Martial Arts & Fighting Forms | Asian American Poll

MARTIAL ARTS & FIGHTING FORMS
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:13:05 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

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WHAT YOU SAY

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First, I'm not going to peddle which martial arts is better and which is not. Though I do have my opinions on what I feel is the best and I will do my best at exploring the weaknesses of all martial arts including my own.

TaekwonDo is a very good martial arts to start with. For anyone off the streets and not knowing anything about martial arts, Taekwon would be a good start for a martial arts career. Considering the many Taekwon centers in the US, one can see the popularity of this art. One thing I like is the generic way the art is taught like the uniformed system of belt ranking from white to black and all the cool colors before you reach the black belt level. I personally like the colors blue and red and if I was ever a black belt in that system I would just replace my belt color to suit my mood. Another is the fact that you have a little of everything like forms from famous Korean people or events like a form for honoring a famous Korean Warlord for defending Korea or representing a invention wheither or not if the forms even match the moves of the artifact. Another is their three step sparring where one attacks the other defends and then counter attacks. Which leads into their free sparring contact matches which they also train. Another is board and brick breaking which is required for belt advancement. So you see the Koreans have standardized their marital arts so you can go as low and as high as you want. For an American it is the best martial arts to go into where they can learn about a Asian culture and even modify it to fit their needs. Its basically a hitting, striking art where you make it a foundation style as either the only one or add on other complementary styles like Judo, wrestling or Jujitsu to it.

I personally like their kicking techniques because it is both artistic and practical at the same time. Many times for their demos they would do a split kick and multiple kicks in the air all the while hitting and breaking board atthe same time. If that isn't a skill of martial arts I don't know what is - which is functionality and artistic ability.

If that is what you like in a martial arts than go for it! Me, I still like the more hidden and lesser known obscure arts.

Maybe like Korean who is nationalistic and thinks the world highly of himself and his culture and because I am Chinese I tend to like my country's martial arts also namely Traditional KUNG FU not bastardized WU SHU. Namely the traditional kind where you stand in a horse stance for hours not knowing if you can make it or not. Doing weird and wonderful exercises which train your mind body and spirit. I am very adamant about WuSHU because I think it is a sham to geniune kung-fu that is out there. Even those so-called Shaolin monks who display their kung-fu from the sponsor of the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) gov't it is still WuShu. The real martial arts in China is gone. Its even fair to say you put a good black belt TAEKWONDO guy against a good WuShu guy, the TKD guy could probably wipe the WuShu's guy ass to the floor. Why? Because WuShu is a performance art not a martial arts. Even as a martial sport such as TKD which relies on scoring points and limiting targets like no kicks to the head, it still has some combative aspects in it. Add a good Kickboxer and he can wipe both the TKD's and Wushu's asses. Why? Because a kickboxer is trained to not hold back his strikes he can either knock the guy out or win by points either way he as to hit hard and effectively to win in his sport as well. It is similar to having a boxer fight a modern dancer. The modern dance could prance around and twirl like a butterfly, look good but when the boxer hits him with his fists, the dancer will be out like a light.

Traditional Kung-fu is similar to the way Kickboxing/boxing was trained without the sport aspects. Where you train in conditioning the body and other body parts. Examples would be the concept of the Iron body or the bullet proof body where the practioner would condition the body to strikes and blow and develop callouses to prevent injury as well as the Iron palm used to strike and kill an opponent similarly to like developing your own gun. Also similar to the way the Okinawans train for karate like the GOJU style where they hit themselves with iron plates and weights to develop their bodies. The chinese way is a bit more humane probably because of more knowledge and better experiences that the Chinese had developed ways to do this training without any adverse affects to health. If you notice many of the other karate styles who do this hard style practice can only do so for so long before injury or age sets in while a chinese pracitioner can still no problems and even not any outwardly signs of conditioning the body. Why? Because they develop ligaments like TIT TAT JOW and chi gung exercises to condition the body part before they hit it so no outwardly signs of abuse show up.

When the Okinawans studied Kung-fu they may have known the added secret or they may not have know about it from their Chinese teachers so that aspect may had been hidden so then you have the Okinawans teaching the Japanese their kung-fu and the Japanese teaching the Koreans their karate and thus the real training for these arts lost.

