Originally Posted by
DCB
What about the people that train under those who emigrated from China? Or those who went to China to learn and the people who train under them?
Are you suggesting that Chinese MA practitioners teach fake Kung Fu to all the stupid foreigners?
On another note the entire idea of comparing traditional martial artists (be they monks or otherwise) to professional ring fighters and professional modern wushu athletes separately really misses the point.
I have no doubt that many professional fighters, when put in a fighting competition, would fare very well against many traditional martial artists. I also have no doubt that their forms look less impressive. The point is that traditional forms are about combat applications whilst modern wushu athletes train just to do something that looks impressive. That's the point of modern wushu, its a formalised display of technical athletic skill not a fighting art. So we could eqaully say the traditionalists look better than the ring fighters and fight better than the performers, its all about your frame of reference.
Now take them out of the ring where there are no rules then the traditionalists have an edge as they'll fight dirty, but most of them can't compare in fitness, power and experience because they can't devote all their time to training like the ring athletes do. Taking it back to Shaolin, they practice for hours every day from childhood, this puts them well above most western ring athletes in experience and fitness. This isn't something special to Shaolin though, thousands of kids in China get put through this these days.
So of course Shaolin monks can fight, of course they can compete with athletes because they have been doing similar things but for longer, with older techniques, less focused on the ring. The point is that most of them don't, not that they can't.