The Demise of Traditional Martial Arts

I recently began to wonder as to the future of traditional Martial arts. Frankly speaking, it appears dismal.

One only need look to our popular culture and the many MA magazines which now are filled with RBSD.

Vewry few promote the TMA from a practical and or even cultural basis. Many Traditional schools are unable or unwilling to change with the times. The situation in China is that Modern Wushu is all the go and it seems the same in Japan and Okinawa where baseball seems more popular!

I would argue that three factors representing a great threat to the preservation of traditional fightings arts (yes that's what they truly are). The first is modern trends away from the cultural and philosophical aspects of the TMA and their inherent practical applications as witnessed in our media. The second is ignorance. Most people could not tell Kung-Fu from Chinese folk dancing. Martial artists worldwide perpetuate this myth by promoting images that have nothing to do with the real arts. The last is even more insidious, the con-men and fakes that trouble all arts.

Part of the reason I see for the general demise of the TMA and in particular Chinese Martial Arts is that most of the traditional martial artists themselves remain (largely by choice) cocooned from the mainstream martial arts world.

Some like myself, are attempting to open up a once closed door art, showcasing its benefits and hopefully contributing in some small way to its survival into the future.

As for practicality, I cannot speak for other arts but I think some would be very surprised at the applications of some of the TMA, they are not as impractical as some would believe and in fact have a lot in common with RBSD! My particular art has an element of change inherent within. To the traditional Chinese martial artist and art the element of change and creativity is an important one as they believe that the art is dead without it.

I cannot speak for Karatedo in all its forms as I'm no longer involved in that world but Chinese martial arts are my passion and the path I have decided to walk upon.

As stated earlier most Traditional Chinese Martial Arts (and I mean Traditional in the very sense of the word) have an element of change built within. The mentality of the arts is creative. The mentality of learning is to feel and gain the essence of the art. It is this "essence: that is important and that which must be understood , not setting the art into concrete but letting the essence of the art grow a, change with the needs of society and grow. The art is creative. After one has learnt and practiced for a long time. then one should blend the art with one's own ideas to make the art even greater.

The art is alive an creative. To Chinese philosophy if an art is not creative, then that art is dead.

Returning the thread to its original point, the traditional arts are currently in decline, most of the true traditional teachers of the arts remain cocooned from the current martial arts world by either a matter of choice, tradition or cultural considerations. This is especially true of my own art of White Crane Gongfu/Wushu. It is only via my efforts to bring my master's art "out" into the world that the art may survive, adapt and hopefully grow.

Otherwise, the arts will die out and then what will we be left with?

RSBD and CQB are part of the unique thing we call martial arts. What makes me wince is that some of the practitioners of these arts wear traditional Dogi and Obi or Traditional Kung-Fu dress and sashes, call there "art" by some Asian inspired name yet claim to have no link to the art form they are imitating in their promotion of the art they teach. We have all seen these types grace the pages of our favourite magazines. This adds further to the denigration of the true traditional essence of the traditional arts.

My question is, what can be done to ensure the survival and growth of the traditional arts?

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Shifu
"I do not know what I know. I feel it., unlike those who think they know yet know not"
http://www.whitecranefist.co.nr

I think your question has the answers you're looking for in it.. It must grow in order to survive. without changing it cannot grow, because we as people are operating on different levels than when these methods were first derived.

When a game and its rules change, you must adapt in order to play correctly. I believe that the frame of mind some schools are in can be damaging in themselves. People can talk about the training methods, applications and so on and so forth but in all actuality, if the teacher can't set a good example then the students won't succeed.. Running a school to make a profit, marketing your kung fu as a product, those are things that aren't helping.

Most articles I read are BS, I did have mag subscriptions but most of the published stuff is redundant and typical. The only time I get something now is when someone I know has something published. Just as kind of a keep sake.. ehhh I've got a lot to say on this topic, but I don't feel like really walking in that direction right now. maybe later.

I want to present an alternative view. Sometimes I worry like you do, but other times (more and more lately) I contemplate the following. The following is just a meandering my brain has been going to lately. They are not fully developed thoughts and they are not meant as a put down to those concerned about the future of MA.

Maybe the martial arts are alive and well and thriving like never before. Maybe there is a lot of superfluous/ bogus/ scam martial arts surrounding the core of excellent MA out there, which makes it hard to see through to the good stuff. Maybe that level of bogus stuff didn't exist before, but I think it is possible it merely obscures the many many high level quality MAists out there.

Maybe those bogus ones just get to dang much attention by the serious practitioners. Maybe we worry too much about who out there "isn't a real MAist" instead of just ignoring it and focusing on our own practice. It seems to be human nature after all. In most anything humans get into, we seem to always gravitate towards believing we are following the best true path and to look down upon others. Be it politics, religion, social groups, the list goes on and on.

