Xingyiquan of the Chinese army reviewed

[BruceP]

What Derek said.
Watching the clips without sound to appreciate the essence of the movement takes away from the underlying message. I thought it was pretty good. I really enjoyed the balance of wackiness and earnest commentary. Some of the most entertaining fu-clips ever.

[I'lls cappuccino]

what's the difference between slagging some ones movement and some ones book? I guess o.g.scott vids are funny in that passive aggressive way.

[cerebus]

I really can't imagine anyone objecting to Mr. Rovere's republishing of the Huang Po Nien book in an English translation with commentary. Unless of course there are specific parts of the translation or commentary which one disagrees with the correctness of, it's otherwise just ridiculous to slag someone for making an important historical text available for English speaking people.

[Chris Fleming]

I am entertained.

Nothing special at all in his clips. Those who like them are either being *very* nice or well...

[somatai]

not a tai chi guy, but this is good connected movement imho

[taiwandeutscher]

Wow, the Chinese at the end was not bad!

[BruceP]

whoa those last two were also very good.
How To Use Tai Chi In A Fight was as good as 99% of all the tai chi fightin clips I've seen. Hilarious to boot.

[Scott P. Phillips]

Well, Mr. Rovere, thank you for your reply. And as you will see below I have some apologies to make. If you edit out the direct insults I'll be happy to publish your response in the comments section below the review on my blog.

I didn't like your book and I said so on my blog. I suppose, I sometimes come across as a scholar because I love history but I'm not, and my blog is just whatever I feel like writing about. I make no claim of having credentials. What I have is about 200 hits a day on my blog, a blog which I started two years ago to promote the idea that martial arts, qigong, Daoism, theater, healing and popular religion are all intertwined. I'm sorry that in reviewing your book I didn't take the time to flush out all of the arguments. But my regular readers have heard me talk about this subject from a hundred different angles. Your expectation that a blog post be a scholarly dissertation is a bit over the top.

I am a very strong supporter of the American military and our allies. I also support the the UN's work in Yugoslavia. There are many things that the UN does that I do not support but that is irrelevant to this conversation. I am sorry I insinuated that your work was not valuable. It was rude. It was wrong.
It occurs to me now, in my foolishness, that perhaps if I agree to take down the post and re-write it as a friendly disagreement you will agree to debate me. (Clearly the fact that I was attacked for two days on this RSF forum before I saw what was going on also affected my judgment. I was responding to 29 posts.)

Now to your points. (these correspond to 1 thru 8 from your post)
1. My use of the term "supposedly" was cheap and lacked clarity. I put it there to imply ambiguity about whether the bayonet fighting came from xingyi.

2. OK. When I buy a book about Xingyi I expect it to deal with concepts of "internal." I hardly ever find applications useful. These are only my opinions.
3. Yes, you have provided the standard explanations:

"• Chinese martial arts are, Chinese. Promoting those arts was intended to help to reestablish national pride at a time when China was emerging as a nation and still under foreign dominance.
• Ideologically Chiang and others saw the impending war with Japan as a clash between bushido and Confucianism.
• Martial arts are good for building fighting spirit. Even today all modern armies have some form of hand to hand combat training – regardless of technological advancement."

My contention is that what was actually going on, what motivated the writing and publication of the original text, was a project of stripping and eviscerating the connections between religion, theater, and martial arts. By republishing the book in an uncritical way you contributed to this. That's my main beef.
The idea that there was such a thing as a pure military art of xingyi, devoid of religious or theatrical content, was in fact a political idea that found favor in Republican China. (It has no baring on where or what Huang taught.)

4. You're accusing me of "cherry picking" for quoting from the first paragraph of your book? (hutspah!) I used the Huang quote about Bayonet's because it was directly relevant to my argument. I know most people just skip Forwards, and Prefaces, but I was looking for some context!

