, to make taijiquan as martial arts works in real fight, it is expected that you get hit at least once by the opponent to create opening. So learning Neigon and being able to absorb hit is fundamental to fighting tactics in our style.

In our school neigon is taught to the closed door student only. (btw, I'm not yet a closed door student.) But thing about our school is that this closed door student thing is not so closed as the most people think. It's more like once you got a black belt, they ask you whether you want to become closed door student. (o.k. this didn't come off right, it's not that too easy but you get my drift :-)) Idea is that if you keep your arts too secret, it's one sure way to make the art extinct as lots of martial arts style in China has become.

[dezhen2001]

why get hit once ot create an opening why not open your own door!

neigong or no neigong... if someone stabs you so u can have an opening its not much use.

dawood

[davethedragon]

IMO Lineage is not that important- one of the things i noticed when studying wing chun were the differences in the lineages the slight difference in weight distribution in the wsl lineage and in the leung ting for example. not huge differences essentially but the teachers i met made such a big deal dismissing one lineage as useless an not "real" wing chun.
the basic principles of wing chun IMO are the same but people tend to want to stamp their superiority on a certain lineage.
Lineage doesnt amount to much when in a real combat situation.

[yenhoi]

What do you mean legitimate?

Do your hands care in the ring or street?