Despite China's attempt to wipe out real fighting MA, it just moved either underground in China, or the masters moved to other parts of the world. And there MA got exposed to new people and got a chance to adapt and change. The traditional elders/ GM's/ Sifu's are able to communicate and share materials/ manuscripts in this modern age in a way that was not possible just a few generations ago. That is a good thing IMO.

New styles of MA are still being developed. Just look at BJJ. Ground fighting and stand up styles are being tested and combined with MMA at a level I don't think has happened before. (Correct me if I am wrong there) These are signs of MA being alive, growing, changing in a good way.

Do we know the numbers of serious practitioners nowadays versus the alleged golden age of MA? Do we even know for a fact the numbers have gone down? Has anyone done a statistical analysis of this?

I dunno, what do you all think of this?
aaradia

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I must not fear.Fear is the mind-killer.Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.I will face my fear.I will permit it to pass over me & through me.& when it has gone I will turn to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.Only I will remain.F.Herbert

made sense to me

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"...any theory that satisfies the facts demands assumptions which are completely absurd."

Aleister Crowley

I don't think there is a way to "know" if the arts are in decline or alive and kicking just in the background. You would need such a large world view of MAists that it is close to impossible. However I must agree that the miracle of modern technology has made some of this process easier. I mean when I started TCMA I could not just go on the Internet (since there was not one) and look at youtube and research for real masters and there are still a good number of them out there that actually post on the bloody you tube! That being said they may be the few and far between but I agree we have to focus on our training and continue our paths forward. Without the persistent effort that is gong fu we will never know if the arts are alive or not, because it our all of us who are carrying them now. The old masters will not be immortal and one day it is up to us to keep it all alive. Find a real teacher and follow, train hard and succeed. That is what we all have to do but I digress.

I think that there are many real gems out there but they are muddied by many many sport karate and the like schools. I worry most about people not even knowing good martial arts when they see it in the future, our movies and modern tournaments have really taken a toll on the arts especially TCMA. I know I have not seen too many real gongfu men or women out there fighting and winning or performing. The TCMA are the responsibility of this generation just as it has always been. No matter of country or color of skin follow tradition, know that an art can be alive or dead through creativity and work more. train harder.

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"If you meet Buddha on the road, Kill him."

The first solution to the issue is to stop asking oneself "is TCMA dying?" and simply train.

People wring their hands about the "state" of the arts when really there is nothing they can actively do about it -- the arts are an abstract concept. All they can work on is themselves. The "state" of the arts is always changing, always in flux. Certain aspects of MA are in ebb tide now; other aspects are at high tide.

When I started writing, I used a manual typewriter with a mechanically-cranked fabric ink ribbon. The journalism profession was at its zenith in terms of credibility and influence. Now, I have a computer with massive amounts of capacity to both create and receive more information than I could process in a lifetime, I can publish my own work, etc. But the journalism profession is dying.

Or is it? IMO both the situation above and the state of TMA are similar ... times have changed, but not necessarily for better or worse. Just different.

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"Pain can be a great teacher of compassion and humility."~ Unkotare-san

"Whatever the case, it proves that countless disasters can be prevented by simply assuming everyone you're working with is a moron." ~ Adam Brown, 5 Tiny Mistakes...

Off-Topic: Did Tsuruken seriously just make a post that wasn't promoting his own school??????

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"I see no virtue where I smell no sweat"
"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" - Chris Cornell

“	Originally Posted By: WraithAlcon Off-Topic: Did Tsuruken seriously just make a post that wasn't promoting his own school??????	”

What d'you reckon?

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I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -- Kung Fu-tzu (Confucius)

Well, I don't think that we can actually stop it. I guess we just have to train and hope that the next generation does better. The problems that you stated were right on. One that was forgotten is that we live in new times. People are constantly stressed over nothing and feel that they don't have the time to spend on learning how to fight.

The majority of people that do want results right away and have no time to waste. They want to be able to see what they can do right now and not a few yrs from now. We live in an impatient and lazy society that believes that everything done today is better than yesterday. They would rather not bother with something that can be explained in simple terms and the they have to work at to understand.

It's sad. What's worse is the fact that the one who are representing TMA don't have enough training to actually prove that their system works. They always refer back to Sifu/Sensei/Guru so and so who could do this and that but can't offer any proof, so no one listens.

MA itself is experiencing a great boost due to MMA bouts but the MMA crowd has had a large hand in the demise of TMA. This is due to the fact that the ones who compete in MMA with TMA only aren't as fast or strong as the MMA players. They lose and everyone mistakes lack of speed and strength as lack of technique and skill. There is a difference. Hence, the art looks even worse.

