dedicated to the discussion of the chinese internal martial arts of xingyiquan, baguazhang, taijiquan, related arts, and anything else best discussed over a bottle of rum
windwalker wrote:some thoughts and explanations of how and why CMA has developed the way it is today.
If one hasn't seen it already, on a similar topic, NEEDLE THROUGH BRICK (2008).
DIRECTORS James Adolphus , Patrick Daly, Joel Fendelman Told from the perspective of time-honored Chinese Kung Fu masters, this documentary about the struggle for survival of traditional art and culture in the face of a rapidly changing and modernizing world.The film explores the history and art of Kung Fu, and asks important questions about how the cultural heritage can be kept alive in a world that prefers to forget about its origins.The sadness and tragedy conveyed in the personal stories and anecdotes of today's last surviving traditional Kung Fu masters?along with the majesty and beauty of their skills?serve as reminders of the frailty of even the deadliest of arts:
And Master Loh Yat Khiun was in the movie at 35:05.
Anthony Yap Published on Oct 27, 2015
I practice my Tai Chi more than 17 years , in my life I was very lucky to have the opportunity to learn with several master , 80 -year-old Master Loh Yat Khiun is also one of my master . Four years, every Saturday 5:00am me and the eldest son of Master Loh Mr. Loh Hung Jen practice together at Master house, sometimes in my office master also train my tactics. In order to let more friends knowing my master, so I share our training videos which is taken in my office dated 22/10/2015:
Although I agree with Adam Hsu in many ways I think the term 'westernisation' is misused. The government for many years drove martial arts underground, since historically kung fu groups threatened the government. This caused an exodus of traditional teachers to Taiwan. The cultural revolution amplified this, teachers being sent to the countryside, punished and deprived of a living. Through all of this western nations welcomed skilled martial artists. In the 60's the CMA were just beginning to open up, the 'secrets' revealed at some times in spite of resistance from the Chinatown rulers. Incidentally my own experience was that the majority of the Chinatown schools were not traditional in the true sense, teaching fighting arts but mostly taught forms, which was in fact an early version of WuShu.Meanwhile back on the mainland, as a substitute art evolved, WuShu, essentially a performance art..As time went on the government saw, the popularity of the Shaolin temple, a market to be tapped and cleaned up the temple, put a few old monks and some wushu artists in there and started to promote it, leading to a whole complex devoted to making money from IMA. Up to the 90's fighting was not a feature of this endeavor but seeing the popularity of combat sports in the west sanda was introduced, an MMA type competition which more to kickboxing than traditional MA. So today we have the monolithic WuShu vying for the Olympics. Although many people deplore this trend I think it may be beneficial to traditional MA, where the fame seekers are filtered off , leaving those with a lifetime passion to pursue their dream, going mainstream is a sure way of destroying any art, from Qigong to country music. The government may have taken from the western model for promotion but commercialization is not solely the province of the west.
Ok, Chinese Kungfu/wushu has not been and are not a big deal in the world, in fact most Chinese think wushu practice is a waste of time. Sports that the Chinese government support( financially) are Olympic sports, they want Olympic champions, and they probably think it's great when their athletes become champions in sports that traditionally has been dominated by non Chinese, fencing, judo, weightlifting for example..... About the stories of all the great CMA masters that left the mainland for Taiwan to spread the gospel from there and those who was left on the mainland where suppressed to the point that "real" Gungfu disappeared sound just as a fabricated story, but if it is a true story then also those masters on Taiwan did not do a good job on passing on "real" Gongfu if we se it from the angle that no CMA "purist" has had any major success in let say an international MMA event. In fact it seem the passing on of real Gongfu has been equally good on the mainland,Taiwan, Hong Kong and so on.....CMA is within its own sphere and will always be, and the "real" Gongfu will alway be behind the doors as it has alway been...CMA is not something a wast number of the world population are exited about