Relevant Irrelevance
by Mark Cheng, L.Ac.

There’s a growing trend among traditional Chinese martial arts instructors to dismiss certain practices as irrelevant in today’s society. I’ve visited many schools where the environment is more like a social hall or bar than a martial arts academy. While this is certainly the prerogative of the instructor, such an attitude is largely born out of carelessness or ignorance. Listed below are four aspects of traditional training that these instructors love to reject:

Stances: The argument that many traditional stances are useless is common. With the popularity of kickboxing, a number of instructors have shifted their approach toward a boxing format. Since no stances in Western boxing resemble a horse stance, bow-and-arrow stance or cat stance, some experts have reasoned that such practices are out of date and impractical for modern fighting. They execute all their techniques from a boxing stance with boxing footwork, doing away with the traditional stances that accompanied the techniques. They assume that traditional stances are merely ornamental and can be freely discarded without harming the system.

In reality, traditional stances develop attributes that are important to fighting. At the most fundamental level, they teach you how to transfer your weight properly and with total commitment from the ground up. Rather than simply punching with your arm, such training employs upper-body methods that involve throwing your weight behind the technique. It also develops coordinated leg, hip and lower-back strength, agility and torque for throws and takedowns.

Weaponry: Traditional weapons training is another favorite target of instructors who want to cut corners. They say things like, “You’ll never have a kwan-do or a nine-section steel whip with you when someone attacks you on the street.” The belief that classical weapons are outdated and irrelevant holds a little more water than the argument to do away with stances, but it’s still myopic. In fact, the principles covered in a well-taught traditional weapons program are absolutely apropos.

Ideally, traditional weapons training is a three-step process composed of:

• basic techniques, which develop the strength and coordination needed to wield the weapon effectively in the air,

• single applications, which teach you how to use the basic techniques against an armed or unarmed opponent, and

• forms, which teach you combinations of single techniques/applications and provide a routine for practicing them with or without an opponent.

Instructors who fail to learn these applications properly should leave traditional weapons out of their curriculum. However, for those who have learned them, weapons training offers the ability to take any similarly constructed implement and use it in self-defense. For example, a shovel or rake could double as a kwan-do, and a garden hose or chain could be employed like a nine-section steel whip.

Salutes/Bowing: We live in a world where the bow of the olden days has been replaced by the handshake. East Asian martial arts are inextricably tied to East Asian culture, and if you wish to divorce the physical practices from the cultural influences, you have to ask yourself why. The bow and salute are symbols of respect and acknowledgment—two concepts that are increasingly absent from today’s training hall. Each gesture expresses the respect the members of a school have for each other, their instructor and the martial family to which they belong. In a world of self-centered individualism, what could be more necessary than a simple reminder to acknowledge those who train us, those who train with us, those who developed the skill set we’re studying and the culture that gave rise to such greatness?

Terminology and Titles: Traditional terminology has its advantages in the training hall. Chinese is a complex language. One word can hold multiple layers of meaning—not only from its sound but also from the way it’s written—and they can offer valuable insights. For example, sifu is used in traditional Chinese martial arts to address a master-level instructor. However, there are two ways of writing the fu character. The one that’s most often used means “teacher” or “instructor.” When fu is coupled with the si character, which also means “teacher,” it designates someone as a technical guide. The more traditional character for fu in this context is that of “father.” Thus, sifu means “teacher-father,” or someone who’s a technical guide and a role model bearing social responsibility for the actions of his students, just as a parent would. These titles reinforce the sense of responsibility for someone’s actions on all levels—not just as a technical authority but also as a human being.

These traditions were established to create an environment that fosters maximum improvement of the self—physically and mentally—within the social context of the school. To prune away some of them without fully understanding why they exist is irresponsible and shortchanges students of their martial heritage.

About the author: Mark Cheng is a traditional Chinese-medicine physician and martial arts researcher based in West Los Angeles. To contact him, visit http://www.chung-hua.com.