TCMA Survival

[Jimbo]

you funee chinee guy. I don't know about the other styles but WingChun is being kept alive in the movies.

Hi.

Wing Chun won't have any problems with its survival because it's the most famous, popular and widespread CMA system in the world after Taiji. When most non-CMA people even mention CMA in a martial context, they are almost always referring to WC.

[boxerbilly]

Nice to see you posting again Bwang.

[boxerbilly]

Truthfully all the traditional arts regardless their origin likely took a significant hit after the Gracie's and the UFC. It leads many people maybe most people to believe traditional arts have no effectiveness. Simply not true.

A while back I was corresponding with a BJJ guy I believe in the Washington State area. He told me he really misses the traditional arts. Said he walked away from them. He studied Japanese/ Chinese arts. I forget which, for 20+ years and then jumped the Gracie band wagon and slowly left it all behind. He said, he tried for awhile to keep his traditional school open but eventually the BJJ classes over took the others and he stopped teaching and practicing the other stuff and focused solely on BJJ. He said he regrets it now. His hips and knees are screwed up for all the ground work. He said it really has taken its toll on his body.

Anyway. I love all the arts and appreciate most of the people in them.

[mickey]

Greetings,

I thank those who kept the subject matter on topic and serious. And I thank you for your points of view. I have found that TCMA requires a level of immersion that may be best honored by stating at a young age. Additionally, progress may be faster because the commercial aspect ($$$) is removed. Liability costs are removed. It is simply hardcore training over a course of years. The fighting traditions are kept intact and advanced. This does not mean that someone who practices within the family/sect is shut off from outside training. Right now we do not have the structures that will allow such training that disciplines such as ballet and gymnastics have.

Going all out public means that some things are sacrificed: healing modalities particular to certain styles, deadly techniques, alchemy, etc.-- important components for the full development of the human being.

mickey

[Jimbo]

I agree that it's best to start CMA when young.

In my observation and experience, it also helps to come into CMA training with previous training from outside of CMA. Of course there are exceptions, and many may argue the contrary. But I've simply noticed that those who come from a considerable karate, judo, boxing, or other background that emphasizes a lot of sparring, IF they are physically and mentally adaptable, often progress faster in CMA, especially in the fighting aspects, than many people who've only trained CMA. I know that my own previous karate, judo and kickboxing experience helped me when I got into CMA, and I've seen it that way with others as well.

[mickey]

Greetings Jimbo,

It may be that TCMA attracts certain types of people in this country, people who are non confrontational, who are into it for the exercise, or who really joy the aesthetics. The "loose cannon" or "kung fu nut" seems to pose a problem when they are so needed. When it comes to fighting, with the possible exception of the kung fu nut and loose cannons, dominating the straight line can prove to be a challenge. So, I do agree with your observations to a degree. Fighting experience helps a person understand what NOW is and shakes them away from the sequential thinking of the "and then, and then, and then...." often trained in forms and one step sparring techniques.

mickey

[Jimbo]

Good points, mickey.

Regarding the teaching of applications, some of the older teachers who were not so open with actual usage, on the rare occasions they would actually demonstrate applications to a student, often did so in a gimmicky manner. Meaning, having the student do some contrived (usually slow) attack, and the teacher, with a big grin on his face, quickly pulls off some 'clever' little maneuver on the mostly stationary, awe-struck student that probably wouldn't work against someone not in awe or cooperating. Then it becomes "Then if you try to counter this way, I do this; if you counter that, I do this." And on and on. Almost like handing out a little tidbit as if to say, "This is all in the forms, so if you just practice those, you can naturally pull off this secret move." My very first CMA teacher in Taiwan was an older teacher of mainly Long Fist who on rare occasions did this, and I've seen other, usually older generation Chinese teachers do it as well. Of course, such 'tricks' are rarely if ever drilled with any realism to make it anywhere near functional, and the students, though impressed, are usually still clueless afterwards. This is one type of 'tradition' or behavior that holds back many CMA.

Another counter-productive behavior among many CMAists is negative gossip. Many MAists of different categories do this, but it seems particularly rife in CMA. Like schoolgirls. In years past, I partook in some gossip, but the words of my CLF Sifu came back to me: "Gossiping about other people has nothing at all to do with training. It's a waste of time. Just concentrate on getting better at your own kung fu." I'm paraphrasing a bit, but that was the gist of it. The truth is, people gossip about others to feel better about themselves, but NOBODY outside of maybe a small group of people cares even a bit. Abandoning negative gossip about other CMA/CMAists would definitely be one step in the right direction.

[GeneChing]

From a strictly economic aspect (something I can see quite clearly from Tiger Claw & MartialArtsMart), we aren't seeing a significant decline in sales or TCMA accounts. There is an issue with supply. There are fewer manufacturers of traditional weapons and gear at an affordable price. Most have gone for modern wushu gear or very high end.

