Some lineages have changes their forms for demo and some have kept them unchanged but I don't think you can tell that sort of thing from sparring when so many rules are made that pretty much rule out most techniques in pakmei except basics.
Senior Member
Some lineages have changes their forms for demo and some have kept them unchanged but I don't think you can tell that sort of thing from sparring when so many rules are made that pretty much rule out most techniques in pakmei except basics.
Senior Member
..
ego, your posts show your total lack of skill or understanding of the internal structure of gongfu. you are not even close to being able to competently argue with someone as experienced as huang.
as for your silly replies about current science being able to explain everything under the sun, they show how ignorant you really are of both traditional chinese medicine and western medicine.
you don't know anything about qi as something tangible. you can not emit it, feel it, or direct it. stop trolling and start practicing. you don't even realize how superficial your understanding is.
the more you try to intellectualize things, the more stupid you sound, and the further away from real gongfu you become. if you were learning under a traditional master in old china, he would beat you with his cane, and tell you to shut up. real understanding comes from real experience.
Last edited by PlasticSquirrel; 04-02-2002 at 06:41 PM.
Cha Wang
Ego,
You are, as usual, both right and wrong. Medicine, martial arts, life in general. It comes down to perspective. Physical and metaphysical. Focused versus wholistic. The need to classify versus the ability tounderstand variation. Western pragmatism versus Eastern mythology. There is no "short" answer, only the search for an understanding.
One thing that no science has yet to understand is the brain, and therein lies the essence of the individual. Do you know about the placebo effect? Giving someone a sugar pill and telling them it is a cure, and they become cured? It is a scientific fact. Mind you, that is not to say that Eastern medicine is placebo, but to open the door to the understanding of the riddles of the human being.
Western medicine treats symptoms, and attacks disease. Eastern medicine treates the body and the mind, as they are seen as the strongest tools in healing disease and injury. A simplistic example would be to treat a wound with bandages something that increases overall circulation, and thus the blood carries more healing to the wound, as opposed to bandaging and pumping in anitbiotics. Western medicine is taking on the wholistic approach and acknowledging the power, as eastern medicine is adopting the tools and treatments of the west as well.
As far as breathing is concerned, western sports medicine does take lessons from ancient chinese breathing methods. Anarobic and aerobic training, raising the level of oxygen in the blood in anticipation of strenuous endeavour. High altitude training. Again, different perspectives, different cultural experiences, different traditions, but a common ground.
And then there is the psycological aspect, the sports psychologist that "brain washes" the athlete with visions of success, performance visualisation, psychological conditioning for competition. Belief in self, belief in ability, belief in training. Just ask any US Marine.
Just because one culture dresses it in a different cloth than another, it doesn't exclude the common ground, just disguises it. martial arts wasn't "Sport" in the olden days, it was more often survival. People who learned advantageous techniques kept them to themselves to protect themselves, to protect the efficiency of their art.
I'm told, for whatever its worth, that Choy Li Fut developed the spinning backfist to fight against the centerline styles in the South, and it is an incredibly effective technique against them. If you don't show off your techniques, others can't develop "antidotes." This is part of the Pak Mei philosophy on secrecy, carried for many generations without question, even though the relevancy is perhaps less an issue in modern times.
You love your northern styles, and they are certainly worthy, but there is no single style that is superior, only the practitioner. Which tool in a toolbox is the best one? The one that does the job you need to do at the moment, yes? There are many components to mastery beyond the physical, in life or in martial arts.
Don't underestimate the strength of a cultural imperitive...
Remember, the Chinese had restaurants, medicine and poetry while the Europeans were still hitting each other over the head with lumps of wood and throwing dead beasts on a campfire. You obviously admire some aspects of the culture, don't give up your study for enlightenment just yet.
Senior Member
you're being too nice to ego, yum cha. seriously, though, your explanation of the "superiority" of styles is very good:
"You love your northern styles, and they are certainly worthy, but there is no single style that is superior, only the practitioner. Which tool in a toolbox is the best one? The one that does the job you need to do at the moment, yes?"
need you a pound of ki?
Personally, I subscribe to the school of the plastic dump truck, but I think that Ego's probably better suited to the hot pink watering can.
Seriously, good post, Yum Cha.
"Let's play Soviet history-- you're Trotsky, I'm an icepick."
