The Golden Age

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Re: The Golden Age

Postby Steve James on Thu Jun 17, 2021 10:18 am

Interesting, Bob, the idea of China's Golden Age is that it was one of innovation. Otoh, they just put up a station in low Earth orbit, and sent up three taikonauts.
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Re: The Golden Age

Postby Doc Stier on Thu Jun 17, 2021 10:47 am

Martial art practitioners in every generation consider their era to be the Golden Age. Today's practitioners are apparently no exception to that belief, especially among those who possess any genuine skills by comparison to the people they train with or compete against. ;)
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Re: The Golden Age

Postby Bob on Thu Jun 17, 2021 10:58 am

Unfortunately when you step off the "martial arts platform" and then step onto the "scholar/research platform", terminology and classification can have serious implications - that is why the context of the original 1 page posted is of importance so as to avoid confusion regarding what one is speaking of and what one's "scholarly" intent is.

I guess it boils down simply to: "What exactly are we trying to assert here based on the 1 page post?"
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Re: The Golden Age

Postby GrahamB on Thu Jun 17, 2021 12:21 pm

Steve James wrote:
Is the only way to really go back, to go forward? Discuss. ;D


It has always been a question of necessity. It's like asking why do armies develop new weapons and tactics. There no need at all for a "traditional" martial art to improve. And, an art's "golden age" is usually a pinnacle achieved in the past that contemporary practitioners strive to emulate. At the same time, they'll usually admit that achieving it is close to impossible, and improving upon it is impossible.

Who's going to say that they're better than Yang Lu Chan or Dong Hai Chuan? The same is true for Helio and Carlos Gracie, I'd imagine. Otoh, have their arts developed at all since they were practicing? Were they in the Golden Age, or are we in that age, or is it on the horizon? Otooh, do all martial arts decline after their golden ages?

So, maybe there's no such thing as a Golden Age, except in the imaginations of those who recall a past. When it comes to competitive sports, imo we can only talk about people we've watched compete. And, this is strictly generational: eg., was boxing's golden age in the 50s or 80s? Was Ray Leonard as good as Ray Robinson? Has boxing improved?

But, what about the fact that change is inevitable? There must be progress or decline.


Steve, good points, but you're wrong about Elio and Carlos - the jiujitsu they practiced was basic by today's standards. John Danaher talked about this in his latest Joe Rogan podcast, and about the situation with Boxing, which is entirely different since there's less scope for innovation.
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Re: The Golden Age

Postby GrahamB on Thu Jun 17, 2021 12:24 pm

Bob wrote:Unfortunately when you step off the "martial arts platform" and then step onto the "scholar/research platform", terminology and classification can have serious implications - that is why the context of the original 1 page posted is of importance so as to avoid confusion regarding what one is speaking of and what one's "scholarly" intent is.

I guess it boils down simply to: "What exactly are we trying to assert here based on the 1 page post?"


I thought I did that in my posts?
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Re: The Golden Age

Postby Steve James on Thu Jun 17, 2021 1:38 pm

Fair enough. Bjj is in a process of continuous innovation. Otoh, some might argue that there's very little 'new' when it comes to grappling. So, they might call it refinement, rather than innovation.

:) but, I'm sure many wold like to have bjj as good as Helio's basic variety.

Afa the article, I thought the author was arguing that thinking in terms of a martial arts golden age is a relatively modern phenomenon. As to why it exists, and its validity, there are differing opinions.
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Re: The Golden Age

Postby Kelley Graham on Fri Jun 18, 2021 4:10 pm

Ian C. Kuzushi wrote:
Ahhh yes, the wonder and certainty of Post Modernism.


If there is any commonality among "postmodern (one word, by the way)" thinkers, it is that certainty should be challenged.

I question the author's basic premise that all search for objective authenticity is fantasy.


Strawman. He is specifically talking about modern interpretations of martial arts, not that "all search[ing] for objective authenticity is fantasy. This is also not a postmodern idea, it's Hobsbawm 101: Invented tradition.

History exists and we can all agree that it is useful.


Yes, including postmodernists. Although, historians disagree on what History is and what historical practice should look like.

The concept of 'essence' is useful and valuable.


Sure, but it's not the same as essentialism.

Here's a similar kind of analysis that stays true to the Post Modern Methodology. https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Essentia ... a013929896


I can't tell if this is posted for critique or to be held up as some sort of standard. It's not very well witten and also seems to invert some basic understandings. Very confused. For example:

"...political correctness (which is currently organized around a critique of essentialism)."

