Ok, pgm316, hopefully you will pick this thread up. What I was going to say is this- traditional training means several things to me, but not stagnant, or inflexible. It means that someone has already figured out an excellent way to train in my chosen art. Usually this has been tested and developed over along time. this isnt to say that it can continue to be developed. However, take wingchun for instance, the art that I study. Wingchun has been pretty well refined, and there are those out there who feel they can make changes, some not so subtle to the art to increase its efficiency. Almost everytime these changes show a lack of understanding of the art. The reason for training forms, drills and all that go with traditional training is that so when you get into a fight, at some point, your body will respond the way you have trained it naturally. As a side note I also believe that a human beings natural response to fighting is not good enough and that anyway you learn to fight involves some serious training to become natural at it. hence the forms work and extensive and sometimes excruciating training involving holding positions for long periods of time, long slow drills designed to 'convince' your body to assume proper structure and so on.
There's this sweeping generalisation goes across the arts that bugs me intensely. We pigeon hole people like; Karate has power, but no mobility. TKD has kicks but no hands. Kung Fu has speed but no power. Aikido people fall down beautifully (period). etc. People focus so much on the negative ideas they pick up from others, yet they may find something entirely different when they actually visit that dojo/kwoon etc. One of the tough ones is the old Bruce Lee quote about the 'classical mess' that keeps getting dragged up. Old Bruce got around a bit, but he was no authority on the general code of practice employed by the various 'Traditional' schools. Sure there were schools tied up in discipline and overly retentive tradition, but there were also those with the same principles he propogated, in learning/and development. The same is true now! The Traditional Arts can be Flexible too! Why not just go ask a real good Traditional guy/gal how he/she would deal with your Vale Tudo technique? Attack him/her with it, and see what he/she does, instead of assuming they know less than you do. Tying myself in vaguely, and at the last minute with Red 5's thread! Isn't it extremeley arrogant of us as individuals to assume that we can comprehend someones lifetime of work, and improve on it after say 2 years of training?
I agree AndyM, too much focus on the negatives. These arts have been devloped over time and they work you just have to understand them. Sure you generally end up training to stay in their framework but I can guarentee all o fthem ultimately teach flexibility and adaptability. As for Bruce Lee, that is a sore point with me. ?he was so visible he did a lotof damage to the martial arts with his classical mess comment. If you want to know where I am coming from on this there is a thread on bruce here on this forum where I ranted a little!
>"As for Bruce Lee, that is a sore point with me. ?he was so visible he did a lotof damage to the martial arts with his classical mess comment" ok i'll play devils advocate here... if i was bruce lee i would hav done the same thing...why?? because first thing i hav created a New Art...which i need to popularise... then at that time there was very very strong base in Kungfu... if i hav to popularise/sell my art then i hav to make those comments... or even beat some of guys... tell me didnt' that happen every time when some master created a new style...Yang Family for ex. no one would hav bought it with Chen's popularity... Red5Angel think if u create an art which u need to sell rite now... then who would u point out? TKD?? NO...it's too much McDojo Karate?? same again Kungfu ..umm may be but popularity hav decreased somewat... Internal Arts ...umm may be again but they already hav lots of problems about medics n martial point of view...so not a good idea.. then we r left with MMA(thnx to UFC) if u become champ with ur style in UFC ppl will start calling u Legend n will come to learn from u...cuz ur style is the best... isn't Gracie's Family did the same?... u know u hav to be a salesman n think like him to sell any kind of product be it some cookie chips or be it Martial art... if u know the deal ur business will flourish... -TkdWarrior-
tkd, good points and I agree, however, I believe that BL didnt know half of what he should have about fighting, became frustrated because he could not complete the winchun system, and could not use it effectively. What it came down to in my opinion wa sthat he was impatient
Sometimes a persons natural response to fighting is better than you’d expect. People I know that could win fights so easily, but had never trained to fight always amazed me. I think a half learnt/understood system can be more harmful than good. Causing people to hesitate by thinking what they should be doing instead of instantly reacting. But, as you say, when the art becomes natural to you, that’s when it will work. We do train in a traditional way, I’m not sure if that is the best. I prefer less excruciating ways to learn techniques. My knackered knees are my argument against traditional training methods. We also train in the classical style of wing chun, this is the original unchanged version. Then we often train the same routine etc, in the way my main teacher has evolved it, in the lifetime of his work.
