As a native Chinese speaker, I just want to point out that this paragraph:
> An article by Xinhua, the state news agency, called Mr. Xu a “crazy guy,” saying that the fight had caused people to question whether Chinese martial arts were of any use and even to ask, “What exactly are traditional Chinese martial arts?”
Is a complete misinterpretation of the original sentence cited in the article:
1. "狂人" is literally "crazy guy", but mostly used as a compliment to say someone is extremely good, hardworking or dedicated in something, in this case M.M.A.
2 "What exactly are traditional Chinese martial arts?" is also taken out of context, it is used in the introduction paragraph to guide the readers to the detailed descriptions below, and has nothing to do with the existential crisis of martial arts whatsoever.
NYT employees, if you are reading this, please get someone better in Chinese to handle the translation and interpretation.
Edit:
And this, is not how you cite your sources from weibo:
This is the tip of a very large, complicated subject. Start by reading https://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/four_focuses.html. Here we have two different ends conflicting. MMA is a sport, along with boxing, K5 and sansho and judo. Many of the Chinese stylists today are carrying on a cultural or demonstration tradition.
From that point of view, a martial arts instructor can be very competent at his job while not producing effective sport fighters. For example, many kids karate schools are very effective daycares. A seniors tai qi club may be an excellent way to get people moving and prevent injuries from falling. An MMA gym is a great place for young men to work through their testosterone driven haze. Why can't a martial arts school be treated like a Go studio or a chess club?
And if you depart from fitness for purpose, then you have problems. SEAL sentry removal techniques taught at an MMA gym or a kids karate school would be a disaster. A sport fighter teaching MMA at a seniors tai qi club is going to find a very uninterested audience. It goes the other way, too. A sport fighter training police is a problem because he is probably unaware of the laws governing use of force.
So what Xu has done is the equivalent of a kid from the boxing club going and beating up the chess club.
So what Xu has done is the equivalent of a kid from the boxing club going and beating up the chess club.
The part you're missing is that this whole thing kicked off because kids from the chess club where going around claiming that chess was a better basis for fighting than boxing.
I am reminded of Musashi's thoughts in the Book of 5 Rings, which are approximately "Kendo is a spiritual practice of self discipline, the way-of-the-sword. Kenjutsu is the skill of killing people with a sharp bit of metal. It is important not to conflate the two."
I won't wade into the "MMA better than TMA" argument, but I do want to deconstruct why the Tai Chi Practitioner (TCP) lost that fight.
You'll notice when they first engage, the TCP does a pretty good job blocking the incoming strikes. He doesn't appear to get hit right-out and, as expected with Tai Chi, yields to the attack (backing up). The problem is the attacker doesn't let up, a concept called 'Holding down the pillow'.
I think the reason he didn't handle that MMA style of charging attack is because (in my experience) Tai Chi isn't taught that way. Applications are taught as part of a 1/2/3 strike combination, then resetting. Rare is the case where you defend against 3+ attacks. There's a number of reasons for this, but suffice to say its something that probably should be incorporated into their training.
As a final note, the problem of 'McDojos' has long been known. But I would say there's an equal problem of MMA schools where it's more about dominating new students than teaching. Martial arts is really quite hard, and some people want to learn how to look cool/graceful/powerful than actually learn how to defend oneself.
An observation that doesn't match your worldview isn't trolling, which by some definitions is taken to mean: Trolling is trying to get a rise out of someone. Forcing them to respond to you, either through wise-crackery, posting incorrect information, asking blatantly stupid questions, or other foolishness. which looks a lot like what you are doing.
Having gotten that out of the way, it depends on why you practice any kind of Martial Art. If you are a "keep fit/sports/internal balance" practitioner, your position has some limited merit. If you are the "self-defense/offence" practitioner, your position is vapid bullshit as the only things that counts is self preservation and winning the fight, in that order of importance. Yours is the type of argument that would go down well in a dark alley (or a ring, see the linked video): "VICTIM: "Oh, you can't do that to me - I didn't practice that!" ATTACKER: "Apologies good sir, which method of defense did you practice?"
