Between myth and reality

[zuti car]

I see my account is active again , but the forum almost died so...let's start little something here . I have wrote several articles about some popular subjects among martial artists and what I wrote may be little different from usual view on the matter . Let's start with the most popular one, let's start woth Bruce Lee

http://penglaimartialarts.blogspot.t...d-reality.html

[wckf92]

I see my account is active again , but the forum almost died so...let's start little something here . I have wrote several articles about some popular subjects among martial artists and what I wrote may be little different from usual view on the matter . Let's start with the most popular one, let's start woth Bruce Lee

http://penglaimartialarts.blogspot.t...d-reality.html

Hey Zuti. Good to see you are back.

I liked the article. And the Tang Hao dude. Makes me wonder if any of that printed material is still available today?

[zuti car]

Hey Zuti. Good to see you are back.

I liked the article. And the Tang Hao dude. Makes me wonder if any of that printed material is still available today?

Tang Hao's books can be found on Taiwan , there are several reprints , but only on Chinese , I am not sure that any of his books was translated on any other language .

[GLW]

Hey Zuti. Good to see you are back.

I liked the article. And the Tang Hao dude. Makes me wonder if any of that printed material is still available today?

You may be able to find some translations of works by Gu Luxin... He was sort of Tang Hao's next generation and continued to delve into the history of things. He also may have quoted from Tang Hao or referenced him in his writings.

[zuti car]

I saw on that other forum people argue about WSL and some of them claim(in short) his system is the only real fighting system. Also there are a lot of stories about his fighting abilities , countless fights ect. But is that even remotely true ? I don't have anything against WSL , he is just one of the latest examples of typical behavior in CMA . WSL participated in one official competition and he lost , everything else are just stories, and there is one common trait to all stories , none of them can be proved . Also , WSL's teacher Yip Man was tremendous fighter with almost supernatural abilities and countless fights. In reality , there are no record about thous fights . If we go further back in history we can Leung Jan who had over 300 fights of which many were with weapons . Is that believable ? How many fights professional fighters have during their careers ?Far less than 300 , average number would be 5 or 6 times smaller. And we all know , even with all the rules and protective gear most of these fighters suffer from various diseases as a direct consequence of full contact fights and they usually die sooner than expected . Now someone who had 300 fights without any rules and protection ( with no official record nor any evidence to support that) would die pretty young and probably crippled , and we know Leung Jan died in age of 78 , unusually old for his time period when average life span was around 40 , or even less. Back to Yip Man and his fights ,as I remember he fought various enemies , some of them were really dangerous people , I seriously doubt Yip Man would survive long with a life style of man who is ready to fight anyone any time , not to mention he broke the barrel of a gun with his fingers ...yet that brave man escaped from communists leaving his wife and two sons on their mercy... which bring us to WSL again and his "underground " fights with no rules. Hom many fights he had and how many he had won ? Of course he was not the only champion from Yip Man's school , there are only few people from that particular school who didn' t participated in thous "underground" fights and of course won most if not all of them.
Now , the fact about CMA is that people who practice them exaggerate a lot , too much actually , and even more as we go further in the past . If we stop for a second and think logically it is obvious that most of the things said about wck ancestors are simply impossible . Did WSL had some fights , probably yes , couple of them , like most of us . Did Yip Man had some fights , maybe , but probably not . Leung Jan was a doctor ,we don't know today how his art even looked like and about his fights , maybe he had a few and maybe not even one . But what would a martial style would be without a legendary fighter who could defeat anyone ? Especially when wck people have no success in full contact competitions . Of course this is not only the case with wck but with all other traditional CMA.
On the other hand, we don't have this kind of exaggeration in arts that actually fight successfully in various types of full contact competitions , boxing , kick boxing , wrestling , thai boxing ect , they have no need for that , they have proved they can fight.

[sanjuro_ronin]

WSL may have been the greatest WC fighter ever, even the incarnation of martial power itself !!
It doesn't mean ANYTHING in regards to the skill of those that came after him, those that were NOT him.
Having an uber-awesome fighter as a teacher does NOT equate to having fighting skills.
Only fighting does that.
No one of ANY lineage can say they cam fight because their teacher can fight.
No.
Only those that CAN and HAVE fought can lay claim to that.

