Some martial arts myths

[denzuko1]

Hi,

Lots of comments here, so i'll just snap reply them with my own views.

When i talk of martial arts, I'm actually referring to "real, practical martial arts" not wayang arts like fighting in the ring or exhibitions. There are martial arts very effective for real life self-defense, like krav maga, Xinyi quan, kickboxing, boxing etc.

Some of you are condemning the TKD and other schools here. I think there's no such thing as "a martial art is lousy", but "a martial ARTIST is lousy". I bet at the old, traditional level, TKD can be very effective, but maybe the schools here teach watered-down versions.

Tai chi is orginally a martial art. The type practised by old folks at comm centres is a watered-down version.

Part of real martial art is conditioning yourself to take a hit. So, it's true, if you can't take a hit you suck. Qi gong and physical conditioning do that for you. At the highest level, you don't even need to "store power" for the qi to protect you at any point. But it'll take decades to hit that level unless you train full time.

It's true that people (girls) aren't generally impressed by any expertise in martial art. Many girls hate it if you get into fights outside. That's why it should be approached as an art you practice for self-development and last resort defense, not to get into fights.

What you said is quite true. It is not whether the martial art is good, but if the person can master it.

Additionally Qi itself exists in all of us. I believe some people call it life force and different culture has slightly different concept on Qi. Some culture can even present the Qi in colour, eg, Yogi in India believes on Charkras and can see different lights emitting from each charkras.

Even in the West, portraits of saints are displayed with halos on their head. equating with the Charkras in India, it indicates development in the spiritual area.

 

[hemunkeong]

If one is serious about learning martial art for self defence go learn Muay Thai
When it comes to one on one fight Muay Thai is the best because
pratitioner are trained to endure pain, take body blows and exhaustions.
Wherelse TKD, akido, judo, kung fu etc are trained on set patterns, their sparring
session are too controlled to prevent injuries and spar in protective gears. There
was a MA master once said that the best MA is Muay Thai simply because the exponent
can take pain, wherelse others can't because they lack the ability to suffer pain. So the eventual winner of any fights goes to one that that inflict pain early as well as can take
the blows and still continue fighting. Thus MUay Thai is the best, the practioner starts young like - 6 years old

 

[angry_one]

What you said is quite true. It is not whether the martial art is good, but if the person can master it.

Additionally Qi itself exists in all of us. I believe some people call it life force and different culture has slightly different concept on Qi. Some culture can even present the Qi in colour, eg, Yogi in India believes on Charkras and can see different lights emitting from each charkras.

Even in the West, portraits of saints are displayed with halos on their head. equating with the Charkras in India, it indicates development in the spiritual area.

Well, George Lucas took the concept of Qi and retold it as 'the force' in his work. Of course real Qi may or may not work like the Force. But the idea is similar - a life force exists in all of us and we ought to learn to use it. To me, it should be a life skill, like cycling, playing instruments etc. There is so much the human body can do and we waste it by sitting at a desk for 9 hrs a day.

 

[denzuko1]

If one is serious about learning martial art for self defence go learn Muay Thai
When it comes to one on one fight Muay Thai is the best because
pratitioner are trained to endure pain, take body blows and exhaustions.
Wherelse TKD, akido, judo, kung fu etc are trained on set patterns, their sparring
session are too controlled to prevent injuries and spar in protective gears. There
was a MA master once said that the best MA is Muay Thai simply because the exponent
can take pain, wherelse others can't because they lack the ability to suffer pain. So the eventual winner of any fights goes to one that that inflict pain early as well as can take
the blows and still continue fighting. Thus MUay Thai is the best, the practioner starts young like - 6 years old

The way I see it, different martial arts train on different aspect of a human. I am learning Taichi and I found that Taichi needs enhance level of sensitivity on opponent's force and that one need to be very relax (probably the reason why Taichi can relief stress) and focus because it is damn slow.

TKD in my opinion goes for speed, which is more applicable to youths. Taichi will make them dead of boredom.

Muay Thai focus on toughness but I worry if the training causes long term damages?

I only read about Judo and I understand it is a dilute form of Jujitsu. Probably Jujitsu a better choic when come to wrestling techniques.

My favourite would still be martial arts basing on techniques than training on strength. Cannot compete on strength and stamina.

 

[kakowi]

Sammael, thanks for the recommendation. Will check it out.

A friend of mine suggested Aikido - a gentle art, deeply philosophical and adequate to defend yourself if you need to. I have no wish to hurt others and thus not into fighting. Also gave me a contact - Philip. I guess those of you here who are into Aikido will know who he is as i was told he is quite prominent in singapore's circle.

Thanks again.

 

[denzuko1]

Sammael, thanks for the recommendation. Will check it out.

