the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

There is this kind of people who practise CMA/IMA for years looking for a way to beat the big strong guys by being as soft as possible and going the 'internal way'.

They seem to be everywhere now
I have never met anyone on this Forum but here seems to be a different kind of people which seems to be hard to find in real life CMA/IMA circles.

I came to the conclusion that actually learning to box (western boxing) would be way quicker and most of the time more effective than training for decades without being able to show anything.

So I have to questions for your gusy:
1. Whats your reason for choosing CMA/IMA?
2. Whats your opinion on boxing?
Generally I think if two persons with same potential and same competence in teacher start out training, one in Boxing the other in <insertCMAhere>. Probably the first person will be earlier ready to protect himself or have fights. I wonder at what point (if ever) this changes. Whether at some point the strategies of CMA are clearly much more effective or whether that won't happen. Also I saw some old boxers who I really rather wouln't want to mess with. So not sure about the age aspect, if you started with learning boxing when you were young.

Am I the only one that gets tired of this same old conversation?

AnotherMonkey wrote: Whats your reason for choosing CMA/IMA?

It was never a question of choosing between this or that. I just fell in Love with Tai Chi Chuan. It was an instant love. Even if I am interested in TCMA and have practiced some other styles, I have never had the same feeling for any other art. So I would probably not practice any martial art all today even if I didn't have my T'ai Chi.

oragami_itto wrote:Am I the only one that gets tired of this same old conversation?

Maybe?

AnotherMonkey wrote:There is this kind of people who practise CMA/IMA for years looking for a way to beat the big strong guys by being as soft as possible and going the 'internal way'.

This is what IMA should deliver but rarely does. However BJJ often does so this may be an option for you. I say that as an IMA practitioner so no agenda.

oragami_itto wrote:Am I the only one that gets tired of this same old conversation?

eVIDENTLY.

You can learn all of the technical basis of Western boxing in six months if you are gifted that way. If you are slow-witted it takes a year. The rest is drills, drills, drills. Exercises. Running, baby--road work. Getting punched hard in the face when you thought you were winning. Learning by doing. On the job training.

How long does it take to learn taiji? I cannot answer that question. I have not finished yet.

I will note that Western boxing shares some mechanical resemblances with xingyi. Drop step onto forward foot, but boxing tends to use a turning step rather than a straight following step after. Left hook and right cross are turning steps.

Reality check question: Given two men of 19, one trained for a year in taiji, the other for a year in Western boxing, similar size, fitness, and intelligence--which one will you bet on?

1. Whats your reason for choosing CMA/IMA?
2. Whats your opinion on boxing?

1. I took it up because some fool told me it would smooth and refine my moves and increase my perspective on what I was doing before, boxing and JKA karate. It did not do those things but became a new interest on its own. The body does have a cleverness within that is touched upon by CMA, Chinese traditional medicine, and qigong.

2. It is where I started.

"Begone," she stormed, "Beyond the raging tide!"
"By Jove why did I go?" he said. "I should have stoied."

And yet I would not minimize the value I have received from TCMA. The Chinese emphasis on balance, body awareness and posture is peerless throughout the world. Some of the herbs work.

oragami_itto wrote:Am I the only one that gets tired of this same old conversation?

Things like this are what makes it so hard to read through old posts because you have pages and pages of stuff that has nothing to do with the actual question. If you get tired of this but know some good threads please rather point me to those threads.

You can learn all of the technical basis of Western boxing in six months if you are gifted that way.

That's interesting to know! Maybe I should pick it up.

AnotherMonkey wrote:

You can learn all of the technical basis of Western boxing in six months if you are gifted that way.

That's interesting to know! Maybe I should pick it up.

Good! Things you will need: Tylenol. Ace bandages. Ice. Practice makes perfect.

AnotherMonkey wrote: please rather point me to those threads.

I may be able to copy some of the discussions from old RSF threads.

- IMA is not only for fighting, it can be used for health, self-cultivation, inner peace, culture study, ...
- If fighting is all you care about, IMA is not for you.
- If you care about fighting, go to buy yourself a gun.
- My IMA teacher can beat Mike Tyson to death if he wants to.
- There are many good Taiji fighters out there. You just haven't had the luck to meet one yet.
- There are 3 persons in US that you should meet. After you have met any one of them, you will change your opinion big time.
- Boxing uses brute force. It's very bad. Taiji uses 4 oz to deal with 1000 lb. It's very good.
- ...

In the 70s as a young teenager growing up in San Francisco during the troubled times of the day. Looking for a refuge, Chinese Martial Arts opened its door and invited me in….little did I know I could never leave. https://journeytoemptiness.com/2017/05/10/beginnings/

I think people practice for many reasons, the validity of it up to them. The main point that some may not understand is
clarity and honesty in their practice.

In Boxing, getting hit, and learning how to hit, tends to bring this out very fast....
CMA as I have found is the same way.....depending on what one is looking for.


learn how to get hit, not get hit, how to hit, and not get hit while hitting...

Boxing is an excellent style based on a very adaptable context.

Just like any art, there are good teachers and bad ones. The CMA that I was taught will definitely produce fighting results in a year or less. I would argue that when learned for another year or two beyond that, it would be much more practical than boxing, as the former doesn't address kicking, wrestling, weapons etc. Also, there is nothing soft about what we do. Taijiquan isn't soft either. There is a lot of hard training - as hard as any other practical martial art. A lot of people that claim to do Taijiquan were never taught this and are lying to themselves that what they do is really a martial art..

I'm not surprised that you would think that, though, as I haven't seen much good stuff on Youtube and a lot of rubbish, so it stands to reason that quality instructors are few and far between..

Was into JKA-Karate and throu that kind of slipped in to CMA, because of its obvious and not so obvious connection to Karate, I had some hopes to find out about the MA of Fujian and Xingyiquan......Well I found a teacher who had XYQ on his curriculum but focused almost exclusively on Taiji practice which I not really wanted to do but took it up anyway and liked it immediately, not for its "obvious" martial aspect but more for how one had to put the mind into it...I found an excercise that in a (for me) interesting way completely focused my otherwise fluctuating daydreaming mind:) ......the only other "excercise" where I "had" to have that amount of "here an now" focus was in my Karate sparring/fighting...... No doubt Boxing(fighting) require that kind of focused focus too, but be prepared to get some "hopefully" minor damages if take the Boxing road..at least a busted nose(a couple of times)is almost required to be able to call yourself a boxer

windwalker wrote:
In Boxing, getting hit, and learning how to hit, tends to bring this out very fast....

It is a method that has worked for quite a long time. We lose the historical trail sometime earlier than ancient Greece, somewhere in ancient Egypt and Iraq. At a loose estimate, the game is four thousand years old.

In merrie olde England it included basic throwing, but the busybody Marquis of Queensbury introduced the unwelcome innovation of breaking at the clinch, so that when the referee shouts "Break!" you stop what you were doing. That unfortunate practice persists to this day.

AnotherMonkey wrote:
I came to the conclusion that actually learning to box (western boxing) would be way quicker and most of the time more effective than training for decades without being able to show anything.

I will give you another hint. Western fencing (yes, it looks like dancing fairies in leotards) is the short road to understanding distance and timing.

My weapon is the saber. In Western fencing it is the weapon of coarse louts and braggarts, of muscle not finesse. Well, okay, but I can win at it, and there is in CMA a similar distinction between dao and jian. Remarkable. Interesting.