What are these "skills" gong fu people talk about?

[neijia_boxer]

Since most people get caught up in the Gong fu movies and start doing gong fu, I wanted to get a idea of what "skills" people are looking at and looking for when starting training arduous training like in martial arts. Personally I've never been one to seek knowing how to jump up on a 10 ft. wall and between buildings, nor was fajin launching people, or holding back numerous people pushing on me something I care to know.

Tricks, Not skills to me:






Of course there are breaking skills, Iron body skills, and other feats:





skills to me are flexibility, stamina, and endurance, striking speed and power, and ability to defend and absorb blows, take someones structure and throw them to the ground, fight multiple opponents.

[windwalker]

many things are tricks to those who can not do them, for those who can they understand the skills needed to do them.

[windwalker]

skills to me are flexibility, stamina, and endurance, striking speed and power, and ability to defend and absorb blows, take someones structure and throw them to the ground, fight multiple opponents.

flexibility, stamina, endurance, are what everyone has already,
Through training they can be improved.

[Bao]

skills to me are flexibility, stamina, and endurance, striking speed and power, and ability to defend and absorb blows, take someones structure and throw them to the ground, fight multiple opponents.

Then why do you choose "kung fu"/TMA if the skills you look for is there in any martial art?

[everything]

for me, throwing and off-balancing skill has always been the most interesting. various ph type exercises are great for helping those skills.

those parkour type skills you mentioned like climbing 10 ft walls seem incredibly interesting but also feel painful just thinking about them (at least the landing and breakfalls, maybe not the climbing).

[neijia_boxer]

skills to me are flexibility, stamina, and endurance, striking speed and power, and ability to defend and absorb blows, take someones structure and throw them to the ground, fight multiple opponents.

Then why do you choose "kung fu"/TMA if the skills you look for is there in any martial art?

The Chinese jibengong (Changquan) I train in does have flexibility, stamina, and endurance training where other martial arts do not have these.

[vadaga]

mainly the stickiness and unbalancing stuff is what I think sets tai chi apart from other MA I have done, also the transitions from striking/wrestling to qinna and vice versa

[Steve James]

I thought the question was whether the "skills" shown in any of these clips are the ones mentioned in l the oral tradition.

Btw, the second generation Yangs had different skills.

[daoboxer]

Speed, evasiveness, and devastating striking power are the skills I most value. And the holy trinity of posture, balance and relaxation. I suppose the beauty of the neijia arts is that these, and other such skills can always be refined, meaning that training (hopefully) never becomes stagnant or boring. The wonders never cease!

[shawnsegler]

IME there's a host of them, but they tend to flow in and out of one another. There's certainly agility skills- the sort of rubber-band-y body that people think of when they think of kung-fu along with the fine interior motor control that comes with training it properly. Lightness skills- the sort of parkour stuff that includes the aforementioned agility stuff.

Then there's the mental stuff, not the least of which is "enlightenment"- the loss of the ego that comes from any sort of intense, long term single pointed concentration/meditation...but in terms of martial arts its more of a side effect. Then there's building an internal gyroscope..the ability to mentally project visualized force vectors inside and outside of the body- increased 3d tracking skill...etc...etc..

and, of course, point striking, mind leading, structure manipulation etc, etc, etc....

Anyway, there's lots of variations on those and other things but those are the first that come to mind. The big difference in my mind is that in Kung Fu you get abilities that can be developed in other ways such as simply training really hard in normal physical pursuits...the difference IME is the amount of mental control one gains, as well as the thoroughness through the kung fu way- an athlete in a more "external" fighting art might gain some of the agility that the kung fu man gains (see prince naseem) but is unlikely to have gained the same level of interior control that is gained through kung fu, which has myriad other uses.

IME, of course.

Best,

S

[kenneth fish]

There are basic skill sets as you have listed (flexibility, balance, basic structure) which are common to many athletic pursuits. There are also training practices that are more or less unique to Chinese martial arts - training to use muscle groups that are not generally thought of as under voluntary control to increase speed, strength, and leverage, as well as more esoteric practices that have to do with mindset and autonomic control. These skills are seen mostly in their effects rather than visible physical development. As a result there are probably more people who discuss them (or claim them) than actually train these skills.