Nevertheless, here's a newspiece that thinks TCMA is on the decline in HK:

Exit the Dragon? Kung Fu, Once Central to Hong Kong Life, Is Waning
By CHARLOTTE YANG AUG. 22, 2016


Mak Che Kong, a kung fu master, giving a lesson in a park in the Kowloon section of Hong Kong. He had to shut his studio when his rent soared. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

HONG KONG — Bruce Lee was 14 years old, and on the losing end of several street fights with local gang members, when he took up kung fu.

It was 1955, and Hong Kong was bustling with schools teaching a range of kung fu styles, including close-combat techniques and a method using a daunting weapon known as the nine-dragon trident.

Mr. Lee’s decision paid off. After perfecting moves like his one-inch punch and leaping kick under the tutelage of a grand master, he became an international star, introducing kung fu to the world in films like “Enter the Dragon” in 1973.

Decades later, cue the dragon’s exit.

The kung fu culture that Mr. Lee helped popularize — and that gave the city a gritty, exotic image in the eyes of foreigners — is in decline. Hong Kong’s streets are safer, with fewer murders by the fierce crime organizations known as triads that figured in so many kung fu films. And its real estate is among the world’s most expensive, making it difficult for training studios to afford soaring rents.

Gone are the days when “kung fu was a big part of people’s cultural and leisure life,” said Mak King Sang Ricardo, the author of a history of martial arts in Hong Kong. “After work, people would go to martial arts schools, where they’d cook dinner together and practice kung fu until 11 at night.”

With a shift in martial arts preferences, the rise of video games — more teenagers play Pokémon Go in parks here than practice a roundhouse kick — and a perception among young people that kung fu just isn’t cool, longtime martial artists worry that kung fu’s future is bleak.


A class at one of the few kung fu schools remaining in Yau Ma Tei, once a center for martial arts. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

“When I was growing up so many people learned kung fu, but that’s no longer the case,” said Leung Ting, 69, who has been teaching wing chun, a close-combat technique, for 50 years. “Sadly, I think Chinese martial arts are more popular overseas than in their home now.”

According to Mr. Leung’s organization, the International WingTsun Association, former apprentices have opened 4,000 branches in more than 65 countries, but only five in Hong Kong.

Few kung fu schools remain in Yau Ma Tei, a district of Kowloon that was once the center for martial arts. Nathan Road — where the young Bruce Lee learned his craft from Ip Man (often spelled Yip Man), the legendary teacher who was the subject of Wong Kar-wai’s 2013 film “The Grandmaster” — is now lined with cosmetic shops and pharmacies that cater to tourists from the mainland.

Though he lives in Yau Ma Tei, Tony Choi, a recent college graduate, has never been tempted to check out the remaining schools. Mr. Choi, 22, said that “kung fu just never came to mind.”

He added, “Kung fu is more for retired uncles and grandpas.”

When they do train in martial arts, younger people here tend to pick Thai boxing and judo.

Valerie Ng, a 20-year-old college student, says she prefers Thai boxing because it is “attractive and charming” and does not take as long to master. She noted that kung fu masters often do not have defined muscles and that some of them look, well, a little chubby.


By The New York Times

“You can see how fierce Thai boxing is from watching professional matches,” she said. “But I rarely see such competition for kung fu, which makes me wonder whether those kung fu masters really are good at fighting or they just claim to be,” she said.

So Tak Chung, 59, remembers how different things were. When he was a boy, he and his friends would run home from school as fast as they could to watch kung fu shows on television.

“Kung fu always gave me a sense of justice and pride in being Chinese,” Mr. So said while stretching his legs for a Sunday night lesson at Kowloon Park. “It feels like if you knew kung fu, you could beat the bad guys and help the needy.”

Mr. So’s master, Mak Che Kong, 64, is less hopeful about the future. He ran one of the last studios in Kowloon, but soaring rents caused it to shut down, along with other family businesses that were once a fixture of Hong Kong street life, like Dit Da, or bone-setting, shops that use traditional Chinese medicine to treat sprains and fractures.

Mr. Mak, who is not related to the author of the martial arts history, has fewer than 20 students now, down from twice that number several years ago. Most students are over the age of 40.

He holds classes all over the city because “students will not come if they need to travel much.” On Tuesdays, he teaches at a pier in the city’s Central District; on Wednesdays, near a government marriage registry in Sha Tin in the New Territories; and on Sundays, at a public park in Kowloon.

Describing himself as “old school,” Mr. Mak fiercely defended kung fu traditions. “Chinese kung fu is not about fighting; it is about patience and hard work,” he said.

When he learned kung fu in the late 1960s, masters were father figures and apprentices had deep respect for kung fu. Students were willing to spend months or years perfecting just their horse-riding stance, a rest position often used for practicing punches and strengthening the legs and back.

“Today, if you ask a student to practice horse-riding stance for one lesson, he will not come again,” Mr. Mak said. “They are used to living a comfortable life.”

In English, kung fu is often used as an umbrella term for all Chinese martial arts. But in Chinese, it refers to any discipline or skill that is achieved through hard work.

