In another thread there was discussion of Taoist martial arts and how Sun Lu Tang really was responsible (for better or worse) for molding modern perceptions of what Chinese internal martial arts are.

The longer I work on my book about Chinese martial arts books, the more obvious to me it becomes that a sold 90% of what the public (and I am talking about the Chinese public and the western public and I am lumping the majority of martial artists into this category too) thinks was true about Chinese internal martial arts comes from martial arts novels, movies and a handful of books.

All the cornball images, (which are completely divorced from the reality of Chinese internal arts) such as the brave wandering knights or the wise monks with the cool goatees, come from a form of Chinese fiction known as wuxia. For an interesting article on this see this link, plus the main website it comes from.
http://www.heroic-cinema.com/eric/xia.html

And next time somebody tells you that most martial artist in China's past were monks or Taoist immortals, or handsome kung fu knights; gently remind them that, no, most martial artists throughout Chinas history were soldiers, no different than modern day infantry grunts. They were guys who focused on basic techniques of a couple of basic weapons. They were guys (again like modern day infantry) who spent most of their training time not doing some esoteric chi gong, but humping it around double time, doing push ups, keeping to the basics and hoping to live to retirement.

Take care,
Brian the Myth Buster

Brian,

While I'd agree that probably most of MA practitioners were soldiers (or people whose occupation implied possibility of physical violence) this fact doesn't explain why MAs in SE Asia became such a prominent phenomenon. The soldiers were doing physical exercises and practicing weapon skills everywhere in the world where the concept of regular army could be found.

The Taoist vs Fighting controversy, is to me just another micro-example, of the larger 'Pure' vs Applied debate, which is a feature in some shape or form, of just about any and every field of human endeavour you can think of. The two camps have been split since time immemorial and while individuals may be able to bridge a sort of tentative and maybe 'uneasy' alliance between the two, there will never be any large-scale comprehensive agreements or settlements.

I see them as merely different sides of the same coin, that have not developed in isolation, but rather have been in constant interaction, and will continue to be in the future. I also think that both are richer for it, i.e. despite what some 'zealots' may believe, aspects of Taoism can make you a better fighter and vice-versa. There are enough examples of successful 'marriages' between the two to suggest that the pairing is not a whimsical, work of fantasy.

Should also bear in mind that alot of superstitions, stereotypes and prejudices have a basis in fact, the mistake is to then tar everyone with the same brush, without taking into account the specific circumstances invovled.

Now, there was a huge load of obfuscation. Hmmm, historian armed with facts vs. someone armed with cherished myths. Some "debate".

Kenneth,

Unfortunately history is much like statistics. Skillful selection or interpretation of facts (though not necessary willingly) allows one to “prove” almost any point. The rest of us who are not ready to delve into the fact collection and analysis can only judge the results presented from the position of common sense.

IMO, we are yet to see the explanation for CMA sophistication more reasonable then the Taoist link hypothesis.

That is a very true statement about history, Anvar. As I do not personally know Mr. Kennedy, could you perhaps enlighten me as to why he might choose to be selective about his views on MA history? Also, why do you assume that CMAs are more sophisticated than, say, european MAs?

Kenneth,

I also don't know him personally so I can only guess basing on his statements on couple of Internet forums that he doesn't like the overemphasis of vague Taoist concepts by a number of IMA practitioners.

As a side note I'd like to add that I don't question Mr. Kennedy's intellectual honesty - if my previous post gives this impression I apologize. I only want to say that it's very difficult to avoid the influence of preconceptions in historical research - it seems to be a quite common problem actually.

As to EMA could you point me to any documented account of EMA in, for example, 19-th century with significant number of supplemental (not purely application-oriented) exercises?

Anvar, it may be that Mr. Kennedy "doesn't like the overemphasis of vague Taoist concepts" for the simple reason that he knows better. I'm not saying that taoists don't practice MAs, just that the preconceptions here seem to be that the 3 "internal" styles came from them. I've read Mr. Cartmell's recounting of the histories of some of the personalities and styles. He presents a compelling case and apparently, Mr. Kennedy's research has led him to a similiar conclusion. Their detractors will have to offer more history and less rationalization. Egenolf, Fiore, Erhart, Lucini and Marozzo are just a few european renaissance era MAists whose manuscripts showing sophisticated jujitsu-like movements survive to this day, and let's not even get started on swordplay, pike or staves. Maestro Don Ramon Martinez's research into the spanish rapier method is uncovering the probability that it heavily influenced filipino sword arts which adopted various versions of the spanish system of circles and angles. If this sounds too "application" oriented, what other kind of exercises would a fighting system have? If by supplemental, you mean chi-gung, you may find that A) the much-touted health benefits of Hsing-Yi's 5 elements forms has been found wanting in the evidence dept., and B) many of the chi-gung regimens of various styles were rather "tacked on" in relatively later years. The europeans were far behind the chinese in the area of medicine, no doubt about that, but when it came to killing each other, they were no slouches.

