The Problem With Chinese Martial Arts ft. Qi La La 

Here's the Fourth Generation Bagua master interview that I mentioned at 8:30 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EQBh_RFbK1g.html If you haven't seen Ma Baoguo's ridiculous fight yet: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8GdqJ_wj2nE.html Like always, thanks for watching! I'll add more links to stuff I talked about as I think about it. Here's our Qi La La playlist: ru-vid.com/group/PLtdbPxlsaM_nvgs0NVFFL5_ma47EV4_1O A followup analysis about Sanda: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NDOkPNzKGBg.html Here's our new channel focused on BJJ! ru-vid.com/show-UCQfBeZEQXbiGfgR_BEySSPQ

To quote Mike Tyson, "hard to remember ancestor's teaching after getting punched in the face."

This is really interesting to me! I was very taken by the mysticism of TCMA back in the 70's and up until recently (partly from watching your videos) I didn't really know what was BS what what wasn't. Back in the 80's I briefly took classes in Tai Chi from Dr. Yang Jwing Ming (who also taught Kung Fu) and he made it very clear to us that we were not learning self defense. In fact, it was a lot more like learning Yoga with some of the same mysticism (the flow of Chi and meridians). There was a very strong emphasis on the health benefits and I suspect there are some, but I do think the benefits of Tai Chi were exaggerated (though maybe not more than Yoga...). As you describe here about Qi La La, I think Bruce Lee was also endlessly testing and trying things to measure effectiveness. It is kind of surprising how controversial this mind set is. It really would explain a lot if the combat effectiveness of TCMA really was intentionally suppressed at some point during China's history as you discuss in this video. That really is fascinating!

Takeaway from the video: A lot of martial arts look like kickboxing/the same since there are only so many moves that are effective. It doesn't mean that a martial art necessarily stole moves from another. Makes sense. Like swordfighting having a lot of the same moves. There are only so many ways of attacking a defending against someone in practical ways. Just because a kung fu fighter isn't performing forms like a performance on stage doesn't mean it's not kung fu.

It's not an art, it's how you train it. Train techniques and apply it in sparring. Then you will see what works and what isn't.

I love your channel. I am a life long practicioner who’s studied various martial arts and have come to a lot of similar conclusions. For those of us who have a passion for martial arts these are essential discussions to have. Martial arts, to remain relevant, must evolve. As much as tradition is important, part of that tradition should be evolution of the art. Times change and the arts that don’t change with it are dooming themselves to ineffectiveness.

Love how you didn't bother with putting a backdrop or staging a background or even tidied up...subscribed!

TMA is primarily light exercise, and it accomplishes that excellently. I lived in Shanghai and I see old people doing taichi every day in the park. I think it's great that old people can stay relatively healthy in their retirement. In terms of combat effectiveness, yes of course MMA is better and there's no question about that. But how many retirees do you see stretching and getting exercise with MMA drills in their old age? Both MMA and TMA each serve their own purpose, and they're both very good at what they do.

The dude at 12:25 was spot on. This is the only reasonable way forward, rather than these guys sporadically getting the shit kicked out of them and winding up the government.

I wish when Qi La La retires to become a master and professionally train Effective Wing Chun with the discarded techniques that don't work,...actually it's better to call it *Qi La La's Wing Chun* because they are techniques working for HIM.

Dude. Clean your room ;)

This is true, my teacher told me once, one must have 2 things to be a complete warrior, the knowledge of routines and also have fights, the two must complement each other, If you are only good at routines but you do not have fights it is useless, and if you have many fights but you do not do routines, you have no history, you cannot say that you make an art if you do not know what you do, that is why both things must be combined, both routines and sparring, there is also some truth and that is that sports competitions have too many rules, you can't hit the eyes and throat and neither the genitals, the traditional martial arts are very limited, not only the Chinese speak of all the traditional arts, and sports combat occupies most of the time only basic techniques, As straight punches, hooks, uppercuts, crossed, and kicks since the most basic ones that are circular, thigh, twist and instep kicks, nothing very complex I suppose that for make the fight more dynamic and not so boring, I agree with the man who said, that MMA fighters come to do traditional martial arts, and that the traditional arts sparring, everything must have its balance.

Love what you do brother...Well informed, precise and consistent.. Greatly appreciated!

Love your content bro cause this is so true. I came up boxing and fighting irl so had to learn new shit mainly kicking after getting beat sometimes and realized what works and what doesn't via applying that. there are so many schools out there that have idiots with fake ranks that have never been tested. the best fight technique people fail to mention is knowing when to hit the Escape button.

