C.J.W. wrote:
The main reason, in my opinion, is that we are practicing SOMEONE ELSE'S art as opposed to OURS.
Therefore, to truly excel in TCMA, one should innovate as opposed to simply copy and imitate in an ancestor-worship manner.
Just my two cents.
chenyaolong wrote:I think us humans have a tendency to venerate people of the past. I think the skill of each generation has probably got progressively better up until around the modern era when people dont need MA for survival anymore.
One can argue that Taijiquan was originally created as a fighting art - and only a fighting art - and work to restore it to its former glory and its one true focus. To do so, ignores that for the vast majority of practitioners, in modern times, in a modern world, that simply isn't what Taijiquan is about. But, that doesn't prevent anyone from pursuing it for whatever are his or her personal goals, be they martial or something else.
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chenyaolong wrote:I think us humans have a tendency to venerate people of the past. I think the skill of each generation has probably got progressively better up until around the modern era when people dont need MA for survival anymore.
Men ever praise the olden time, and find fault with the present, though often without reason. They are such partisans of the past that they extol not only the times which they know only by the accounts left of them by historians, but, having grown old, they also laud all they remember to have seen in their youth. Their opinion is generally erroneous in that respect, and I think the reasons which cause this illusion are various. The first I believe to be the fact that we never know the whole truth about the past, and very frequently writers conceal such events as would reflect disgrace upon their century, whilst they magnify and amplify those that lend lustre to it. The majority of authors obey the fortune of conquerors to that degree that, by way of rendering their victories more glorious, they exaggerate not only the valiant deeds of the victor, but also of the vanquished; so that future generations of the countries of both will have cause to wonder at those men and times, and are obliged to praise and admire them to the utmost. Another reason is that men’s hatreds generally spring from fear or envy. Now, these two powerful reasons of hatred do not exist for us with regard to the past, which can no longer inspire either apprehension or envy. But it is very different with the affairs of the present, in which we ourselves are either actors or spectators, and of which we have a complete knowledge, nothing being concealed from us; and knowing the good together with many other things that are displeasing to us, we are forced to conclude that the present is inferior to the past, though in reality it may be much more worthy of glory and fame. I do not speak of matters pertaining to the arts, which shine by their intrinsic merits, which time can neither add to nor diminish; but I speak of such things as pertain to the actions and manners of men, of which we do not possess such manifest evidence.
chenyaolong wrote:Because of Confucian values, you would never have somebody claim they outdid their teacher. However, as the art develops over the years, can it not be infered that each generation got better than the last?
The reason I say "up until the modern era" is that who uses CMA and for what purpose has changed a lot. A hundred years ago or so, many CMA practitioners worked as armed escort agents, bodyguards for important people, or were in some other way affiliated with the military. However, due to various reasons, CMA shifted its focus.
So I dont believe the founder of a style would be as good as a practitioner from, say late Qing-early KMT, but I do believe people from that time were probably better than the majority around today.
used style founders for the sake of discussion, but the same line of reasoning also extends to any famous masters of the past from many CMA styles. The point I was trying to get across is that there appears to be a tendency for CMA practitioners -- at least the ones I've come across over the years -- to cling on to tradition too much and to the point where it becomes a preoccupation, even an obsession.
They are the sort who like to ramble on and on about how they are training in the most "old-school" way that has remained unchanged for generations, and worry about whether their fingers are an inch lower in a posture compared to the still black-and-white photo of some dead grandmaster performing the same move. I've also heard stories where senior students were ostracized or shunned by his peers or teachers because they'd modified (and in many cases improved) their arts and weren't doing things EXACTLY the same way as they'd been taught.
If you think about this, it's actually quite ironic for some to be so insistent on preserving tradition -- considering how all great CMA masters and founders of yore were actually the ones who had the foresight to modify, synthesize, and create something new based on the materials they had learned elsewhere.
middleway wrote: . Throw Guo Yun Shen or Yang Lu Chan in the ring with a prime time Crocop ... I honestly dont believe they would stand a chance..
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