Kung fu traces its history to ancient China, with hundreds of fighting styles developing over the centuries. But it soared in popularity at the beginning of the 20th century, as revolution swept the nation.

After the fall of the Qing dynasty a century ago, the Chinese Nationalist party, or the Kuomintang, used martial arts to promote national pride, setting up competitions and sending an exhibition team to the Olympics. But the government also tried to suppress wuxia, a martial arts genre of literature and film, as superstitious and potentially subversive.


A statue of Bruce Lee in Hong Kong. Mr. Lee took up kung fu in 1955, when Hong Kong was bustling with schools teaching a range of styles. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

When the Nationalists fell in 1949, the new Communist government in Beijing sought to control martial arts from the Chinese mainland. The Shaolin Temple, said to be the home of Asian martial arts in central China, was ransacked during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 and its Buddhist monks jailed.

Throughout those decades, martial artists from mainland China sought refuge in what was then the British colony of Hong Kong.

By the 1970s, kung fu fever had spread around the world. In addition to Bruce Lee’s films, the television series “Kung Fu,” starring David Carradine, became one of the most popular programs in the United States.

Though Hong Kong’s kung fu films do not draw the attention they once did, the genre has influenced a generation of directors, including Quentin Tarantino and Ang Lee, and the actor Jackie Chan and others have kept it alive as comedy.

In a twist, kung fu has enjoyed a renaissance in mainland China, where the government has standardized it and promoted it in secondary schools as a sport known as wushu to foster national pride.

As the martial arts center of gravity shifts to the mainland, some in Hong Kong have expressed hope that the government might support a revival here, too. Others are trying to carry on the tradition themselves.

Li Zhuangxin, a trim 17-year-old, has been studying the wing chun technique for more than four years. He was inspired by his grandfather, a devotee of the fighting style hung ga who gave Mr. Li his first kung fu lesson at age 8.

He hopes to open his own kung fu school one day — maybe on the mainland, where interest is higher and rents are cheaper — and has already set up a small wing chun club, with eight members, at his high school.

Few of his classmates had ever heard of wing chun before. Mr. Li, undaunted, says he wants to impart “the concentration and determination of kung fu” to his friends, who he laments are “only interested in playing with their cellphones.”

[Jimbo]

I saw a video awhile back showing Lau Ka Yung (nephew of Lau Kar-Leung) teaching a Hung Gar seminar in Europe, in which he stated that he won't teach kung fu to Chinese in Hong Kong anymore. He said that they don't care about kung fu.

During my time in Taiwan, there were some CMA teachers there saying that before long, if the Chinese want to learn real CMA, they will have to go abroad and learn it from the foreigners. Because there was more perceived interest among foreigners than the Chinese themselves. This was back in the '80s/early '90s. I'd be willing to bet that interest in kung fu in Taiwan was higher then than it is now.

[bawang]

I saw a video awhile back showing Lau Ka Yung (nephew of Lau Kar-Leung) teaching a Hung Gar seminar in Europe, in which he stated that he won't teach kung fu to Chinese in Hong Kong anymore. He said that they don't care about kung fu.

During my time in Taiwan, there were some CMA teachers there saying that before long, if the Chinese want to learn real CMA, they will have to go abroad and learn it from the foreigners. Because there was more perceived interest among foreigners than the Chinese themselves. This was back in the '80s/early '90s. I'd be willing to bet that interest in kung fu in Taiwan was higher then than it is now.

R u trolling bro

[Jimbo]

R u trolling bro

Unfortunately, no.

I did see the video where Lau Ka-Yung stated that on YouTube sometime last year or so. Unfortunately, when I tried to find it again to post it here, it had apparently been taken down.

As for some CMA teachers in Taiwan saying that, I said 'some' had said that, not the majority of them. And also as I mentioned, due more to greater 'perceived interest' from foreigners. There was still interest in CMA among Taiwan students when I left in '93, but it had lessened considerably over the years from when I first got there in the mid-'80s. I know there is a lot going on that isn't out in the open. Maybe the teachers I heard saying that (one was announcing over a microphone at a tournament) were giving a light admonishment over the reduced interest in CMA there. Or maybe he was being facetious(?).

[bawang]

it would make sense for chinatown chop socky kung fu to die down with its generation, like all mirages they eventually fade into nothing over time. there is no redeeming quality to justify its continued existence.

[SteveLau]

One way to help TCMA to survive is simplify it. To quote from an article written by a local sifu, he said its best to learn the simplified version first. If the student is still interested after that, and would like to advance their knowledge and skill of the style further, go for the traditional version.



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

[boxerbilly]

One way to help TCMA to survive is simplify it. To quote from an article written by a local sifu, he said its best to learn the simplified version first. If the student is still interested after that, and would like to advance their knowledge and skill of the style further, go for the traditional version.



Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

Fantastic idea in my opinion.

[Firehawk4]

Do you mean learn san sao or san sik versions of Kung Fu ?