The puzzling thing about TCMA is that up until about the first few decades of the 20th century, there was a tradition of "open platform" fights where the TCMA did actually do fairly brutal fighting with all sorts of styles mixing it up with hardly any rules, more or less like the early UFC. That's actually how Tai Chi and some of the other well-known styles became famous in the 19th century. Looking at the broader picture, we're sort of lucky (East Asia and the world generally, just from an antiquarian perspective) that guns became widespread relatively later in East Asia than in Europe - it meant there was still a bit of a hangover of unarmed/melee styles and schools that had been combat tested in the real world for centuries. Compare and contrast with the Western MA, which pretty much either disappeared completely or were subsumed into dueling or sport forms by about the 18th century or so - so much so that it was more or less a surprise when (over the past few decades) people started taking a closer look at the mediaeval "fight books" (first scholars, then MA enthusiasts) and discovered that Western MA had at one time been fully as sophisticated in terms of what one might call weird techniques as the East Asian stuff (e.g. with wrestling moves closely integrated with melee weapons, etc., etc.). And here it's also important to note that the unarmed forms in EA MA were generally considered as just a kind of basic training and fallback - the real meat of a "style" was with melee weapons, the whole point was training towards that. (And you can still see a bit of a remnant of that in some of the TMA which have lots of different weapons forms too.) So what changed? Surely Communism had something to do with it - the ditching of a lot of tradition, the forbidding of the practice of traditional things during the Cultural Revolution, etc. If you zoom in on the base style of Tai Chi (Chen style, which was a clan village style), the continuity of that in the latter half of the 20th century hung on the very thin thread of a few clan guys who defied the authorities by continuing to train the younger generation, even sometime having to do it in secret (one of them was even imprisoned for it IIRC). Another consideration might be the twin factors of the romanticization of the TCMA in wuxia novels in the early 20th century and their glorification as national treasures in the nationalist period. That's probably the originating cause of a lot of the fakery around. Closely related, there's the factor that there's a continuous "half life" phenomenon with the "reality" of combat sports - again and again, you have the phenomenon where a form of competition starts off with a quest for authenticity, and then eventually the combat sport becomes commercialized, and the participants choose a quiet life with less likelihood of injury, so everything becomes a work, and then the quest for authenticity starts up again. This has happened many times in the West, certainly (e.g. early pro Wrestling to WWF, early UFC now transitioned to something more staged - although MMA does seem to be holding onto authenticity a bit longer than similar phases in the past, probably on account of pressure from below because of the vast number of amateurs into MMA who are too knowledgeable to be easily fooled.). Similar "waves" of transition from authenticity to commercialization and fakery have no doubt occurred in East Asia too. I think part of the problem is also that there was always a certain secretiveness about the various clan styles, etc. - which was perfectly understandable of course, in a context where a) surprise is a huge element in combat effectiveness, and b) historically, combat actually did mean life or death. But where lines of transmission were broken because of the upheavals through the fall of empire, nationalism and then communism, that secrecy meant a kind of fragmentation. (And to understand the reasons for secrecy even better, look at it from the other point of view, consider what's happened to the Gracies: at one time, when BJJ was a surprise to the world, they ruled the roost, but eventually everyone and their mother learned BJJ, and the family itself lost that "edge". No big deal in the modern context, one might say - compensated for by financial gain, etc. But consider a comparable scenario right up to the, say, the 19th century, when the EA combat arts weren't sports and did mean life or death.) And this leads to the other point: if you look at the ancient styles of combat, there's a lot to do with breathing (prana in India, qi in China, ki in Japan - but there are even vague hints about "spirit" here and there in ancient and mediaeval Western lore), which suggests that fascia conditioning was much more important, probably as important as muscle conditioning. But that's pretty recondite stuff, that, again, would have been closely guarded - so if lines of transmission were broken, you'd end up with a situation where you have a lot of forms where the techniques were empty, or one might say, had lost their engine. There's also a logistical point that in order to train live you need partners - and again, that's a problem if lines of transmission are broken and scattered. What this all means, I think, is that the fat lady hasn't yet sung on the TCMA. There probably is a "real thing" but it's probably as rare as hens' teeth, tucked away in obscure villages here and there, where a) there had been some continuity of training from the early 20th century to the present, and b) there was a sufficient pool of people who could do live training. It may take a while yet before those kinds of things come more into the light, get sportified, etc. Or to put it another way, China perhaps needs to go through a similar phase to what Jigoro Kano did with old jujitsu forms, or how Muay Thai was codified and consolidated as a national sport.

You know now that I think of it... It's a really weird feeling when I learned the most about how to apply Wing Chun while training Sanda. I didn't learn shit while fully training Wing Chun, but after training Sanda for a couple months... I suddenly just got how a fucking Bongsau worked.