[There was only one statement about bayonets that came before Huang's in the book: "By 1934 the men at the Martial Arts Academy spent 2.5 hours per week training rifle and bayonet techniques and 3 hours per week in empty hand xingyi practice." (That's less than 300 hours a year and it is not enough time to train xingyi as an internal martial art, they would all still be beginners after two years. I suspect these were large classes too, without the personal attention needed to learn internal martial arts. Can we really call it xingyi if it is superficial learning? Admittedly, this is not a strong point but I would have thought it deserved comment in the book. After all, I doubt anyone on this forum would give much credibility to someone with that little training.)]

5.

• The Japanese by all accounts were more adept at the bayonet than Western forces in China at the time. In fact the British had to rethink their approach to training after being beaten by the Japanese in a friendly competition in Shanghai.

That's a fascinating fact you should have put in your book. However it does not diminish my argument. The humiliation that China experienced as a result of being defeated by Imperialist Japan and the other "Imperialists" was intimately connected to the idea that China was weak because it was backwards thinking. Not everyone agreed about what the sources of backwards thinking were; but that martial arts were sullied with the charge of being a superstitious-religo-talismanic-theatrical tradition is a historic fact.

6. OK, you asked for it. The basic steps of xingyi, step-up, step-through, step side, are basic to all martial arts. I find it incredulous that anyone practicing bayonet sparring would some how leave out the step-up. It's seems natural. But I've never used a bayonet. As to putting the heel up or down, come on, if you are sparring you are going to try everything, as the pictures I included show. (Liuhe xingyi uses the heel up by the way.) But for the sake of argument lets just say that these 3 or 4 details are ancient Chinese innovations. Everything else was surely learned form the "imperialist" which, if true, would contradict Huang's statement that they are all Chinese techniques.

7. It looks like we can agree on this one. Martial arts are not considered very important in modern military contexts, like the ones faced by the Communists and the KMT. The higher levels of internal martial arts are nearly meaningless in a military context, and they probably always have been.

8. It's entirely possible that your xingyi is twice as good as mine. I'd like to see some video on the net.

I have no problem what-so-ever with military knowledge. But the 20th Century project of making xingyi into a pure martial art has cut it off from it's roots and without its roots it will die. It will die because it is nearly impossible to teach people high level internal martial arts in a military context. There are so many more important things for soldiers to learn. Xingyi hasn't to my knowledge made a showing in MMA either. The xingyi I learned is mostly too deadly to be used by law enforcement. Without valuing xingyi's religious components it will become just another form of entertainment; without valuing the theatrical aspects, its entertainment value will slowly fade.

I'm not a military man, though I do admire that part of you. Questions about the historical efficacy of the Chinese martial arts have often been used to squash the discussion about the intrinsic value of martial arts. Were Chinese martial arts effective in military or militia contexts at some time in the past? Our only chance of ever finding out the answer to questions like that is if people stop trying to prove that martial arts are pure and start looking at what they really were!

While I am sorry if this bridge has been burned. I (unfortunately) only get lots of attention when I'm confrontational.
______________

I worried out loud just now that perhaps with all this contentiousness people would see me as an asshole and be turned off, but my half-wife quickly re-assured me that there are plenty of successful teachers who are assholes. Still I hope you won't see me as one of them.

As for the comments of Blind Sage and others on my African Bagua Video, I'll be back with a 'ole noow thread in a few nights.
'til then, drink up me dark hearties.

[Scott P. Phillips]

Hi Buddy, no I don't believe we've met. I studied with Kumar for 2 years before he became debilitated with injuries. I took nearly every class he offered during that time. Maybe I could figure out the exact dates by looking through my taxes, but I can tell you it was in Fairfax and that during that time he moved classes from a public space to his home after my old Kungfu brother, Don Rubbo built him a space in his basement. During those two years I studied with Bernard Langan 6 days a week, 3 hours a day, plus of course my own practice which was another 3 or 4 hours. After the first year Langan had me teaching his beginning classes for him and subbing when he was out because I had by that time already trained in Chinese martial arts for many years. Langan has a temper 'though and we left on bad terms (oldest story in the book) so I don't expect him to say good things about me.
Do you have video's of yourself on line?

