Toptomcat

I don't think you'll find enough pro-Communists here to make it a problem, really

What standards are used to evaluate the 'creative' forms- does the student actually have to have martial concepts behind the techniques, or is it just whatever looks awesome? You can't spar with actual sticks and no armor without an unacceptable injury rate. Do they use armor, or softer stick-substitutes, or both? There's a lot more to MMA rules than time spent on the ground. What kind of gloves do they have them using? Are they actually permitted to achieve victory by knockout? Are their rules against doing 'non-Taekwondo' things like throwing punches in combinations or kicking with the shin rather than the foot? Is standing clinch work permitted- knees, elbows, standing subs? Is it done in a ring, a cage, an open area with painted/taped boundaries, or something else? How many rounds are fought, and of what length? How are fights judged?

A great many knowledgeable and experienced kung fu practitioners consider the split between 'internal' and 'external' systems to be a myth at worst and highly misleading at best: the first documented incidence of it being mentioned was by a non-martial artist, a Communist official attempting to classify the various kung fu systems in the standardization that became contemporary wushu. The consensus among many is that all systems of martial arts have 'internal' and 'external' components, for any reasonable and complete definition of 'internal' and 'external'.

The point of the story was not to show that I was noble. I may have been unclear, but the point was that the child values the samurai class. The child values superheroes, like on the stickers. That is because he is a child. That is a childlike point of view, a drastically simplified and idealized view of reality.

That is a great video. By the accounting of most, no: there are some hints that its kung-fu roots are somehow related to Chow Gar, but nobody can seem to agree on exactly how.

*Sigh* Politics just has such a strong distorting effect on how the history of taekkyon is perceived that I doubt anyone will ever be able to get a straight, verifiable answer out of anyone on whether their roots in the art are legitimate or not.

Interesting. How are they defining 'creative' forms? What are the rules for their stick sparring and 'MMA fights'? How are they ensuring that the physical will be enforced?

Your confusion is caused by the fact that there are a number of major Jeet Kune Do groups, some of which regard it as primarily a style and some that regard it primarily as a fighting concept. In my opinion the latter is true.

You're offering a false dichotomy, in my opinion. Adaptation has to take place on both sides.

What exactly are you talking about when you refer to 'normal kung fu' and 'the original idea of kung fu'? In my opinion the fighting systems of China are so fantastically diverse that to talk of 'kung fu' in any unitary sense is less than helpful.

Hmmmm. I'd like to fight and win in competition in some variant of sub grappling, striking, and both combined. I don't particularly care if it ends up being BJJ/Boxing/MMA, No-Gi NAGA/Kyokushin/Combat Sambo, or whatever.

I think you're confusing 'impresses the credulous and easily-impressed' with 'intrinsic nobility'. Which is pretty baffling, really.

No, I'm pretty sure I remember an interview with Soken Hohan in which he mentions something along those lines, I think by Ernest Estrada. You might be able to find it on Google. As for sparring, I'm not a huge fan of stop-and-start point either. I think there are relevant lessons to be taken from lots of other kinds of kumite, though- Taekwondo-style continuous point, Kyokushin-style bareknuckle knockdown, three-steps, and American, Japanese, and Thai kickboxing, among others. None of them are an end to themselves, but each of them can sharpen martially relevant skills and each provides different ways to put what you've learned into practice. Sticking exclusively to three-steps strikes me as a little too abstract. Kata are the map, combat is the territory, and if the only kumite you ever do is three-steps I think your students risk confusing the two.

Rank is not necessarily completely meaningless outside of one's own style. If a large organization establishes a consistent reputation for having strict standards for the belts it issues, then the rank it issues can become independently meaningful. Rank issued by the major judo and knockdown karate organizations is fairly solid, and despite its decentralization Brazilian jujutsu also isn't bad in this reguard, though there have been indications that this is changing. Rank issued by high-ranking political figures is worth...I dunno. Two snickers instead of one?

Absolutely, unquestionably not. There's nothing in any martial training that confers any 'nobility' or 'greater moral stature', and anyone who's impressed by a black belt is far too easily impressed.

Judo. All that the various koryu jujutsu schools lack to make them effective in a reasonable span of time is good resistant randori: the principles of timing, kuzushi, and positioning that it teaches will go a very long way to making otherwise obscure and esoteric techniques much, much more viable.

There's really no such thing as a 'normal' green belt- it varies hugely from style to style, school to school. With that said- yes, study independently! If you're not satisfied with a certain kick, train it until you get better. If you find yourself limiting yourself to too few techniques in sparring, find a sparring partner you can work with outside of class and practice working a wider variety of combinations. Work on punching by itself, punching after a kick, punching before a kick, counterpunching, the timing and distance of punching. There's nothing a good instructor likes better than a student who keeps thinking about karate even after they leave class.

Okay, we've found the foundation of our disagreement. You believe that the martial arts are primarily a form of artistic self-expression in the fine-arts sense of 'artistic', and that competition hinders this self-expression. I think I agree that if that's how you see martial arts then competition is largely pointless. I believe that the martial arts are primarily about attaining the skills and mindset necessary for effective self-defense, and that competition can sharpen those skills and promote that mindset. Do you agree that competition can be good for martial arts as I define it?

Please elaborate, then.

If defined exclusively as personal expression or something that can be evaluated only through aesthetic taste, then there is nothing that separates martial art from modern dance. The 'art' in 'martial art' is more productively defined as 'art' in the sense of 'the principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning', rather than in as 'art' as fine art. You are free to learn whatever you please, but if your training proceeds exclusively on aesthetic principles and cannot be judged independently of them then it doesn't fit my definition of 'martial art'.

On the contrary: good competition promotes humility. Only spar within your own ranks, your own school or federation, and you can very easily get an inflated sense of your own abilities. Compete with the world, seek out venues with really skilled people, and it gives you a proper perspective on how much you've accomplished, shows you that there's always someone faster and stronger.

Attending competitions and getting medals does not necessarily prevent physical or spiritual growth- and can in fact promote it- so long as you keep it in perspective. Take competition as an end in itself and yes, then you have a problem- but the same could be said about any aspect of martial arts, from kihon to kata to meditation. Even, say, football could be effective and worthwhile training for martial arts if approached with the proper mindset- the situational awareness of the other team's defenders that it demands makes for a good asset in a multiple-opponents situation, the physical demands it makes can forge a stronger and more excellent body, the pushing and shoving of the line of scrimmage can teach lessons relevant to grappling, the tight coordination with your team required to play the game well can produce a mentally and spiritually enriching appreciation of the value of teamwork, and the game's culture of persevering through pain and difficulty can hone a fighting spirit. As for competition being a 'fantasy'- well, if you're talking about stop-and-start point karate you're largely correct, but there are other kinds of sportive martial competition that are better able to teach martially relevant skills while retaining an acceptable level of safety for their practitioners: knockdown karate and continuous point come to mind.

Learning entirely from books is not a practical way of going about things, no. Martial arts books are intended more for people with a few years of study under their belts, to help them get a handle on more advanced concepts, give them training ideas, and the like.

Meaningful practice of atemi waza was excised from the judo curriculum so early and so completely that I suspect judo doesn't have any unique atemi of its own: any atemi it possessed in the early stages would be strictly derivative of the koryu jujutsu systems judo was distilled from.

Soken Hohan? The one whose karate was significantly influenced by a form of Okinawan village wrestling which by his own admission was sufficiently rough that broken limbs were a real possibility? That sounds like a form of practice sufficiently rough and freeform to be called 'sparring' to me.