the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Imo, the viewing conditions for spectators probably depends on their numbers, the environment, and how ritualized the event becomes as a sport. Since there are plenty of stadiums in China today, but (afaik) not much evidence of stadiums existing in antiquity, I'd say that fighting on platforms may have helped people view. But, that would depend on the size of the town or city and the number of spectators. Otoh, where there will be large audiences (in the thousands, for ex.), it'd be more effective to raise the audience than to raise the competitors. It's the same for theater and theaters.

Afa ropes, when it comes to boxing, "pushing" isn't allowed, and the only things that count happen inside the ring. Ok, pro-wresting is another case altogether . But, take mma. Why do they use an octagon-shaped cage that's raised? It's all arbitrary.

I don't like headgear so much.

oragami_itto wrote:Not very mobile

Ah, fill it in dig a new one elsewhere

The Raised platform from my little bit of understanding is that if you got pushed off you lost. In modern times if you get pushed of 3x you lose.
The idea is very "Sun-Tzu art of war" strategy in that on this raised platform you have to control your ground and utilize space. Like a game of Go or chess.

Trick wrote:

oragami_itto wrote:Not very mobile

Ah, fill it in dig a new one elsewhere

If you want to see a different fighting style, you have to change the rules to be more conducive to the desired techniques, not just do the same thing and call it a "TCMA competition" and hope you get a different set of fighters who somehow rise to the same level as MMA fighters, but using different techniques. MMA techniques are already optimized for the current sport ruleset.

Maybe something like MMA rules but if you scored each round for 10 points and did a 1 point deduction each time a fighter disengaged from their opponent, you'd see a lot more aggressive infighting and then a lot of techniques you see in TCMA forms would start to make more sense. Not saying that's the answer, but competitive changes to the ruleset are what's needed to promote different kinds of fighting, not silly gimmicks or different marketing.

The styles themselves arose out of adaptations to the type of fighting they did back in the day. Why not allow them to do so now in this day and age.
Maybe the point of expecting them to look like something that some cant make work is the wrong approach.

I have always said what ever one trains should be what is used, CMA has "always" had this disconnect in modern times, more so with styles claiming to be "internal" as their main claim to fame....

Some styles are modifying what they do to fit into the formats used in todays time. TCMA forms are one way of preserving the past, but may no longer be relevant to the present, because most of them are not tested as they once were if historical stories are to be believed.

The helmets are stupid. Everyone's got gloves on. What's the big deal. The helmets just mess with your vision and make you less afraid of taking a shot to the face.

The raised platform is a dumb idea, as noted, but just placing a marked ring on the floor and giving points for sending someone out seems fine to me. Folks will adapt their style to get the points. The tape on the floor represents a theoretical raised platform so that makes pushing legit. In the right environment, a good push is a totally legit move. Push someone into the street, over a bench, far enough away to set up a spinning back kick TKD style...whatever.

At the end of the day, it's all ritualized combat anyways, even the MMA. Nobody goes to war without weapons and even if the idea is just to take down the alpha male on campus, nobody with half a brain tries to do that one on one. So we decide as a culture how we are going to get our ritual combat done and I don't see why one set of rules is that much better than another beyond just whichever type of fight you find most exciting.

I do like seeing some Baji up there of course though.