ma yueh liang demos on ppl who don't know taiji

[Chris McKinley]

Martin2,

RE: "The truth is of course I do not know if MYL was still good at sparring or fighting with 90. May be or I think for shure may be not. But I think it is redicolous to believe this anyway. Who is good at fighting with 90 - even a grand grand grand ... master.". That's not really the point, though, is it? Nobody expects somebody at 90 to be able to fight well. The point is that the second clip, the one you posted, actually showed hints that the man might have (or had at a younger age) an appreciable level of actual martial skill...not just the ability to play grown-up pattycake better than everybody else. My comment was most certainly intended to be a compliment.

Hell, if the only benefit to playing pattycake were the longevity to make it to 85 or 90 and still moving with vitality, it'd be worth far more than all the asskickery one could learn.

[Michael Babin]

It's difficult to comment on someone like Master Ma whose years of experience and personal skill at what he did made him outstanding. I have seen him in one old documentary doing a solo form that impressed me as few other solo form performances have and he was quite elderly at the time it was filmed; but then I watch this kind of push-hands and think "Garbage" from a self-defense point-of-view.

The truth, as it often does, is probably hiding in the cracks now that he is dead. Sadly, this kind of making-teacher-look-good-in-a public-demo attitude among students is all to common to push-hands. I suppose some of the time that the students are so well-trained that they don't even realize that they are demonstrating funny step-dancing and the power of auto-suggestion as opposed to taiji martial training.

[GrahamB]

I was reading Derren Brown's book and he says that when people are hypnotised in stage shows, they aren't really dong anything they deep down don't want to do, they're just kind of going along with it on one level. The suggestion to not make a great person look bad in public must be very strong and hard to resist for human beings in front of an audience. Either way, it is a factor in how humans relate to each other, so could be viewed as 'real' in that light.

[Martin2]

Hello Chris,

thx for the post - and I think we are on a similar track, yes.

All the best

martin2

Hi Michael and Graham,

yes, PH demos are always a great problem. I did a lot with Ma Jiangbao - sometimes in front of 10 people - once up to 5000.

There is a lot to consider when one does this. Does one want to show very cooperative PH or pretend to be more attacking? Big techniques where one sees how they work or small techniques where not much is to see? More martial with throws, locks and so on or more fun? More entertaining or more demonstrate the style. Show the things beginners will learn or make a demo of so adcanced things, most people will never see in their lesson?

PH can offer a lot, so one can show a lot. I was with demos a t a lot of Kungfu Galas and saw a lot of demo of all different styles. Everybody chooses, also outside from PH in Kungfu demos. Sometimes hard to make it well.

What I defentily not like is these master who do not really push and student hops around. Looks silly. My feeling is PH should be very different. But I think I said this before.

All the best

Martin2

[Doc Stier]

The suggestion to not make a great person look bad in public must be very strong and hard to resist for human beings in front of an audience. Either way, it is a factor in how humans relate to each other, so could be viewed as 'real' in that light.

Good point. A good example of this, among many I have seen in years past, occurred at a Chinese New Year demonstration given by SPM Master Gin-Foon Mark. Sifu Mark, who was nearly 60 years old at the time, was demonstrating a two man application set before a large public audience with his top indoor student, the late David Chung. For reasons known only to Sifu Chung, but probably to establish his own independent reputation as a fighter and teacher at Mark's expense, he decided to test Mark's skill by suddenly departing from the normal set routine to launch a full speed, full powered attack against Sifu Mark. Mark quickly punished Chung for attempting to publicly embarrass him by demolishing Chung's attack with incredible speed and power, leaving Chung visibly injured on the ground.

He looked like he was dead until he regained consciousness, and required assistance to the sidelines. This event essentially ended Chung's association with Mark, and resulted in Chung opening his own school with students who felt more loyalty to him than they did to Sifu Mark. I always wondered if it had really been worth the price he paid, both at the demonstration and thereafter?

