True, but you can’t rely on them for effectve techniques. Too many of them have been too long from real use. But yes, ones like Kali, Kickboxing, and Karate can be used effectively. I’m just saying you can’t base the effectiveness of some weapon simply because it has associated martial arts, or because people can use it effectively in tournament or light sparring.
Not entirely. I remember a truly ridiculous Indian weapon that consisted of a big staf with dozens of point and blades sticking out. It was truly silly and the most dangerous thing you could do with it would be to hand it over to your enemy as a present. The only way to really wield it was to wiggle at the enemy because if you did anything else you’d stab youself or cut your own hands off.
Needless to say, it didn’t achieve widespread use.
The current breed of martial arts does remain (though less so since the Communist takeover), but pretty much everything the Chinese themselves really developed is gone. Once the peasants went home, noone trained them and they lost their skill. The Chinese, like the Japanese IIRC, got their current techniques from the Koreans.
Sure, I take your point about not being able to depend on a weapon simply because it is associated with a specific MA or is good for sparring. I participated in a tournament with some escrima people. As it turned out, we weren’t allowed to trip, lock, strike with the hands, kick, use the butt of the stick, and a few other things. We lost horribly, mostly to disqualifications.
I’d forgotten about the Indian weapons but yeah, some of those are exceedingly weird. I believe there is also a sharpened disc, kind of a malignant frisbee, that struck me as fairly useless.
That is intersting about the Chinese peasants maintaining the MAs. Most of the Chinese MAs I’ve actually seen seemed to be hyper-stylish to the point of being useless in combat, more of a wushu kind of thing. I suppose if a person had 20-30 years of doing nothing else they might be effective but not otherwise. I would suspect that I’ve mostly seen things from the larger cities that have lost their “roots.”
Anyway, I seem to have pretty well hijacked the thread but its been interesting anyway.
As it turns out, I think I was wrong about the origins of modern Chinese MA. They actually descend indirectly from Shaolin, a style originally founded off of the teachings of monks who adapted their body-control and excercise techniques to combat. They were ethnically Tibetan, not Chinese, and for all I know might have been inspired by Indian MA.
And yes, a lot of modern Kung Fu is really not very good at serious combat, though you can find serious combat styles if you look. Of course, I wouldn’t want to piss off Jet Li or Jackie Chan, flashy style or no.
And yes, the urban Chinese have probably more or less lost all their MA, if they ever had much.
To continue the hijack, Jackie really has nor formal MA training. I recall a quote from him from awhile back where he stated something to the effect of, “I couldn’t beat a wrestler, but he couldn’t catch me.” I think he was saying this to show off his speed, but the subtext was that he is trained in ballet (Chinese ballet to be sure which is apparently not people in tutus).
I have always heard that the Shaolin were founded by a monk from India who believed the monks weren’t getting enough exercise and introduced them to MA of some type. I always considered that to be simply a tale, like the 6 or 7 survivors from the monastary founding all the different MAs of China but who knows?
I would imagine that the rural dwellers maintain some kind of effective MA. Urban people (everywhere) seem to emphasize style, health benefits, and possibly some mystical aspects over function.
Chairman Pow
I agree with Jackie Chan about the wrestlers. They are actually pretty difficult to beat. Western boxers are another group that are difficult to deal with.
