twocircles13 wrote:
To withstand its tumultuous history, the Chinese culture and psyche has had to be pretty good at retaining knowledge through traditions, at least until the 20th century. That’s why it's even conceivable to some that a tradition could be faithfully passed down for hundreds or even a thousand years. When you add effectiveness as a criteria, in martial arts, it either works or it doesn’t, so it is even more difficult to deviate too far from the norm. So, we can’t discount tradition too much as a factor.
GrahamB wrote:This article might help the intellectually challenged amongst us.
https://www.okanaganvalleywudang.com/on ... ng-sanfeng
GrahamB wrote:twocircles13 wrote:
To withstand its tumultuous history, the Chinese culture and psyche has had to be pretty good at retaining knowledge through traditions, at least until the 20th century. That’s why it's even conceivable to some that a tradition could be faithfully passed down for hundreds or even a thousand years. When you add effectiveness as a criteria, in martial arts, it either works or it doesn’t, so it is even more difficult to deviate too far from the norm. So, we can’t discount tradition too much as a factor.
Just to pick that part out of your post...
Martial arts either works or it doesn't. If only it were that simple!
I think a lot of Chinese martial arts simply don't work in a fighting environment. More than many would like to admit. The objective evidence is pretty damning... Talented people who train hard can make them work, of course, but inside almost all of them (good or bad) there are parts that are clearly nothing to do with fighting at all. You could pick Bagua or Chen Tai JI or Yang Tai Ji... or any of them. I think Chen Tai Ji is one of the most theatrical-looking martial arts in existence! It cannot look that way for reasons of pure efficiency in combat. It's just not possible. Same with many Choy Li Fut forms - I'm thinking of one where you pretend to ride a horse like General Guan Yu. And yet these marital arts still exist and people still practice them, and love them, and gain enormous benefit from them, culturally, physically, mentally, etc, and probably will do for another thousand years...
So I think we'd need to define what "works" means in that context. They always fulfill some sort of social/societal function.
GrahamB wrote:I would still attest that before 1900, "martial arts", would be mainly a social past time - what you did in your spare time, perhaps performed at festivals to appease the hungry ghosts, or for other reasons, for social cohesion of the group, entertainment, etc.
I would see that as related to, but not the same as, serious weapons training/fighting done by militia, or done by soldiers. Killing and being killed.
The history of military arts, is not the history of martial arts.
After 1900 (the failure of the Boxer Rebellion) all those "rotten old traditions" began to be stripped from marital arts, until we have what we have today. A load of guys hilariously miscommunicating on the Internet with each other and trying to figure out what all these weird moves are for
So I think we'd need to define what "works" means in that context. They always fulfill some sort of social/societal function.
Steve James wrote:
Afa in China's history, what martial art were soldiers trained in?
Steve James wrote:Um, I guess what did the Imperial military train in the early 19th c., around the time of YLC etc. Or, perhaps, what were they training when the idea of the "weak man of Asia" was around? I know that people in the military often practiced martial arts, though not necessarily as part of their training.
General Qi didn't think much of martial arts in the proceeding Ming -
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