So what does it mean? It means that there is alot more things to know. China as a whole is like the motherlode of Asian Culture for the rest of Asia wheither the other Asian cultures like the Koreans or Japanese like to admit it or not. It is the YODA of Martial arts maybe even the world. The fact that the Chinese had developed ways to condition their bodies that superceeds the others means that one should be forever humble enough to learn more and know that whenever you think you are the best there is always someone better. You can only improve yourself wheither it is martial arts or life by being open-minded and seeing the truth behind things. If I was korean and found out that I'm practising wrong in my martial arts, I'd be humble enough to do my best to find the correct teachings regardless of the fact if the person or martial art was korean or not. If I keep on biasing my opinion on that nothing other than Korean TAEKWONDO is the best martial arts out there, I would have limited my growth and increased my ignorance until many years later I wake up from my sumber and realized all those wasted years I've spent on something I thought was right and it ended up to be lacking.

Wushu was developed out of traditional Kung-fu because it was too dangerous in its pure form and hard to control by the elitest in society whiether it was a dynasty or communist gov't. It was changed so it could be a performance art instead of a martial art. Kind of like hardcore punk music was modified to new wave music to make it more palatable to the listener. It was made to be less threating and more theatrical similar to a modern form of Peking Opera. Because of this the real traditional kung-fu is now threaten to extinction. First, the real masters are either hard to find or gone. Second, there is few student who are interested to practise it and preserve in it most rather play baseball, remember? Jeez damn youth with no respect for tradition. Third, the real thing is hard to do. It is a pain in the butt and requires lots of dedication to do it correctly. But it changes your whole life forever because you now know the way. Wheither you continue with it or not it stays with you for the rest of your life. What can you say about getting real gold to others? Its like nothing else in the world.
Mar-nut Saturday, November 30, 2002 at 02:27:27 (PST) [63.211.241.29]

Use no method as a method; no limitation as limitation; in other words, do as Bruce Lee did and empty your mind
Peter Monday, November 25, 2002 at 04:52:14 (PST) [211.110.7.223]

any aikido practitioners here?

i am taking aikido here in japan, and i noticed there are different styles of it.

does anyone know the differences between one and the other?
aikidolovingkorean Saturday, November 23, 2002 at 07:11:35 (PST) [61.199.20.1]

To immigrant

You mentioned the temptation about money?
tell me what makes the world go around?
Isn't it money? So you're saying that Kungfu or Karate has no temptation about money? I simply think Taekwondo makes more money because it's a popular martial art. Please give me a break about preserving true art form. The Chinese argue this preserving true art form for couple of years. China cultural revolution, it was the "Chinese" who destroyed their own culture. In modern day China, the chinese are destroying their chinese culture again through drugs, sex, poverty. For those people Taekwondo is gonna help them to win over drugs, poverty, nyphomania. You have to be thankful to Taekwondo.
Korea Thursday, November 21, 2002 at 01:31:45 (PST) [218.152.205.84]

im pretty sure theres a body guard training school called "Spartan" which is taught by former green beret. let's just say they actually opened up for the regular public, now would you rather learn from them or take TKD, judo etc.?

2nd question. does anyone think it doesnt really matter what you take? is it really just up to a person's skills?
Mr. Hann Wednesday, November 20, 2002 at 22:26:45 (PST) [24.242.251.65]

wushu:
The masters survived because they escaped not because of bullet proof bodies. NOT 13 countries BUT soldiers from 13 countries which were outnumbered 10:1 ratio.
One of the concepts that are taught in martial skills is know when you are seriously overpowered and to retreat....exactly what the masters did.
latinalovingkoreanhombre Tuesday, November 19, 2002 at 06:22:48 (PST) [205.150.212.4]

Korea,

once you smell the money you won't resist. By the same time Taekwondo helps some white teenagers in troubles giving up taking drugs. That is the modern social application of Taekwondo.
It's not really an art if you educate young people who lack sensible parents. Especially, you teach the teenagers in trouble non-violence (as far as I know), not martial skills.

My point is simply that sports exclude martial arts. Sports (Taekwondo and Judo) are good for people who want to live healthier or others who want to show off with it. Martial arts are only for people with very special interests.
immigrant Monday, November 18, 2002 at 17:27:29 (PST) [62.158.89.194]

Mar-nut:

By your defition, all martial arts are copied then. Choy Lay Fut, one of the most popular styles, is a fusion of some northern and southern kung fu. Did they "copy" it, or just take the best of each and incorporate them into one more effective, conclusive style?

So what you are saying is that everyone has to create their own martial art from the ground up, never learning anything from anyone else? Of course someone who creates his own art will have influence from another.