Kenneth,

>Anvar, it may be that Mr. Kennedy "doesn't like
>the overemphasis of vague Taoist concepts" for
>the simple reason that he knows better

Yes, it's quite possible ;-)

Yet IMO all big three IMAs have very distinct and somewhat unique focus like finer body control, reducing the intent-action gap etc. Unless you assume that Chinese soldiers were more intelligent and creative then their counterparts in the rest of the world there should be some external factor that created this focus.

I'm not a big fan of linguistic exercises but when explained in plain English I do see some similarities between Taoist practices and IMAs. It's not a "proof", of course, but I haven't heard about any other reasonable models.

As to "rationalizing" I guess it's the only way in the case of the incomplete data.

Taoism like CMA has a very large number of forms and interpretations (main 'schools' are philosophical and religious with the health/ medical somewhere in the middle), but its main underlying idea in all branches is achieving a dynamic balance to be able to deal with constant change, a concept which should not be unfamiliar to CMA practicioners particularly Shen Wu ones.

Which (CMA or Tao) can claim to be the major influence that spawned the sub branch of IMA, i don't know and don't care, but in my opinion you would have to have a rather closed mind to think, that the 'history' of CMA has 'evolved' in isolation without the influence of the big three Chinese philosophies of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, whether the ideas or principles initially came about independently or not.

The reason why i believe that an art like Xing Yi, can find inspiration from Taoism is that both seem to derive their 'principles' from an intense and deep study (often informal but systematic none the less) of nature and human beings interaction with the environment (including other human beings). Taoism includes specific analysis of the geo-political and socio-economic environment as well, with confict 'resolution' (including military science) an important aspect of this. This resolution was not necessarily of the peaceful co-existence kind either, at both the level of the individual and society as a whole.

The obfuscation (making something unneccessarily difficult to understand) is inherent in seeking to take a 'balanced' approach, not in any attempt to mask or bias the 'Truth'/history.

Anvar, I'm not arguing (believe it or not). Of course, there are some similiarities. Chris, in mentioning taoism's various interpretations, makes me aware of my lack of knowledge about taoism. Obviously, taoism has had a great influence on the IMAs, or they would not now be associated with them. My point is that from a practical point of view, it is NOT necessary to learn about the 5 destructions to successfully master Hsing-Yi, or the 8 tri-grams to learn Bagua, in fact, probably a hinderance to learning the elusive aspects of the arts more than anything. Concepts such as Yin/Yang and the Bagua are all-encompassing, and as such, are inherent in everything we do anyway. Not contemplating them in favor of concentrating on the practical applications of IMAs won't make them non-existent any more than not conciously monitoring our breath will make us less dependant on oxygen. But there seems to be a great need among some westerners to identify certain MAs with particular religions or philosphies, as if this offers some sort of alternative to the society they were born into. Sad, because in the case of many americans, they ignore the richness of their own cultural heritage.

BTW, Tim Cartmell and Brian Kennedy didn't have to rationalize their cases because they tout historical sources for their information. As J. Christoph Amberger (the Secret History of the Sword) puts it, "rationalizations, by their very nature, must be logical..." As for the focus you describe, Anvar, perhaps you should try mastering golf, target shooting, or sport fencing before deciding it is exclusively a property of CMAs. I honestly believe that a good golf stroke has more subtle nuances of whole body coordination than a proper cut with a katana or a bagua palm strike. When I tried it several years ago, I realized there is no such thing as a casual golfer

> As for the focus you describe, Anvar, perhaps
> you should try mastering golf, target shooting

Not a bad idea at all ;)

If you want "supplemental execises" in Western martial arts, you need look no further than Catch-As-Catch-Can wrestling (especially the forms passed on through England to the USA).

Traditional Catch wrestling has a large number of "breathing exercises" virtually identical to the more common exercises found in Chinese systems of Qi Gong. Ther are also many "self-resistance" exercises comparable to those found in some of the "External" systems (Hung Gar...).

Thanks, I had seen references to that on Furey's site, but was wondering if it was what it sounded like.

Tim,

Thank you for the info.