by Andy_S on Sat Aug 29, 2009 4:41 am
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.
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