WHAT? Identity politics are based precisely on essentialism.


I intended the use of Caps Post Modernism. As for the link, not a standard, just quick and dirty search result for an analysis that throws the op into a different light. Specifically, the now common use of the critique of Essentialism to oppress, which the op practices. Also, without a political component and stated resistance, there's no PoMo. Strawman? Nope. The author spends quite a few words on the motivation and search for tradition as the main appeal of 'traditional' martial arts. (Author's quotes) He then immediately follows with 'This fantasy of origin and lineage... is essentialist'. A standard critique of essentialism follows , which the link addresses as damaging.
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Re: The Golden Age

Postby yeniseri on Sat Jun 19, 2021 9:10 am

Bob wrote:Unfortunately when you step off the "martial arts platform" and then step onto the "scholar/research platform", terminology and classification can have serious implications - that is why the context of the original 1 page posted is of importance so as to avoid confusion regarding what one is speaking of and what one's "scholarly" intent is.

I guess it boils down simply to: "What exactly are we trying to assert here based on the 1 page post?"


When I read that page, my first thoughts were the ones from those I have heard or who have tried to say their art is legitimate because they were anointed by their 'master X from the Daoist planet of kungfu knowledge.
Yeh. My leneage is great because of abcd..etc Then all of a sudden, someone brings up objective information, knowledge, plus the ability to count and it is realized that master X was 5 years old when he taught student B. There is such a disparity within CMA that today when student X claiming lineage Y, he gets beaten up by a rag doll and the rag doll has no hands! That is the absurdity in my mind. All CMA is not bogus, there are many great teachers out there and the audience is incapable of judgingany difference at any level.

I laud scholarship and it is not the only criteria for knowledge. It allows us to fill in gaps that were never passed and of course, practice i.e. proper and intelligent practice has always made an art stand out despite the nonsense we hear in the marketplace. Even today, I keep hearing of students of Yang Chengfu, who was stated to be not knowledgeable about taijiquan because he died at 53 and very few knew what he died of, or they rarely mentioned it. Yang Chengfu had many students who lived until their 80s and 90s, and longer so that tells us something, albeit with the appearance of "unspoken skills", that cannot be understood by book information or awareness.
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Re: The Golden Age

Postby zrm on Sun Jun 20, 2021 12:19 am

GrahamB wrote:Then I started to think how this applies to BJJ - there are definitely factions within jiujitsu that hark back to a 'golden age' of master carlos and master elio, but - specifically because of the sport side - BJJ generally is looking forward towards innovation. And it's the 'self defence' people that hark back to the golden age, not the 'sport' people.

Occasionally you hear cries to 'get back to the real jiujitsu', but the general momentum is forward towards something, not back to something.


What is golden is subjective and based around the what matters to group of people at a point in time. I find it's easier to discuss this by just removing "martial arts" from the equation, because when martial arts term is included the discussion becomes loaded.

So I ask, when was the golden age of music? The Classical, Jazz, Rock, Hip Hop, Electronic era?

Will studying Bach have any benefit to the modern musician? Was Bach any good or is Bach appreciation just reconstructionist golden age fantasy? I think the general consensus now is yes, Bach was pretty good, but he died in 1750 and was promptly forgotten about until somebody rediscovered his music and started playing it again in 1829. Bach is most often played on a piano but that instrument didn't even exist when he wrote his music. That said, not everybody is into classical music, so not everybody would say Bach was the golden age of music.

The genius of Bach is easy to appreciate because we have it written down as sheet music. But do we really know how good a player he was? Consider Jimi Hendrix - if there was no audio recording of him playing and all we had was his music written down as sheet music, how well would we understand his true genius? Was Jimi the golden age of guitar? If all we had was the music of Jimi Hendrix played by the students of the students of Jimi Hendrix how seriously would we take their claims that Jimi was the best musician of all time? Would we reject the teachings of Jimi as golden age fantasy because he wouldn't win in a modern day rap battle?

So the counter argument is - well music is subjective but martial arts is about fighting. Fighting is objective and the effectiveness of fighting can be measured. We can say, the golden age is simply the age that had the best fighters - if you put two guys from a different eras in the ring the modern guy would win hands down, because they now have new training methods, strategies and tactics the older fighters didn't have. Perhaps this is true - but should we simply just reject everything the old fighters had to offer? What if the old fighters had trained some techniques modern fighters had completely forgotten about, or evolved some other system in isolation, such as when BJJ resurfaced in the 1990s, or when the international kickboxers went up against Muay Thai fighters in the 1980s?