MMA is now considered a type of proving ground for all MA but it is a sport. Entertaining and fun but not a proving ground for styles made from/for war. These styles can't really be used for sport unless trained to be used for said sport. Unfortunately, most people think that unless kungfu/karate/tkd/silat mix bjj or some other type of full on wrestling it is not effective. What they don't understand is that styles like Kung Fu have grappling but since no one is really taught the grapples nowadays or it's not shown in the movies, it is not there and therefore ineffective.

Popular MMA people are practitioners of TMA but the MMA crowd refuses to recognize this aspect of their training. Even people who were TMA are moving to MMA b/c they think that by mixing they can acheive better results.

One of the biggest hits to TMA is Bruce Lee. He is heralded by many as a true master of kung fu but never really learned any style. He had pieces of a few and turned that into a fighting style. It was a good style but what people don't take into consideration is that while he did not learn the full style he learned the basic pricliples of WC which allowed him to take what he needed from other styles in order to better suit his needs. These needs could have most likely have been met if he had learned all that Yip Man and William Cheung could teach him but I guess that we'll never know.

Now, WC is a TCMA. Bruce Lee learned only a portion of it yet he created a style that is the protoype of what eventually came to be known as MMA. This is also not acknowledged by the world as a whole. These facts coupled with the large amounts of charlatains(possibly misspelled) and the fact that TMA is not really used for self defense anymore(MMA, point sparring, modern wushu) have all lead to the decline of TMA.

Now, the question is what can be done about this. The simple answer: fix the way that people view TMA.

That was my view/rant.

I hope this helps.

Great posts, all! For me, I have to remember that just because something is old, doesn't make it good. Likewise, just because something is good doesn't make it old. Traditional martial arts have survived for as long as they have because there are people like us who allow it, and there have always been people promote it and detract it. There always will be, too. Almost every generation thinks the preceeding one was better. This makes the current one work hard to try to meet those high expectations (the ones that we set for those preceeding generations) and eventually become better than they were. That's evolution. Three hundred years from now people might say that crosstraining in BJJ and Muay Thai is old school and traditional. There will be people for it and against it. Traditional doesn't have to mean the most popular. Bottom line, plant your own garden instead of waiting for someone to give you flowers. Be your own beacon.

Chop

Whatever the public perception is in general of tma its out fault. For a long time we got away from the martial. That doesnt just mean training hard or fighting in class.

You have to view RBSD etc etc from a perspective of skill vs. time.
Now across the board some people will always teach crap.

But How, for us is much more imoprtant. The key element of most RBSD, CQC stuff is roll playing and scenario based training.
High stress.

Because most of us train thinking long term we dont put our new(er) students into stress scenrios.

Its the Teacher's responisbility to think of new ways to present what we do in a realistic and applicable way. Even the basic that a new student gets when they first walk in the door. Just stance and/or movement skills. Basic strikes etc

Dont loose the long term vision but train for what might happen Each nite walking out of the Guan.

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One hit, see blood.

It's not enough to just not get hit

“	Originally Posted By: GuiLongUmar Whatever the public perception is in general of tma its out fault. For a long time we got away from the martial. That doesnt just mean training hard or fighting in class. You have to view RBSD etc etc from a perspective of skill vs. time. Now across the board some people will always teach crap. But How, for us is much more imoprtant. The key element of most RBSD, CQC stuff is roll playing and scenario based training. High stress. Because most of us train thinking long term we dont put our new(er) students into stress scenrios. Its the Teacher's responisbility to think of new ways to present what we do in a realistic and applicable way. Even the basic that a new student gets when they first walk in the door. Just stance and/or movement skills. Basic strikes etc Dont loose the long term vision but train for what might happen Each nite walking out of the Guan.	”

Well said, from a sifu I'd love to learn from someday!

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Just do less forms, more fighting...problem solved.

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http://www.teslamotors.com/

“	Originally Posted By: Royal Dragon Just do less forms, more fighting...problem solved.	”

HEY...

Less forms...ARGH, I must break you. SACRILIDGE!

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One hit, see blood.

It's not enough to just not get hit

Well the reason why TCMA is becoming an ocean of watered down MA is because most of the practitioners go by stats which say there is a rare chance that they will get into fightsso they train lazily because they feel they will never have to use them.

However anyone who gets into something like TCMA has to have a love for it and being that is the case they should fo what is required to keep the art alive and kicking with it's true purpose in mind, kicking butt and taking names.

RBSD can be used with any art. You just have to add the types of RBSD training there is to your art and respond to those practice situations the way your art has taught you.

This came up on emptyflower and that is how I came to my findings above. However even if there is only a few of us who care about TCMA ebough to train like we would a 100 years ago then it will never truly die. It's not like the hoards of people training a 100 years ago were that good. Take what is there and train in it seriously, add RBSD to it and not only is it alive and well it has evolved.

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