Our first martial arts practice started off in an introductory spirit. All four of us have different martial arts backgrounds. Although the Liang brothers and their friend BQ were from the same school (Southern Chinese wushu), the latter has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do while XR practiced taiji and XH dropped off practice altogether. I, with my ‘Northern’ instruction, was the oddity.
We talked and demonstrated what we learned from our respective training before practicing some basic defensive moves. It was obvious that we were poor technically and tactically. XH and XR’s master only taught them the skills but not the applications. Among us, BQ is probably the best technically – he sparred when he was in Tae Kwon Do - only because the rest of us are mediocre. While my master teaches me applications, I have had little chance to practise as I have been lacking a sparring partner for the past five years. If it came to a real fight, we would probably be relying on speed and instinct rather than technique.
This deficiency highlights the inferior standard of martial art instruction in
To compound the problem, the prevalence of the ‘contemporary’ system has eroded the practicality of the martial arts. Take for example, the Korean art of Tae Kwon Do. In tournament fights, competitors are not allowed to kick below waist level and punches to the face is prohibited. (In a real fight they would be dead in no time.) Overemphasis on grading further exacerbates the problem. It is not uncommon for a student to win a ‘double promotion’, especially at the lower levels, when a student goes for his promotion test. Black belts are a dime a dozen – you can earn one in two years, regardless of actual fighting ability.
In wushu, the problem is worse. Although pugilists have always learned their martial arts through repetitive routines, there has been a schism in recent times. Nowadays, wushu means the demonstration of martial arts routines in tournaments where judges assess competitors in how ‘technically perfect’ their performances are. The sabre – it is called a Chinese broadsword now – has become a thin foil of mental shaped like the real thing, and which makes a slapping noise when you ‘thrust’ it in a certain way. If there is a strong wind, it can bend outrageously. Other weapons have become lighter, shorter and less durable. The first two facilitate the performance by drastically reducing the skill and strength required to wield it. The last stems from a lack of need for the ‘weapon’ to be sturdy (nobody is going to war with it.) In my opinion, many of those contemporary – or should I say contemptible – martial artists can never wield a real melee weapon without embarrassing themselves.
A real sword DOES NOT bend like this.
I had heavier and thicker toy swords when I was a kid.
Sanda has been invented to give wushu a more practical face. In antiqued times, pugilists settled their differences on the leitai. A fighter set up a raised platform and issued a challenge to all comers (a more formal invitation would be made if a master from a school wished to challenge his rival in another.) A winner was declared when he either rendered his opponent dead or unable to continue, or succeeded in forcing him off the stage. It was a no-hold barred contest, any technique could be used to strike any part of the body. A severe maiming was not uncommon, although deaths were rare.
Its modern version has done away with the raised platform and replaced it with a modern boxing ring complete with ropes and turnbuckles. (Mats are increasingly used.) Safety guards are wore by the competitors and certain parts of the body, such as the throat and the back of the head may not be struck. While this is still a step-up from the ludicrous leg-swinging fight farces that characterize Tae Kwon Do and Karate tournaments, it is apparent that the essence of wushu has been diluted. True, the concept of sanda may have preserved a great deal of combat applications in the Chinese disciplines, on the flip side it has contributed to the growing dichotomy between Chinese pugilists. If you practise wushu, you are assumed to just focus on ‘flowery techniques’ with little combat value. A sanda or kungfu man – sometimes these are synonymously used – is one who actually fights. The former has weapons training in his repertoire, whereas the latter is more like a street-fighter, who needs none of those ‘outdated’ stuff. (We have guns and bombs now.)
This schism becomes a multiple facture when you consider that joint locks and restraining techniques are excluded from sanda fights, for fear of inflicting serious or fatal injuries. A sanda exponent is likely to end up as a hit-and-bang boxer, powerful in his punching and kicking but suck at the art of qin-na. He risks being a one-dimensioned fighter.
Although Qin Na is an extremely specialized skill, traditionally all Chinese pugilists, regardless of style were trained in it to some degree. All the kicks and punches would avail you not if someone had you in a choke hold or you wished to restrain a criminal. Joint locks allow one to decapitate an opponent without the risk of accidentally killing him. The knowledge of human anatomy – so important when executing a lock or hold – enables one to gain a keener appreciation of the martial arts and in turn, help one become a better fighter.
I wonder how many Chinese martial artists these days are fortunate enough to be able to appreciate the massive repertoire that wushu boasts. Very few I fear, and the numbers dwindle as we speak. Misinformation and poor coaching methods contribute to the deterioration of the art. For example, the media has been promulgating ad nauseam the saying ‘Southern punches Northern kicks’, which implies that a pugilist trained in the Southern tradition only likes to deliver powerful punches and blocks while his more flighty Northern counterpart will always use lightning fast kicks. Balderdash!
