Do you feel palace elite, security guard, mystical monks or other had real ability that would challenge fighters now days? If so why?
After many years, Wong Yan-Lam grew homesick and decided to return to Guangdong. He also decided that he finally wanted to accept students and teach Lama Pai. Upon arriving in Guangdong, he erected a large wooden stage and announced that he would accept any challenger to prove the effectiveness of Lama Pai. For the next 18 days, 150 of the area's best fighters were punched, kicked, thrown or strangled into submission. According to David Chin, "Either the challenger was maimed or killed. Wong never let one challenger leave his school without injury. He was a master of using the technique of cruelty."
http://www.baihepai.com/pak-hok-pai-lio ... %E7%BB%8F/Back in the day, the fighters were not as limited to the rule sets of today....all understood this at the time.
The 438 of professional wrestlers at Shan Pu Ying (善扑营) belong to but one of the three capitol city garrisons. The one where Yang Luchan, Liu Zhijun, and Song Mailun taught at – Shen Ji Ying, had over 2,000 instructors/weapons experts who led the training of 30,000 strong palace guards. That plus the battle-hardened agents of Big Ten security companies (Biaoju), members of Big Six martial arts of the north, and all the people who flock to the city to make a name for themselves, Beijing during Qing Dynasty represented the peak of development and growth of traditional martial art.
In 1933, Yuan Liang became the fourth mayor of Beijing. Yuan was deeply interested in martial arts, and asked head of Beijing Physical Culture Institute (北平体育研究社) Xu Yusheng (许禹生) to recommend a teacher for him. Xu was one of the first modern educators in modern China. Between age 20 – 24, Liu Dekuan came and taught him at his house. Beijing Physical Culture Institute was the first time martial art was taught to the public outside of the traditional private master-disciple system. Many of the first generation instructors were great masters, they were responsible, as a necessity for teaching large classes, systematizing, formalizing, and in many cases creating (ex. Bagua Jian) many of the empty hand and weapons routines in traditional martial art. So Xu knew everyone.
Yuan Liang had one pre-condition, that he would fight each candidate, if he loses, he will be the disciple with no questions asked. The first few candidates, afraid to harm the most powerful man in Beijing, held back and ‘lost’. Yuan was deeply unsatisfied. He demanded Xue Yusheng produce someone better.
https://internalmartialart.wordpress.com/?wref=bif "Wuyizidi" blogg
addresses the types of training, and the results of failure
gives a glimpse into the past addressing
some of the questions here