Given the video above was mostly about a Tai Chi Master saying "I can deal with your uppity MMA" and him subsequently being swiftly and brutally proven wrong, I'd say my original posts has ample merit. Further explanation should only be required for the dense and the trolls.
There, did I express myself to your obviously exacting standards? :)
Kind of confused why this is on HN, but I practice Jujitsu and would just like to say, it is perfectly fine to think your style of martial arts should be compared to Yoga. Don't however compare your art to MMA.
Also, this article really makes MMA sound like a brutal no holds barred sport, which is just incorrect. MMA is as beautiful as all the other previous martial arts (I know, I know, MMA is a conglomerate of all of them). People have spent the last 20 years trying to say MMA is a blood sport. This is just another attempt to pose it as such.
I've watched lots of MMA fights. Obviously, there are rules to the sport. But, to suggest it's not brutal is a bit much. It's brutal. That's why people watch it. No one turns an MMA match on hoping to see a beautiful display of athleticism. They tune in to see someone get their ass whopped.
> No one turns an MMA match on hoping to see a beautiful display of athleticism.
I think that's a bit unfair. I don't watch MMA much, but it's interesting when I do, and I don't watch to see someone get hurt or to see a lot of blood. If I want to see that, I can go back and look at any of the first few UFCs. Just as with boxing, there's a lot of skill involved in MMA fights. Some people tune in for the technical display, some people tune in for the sport of it, some people tune in because they want to see a fight, and that might include someone getting hurt. There are many reasons to watch.
I also practice BJJ but think of MMA as a pretty brutal no holds barred sport. The 2 things are not the same (although often talked about as being the same). BJJ is a (relatively) narrowly defined practice. MMA is a sport where you can bring any fighting practice or combination into the ring (and the successful fighters bring many). BJJ is a big part of MMA, but arguably no longer the defining skill needed to succeed (especially in the past 5 years or so).
" People have spent the last 20 years trying to say MMA is a blood sport."
Because it is. In MMA when you are bleeding, the fight pretty much continues. In nearly every other organized form of martial art, blood stops the match. If you can't stop bleeding, you forfeit. This has been seen as a good idea in terms of sanitation and infection since the original Olympics in Athens. MMA is a lot of things, and uses the techniques from a lot of martial arts; if you like it, that's your call, no judgement. But MMA itself is not a martial art, its human cock fighting, it is a blood sport.
What do you mean by that is has no form? I feel this might just be that you're not used to watching these matches. It's the same as someone not familiar with soccer watching a soccer match, it's just some guys running around kicking a ball randomly. There is technique, tactics and strategy involved in MMA. As evidenced by this Tai Chi master being worked to the ground quickly and effectively. In my opinion the MMA fighter demonstrated excellent form.
Arts and sports have constraints, MMA has none right ? I don't say it's easy, just that it's first in the coma loses.
In soccer you don't score a goal because you said so. In most martial arts you use dedicated forms and styles which impose constraints on how the match evolves. In Chess you have limited movements.. etc etc
MMA has plenty of constraints. First of all there a bunch of techniques that are illegal (details differ slightly between organisations). Secondly you are fighting in an enclosed space (again details differ) so you have to know how to use that to your advantage. Thirdly there are time limits and round limits so you have to know how to manage you time and energy. Finally there is a scoring system that you have to understand so you know how to score points in the case that no one finishes the fight in the allotted time.
Also if you're going to do MMA for living you have to take into account that being entertaining is just as important as winning for your bottom line.
I understand your point, I look absurd, but I can revert back to the answer above, spatial constraint is not a sport qualifying constraint. Or you can say it's a sport because you have to have two legs.
MMA limitations seems to be, do not attack sensitive parts and do not kill the opponent. There's nothing to master other than survival. Every people trying to use one genre/style, ended up smashed by the people that went purely for pragmatics (put the guy down, smash his face until submission). My (own personal subjective perceptional) definition of art cannot accept this. See for instance dancing has some innate aesthetics, moving is not enough to be dance. Random noise is mostly not music.
