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zirk · 02-22-2008, 02:59 AM

Hello again. I must admit, I fail to see where (I) make matters worse. Unless ofcourse you are under the assumption than I consider CMA to be the ultimate death-fighting-ravage system on earth, witch I do not

I cannot answer for other people, so what I state are my opinions alone.

The forms, aside from being a curium of moves is also there to train the whole body to move, and ‘follow the general guidelines’ for the system. They are also a way to strech and strengthen a body, and I can clearly see it has it use in mass training. I understand your point of ‘watering down the lineage’, but you are forgetting one aspect of it: good practicioners understand the system ! Let me take an example. A friend of mine is third degree black belt in a fairly modern version of Kun Tao (Shantung province kung fu brought to Indonesia). By attending a Long Fist seminar and watching a few movies, he can fight ‘long fist style’ as well as people practicing it for years, as he understand how the power is generated, and how that specific system delivers strikes/kicks. He can correct students of other arts in their forms, simply because he understands the very basic behind combat.

I use him as an example, because his level of skill is far ahead of mine. And if you watch him destroy (almost literally) 3 boxers on the street, you cannot deny his fighting abilities (well, he destroyed one of them, and it kind of stopped the fight there, and continued in court) I have talked a lot with him, and he denies my claims that it because he is a natural better fighter than many others, and he would say something like ‘when I was in Japan last year, I fought someone who trained ‘something’, who was about 30 times better than me, but I won because of my system’. Ok, statements like that should be taken with a grain of salt, but if you witness him in action there is no doubt he knows what he is doing, and thus (for me) makes his statement pretty credible.

But you do not go that far without questioning. I have myself ‘wasted’ a couple of years on various CMA training gyms, with ‘masters’ not able to explain even the simplest of things regarding moves, always talking about the great Chi that will tear down your enemies with a lightning bolt. And funnily enough, never entered any form of competion or engaged in fights with other people at their ‘level’. The worst I ever heard was a Sifu who made huge claims to be master ninjutsu, master ‘old style san-shou’, master ‘red dragon fly by fu’ and whatnot, but he could not compete in my country as he was ‘used to a much harder ring fight’.

He could not give me a demonstration kick on me, as it would ‘break my arm, he was trained to do that since age of 4’. So instead he gave a few kicks in the air and making some bruce-lee expression with his face.

Now, that is bogus. And from the sound of it, what you have witnessed is a lot of bogus as well. And that, in my opinion, is the real problem:

A lot of bogus! And I have a personal opinion of it as well: Walk into a Thai or boxing gym, and you see a lot of fighters. Walk into a CMA gym and you see a lot of geeks (pardon my expression). The meaning of ‘kung fu’ is ‘hard work’, and that is what a lot of CMA are not prepared for. They don’t want to train hard and fight hard, but they want to be ‘master martial artist’, and happily jumps on the wagon to take the short route. I was once told to ‘not stand against ( I don’t know the English term.. to be more cooperative’) on a hopeless student trying to perform some newly learned ‘chi na’ (locks). They simply did not work as intended/instructed, even if all I was doing was grabbing his hand and holding it still. I was told I could get serious injury if I did not follow the move, and I said I would probably go down when the technique was performed correctly, so I would take my chances. Then I started just slipping my hand out of his grip, so he could not perform it at all, to witch the instructor said ‘well, he let go, so there should be no further need to continue the move’. So the whole point with a rather complicated lock was for me to let go of his hand. Yeah right. One more place I did not want to train.

And I can count numerous times in ‘pre designed drills’, where my partner (who have done this routine for years) starts doing the blocks long before I have made my punch. Or if I have deliberately been to slow to perform my block, his punch would miss by a mile. Now, where is the training in that ? (I have been to quite some gyms, due to moving around)

So to sum up my views, after all this rather rambling nonsense, and quite getting off topic:
- Forms are ok to do, but you must combine it with actually performing the moves on an unwilling partner
- If you just want to fight, CMA is probably not for you, as there are better alternatives
- There are great CMA fighters, who are dedicated and train hard
- You need to stay away from bogus instructors.
- Most MMA/Thai/Boxers are better fighters than most TMA. Probalbly are most hockey/football players better fighters too.
- Keep it real. Most people will never be very good CMA fighters.

So I support your claims that gyms doing mostly forms are not very effective for fighting, I disagree that it is impossible to find the ‘real’ MA within the techniques performed in a form, and I do agree (sadly) that there is far too much nonsense in the world.

As previously stated, I find it the most fun doing CMA, and I acknowledge I would probably be better at fighting doing MMA or other combat sport. In the end, the most brutal mofo wins on the street anyway, who have no regard for neither his or your safety and well-being.

Ps: I really don’t like modern wu-shu.

