Recent conversation with two different people

I had two interesting conversations about Martial arts recently. One was from a guy who stopped training in Internal Martial arts cause he didn't feel he could fight with it. He was coming to me to learn San Da. He was also disillusioned about some historians of IMA (Internal martial arts)- Here he says the following:

I quit IMA when I found "name removed 1" and "name-removed 2" stuff. "Name removed 1" no longer does any TCMAs (Traditional Chinese martial arts) after finding BJJ (Brazilian Jujitsu)/MMA (Mixed martial arts) and there was a great article by "name removed 2" showing the near exact similarities between Bagua grappling and collegiate wrestling techniques. Plus acting as a CMA historian "name removed 2" overturned some stones hinting at the origins and goals of the IMAs, which were most likely early 20th century methods of street fighting. The religious/spiritual stuff had nothing to do with them.

Conversation #2 was about how I was telling my friend how I was able to go to a MMA school and learn as much as I could from BJJ, MMA, Judo, Wrestling, Boxing, and Muay Thai coaches, but several of the coaches made fun of Chinese martial arts as not effective for fighting:

my friends response (he had done Olympic class Judo and now does Taijiquan):

The people that scoff at traditional martial arts probably never met anyone truly skilled at what they do. All traditional martial arts (i.e. methods for warfare), were useful at one point in time, otherwise the people that adopted them and used them would be slaves or slaughtered by those that defeated them. It is a simple minded person that cannot learn from someone's tradition, life experience, etc. If one comes with an open mind, regardless of skill, one can learn.

what are your thoughts on these views?

So due to crappy health and some injuries about all I *could* do was circle walk for the first 2 years. Somehow not doing the light sparring stuff for over a year was irrelevant, I was suddenly much better at it from pretty much only circle walking and the circular form.

Just imagine someone who has been circle walking 5, 10 or 20 years . Well aside from that there are the apps. Perhaps you can only practice once in awhile or not be exceptional and still pull off external martial arts, but need to practice quite a bit and/or be quite good at the internal ones. It's only a small % that practice enough.

The people who give up on the internal ones perhaps didn't stick them out for at least 5 years and/or didn't practice every single day (or close) for those 5 years.

Thanks for the reply Athena.

...And that is the value that many martial artist that put down internal Arts arts will fail to see. That while the fighting benefit may not been seen as obvious as say MMA, The health aspect is still very much there. I tend to fall back on IMA training when I can not do some of the heavier sparring and other heavy fight conditioning. I can still do "tui shou" and form work which makes for a great substitute than say going to the MMA school and sparing Muay Thai guys. I will still put some time in and get better physically and martially at the same time.

As for someone who has done circle walking for example for 5,10, 15 years....as long as they are partner training, researching applications and sparring, then they can make themselves a formidable opponent. Solo form work can only go so far, but it does help in developing learning the various 'jin' and development of various fighting attributes.

The guy who seemed to quit on the internals, came from a good lineage of Bagua, I know that school he came from. the techniques are good, its just the sparring format was not done well at all, and a lot of fundamentals (stance training, flexibility training, basics) were missing. Same reason why I didn't stick around that school as well.

IMHO, the reason modern "martial artists" put down IMA is the same reason they have been doing so since I began teaching in the U.S., they don't really understand them. It's interesting that I only encountered this mindset here in the U.S. and not while abroad.

I've said it before and I'll say it again one more time... the key is "marriage" of training methodologies and actual usage. And the bridge between the two is found in progressive drilling of key skills. Too many seem to think that if they do the forms regularly, such skills will just magically appear when needed (I've actually been told such nonsense by some folks).

There seems to be a great deal of missing information in terms of combative training in the West. I've heard some say that Xingyi will not work because "it utilizes complicated bridging strategies" or that Bagua does not work because the "circle walking is not useful for fighting." Such people seem to think that all Xingyi people do is "trap" to enter or something and/or that Bagua acutally wanders endlessly around the opponent in a circle prior to entering. Nonsense.

"Training" is not fighting. And "fighting" is not training. They are two sides of one coin. I don't know why this seems to be so difficult for people to grasp. But, I reckon that there is, and has been, so much bad information out there for soooooo long now that it is no small wonder people think this way. One has only to look at youtube to see that many have forgotten, if indeed they ever really knew.

A good IMA lineage addresses all aspects; training, fighting, health and longevity, all aspects. Anything less is simply less.

I know I have not been around, I apologize. I feel this thread somehow might have something to do with me

It isn't or rather shouldn't be either or

There is clearly far too much fluff, nonsense and crap hiding under the name of Chinese martial arts... to deny it is just silly and serves no purpose

People who completely dismiss Chinese martial art have never seen any of it. there is TONS of good stuff in there, and tons of fighters who came out of there...

Strangely, I came back today and I have just published this ----> my blog about wrestling and CMA