Most direct human vs human sports have a space constraint, but not all sports do. Hunting, for example, doesn't have a space constraint (not a feasible one, at least. Sure, you might be constrained by a state, but all sports are currently constrained by our planet). You did specifically mention fighting sports though.
> MMA limitations seems to be, do not attack sensitive parts and do not kill the opponent. There's nothing to master other than survival.
Perhaps you would like to see this list of MMA rules[1]? It seems there are quite a few rules other than what you listed, and there are a few ways to end the fight. There are, for example, technical knock-outs, and doctors can call the fight.
> Every people trying to use one genre/style, ended up smashed by the people that went purely for pragmatics (put the guy down, smash his face until submission).
That isn't what I remember seeing every time when UFC first started. What I remember is that certain styles were immediately shown to be more practical when the setting is one-on-one and with less constraints that are purely to enforce a style. Grappling quickly showed its strength, and those people that had no answer for that found themselves at a severe disadvantage. Striking is useful, but has a very specific useful range, and it generally does not include "on top of me". The sport relatively quickly moved towards submission and/or maneuvering your opponent such that you can strike but not be grappled.
Just as in boxing, where a single opening can lead to one or two devastating hits that can decide or at least greatly influence a fight, in MMA the same can happen. Much of the fight is about the strategy and tactics of maneuvering into that position.
> My (own personal subjective perceptional) definition of art cannot accept this.
I don't think you need to reassess your definition, but I think it's possible you are making assertions without enough knowledge to know how true they are. I rarely watch MMA or Boxing, maybe once a year, but still I can see that quite a bit of skill, strategy and tactics goes into what the fighters are attempting. To the degree that some fighters undoubtedly train and incorporate more specific techniques into their current moves based on their opponents strengths and weaknesses.
> I understand your point, I look absurd, but I can revert back to the answer above, spatial constraint is not a sport qualifying constraint.
Perhaps not, but a set of victory conditions that includes a point scoring system seems pretty clearly to make an athletic competition a sport (or any competition, athletic or not, a game), even when there a game-ending, victory-granting conditions which bypass scoring.
Ah its probably because you've only seen fighters kicking, boxing, and smashing each other, no? There is one crucial part of MMA you are forgetting: grappling
Grappling is more like chess, you need to make the proper position and holds to execute the next move. At the same time, you must avoid opening yourself to critical locks: kneebar, choke, kimura lock etc. A smart fighter, for example, can render a stronger opponent to submission if he has him on a "kneebar".
One of my favorite fighter is Sakuraba who fights smartly (He comes up with counter-attacks on-the-fly). His fights are entertaining and full of sportsmanship. If you're into it, google Sakuraba vs Gracie family.
the constraints are not getting whopped by the other guy. you can try everything that falls inside the rules (no biting, kicking in the nuts, and so on), and your constraints are how good the other guy is at beating you up
MMA might be a beautiful martial art but it's still a blood sport. Young men beating each other's faces into a bloody pulp and doing their best to give the other guy a serious (and cumulatively permanently damaging) concussion between their fists and the ring floor. I don't know how that wouldn't be a blood sport.
I think the problem is that china is lagging behind the whole "modernized, scientific fight training is way better than romanticize traditional fighting technique" thing and the KungFu novel just increased the myth. Which leads to that certain percentage of people joining the club/learning martial art because they thought they can be real strong after training. One can image that it may cause this industrial collapse if they admitted "this is nothing more than your typical jogging/yoga/whatever sport" publicly.
16 year MMA and jiu jitsu practitioner here. The secret of success at MMA is learning how to control your opponent in ways that protects yourself. This is what the Gracie family was proving when they created the UFC. Modern fighters such as Damien Maia and Ryan Hall are taking virtually no damage in their fights.
As you learn to control your opponent the sport actually becomes very safe - far safer than snowboarding, mountain biking, etc.
