Jingwu "modern weapons" are "traditional cma"

[Brian L. Kennedy]

In one of the other threads folks were talking about integrating modern weapons into traditional Chinese martial arts. That thread was talking about practical aspects of doing that and I did not want to derail that theme by talking about the history aspect of it.

But it has been the norm for “traditional Chinese martial arts” to bring in whatever types of weapons were currently in use. This idea is quite clearly shown in modern times by the work of the Jingwu Association in Shanghai. A big part of their program was the use of modern weapons and tactics. Normally folks think about Northern Shaolin when they think of the Jingwu, and certainly Northern Shaolin was part of the Jingwu but alongside that was the drilling of modern weapons and tactics.

Here is an early group of Jingwu students in the military training program. It is an interesting contrast to see the traditional Jingwu frog button uniforms alongside the campaign hats!




The Jingwu military program later started using Japanese style military uniforms:


And it maybe kind of hard to see what is going on here but what it is, is some Jingwu students using a bamboo replica cannon/machine gun to learn how to lay down fire zones. They are doing this in the side yard of the Jingwu Headquarters in Shanghai.


Those photos are taken from my wife and I’s new book on the Jingwu Association. The book is due out next week.

Take care,
Brian

[Andy_S]

Interesting, in that the Jingwu seemed to be confusing (or fusing?) traditional martial arts with modern military training. To me, it is commonsensical to train soldiers in a bit of H2H, but to train MArtists in a bit of soldiering...not so. There again, at the time, China was in a very confused situation.

The MA taught by Jingwu might have had battlefield application in the early 19th century, but by the early 20th century, the near total dominance of the western powers had changed Asian warfare completely. The personal skills (musketry and firearms drilling and maintenance) weapons (firearms as opposed to bows, spears and some cannon) and tactics (fire and manouver, deployment of crew-served weapons, etc) required by modern warfare were very different to those required previously (close order drill with spears and swords, archery, cavalry tactics, etc). And modern warfare - as witness the British experience in the Boer War, and then the traumatic experiences of 1914 - was also in a permenant state of flux.

So...did any Jingwu alumni go on to become famed soldiers?

On the converse, one hears from time to time of warlords hiring CMA teachers to teach their troops, but I suspect such training was very much a minor adjunct to tactical and firearms training.

BTW, good luck with the new tome!

[Sylkworm]

When I practice Japanese kenjutsu I often find that my Taiji and Xingyi structure helps me greatly with speed, power generation, and moving the body as a unit. I used to know a shooting-instructor in Arizona who said that the same principles in IMA are also valid in target shooting: stance, relaxation, breathing, fluidity of movement, etc. I don't even own a gun, but I think it wouldn't require too much imagination to apply the principles of Xingyi, Bagua, or Taiji to at least using hand-guns.

[Andy_S]

Sylk:

RE: I won't argue with you re IMA and firearms, or McKinley would rip me a new rectum.

However, shooting, while an important skill for an infantry soldier, is a very fairly limited part of the curriculum of military training. There is personal fitness, personal administration, land navigation, observation, small unit tactics, defensive position siting and creation, camouflage and concealment, field living and sanitation, weapons and equipment maintenance, signals and communications, first aid, position in the command structure, etc, etc, etc.

To suggest that an MA institute or curriculum can teach all these is a bit of a stretch, IMHO (assuming of course, that the instructors have not been through the military themselves - which I doni think the Jingwu people had, though Brian may correct me on that). There again the Systema people might disagree. In fact, now I think of it, there are a million and one MA instructors who claim to teach "special forces" combatives/tactics/personnel (take your pick).

Oddly though, I can't think of any who claim to teach the plain and unglamorous old basics - ie infantry soldiering.

[Brian L. Kennedy]

The Jingwu program sought to create a kind of "citizen soldier" who was familiar, at least on some basic level, with both modern military training and traditional Chinese martial arts. The Jingwu's approach should provide some "food for thought" for folks who want to make traditional Chinese martial arts relevant to the 21st century.

take care,
Brian

[Andy_S]

Brian:

Interesting. I suspect the program was a failure though I would be willing to stand corrected if the progam did, indeed, deliver anything other than cannon fodder. AFAIK, Jingwu today (my first exp of Taiji was at the Malaysia Jingwu in KL in the mid-1990s) has no paramilitary aspirations, it is teaching traditional - or, if you prefer, antiquated - CMA that is entirely unsuited to the modern battlescape.