I'm getting a feeling of negativity. I don’t mind people criticising what I do, I’m confident in my own abilities. If I can learn from my weaknesses I’m happy. Quote - “Tying myself in vaguely, and at the last minute with Red 5's thread! Isn't it extremeley arrogant of us as individuals to assume that we can comprehend someones lifetime of work, and improve on it after say 2 years of training?” 2 years of training? I don’t know where that came from, but whether 2 or 20 years, if you feel you can do something in a better way, does it matter? Its not always about improving a style. It may be the way you fight. Adding complimentary techniques, improved footwork or adapting techniques for certain situation. That is classical mess to me, in your style, would you teach a 20 stone person to fight in the same way as a 9 stone one. Its finding what works for the person, not improvement. Quote – “The Traditional Arts can be Flexible too!” That is a bit of a contradiction, tradition means to do something in a time honoured way. Being flexible is all I was talking about, theres probably very little difference between our WC styles. However, why would you want it to be flexible, when you seem so against altering a style? I’m a fan of Bruce Lee’s philosophies and so is Frank Shamrock with his training methods. Sorry to drop names If arguably the worlds greatest martial artist trains in a mixed style and agrees with BL’s philosophies on training, it can’t be all bad………
pgm316, no negative feelings here just a freindly discussion as far as I am concerned! "That is a bit of a contradiction, tradition means to do something in a time honoured way. Being flexible is all I was talking about, theres probably very little difference between our WC styles. However, why would you want it to be flexible, when you seem so against altering a style?" pgm there seems to be some misunderstanding however as to what traditional means. Correct there are traditional ways of training, passed down from instructor to student and so on. The reason they are passed down is because through trial and error these guys and girls have figured out the optimal way to train to do something, usually particular to that style. The goal however is much different, but training this way you eventually get to understand that adaptability and such are what you are looking for. You could say its rigid in that if you train a particular style you try to maintain an adherence to its fighting strategy but I dont look at that as limiting. I fyou have been diligent in your training then you will know how to handle each situation as it arises.
1/ First of all pgm316, there's no personal attack on you going on here. You've picked up on something from my earlier post which we can discuss, but do look at the whole thing again, as it does start off talking about sweeping generalisations. 2/ Exactly, I said 'say' two years, the time period is irrelevant when compared to the length of time a Traditional Art has been built on. When you talk here about adding things to a stylr, adopting, changing etc, you have never actually embraced the style, and cannot honestly say you have fully comprehended it. The 9 stone or 20 stone person are'nt 'taught' differently. but they should learn to apply the system differently. 3/ I'm a fan of Bruce too, but if you look long enough, you'll find he's been attributed to have said just about everything there is to say about MA. What's not to agree with? Incidentally, I'm not 'down' on JKD at all.
Frank Shamrock is arguably one of the worlds best martial artist by the way pgm316. What makes the worlds best martial artist can be subjective. For instance, I would say he isnt so much a good martil artist as a tough guy who can take a few shots and then tie someone up. He is a good fighter anyway. On teaching a 20 stone as compared to a 9 stone person, that may be an issue of the right style selection to me.
Many poeple think bruce lee was all about going against the traditional. HOwever he started out in Wing Chun and developed alot of his ability training in it. For example he cultivated chi power to help his one inch punch and used alot of wing chun techniques in JKD. Without that initial traditional training he would not have been exposed to the essence of real martial arts. Ive only been in martial arts for like a year but ive been exposed to a variety of different style. Ive yet to find one a that really works for me. i think to excel in the martial arts youve got to find a system that fits you the best and have faith in it then work at it as hard as you can. As much as you respect Bruce's philosophies you cant just start out mixmatching different techniques. After all bruce lee only begun to evolve in his traing after he had mastered his style and he still kept alot of the techniques. Plus many of the traditional martial arts were developed in times when they were used to kill enemies. So they cant be all farse. i really think the traditional martial arts should't be messed with because the more we mess with them the more theyll losse their effectiveness. Most of the martial artists out there would be wiped out if they were sent back to ancient china to fight. Unless we start fighting battles with hand to hand combat again there'll never be enough combat experience to route out the effective martial arts. There is NO Doubt that Bruce was a great man and and legendary martial artist. But who knows what his views would have been when he had evolved even more as a martial artist. My point is, we can learn alot from what we know about bruce but we cant stop there becuase he had alot more of his life to live and he had alot more to teach us. oh yeah, no direspect but I dont think Bruce Lee or Frank Shamrock ever fought someone like masaki hatsumi or some grandmaster that had some real power Bruce might have a chance but he was a rariety