A friend of mine suggested Aikido - a gentle art, deeply philosophical and adequate to defend yourself if you need to. I have no wish to hurt others and thus not into fighting. Also gave me a contact - Philip. I guess those of you here who are into Aikido will know who he is as i was told he is quite prominent in singapore's circle.

Thanks again.

I have watched this clip on the internet (http://www.rsi.sg) some time ago about martial arts in Singapore. They interviewed this group in Balestier road (opposite Toa Payoh) who teaches Aikido. Seems to be quite a serious group, you may check them out.

I would find Aikido interesting, looks formidable but not sure about its real application. A friend here mentioned that he managed to defeat an Aikido guy before so may be you would like to check with him about some strength and weaknesses of Aikido.

 

[kakowi]

Thanks Denzuko1 for the link.

Yeah, i did read that post too ...but i can't comment on it my knowledge of martial arts is obtained from Bruce Lee, Jet Li and Jackie Chan's films.

 

[Sammael]

If one is serious about learning martial art for self defence go learn Muay Thai
When it comes to one on one fight Muay Thai is the best because
pratitioner are trained to endure pain, take body blows and exhaustions.
Wherelse TKD, akido, judo, kung fu etc are trained on set patterns, their sparring
session are too controlled to prevent injuries and spar in protective gears. There
was a MA master once said that the best MA is Muay Thai simply because the exponent
can take pain, wherelse others can't because they lack the ability to suffer pain. So the eventual winner of any fights goes to one that that inflict pain early as well as can take
the blows and still continue fighting. Thus MUay Thai is the best, the practioner starts young like - 6 years old

>>>>> When you have qigong, you can endure pain & hit with devastating blows - ask any fighter

 

[Sammael]

May be you should get your Shifu to challenge him in an open fight to reveal the fraudster.

Heard he was 7th dan & presto awarded himself 10th dan! Should it not be awarded by someone with a golden belt or at least someone with 10th dan?:p This self-appointment speaks volumes of him.

 

[kakowi]

Just want to share...many years ago i was at chin woo at duxton hill(?) and saw a number of old men doing leg stretching exercises...could not stay long so did not see what they continued with...but their energy level and flexibility is something i told myself i want to have for my own old age

 

[peasantJUDGE]

I have watched this clip on the internet (http://www.rsi.sg) some time ago about martial arts in Singapore. They interviewed this group in Balestier road (opposite Toa Payoh) who teaches Aikido. Seems to be quite a serious group, you may check them out.

I would find Aikido interesting, looks formidable but not sure about its real application. A friend here mentioned that he managed to defeat an Aikido guy before so may be you would like to check with him about some strength and weaknesses of Aikido.

Aikido is a deadly art, and because of that, practitioners are trained and disciplined to use it sparingly unless damage to the opponent is intended, e.g. break the opponent's wrist, arm, neck, etc. When aikido is deployed without restraint by a skilled practitioner, the opponent cannot escape serious injury. A well trained aikido practitioner will not show off his skills in a sparring session with another who is not trained in the art, because the other party willl be badly and irreversibly hurt. Hence, most times when the practitioner is not in any danger, he would rather "lose" the fight than cause injury to the other party.

Those of you who are curious about Aikido, watch Steven Segal in his earlier movies, such as "Nico, Above The Law" "Hard To Kill" and "Under Seige". He is in real live a black belt Aikido exponent and instructor.

 

[Jah_rastafar_I]

Threads like this always put down chinese martial arts. Okay nobody specifically said so, yet like someone wrote earlier how an unarmed mat could disable a trained prationer. So u seem street urchins with no background can defeat experts.


How about some silat exponent that can defeat bruce lee?????

Obviously made up.

 

[wanker10]

Chin Woo 精武 & Hock San 壳山 were long the best chinese martial art school in Singapore. Back in the 70's, all the lion dance performing at the istana were from Chin Woo. Those uncles you saw are those people we called 吃过夜粥 (in cantonese).

 

[Jah_rastafar_I]

Chin Woo 精武 & Hock San 壳山 were long the best chinese martial art school in Singapore. Back in the 70's, all the lion dance performing at the istana were from Chin Woo. Those uncles you saw are those people we called 吃过夜粥 (in cantonese).

what does that mean???????????????

 

[angry_one]

Threads like this always put down chinese martial arts. Okay nobody specifically said so, yet like someone wrote earlier how an unarmed mat could disable a trained prationer. So u seem street urchins with no background can defeat experts.


How about some silat exponent that can defeat bruce lee?????

Obviously made up.

On the contrary I think chinese martial arts are the best in the world, just not the wayang types like wushu or lion dance. If you go to some secluded schools or mountains in china, you'll find the real pros.

I believe Qi is the answer to making a great fighter, even if you're a weakling. And Qi is the most prominent element in chinese martial arts.