A number of years ago I coached boxing in Taipei, so it's always a treat to see your channel. Watching the Qi La La videos takes me back to cornering fighters at those WAKO and amateur San Da tournaments

Yeah this video gots a lot of logic love you videos man

It's really not a Chinese martial arts problem but a problem with what commonly *passes for* Chinese martial arts today. People from my Bagua/Taiji school have won the large majority of their fights in boxing, sanda, and kickboxing tournaments. Just these last couple of years they've brought home maybe 10 golds. Note that these people are pure Chinese martial artists conditioned using Bagua/Taiji methods, primarily zhanzhuang, and employing kungfu techniques in the ring. And yes of course we spar. It's simply not possible that we are the only CMA school with effective training methods - other styles of Chinese martial arts *must* have them too. In fact, I have seen a lot of very good stuff from other legit schools; but what gets eyeballs are the circus acts. Though to be fair the good schools do seem to be outnumbered by the bad ones.

The ancestors be turning in in their graves knowing what had became of the arts they left behind. Was used to protect their ppl,way of life and honor.

This video is awesome. Also, I've been teaching Wing Chun for 15 years and Qi La la looks 100% Wing Chun to me. Love it!

Agree with Qi La La. In my experience: I've been practicing Taiji Quan and Xingyi Quan for a year and a half now, but I entered into two gyms to train MMA. I'll be clear, to get your sparring done, and done well is a life saving activity. After that experience I talked with my wushu teacher, and he told me there is a an aspect about getting the most out of wushu it's to: read the theory, practice the forms and getting your sparring done. That means that in order to learn how to use each tool in TMA, you should get your hands into the action or you'll never become a competent fighter.

Just subscribed to Qi La La’s channel! I agree on your points regarding what makes something a *martial* art & which views to take when looking at old concepts. If something isn’t working, its time to move on!

I can't believe in something I'm not allowed to question. Asking is the purifier of our thoughts and it helps us stay on the ground. Throughout history, man is prone to delusion and I'm not just referring to religion but more things than that like gender. The moment people stop asking questions, that's the end of our freedom.

Damn i really learned a lot from this video. Thank you

'All martial arts look the same because we all have two arms and two legs,' is what my teacher would say. The main difference was the base philosiphy

>"if you go to business school, how would you know about business if you don't do business" Great analogy, people think that if you study business you will be a good businessman and the funny thing is that most successful business people didn't even touch an university. Practice and theory must go together, but in the end, between a pure theorist vs a pure pragmatist, the pragmatist will win.

Bruce Lee was criticized for his Jeet Kune Do , which had it's roots in Wing Chun. He incorporated elements from boxing, fencing, and even studied Judo at Seattle dojo when he was living here. He understood the importance of being well rounded and keeping what works and discarding what doesn't. he was constantly evolving his style. When I studied, the school had two instructors who had boxing backgrounds and the head teacher was from a judo background

I studied Wing Tsun for 10 years. After 2 -3 years I found out for myself, your Sifu teach you a Concept. You have to find out how it works best for you. It depends on your Physical strenght, your Body, your Speed, so much details to look for. Most Ppl never understand this and just try to copy Techniques shown by the Sifu. Also you need Combat experience in Sparing and real Fights. I lived 8 Years in Thailand and I went into a few ugly Situations, my Wing Tsun never let me down. Just my 2 Pence

If you are learning Kung Fu there is definitely hidden knowledge. and there should be. There are certain things that just need to wait until the skill level is high enough. Adding Mysticism just makes it fun, and a lot of people are learning KF for that reason... its escapism, it keeps their interest and members will stay around longer. Sparing can be confronting and uncomfortable and a deterrent. But you're right, its about balance and relevance. a progressive school that always bring their traditional learning into practical applications is a good school, but Im guessing most cant do that. The Sifus at my school are all hardened from the days of full contact fighting. My SiGung was the Australian full contact champion and that experience flavours everything we learn.

Dude just found your channel like now and I totally agree with you. Many martial arts came from how human imitate certain animal to defend themselves, but as time goes on, they met another style and tried each other on and the style will be revised again and again by each generation. Unfortunately, some master of certain martial arts sadly sunk in arrogance to keep their style "original" then after couples of generations they even forgot to spar against each other while still overshadowed by the tale of their great great great grandmaster. People mistook traditional martial arts as fake martial arts. Well, maybe the "quality" is already deteriorated, but the martial art itself is real. . I learnt tae kwon do (a year) and silat (5yrs). For silat, the same as my previous paragraph, the practitioner travelled to many places and sometimes spar then the technique is being developed. Now, we can see that many silat covers the pretty same movement, this shows either that silat was born from the same root or they develop together and exchange their technique. . Sadly, as for silat, I see many "fake" are style still going. I'm not telling their style name, but I can say their style covers lots of weird step who shows your back towards the enemy.

Bravo for Taiwan people who love freedom!

There's a secret art called gun-fu. To use the full power, you have to go to its "power center" called "gun shop" and pay some money. You also have to routinely train in "shooting range". A single hit from its technique can render your opponent incapacitated. However, it is not worth spending that much money on this art because (1) it's too dangerous to use in the ring and (2) MMA rules makes it impossible to unleash its full power in the ring.

