Progressive Martial Art Thinkers/Just The Facts... merged

[MastaFighta]

Brief Analysis of Chen Family Boxing Manuals by Jarek Szymanski

This is the closest thing I can find of Tang Hao (all of his works are in Chinese and to my knowledge, haven't been translated).

Anyway, the title is pretty self-explanatory. Here, connections between Chen Taijiquan and General Qi's 32 postures are made and analyzed.

[DerAuslander]

Sweet Jesus that's like an orgasm of awesomeness!

[Jack Rusher]

Tim Cartmell and Sparring.

Nice. How many times have we said the same thing to guys on this forum? Right down to:

What's important is to be honest about why you practice martial arts in the first place

Also notice the bold not 10 years but one as opposed to YEARS training no contact styles.

One year is the same timeframe cited by Mike Patterson. Also, by my old san shou coach. And my old boxing coach. And... well, you get the idea.

[It is Fake]

Exactly.

I'm really a nobody but, that was my experience. That's why I stayed at my McDojo for so long.

[Eddie Hardon]

IIF

Thank you. Terrific post.

Minor point, I know a Retired 4th Dan Full Contact Karate fighter, who was encouraged to learn the Internal Arts and eventually he dropped the Karate completely. However, his first love is...Xing Yi, and to watch him demo it is a wonder to behold. Mind you, I also gawp at his Chen, Yang, and recently got a glimpse of his Sun, Preying Mantis.

I know nothing...

Anyway, great article from Mr Cartmell so thanks for sharing. Really.

[It is Fake]

Thanks but as I always say thank Jack for the first article that led to the idea. I personally get tired of the " well look at IIF" he thinks he knows everything. No. I don't but I have a ton of experience that is backed up by people who we all respect.

Jack isn't an asshole like me but, he still ends up in discussions of "but why train kung fu, it is outdated."

These are well established Kung fu and karate teachers. They are also posters that train different st6yles that have very similar mindsets. That is my main point with these articles. Sparring is necessary and kata=/=fighting among a few other things.

Oh and my favorite you don't learn how to fight from doing a form extra slow (20 minute Tai Chi forms).

[It is Fake]

Nice recent post from an Instructor who posts on this board.

first and foremost, i think we can all agree that the state of martial arts in the US today is shameful. for every legit instructor, there are far too many frauds teaching made-up martial arts to people who don't know any better, and the problem is only growing.

of course, if someone wants to learn to dance, there is no problem, but the issue becomes important when students are being told that they are developing fighting skill when they are not. at that point it has gone beyond a fun activity, and has become a situation where people are getting false confidence, which may in fact put them in great danger.

i also should not have to tell you that "kung fu" (a term that i hate because it is so vague) has one of the worst ratios of bullshit artists to legit instructors of any atyle out there. some other arts are just as bad, of course, but i tend to be most interested in my own community. when i go to kung fu tournaments, i see an ever greater number of students who are learning to pose, and do forms, but once they try and fight, they are completely unable to be effective in any way.

partly this is due to the consumer. many legit instructors have chosen to water down their teaching to keep their doors open. the general public do not want to have to get punched in the face to learn to fight. kids classes are often just glorified baby sitting sessions, with parents looking for the instructors to provide discipline that the parents are unable to provide at home.

so what do we do about it? how do we save kung fu? how can we inform the consumer so that they have no illusions of what is being taught? could we have a "better business bureau" for martial arts?

that idea was one of the main reasons that this site was put together. one of the other concepts behind the site was to be different from other forums in that we do not delete posts here. some posts are moved to an area of the site for off topic posts or posts that we feel are meant to enrage people (trolling.) however, nothing is deleted, as we hope to encourage open and honest discussion of the topic.

an unfortunate side effect of this, is that some forum members can be more insulting than others, and there are forum members who seem to enjoy watching others get riled up and upset. however, we see it as a necessary evil (or some see it as the basis of the comedy on this forum, but i digress.)

the flip side of that, is that we have a large number of very skilled and knowledgeable members, representing almost any martial art you can think of. so this can be a great source of information for those who approach it the right way.

ok. so now you may be asking, "so how can bullshido make judgments about martial arts schools? how can they tell what schools are legit, and what schools are selling bullshit?"

the answer is: by asking a lot of questions and demanding that they are answered in full, and with evidence to back up the answers. also we have come to recognize a set of "red flags" that although they are not damning evidence in and of themselves, can be a warning that further investigation may be needed.

here are just a few "red flags" that can often (but not always) imply that a school may not be teaching legit martial arts:

• "what we do is far too deadly for sparring, so we don't spar or compete"
• "we have been banned from competition because we are too dangerous"
• "sparring is not necessary, you can learn everything from forms practice, and if you need to defend yourself, the reactions will just come, as you have them in your muscle memory"
• "why should we answer your questions? just come down and challenge us to a deathmatch. we will be ready with weapons" (alternate versions "we have cops in the school who will arrest you for assault AFTER they kick your asses for challenging us", " we will use any methods at our disposal to answer the challenge, including shooting you from across the street" <-- these have all actually been said to us.)

