The 1929 Hangzhou Leitai Tournament

[Areios]

It would be awsome to see some vid footage about this or even more photos. As I could see there were many types of tourneys not jus unarmed combat. I would realy like to see that.

[cloudz]

I wanted to write many things about sport fighting and TCMA traning

Perhaps one of you guys can start another thread, if you have things you would like to share. I'd certainly be interested to hear more discussion and opinions on the subject.

[taiwandeutscher]

What about the skills and styles the lower levels of society practiced, not for any leitai competition, but to defend family and land?
In more than 20 years in Asia, the most brutal fighters I have seen were farmers of Xiluo, a little village in central Taiwan. They might hurt themselfs in the course of defending their own, but their southern Taizuquan wouldn't loose to any northern style I know of.

[Andy_S]

Deutscher:

RE: Southern CMA
This is a very fair question.

There is an assumption - both in certain sects of CMA and, perhaps, on this board - that Northern CMA are superior to Southern CMA. I have never practiced much in the way of Southern CMA, but am not convinced of the veracity of these arguments. I am not even sure if they are arguments: Prejudice about the southern bumpkins might be the better word.

Re the Nanking Institute and Kuoshu Tourneys:
I wonder if the Southern CMA masters were invited to or aware of the tourney? Many of the Hakka social groups kept very much to themselves, and many Southern CMA peeps were involved in various anti-government movements, secret socities, piracy, etc just a few years prior to the establishment of the republic.

As you note, many of the south Chinese village self-defense committees contained very serious fighters indeed - as we know from the Malay and Singapore Tong Wars of the early 19th century, which even sucked in European mercenaries with steam gunboats and Krupp guns - but whether they considered what they did to be sport or cultural MA or simply pre-modern paramilitary/survival skills is a different matter.

Though of course, being good at fighting in the tin mines in the Malay jungle with Yap Ah-loy would not necessarily make you a winner in Kuoshu 100 years later.