Faith in what you do

[Fubo]

Fubo, with all respect for Mr. Cartmells accomplishments, he states he did about nine different styles of martial arts, do you think because he did not squeeze all the juice from the twelve animals - which is a huge period of work taking many years - maybe he had to find 'groundwork' in BJJ?

Look at the difference with him and Lo in the film they out out, it is night and day.

Observing his structure, and that of the other famous american teachers, not a single one has anything like the clear, solid, tremendously rooted and connected structure or stancework of the present day high level Chinese. Its just how it is. Look at the few demos they put out of five fists and compare to the Chinese. At best it is 'good try'. Mostly they are mimiking, without depth.

Of course they can fight, that is not the point, anyone can fight and after 25 years training .....

Please , anyone put up a video to prove me wrong. Form does reveal a lot, after all.

In UK its is widely held amongst long termers that only two public teachers have deep mastery - Steve Morris and Paul Whitrod. Two men in 60 million. Yes there are others who dont teach publicly, but we cannot have film to tell.

I will wait for any offers

For Su Dong Chen, my brother trained with him for years in Japan and it is definate he is a Hebei Xingyiquan master, as is Luo, its what they practice and their foundation.

I don't know what you exactly mean by "he did not squeeze all the juice from the twelve animals", but I'm guessing you mean he did not dive deep enough - well, that's funny! Considering the depth of knowledge and experience he has in the CMA. Are you refering to the video of him and Luo made over a decade and a half ago?

It seems like you are overly concerned with the outer the shell of CMA, as one can tell Mr. Cartmell's quality of MA through all the sparring, fighting and technique clips he has put up. It's funny to hear anyone say one can judge a person MA through watching him do a form - although I am not one of his students, I can only imagine his resistance against throwing "forms clips" up on the net as there are already thousands of so called "masters" with their clips on the net showing nothing but forms - he adds something to the IMA clip world that many don't!

Put up a video of what? A form? There are enough IMA/CMA forms on the internet to last everyone and the children a life time, if I see another form I think I'll puke - What I think is "revealing" is so many choose to put up forms, but very few choose (maybe out of their ability) to put up any kind of non-cooperative sparring/fighting clips.

As far as you thinking your 12 animals ground fighting can go nearly into as much depth as BJJ, well, I look forward to the video of you proving it against a high level BJJ person (considering your 30 years MA experience of course).

Sounds like you live in the UK, yes? I've lived there before - You should really travel a bit more if you think the UK is the example of what's what in IMA/CMA in the west - not saying there isn't good stuff there, just saying it's a "small" piece of the world pie.

Who are you to judge the "American" teacher's structure? Making blanket statements like that begins to show your anti Americanism that so many people in the UK I met share (almost always from ignorance), btw I'm half British and not American.

IMA is not about forms, they are a part of it, but all the training methods (including forms) revolve around the arts principles - which is why you can tell the quality of a person like Mr. Cartmell's art from his clips, because he expresses the arts principle's and technique's clearly and perfectly. I suppose you won't be happy until you see a video of him "penging" someone a few feet away, only to have them walk back up to him for the next peng.

Su and Luo are also Gao BGZ and TJQ masters - I'm surprised you didn't know that.

I eagerly await your video demonstration of high level IMA expressed in "forms" (as you feel is so important to show), in "application" and in "sparring against a fully resisting opponent".

[JessOBrien]

Spring,

Who are you again man? You talk a lot about people like Tim Cartmell, Marnix Wells, Luo De Xiu, and Su Dong Chen. Yet I'm not sure they would know who you are with a fake name.

Please be a man and state your name. Then your arguments and comments can actually begin to mean something.

Thanks,

Jess

[spring]

Jess, Darth, Fubo and all, I am nobody special, and I dont know the people you mention too much except in passing or viewing their films. I dont feel I am in a position to put my stuff online, the further I train the less skilled I feel.

This thread was just to point out the need for faith through immersion in practice of a core set of principles. Why it makes everyone so upset is beyond me, we are all entitled to have opinions about what we think of teachers who put their practice online to promote themselves, yes?

You may be right, I may be wrong. Lets leave it at that.

[strawdog]

It sounds like you have zero credibility, Spring.

[Chris Fleming]

Jess, Darth, Fubo and all, I am nobody special, and I dont know the people you mention too much except in passing or viewing their films. I dont feel I am in a position to put my stuff online, the further I train the less skilled I feel.

This thread was just to point out the need for faith through immersion in practice of a core set of principles. Why it makes everyone so upset is beyond me, we are all entitled to have opinions about what we think of teachers who put their practice online to promote themselves, yes?

You may be right, I may be wrong. Lets leave it at that.

Troll.

[Elliot]

Of course they can fight, that is not the point, anyone can fight and after 25 years training .....

Not necessarily. I'll bet, after his 30 years of faithful forms training, Spring still cannot fight.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Darth, you normally make strong intelligent points in your posts, but here you are not.

Anyone can fight, period. In CMA we train to develop a certain kind of structure, this is central.

Without this special structure (lets say the Six Harmonies give a good clue as to what it is) you may fight, but you wont fight with the special trained power which is CMA.

Now, the development of that structure is evident as soon a man sits or stands up, let alone walks. Thats why we see a very fast beautiful Xingyi form and all go - wah!!!!! Wushuuuu...

Or not. We look with eyes that see the small things which give the game away.

Darth, look at the footage we have of Wang Pei Sheng, for example, or Su Dong Chen, issuing force and fighting, It is not jujutsu. Look at footage of the western 'masters' and see the big difference. Can you see?

I'm willing to bet you have no footage of any old masters in any form of actual free form combat. I think you're ticked with me because I refuse to validate what you are saying. I refuse to validate what you are saying because it is self evident nonsense and has zero bearing on the reality of crossing hands with intention. Your premise is seriously flawed and you will get yourself hurt with that critical error in thinking being your cornerstone.

[rakushun]

For those who feel that spring has zero credibility (which he admits to), please ignore his posts in the future. I find his posts informative even though I do not necessarily agree with all of his opinions.

[JessOBrien]

Spring is a nice guy and all but he keeps talking about people I personally know and respect. It bothers me because the people in question have a great deal of integrity, and to take anonymous pot shots at them shows that Spring has none. Which makes all of his posts questionable, no matter how entertaining.

-Jess O