Enrollment at Mark's school, however, rose significantly after this event. Master Mark was clearly the better fighter, in spite of being obviously older in age and less powerfully built physically. As the old Chinese restaurant saying goes..."You order, you pay".



By comparison, see how respectful Mark was in demonstrating with his elderly Sifu, Master Lum Sang:

[wassy]

martin, you have been so lucky to meet the old guard

i unfortunately never had the opportunity to meet master ma, but i have have been fortunate to meet some who did and talked to many others who met him also. their experiences were always pretty consistent, in the clips we only see a fraction of master ma's demos. when he did demonstrations, he would often push with his students then with the audience, pushing with a wide variety of skill levels if you like. in the chien chuan assn in shanghai , i think on sundays wcc had an open door policy, any one could come and push with each other (a great way to improve our skills).

my experience of the old guard was through meeting grandmaster li li qun, my grandmaster, he is the second gentleman in the yongnian clip, the one hoping about. gm li was the deputy secretary of the chien chuan boxing assn under ma and due to his old ties with the yang family and fu zhongwen he is a senoir official at the yongnian conference. i spoke to him about the hoping/stamping, which he explained is not about giving up, but about discharging into the ground and trying to re-establish central equilibrium. it is a way of trying to redirect the inertia down into the ground rather then getting pushed backwards. it does not always work , and has become overused/misunderstood and can look silly. however from personal experience, when it works it fantastic. an experienced tai ji player will be aware of what you are doing and may use this to his advantage, in this case when you stamp you will only give him more rebound energy to work with! this can be seen in the clip also!

to my knowledge when ma was young he loved sparring, this is how he met wcc! he was reputedly pretty good, all just history now i guess! ma never claimed to be superhuman, he said anyone can reach his level with hard work and perseverance. however like others had commented; to be taught by such gd teachers, to be surrounded by so many good teachers/peers, and to have the opportunity to train at a high level daily all helps a lot!

as for those who worship ma, i have not heard too much about this stuff specifically, but whats the point? what would we gain by that ? each to their own i guess!

let not forget ph is not fighting, it a stepping stone to the more advanced sparring and fighting methods of the wu style. the tai ji skills of stick adhere, join follow, do not resist or let go must be trained through ph before we can step it up! therefore looking at ph clips as real fighting, or a demonstration of such is pointless, as martin said many different aspects may be emphasized when one is demonstrating etc.

peace wassy

[ors]

Hi everone!

Something from my own experiences, to make this hopping/stopping thing clearer.
In this kind of tuishou the two player try to play with a certain kind of body structure. To keep this structure in the begining you have to keep some tension in your body. It is quite difficult to keep the structure totally relaxed. While playing tuishou the two opponents try continously keep the structure, while changing. If one of them can't change quickly enough but try to keep his structure, his body will be a solid, but rigid body. When the other one gives some force, the first one will hop, instead of collapse, or try to lead this force to the ground throgh his body and stomp, as wassy's teacher has explained.
So it is not clearly a "making teacher looks good" thing. The stomping and hopping is more likely a skill level, what the student has developed, but not developed enough.

Örs

[GaryR]

not the first guy but esp check out the fat guy at the end. don't think he knew much taiji.

for those who don't believe in ma's superb skill: please point me to a video of someone better than him. the idea of someone even close to his level is worth checking out w/ an open mind.

I agree with martin, and a few others. That video does not show his "superb skill". It shows crowd cooperation, tap dancing, stage-hypnosis, cultural tradition, respect, whatever you want to call it, it's not real fighting skill being shown.

I'm not saying Ma isn't a skilled fighter, I don't know, and simply can't tell by watching the dancing video.

I think its embarrassing and naive that a student would post this and suggest there is no better video of anyone else demonstrating their skill....

[Chris McKinley]

Yeah, that line kinda makes ya wince.

[ShortFormMike]

knowing the group think here, it was done intentionally to get someone to post a VIDEO reply. Oh well i guess i'm not the master behaviorist i thought i was

[P. Li]

Your forum-fu is weak!