I was first introduced to tcma when I started training with a deadly street fighting Chinese sifu from a Chinatown. He gave off the air of being dangerous and that we were all training to gain the same air of dangerousness. He abhorred other styles even other tcma styles. The fact that he was: 1) Mentally tough, 2) Crazy, and 3) Engaged in a lot of fighting in a time when DNA evidence was not used was the reason he was tough. His kung fu training was the icing on the cake. He could have studied boxing and been as dangerous. That is not the point. THe point is that I was introduced to tcma as something special, better, and made me more dangerous than others doing other kinds of training. The training involved drilling, forms, spinny hand bridging drills, and virtually no sparring.

Later on I started studying with a group of really nice guys. They were mma guys who had no ego, no reputation, and only hard training in their backgrounds. They were so skilled I believe they could have run through my old sifu and any of his top students. This is a painful truth for me to state because my old sifu was very dear to me but there it is. They trained hard and had real skills that could be tested instead of me just standing there while you pretend to poke my eye out.

That is the history and here is the paradigm shift.

Kung fu could be fight ready tomorrow if it adopted the principals of constant training against resisting opponents and I believe that kung fu is moving toward this. People that talk about light skill, iron palm, hidden techniques in forms, throws in forms that never get trained, being able to strike at someone trying to take you down as a good defense against bjj without having to have wrestling training...is all outdated for COMBAT. I am not talking about health and recreation here. Some of you will say that this has always been in tcma and that that is the reality in your school. Yeah, ok. I believe you.

The fact that kung fu is moving toward this paradigm makes the old guard on this board look even worse when they try to defend those terrible push hands clips I put up. I get called a troll by these people but in reality you are the trolls who are clinging to a tcma past that never existed and is not the current reality.

So I invite all of you "old guard kung fu" trolls onto the kung fu forum whenever you wish but I believe you are all the true trolls. Hiding under bridges and grabbing lunch money from little kids instead of manning up and robbing the sh!t out of grown ups.


This is my weekly rant. Try not to take it too seriously.