There's a thread posted somewhere in the Chinese MA section showing a Hung Gar and Xing Yi masters square off on black & white film (I think it was those styles).
The fighting is terrible. You see some long fist techniques, but a lot of wasted motion in the upperbody and inefficient mobility & stances. Someone with a solid jab/cross and decent footwork would have KOd these guys within 5 minutes.
I try to keep an open mind about these things - something to consider also, that the average Chinaman circa 1940 or 1950, wasn't very large, athletic and not a sophisticated fighter, so fancy techniques may have been excellent at fending off bandits or crazies.
An episode of America's Most Wanted showed that the composite criminal from 1,000's of records says that the average career criminal is 5'8 - 5'11 and weighs 180 to 205 pounds. Some of these guys are avid lifters and are violent offenders. This is what you potentially face on the street.
If you can't atleast stagger a guy this size while doing contact free sparring or rock him hard during pad drills, then no matter how many chi sao drills or technique sets you do, you're not adequately training for self-defense. Like Geoff Thompson says, you've got to learn to hit f@ckin' hard.
On the flip side, there are some very skilled Chinese/Korean MAists who are very viscious fighters, but they don't own schools and keep themselves rather low-key; its too bad that these guys don't normally take up students and train them intensely. I'm not talking mystical, magical stuff - I'm talking about people who have served in military functions as either mercenaries or performed security for officials.
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