Damien Maia barely deals or takes any damage, he just effortlessly takes people to the ground, chokes them out, and they tap and both walk away fine. It's magnificent to watch.
This is why I still find jiu jitsu so beautiful - it requires a basic level of skill to beat someone's ass, but it's another thing entirely to control them so well that inflicting damage becomes optional.
I once heard it described as "drunken uncle" martial arts. When your drunk uncle is being an ass at christmas dinner, you want an escalating scale of options, ranging from "suddenly he's in the living room unharmed and doesn't know why" and moving through "he's in a great deal of pain but hasn't taken any damage as you escort him out the door" to "that spiral fracture in your arm is going to take 6 months to heal". Not all forms teach that kind of finesse.
The difference is that it's suspected that boxers and NFL players actually receive more head injuries because of the padding, whereas the lack of padding on hands and heads means people's heads aren't being bobbed around too much, either because it hurts too much to hit heads as hard or because the cushions aren't acting as springs.
Pretty horrible response if true. I understand why some disciplines prefer not to respond to such challenges, but persecuting the challenger is absolutely the wrong thing to do.
Black belt in Gracie Jiu Jitsu here. I thought this debate was settled decisively by the Gracie family and the UFC in the 90s, but apparently the Chinese missed the memo.
Delusions are painful to see through especially when they're propping up the ego. Collective delusion even more so.
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems
What if all the world you used to know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is that all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself—find yourself afraid to see?"
- Trent Reznor
Meh, other rulesets like Pride, Strikeforce, Bellator let similar skillsets rise to the top as well - as do other similar full-contact low-rule MAs like combat sambo.
Yes, if you forbid chokes and joint manipulation, you get kickboxing or muaythai, but that is not the point of MMA which tries to get rid of arbitrary rules.
The rules aren't arbitrary, they just reflect different settings and priorities. UFC and its kindred disallow downward strikes to the back of the head, which makes many grappling entries safe that would otherwise be far too risky to use. Given that it began as a showcase for a mix of grappling and striking, that was perfectly sensible. Sanshou allows throws and locks, but no going to the ground. Outside of a ring or octagon, that's a very reasonable precaution for keeping the fighters safe. Elbows and knees are forbidden in amateur muay thai but allowed in professional because of the level of risk considered acceptable.
The most instructive study for this kind of thing I know is the progression of rules in western boxing, which used to involve kicks, wrestling, throws, and weapons. It was steadily narrowed down for safety reasons.
Then for fun, go contrast the rulesets and techniques adapted to them with, say, Fairbain and Sykes or Rex Applegate's combatives.
Sparring has nothing to do with claiming that everyone outside of BJJ/MMA circle is delusional. You response only highlights the problem with your attitude.
I will state clearly. If you train a martial art that doesn't involve live sparring, you are deluded about the efficacy of what you practice.
I've been there. 20 years ago I had a black belt in karate, a brown belt in Japanese Jujitsu, and hundreds of hours of Aikido - the first time I faced a college wrestler, I got completely destroyed and had to struggle with the destruction of my precious delusions.
In a similar vein - no amount of music theory practice will teach you how to play a musical instrument. You actually need to play the musical instrument at some point to improve. Just because you can construct a chord progression doesn't mean you can actually play it on a violin.
I'm not sure why what you are saying seems to be contentious or arrogant. It's just reality. Want to get good at fighting? You're going to need to actually fight. A lot.
That is a bizarre allegation. I have never heard a Gracie family member claim that they invented sparring - that would be just plain silly.
The martial arts that consistently spar live against a resisting opponent, especially wrestling, boxing, Muay Thai, jiu jitsu, and (sometimes) Judo, are legit combative arts.
The grappling arts are unique in their ability to subdue an opponent while dictating the level of violent damage that occurs.
Jiu jitsu is unique among grappling arts in its emphasis on leverage and energy management to subdue bigger, larger, more athletic people while minimizing damage to both parties.