The ending made me laugh so much :) Thanks for your translation Fantastic channel always learn ALOT :)

I visited most of the Wing Chun schools in Hong Kong about 10 years ago. There is a huge variation in style of teaching. Some is absolutely deluded bullshido. Some masters teach the 'soft force' and how it overcomes hard energy. I could have filmed all the woo woo masters and ridiculed Wing Chun, dismissed the whole style. But I also met some masters that were absolutely authentic, hard as nails and with lots of real fighting experience. Just one example - Wan Kam Leung (student of Wong Shun Leung) who has terrible scars on his arms (from knife fighting) to prove it. The bit everyone misses with Wing Chun is hardness. The style simply won't work without hand conditioning. Anyone who misses this out will find it ineffective. The whole style is based around it and yes wearing gloves takes this advantage away. Power is sacrificed for speed, hardness causes the pain and damage. Wan Kam Leung wasn't muscle bound he is all conditioned sinew and bone and has hands and arms of iron. He hits hard and heavy without effort and he was much older than me. Look him up. Watch his videos. But you won't get it until you feel his hands on you. He'd be your worst nightmare in a real fight.

For a second i thought that's my room 🤣🤣

Bro, You forgot a key aspect. 80% of the attacks and blocks in Wushu are made to end a combat quickly and with a lot of damage. There are hits to the groin area, the knees, elbows,neck, throat,eyes and other soft points. If you want to do a combat sport train sanda/sanshou

Excellent video (I am too old but trained under Chuck Norris legacy in the day) and wish MMA was around back then. Back then an athlete trained a bit in fighting and boxing destroyed untrained folks. Though I wish I spent more time at the HG combat courses before I got old.

Dude those bs martial arts in the background are hilarious 😂

You know what's very effective?, parkour, no fighting just getting away from the situation and be done with it..

Thailand is ahead. since 1970's Thai fighters have always known Kungfu was just entertainment. Our golden era fighters have fought against every style.

MMA literally dismissed the fantasy of most martial arts.

The way you speak is great

Basically: Never mystify Martial Arts. Use what is effective (Same logic as MMA). And there is a possibility that both MMA and TMA can learn from each other. (IMO I think TMA can learn more from MMA ). I saved you like 16 minutes of your life.

you should show the video where Jet Li comes to America to the kung fu school.

Fantastic content! Subscribed.

I was very impressed with ma baoguo tai chi style.. there came a lot of lightnings ...hahahah

I agree with everything said in this video. If I can add something which may be of interest, and represents my point of view on TCMA: I've been practicing K1-style Kickboxing as my main martial art for 8 years, and then Taekwondo for 2 years and a half. Those two disciplines came at different times for different purposes: from Kickboxing I learned what it meant to spar, to take a punch, and to give one. That, along with basic punches, kicks, knees, and sweeps. Then with Taekwondo, I've refined what I felt lacked in my previous training: kicks and agility. Now I've moved to traditional Kung fu, and what I notice is that once again the focus of the practice is different: Kung Fu, in my experience, is based on movement mechanics - not techniques. What that means is that in a Kung Fu form what matters the most is the body handling which then generates the movements: for example, when you throw a punch, does the force travel cleanly from your foot to the hand which expresses the technique? Are you tense? Are you really transferring your movement from foot to hand (so that the foot generates the punch, not the arm) or are you just coordinating the legs with the body while your shoulder's doing the work? What is your spine doing while you punch? Is it active or is it just a "thing" attached to the shoulders and hips? Small details which are game-changing when you put them together: a punch may look like one "thrown from the arm" but behind it the body's acting in a completely different way which makes the result look the same, but much more stable, stronger, heavier. When practicing a form that's what I focus on, not the single applications. Those come later on, once the body handling skills have become predominant, you put those movements (which are again, movements, not techniques) into actual techniques, so that whatever technique you're using (palm strikes, punches, throws, deflections) are fueled by the mechanics you learned before. Then comes pressure testing, then comes sparring (it must be present!). All those things should have a place and be used in a correct manner, it's like a cooking recipe: you can't obtain the intended result if you don't use each ingredient the way it's meant to be used. So, in my experience, if you use a Kung Fu form just to replicate the movements without handling the body in the way it's meant to be handled, you end up with an "empty dance". Your techniques are just half correct, the shape is correct but what's inside is not what it's meant to be. Once you have an understanding you have to apply it too, otherwise, there is once again just half of the work. The effectiveness of something comes in great part from the way it is used: not just in sparring, also before that phase of the training comes correct use. Again: if you learn forms but move through those forms without using correct body handling, you're replicating a shape. That's why it's better to practice one form in the correct way rather than 10 forms with just the external shell being present. Techniques are contingent and situational, body handling skills are not, they should be the foundation of your movements. I hope this can be of help to someone, this was a great interview to watch! :)

I just LOVE all of your TMA/TCMA content!

love this channel also the engagement with the comments is great

@7:20....the Wing Chun master forgot that they had two weapons. The single-headed long pole (descended from spear) and the twin butterfly swords. Two popular weapons among the Cantonese militia. It was for war. But even the people practicing these arts today forget this. They treat weaponry as “training tools” for strength training smh

What I want to know is, how did these "traditional" martial arts, get the name "traditional"? A lot of them aren't even actually that old. None of them are older than wrestling, but no one will call wrestling "traditional".

