Martial Arts Thread

Oh, I love when martial arts fraudsters get their asses kicked by people who actually train in a combat sport.

Edit: pagetopper deserves Zhang Weili training with Saenchai

Edited by PRC4Eva on Feb 10th 2020 at 11:35:53 AM

All aboard the hype 火车！

Edited by PRC4Eva on Mar 5th 2020 at 4:22:21 AM

And she did it!

These guys are pretty dope

Meanwhile, quarantine has me wanting to make a wing chun wooden dummy all of a sudden. Of course, round logs being kind of hard to get (or work with), does anyone foresee any problems with making a hollow octagonal set wooden tube and then putting like a PVC tube filled with sand inside it or something?

And another "master" bites the dust (albeit not literally)

At this point I'm pretty sure these guys agree to the fights as a weeding out mechanism. Anyone who sticks with them even after such ironclad evidence that they're fakes is someone that can be fleeced for tuition their whole life. Same reason why emails from Nigerian princes are always riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, most people will just dismiss it out of hand, so chances are if you respond, you're dumb enough to actually fall for it.

At the same time, am losing a lot of respect for Xu Xiaodong; guy's understandably bitter about the treatment he's received by the various governmental institutions, but at this point he's just kind of lashing out at anyone and everyone tangentially related to the martial arts circles in China at this point. Called out Wu Jing for no reason (the guy's an actor who doesn't even do kung fu movies any more), decided to show up to Yi Long's city of residence to fight him even though no fight has been scheduled. It's starting to look more like him trying to maintain his own hype machine and stirring up controversy to stay relevant.

Edited by PRC4Eva on May 25th 2020 at 12:41:37 PM

I have five fictional characters forming a set of Chinese quintuplet sisters that are themed after the Chinese five elements as well as being a Five Temperament Ensemble^note Muxiang is Wood and Sanguine, Huomei is Fire and Choleric, Tuzhen is Earth and Phlegmatic, Jincheng is Metal and Melancholic, and Shuihua is Water and Supine.[[note]], and I'm trying to assign each one a Chinese martial arts style that fits her respective theme, but also are roughly "equal" to each other [[note]]i.e. each has pros and cons, but none is so bad that they're clearly inferior/superior to most/all of the others, except perhaps Tuzhen for her Earth and Phelgmatic theme, which are respectively at the center and thus nominal "ruler" of the Five Elements and Temperaments. What do you guys suggest?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Ignore.

Edited by VidExGuy on Jun 28th 2020 at 2:54:58 AM

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Okay, I don't know a whole lot about Chinese martial arts but I really want to help you out with this somehow, so may I suggest Hung-Gar for Tuzhen? Yes, I know I’m going for the obvious Avatar parallel but it fits with her Phlegmatic personality too. She’d be calm, stable, you might even say down to Earth, and Hung Ga is a very stable style that emphasizes a strong foundation, providing a good connection to the Earth, her element.

As for Huomei, might I suggest Bajiquan? It’s a very direct, explosive, and aggressive style focusing on powerful striking and exploiting any vulnerability, perfect for a hot-blooded character with quite the dangerous element.

Again, I'm no expert so I encourage you to do further research on these before you decide to seriously consider them but that's a few suggestions based on what knowledge I have and research I've done. I genuinely hope they'll help you.

Edited by VidExGuy on Jun 28th 2020 at 3:18:43 AM

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While I currently have no ideas for Muxiang and Jicheng but I had a unique idea for Shuihua. Water is very well known for its adaptability and flexibility, and the other siblings' arts are ideally tied to the temperament of their personality while the supine temperament doesn't really give anything to connect it to, being neutral and all. So how about instead of having one style, maybe she could have a hybrid style formed from experience and uses it to adapt as a situation calls for. If you want to go even further with this, she could even be willing to incorporate other eastern and western martial arts.

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Ooh, fun. Let me take a bash at it, while attempting to incorporate some less immediately stereotypical styles:

Metal - some kind of qin-na art with emphasis on joint breaking, combined with mantis or some other art with finger strikes, if we want the metal-splitting-wood analogue. You could also give them piguazhang to synergize with giving Earth bajiquan, as below. As a melancholic, perhaps they subscribe to the Ender Wiggin philosophy of conflict resolution - I will be nice and polite and empathetic to you, but the second you turn hostile, I'm just going to have to hit you so hard your grandkids will remember the lesson.

Wood - Some variant of five animals (a lot of Southern systems have them as crane, snake, dragon, tiger, leopard; monkey, eagle, and mantis are their own systems), to go with animals living in a forest? Along that note, xingyiquan also has a 10-12 animals system depending on lineage. Maybe sanguine personality also puts them in touch with their natural/wild side?

