Chinese Martial Arts Flawed?

I have been hearing alot of people say that chinese martial arts are just plain "no good". some people say that the reason that they dont like CMAs is that they believe it doesnt strenghten your body enough... everyone has a right to their own view on things and but i do get a little ticked off when people say that because after every class -choy li fut- my whole body aches from the training and the next day u just feel stronger ... i would like to hear everyone elses opinion though and no worries i wont take anything personally

 

Kung Fu with all those low stances must be doing some good to your thighs and buttocks.

 

ppl think KF is weak because they see Wushu in the movies and think that that's what all Kung Fu is. Also, people see lots of Kung Fu mcdojos, so they assume that all KF is done like the mcdojos.

 

For a long time, I saw Kung fu as the best. Cause of Bruce Lee and stuff. Later I saw a few Chinese guys swing arms in circles. Compare that Other practicioneers, who for what ever reason don't look skinny. And you begin to think that other system deliver more power. If that makes sense.

 

Chinese Martial arts are the source of so many martial art techniques... Chinese martial arts are not flawed... but some of the people doing them are... CMA has a public relations issue...

Kung fu simply doesn't live up to the hype it puts out... Kung fu has a long history of broken promises of secret ultimate techniques and special powers... the CMA practitioners my friends and I have encountered all tended to have a superiority complex... they would brag about how dangerous they were and once you tear them apart sparring they retort with some line about how they could have ripped your eye out and used chi power to burn a hole in your chest

Here is another example of the attitude... I have a friend who is the most impressive block breaker I have ever seen... he can hold a block in one hand and open hand slap it with the other and break it... he can also break only the bottom block of a stack of two... he breaks coconuts, bends nails, etc... he doesn't do any of this stuff for show... he just enjoys learning it... so he invites CMA masters over to talk about these things and to share ideas with them... they witness him do these things and they admit they can't do any of them... yet they all tell him he is doing them wrong :bang:

The CMA practitioners I have come across have seemed like brain washed cult members... I trained with a guy who did the same move over and over again and it never worked but he refused to learns anything new because his beloved sifu wouldn't have approved... his sifu being the one true master of course ... every time I took the guy out he would have some comment about how his sifu would have gotten out of it... this attitude really drives me nuts... especially when his sifu aint gonna be around when the real world comes calling.... to top it all off this guy came to visit one of my classes, he interupted my teaching to talk about how great his sifu was to my students... I laughed it off... the poor guy... he doesn't even realize what a jerk his sifu has made him.

Don't get me wrong... There are some great CMA fighters and teachers floating around... they are simply not as in the public eye as the losers who claim CMA heritage... or the losers who have CMA heritage and exploit it for money etc...

I guess it is like any other martial heritage... some arts are dead and some are living... some teachers are great and some simply are not... ultimately Chinese martial arts developed out of real world fighting... as did all martial arts... those that stay in the real world are repected while those that isolate themselves behind exaggeration and intrigue become silly side dramas for seekers of fantasy and entertainment... just like any other martial art.


take care, steve

 

great answer steve
ya and i do completely agree. the losers take the spotlight because they are all about business.. too bad this makes all the other good CMA's look bad its really a shame

 

Nothing man made will ever be perfect.

 

there are Humble CMA practitioners, and arrogant CMA practitioners....

...which one are you?

 

Tell you what, instead of wondering "why", since there is no possible way you're going to fix worldwide perception, either invite some of the naysayers to a class or two and let them see for themselves what you do. If they refuse, tell them to **** off and stop shooting off their mouths about things the know squat about. Option two, which is less aggressive, is to just ignore them entirely.

 

LoL

 

Your friends are right to a point. There are many practitioners of Chinese and Japanese martial arts in particular who are into it because they believe the movies and the hype. These people are usually attracted to classes that offer all the Chi throwing BS opened purely to fill that gap in the market. That's OK because it leaves the rest of us CMA practitioners free to train without too many "I want to learn how to throw Chi Balls" idiots coming to class.

I'm very much in favour of psuedo mystical martial arts and Mcdojos because they don't teach people how to fight and therefore ensure that there are less people in the world able to beat me up.

 

Lol

 

:bang: :bang:

 

I tend to think of Chinese wushu as being much harder to attain proficiency in but with greater payoffs, meaning that while if you somehow manage to put in the necessary time and become a great fighter, the fact is that other martial arts tend to be more practical for the modern world. Obviously this isn't true for all CMA, right now i'm thinking especially of Shaolin Kung Fu. There are way too many people out there who study CMA who really really suck cuz they're either unable or unwilling to put in the necessary time. Kung Fu is hard. REALLY hard. Especially when it comes to application. Many people see wushu and think 'completely impractical' instead of 'difficult'. nothing to do but shrug it off.

