Performance evolution

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Re: Performance evolution

Postby Formosa Neijia on Wed Jul 14, 2021 10:27 am

oragami_itto wrote:So why are traditional martial arts apparently moving in the completely opposite direction?

If green comes from blue, then why, even as far back as Yang LU Chan and his sons, has every subsequent generation become weaker and more diluted?

Where do you think your own practice fits in?


It's the lack of competition. Without competition there is no pressure from outside to improve methods so TMA place too much emphasis on tradition.

Doc Stier wrote:The old masters knew better than that, and they typically trained more hours daily than many people nowadays do in a week, with far superior quality and efficiency of movement. To consistently train for many hours everyday in this way changes everything.

Anyone can train hard, but not all train smartly. Likewise, there's a big difference between fighting hard and fighting smart. In the end, we all fight the same as we train. :o


People should spend time around a serious BJJ/MMA/MT school. They often have people that train all day, every day. Mat rats. Then they fight, get better, raise the level or move on to another school/camp. I've seen nobodies go from nothing to fame just starting locally. It's possible to go from rank amateur to full-time professional. The funnel is there due to competition. The amount of time they put in is tremendous and they have the environment to get better. IMA can't hold a candle to that.
oragami_itto wrote:Are you better or worse than your teacher? Are you doing more or less with your art? Developing it further or stagnating? Is innovation possible within the context of your practice?

Chinese culture has a serious problem with innovation and always has. Confucian ethics posits the idea age was 5000 years ago. When IMA drops the mysticism and the secrecy and becomes a repeatable technology that can be openly taught then innovation will happen naturally. But I won't hold my breath.
Last edited by Formosa Neijia on Wed Jul 14, 2021 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Performance evolution

Postby Doc Stier on Wed Jul 14, 2021 7:00 pm

Since many of you have already concluded that the only truly effective fighting methods are those which are typically used by MMA fighters in open competition, why would you care whether the allegedly outdated and supposedly ineffective methods of any traditional IMA style are openly taught or not? Just move along everyone. There's nothing to see here! :P
Last edited by Doc Stier on Thu Jul 15, 2021 10:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Performance evolution

Postby Formosa Neijia on Thu Jul 15, 2021 12:11 pm

Doc Stier wrote:Since many of you have already concluded that the only truly effective fighting methods are those which are typically used by MMA fighters in open competition, why would you care whether the allegedly outdated and supposedly ineffective methods of any traditional IMA style are openly taught or not? Just move along everyone. There's nothing to see here! :P


IMA doesn't have to be taught the way it is today and what we currently have is NOT how it was done before modern times. No one is talking about "just go do MMA" but that's a nice diversion away from the issues so no one has to face the problems. Even Yang style was taught by Yang Shao-hu in a format where people were getting hurt in the training, meaning they didn't waste years doing forms and conserving their jing by not having sex before they were supposedly taught to fight -- the carrot dangled in front of everyone today before the bait and switch happens.

IMA could be taught like MMA is today: you learn to fight FIRST using simple techniques then you learn forms later. This is how it used to be done. Hong Yi-xiang taught people so they could win leitai tourneys in three years. Now it takes 10-20 years and the people can't do even half of that because they are so concerned with "being internal," whatever that means.

This is also how the competitive push hands schools in Taiwan teach: you learn jibengong and applications FIRST (just like MMA) and form later. Note the role of competitions in the two examples above: leitai tourneys and push hands competitions.

But let's be honest: that would derail the IMA gravy train of forms, forms, and nothing but the forms so help me forms.
Last edited by Formosa Neijia on Thu Jul 15, 2021 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Performance evolution

Postby GrahamB on Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:25 pm

Is this a good time to point out that CMA only has all these forms because it came from a tradition rooted in religious ritual, theatre and entertainment way before all that was stripped out and they became commercial "martial arts" in the sense that we would think of them today. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's where the origins lie, rather than in military arts, although military arts have fed into it as well. But I don't think military arts were that into forms when they were actually fighting with spears and swords, back in the day.
Last edited by GrahamB on Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:30 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Performance evolution

Postby Bhassler on Thu Jul 15, 2021 6:08 pm

The premise may be a bit flawed. In track and field, for instance, if you were to have today's athletes run on the same surfaces using the same shoes, equipment, etc. they may not be much faster. That doesn't even include the fact that athletes now have sponsors and are able to train full time as professionals, whereas in the past, many times they had to train on their free time outside of regular day jobs. Oh, and there's the little matter of chemicals in food (thanks, Monsanto!) resulting in larger humans, generally, and all sorts of extracurricular "supplementation" that athletes have access to nowadays.