The better you get at jiu jitsu, the less damage you'll need to do to control your opponent. Slaps can be effective to get them to open up for the submission - clean, no damage done, and they are forced to psychologically give up, which makes the dominance more definitive.
Fighting styles are always geared to the situations people expect them to be in. MMA is a combat sport based on unarmed street fights and holding to the ideal of as quickly and effectively subduing an opponent. Fencing, for example, is not aimed at battlefield combat between feudal warriors wearing mail and carrying heavy weapons, but unarmored civilians engaged in honor duels to first blood.
Traditional Japanese martial arts frequently descend from Edo-period traditions re-organized in the Meiji era, and often focus on weapons training. Kendou for example, still focuses on heavily-armored warriors fighting with swords. I don't think that many people think this is preparation for a realistic contemporary combat situation so much as it is lived respect for tradition and knowledge. Traditional martial arts frequently have other goals, as with Morihei Ueshiba and aikido.
MMA tends to market itself as "real fighting", but it carries its own assumptions about the conditions of fighting. It would be as ridiculous to pit an MMA fighter against an armed and armored Japanese kendoist as against a WWII-era GI with a Tommy gun.
This was my exact thought. Who cares if in the end its all just a contrived game. In reality, any 10 year old with less than an hr of training and a firearm could "win" a fight against a black belt of whatever.
I don't necessarily think that either—pistols can be a lot harder to use in combat than people think, such as when your opponent can close and grapple before you can draw.
Sports and games are organized by their rules, and combat sports are no different. No one should think that sumo is good combat training—the loser is the first to step outside the ring or touch the ground with any part of their body other than the foot. But it is a great sport that requires very specialized training, with some exceptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takanoyama_Shuntar%C5%8D
But this means that, if practitioners claim that these are skills that can increase one's personal safety, it's important to test these conditions and assumptions. MMA fighters specialize to win MMA-style fights...but what about outside of those assumptions?
Really this article mirrors the overall disagreement in the martial arts community where many people think that the best way to practice martial arts is through sparring and pressure testing against legitimate opponents. In my practical experience (having done a few different traditional martial arts) I've actually come to a similar conclusion in that all the martial arts I've considered effective have practised with some sort of "aliveness" in their training. I think as long as traditional martial artists aren't being trained in a more robust manner they will just keep getting hammered.
It's about honor, respect, and sportsmanship. When Mr. Xu realized the superiority of his martial art form, he should have behaved himself in a more dignified manner: let his superiority show without giving his opponent a beating.
It's still a fight. giving an inch, or letting up allows your opponent back into the fight.
What you are alluding to is the idea that he could beat him with a hand behind his back so to speak. (Which might be true) but could be perceived as even more disrespectful imo.
By not continuing to pummel him when he is on the ground. I don't know what could compel someone to continue hitting a person's head as he lays helpless on the ground (the opponent was basically curled up in the fetal position). At that point it just seems like the fighter gets some sort of sick enjoyment from hurting the other person.
Sure I get that. But how far do you take that justification? Would you be willing to kill someone who is laying on the ground defenseless because the referee is inept. Fighters need to have some self control. And it in this specific situation it seemed pretty cut and dry that the Tai Chi master was not able to fight back.
That's not the author's words. That's just the words of some random passerby of the studio that the author quotes. I would assume Wei Lei, in taking the challenge, felt otherwise.
> “The key difference between what Mr. Xu does and martial arts is that martial arts isn’t a competitive sport,’’ he said. “It’s not about really hurting. It’s about giving your opponent ‘face.’ And Mr. Xu’s style is about beating your opponent to near death.”
What does that person think the "martial" in martial arts means?
Sure, but I am pretty sure the fighting is, by definition, competitive.
And it seemed like a reasonably honorable fight to me. He didn't sucker punch him - far from it. They agreed to terms of a contest. They met, fought, and stopped when the ref declared a winner.
Did he embarass the other man? Maybe, but the other man stepped up and did his best. Good for them both.