MIT
If you have authentic forms, it won't do you much good to show them in a public competition. Nobody will recognize them. Just my honest opinion.
As for sparring, it's too political today. But you're right, until someone reaches a certain level of competency, you won't see their style in the sparring. Sadly, the master level sparring is no better.
Got Lineage?
Banned
Plastic squirrel
"ego, your posts show your total lack of skill or understanding of the internal structure of gongfu. you are not even close to being able to competently argue with someone as experienced as huang."
It's irrelevant to classify kung fu as internal. I've come across of kick boxers who reguarly kick the box out of southern masters who profess internal powers. I asked the boxer if he had internal powers - and he said oh you mean the old one two. Well that's very external to me and i'll go by that any day then some sit there and meditate formulae.
"as for your silly replies about current science being able to explain everything under the sun, they show how ignorant you really are of both traditional chinese medicine and western medicine."
I've neve3r said that science expalins everything. just that werstern medicine has superseeded chinese medicine which has merit but we now have something better. Ever heard of technological advancement - your ancient chinese friends knew of that and had marvelled at what the west could produce during the early 20th C, let alone what we have today.
"you don't know anything about qi as something tangible. you can not emit it, feel it, or direct it. stop trolling and start practicing. you don't even realize how superficial your understanding is."
I don't know ewhat it is, and neather have you shown that you do! You've mentioned what its not. But from what you described chi is probably not important. BTW you can feel a boxer's punch.
"the more you try to intellectualize things, the more stupid you sound, and the further away from real gongfu you become. if you were learning under a traditional master in old china, he would beat you with his cane, and tell you to shut up. real understanding comes from real experience."
We all begin life as goofballs. But some people have had the goofballs beaten out of them by traditional masters in china. BTW is what you're saing historical evidence or just some post modern southern kung fu training routine that is a modified version of shaw brothers movies that had the foundation in chinese opera that mant clf practitioners believe to closly resemble their styles? I guess they are all one and the same thing and everytime you go to a kung fu class - you're just and unpaid actor without even knowing it.
Oh how pathethic you are!
Senior Member
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just because something is 'internal' doesn't make it's practitioners good at it. your off-hand comment about the kickboxer (i'm still not sure exactly how that explains anything) is quite irrelevent. because a kickboxer beats a southern 'master', and professes his '1-2' to be internal, you will follow that? the real masters -- the ones who didn't practice sport-fighting, used neijin. wong fei-hung's 10 killing hands would not have been nearly so deadly. guo yunshen's bengquan would have been nothing more than a mechanical punch. sun lutang would have been beaten easily due to his size. if what they did had nothing to do with qi, then their internal training methods were still responsible for their skill. you should try them.
ego, you did post that the scientific community could explain qi and it's workings. you can't deny that you wrote that.
western science has not conquered over anything. it may prove to be more useful or a better explanation for many people, but it does not even touch upon many things that are in chinese medicine. without overcoming everything in a system, you can not say that it is superior in every way, which you obviously implied. western medicine can not even touch what i practice every day. it is still very primitive and undeveloped compared to what it should be and what it probably will be one day. until then, i will go with the medical system that can explain things best for me, not for some joe schmo like you that doesn't even think that anything 'internal' exists, and likes living in ignorance.
you will never be good at gongfu, and certainly not as good as huang. your stubborness and foolish dogmatic clings to your own small island of experiences will see to that.
whether what i said at the bottom of my post was 'historical evidence' or not, it is. chinese masters have been known to despise intellectualization, preferring real practice and real skill. this is something that i take to heart. i spend my practice time practicing. you should try it. you might learn something.
as for me explaining my own qualifications to speak about internal subjects, ask me anything you want. if i can answer correctly, then it is not because i have read many books. it is because i have practiced to discover them for myself.
you are still new to gongfu, if you can not even feel qi. you should be asking the questions, not professing the answers.
Senior Member
No point in preaching the benefits of closed-door training to those that troll it, PlasticSquirrel.
Even if the door was open to Ego, he'd walk in and out without learning a thing. Of course, no master in his right mind would invite such an avowed skeptic into his inner circle.
You and I both know that a person can't learn that which he refuses to believe in - though we can all FEEL IT at the hands of a master.