Yet this concept of MA providing useful training for the military continues in some Asian nations. For eg here in Korea, the military have a strong interst in TKD. And according to a TV doc I watched, a number of modern Shaolin Temple trainees dream of careers in the PLA.

I should add, though, that in these cases, the MA training makes no pretence (AFAIK) of transferring useful military skills, it is seen as respectively as adjunct and a prelim to 'real' military training.

[Brian L. Kennedy]

Andy, we are friends but.....the Jingwu program was not designed to, nor did it, "deliver.....cannon fodder". Nor was the program a failure. On the contrary it was an important part of Republican Era culture, in particular it was an important part of the Chinese self strengthening movement. It was, in part, both a copy of and a response to, the Japanese Menji idea of bushido. I maybe giving the wrong idea, the Jingwu was not some kind of West Point, but it was an important program that had largely positive results.....and not "cannon fodder".

You seem to be mixing in a bunch of different issues:
what was the Jingwu's contribution to Republic Era China?
what was the state of the various Republican Era armies (note the plural)?
And the complex issue of the relationship between corruption, politics, training and weapons procurement in the various armies that made up the Republican Era landscape.

I also sense that you comments here about the Jingwu are some kind of carry over from some flame war between you and Chris McKinley. The only reason I go on about this is that I think very highly of the Jingwu and I am sure they made important and positive contributions to Chinese culture and Chinese martial arts and....to the Chinese military. Having said that I am quite aware of the fact the Jingwu went bankrupt in the mid 1920s and in that regard they "failed". But they left a legacy that has importance to modern developments.

take care,
Brian

[Chris McKinley]

I'm a little toward Andy's interpretation on this particular one. A large part of any lack of success would be simply the times in which those folks were doing their thing, as Andy mentioned, though I do think the Jingwu might have gone on to become outstanding soldiers in the actual army if any of them pursued that route. If maintaining relevancy for as long as possible into the 20th century were the goal, that particular combination of skills would have been more suited for the Swiss citizen guard training, certain African locales, and the remaining bush farmers of the Australian outback.

Unfortunately, for a modern citizen wanting modern-relevant skills in firearms, he's still best served by training in fully modern home defense, combat handgunnery, professional urban assault, special teams operations, or Marine Corps infantry training, depending on exactly what skill sets he wants. Nothing else from the dusty halls of Asian martial arts even has a remote analog to such skills.

Also as Andy mentioned, shooting is but one slice of a large pie in general military training. However, for the individual citizen, most of the bulk of modern military training for the general soldier, which includes a great variety of comprehensive training for an equally great variety of MOS's, is so specialized for large-unit, large-intensity conflict that it is, tactically, utterly irrelevant to the needs of the individual citizen. For the individual citizen, that renders shooting skills a much larger percentage of the training pie than for the soldier. It's still not the only thing, by any stretch, and there's still room for even the good-old empty-hand skill sets.

The needs of the individual citizen seeking maximal training in protecting his family or property are not identical nor fully interchangeable with the needs of the individual battlefield soldier. Frankly, the citizen has to do a lot more himself, since he's not working within nested units, has no backup necessarily, has no recon intel on the enemy, has no long-range detection capability, does not enjoy the luxury of overwatch support, and cannot call for fire support or armed exfiltration from the site of conflict. He's truly the "army of one" for his situation. Luckily, thanks to the Castle Doctrine, he's also not limited by asinine rules of engagement.

[Andy_S]

Brian:

No slur intended on the Jingwu, nor do I recall any recent flamewar with McKinley. My issue is that attempts to turn martial arts academies into academies turning out cadets who expect either to take part in military actions, or against modern militaries - as per 1900 - seems dodgy. I would add that one of the ancient Greek military writers noted that Pankrationists or Boxers made poor soldies, and I belive General Qi's famed manual made similar comments on village boxers in 17th century China.

As you well know, the various Chinese militaries (Mao's 8th Route Army being one possible exception) were a mess from the late 19th century up until 1950; that was the year when China established herself as a superpower after routing UN forces in North Korea. (Quite frankly, I am not quite sure how that transition took place and have not come across anything in my research that adequately explains this brave new Chinese military that poured across the Yalu.)

