Yang Taiji Practitioner loses bad to Boxer/MMA challenger

[Bob Ashmore]

He took the challenge.
He lost the fight.
From this loss hopefully he will learn.
In TCC, we invest in loss.
What it comes down to...
The MMA guy fought well, he did not.
He needs to train more if he wants to win, simple as that.
There does not appear to be a loss of "honor" on either side, so I am confused by the reactions being seen to this.

What I find amusing is this...
When was the last time you saw all ALL of Karate ridiculed because one practitioner of it lost a single fight?
No matter how badly the Karate guy loses, and if you go to Youtube you can bring up simply thousands of videos of Karate practitioners losing bouts, some of them ten times worse than this guy lost his, people still revere Karate and no one calls all of Karate "useless" or "magic".
How about with Wing Chun? Or Jujitsu? Or ANY other martial art?
Does one person who practices that art losing a bout mean that the art is "useless"?
Spare me the platitudes, I have no time for them.
This one guy losing a bout proves only that he was not up to the challenge he accepted.

This is much ado about nothing.

[mls_72]

For decades I've been telling Tai Chi people to bring some realistic "Chuan" training into their curriculum and get their head out of the sand. Tai chi has many strikes and kickes, even elbows, knees, throws, and sweeps.

Improvement for Rank Testing:

I proposed this to the Yang Family Association "Committee" back in March before the whole Xu Xiaodong incident occurred:

"Bring freestyle push hands and sparring into the rank testing in the higher levels.

Push hands is a friendly and non-violent way to test skills. While learning the 'patterns' of push hands is very important, having people actually push on you in free push hands and how to handle it is the real meaning of method. Having teachers who are overly skilled in forms and push hands patterns does not make them a complete martial artist. I believe it can be done in testing without penalizing a student if they failed to neutralize. They would just need feedback on what to work on.

Sparring with safety gear is another way of showing ones ability in Tai Chi "San Shou". Many schools I have attended that have Belt or Sash ranks have these kinds of tests. There is a saying in Chinese martial arts: "Paper tigers" or "He is only a Tiger on paper". An organization should work towards the martial side just as much as the health side. A martial artist of a lower rank should not be able to beat a higher ranked instructor. A higher ranked teacher shouldn't avoid push hands/sparring with a lower ranked candidate. Quality control. It is a matter of face and in a competitive world, the Yang Family Association needs to highlight the original martial side to honor its founders. Of course the dilemma is many folks do not come to Taijiquan to learn to fight but for health and wellness, but this could be optional to those who wish this for advanced ranking."

Currently the association is happy to let people of into higher ranks with no real skill or martial ability. I've been to Yang Family Association schools where no freestyle push hands is allowed and just the 'patterns' are done. The teacher's would lose face cause my background is from competition push hands and full contact fighting. I even have developed a Tai chi fighting curriculum based on yang Tai chi training with fighters who also do Tai chi and have trained guys to have fought full contact fighting. My guys have made it though the rounds without taking a loss like Wei Lei.

[Bob Ashmore]

mls_72,
You are preaching to the choir with me.
I have long held the same belief regarding sparring being an integral part of training.
We call it a "martial art", so where's the martial art?
I came from a martial art school for TCC and that is how I learned it originally. To not have it being presented as part of the training is a mystery to me.
Do I still have the same level of skill I had seventeen years ago?
Nope. And I don't pretend to.
Why?
Because I have only had one person to practice with that has skills to match mine in the last seventeen years and in the last three years I have had very limited access to him.
At the Symposiums I was able to work with good TCC martial artists and had a lot of fun doing ph's and sparring again.
I also discovered that the expression "If you don't use it, you lose it" is very true.
I'm not as young as I used to could either, so I don't have that "drive" to fight that I started out with pushing me into the ring on a regular basis.
All that is to say...
I haven't used it much lately, so I've lost a great deal of it.
I can still hold my own, don't get me wrong, but that's mostly against untrained people.
My skills against those who have never trained still seem miraculous... to them.
But against a trained martial artist with a lot of recent experience and training...?
I'm most likely going to get my butt kicked.
Badly.
I know this, I make no excuses and I take full responsibility for my own lack of martial fitness.
So would I have taken this guys challenge?
Even ten years ago... Yep.
Now... Nope.
I'm not that foolish.
But let's say I did, just for laughs and giggles.
Does that mean that if I lost the bout that TCC itself is "useless" and I've been pushing "magic" instead of a "real martial art"?
Nope.
It means I'm getting fatter and older and I'm not practicing as much as I used to do.
And that's all that means.

Again, I see this as much ado over nothing.
So this TCC guy stinks at the martial art, accepted a challenge from someone who doesn't stink at his martial art, and got is butt handed to him in a spectacular way.
OK...
Now what?
The exact same thing happens hundreds of times a day all over the world and with every style of martial art known to man.
What does that prove?
That only the current best fighter is truly representing a martial art and ALL the rest are total crap never to be considered worthwhile again?

Yeah.
I'm laughing too.

[mls_72]

Bob. I hear ya. Yeap, I've slowed down much after I hit 40, but still go to a boxing/kickboxing gym to put in some cardio from time to time.

Def not everyone wants to fight, and many training partners (more than one) is always helpful. Personally, I've been in acupuncture school last 3 years so my day job, and family take a higher importance than recreational activities including martial arts.

Glad to hear some people do not want to take the martial art out of Taijiquan.

Honestly though, I hope the Xu xiaodong fight serves as a wake up call to Taijiqun people to know and understand what Taijiquan can and cannot do for you when threats occur, skilled fighters/bullies are around, and other life threatening events.

There are still many Tai chi "fake" masters marketing "invisible pushes" "No touch knock outs", doing demos on their students as the student flops around from tiny pushes, or discussing how to beat MMA or Boxers while having no fight record or willing to prove it against anyone other than their compliant student who stickes their arm out and waits for the master attack.

This can put people who believe in this non-sense in real danger. Some Tai chi students (of a marketing school) even did try to competitive in fighting and didn't survive the round cause their "fajin" belief didn't work. He was left a bloody mess.

Be smart, be safe, practice hard, and be soft. Know your strengths and limits.

[yslim]

Good Morning Mr. Bob.
Well written article!. "Old Soldiers Never Die, They Just Fade Away." I salute thee.
yslim

[Bob Ashmore]

MLS,
Oh, yeah. I love the "chi ball" throwers. They make me laugh.
I've told my tale of disproving that they can actually do that a long time ago on this forum, so will not bore everyone with it again.
Let's just say that we know it doesn't work like that.
However, the snake oil peddlers still seem to be able to sell their products.
I don't know what can be done about it, or even that anything should be done about it.
Why?
The gullible will remain gullible regardless of any efforts to dispel the crazy idea that someone can knock people down from across the room.
They want to believe it, so they do.
I do have to admit though that is really, really fun to watch the looks on the faces of the "true believers" when what they so earnestly believe in is shown to be total bunk beyond the shadow of any doubt.
The only problem with that is...
The gullible go on to something else equally unbelievable and start right back up again.
So...
Why bother?

Yslim,
Thank you brother.
My martial arts skills are indeed fading away, I see it more clearly every day.
Which is strange, considering that there is more of me physically then there used to be...
Still, there it is and all.
Perhaps more time spent in sparring would take care of both of those things?