Banned
Plastic squirrel
"you don't know anything about qi as something tangible. you can not emit it, feel it, or direct it. stop trolling and start practicing. you don't even realize how superficial your understanding is."
you're the one who said that you cannot
a) emit chi
b) direct chi
c) feel chi
To summize what you've said, chi is not observable and as Hung mentioned it is a believe.
From this alone, chi is not within the realms of science given that science is emperical. Given classical forms of combat is a subset of physics which is a subset of science, then from your above statement alone, chi is not relevent to kung fu. ( note: kung fu is a subset of classical combat)
You do not have to say what chi is. Just from what it is not, we can conclude that it is not part of kung fu. My logic is water tight. Try picking a hole in it.
Banned
I guarentee a kickboxer trained properly probably could whoop half the asses of half the percentage of northern and southern.
what would you call a real trained kung fu fighter, actually how would you train a kung fu fighter?
thanks in advance
FT
Member
No Qi No Game
EGO
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Plastic squirrel meant that YOU are the one who cannot emit/direct/feel Qi, but the fact that you cannot experience Qi doesn't mean that nobody can.
In traditional Chinese martial arts Qi has always played an important role because the ancient masters believed that Qi cultivation could lead to higher spiritual awareness, prevent illness, improve health and longevity. Furthermore, they realised that muscular power decreases (old age) but Qi power (jing) will last throughout your whole life and with proper training it will become more pure and effective, even at elderly age. Maybe arrange a match between an elderly kickboxer and an old Taiji/Bagua/Xingyi/Baji/Wingchun/Choylifut/Hunggar/Bakmei/whateverchinesestyle practitioner and see who's right. I'll place my bet on the Chinese.
Now, you claim that Qi is not relevant for CHINESE kungfu because from the WESTERN point of view "chi is not within the realms of WESTERN science given that WESTERN science is emperical. Given classical forms of combat is a subset of physics which is a subset of WESTERN science, thus chi is not relevent to CHINESE kung fu"... ???
I'm sorry but Qi training is and always has been a part of traditional chinese martial arts. You may not believe in Qi and there's nothing "wrong"with training external kungfu without the Qigong stuff. But you just cannot conclude Qi is not "relevant" to kungfu, thus saying that every serious kungfu practitioner from the past and present has got it all wrong.
Bye!
Banned
That the laws of physics works the same in China as it does at the opposit end of the world. Which means there is no such a thing as western or easter science.
The difference is not a matter of east or west but of understanding pertaining to societiies at different stages of development. Ancinet china obviously being the more primative of the two. I know this is pretty obvious but people here are missing the point.
Can plastic squirrel emit chi? can you emit chi? So if the converse is true for the rest of you - then you can emit, feel and direct chi. In other words you claim to observe chi.
Well, we can measure the power delivered by muscles in terms of Watts (ie. J/t). You can even set up an aparatus that converts muscle power to electricity.
If you cannot do the same with chi, then don't go around claiming that you can observe it! Conduct the experiment in the East if you think the laws are not uniform. I await your results.
Member
Okay...
When I was in Hongkong I went to a certain clinic where children with mental and physical problems were treated. I went there to inquire about the treatments (my teenage brother has serious learning difficulties) and I found out that the doctor there used a certain method of TONGUE ACUPUNCTURE. I wanted to test the method of this doctor, so he made me squeeze this certain device that measures your strength. Then he stuck a needle in my tongue a few times, saying that he will open some Qi points in my arms and shoulders. Then he made me squeeze the device again. The machine indicated that my power had increased 1.5 times compared the first time.
I saw with my own eyes how the condition of many young children improved, some of them couldn't even talk on the age of 10 prior to the treatment. Some teenage kids with serious acne problems were treated and their zits disappeared alomst the very next day!
I told the doctor that I had never heard of TONGUE acupuncture before, in orthodox Traditional Chinese Medicine no acupuncture points on the tongue are mentioned. The doctor then told me that he found some information about this in the Huangdi Neijing (The Yellow Emperor's Book on the Internal Matters) and claimed that this technique already existed in the past but somehow it was lost. He only re-invented it.
Quite an amazing feat for such a primitive society like Ancient China, huh?
Banned
Ming,
One of the premise of good science is for that experiment to be replicated throughout the world. Someone had claimed to have achieved cold fusion and had measured the output through some aparatus they'd setup...... you know the full story.
Did you have that equipment independently tested, or better still have your own equipment ready. I like to expose fakes don't you?
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