02-22-2008, 02:59 AM	#17 (permalink)
zirk Registered User Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 17 Groans: 0 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts	Hello again. I must admit, I fail to see where (I) make matters worse. Unless ofcourse you are under the assumption than I consider CMA to be the ultimate death-fighting-ravage system on earth, witch I do not I cannot answer for other people, so what I state are my opinions alone. The forms, aside from being a curium of moves is also there to train the whole body to move, and ‘follow the general guidelines’ for the system. They are also a way to strech and strengthen a body, and I can clearly see it has it use in mass training. I understand your point of ‘watering down the lineage’, but you are forgetting one aspect of it: good practicioners understand the system ! Let me take an example. A friend of mine is third degree black belt in a fairly modern version of Kun Tao (Shantung province kung fu brought to Indonesia). By attending a Long Fist seminar and watching a few movies, he can fight ‘long fist style’ as well as people practicing it for years, as he understand how the power is generated, and how that specific system delivers strikes/kicks. He can correct students of other arts in their forms, simply because he understands the very basic behind combat. I use him as an example, because his level of skill is far ahead of mine. And if you watch him destroy (almost literally) 3 boxers on the street, you cannot deny his fighting abilities (well, he destroyed one of them, and it kind of stopped the fight there, and continued in court) I have talked a lot with him, and he denies my claims that it because he is a natural better fighter than many others, and he would say something like ‘when I was in Japan last year, I fought someone who trained ‘something’, who was about 30 times better than me, but I won because of my system’. Ok, statements like that should be taken with a grain of salt, but if you witness him in action there is no doubt he knows what he is doing, and thus (for me) makes his statement pretty credible. But you do not go that far without questioning. I have myself ‘wasted’ a couple of years on various CMA training gyms, with ‘masters’ not able to explain even the simplest of things regarding moves, always talking about the great Chi that will tear down your enemies with a lightning bolt. And funnily enough, never entered any form of competion or engaged in fights with other people at their ‘level’. The worst I ever heard was a Sifu who made huge claims to be master ninjutsu, master ‘old style san-shou’, master ‘red dragon fly by fu’ and whatnot, but he could not compete in my country as he was ‘used to a much harder ring fight’. He could not give me a demonstration kick on me, as it would ‘break my arm, he was trained to do that since age of 4’. So instead he gave a few kicks in the air and making some bruce-lee expression with his face. Now, that is bogus. And from the sound of it, what you have witnessed is a lot of bogus as well. And that, in my opinion, is the real problem: A lot of bogus! And I have a personal opinion of it as well: Walk into a Thai or boxing gym, and you see a lot of fighters. Walk into a CMA gym and you see a lot of geeks (pardon my expression). The meaning of ‘kung fu’ is ‘hard work’, and that is what a lot of CMA are not prepared for. They don’t want to train hard and fight hard, but they want to be ‘master martial artist’, and happily jumps on the wagon to take the short route. I was once told to ‘not stand against ( I don’t know the English term.. to be more cooperative’) on a hopeless student trying to perform some newly learned ‘chi na’ (locks). They simply did not work as intended/instructed, even if all I was doing was grabbing his hand and holding it still. I was told I could get serious injury if I did not follow the move, and I said I would probably go down when the technique was performed correctly, so I would take my chances. Then I started just slipping my hand out of his grip, so he could not perform it at all, to witch the instructor said ‘well, he let go, so there should be no further need to continue the move’. So the whole point with a rather complicated lock was for me to let go of his hand. Yeah right. One more place I did not want to train. And I can count numerous times in ‘pre designed drills’, where my partner (who have done this routine for years) starts doing the blocks long before I have made my punch. Or if I have deliberately been to slow to perform my block, his punch would miss by a mile. Now, where is the training in that ? (I have been to quite some gyms, due to moving around) So to sum up my views, after all this rather rambling nonsense, and quite getting off topic: - Forms are ok to do, but you must combine it with actually performing the moves on an unwilling partner - If you just want to fight, CMA is probably not for you, as there are better alternatives - There are great CMA fighters, who are dedicated and train hard - You need to stay away from bogus instructors. - Most MMA/Thai/Boxers are better fighters than most TMA. Probalbly are most hockey/football players better fighters too. - Keep it real. Most people will never be very good CMA fighters. So I support your claims that gyms doing mostly forms are not very effective for fighting, I disagree that it is impossible to find the ‘real’ MA within the techniques performed in a form, and I do agree (sadly) that there is far too much nonsense in the world. As previously stated, I find it the most fun doing CMA, and I acknowledge I would probably be better at fighting doing MMA or other combat sport. In the end, the most brutal mofo wins on the street anyway, who have no regard for neither his or your safety and well-being. Ps: I really don’t like modern wu-shu.