Journaling

A few weeks ago I promised myself I would start keeping an old school journal. Like a notebook written by hand. Then I forgot about it, and today I was all excited because I was going to set aside time to write in it, like some sort of mental meditation. Looking for where the hell it was, I realized why I started blogging.

In any case I found another notebook and will try again this time, having it set aside as if on an altar. More importantly, I will force the children to make entries every day as well. And then I think I will force them to re-enter those entries into this Kung Fu Dad blog. In the beginning I thought I would make them write one page but now I am thinking three lines is a good place to start. In any case... expect to hear from Noah and Jonah on this blog more often. Yes I have given up forcing them to do Kung Fu or Violin. But much of their time recently has been consumed with Pokemon to the point of addiction and I guess I am sick of it. I may bring back Kung Fu into the mix as well. Not a whole form, but a technique a day. Something like that.

MMA vs. Tai Chi from a teacher's perspective

This video is going viral

And I guess the first thing that popped into my head was from a teacher's perspective, because I have totally had miniature versions of both of these guys in my classes. (There are other body types and personalities that tend to repeat as well. "The athletic trouble maker" for instance. ie not necessarily a fighter but a spry guy who does flips and everything that did not come into the equation in the above fight.)

First of all, everything that all the martial arts experts on both sides are saying have their point. But what I do not like is that a lot of Tai Chi people are now saying that it isn't good for Tai Chi people to spar MMA people. First off, if these two guys were in my class as children, I would try to encourage both of them to spar (in a game where neither of then gets hurt.).. but also I would force both to do Tai Chi. 

More than "Modern" vs. "Traditional" what you are seeing probably has more to do with personality and approaches to education. Both of them are doing Modern martial arts because they are practicing in the modern world. Both of them are also doing martial arts with deep rooted tradition. You can pretend MMA is a new thing all you want, but the fact of the mater is those moves are not new. 

The MMA guy taught himself. He may be horrible in your very structured follow what I do Martial Arts class where everyone lines up. He is the type that is bouncing of the walls and picking fights with the other people in line. So he might even get kicked out of class. But of course he is running around because he is bored because perhaps he can learn faster than everyone else. By learning the moves himself, and then testing them out in the field, he is able to learn more efficiently. 

Were he to teach someone, what would he show them though? Perhaps he would guide them through learning on your own. 

The Tai Chi monk probably does very well in the structured class and maybe has done some partner drills with people before but I don;t think he has been in many fights based on his reaction of sticking both hands out in panic. That being said I might do the same thing. I have done the same thing actually. Then again I also have not been in a lot of fights. 

The Tai Chi Monk can demo self defense and definitely has a lot to draw on when leading a class. All the techniques he learned he can bring out at any time. But in a fight against a Musashi type guy, yes he lost in 10 seconds. 

The goal of the martial arts has been to be a combination of these two characters, Mun Mo Song Chuen, a scholar and a fighter. But this combination is rare. It is more likely that you are one or the other. Or a little of both, but not a master of both. 

 But when you teach just fighting... the kids will actually have a lot of fun. But parents will wonder, "Aren't you guys just running around with sticks playing? What did you learn?"

And if you are thinking the MMA guy has no place teaching kids.. I BET you he could run a very fun kids class. He would not necessarily be the more strict of the two. He would be doing a lot of inventive games. 

The Tai Chi class would be the one to make kids cry in America. It's not so much that all that slow training and all those moves are useless. But does everyone have to learn every single one? Look at the MMA guy. He just learned some techniques as needed. COULD a Tai Chi move or two help him in a fight? or perhaps some basic Chi Gung concepts to supplement his training? Of course. But that doesn't mean he should bother to memorize a WHOLE Tai Chi form let alone master it. He is right. In some cases this is a waste of time. The only person for whom memorizing and mastering a whole Tai Chi form is useful is the teacher. Especially before you could just pull out a Youtube video on your phone. Even with the screens or books as a reference it is good to have memorized a bunch of technqiues so you can teach this student this one for a situation and another student a different one. But no fighter has to know them all, only the teacher needs to know that. That's why you are a master and a Sifu. 

But I feel like people got lazy and just started showing EVERYONE the whole form and making them memorize it as a way to just show them the curriculum and have them figure it out. Remember those stories where learning the form was a secret? 

The form is basically like the teachers book with all the answers. But it doesn't mean that the teacher can say...do all the things he is teaching. Like you teach physics and chemistry... but it doesn't mean you can build the plane or the bomb. But you need someone to teach the future engineer. 

I want to get back to the whole reason for the challenge. The MMA fighter said that Chinese Kung Fu needs to modernize and change etc. I will say that as a teacher... yes he is right. Not because the old way is wrong. But I will put it this way. The kids will spar all day long for hours and laugh about it the whole time. But my son does not want to do forms. But how did he learn the techniques to fight with in the first place? It's could to do SOME forms but you don't need to FORCE them to do so much. Unless they are going to be teachers. And again. The teachers will not necessarily be the best fighters. 

These Tai Chi classes with old ladies could have a little more fun if they brought their grandchildren and did some sword fighting with pool noodles with them. And Tai Chi Classes in general could benefit from learning some boxing just for measuring distance. In "Fist Stick Knife Gun" Geoffrey Canada talked about doing slap boxing and also punching each other  in the body in a game on the block to prepare for fights. It was a game but you could still get hurt. Canada was a martial artist as well but knew that the way that the martial arts was protecting the youth from gun violence was more about keeping those kids off the street to begin with. (I feel that the terms, "Of the street" may be antiquated now that a good deal of the "street" is gentrified.) 

These simple games can definitely help your Tai Chi. Conversely, someone like Mike Tyson could benefit tremendously from taking up Tai Chi NOW. During his fighting career Cus D'Amato had all sorts of strange practices that did not just involve punching things. He actually hypnotized Tyson before fights. I'm not saying that Tai Chi is hypnotism... but I will say there is something to hypnotism in the long hours of meditative form practice.

But would Tai Chi have made Tyson better then? Doesn't really matter, he was the champ.

But I guarantee that Tai Chi, Yoga and that sort of thing would help Tyson NOW.

What about the MMA fighter in the 10 second duel?

Well he should just keep doing what he is doing. Watching the fight, I actually had an itch to fight as well even though I am in the worse shape I have ever been in Kung Fu wise. And I did modify my training this morning.  I "freestyled" my practice to be more efficient. I started with meditation and then mixed the calisthenics with stretching in a more free flowing way and started just doing random Kung Fu techniques instead of this then this then that like a list.  Noah came in and then we play sparred.

We didn't do all this for long, but I feel that doing 2 hours of that is better than the "Serious" training I sometimes do. perhaps even the 10 minutes I did was more efficient than the 2 hours I usually do as well. Hard to say. Also.. Noah actually did something with me without arguing.


Does that mean I shouldn't teach forms? No. But the forms and even memorized sequences of stretching are actually something to sort of fall back on when you are running on auto pilot.