The MMA fighter wanted to stop what he considers fraudsters. Good for him! You don't get to have your feelings spared just because you invent some sense of honor which you think others must adhere to. Turn down the offer to spar if you think the outcome won't be to your liking.
> What does that person think the "martial" in martial arts means?
I'm sure they're fully aware of what "martial" means, as well as "arts". Combining the two gets you combat-inspired art. Just as an opera singer might not actually be great at fighting demons, a martial artist isn't necessarily all that great at combat.
I think that's a modern interpretation of what "art" is. It used to be seem as something much closer to 'craft', or something you devote to learning and putting in practice decades to attain mastery and something like that. So martial arts would be really the craft and art of fighting, killing, defending, war and etc.
I'd suppose the admiration that people took in what the 'artmen'/'craftsmen' discovered and became capable of doing spawned, in turn, what is commonly tried to be pinned down as 'art', today.
My thesis on the OP is just that tradition and 'show' took over the chinese martial arts, then they got practiced and studied as something on the sky instead of practical art, and so it now loses to the more pragmatic martial art of today(that is, ignoring the spiritual aspect of it). But imagine centuries ago how much someone with training on the traditional martial arts could kick way more ass and protect his ground compared to a nobody. Even today someone without any training will most certainly have very little chance against a one trained in 'traditional martial arts', it's just not so specialized.
Interesting to note that Bruce Lee on his later years was making his own martial art that was meant to be practical and raw, there's various quotes of him talking about that, maybe the guys could pick that up.
another little detail, too. Is that MMA is built on top of what the old stuff discovered, and so, obviously it ends up with a much shorter road to travel to improve and etc.. The traditional guys could easily pick up from there and make their "mma with chinese characteristics" which could probably be kickass too or something :p
The only problem is, chinese martial art keep claiming that they're great at combat. When they quote the "art" part, generally they just want an excuse to say that "it's not we martial art not as good as modern stuff like MMA. We're just sparing people."
Oh, that's certainly delusional. As a kid, I learned a martial art, and looking back it's clear to me it was much more use as meditation than combat training.
I guess it depends on the martial art? The ones that emphasize sparring with full resistance have found practical success in MMA, such as Judo, Muay Thai, and BJJ. I don't think many people would say a trained mixed martial artist is not great at combat.
And did one of the participants here break one of these rules? Or did the people start crying foul after their preferred candidate lost? I sense some goal-post shifting going on here.
Interesting summary text: "Prior to the bout, MMA fighter Xu had criticized traditional martial arts for being outdated and “a lie” without combat purposes, strongly insulting Tai-Chi in particular. In response Wei challenged him to a duel. The stage was set in Chengdu, China in front of a large crowd with a referee and MC."
I think the interesting thing here is that I suspect many practitioners of martial arts take the 'art' very very seriously treating combat as an eloquent dance.
MMA is a style that takes all the deadliest aspects of multiple martial art styles and brutally hones them to kill the opponent fast. It's very effective.
I vaguely remember outrage when an artist made art by cutting up other artists paintings. I see similarities here.
>I think the interesting thing here is that I suspect many practitioners of martial arts take the 'art' very very seriously treating combat as an eloquent dance.
or they're just con men tricking people into following their useless bullshit
What's wrong with art? Not every runner trains to compete world class. Not every dancer wants to join competitions. Tai Chi is still popular with people who wouldn't be able to fight and gives them joy - even though the moves do come from fighting stances. You just need the keep enough sense not to challenge other people to fight you. I don't see a reason to call this bullshit.
Absolutely nothing. It's great. The problem is that far too many McDojos are offering exercise while claiming to teach deadly fighting techniques. The problem is not the art, it's the delusion.
MMA is to ancient martial arts what those arts were in their own time: A rational scientific endeavour to optimize the human brain and body for combat and self defence.
Spirituality and mysticism aren't part of this any more than they are part of trying to run 100 meters as quickly as possible.
MMA is to martial art what modern warfare is to classical warfare, simply the most evolved form.
There is nothing wrong with practicing ancient martial arts, it's just outdated for combat with practitioners of more evolved combat techniques.