[yeniseri]

My POV has always been considered heretical in one way or another but what I try to impart (when I can) is a teaching and instruction methodology that allows for some level and type of progress that can be seen and demonstrated

My skill is small and even minutia in depth but I acknowledge we all have flexibility, strength, etc to a degree but my schpeel is that how do we develop those skills related to penglujiankaozhou, etc with the elements of flexibility and strength. What are the elements, patterns, steps, etc (from 1 to X) to master the concept of kao (shoulder strike). What is the context of application along with the steps associated with it and the other bafa! That is how I approach the skill angle. Can there be kao in peng or lu? How? Why? Demonstrate the concept at will and delineate said steps.

My present position is at a university in the Public Safety area but a month ago an instructional design workshop was given and I attended and it was a perfect way to incorporate methods of learning, elements of learning and the principles associated with Blooms Taxonomy. I have heard of the fellow before but this was apropos in its presentation

Most of info. is based on education but its concepts roll over to other fields of learning and the domains associated with instructive technology. How does this apply to CMA? If you are claiming to impart some level of skill, at each step of a basic process, one should be able to demsontrate that step per said level. Anything less in 'a learning context is a waste of time because there is no retention of basic understanding of the topic at hand. Check out the link!

Bloom's taxonomy of Learning; synopses
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

[windwalker]

My POV has always been considered heretical in one way or another but what I try to impart (when I can) is a teaching and instruction methodology that allows for some level and type of progress that can be seen and demonstrated

Isn't this what most teachers do?

The first part of the process is to find some validity for acquiring the skill set.
Then seek others who either teach it or the one that some feel may have it.

After that one can question the "methods,. elements and principles of learning used to present convey them.

What happens when people who are unable to do the skill
then seek to redefine the skill to their level of understanding or ability.

Tricks, Not skills to me:

kind of says it all.


is this is not a skill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_twObPf ... d-&index=7

[Pennykid]

I'm not ashamed to say expertise in qinggong is absolutely my most coveted skill. Not the parkour stuff but the actual 10 foot vertical leap ability and the gliding over the ground that Meeks witnessed his taiji teacher do multiple times. Maybe there's some reasonable explanation of this ability but I'm comfortable calling it straight up super-human. I value this above fighting ability because in my 41 years I have never been in a real fight. There's a good chance I'm never going to be in a real fight. I do, however, frolic in nature all the time and leaping like a f**king leopard would bring me tremendous joy.

The second skill I covet is the kind of evasive ability Sun Lutan is rumoured to have had. For some reason, being almost impossible to hit or grab appeals to me more than being able to crush an opponent easily.

And coming in third is just plain scary hitting power like Meeks, Yang Guotai, and Vince Black have(had). The kind of power that shatters your spirit and leaves you fighting to contain your bowels.

Scott

[WVMark]

Since most people get caught up in the Gong fu movies and start doing gong fu, I wanted to get a idea of what "skills" people are looking at and looking for when starting training arduous training like in martial arts. Personally I've never been one to seek knowing how to jump up on a 10 ft. wall and between buildings, nor was fajin launching people, or holding back numerous people pushing on me something I care to know.

The very basis of many of the founders was immovability. To discount that is to discount the very foundation of many martial schools.

So, what exactly does this "holding back numerous people pushing on me" really all about? It is Fudo myo-o (Acala-vidyārāja is known in Japan as Fudō-myōō).
Esoteric training to achieve immobility.

Takuan:
"Ignorant people and highly educated people who remained ignorant, don't understand what the qualities of immovability really are, among which is rapid movement."

For instance, from the book, "Miyamoto Musashi: His Life and Writings" by Kenji Tokitsu. In a footnote, "This is the point from which one of the paradoxes of the teaching of budo is derived: Speed is not worth as much as slowness; slowness is not worth as much as immobility - this is the significance of the exercise of standing Zen".

Ueshiba, known for his aiki, stated that he could not be pushed over because he knew the secret of aiki.

Yet, all those martial artists, many were founders of systems, didn't just stand there immovable, except as a demonstration. Why use that as a demonstration? Think about it. If you can stand there and not be moved by people trying to move you ... what chance are they going to have when *you* actually start moving? In a dynamic encounter, how can someone move you into a weak position ... if they can't move you while you're just standing there? It was never about being so rooted in place that you couldn't move. It was about being dynamically stable where the opponent couldn't move you.

Fajin launching people was another foundation of many schools. No, not the hopping of the student. The actual power produced by internal training. Bone breaking power. That was what was talked about, what was sought after, what allowed martial artists to stand out.