 

[Sammael]

May be you should get your Shifu to challenge him in an open fight to reveal the fraudster.

Will Sim Poh Huat dare go to Kunming/Yunnan meet Supremo Grandmaster (golden belt 10th dan awarded by Council of Martial Art Association) Sim Pooh Ho, my erstwhile sifu?

 

[denzuko1]

Aikido is a deadly art, and because of that, practitioners are trained and disciplined to use it sparingly unless damage to the opponent is intended, e.g. break the opponent's wrist, arm, neck, etc. When aikido is deployed without restraint by a skilled practitioner, the opponent cannot escape serious injury. A well trained aikido practitioner will not show off his skills in a sparring session with another who is not trained in the art, because the other party willl be badly and irreversibly hurt. Hence, most times when the practitioner is not in any danger, he would rather "lose" the fight than cause injury to the other party.

Those of you who are curious about Aikido, watch Steven Segal in his earlier movies, such as "Nico, Above The Law" "Hard To Kill" and "Under Seige". He is in real live a black belt Aikido exponent and instructor.

I have watched Steven Segal in action on Youtube.com. He tackled 7 men using Aikido, it was impressive.

No doubt soft martial arts depends more on techniques and study of human weakness unlike hard martial arts on speed and strength. I guess we can call soft martial arts one which stimulate critical thinking. They go for human behaviour, anatomic weakness such as joints and accupuncture points. I have watched Jujitsu execution on fight science ( National Geographic ). They simply lock the opponents and twist the joints until either it breaks or surrenders.

Another martial art also interests me, Capeira focuses on the legs techniques, impressive demonstration but I am not sure how effective it is in real fight. It is suposed to be a martial arts in disguise of a dance and it involves over hundred moves.

 

[Uncle2]

I was trained in Shaolin Temple and learnt all the 36 kung fu styles. I even sneaked into the Hidden Scroll Pagoda to steal the Inner Scroll of the Nine Suns (Jiu Yang Shen Gong) and One-Kilo-Tendons (Yi-Jin Jin). After perfecting all these skills... the only job I found in the market was as a security guard at Jurong Island and paid only $850. So much for kung fu....

 

[denzuko1]

On the contrary I think chinese martial arts are the best in the world, just not the wayang types like wushu or lion dance. If you go to some secluded schools or mountains in china, you'll find the real pros.

I believe Qi is the answer to making a great fighter, even if you're a weakling. And Qi is the most prominent element in chinese martial arts.

I won't say its the best in the world but one of the top and most diversified. The problem with Chinese martial arts is that it is not evolving. The followers simply follows the traditions without thinking about improving the techniques. I might still be very fresh in the martial art world and I feel that there should be an exchange mechanism between different techniques, and that would requires sparring sessions. Sparring with same techniques will not do very well in evolutions of martial arts.

I think only recently that San Da has come back to life, after the Chinese Martial Artists defected Putin's Karate's body guard. One thing that the martial art world need to do would probably be challenging each other in the arena. I have seen clips of Chinese Martial Arts competition where participants demonstrated their "Tao Lu". They are very fast running about join with flashing strokes. It made me wonder if they fair as well when applying the skills? I mean you are hitting a moving target in real fight!

Same with Taichi competition, it is no longer about showing of the technique as a martial art, but as an exercise. The competition demanded the competitors to "kick" above the shoulder level and the fingers stretching out to touch the toes, it is beautiful yet not practical. I was laughing when the commentators comment that the difficulty of such skill prevents many practitioners from participating. I have watched some demonstrations from the Masters, they don't even bother to kick higher than the waist levels.*sigh*

 

[denzuko1]

Will Sim Poh Huat dare go to Kunming/Yunnan meet Supremo Grandmaster (golden belt 10th dan awarded by Council of Martial Art Association) Sim Pooh Ho, my erstwhile sifu?

Council of Martial Art Association? Which one?

I just browsed the net and there are hundreds of XXX Council of Martial Art Association all over the world. Would it happened to be one started by you Sifu?

Further more, you claimed that Sim Poh Huat is a fraudster, yet when I suggest that your Sifu to challenge him to reveal the fraudster, you try to "dare" him to go and fight your sifu in Yunan? It more like empty talk to me, as far as I know, Sim PH probably not even a member of this forum.

Base on standard practise, you want to expose someone's capability, send a challenge invitation to do so, not " buy an expensive air ticket and come to my house to expose yourself".

Let me tell you something about fraudster, I read a book by Wu Tu Nan through Ma You Qing, something in the book is very interesting. It stated that Ma You Qing is the only disciple of Wu Tu Nan and Li Jie is the only grand disciple. There is not a single word mentioned about Sim Pooh Ho who have claimed to be the other disciple.