[zuti car]

WSL may have been the greatest WC fighter ever, even the incarnation of martial power itself !!
It doesn't mean ANYTHING in regards to the skill of those that came after him, those that were NOT him.
Having an uber-awesome fighter as a teacher does NOT equate to having fighting skills.
Only fighting does that.
No one of ANY lineage can say they cam fight because their teacher can fight.
No.
Only those that CAN and HAVE fought can lay claim to that.

Totally agree .There is one other thing , being a great fighter has nothing to do with being a great teacher . Many professional fighters actually have several different instructors for different areas of training and development . Fighters and teachers\instructors\trainers have totally different set of skills . What I do not understand is that when it comes to kung fu ancestors all logic seems to disappear from the mind of the practitioners . No one takes stories about king Arthur or Robin Hood for historical facts but people have no problems to believe in Ng Mui (a nun who lived in a male Buddhist monastery!!!! If nothing else at last this is impossible) , or 300 (weapon) duels of Leung Jan , breaking a heavy frame revolver with fingers by Yip Man ( these old pistols are so robust that you need a sledge hammer and fair amount of time to break them). And thous "underground" fights , all styles , all grandmasters , masters or whatever from HK fought and all won. So, who lost? Apparently no one , they all won .

[Jimbo]

The really weird thing about Bruce Lee is the persistent myth among many people that he was the greatest MAist and fighter that ever lived. As proof, many point out how fast he was, and how he 'kicked everyone's butts' in his movies. Well, it's not hard to kick EVERYONE'S butts in choreographed fight scenes, especially when Bruce himself choreographed, or had a big hand in choreographing, his own onscreen fights. In fact, when you have the that type of control, you can make your opponents look like complete fools, when in reality it wouldn't be so easy.

It's generally known that when someone is a professional fighter who begins crossing over into movies, if they're still fighting pro, their fighting suffers. Or their fighting career is over or near the end. BL was a talented MAist, but he was NOT a professional fighter in any way whatsoever, and when he became a star, he was making movies full-time. Yet the myths persist about BL's incomparable fighting abilities during real-life challenges on and off sets. You cannot train to be a 'top-class fighter' and be a movie star at the same time.

BL not only borrowed ideas from Chinese sources but also a lot from Japanese writings and other sources as well. Which is totally fine. But when BL quoted these ideas or concepts, people often attributed them to BL's own genius and originality that broke away from all MA traditions, CMA or otherwise. The idea of freeing oneself from the confines of 'style' and acting/reacting fluidly and naturally was NOT a new concept when BL came along, but was already in writings hundreds of years old. Some of which BL quoted almost word for word, only replacing sword-fighting concepts with references to empty-handed fighting..


I say all this as someone who has long respected BL for his real talents and his accomplishments. But it's the truth.

[zuti car]

I saw many people worship Bruce Lee like some kind of deity , same thing can be seen with some other "grandmasters" but it is the most obvious with bruce . Not once I was attacked because the article above . Funny thing is , there is no way to make Bruce's worshipers to start to use logic , to start to think .

[Bai Chi]

Brufe Ree is the bestest eva, yous heretics. No one can compete wiff his awesomeness. Hiiiyaaaa!

[zuti car]

Let's go to the next subject, the 'Qi" what is and what isn't

http://penglaimartialarts.blogspot.t...-question.html

[guy b.]

The most attractive thing about WSL's method is that it fits together and is coherent, makes sense, doesn't contain internal contradictions, and works.

[zuti car]

The most attractive thing about WSL's method is that it fits together and is coherent, makes sense, doesn't contain internal contradictions, and works.

So are most of the other systems ,like 95% of them

[zuti car]

Emei kung fu, the truth and the myth

http://penglaimartialarts.blogspot.t...d-reality.html

[zuti car]

Interesting facts about Wudang kung fu

http://penglaimartialarts.blogspot.t...d-reality.html