Unlike wing chun though the vast majority only train for health so that's a lesser issue and also unlike wing chun Thai chi does have as you say fairly good credentials for full contact fighting in Hong Kong and Taiwan
True, but wing chun’s not alone in omitting these punches. I’ve never seen hooks and uppercuts in taekwondo, for example.
Wing Chun and FMA are often seen together because many of their principles, theories, and concepts are the same. Guro Dan Inosanto taught Kali to Sifu Francis Fong, who in turn taught Wing Chun to Guro Dan Inosanto. My Wing Chun Sifu (given his instructor certificate by Francis Fong) taught us the FMA that he learned as well as Wing Chun. They work well together.
They really do Although my FMA these days is overwhelmingly Serrada I learned from GM Darren Tibon rather than the ILS I started in the crossover and similarity is remarkable
Wing Chun back to in the 1800's was kicking to the balls and gouging the eyes. In fact most kung fu was like that before the Communist govt. What we get now is watered down. WC clearly doesn't have a defense against grappling, whether it originally had grappling or not is unclear. But monks wouldn't just be studying one style back then, they would take on many styles that could be striking and/or grappling orientated as well as involving weapons. We'll never know for sure, as the Communist govt killed off the monks. As for size, WC is reputed to have been started by a woman. Groin strikes and eye gouging would be absolutely necessary against a large male opponent, who was trying to harm you. Weapons would also be an equalizer, in ancient China you'd travel with a weapon for protection. Take out the eye gouging and groin strikes from kung fu, its always going to be less effective than what it was. And if your not training in grappling, you'll lose against someone who is.
Whats always overlooked in these kung fu vs(modern art) discussions, is that modern kung fu is a watered down and inaccurate reflection of ancient Chinese martial arts. Put it this way, if you put a modern MMA fighter back in China 1,000 years ago and told him to survive using his art, he'd be up against bandits armed with swords. A Chinese martial artist of the time, would then have a greater chance of survival as he would be trained in weapons.
Enough masters survived the Communist revolution, they escaped to Taiwan or hong Kong to give us an accurate picture of what some traditional arts were like, sometimes though that isn't a pretty picture. And sometimes the rot set in a long time before the communists when the west introduced the power of the gun
Modern Tai Chi is mainly based on Chen Man Chings teachings, he was the first Tai Chi master in the west. He focused on health. Traditionally, Tai Chi probably had fast movements and was also martial orientated, but what we get now is mainly for health. Modern Tai Chi isn't effective for self defense by itself. That's my conclusion after 20 years of doing it, on and off. What it's great for is healing and preventing injuries, if done correctly. It's an excellent psychological tool for dealing with the fast paced stresses, of modern westernized life. The A hole boss or difficult partner who you obviously can't punch out. Keeping dead calm in a threatening situation, can resolve the situation and help us prepare to use our other, more martial training if absolutely necessary. Maybe it was something else hundreds of years ago, we don't know. Nowadays, its a health art and a very effective one.
Gunpowder changed everything. When the Samurai first encountered the Portuguese, arguably the finest swordsmen in Asia faced off against a pretty average European force. And lost. I'm not sure what the situation with gunpowder was on a 'street,' level was in the China of the 1800's, which is why I used the example of placing an MMA fighter in the China of a 1,000 years ago. Yes, the art probably went through many cycles of degradation and evolution before the Communist govt. But the scale of the massacre of monks and traditional martial artists under the Communist govt was the largest in Chinese history, as was the repression of any art not recognized by the Communists. We don't know exactly how many master were killed, and how many survived. There was also a period of secrecy where westerners would only be taught a few things, as they were outsiders. What was then taught was maybe more akin to Karate, which by that time had become a striking, competition art in the west. What was passed on the westerners in Hong Kong and Taiwan may well have been watered down, to keep the westerners happy and generate some revenue.
How do you know? (E.g is it covered in something like Mikhailov’s history of kung fu book?) I think eye gouging and groin strikes are over rated. I’d argue that hitting someone’s eyes is nigh-on-impossible under adrenal stress, because of the loss of fine motor skills when adrenaline’s coursing round your body. It’s a far cry from using an eye gouge in training. Ditto kicks to the groin: live fights are messy and it’s hard to land a kick accurately under a lot of adrenal stress.