All Chinese martial arts are based primarily on hand techniques. The hands are much varied in their usage, able to grab, poke, punch, thrust, slap, scratch, palm, lock, or hold a weapon. It would be sheer stupidity not to focus on utilizing the hands to the fullest extent. On the other hand, the legs serve a complementary role. They are used to evade an attack by dodging or put a fighter in a better position to attack. Pugilists, particularly those of a more Northern ‘persuasion’ still kick, but in general kicks are aimed below belt level, and rarely to the head, high kicks are not executed unless absolutely necessary. If you miss with a punch and have your wrist grabbed, you still have a decent chance of breaking free. If you execute a spectacular flying kick and miss, your fight could be over in a heartbeat.
In a real fight, a ‘Southerner’ will make sure his stance and footing are rock solid, close in and bludgeon his opponent with his fists. In comparison, a ‘Northerner’ may combine his punches with kicks and use footwork to shift in and out rather than go toe-to-toe. He will never throw high kicks with the wild abandon of a Tae kwon Do exponent in a modern tournament fight. While this is a crass generalization (a Southerner may like to kick more and vice versa ), Chinese martial arts, despite its countless fighting styles, are surprisingly similar in substance, even through they depart significantly in form. Yong Chun (Wing Chun, as it is the fashion these days), with its distinctive low kicks and close hand (body) contact, is in reality just another style in the Southern tradition, and not a separate stream in itself. The problem with many martial artists is that they see their style/system/school as unique and superior; they close their mind to the existence – and virtues - of others and overlook the weaknesses inherent in their own. With such closed minds, progress is impossible.
If we view the Southern and Northern traditions as separate entities, then what of the sheer difference in the number of styles - a conservative estimate puts the number at 400 for the whole of the Chinese martial arts – contained in each? Shall we split and atomize them further? By not breaking free of conditioned thinking and stereotyping, we have failed to see the wood for the trees. Let us reconcile them as a whole and appreciate the vastness of their repertoire! Let there be no discrimination, so that meaningful exchanges can occur amongst different styles.
Undesirable coaching techniques militate against the progress of wushu. I have heard of instructors who only drill their students on the taolu, or routines. When requested by their students to demonstrate actual applications, these ‘masters’ would inevitably brush off the request by insisting that students achieve a certain proficiency before they are allowed to learn the applications. The reasons? For fear of them getting into a fight, and more absurdly, that learning actual applications will ‘dilute’ their technical knowledge. I wonder if the real reasons are more sinister – perhaps the instructor doesn’t know how to use them?! If so, how could he be able to demonstrate? Even assuming he knows the techniques and is willing to teach, by the time he does so, most or all of his senior students would have been so disenchanted and would have left the school.
Some masters don't even need alcohol.
Many modern wushu instructors do not emphasize on physical training. They either mistakenly believe that techniques will beat brute force and speed or feel it is too unimportant to warrant their attention. While I understand the difficulty of packing in physical training in a two hour long martial arts class, surely instructors should remind their students of the importance of developing themselves physically. After all, the most skilful of fighters would be useless if he does not have the strength or speed to execute his skills. The horse stance, which is the most basic of strength training methods, may not even feature in some classes. The myopic view of some martial arts practitioners adds to the problem. I have had two Yong Chun practitioners who assert that my Northern discipline is too reliant on speed and that I would not be able to use it when I am old and weak. Therefore, Yong Chun is a superior martial art because it does not rely on strength and speed.
Try hitting this with your bare hands.
I find it laughable on two counts, the first of which I have already mentioned. The second is that Yong Chun students do spar with the wooden dummy (to condition their reflexes and toughen their arms) and practise with heavy iron bands wore over their forearms as a strengthening exercise. Every martial art, regardless of the ‘softest’ (taiji), the highly ‘technical’ (Qin Na and Yong Chun) or the most brutal (iron fist/palm) requires prerequisite physical attributes and to deny this fact is a sign of ignorance.
Excessive demarcation of styles, overemphasis on asthetics and an abandonment of physical training should not take precedence over diligence, practicality and technique. Neither should a myopic view of one’s style’s superiority, a selfish desire to hoard knowledge, and an intellectual failure of not assimilating knowledge and putting it in real applications curtail the preservation and continual progress of the Art.
We will be practicing again this Sunday. The guys will be bringing a punching/kicking pad and a guard so we actually get to strike something solid rather of just hitting air. I hope we quickly finalize the exact mode the training will take. Also, we are looking for female participants. (No, we are not desperate.) We might have a girl with us and we need a female sparring partner for her. If you are female and interested or know anyone who is, please drop me a message in the Hate Mail or email me at tarterus@hotmail.com and I will get back to you shortly.
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