--> Bil Gee: oh and about chi projection, don't be so quick to scoff. You have no reason to believe me and feel free to tear this apart, but I've seen/felt my Shi Fu and Grandmaster Doo Wai do some pretty crazy stuff. Learning skills like the ones you mentioned would take way more time and dedication than the modern person is probably capable of giving, that's all.

 

sorry to be anal, but if you assume that most CMA came from Shaolin techniques somewhere along the line, (a safe assumption), then the most original of all modern-day wushu was developed as moving meditations to help move chi energy. The oldest surviving Shaolin art is Chi Kung, literally 'chi skill'. It was only later adapted for martial purposes.

I'm fairly certain of this.

 

Sorry, but this is just not the case.

CMA is not much harder to learn then any other art, nor is it harder to apply. Don't go thinking people who can use kung fu are the shiznit just because they were able to learn it. The reason that there are some crappy kung fu players out there is the same reason that there are crappy karate players out there, or crappy boxers.

THE REASON IS: Crappy training methods.

Sorry big boy

Anyone who knows ANYTHING about chi and chi kung will tell you that you can't "project" chi or any kind of crap like that.

Read post #123 in this thread:

http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=661705#post661705

 

My personal favorite is always the the guy who won't push hands with you because "my ch'i could hurt you."Funny how I have yet to meet a higher level practitioner who wasn't afraid to lock me up,slam me into a wall,pancake me to the floor or shock me with strikes.Much as I love Chinese systems,I must admit there does seem to be a greater chance of running across poor quality and pseudo mysticism than in say,practitioners of Okinawan systems.One of my "brothers" almost quit after attending a T'ai Chi retreat that was just waaay too,shall we say-Groovy?(OK,TC's probably the best example of how off track things can get).Too much dwelling on ch'i and lack of basics aren't uncommon either.Maybe it sells better to the uninitiated. Some instructors aren't as demanding of their students as,for example,a Shotokan teacher would be.This may be due to the more informal style of teaching common in Chinese systems,but it can result in people who have studied for a decent period of time but aren't really that good.When someone like this then begins teaching,well ,if you're mediocre how are you going to turn out good practitioners? But Chinese systems are just as effective as any others if you get correct teaching and apply yourself.On a final note,some Chinese systems do take longer to apply effectively than other Chinese systems.At earlier levels of training,say two years,a Wing Chun person would probably be doing better Wing Chun than a T'ai Chi person's T'ai Chi would be. Some of the things you're trying to develop to execute things in a T'ai Chi body way take longer.Doesn't mean the TC person couldn't acquit themselves as well,just that they are less likely to have developed certain "energetic expressions" that mark a TC exponent.Could still hit ya in the face,tho' ,if they've done general pugilistic training.

 

First off, you put "fighter" and "WuShu" in the same sentence, which means right off the bat we have a problem. Please, explain to us how the moden Toulu forms have practical combat application with all the spinning and twirling and leaping and jumping?

I'll disagree with Yohan for just a moment and give you "it's harder to learn" mainly because the body movements are drastically different and in some cases downright uncomfortable, whereas most movements in Karate, TKD, etc, are more natural. But that's about the only reason it's harder to learn.

Oh, and modern WuShu is about competition and forms, not about "chi".

 

I dunno man . . . I've found that as long as I push myself hard during class to get the movements right, and practice a bit out of class, they become natural very quickly. All the southern mantis stances, hand positions, etc, are about the most uncomfortable things in the world when you start doing them, but after constantly pushing yourself for just a few months, they almost become second nature.

I just don't know about this - it would seem to me that if a tai chi guy is training with combat effectiveness in mind all the time, that he would at least be equivalent to a wing chunner.

 

Yes, but they are unanatural at first: until you have (as you said) practised hard and pushed yourself to master them. I don't think there is a contradiction between what you are both saying.

What I wonder is whether something which is intrinsically difficult to master is therefore inherently superior to something which easy to master - or is it simply a case of 'practise makes perfect' in both cases?

That might depend on how you are taught. When I did Taiji, we were only taught the form at first. No application of it whatsoever. The movements had to be like second nature before you could start to be taught how to apply them. So it's a slower learning curve, but I suppose it's meant to be to more effective in the long run. (Whether that's true or not is another matter!)