I'm glad SOMEBODY finally made a video essay on this. You've earned a 31-year practitioner of Kung-Fu as a new subscriber. 12:00 I agree 100% with this man. If Kung-Fu had no combative value, then Anderson Silva and other MMA fighters wouldn't bother training in Wing-Chub style & add it to their arsenal

As someone who studied karate and Hung Gar Gar, and who lucky that my school did sparring , and it looked like Kick boxing when we sparred. The lack of sparring with all the mysticism have made TCMA a joke. . Hopefully it changes. Most traditional Martial arts have the same techniques punching, kicking, Throws, elbows, knees...it is just the application, the mind set that makes a huge difference.

I wonder if it’s kinda like accents in a single language. When speaking, the accents are distinct, when singing the distinct accents become less noticeable. The closer martial arts come to real combat application, the closer they will resemble each other or lose their accents.

Best end of video ever! No one can be ready for this!

Oh my god that’s so funny (at 5:00) 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You know Wing Chun is very good technique actually. But mostly Wing Chun students just master the techniques, not train their body too. What technique can do if your opponent already master many technique and even train their body so they have strength and have good conditioning. Just 1 answer is lost like a fool. But Qi La La is not like other Wing Chun practitioners, He already master the techniques and he train his body. But I will say he train his body is not in MMA fighter level yet. But I believe if he continue his training he will be the best Wing Chun practitioner in the world, because he will make other realize all mistake that always hunted in kungfu's practitioner.

Nice throat singing! No, great analysis though. I’ve been in both setting of sparring and non-sparrring traditional martial arts and left some communities because of their opinions and lack of respect for each other. Could not agree more. Southern Chinese styles’ practitioners have often said to me they think the northern styles are too flowery and not “effective” but they don’t spar in their school. I say to myself “ at least wushu guys know they’re dancing.”

I'll tell you the problem with many traditional martial arts ("TMA"): they didn't evolve. When wrestling and jiu jitsu, for example, became more prevalent, there was little effort from TMA practitioners to modernize their fighting skills to address/incorporate more modern methods of combat. Worse yet, due to pride, when confronted about this time and time again, the only response seems to be, "well, in a real fight, I'd bite your face off" or "I practice only street lethal techniques". Pride gets in the way of growth.

Thank you for saying how Chinese folks are starting to react to some of these fake "Masters" because I have been curious about that too. Living in Dongguan I don't really see too many people using different Kung Fu styles except for mostly Taiichi in the park (and those are mostly older folks) as Taekwondo is more popular here, but it is good to hear that more people are seeing the flaws. I hope that in seeing them they can be willing to adjust and learn how "traditional" Martial Arts can change and grow.

I think the point about application is definitely the key here. It’s not about TCMA vs MMA or style or anything like that. MMA practitioners have the advantage because they apply what they learn and know how to react to an opponent. If you could magically transport a top TCMA master from China’s most turbulent era, when martial arts were depended on for life and death self defense on a regular basis, I would bet that that the TCMA would destroy an equally skilled MMA fighter in a no holds barred, no rules fight. Why? Because MMA still has rules. The person who has more experience knowing how to not only react to the opponent but to their own mind in a life or death fight is going to win.

If only Bruce Lee didnt die so young and share his ideas. And help everyone.

There is value in traditional Chinese martial arts, however, it is not combat / fighting. I’d love to learn tai chi for poise, balance, movement, and low impact exercise. For fighting? No. It might have been relevant centuries ago when people fought differently with different codes of conduct and norms, but today, it is not a viable combat system. This goes for most, if not all, Chinese martial arts, really.

