Sparring

[Wanderingdragon]

Mix be sure not to lose your very honest realities and thoughts to this transient medium, as I am sure, years from now when you look back and read over your journals, much'like everyone who has ever kept record of their journey on page, you will find much comedy, I mean no insult, I speak from experience. Enjoy your education, and experience, lovely ladies and all, and never stop paying attention to even the lowest in society, but please, the humility is in knowing it yourself there are no points or credit for making your charity known.
Sparring should always be fun, and among friends. "€

[Adam S]

But the good news is that we can change this.

Hopefully you guys do, as well as the rest of us

Far better use of our time than bitching & moaning about it on the net

[beegs]

Like I've stated before the situation here in Australia is generally different IME and someone else chimed in about Europe

We spar basically at every lesson
& I believe Deus who is the States says the same thing

But i'm happy to accept the situation is worse in North America but that aint been my experience here in Oz

their is some great gong fu schools in america as well and they kick some ass etc, but theirs over 300 million people here and alot of gong fu schools, so the real proficient ones are a drop in the bucket in ratio ,but they are still here and you can find some great gong fu if you look.

[mixjourneyman]

This isn't about emptying cups, this is about a subtle power game (not really subtle either) being played by a guy on a martial arts message board against someone he views as an inferior, nothing more.
would you say that with the comments you have been making toward me without having ever met me in person reflect your cup having been emptied?

I'm in the process of drinking from my first cup, might take a while to empty it.
You are on your third or fourth cup and feeling tipsy.

GANBEI!!!


addendum:
what this really comes down to is people wanting chinese culture to be something that it is not.
Chinese people are not humble, they are happy to talk about their achievements, and they are happy to put others down to make themselves look better. this is true of every chinese CMA teacher I have ever chatted to.
in public, they will play politics, but in private, or even in small groups of students or friends, it is a completely different matter.
I don't like bandying around the term frog in a well, since we are all frogs in wells, and Chinese IMA teachers are down one of the bigger wells in terms of being aware of what is going on in martial arts in the rest of the world, but if you are basing your ideas about Chinese cultural understanding on learning some IMA from a few white dudes for twenty years and haven't spent at least a little while in China with Chinese teachers, it is hard to understand how the culture of martial arts works form the inside. There is only one reason why I bring that up, because I am not a person who likes to appear as though he is trying to elevate himself above others (which in this case I am certainly not, but it would be easy to construe it as that type of behaviour), Chinese culture is really, really hard to understand, especially from the outside. We have lots of ideas in the west about what China is about, and how stuff works, but both times I lived in China, i just kept finding out how wrong those assumptions are.
you don't need Chinese culture or a Chinese teacher to be good at martial arts, but if you want to understand the culture that surrounds martial arts in china you will need some cultural understanding.
what youcan do if you have time, is go over there for a year or two yourself, see for yourself, and make informed opinions. Chinese IMA masters are shitheads just like the rest of us. If we choose to respect them, it should be because they are teaching us a cool skill, not because they are enlightened saints. you should see them talk about each other behind their backs, it is like a fucking sewing circle.
the wisdom that you may or may not have gotten from martial arts is a good accomplishment on your part, but hey, a lot of these guys don't have that. a lot of them are just uneducated farmers who do gongfu really well. some of them in the cities are educated and have culture (which in my opinion is the one sure fire way to judge the quality of a chinese person's personality. if they know culture, they will be cool. if not, the will probably cause you to suffer)m but even those who have culture love bragging, dissing each other, and playing power games.
the individual is his or herself, it is their job to choose how they will comport themselves, but lets just be cognizant of the fact that we are using lenses here and not seeing our reality as the absolute truth.
I always allow myself room to be wrong about things (although if read that paragraph i make a logical fallacy).
But it is so hard to say that this is what experience someone in martial arts will have when so many of the top dogs in martial arts haven't had those experiences.
A great commentary on that is in the ang lee movie the taiji master. i suggest taking a look.