What if we didn't judge the best fighter by the technology of their time but judged them based on their general understanding of the underlying concepts? What if we took into account which fighters were best able to adapt their methods to a new rule set, a new environment, a new technology? How do we judge a military genius? Should we discount Napoleon's genius because Napoleon didn't access to the modern day tank? How about Sun Tzu? Should a modern soldier bother with Sun Tzu given how long ago Sun Tzu wrote that book?

It could be argued that what Sun Tzu wrote is different because he attempted to distil his knowledge into universal truths, and universal truths are timeless. But are there not aspects to martial arts like that? How can you define timelessness? What happens when understand a universal truth it requires some understanding of some other universal truth? How do you judge the genius of Albert Einstein when you can't understand what he was he wrote, because you don't have a PhD in math. How do you define a golden age for something that is timeless anyway? When was the golden age of maths? Would Isaac Newton be able to compete with any modern day mathematician? Not everything Newton did was on the mark - Newton was into alchemy, which has largely been rejected in modern times - but as far as I know, everybody still refers to Newton as a bone fide genius.

Should we even care how good the practitioners were? Maybe it is better to look at the the people who enabled the genius. Maybe the best place to learn is the place where talent went to school and not from the talent themselves. Is better to learn swimming from an olympic swimmer or an olympic swimming coach? Is it possible to be a good coach without even playing the sport professionally? How do guys like Arrigo Sacchi who have never played soccer professionally end up as coaches for teams like AC Milan?

So regarding Chinese martial arts - I don't know about a golden age but I definitely do believe that - historically - there have been some genuine martial geniuses in China. People like Yang Lu Chan and Dong Hai Chuan just didn't get a following out of nowhere - there were most likely the Leonardo Da Vinci's of combat sports for their era. My personal belief is based on not what I've been told, but who I have trained with and the skill I have seen. I know I could never be as good as some of the old guys in China because some of those guys have trained full time since they were kids, whilst I started in my mid 20s, have a full time job, and I am lazy. Sure modern MMA has innovated since then in regards to tactics, strategy and physical training methods. They have probably evolved way beyond what was available back in Yang and Dong's era. But some of those older guys I trained with in China knew so much in regards to the universal truths of biomechanics there was no way they could have discovered it all on their own via personal experience. That level of detail had to be passed down from somewhere and yet they also say some stuff has been lost - that they can't do some of the stuff their teachers did because they didn't have the time or reason to train some of the crazy things their teachers trained. When I do read the books written in the 1920s by their grandmasters, the grandmasters also say similar things about the old guys in the 1880s. They say stuff like. "Well we have guns and are in the military now, so we don't train the same as some of those older bodyguards on the Silk Road did. My teachers spent years learning this skill that I never could quite replicate." You could argue that kind of writing could just be traditional Chinese reverence to past teachers but reading between the lines the general vibe I get is more like.. "Yeah Jimi could do this thing with his Stratocaster and I tried to do it too, but I could never quite get it right, but it was something similar to this exercise. I do this exercise instead now because its easier and while it is no where near as cool as what Jimi did, it's still pretty cool. I can't really explain what Jimi did - you kind of had to be there, Unfortunately there were no videos of Jimi available because this was in 1919 and we were poor Chinese people who didn't own video cameras. But if you ever want to be like Jimi, training this technique will maybe get you half way there - but to go the rest of the way, well you have to work that out yourself"
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Re: The Golden Age

Postby Doc Stier on Sun Jun 20, 2021 8:59 am

Personal practice priorities and training goals have definitely changed over time according to the popular trends of the day and, as a result, the training material and manner of practice has also changed. Very few martial art enthusiasts today train to acquire and maintain a level of expertise in any style which would be needed to effectively teach others from a beginner to an expert, or to engage in potentially serious hand to hand combat as military special forces operatives, personal bodyguards, security transport personnel, or even as nightclub bouncers, etc.

In fact, aside from sparring in a martial art school, an mma gym, or in a competition fighting venue, most martial art practitioners today may never be involved in a realtime street fight, especially if they have good situational awareness, with enough self-discipline and common sense to know when to walk away from escalating conflict, or when to simply sit down and STFU.

Those who study and practice primarily for physical fitness, health maintenance, or for personal self-cultivation, probably aren't particularly concerned about becoming expert fighters. Their goals are reflected in what they practice and in how they train. I'm not saying that these alternative goals are wrong or without benefit, but am only saying that different training agendas will usually be pursued with different degrees of personal effort. It's all good!
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