Very interesting video, Jerry. Thank you. If you do not write, you cannot claim to be a writer, no matter how many pens you own. If you do not paint, you cannot claim to be a painter, no matter how many brushes you own. If you do not fight, you cannot claim to be a fighter, no matter how many forms you know. TCMA came down from people who had to use them to fight for their lives, so the *arts* work but what we have is generations of *people* who do not know how to *make them work*. Just as we no longer know how to make Greek Fire. So, in many schools, the fighting art is dead. How did this come about? Speaking for the lineage of Wǔzǔquán (五祖拳) that I come from, the master who founded our branch (Chee Kim Thong) fought and killed Japanese soldiers hand-to-hand. But he was the last of our lineage who needed to use his art as a killing art. He killed so many people that he was sick of fighting and often said (at least the few times that I met him), that fighting was not as important as health. I agree with Jerry that if you practise your art only for health, it is no longer a Quán (拳). Of course, Master Chee was in his 70s when I heard him say that health was more important. I have noticed this change in elderly TCMA teachers (including myself). Their focus changes from teaching about fighting to teaching about health as their own mortality looms. I have also seen teachers change their focus from teaching about fighting to preserving the body of knowledge. So, their students end up spending most of their time practising 30, 40, 50 or more forms (which was fine if you were a monk with nothing else to do in the 17th Century) and less time *pressure-testing*. One of my bugbears in TCMA is using 2,500-year-old language to describe phenomena that can be clearly explained using modern terms, e.g.: "Sinking your Qì (氣)"; "Directing your Jìn (勁)". This, combined with an absence of pressure-testing, creates an unnecessary aura of mysticism which attracts those who want to defraud the naïve, as well as the naïve themselves, and deters practical-minded people who could benefit from some excellent arts. There are too many so-called "Masters" who wear silk brocade and speak in serene tones about "energy", and too many people who desperately need everything to be made of rainbows. I feel some who practise MMA have decided for themselves that it is the standard against which *all* fighting should be measured; if your art doesn't work in the MMA cage, then it doesn't work. But put a sword in the hand of an MMA champion and put him up against someone who has been doing HEMA for a year and he'll be soundly beaten. HEMA fighting is no less "real" than MMA fighting, in my opinion. They are both one-on-one contests in artificial circumstances: a perfectly flat and relatively soft surface, a constrained area, a referee, rules. This "artificiality" gives many TCMA people the (lame) excuse that their art is for "real" fighting, not combat sports. But then they don't do "real" fighting either, unlike their predecessors. How could they? The "real" circumstances under which TCMA flourished no longer exist, thankfully. They often say: "My art is for self-defence only". But you cannot test self-defence unless you live in a part of town where you are *constantly* being attacked in the street. And if you cannot test it, how can you teach it? One of the best lessons I ever learned was when I was 20. In fact, it was two lessons. I was not yet a black sash in an Americanised form of CMA and I entered a Kyokushinkai full-contact competition. I came up against a Kyokushinkai green-belt. I immediately whacked him with three uppercuts to the ribs in quick succession. Zero effect. Lesson One: you don't know whether your stuff works or not until you try it out. I was shocked and didn't know what to do. He took advantage and roundhouse kicked me in the neck. I staggered back. He then hit me with an uppercut that cracked a rib and front-kicked me off the mat. I was unconscious before I hit the floor. Lesson Two: what it feels like to get hit hard. The fight lasted about 30 seconds. I say "fight", but it was quite one-sided. I would say almost no TCMA practitioners today have ever learned those two *invaluable* lessons. As an aside, I switched to a TCMA school under a Chinese instructor not long after that fight and, within six months, my uppercuts were knocking the wind out of people who held the heavy-bag for me. I will turn 59 soon and, like many ageing TCMA practitioners before me, have little interest in fighting now. But if I were to start teaching classes again, I would pressure-test my students from Day 1. I wouldn't have them do MMA competition - but I wouldn't prevent them either - because A) I do not have the experience of that world to be able to coach them and B) I do not *want* to coach people for the constraints of combat sports. But I would insist that they spar and encourage them to spar people from as many fighting styles as they can. I have a couple of related videos on my channel. I won't provide links here but if anyone is interested, they are called "What is Mastery?" and "If you practise traditional Chinese martial arts, you're probably not a fighter." Kind regards. Declan Chellar

Great feature. There are a lot of Bulshido masters out there and I met a few. Saying that I trained in Choy li fut and found it to be very effective for fighting. We sparred regularly and that’s the time you test out techniques that you’ve learnt. One teacher told me that if all you do is come to class and train with the others you’re not going to learn much, you have to go away from class and pick out techniques from the forms and drill them, then go back to class and try them out in sparring, if they don’t work, bin them and try something else. This is what I did and it worked very well for me. Most people are naturally lazy and think they will become Bruce Lee just by turning up, then they battered and leave the class or whatever.

How many bullshito masters? not enough, we need more laughs.