Well, I'm not sure... You never met the people, that would just stare at you and wait until you gauged their eyes. Or that wait, legs wide open, to get sure, you hit the target?
I'd actually agree that its hard to land an accurate groin strike. Yet I know a woman who did that, with no training whatsoever to a man who was threatening her. And most of us have had that moment where we effortlessly targeted an opponents jaw, or whatever. So these things are possible. I'm giving theories as much as everyone else is, Chinese Boxing is always going to be a mystery due to the Communist Revolution. Masters were killed and books were burnt. My conclusions on the pre existence of eye gouging and groin strikes, is because every Kung Fu and Tai Chi form I've studied has an emphasis on these type of strikes. One Snake form was 100% eye strikes, with some kicks to the groin. I was taught that Snake wasn't a style that a practitioner went into straight away, first would be something like Tiger and when that was mastered an art like Snake would be practiced, it would obviously take more skill to execute an eye strike and prior training in another style was necessary. There was also the cultivation of energy, which was an integral part of all the ancient Asian arts. From Japan to India, spiritual, martial and health disciplines had a focus on internal energy which is now largely cast aside. The Greeks also had a description for this life energy, though whether they incorporated it into their martial training I don't know. Maybe Asia got the concept of Chi/Prana wrong for thousands of years and its ancient nonsense, maybe that's what is missing in modern Kung Fu which is why its not as effective as it was. The training method of ancient Asia was radically different to what we are doing today, in the sense that most of us are going to class 3-5 times per week or so. A Samurai, Yogi or Shaolin monk was studying everyday, all day outside the chores of the temple/ashram. So things that may seem impossible for us under our available time, might become more possible with many years of full time practice. Chinese Boxing might have taken a lot longer to become practical therefore. The Kung Fu/Tai Chi teacher Wong Kiew Kit starts one of his books by saying, practice Siamese Boxing if you wish to learn to defend yourself quickly. Martial Arts have constantly been involving. Take the Spartans, it would take almost 10 years of intense, full time training to put a full Spartan on the battlefield. By the time of Rome, a legionnaire could be put on the field in less than year. With superior weapons, tactics it was no longer necessary to train for years to put a very effective soldier on the field. The result were much larger armies that were easier to replenish after battle. Much more practical, when you are building and maintaining a very large empire. To draw a parallel to modern martial arts, is it necessary nowadays to train for many year in kung fu to protect yourself on the modern streets? Probably not. You may get quicker results from other arts. Has something we can't quite place our finger on been lost in antiquity, when it comes to Chinese Boxing? Maybe.
These observations were written in 1929 on one of the earliest full contact events in mainland China before the communist take over by a disciple of Zhang Zhaodong who came 13th in the competition dispute being only 20 and relatively new to kung fu So I'm not sure how much the Chinese arts have lost due to the cultural revolution...and how much was missing for a long time in a lot of what was taught
I'm not familiar with that book, but if it is Chinese and was approved by the Communist Revolution, it would have been edited by the Communists. Or maybe it survived in secrecy, I don't know the book. If Chinese fighters were indeed practicing Japanese martial arts, which would make sense as the Japanese had occupied China, then Chinese martial arts were indeed already in a state of degradation. The invasions China had suffered, fair to say, would have had a considerable impact on Chinese culture and a negative one at that. Even when the British first got there, they faced an antiquated Chinese navy that was a good couple of hundred years out of date. China was subsequently flooded with opium by British tea traders, and there was nothing the once mighty empire of China could do about it. Anyway, there was also Huo Yuanjia, of the late 19th century. He apparently did well against challenges from foreign fighters. And then what is Chinese Boxing? Its such a big subject. What the farmers were practicing could have been considerably different to what was happening at Wudang mountain. What was practiced in Beijing around 1800, might have been nothing like what was practiced at the Shaolin Temple in 700AD. To put it into context with this thread, it could be said that this specific Kung Fu practitioner isn't necessarily an effective representative of 2,500+ years of Chinese martial arts!
An interview for the same time period pointed out the same thing This was before the revolution and the interview has been referenced numerous times, the fact is Chinese arts were in trouble before the cultural revolution, how much trouble and how far back we really don't know