Water - tai chi and bagua both work here as classic soft/internal arts (xingyiquan is another, but I find its inclusion pretty silly tbh, and I personally theorize that it's just Sun Lutang doing branding). If we don't want to be stereotypical, though, perhaps wing chun might also work, with death by a flurry of chain punches as an analogue to water erosion, and the sensitivity training and centerline concepts as synergy for the balanced supine personality?

Fire - Shaolin (Avatar go-to, again) or xingyiquan (if we give the Wood one one of the Southern five animals systems). If we want to mix it up a bit, you can also give fire some animals as a way of characterizing fire as kind of a living thing. Alternately, I'm not sure what time period this thing takes place, but if it's modern day and they don't have to be traditional, you can give them modern San Shou and make them interested in just the fighty aspects of their martial art. Alternately alternately, if this is a historical setting, perhaps they're interested in historical battlefield arts as noted by generals like Qi Jiguang or Yu Dayou and prefer weaponry or archery/throwing weapons (would also mix up the formula of making your Metal guy the weapon master).

Earth - Hung Gar, as suggested. If you give Metal pigua, you can also consider giving Earth bajiquan, as the two styles supposedly synergize well together, and Earth creates Metal in five-elements-ism. You can also make them the weapon master on the logic of Earth creates Metal. If you want to mix it up, you can give them wing chun (sensitivity = empathy), shuaijiao/Chinese wrestling (throwing people to the ground still counts as earth, and prolonged wrestling is just hugging) or tai chi (calmness and inner peace, maybe they're interested in the philosophy and stuff behind the martial arts), assuming those styles haven't been assigned.

Thanks for helping me out here, man.

(By the way, I don't think stereotypical automatically means bad but I'm all for creativity)

Edited by VidExGuy on Jun 29th 2020 at 2:18:50 AM

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So I watched Ip Man 4 yesterday. As much as I know I'm supposed to see the Chinatown fight scene as bad racists beating up my fellow ethnic Chinese, I can't help but think to myself: well, you're supposed to be the kung fu masters, if you can't defeat the karate master, that's not racism's fault, that's you sucking.

I do find it hilarious how Master Law's little introductory flailing resembles the real life Master Ma Baoguo's "Five Whips of Tai Chi", which had about as much real life utility when put up against a mere san da hobbyist.

Random thought.

For over a decade, the question of "What's the best martial arts?" popped up in my head from time to time. Now, the most accepted and probably accurate answer is "It depends." Specifically, depends on situations and locations, practitioners' physiology, budget and availability of training places, etc.

And all those factors considered, I think my answer now would be - Boxing.

Before I proceed, I am not saying it's the strongest martial art. It all depends on the practioners. I think boxing is the best because the fundamentals are so simple to learn and boxing gyms are virtually everywhere on Earth.

For the effectiveness...well, there's a reason why it's one of the four essential martial arts in MMA and virtually every military, law enforcement, and self-defense that teaches hand to hand combat utilizes boxing. Personally, on that note I think wrestling is even stronger than boxing...but sadly compared to boxing it's not as easier to find a good gym.

So basically boxing is most certainly not the strongest, and yeah, probably not necessarily the best, but no doubt the most accessible. And frankly, in modern world and for non-professional fighters who want to take up martial arts for just exercise or self-defense, I think that counts for a lot.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Cross-posting from the Fitness Thread:

Random, amusing anecdote time.

So, in my country government has loosened the social distancing level and now some facilities like gyms became available again. I've resumed going to a boxing gym, but I had to wear mask while exercising, just like every other gym.

At first it was hard, but as minutes passed I got used to it. At least, so I thought until I started to feel more suffocated and then I nearly collapsed. It turned out that my mask got completely wet due to all the sweat and saliva (I don't think I need to explain how intense boxing is).

That's right, I just waterboarded myself. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who experienced this kind of mishap during exercises.

From tomorrow on, I'm bringing a spare mask to the gym.

It's a pity that at least in my gym sparring is prohibited until the COVID-19 situation gets better. Yeah, I really don't want to take my chances with sparring these days.

That's kinda related to why I resumed boxing: I actually wanted to take up Judo or Jiu-jitsu, but the way grappling martial arts require you to get all close and sweaty together up close...yeah, no.

Luckily enough, so far of all places martial arts dojos/gyms have never been a major COVID outbreak site in my country.

Edited by dRoy on Oct 23rd 2020 at 10:19:37 PM

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Yeah, covid was a major damper to my dreams of martial proficiency.

Gonna have to settle for my years of wushu which is merely slightly more practical than like 90% of the traditional kung fu out there by virtue of requiring more athleticism and having less delusions regarding their ability to actually fight.