Over time, all sifus of a certain style ultimately branch off, and teach their own methods that better suit their needs.
TSJ Eric@KristinKreuk.net Monday, November 18, 2002 at 11:17:49 (PST) [209.86.244.99]

To Immigrant??

Smell the coffee. Wake Up to the world of sports. At least the Olympics recognizes Taekwondo as a Martial Art and Sport. Olympics is fun and games??? come into a Taekwondo Dojang and lets see if Taekwondo is fun and games. So whats your point? So Taekwondo and Judo isn't a martial art or Sport??

To Immigrant, Wushu and Bushi. You're looking at Taekwondo with only one eye open. Look Taekwondo with two eyes open. You will see what Taekwondo means to the world.
Korea bostonseoul@hotmail.com Monday, November 18, 2002 at 01:23:11 (PST) [218.152.205.81]

With the ability to defend oneself, one improves self confidence and character.
longkicks Sunday, November 17, 2002 at 19:59:07 (PST) [136.244.55.59]

One thing that I've been reading up in the world of MMA sports is that the Gracies are not the top dogs anymore. Their claims of beating all styles is over like a false bravado of Spanish guys. E Macho comMacho.

Anyway the reasoning for this is that there are many ethnicities who are trying to capture the ASIAN Martial arts bandwagon. Like the Gracies saying that it is Brazilian Jutjusu but in reality it is Japanese Judo or a form of Judo with groundfighting and wrestling in it. Their founder Helio was a student of Judo but had to modify it to fit his smaller stature. He found it better to wrap around his opponent by getting so close to his that a taller person would be tangled up and ineffective in punching or kicking the daylights out of him while he would use his limbs to slowly trap and strangle his opponent. Hmmmmm.. could he have modify his style to fit the environment? Brazil is a jungle with lots of snakes especially the Anaconda or Boa Constrictors. His MO would be to fight like a Boa and constrict the body and limbs of his opponent until he passes out. Thus you see a reliance on grappling and groundfighting so that the smaller guy with the snake method can squezze the life out of his advesary. What can counter that? The Eagle Claw or Cranes beak method?

But anyway he developed his own style which apparently worked for a while until people got smarter and not close in and stay out of range. But I like the way he taught all his sons and they all like up like some family mafia in pictures just like the other ones like the Urquidez family of the Benny the Jet fame were they all have his brothers and half-cousins all lined up like a family gang. HE (Benny the Jet) even writes in his books that their whole family would take martial arts lessons from different karate teachers and at the end of the day they would gather up all the knowledge and display it to all the family members what they have learn and thus came up with their own style like Karate Kempo which is Okinawan Karate of several styles just to make a name for themselves. Now Benny has combined it to be Ukido the "U" guess where? and the "kido" for all the other arts he took or studied otherwise. There was even talk that the Gracies were once called on their challenge to fight for money and they actually kick Benny's ass though you never hear Benny say he ever lost a match in his life! 49 an 0, 49 and 0, never defeated. Hmmmmm. Also he has added wrestling as part of Ukido to cover any lack of incompleteness of his created art.

Why I am spewing this out? Because I want people to see that these martial arts I just mentioned are what you called stolen or copied martial arts, changed and modified for only the sake of money and ego with no real traditions or anything worthwhile. Just like deciding to your family from this day forward we are going to start a new religion and It will be strangely be under our name and likeness and yet we are still different from the mainstream religion. Like a rogue style becoming vogue.
I know people will say that they did it on their own efforts and yah yah yah but if you look deep enough at their origin you see nothing but bogarting a traditional style, mismatching it and claiming as your own. Truely, like being a fake. Add to the fact you also have the Latin Machoism and ego put in with their "I'm better than you" attitude with it. Sorry but it makes me feel cheap and used with it. Like a bad Mexican meal.

Even Bruce Lee with his Jeet Kun Do never said his art was the ultimate but an expression of what worked for him. He even regretted naming his art because of the sake of people's ego and he was right.

All these other lame ducks mentioned and others are just trying to cash in on the latest fad and making martial arts other than what it is was intended to be, which is to defend yourself. Not a sportwrestling or a Kickboxing event.

So Maybe there is some truth that the non-asians are taking over the Asian martial arts or maybe it is just another round of self-proclaimed and self-titled masters looking for the big fall coming to them.

Enough.
Mar-nut Sunday, November 17, 2002 at 02:39:40 (PST) [209.245.11.169]

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