With Tai-chi Push Hands turning into competition push hands (which is just pushing and shoving) and traditional styles turning into MMA, which is more like a fight club, with the attention span of people down to just a few seconds, is the rigorous and detailed training of traditional martial arts a thing of the past?
I have seen my own art, Tai-chi-Chuan degraded to the point where there are people here on Long Island who have never even taken a class in this art, who are teaching it. They just make things up.
The training of chi-gung is ridiculed because practitioners don't want to bother to go through the intense training for chi development and so it is easier to just say there is no such energy as chi.
Is this the era of lazy martial arts - lots of huffing and puffing but very little specific learning of basic mechanics of mind and body?
Anonymous2011-07-19T14:55:55Z
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No, I don't think so. It's only the case that martial arts are a popular fad now, maybe because of UFC, so a lot of people who wouldn't notice them if they weren't a fad want to join the fun, but they don't have very much ability for them and can't see some people involved in them are frauds. There are good and bad kinds of anything you can name. There have always been frauds, and there always will be. When there's a surge of popularity of anything, it invites frauds to try to con people using whatever is popular now. There have been surges of popularity of martial arts. Mas Oyama made Karate popular a while in the 1950s, Bruce Lee did in with Wu Shu the 1970s, and now UFC is doing it. popularity will soon wane, as it did before, because most people are lazy and have no potential to learn martial arts very well. Then, the same kind of serious people will be practicing it like they have always done and not noticing fads. You should look at the best, not the worst, in this instance. EDIT- What kind of Sensei plots with other people to threaten and harass a lady for any reason? A couple of years ago, I asked a question about stars of Chinese martial arts movies my friends own. An arrogant man didn't try to answer my question but handed me some Wikipedia-type reviews of such movies and said my friends Kyojin and Hiroshi had bad taste, but Kyojin owns websites about it. My insulted friends reported this man, so he got a violation. Then, he blamed me for his own folly, so he and a pal harassed and threatened me when I asked about stars of Japanese martial arts movies. I see my question about Chinese stars has been removed, so this man is surely responsible. That is conspiracy to deny my freedom of speech. I saw some messages today that told me this man has been saying I'm talking about him. How can I be doing that, when I can prove I didn't use a computer for 7 or 8 months, and I use it about once a month now? If he's telling lies about me, I have a right to tell the truth of the matter. The two men who harassed me were then called "Sensei Scandal" and "Katana 172 Version 3". Now, I see Sensei Scandal is "Daoshi". He should let well enough alone. As a Christian, I try to forgive and forget, but anyone must stop sins and crimes.
Traditional martial arts are very much alive but there are also a lot of people out to make a quick buck who teach a bunch of crap and pass it off as a martial art.
The old proverb is more applicable to the Martial Arts than it ever was before: Caveat Emptor! (Let the buyer beware!)
As a fellow practitioner of Tai Chi Chuan, I suggest that you find yourself a non-profit school that teaches Tai Chi Chuan for the love of the martial art rather than to make a profit.
e.g.; Where I learn Tai Chi Chuan: http://www.rtccc.com/
If Tai Chi Push Hand in Competitions now is different from Traditional MA, what is the point on commenting one with the other? If Traditional Tai Chi is a better art for self defense, or fight, it is no harm to compete in the push hand competitions. You have asked a good question: What traditional Tai Chi cannot do?
No, not really. But as with any ART form, serious, dedicated practitioners are relatively rare. My wife can make extremely gorgeous, painting-like drawings using ordinary colored pencils; on the other hand most people regard colored pencils as non-serious art for little kids.
Same thing with martial arts. Mainstream practitioners are mostly hobbyists; while those that can be considered true artisans are rare.
ADDED: You also need to remember that no martial art is presented as a finished product; they are and will keep on evolving. That's also why we see evolutionary branches that focus on sport, health and exercise, or pure competition. And personally, if some people want to do taebo, kardio karate, or any other "lazy martial art" as you put it, I'm not going to get in their way. To each their own.
I like to believe that I'm practicing something that's actually "martial" - but I don't think it's right to assume that I'm better because of it. Heck, for all I know, all the samurai, knights, and other historical warrior classes might frown heavily on even the best old-school dojos of today.
Yes. Traditional ethnics are definitely declining. But the thing about the teachers insisting on the use of rank and titles, that is because of the decline in traditional ethnics IN THE STUDENTS because students nowadays don't know how to call you "sifu" or "guru" or "sensei" or whatever you should be called. People last time knew how to call their instructors by the title immediately, but people nowadays hardly have the courtesy to call you by your title. The insisting on the use of ranks or titles is a step to bring traditional martial art ethnics back into martial arts, where the instructor is the highest in the class and the students have to follow. Nowadays its usually the opposite. By the way, Sun Tzu is not a martial artist.