I think many martial arts masters do realize what they teach isn’t for actual combat. My master (he won a few competitions, does Sanda, Kungfu, Muay Thai, taichi etc) recently sent a series of “attacks”. They looked wrong. Specifically one where you threw what seemed to be a normal straight punch but you raised your other hand OVER the head. So I went to him and asked, why OVER the head? We aren’t blocking arrows raining down or something, shouldn’t the hand be in front and above the forehead to protect against a counter? He told me that what he sent wasn’t some bullshit kata, it was an exercise to make sure you can be more flexible for other techniques like shoots and stuff for takedowns. And then we actually went and sparred a bit. But I think this is important because it shows qualified teachers know. When I first went to my master requesting to learn Taichi, the first thing they told me was, “Why? Taichi won’t ever work, come do Sanda instead”. I still ended up doing Taichi to help with my wrestling and I did Sanda in between but my point is, qualified fighters in China can gauge the effectiveness of traditional martial arts

Cool tree on the wall!

Yeas ago, I saw some old black and white movies of Tai Ch practitioners sparring. It was very circular and fast! I felt it might be functional when done that way.

I been missing a lot of Amazon packages. Now I know where it went.

There is alot of bullshido everywhere. But we also got to be mindful not to take a dump on a TCMA for not winning a fight against another martial artist but at least give him a nod for trying. There is so much expectation that they have to win a fight to proof their stuff work but we got to realise they are only human and been training something that probably not going to be effective under a set of rules. Kind of like getting a rally racer to drive the same way in a F1 race.

哥们儿 房间有点乱啊！

"why are you treating it as a combat sport", because it's right there in the name: wu-shu, martial art, or the art (way, technique) of war. Martial arts have to be a combat system, or else they are not martial, or bu in japanese, or wu in chinese.

I went 4 times to China to train taichi and kungfu. Been training Chinese martial arts for 15 years, mainly taichi in fact. Tremendous benefits to all facets of my health. Never thought it taught my to fight though, it really didn't. I figured defending myself against stress and stuff that attacks your system everyday was a better way to spend my time. Couple years back I started bjj and a mix of muai thai and kick boxing. I know with solid basics, at 6'4 220lbs lean I can defend myself against most people, not looking to become a champ. Lots of people who practise Chinese martial arts think they're badass even though they actually have no clue what fighting really feels like. Also, god damn man clean your room lmao

Secondly. Martial arts doesn't need to go in the ring against people who train martial sports for a living in order to be effective. U need a good teacher and you must not worry about belt ,cups or cheques. But must learn how to survive. Its not based on how many rounds u can go. Dont forget mma fights get stopped just for a small poke in the eye.

All I can say Bruce Lee already did this in his life time.

I think Shaolin monks don't know how to fight but Shaolin monks know a lot of good things they could teach modern martial arts like they do a lot of body conditioning insane body conditioning and also there's a lot of mind over matter which I think could be very useful for a modern martial arts

To be fair, if we are ever attacked by aliens flailing spaghetti arms, the traditional techniques could come in handy.

I love this channel.

there's a reason it's called "MODERN" marital art, whatever fantasy it was in the past, things are generally improving

One aspect people fail to notice is that certain body movements may promote psychological changes in someone. Meaning if the martial arts practiced or combat sport practice may have a positive or negative impact on such a persons personality.

This was by far your best comments. Normally for the most part I like the videos but this like your comments.

Maybe that is the reason why Bruce Lee started to develop his own fighting style because he saw the limitations of traditional martial arts and Kung Fu.

If I want to practice a martial art in order to be able to defend myself, which one would be the most effective? What should I look for when looking for a gym.

The reason Chinese Kung Fu are called a "Martial Art" is because it is in percentages. So the " Martial " part is only a small percent. So let us say that 20% only is for fighting or combat. Then the other 90% is for Health, Discipline, Tradition, Dance,Chi etc. So it is not completely a dance only, it's just that a very small portion is for actual fighting, therefore they can not take out the Martial part of the word. Did you know in China's Wing Chun Linage like the Yuen Kay San's Linage, it is customary to also practice herbal Chinese medicine if you practice Weng Chun Kuen. Where as in the West, the only purpose of MARTIAL ARTS is combat and that's the difference .....

There is a saying: "Apply what is useful, discard what is useless. Add what’s uniquely your own."

This is similar experience to me when I played command and conquer two weeks ago. Back then i used to be very good at it so i went online and looked for an opponent thinking it would be a walk in the park since i know alot of tactics and tricks. Got into a match but immediately my hand starts shaking and i got very nervous, i was getting irritated that i was not able to do things effectively the way how i thought i was able to execute the moves and tactics then i lost the match. Just like martial arts. If you dont spar, you wont be able to know how to deliver those techniques against a resisting opponent.

0:00 he got an electric shock!

Man, "实事求是", and that's it. If it doesn't work in practice (in the facts) it's wrong. The CPC and the traditionalist movements should agree on that. I don't see how this debate hasn't been solve since a long time. But very interesting point regarding the Qing dynasty and the mystification of TCMA! Would love to see if you found more details on that topic!

