[TravelerKai]

(07-14-2016 06:34 PM)Tengen Wrote:  

(06-20-2016 04:05 PM)TravelerKai Wrote:  

** Highly conceptual and contextual, not very specific like much of Chinese language itself. The fighters that were the best, simply “Got it” and were amazing. Being creative with the forms makes it very artful indeed.

Notice the difference between Jackie Chan, Jet Li and your average Chinese actor that is an expert in martial arts? The gulf in skill enormous. It’s not even about the level of athleticism. Even Donnie Yen is arguably not as good as those two were in their primes. It is very common to see one super amazing elite practitioner in a school, and everyone else is amazingly average.

This is the dirtiest secret of Chinese Gong Fu. Other forms of martial arts have much less parity. People that are not creative/flexible thinkers will never be great at Chinese Martial Arts. Never.

This is the most sobering part of CMA for me. I started learning when I was about 10 and continued all the way through high school, but after turning 18 I felt my skill level plateauing, and from that point lost interest. Does this mean that I'm not a creative or flexible thinker? I'd like to think that isn't the case, just that I channel my creativity and flexibility through avenues other than combat.

I still train myself physically, most recently taking up parkour since last year, but while martial arts still intrugue me I am not interested in learning anything at the moment, possibly due to the fear of disappointment at plateauing as I felt with CMA.

Look at it this way. I spent many years studying CMA myself. I don't have internal strength. I am not starring in Hong Kong movies and coming up with my own choreography. That said, I am very dangerous in my own right. I know many different styles that suit me better.

What style is the best? The style you use the most effectively.

If all I knew was Aikido, I might not be so good at fighting. If all I knew was Silat, I probably would be.

CMA is just a harder way to learn how to fight. It just tends to reward geniuses and the most devoted. You could spend 2 years learning Systema and would be very dangerous compared to most around you, but it might take 10 of that in CMA. The way some people think, it would be the reverse for them.

The long short is find out what will work for you. I once had a Wing Chun visitor outbox some of my MMA students. Wing Chun was made by a woman to teach other women how not to get beat up by their husbands and was originally designed for a 20 month study.

Find out what works for you.