GrahamB wrote:Is this a good time to point out that CMA only has all these forms because it came from a tradition rooted in religious ritual, theatre and entertainment way before all that was stripped out and they became commercial "martial arts" in the sense that we would think of them today. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's where the origins lie, rather than in military arts, although military arts have fed into it as well. But I don't think military arts were that into forms when they were actually fighting with spears and swords, back in the day.


Of course it is! It's always a good time to push one's own agenda/brand!
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Re: Performance evolution

Postby GrahamB on Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:29 am

Wowsers! Another completely surprising ad hominem attack from Bhassler! I'm in shock!

So what's this agenda/brand I'm trying to push? (Just so I know for future reference).
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Re: Performance evolution

Postby Bhassler on Fri Jul 16, 2021 9:18 am

GrahamB wrote:Wowsers! Another completely surprising ad hominem attack from Bhassler! I'm in shock!

So what's this agenda/brand I'm trying to push? (Just so I know for future reference).


Talk about wowsers... you mean to tell me you actually believe that CMA were all reinvented as individual brands in order to survive in the marketplace, but you think that you yourself, with your social media presence and interviews and podcasts are immune to market pressures and a desire to identify yourself as special in the world of martial arts? I guess you're just above and beyond all of that.

Scott's work, which seems to be the driving force behind most of the whole 'evolved from theater and ritual' narrative, has been largely debunked both in terms of the pratical/cultural context (by people who have actually lived and trained within the culture) and from an academic context by western scholars who profess to actually like Scott as a person. Even outside of reference to more qualified authorities, it's crappy logic. You might as well say that since camera resolution is prominently featured in marketing materials and is a significant point of market competition amongst smart phones, that the phone itself evolved from the printing press. It's bad logic, and it's all been talked about to death. I don't see why it is that when you pop into threads and want to tell everyone else (without compelling evidence) that their perceptions of CMA are mistaken that it's somehow offensive when someone else pushes back on that idea.
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Re: Performance evolution

Postby GrahamB on Fri Jul 16, 2021 9:53 am

Brian,

I run a blog that nobody reads :) , in which I talk about a variety of topics that interest me because I want to, I'm not trying to take over the world or something as you're trying to make out. I don't sell anything. I might do one day, but I've been going about 10 years so far without getting my shit together, so don't hold your breath.

No I think you're wrong - It's fairly obvious that Scott is an eccentric outlier in Chinese martial arts history research, not "the driving force". In academia the idea that Chinese martial arts, nay all martial arts, are (edit: historically) about more than pure pugilistic methods is not even a debate. It's just accepted as an obvious fact. Read some books - read the journal of martial arts studies.

I don't find you "offensive" if you want to argue differently. I'm not offended, even if you'd like to paint me that way. I just find it sad that you just attack the person straight away, without any address to the ideas. You come across as a person who just enjoys attacking others and pulling them down. There's no point talking to you really. So, yeah, bye.
Last edited by GrahamB on Sat Jul 17, 2021 1:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Performance evolution

Postby Bhassler on Fri Jul 16, 2021 11:03 am

Nice. I like how you started and ended your two posts to me with ad hominem attacks, while accusing me of undue negativity. And "read some books" is a wonderfully productive comment, similar to how you replied to questions about another video you posted with "learn how to watch a video." I like the verisimilitude of it all.

As far as martial arts being more than purely fighty stuff and influenced by native cultural traditions, yes, that's obvious-- but it doesn't follow that they come from those other traditions, or that the influence of those traditions is such that they subsume the core premises of the arts themselves. There are a ton of Christian images and references in pro boxing, but nobody reads a bible and then changes how they throw a jab. In fact, all the same types of cultural influences that are suggested to be such major contributing factors in CMA are at least as prevalent in sports today. Developing a compelling argument for the origin of a martial art (or any system) does require an understanding of the broader historical context, but also requires a deep understanding of the system itself and how it functions, as well as the local subcultures and influences of when/where pivotal events may have occurred and how things might have been transmitted to future generations. Considering the effort it takes to reasonably tick off even one of those boxes, it doesn't make a lot of sense to act as if any given narrative can be pushed forward with much certainty.
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