Thank you Wuyizidi ! Excellent !

[spring]

From Wu style taiji thread, Wuyizidi posted a saying of his grandteacher Wang Peishang, it is the single most useful thing I have ever seen on the internet connected to martial arts. On case anyone didnt read that thread, I want to quote it -

Master Wang dismissed the request: "you youngsters today, you do this for 3, 4 hours a day, that's not practicing, that's playing. Anything that is deep and complex requires full time professional effort to achieve high level mastery. I already taught you guys more things than you can practice at your current level of commitment. What's the point of having shallow understanding of one more thing?! Besides, Hou Tian Fa may contain interesting applications/techniques, but its essence is the same as that of 13 Postures. There are no meaningful differences. It's still Taiji."


A deep bow to GM Wang. Simply wonderful.

[Wuyizidi]

You're very welcome. That is just common sense right. People ask why are there no internal martial art fighters at UFC. Well, one reason is, how many people who "practice" IMA train 8 hours a day like these guys do?

Master Wang is actually my great-grand teacher (he was born 1919, me 1968). The group is very traditional, for any teacher, as soon as his most senior disciple opens his door, he closes his. Hence the 3 generations between us.

Wuyizidi

[GrahamB]

The group is very traditional, for any teacher, as soon as his most senior disciple opens his door, he closes his. Hence the 3 generations between us.

Wuyizidi

Actually, it's more likely this is the reason that there's no "internal" in the UFC

[Bao]

That's the sad part. Only if you have CMA as profession - a full time job, you can have the time that is necessary. How many can manage to earn a living on his hobby? - on the things he/she loves? And the question is - do you really want to have CMA as your job?

[spring]

Wuyizidi - I have been reading about GM Wang, great life story, its interesting that at old age he defeated an expert Shorinji Kenpo fighter, I heard those guys are amongst the best fighters in Japan.

[spring]

Watching film of him , it seems his main style is Yin Bagua , and second Wu Taijiquan. Did he explain which was his main personal practice ?

[Wuyizidi]

That's the sad part. Only if you have CMA as profession - a full time job, you can have the time that is necessary. How many can manage to earn a living on his hobby? - on the things he/she loves? And the question is - do you really want to have CMA as your job?

We don't need to talk about CMA, just martial art today in general: before UFC, other than a few mega celebrities within martial art world (e.g. Chen Xiaowang), how many people can make a comfortable living as professional martial artists? Even for the UFC guys, other than the top fighters, it's not an good, easy life right? For poor people, is it a way out of poverty the way basketball, football, baseball are? For middle class people, is martial art a perfect alternative to undergrad degree in business or computer science? For rich people, why would you want to train this hard (http://www.chelseapiers.com/bluestreak/video.htm)?

It's all about need. In today's world, if your objective is just to get somewhere fast, would you fly, drive, take a train, or even bike, versus going by long-distance running? And if your objective is to kill, injure, incapacitate the people trying to do the same to you, are you going to fight them with bombs, war planes, rifles, pistols, or your empty hands?

So that leaves out practical needs.

Then we get to entertainment: people will pay money to see real, high level basketball, football, baseball skills. People will not pay money to see REAL, high-level martial art skills. Martial art is art of violence. In a civil society, that violence needs to be controlled. So as a sport, many of the best martial art skills, especially those on the striking side, the one does most damage to opponents, cannot be used (my Tongbei uncle's motto: "I only want two things from my opponent - his eyes and his balls"). We are literally tying our own hands there. Luckily grappling does not have that problem. But again, look at success of grappling as sport entertainment before UFC, it's mostly for entertainment - WWF. The average person prefer to see that versus seeing two guys wrestling on the ground with blood gushing all over canvas. Sure, single young men loves UFC, but it that something you can watch with your spouse, children, parent, at Thanksgiving? So it's not family entertainment, like most other sports.

So that leaves out most professional opportunities.

So lastly, we have personal fitness. Martial art is a skill. And it's designed to kill, injure. So automatically half of the population - women, are not going to be that interested. If you just want fitness, there are so many other alternatives that are more fun while you're doing it: surfing, skiiing, rollerblading... Most amateurs lead busy lives, to achieve fitness/conditioning, there are much more efficient alternatives: swimming, running, etc. We are amongst few people who practice martial art for what it is, but if we're honest with ourselves, we have to say the benefits we receive are mostly physical fitness and mental training - ancillary goals of CMA training.