There's been Karate+Judo fighters in MMA, and various boxing and wrestling style fighters as well. The only judgement for MMA fighters is that in the ring.
It's silly to say traditional martial art is in some way morally superior, they are just combat techniques. Techniques for violently oppressing an opponent. As evidenced by this Tai Chi master accepting the challenge to a fight.
MMA, for all intents and purposes, appears to be the rebirth of Pankration - one step up from gutter fighting, although it appears to be slowly losing that raw edge as time passes. It appears to be the inevitable bane of these martial arts that not long after they are divorced from the singular purpose of killing the enemy efficiently they decline into stylized play-acting and often, pseudo-philosophical woo. Besides, it has to appeal to the mothers of all those eight-year-olds, and teaching eye-gouges and groin-shots and all the other nasty tricks won't fly there...
Most martial arts often originally followed this ideal and many will still espouse it. I'm sure Jujitsu was largely the same way originally but the main thing that seems to separate MMA from everything else is the scope and the competition focus. It incorporates striking and grappling and all of the techniques are tested time and time again in actual (simulated) fights. To me it's the training that set it apart from other martial arts, not the ideals.
Humankind has always been violent. To quote Anthony Hopkins in Westworld: "What do you think happened to the Neanderthals? We ate them".
I'm exaggerating, but only a little :)
MMA or Krav Maga basically represent applying the scientific method to brawling. In many respects they are a testimony of our times... as they're efficient and in many respects cleaner than the fights of old: an experienced MMA fighter can take out an opponent while causing him minimal lasting damage. If he wants to :)
Eastern martial art forms epitomize this "genteel" era. In the western world, it officially ended with the 2nd world war when civilian targets were acceptable, but the ships was sailed already by the first world war.
Of course, we can always go back to pre-civilized societies to justify barbaric behavior.
I agree, but that's beside the original point. There is a moral difference between raping and pillaging a defeated foe and leveling an entire civilian city as part of a war strategy (examples: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Oradour sur Glane, etc...).
>“I’ve lost everything, my career and everything,” he said in a message circulating online. “I think many people misunderstand me. I’m fighting fraudulence, but now I’ve become the target.”
Its often the same for INFOSEC researchers and hobbyists. Change is resisted everywhere.
I fail to see the controversy or even the surprise. Fighting is a skill like any other: learnt by trial and error. Tai Chi's curriculum, for all its benefits and martial origins, does not include fighting.
The article talks about judo, karate etc in the same breath. Most commercialized/popularized martial arts face the same issue: they are tightly regulated and "exhibition" driven.
The rules of judo competition, for instance, disallow large parts of the judo curriculum. As a result those parts are rarely taught, and only taught to very high ranking folks. This causes judo to lose part of what makes it a martial art. Given enough time, it might (d?)evolve into something akin to Tai Chi.
"Tai Chi's curriculum, for all its benefits and martial origins, does not include fighting."
This is not really true ...
You are correct that all Tai Chi that you see being practiced and essentially all Tai Chi practitioners are basically doing standing yoga exercises.
However, there are people studying Tai Chi stances and movements and their application to "real" fighting.
I am very, very much opposed to the bullshit in martial arts and I am happy to see frauds exposed ... but as a mixed martial arts and BJJ player, I do find value in Tai Chi movements and practice - and not solely for relaxation and meditation.
I think the NYTimes is either exaggerating things or they are trying to sell a narrative.
"China" has always known that wushu is just for show and that Tai Chi is more like yoga rather than a fighting style.
Besides, Bruce Lee already dispelled all the myths surrounding "traditional kung fu" a long time ago. This isn't some new concept that was introduced by MMA.
You're probably thinking of a similar event that happened in Japan a few years ago where a "kiai master" claiming a 200-0 record challenged an MMA fighter.
The actual video (it's on YouTube) is really quite sad. It opens with a clip of him 'sparring' with his students and it just the most compliant thing you have ever seem. His students are literally throwing themselves onto the ground as soon as he gets close to them, clearly feeding his delusion.
