Towards an Accurate MA Family Tree

[Finny]

{citation needed} Finny, unless you can provide a citation for that, I will assume that you are one of those with the deeply held opinions to whom I was referring. Are you afraid of what may be revealed?

Sorry what? Have you provided a citation? What 'deeply held opinions' do you think I have shown?

Just fyi - I couldn't give a shit either way. Just offering my thoughts. If you have any of your own I'd happily discuss, but ad hominem is old and boring.

[ambulocetus]

Listen Bud, you made the claim that this idea is old and debunked. The person who makes a claim has the burden of proof. That was not an ad hominem ; you came in here with with unsubstantiated claims, leading me to assume that you have an agenda. I was merely speculating on what that agenda likely is. If you started our interaction in a more polite manner, then we could have a discussion, but right now you look like a troll to me. Perhaps others may interact with you in this thread, but I don't think you deserve my attention.

[Finny]

Ah - I see. BK Frantzis has famously claimed that aikido was sourced from baguazhang, based on the 'circular footwork' etc. Debunked. That was the example that immediately came to mind. But I've seen plenty of others.

How can you possibly think that physical movement characteristics in combat arts can be used to demonstrate anything of value regarding historical research? What happens when this model highlights the identical grappling characteristics that are simply common to.. grappling, and tells you that Turkish wrestling, catch, and sumo share a common origin? Will that be useful?

Or is your idea that this can be used in a localised way in examining specific arts with known common sources - as you have above with the Yongchun/Okinawan/WC connection? I suppose my next question would be - what is that adding to the knowledge already obtained through traditional evidence based research? (In other words, it is already known that Okinawan/WC/BH arts share a common Fujian ancestry) To be clear, that has absolutely nothing to do with blindly accepting partisan origin stories/myths.

[ambulocetus]

B. K Frantzis did not use cladistics. I would wager he's never heard of it. If he had used cladistics, he would not reached an erroneous conclusion. It is much more than simply comparing movement. You jumped to the conclusion that you knew what I was talking about, but you did not read carefully enough. The characteristics to which I am referring include, but are not limited to, terminology, principles, philosophy, colloquialisms, etc. The more characteristics included in the input, the more accurate the output.

[Finny]

Sure, but many of those are subjective and/or vague. To be fair, your first post and subsequent examples focused on the toe-in movement as an integral element in establishing the connection between those arts. My sole point was that using movement at all is totally unreliable.

[ambulocetus]

I also said that it could be useful to check the efficacy of my hypothesis by running through an example of known provenance to confirm the reliability of the results. Please go back and read the argument I laid out more carefully.

[Finny]

Would that not risk confirmation bias?

That's ok chief - seems like you have some pretty 'deeply held opinions' of your own. All the best with it though.

[ambulocetus]

You are correct; I do have deeply held opinions. Here are three of them:
1 the scientific method can solve any problem given enough time and effort
2 manners are important to the smooth running of a community
3 one should always read carefully before commenting

[Iskendar]

You should contact forum member Sal Canzonieri, he more or less did this and wrote a book about it:

https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-History-C ... B00KE8EOVE

Fascinating stuff, though it could have used an editor