But to return to the subject at hand: I have always been lairy of the link between TMA and modern military training. Take Chenjiagou, the hometown of arguably China's most famed MA, for example.

Either seven or five (I don't recall the number) lads from Chenjiagou served in Korea. One might assume - Chenjiagou being fairly hardcore communist territory - that these were the boldest, baddest boys from the village. Yet not ONE of them practiced Taiji. (Two of them are still alive in the village today.)

The US Army and US Marine Corps both teach their own martial arts/martial sports today, as does the South Korean military (TKD and others) and the British military (boxing). However, these are all designed as fitness training, and as training in courage, durability and aggression. These are all useful ATTRIBUTES, not TACTICAL skills that are transferrable to the battlefield.

All this having been said, I am curious to read what your research has turned up ref the Jingwu and modern military training.

Certainly, as you note, the association played a key role in bringing Chinese MA out of the darkness of secrecy and superstition and into the light of modern athletic training. That is a trend I wholeheartedly support, and, I suspect, is the association's key contribution to modern Chinese and Chinese communities across the region.

With regards!

[ngokfei]

Great thread
I always thought that only the kuoshu utilized modern military ideas and equipment

kuoshu was thechinese west point ofits time
interestingthat chinwoo did it first?

You can bet training was utilized during the war against japan but as we know slot of them didn't survive it

as we can see today even with a little bit of training professional armies are feeling the bite of these civilian militias

and pretty much this training fell out of favor after the war either selectively or by government mandate

[Andy_S]

RE: "Professional armies are feeling the bite of these civilians militias."

Eh? Do you mean terrorists?

As for Kuoshu being the "Chinese West Point:"
I think you are referrring to the Whampoa Military Academy, which is the insituation that filled that role. A graduate of said insitution was the final winner of the Chinese civil war: Lin Biao, the commander of Mao's army. AFAIK, neither Lin Biao or Peng Du-huai studied CMA (I think fencing, bayonet combat and possibly boxing was taught at Whampoa) but I would happily be proven wrong.

FYI, Whampoa did not fall out of favor, it relocated to Taiwan with Chiang and his lads and in a slightly different form still exists - as Taiwan's (official) Military Academy.

[kwanb]

As you well know, the various Chinese militaries (Mao's 8th Route Army being one possible exception) were a mess from the late 19th century up until 1950; that was the year when China established herself as a superpower after routing UN forces in North Korea. (Quite frankly, I am not quite sure how that transition took place and have not come across anything in my research that adequately explains this brave new Chinese military that poured across the Yalu.)
to the battlefield.

HI Andy, I disagree that all of the various militaries were in such a dire state in the 30s, in fact the Central Army under Chiang Kai Shek was making strong improvements in its training, with German Trained divisions. However these divisions were sacrificed in the opening months of the war with Japan to hold impossible fixed defensive positions. (As an all out retreat to the hinterlands would have been damaging to morale)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-tra ... onary_Army

There has been a lot of propaganda written about Mao's 8th Route Army, as history is written by the victors. But their performance against the Japanese during that time was less than impressive and most of the time they mostly engaged in gureilla operations, allowing the KMT to bear the brunt of the fighting, conserving their strength for the struggle later.

[Andy_S]

Kwan:

I think it is broadly accepted now, even in the PRC, that the Nationalists did more fighting than the communists - against the Japanese, that is. I'll take a look at your link on Chiang's divisions, thanks.

But I am still not too sure where Mao's men, who so comprehensively defeated - hell, routed - a much better equipped UN force in North Korea got their motivation and tactics from. There had really been no precedent for such an impressive perf by any Chinese army in WWII, AFAIK.

But we are drifting a bit off-topic here.

[nicklas]

Nice pictures and I'm looking forward to get my hands on your book, it sounds great!

Even general as early as Qi Jiguang (1528 – 1588) realized that unarmed combat only have a purpose as moral boaster and to make the soldiers tougher.
How do I use dantian rotation when I lay down fire zones? =)

[Chris McKinley]

Brian,

Sounds like you've written a very interesting book, all speculations aside. I might suggest that you contact the NRA's American Rifleman magazine for possible article reference or advertising. The readers would definitely find your book to be of value. If you're interested, the number is 1-800-276-3888 x1353 or 703-267-1353.

I know Hock Hochheim's also always on the lookout for relevant article submissions for his Articles of Combat. You can contact him at [email protected]. Best of luck.