And what about the social aspect? Do martial art as a profession have the same level of respect as other professions (business, law, medicine, architecture, IT...)? Can you impress strangers by telling them you do traditional martial art? You can't, because you are engaged in an entirely unreasonable pursuit. The general public, for perfectly valid reasons, do not have familiarly, understanding, or appreciation for this outdated skill.

All those 19th century martial art heroes we're talking about, they were professionals. If they are born today, most likely they won't be the same people, simply because the appropriate environment (physical necessity, economic incentive, competitive pressure, social acceptance) is not there.

Wuyizidi

p.s. I wonder how fellow EFer George Wood is doing, he's a professional teacher.

[Josealb]

Well said. We are bound by our lifestyle...unless we pull a Thoreau.

[Wuyizidi]

Well said. We are bound by our lifestyle...unless we pull a Thoreau.

Even then we won't reach the same level, Michael Jordan is who he is because he's constantly competing against a very large pool of motivated, talented people. He wouldn't be as good if he shut himself in some isolated mountain/lake and train just by himself.

[Bao]

Yes, Wuyizidi, very well said. But you seldom write something if you haven't got anything good to say. More people should follow your example.

I wrote CMA because this is a CMA forum, but you are right - the same can be said about many different things.

Everything is a matter of choice: you, me, everyone wants to be happy. We want to make a choice that makes us happy. I think you can get rid of all other aspects. If you love something and you are happy doing it, then that aspect is enough. Practicing martial arts is mostly stupid anyway. You can get health aspect from other practice. And if you have allready learned to defend yourself/fight, you really don't need to practice much self-defence aspects anymore. Probably you will never have the opportunity to use the stuff you have learned (and you should be thankful if you don't get that opportunity). So why do I practice martial arts(Taijiquan, Xingyiquan)? I've forgot. I just like practicing and explore these arts and I really don't know why. Strange, huh?

[shawnsegler]

Thank god you can train a few hours a day with dedication and still get something out of it...not the least of which is learning your own limitations.

Otherwise, this thread would have made me consider giving up forum talk for good.

S- and it almost did.

[Wuyizidi]

Agreed. On the positive side, all of this means the short term, external reasons for practicing traditional martial art are gone, so we generally do it for long term, intrinsic - very pure reasons. And that is actually very crucial in helping us reach high level understanding.

On the flip side, today practicing ancient martial art like practicing calligraphy. There are no longer practical reasons for writing with brush and ink, we do it only because we love it. But it is now an unnatural act, out of sync with the (modern) background/context. There's lot less people doing it, with lot less effort, so the overall level of practice is a lot lower.

We can't go against the overall historical trend. Martial art, like any other human activity, is an organic thing. For a long time there was a favorable environment for its development, now not so much. The only productive response is to accept that, and do the best we can under the circumstances. And this is really important, as I found out recently, we need to have fun while doing it - practice it with energy and joy.


Wuyizidi

[shawnsegler]

Word.

S

[Buddy]

Which sort of left that level of skill to only the wealthy, who could afford to live that life. Or those who had no other way to make a living and often died plying their trade (bodyguards).

Now guys do it to the exclusion of all else and become much poorer because of it. Only a small fraction of people can make a living at fighting for a living. And only the tiniest fraction of those can make a living off their reputations thereafter.

Otherwise you quit early and do something else. Or you quit late and end up a gimp flipping burgers.

I'm a hobbyist. And a damn good teacher of my hobby.

I am more than satisfied with that.

[Arnold]

Reminds me of my teacher. As a young man he trained 16 hours a day 6 days a week (and "only" trained 6 hours on Sunday to heal and recuperate). No wonder he developed solid skills so steadily. Of course he was one of those people who since he had found his passion, quit everything, including a career teaching at a university to study the martial arts non stop. When I asked how he did this he replied that he went back and lived on his family's farm so didn't have to worry about income.

I always say when I hit the lottery I can train like this. While I do admire people who have that kind of dedication and sacrifice I quite honestly can't justify deep sixing my career at this point in time to do so. Perhaps one day I'll build up the courage to give it all up and follow my muse.