The downfall of Traditional Gung Fu

[The Xia]

sparring is not the same as testing yourself.

Yes you are. You are testing to see if you can use your art.

I see a lot of sub par cma striking as well, but that's not my point. the point is that when you watch san shou, you see jabs, crosses, hooks, uppercuts, etc. just as in mma. they use the same basic striking.

Boxing gloves do limit the kind of strikes you can use. But there are videos on youtube of Choy Lay Fut guys using their fist-seeds with gloves on.

there are venues, but nowhere near as many. if they had similar demand as mma, meaning a similar number of competitors, you would see more venues.

Not everyone who attends MA schools are fighters. But there are plenty of competitions that TCMA engage in to deserve recognition.

not necessarily. they have to condition the hands as well.

Why not use another bag for that?

they have fought muay thai for ages- the soldiers did it for various reasons - but it wasn't officially a sport until 1920. and that is exactly what I mean by "too deadly" - what it was designed for eventually became a scapegoat for some people.

Although it becomes a scapegoat for some people, doing the opposite, never recognizing a style for what it is, leads to not being able to learn it correctly.

notice there was never really any tma vs grappling or mma talk until rorion started using the statistic that 80 percent of fights go to the ground. it seems tma took offense, and that is when it got started, or at least became noticeable.

I think it's difficult to say. I think the videos of so-called TMA guys losing to MMA and BJJ guys stirred up a lot of bickering.