That reminds me: at least around where I live, there's virtually zero Chinese martial arts dojos. There are however a fair number of Tai Chi dojo, but they emphasize more on the meditational aspect in their advertisements. I've seen one Bajiquan dojo in this one time though, which I thought was pretty amusing.

I think that once I learn boxing for a year or two and get the hang of striking and martial arts in general, I will probably transition into muay thai. I should have enough reflex, balance, stamina, etc by then.

Ideally, of course, I would learn MMA but such gyms are practically non-existent in my town so that's not an option. XP

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

A daily COVID hilarity time!

• So last night I went to my boxing gym and practiced with mask on for the second time.

While I normally picked late hours where there weren't that many people, last night I saw quite a lot of people...and none of them seemed to be wearing a mask except me and the coaches. Then as I entered the place I let out a series of big, coarse coughs. By the time I got out of the changing room, everyone was wearing a mask. Heh.

• Nowadays me and my friends measure how much workout we did by the number of masks we got totally wet. A half-soaked mask is an adequate workout and anything below that is just warmup/stretching. One completely soaked mask means a very nice workout, but two is a complete overkill (since none of us are professional model/athletes or anything).

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Ah, the good old coughing compliance. I totally intend to do this if I ever encounter anti-maskers. Double points for my Chinese face.

Tonight on my boxing practice.

So it was basically boxing equivalent of grinding, as it was a different variations of 1-2 punches.

- 6 sets of 20 1-2 punches.

- 6 sets of 15 1-2-1 punches

- 6 sets of 15 1-2, back step and 1-2

- 6 sets of 15 1-2-1, back step and 1-2

- 6 sets of 15 1-2-1-2, back step and 1-2.

In a span of two hours, I literally threw 1,500 punches. Like, wow. That's my personal record there.

I actually completely soaked two COVID-19 masks.

Edited by dRoy on Nov 4th 2020 at 6:39:06 PM

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Does anyone here have good advice for how to improve your jumping?

I practice taekwondo, and jump kicks have always been my achilles heel. Actually, I've always been bad at jumping, period. I just can't get any height at all. I always overcompensate when jumping - I either get no distance or no height, despite trying to aim for both.

So, do you have any good exercises for improving jump height?

My AO3 profile. Let sleeping cats lie and be cute and calming.

This might be unusual and rather unhelpful, but...have you tried losing more weight?

Because at least in my experience, after losing about 20 pounds jump ropes and footwork became just so much easier.

If you already lose enough weight, have you tried working your core muscles?

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

What, are you asking a lady about her weight? Tsk, tsk!

No, but more seriously, I've always been heavy, even if I've never really been fat. Chubby at most, but not fat.

I'm also currently dieting to get rid of some flab. And I'm visiting a chiropractor for physiotherapy two times a week because my upper back muscles and shoulders are underdeveloped and need to be strengthened.

Jumping has always been a thing I'm not good at - During P.E when we had athletics, I could at least get the gist of long jumps and the running start did help, but the high jump always stumped me, I just couldn't do it.

So, if strengthening the core will aid my jumps, some exercises for that would help immensely!

My AO3 profile. Let sleeping cats lie and be cute and calming.

(shrugs) I treat everyone as unisex on the internet unless noted or immediately recognizable as otherwise

So the weight isn't going to be a key factor so core exercises it is, then.

There are always the classics, planks, squats, and crunches (I'd say sit-ups, but recent studies seem to suggest that they have unignorable side-effects). This article seem to have some decent suggestions too.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Do you still get no height even when you just completely ignore distance? Are there specific jump kicks that you have problems with, or just the jump-front/tornado/jump outsides/etc where the focus is on height (as opposed to, say, running jumping side kicks where the point is to have some travel, or butterfly [do you do those in TKD?] where some travel will always happen)?

Cheers!

Well, I've figured that it's easier for me to do a jumping ap-chagi (Forward kick, very standard) or a countering jumping dwi-chagi (Backwards kick) if I see the jump as less of a jump and more of a bal-bakao (Change guard), and the momentum of the tornado kick does help, but I do still have some problems gaining height.

I mean, the whole point of a jump kick is to have both feet in the air when you hit your target, right? I simply don't get enough air time. Those people who can, like, do four or five kicks while still airborne... Man, I'm in awe of them.

I try to practice jumping by just... you know, jumping, but I'm not sure if my technique is correct. If I try to jump far, I get no height, and if I try to jump high, I get no distance - Combining the two is really hard for me.

Not a fan of dobon (Double kicks), either, though at least I find that those are easier if I start with the leg that's in front.

Edited by MagmaTeaMerry on Nov 7th 2020 at 12:10:05 PM

My AO3 profile. Let sleeping cats lie and be cute and calming.