This thread leaves me thinking about another point that either hasn't been addressed or hasn't been fully considered. The practice of ti guan, as someone previously defined it, has generally (and appropriately) been decried as an act of pure malice. This thread has also evolved (devolved?) into a discussion of the larger topic of challenge matches as a whole, including those that don't really fall into the ti guan category precisely.
Challenge matches of the sort where the person being challenged can decline can still be more dangerous than was expected, especially if the 'challengee' does not know and/or trust the challenger to fight fairly and to stop before causing injury or death. However, at least the person being challenged has the option of declining and if he goes into it anyway, he does so making an informed choice. That's a crucial difference compared to the circumstance where the challenger refuses to allow the challengee to decline, and instead presses the physical assault regardless.
In the latter case, the challenger is a predator....no different than someone who assaults you on the street unavoidably, and he deserves the identical treatment you would show such an attacker, whatever that happens to be for you personally. In the case where the challenge
can be declined without further assault, then each person must decide for him/herself whether or not to engage in the practice, but there is less sympathy for those that do, since they do so knowing the potential dangers and yet still make a free choice to participate.
Since challenge matches serve no functional purpose in the modern age for which tournament fighting cannot provide an equal or superior format, let's look at the cultural origins of the practice of challenge matches to see why some people still perpetuate it. As has been mentioned, the practice began in a context where small villages and towns not only did not have the population to support multiple instructors, but were likely populated by people who were related to each other by various degrees. Clan enclaves rather than towns as we in the modern West know them. Therefore, the people of that village had a vested interest in not only preserving their combat methods, but in supporting their local instructor, since he was likely a relative.
As a result, a challenge to that instructor from someone foreign to the village also had a dimension of a challenge for rule of that local area by that particular clan of people as well. IOW, it was a political affair as well as an individual ego concern. It also cannot go unmentioned that the practice arose in a predominantly collectivist culture, with focus on the group (whether clan, village, school, province, state, etc.) taking precedent over the rights, needs and concerns of the individual. As a result, the "honor of the school" and other similar sentiments were given priority over what might or might not be in the best interest of any of the individuals involved.
Particularly in the modern West, society has evolved into one which recognizes and, to varying degrees, celebrates the rights, needs and freedoms of the individual over the collective. Not necessarily to exclusion, but in terms of priority. However, practice of martial arts in the modern West is still largely reflective of the earlier, more primitive view of the individual's role in society from which those arts came. Long before those arts reached the shores of the modern West, they were deeply infused with the cultural trappings, beliefs and customs of their native lands. Specifically with regard to Chinese arts, an overwhelmingly powerful element of Confucian philosophy pervades every aspect of those arts and their practice, even into the modern age.
This is fine, as long as the student is aware of the situation and makes a choice to embrace not only the martial art to which he is attracted, but also all of the social and cultural customs, beliefs and mindset that accompany it as a default package deal. One of the most important societal evolutions in Western culture has been the ascent and development of the trait of critical thinking. The modern Western critical thinker will easily realize that the baby and the bathwater are not the same, i.e., that the martial art and the entirety of the package of cultural, ethical and philosophical beliefs and practices in which it comes wrapped are neither one in the same nor are they joined at the hip. For example, it is well within the realm of possibility for someone to become quite skilled at the art of Taijiquan, Baguazhang or Xingyiquan without recognizing even the
existence of the concept of qi.
What the critical thinker will also recognize is that, as society has evolved or at least changed in the modern West from the original context of parochial village/clan defense, some of the practices that are associated with an art that arose in that more primitive context are no longer as well-adapted to the modern context in which he now lives. As an example, the need to test oneself and one's martial abilities in order to determine whether one is capable of real defense no longer requires engaging in life-threatening combat with hostile combatants. Much safer venues exist now which allow one's skills to be not only tested while retaining personal safety, they even allow a further development of those skills than would otherwise be possible in many instances.
Such venues are so commonplace in modern Western society that the need for uncontrolled testing of combat skills against unknown hostile combatants is no longer necessary, nor perhaps even justified. Sport combat venues exist for nearly every level of combat intensity short of that which unavoidably causes serious injury or death. Since engaging in a practice which
does unavoidably cause serious injury or death is self-defeating in all but the most unavoidable circumstances, there is then no reason to choose such a practice over the many incomparably safer sport combat venues which are available to anyone. Other than pure ego, of course.
If someone is still not satisfied with the available options and simply
must determine whether their skills are sufficient for real life-or-death combat, there are still other more productive options. To someone who claims that sport venues are insufficient for their purposes, I would then challenge
them to pony up and go sign up for Special Forces, special teams law enforcement, DEA, or high-risk personal protection duty. You'll get plenty of opportunity to prove what a hardass you are, and at least we'll get some good out of you.
