Lei Tai fighting - 1928 and 1929

I maintain a blog at nysanda.blog.com where I frequently post history pieces (among other observations on the martial arts). My most recent piece regards the early Lei Tai events

http://nysanda.blog.com/2011/11/30/lei-tai-fighting-in-the-good-old-days/

Great blog post David.

I really liked the quotes at the end. yes it is true, the heavier guys won, the taiji guys couldnt use 4 oz. to deflect 1000 lb. or use amazing 10 foot fajin throws.

One of the reasons for starting this forum was getting tired of forum internal guys talking way too much about Jin in theory especially by guys with no fight experience. Even as a Taiji guy who tried a few fights, i can tell you, all the jin theories are not going to help, but that is not what Taiji people will argue (the ones who never fought). I do believe in training hard and the jin will become stronger in practice, but you have to train smart and practical for as real as it gets combat sports.

I have good friends who do push hands in Asia (mostly Taiwan). They frequently work out of my gym and we train together at times. They do what I consider "REAL PUSH HANDS" - and it would shock and disturb a lot of Taiji people here in the US

There is of course much valuable material in the traditional Chinese arts. But there is also a lot of misunderstanding, incomplete transmission, and some outright fraud

The "Wu Lin" (Chinese martial art community) would be better served to address these issues head on rather than try to deny them.

ALSO, in regards to making anything functional for fighting, it is not WHAT you do, it is HOW you do it! (that is sort of my mantra)