one of the easiest ways for establishing the ability of a school to teach fighting skills is their ability to put fighters into full contact competition (preferably with the most permissive rule set available, as we all know that competition is not the same as the street, yet it may be the best evidence we can have of actual fight skills.) so this is why there is such a demand for such info when a school is being looked into. a lot of questions can be easily answered just by looking at a school's competition record in a recognized event.

we have often found that those who are least willing to answer questions, are the most likely to have something to hide, and those who have been open and straightforward with their answers have often found that they end up with a good deal of respect around here (even if they have connections to people who are generally considered frauds here.)

i hope this has been helpful in getting a better understanding of what this site is about and why we want to know the answers to the questions we ask. i think that you probably agree with us in our mission to get rid of the frauds out there, and would like to see a return to seeing fighting skills being shown in the kung fu community, as i do.

[blacksifu]

saving this - :)

[It is Fake]

Here is a little exchange about forms and sparring from Tim Cartmell again.
http://www.shenwu.com/discus/message...tml?1112033272

Mozart,
Students learn about alignment and basic movement skills from the first day of class. They also start some non-cooperative sparring drills within the first week or two of training. Some students (with a little background) start sparring in a limited format the first or second class.

You could practice forms for a million years and you will never know if you are doing them with any degree of proficiency until you try to use the skills in sparring. The very idea of forms is to develop the attributes useful to fighting. How can you test the degree of development obtained from forms training? By fighting (or sparring realistically). Otherwise, you are only dancing.

Think about how you acquired any other physical/athletic skill. How did you learn to ride a bike? Did you practice the "bike riding form" without a bike for several years to perfect your "form" before you ever sat on a bike, or did your dad give you some pointers and then let you try and ride? You fall down, you learn from the error, and you try again. In a short amount of time, you can ride. You cannot correct your performance until you actually try and perform. Without realistic practice (which includes making mistakes) you will have nothing to base your training on.

The idea that you need to master "forms" before you can begin to actually practice a specific sport or skill would be considered ridiculous in any other physical endeavor (except "martial arts"). Imagine people who really need to know how to fight, soldiers for example. If you used the "perfect forms first" model of training, boot camp would last 30 years instead of three months.

If I hear a teacher forbidding live practice (realistic, non-cooperative practice and contact sparring) until the student has trained for months or years, my first thought is the teacher doesn't know how to fight himself, or he doesn't know how to teach others how to fight, or, he is simply marketing (dribbling out information as slow as possible to keep students on the hook).

All fighters practice conditioning. For example, stance keeping (Zhan Zhuang) IS isometrics. Tensing your muscles inappropriately makes you stiffer, not exercising.


[another response to a post]
Our theory is that you learn forms and solo drills in the academy, but you practice them at home. There is no need to pay a teacher to watch you practice forms once you know them. So when you come to class, most of the time is spent on drilling or sparring with a partner.

My classes are broken down basically into one third of the time doing forms or conditioning, one third on technique practice and drills with a partner and one third sparring.


[another response to a post]
Alot depends on the individual student, but, in general, sparring is introduced to beginners in rather specific and limited formats. I agree that having a new student glove up and spar full contact with few rules usually isn't the best training method (although you can learn alot about yourself in such situations).

If you reduce the variables to a limited area of focus, students will be able to concentrate on developing specific skills in a non-cooperative format, without feeling undue pressure. Making mistakes is a natural part of the learning process. The teachers job is to provide feedback, and present corrective methods of practice afterward (most often in a less stressful, more structured environment) so the student can work to correct flaws and improve performance. The more proficient a student becomes, the freer the practice can be.

It is impossible to correct a student that is never given the opportunity to make mistakes.

I guess you can say I'm searching for thing to support my argument. Thing is he blows all the Bias against "non-Asian" CMAers apart. He trained in China, Competed in hard/full contact, learned forms, learned about chi, he is about as classical, traditional, or whatever you want to deem him and he still says everything a sport fighter would say.

That's why I get perturbed at the whole to "deadly vs sport" bullshit.

If anyone wonders why I don't have an Omega post in here it's because, he has a thread that is good enough in the CMA forum already.

[Jack Rusher]

At the risk of turning this into the Tim Cartmell appeciation thread, there's this:

Karl-Heinz: How long needs a student in your school to be prepared for competition?

Tim: Most of my students will begin to compete in BJJ and submission wrestling tournaments after about six months of training. About a year’s training is average before students compete in amatuer MMA events.

Karl-Heinz: Which of your students are sucessfull in competition and which titles have they won?

Tim: I have a large number of students that have been successful in grappling and MMA tournaments. Most recently one of my young students won the California State Pankration Championships in both the light-heavy and heavyweight divisions on the same day. Other of my students have won the BJJ Pan-American Championships, the Copa Pacifica de Jiu Jitsu, the BJJ California State Chapionships among other titles.

... remember, it takes ten years to be able to fight with IMA!