I never understood that Healthfirst Not For Fighting mentality. Of course it's for fighting. Of course it's for defending your hometown or yourself from invading Nomads or common criminals. You don't train to punch ridiculously hard if you're not going to punch things. You're not going to condition your body to be as hard as Steel if not designed to withstand blows inflicted during combat. If you want to hellalth go practice chigung or yoga. It's not called martial art for nothing.

We knew this for years since the UFC 1... The reason to practice traditional martial arts is like practicing yoga and immersing in Chinese culture. You get a nice insight studying the evolution of fighting which I looked from trying Japanese Ju jitsu to judo to doing bjj or look at old boxing/pugilism to modern boxing. You see how the needs change an art significantly but sparring is a great driving force for simplicity and efficiency. You must note in the context of old martial arts they worked during their times which are not our times being much more skilled in hand to hand vs in the old days weapons ruled all (thinking of my knowledge of HEMA). We need to train modern arts for self defence but we shouldn’t hate each other but understand each arts flaws like BJJ sucking at striking etc... Still MMA is prob the best right now though I’m more of a BJJ guy in terms of martial arts as it fits in to modern context the best as we’re not allowed guns and knives in the UK and many countries.

All these funny vids are good for us. They bring us in a better position to defend our self. A punch is a punch, a kick is a kick, find your way to do it as hard as you can. Not every way is for every one. BUT don't forget to spar, you need to feel the force and timing. Regs to all TMAs. Dont forget this are the roots.

I ready enjoyed your comments. Thanks for sharing 👍

A lot of good points here. 👍

I don't know about traditional martial arts but I had to go through an intense crash course of Military self defense when serving in the army back in Asia for a special unit unfortunately. We had one Black belt (various disciplines) to each of our 13 trainees. No escaping attention. \ Much of it was form work since most of us were non martial arts background. Practical issues had to do with type of ground (jungle/urban/slope/mud) we may fight on, uniform constriction/heavy boots, weapons and disarming opponents single and multiple from various directions/unexpected complications. One thing to stress is we never want to go to ground (like in these MMA proponents). Likely in real life situation, you may face multiple opponents, spending time wriggling on the ground grappling, you are dead. This is not to discount BJJ techniques rather all targets are available in real world which means eye gouge, under arm pressure points, knees to the balls when on the ground. Get in too close and I have plenty of targets. This is not the case for MMA cage fights. In our case, directness and the quickest route to hurt someone is best. We had to train to look for the "opening" when the other side has momentary split second concentration lapse (where a bit of traditional boxing came in...avoid Gurkhas) The other thing is of course application. You learn all these forms but it was constantly stress we had to find our most effective way and interpret according to situation. Everything has to modify accordingly. Speed of thought and movement key but also fight to your advantage and your body make up. Thirdly, when inevitably the topic of which martial arts is best came up, they answer is each has a reason and technique useful to certain situations. BUT when comparing different martial arts, my instructor mentioned for Muay Thai, its easy for the average person to learn and be proficient at it quick. The Traditional Chinese martial Arts takes far longer to master and perfect. BUT when perfected, they are far harder to defend against bc they have way more unpredictable moves for various scenarios you won't expect. So your average newbie Muay Thai exponent is always going to have an advantage over more junior Traditional Martial Artist, but higher caliber Martial Artist will have greater advantage in real life scenario bc he is equipped with various different techniques. Again a matter of application and testing. BUT it does not mean these Traditional forms are in any way less valid bc the practitioners have lost sight of the way and are mired in dogma... And this was covered by Bruce Lee. You have to adapt the techniques. Which is why with JKD, WingChun elements are used to their advantage for closer distance strikes which are useful when space is constricted. It does not make the techniques invalid rather depends on how you use them. And as some of these guys say, you can train for all contingencies but when the real deal come, there is always going to be the unexpected and the brain becomes your best asset. So when confronted with aggressive man and his pit bull one day when working at a small restaurant, I picked up what was closest to me, hot water in coffee jug, just stood there talk calmly. I think the man got the message real quick (you could literally see the gears going in his head LOL). No need to fight. No offense to anyone just my own experience. Like I said, I'm no fighter.:D

The funny thing is that boxing wrestling kickboxing etc, are older than tcma. So it’s not really an issue between modernity and tradition, just of effectiveness.

As a lifelong TCMA practitioner, if I was going to have an amateur bout, I would train at an MMA Gym. Hopefully, I would find intelligent programmers who can help me with both the weak spots that I see, & the ones that I don't. Integration with what you know & what you need to learn is also essential. The average martial artist would need 18 weeks to get into ring shape, thats just the reality. Meanwhile, I'll train in " the endless pit of strengthening mind & body", lol I love it

Ah, thats why im having a tough time online in tekken, ive been playing too much against bots, easy mode.

You need to sort yourself out a backdrop man. Your content is so good, and you obviously spend a lot of time on the production editing side of things, but having your messy room with half opened cardboard boxes ruins the professionalism of the whole video.