everything wrote:OTOH, somebody actually taught Jordan, Messi, etc. something. Who was it? Not really sure. It could have been a person named "Chen" or whatever. It doesn't matter at all, really. Because Jordan and Messi far far far exceeded that person or people's level. You cannot "teach" music to Mozart or Lennon and McCartney. It doesn't happen. You just let the Universe flow through them and express genius and try to comprehend it. But ordinary humans cannot even comprehend trying to play basketball with an NBA player, let alone a Jordan or a LeBron. We really would not be able to comprehend it. So many commentators including ex-ballers are just astounded by Messi. So the Yang Chen thing - makes absolutely zero sense to me (aside from marketing and lineage stuff) if YLC was really the top of the top. It's just not a thing we should talk about. AT ALL. We talk about Jordan and we talk about Messi. Period. It should be clear why. If anything, instead of exaggerating Messi, we should really talk about how these people's level is incomprehensible. We should probably talk about how there's no reasonable way we can probably contemplate how good a Yang really was. Why people said the things they said. The only possible way we can start to understand is by realizing we cannot comprehend Messi or Jordan or even Mike Tyson. I think for some reason on the rsf and the internet, ordinary humans talk as if we really understand. I think we have absolutely zero clue how good Yang must've been. If he's anywhere close to these athletes at the top, it would of course be incomprehensible when he throws you. You just wouldn't get it even though you are also a "top pro". Even if you are a rock star, you don't understand Lennon & McCartney. That is the level we have to assume and then we try to talk from there. But that's impossible. We don't say "oh I play some basketball or some music and acquired a lot of skill; let me try to explain genius." It will fall short. When some lineage descendent of YLC teaches you something and you are impressed, you kind of have to assume it's like Jordan's great grandchild taught you something about basketball, but it's not even close to the real genius level.
The problem is that literally every style has their version of the Jordan story. It's like if you got rid of all video evidence of basketball and started a colony on the moon. People would play and talk about Jordan, but also Bird, and Kobe, and LeBron, and then Barkely, and Rodman, and Stockton, and Malone, and Muggsy Bogues, and Spud Web, and Mutombo, and everyone else. Pretty soon, someone would bring up the legends from Canal Street and Rucker Park, and say they were better than any of those guys. But through all the talk, there would still only be one Michael Jordan, and no one living on the moon would have any way of telling the difference. The stories of great martial artists are as much or more cultural artifacts as they are any kind of history. If everyone is great, then all that means is that no one is.