again playing devils advocate... let's think we r Bruce...then Wat do u think that made classical mess at that time?? i think the politics in Kungfu arena...the attitude of ppl teaching kungfu... they wer like i m THE BEST, somthing like today MMA(they inargubly r good fighters),Too much BS putting down other styles, then thinkin u r best, being ignorant...then politics against him being non chinese(didn't william cheung said that in just some months he become much better than his seniors students??)... it's quite rite wat Bruce studied was incomplete wing Chun but watever he studied should hav helped him(not sayin that didn't helped him) after the Wong Jack Man episode...he thought that there's something missing with WC style... anyways he stressed more on looking on other styles too in much earlier times every student were supposed to learn more than one style n then master it whatever he liked...so that can give him quite good crosstraining of art....but now it wasn't highly preffered... i think this was that "classical mess" bruce talked about not wat ppl think ... just some thoughts... -TkdWarrior-
I’m not totally sure what you mean by “fully comprehend it”. I don’t claim to be a WC master, I don’t want to be, I’d rather be a good mixed martial artist. However most of my training has been WC and I do think I have a good understanding of it. I could teach classical WC to a reasonable level and also our slightly different club version, while explaining the reason for differences and why in certain situations I believe there more effective. These are only slight variations and don’t go away from what the essence of WC is. Please don’t think I’ve decided to throw a karate or muai thai block into a WC technique, in fact I’ve not altered anything I’ve been taught. Quote – “Exactly, I said 'say' two years, the time period is irrelevant when compared to the length of time a Traditional Art has been built on.“ I think time period is relevant. To be a mixed martial artist/ adapt techniques/ cross train whatever you want to do or classify it as I think you need to have a good core to work from, to understand why techniques are different and why your using them. And to have this understanding in MA’s I would think closer to 10 years of good training is needed. I’m not going to discredit WC in any way, as you rightly say its been in development, perfecting techniques over a vast length of time. But, likewise have other styles! We’re lucky in this modern age to be able to train many ancient styles from different cultures without having to travel even out of town (at least for many of us). My belief whether right or wrong is to learn what I feel necessary to make myself a complete fighter. Still, what I’ve said is a bit meaningless without talking about my training and experiences, but I think I’ve waffled on for long enough now!
TKD, Bruce Lee WAS missing something in WC. That was the problem, that and time. He was taking on a practitioner who had more experience then he and from what it seems to me in my opinion, a smaller ego. Bruce Lee has stated many times that the classical mess is the traditional way of what he saw as static training, forms drills etc... He felt martial arts should flow from you, but that was the problem and the irony, he was right, but hadnt had enough experience yet for this to happen like it should for him. he was too impatient and too greedy when it came to the martial arts, so greedy it killed him.
I'm not talking about you pgm316, I'm talking about the eclectic MA community in general, who learn a form from a guy who learned it, from a guy who learned it, from a guy who slept with somebody who learned it. They can generally perform movements that look like say 'Chi Sao', but know only simple applications of theory. There are no fixed number of techniques within WC, so noone can ever fully comprehend it as such. The thing with WC is, that you either can, or you can't! There are no grades to delude oneself with, and this is frequently, though not exclusively an important distinction. I'd like to take a little poetic license here, and e-phrase something you said;r "I’m not going to discredit WC in any way, as you rightly say its been in development, perfecting techniques over a vast length of time. But, likewise have other styles!" I say; I am going to credit Wing Chun. Wing Chun has been developing people, perfecting their techniques over a vast period of time, rather than those people perfecting Wing Chun. Just my 2 groats
I like your version too! I've been thinking about that lately. WC really does develop the person. Somebody thats been training years just has that extra something you can't explain. Its not about using better moves or anything, just the way they use a technique is perfect. Its that magic that only comes with hard training, not to be confused with the other magic contained in the secret deadly ninja killing techniques booklet. Maybe Bruce was missing that? Its not something I've thought myself but what do I know. I know what you mean Andy with the Chi Sao, I've practised it with allegedly highly graded people that just don’t have that feel you need to make it work. Its easy to get the movements right, but to have the sensitivity which WC is all about is another thing. I’d be very cynical with people like that pretending to be an authority on WC.
Hey thanks Andy, but I've no choice. You write some good things and I'm more than convinced you know what your talking about! We practised some JKD techniques Friday. You could still call it traditional WC, but the application is more JKD than classical WC. A low feint, pak sau cover and high punch for example. I don't know how you train but this was quite different for some of the more traditional people I train with.