[bailewen]

Yeah. Probably spent about half and hour or so cruising through yer clips dude.

I remember a couple of Choi Li Fut clips you did from a couple years back. Also looked fun. Kung Fu wise...the push hands looked a little weak but overall I like the fun your having with it all. Should've dropped a line when I was last in SF but I was kind of buried under the pressure of finishing school and spaced on a lot of shouldawouldacouldofs.

I actually liked the "pure internal power" clip. I wouldn't say that that's what "internal" power is about but it was a decent little chat on "dou jin" (shaking power).

Mr. Rovere probably came on strong because he's been attacked in the past

Seems a little silly for a book review. Sometimes the reviews suck but I know I've learned to be a little more careful about what I say online than I once was.

[klonk]

As an occasional writer myself, I have no use for critics. They are happy to say what I should do, but when asked what they have done in the same line, are usually silent.

[Muad'dib]

My take

1. I think his application of the shake is exaggerated for the video, but not wrong.
2. I can't speak to his chen, but his wu style is okay. Certainly not the best I have seen, but no where near the worst. Some of the things I disagree with are simply caused by the way BKF teaches Wu and the way I learned. He is about 30% of the way to what I consider good if I ignore that. Most people are around 5%.
3. He gets major points for the shirt ripping video. It was hilarious.

Scott, probably in real life you would annoy the heck out of me, and I don't really think your Wu is good enough to be teaching, but you seem like a generally okay guy. Rovere, don't know anything about him, but he seems earnest. Sorry you guys don't get along, but you are at least both honest.

[Pandrews1982]

Scott, I think you handled your response quite well. Personally I think you're coming at xing yi from a bit of a rose tinted viewpoint and this book also.

Take the book in context. These guys were being taught xing yi rifle and bayonet 2.5 hrs a week and barehand 3 hrs a week. Many being new recruits/conscripts or with little previous background in martial arts, and with te prospect of having to be called up to fight the well trained and equiped japanese empire at short notice. They needed simple basic skills that worked and quickly. I can't see them finding 5 hours of chi gong, a few hours of san-ti practice, maybe some push hands and bit of forms work beig so good for them. To teach these guys internal would have been ridicuous.

Its an instruction manual, showing how the principles of xing yi can be transfered into the context of military training. If you were looking for some esoteric revelation then I doubt you'd find it in a book like this and I'm sure you were aware of that too. You even say "the higher levels of internal martial arts are almost meaningless in a military context".

BTW can you explain the context and definition of the word "theatrical" when you use it to explain things associated with martial arts. I take theatre to be make believe, acting, pretending. My understanding of xing yi is that you become you don't pretend.

And what's a half-wife? and where do I get one or do I need two

[Buddy]

"After the first year Langan had me teaching his beginning classes for him and subbing when he was out because I had by that time already trained in Chinese martial arts for many years. Langan has a temper 'though and we left on bad terms (oldest story in the book) so I don't expect him to say good things about me."

Hmmm. I've known Bernie for many many years (and introduced him to Pak Victor DeThouars). He is the reason I was able to meet (and study for ten years with) Luo Dexiu. You are the first to describe him as "having a temper". Next time he calls I'll ask him about you.

So, you consider two years "extensive"? When Bruce started us out in xingyi, we did santi and piquan ONLY for one year.

By the time you got there (so I'm told) most of the martial guys had left leaving only qi heads (except Isaac who had an issue with Bernie as well, but I know the facts of that case). I studied xingyi with Kumar and Luo and while I didn't love Dennis' book (or any other) your issue seems personal. But who cares, I don't know you, you don't know me.

[Ian]

this topic seems to be more about personal drama than martial arts...