Then the real fight happens and the 'master' just looks so lost and confused when he realizes his techniques have absolutely no effect. At the end of the day it's just a video of a very delusional old man getting punched in the face and having no idea what just happened.
Well, the current display is not much better in my opinion...
Xu is right, if you're presenting your "craft" as something you do for health reasons, great. If you're presenting it as something which should save your life in a dangerous situation... then that's a problem.
I could have sworn I saw the exact video associated with the article at least 2 years ago (same checkered floor and all). The fight is said to have taken place on April 27, so unless that's wrong I am having really strong deja vu.
There are many different types of Tai Chi. I've never heard of "thunder style" before. The real people and I've met them do not enter competitions like this.
It's good that they don't, because they would get beat decisively. I shudder when thinking of how brutal it would be to watch Jon Jones destroy some poor clueless Tau Chi practitioner who thought they had a chance.
There is no real deal to Tai Chi. The fact of the matter is that a Thai Chi fighter has less tools in their arsenal than the best MMA fighters.
The traditional martial arts that are actually effective have already been incorporated into MMA. Jujitsu, Muay Thai, Wrestling, even some Tae Kwon Doe, Karate, these have all made inroads. But nobody makes it far these days in MMA knowing only one form.
Even if the best tai chi guy could hold his own on the feet, the MMA fighter would just go for a takedown or pull guard and the tai chi guy would not have the tools to defend.
There is not a single person who practices Tai Chi who has anywhere close to the breadth of martial arts mastery that someone like Demetrious Johnson has.
There is not a single person who practices Tai Chi who has anywhere close to the breadth of martial arts mastery that someone like Demetrious Johnson has.
To be fair most MMA champions don't even have the breadth of martial arts mastery that someone like Demetrious Johnson has.
Do you practice Tai Chi? Do you know anything about it?
I do and I've met serious people who can do some incredible things. These people are serious and don't go into the ring with some self promoting idiot.
Most people on the streets could tell you most "Traditional Martial Arts" are fluff. Hasn't been one TKD, KF, or MTKB practitioner in my hood that hasn't had their face handed to them in a real street fight by someone that doesn't care what you do - they're going to step in and HIT you, plain and simple.
C++/Java/C# are formally taught languages for students in school earning a computer science education. Most software developers are produced by 4 year university programs teaching students in these languages. For many of these developers the paradigms shared by those languages are the very definition and essence of programming.
When these developers are tasked to write in JavaScript at work without any preparation or training, which is quite common, the myth of their narrowly defined view of programming is shattered. This results in low confidence and depression, but is frequently manifested in excuses, blaming the technology, other forms of cognitive complexity, and depression.
JavaScript is different than these other languages and makes no attempt to masquerade as such, which can be deceiving as the syntax is visibly similar.
Your comment until the "nationalism" part is actually pretty on point, similar to some Chinese people's view on this matter. However, the rest went off pretty quickly.
> An article by Xinhua, the state news agency, called Mr. Xu a “crazy guy,” saying that the fight had caused people to question whether Chinese martial arts were of any use and even to ask, “What exactly are traditional Chinese martial arts?”
Is a complete misinterpretation of the original sentence cited in the article:
> 综合格斗狂人徐晓冬和太极人士雷雷的视频引发了人们对中国武术的好奇和关注，中国武术到底是什么？有实战性吗？中国武术应该如何更好地推广普及？
1. "狂人" is literally "crazy guy", but mostly used as a compliment to say someone is extremely good, hardworking or dedicated in something, in this case M.M.A.
2 "What exactly are traditional Chinese martial arts?" is also taken out of context, it is used in the introduction paragraph to guide the readers to the detailed descriptions below, and has nothing to do with the existential crisis of martial arts whatsoever.
NYT employees, if you are reading this, please get someone better in Chinese to handle the translation and interpretation.
Edit:
And this, is not how you cite your sources from weibo:
> <a href="http://weibo.com/login.php">message circulating online</a>