yiannis

It's ok mate... I get it. MMA rulez!

A true martial art, is a martial art where you can use it to kill or incapacitate an armed or unarmed opponent, wearing an armor or not. How many MA in the world today can claim such thing? MMA is JUST a sport. In the cage the only thing that you see is an athletic contest. By the way, Shan shou is NOT a martial art. When you get the distiction between a martial art and a martial sport, then we can talk some more. Do you practice any energetic arts? If you were, then you wouldn't have written the above. Most MMA fighters are just puffed up steroid freaks. Fedor is around 30yo and looks like 50. Most of them are broken inside even if they look healthy (what the western life style deems healthy, anyway). And to end this pointless conversation, MMA is JUST a sport, NOT a martial art. MMA fighters are ATHLETES and nothing more.

Mike Tyson broke a bone in his right hand during a street brawl with pro boxer Mitch Green. It's one thing to hit with the gloves on to protect your hand and another to hit bone against bone. The reality and the mentality on the streets is very different than that in a cage fight . On the street, in a potential dangerous or life threatening situation, it doesn't matter if you are Fedor or a super MMA athlete, because there is NO fight going on. There is only VIOLENCE and the one who is doing it usually prevails. MMA fighting is just a combat sport. It has nothing to do with the true martial arts. Internal martial arts like Bagua, Tai Chi, Hsing I, are true martial arts and they were proven as such by being the choice of the imperial guards during the Manchu occupation of China. Times have changed, the great exponents of these arts are gone and with them the secrets of applying these arts in combat. That's why there is a decline on the fame of these MAs as true combat systems.

MMA is just a sport. Nothing more, nothing less. It has nothing to do with martial arts, which are solely designed to kill an opponent (wearing armor or not) and not score points, knock outs and tap outs. In ancient Greece this distinction was very clear. The MMA of this period was called Pankration (a very cruel sport which was the highlight of the Olympic Games) but it was distinctly different from the martial art in the battlefield which was called Pammachon. Alexander the Great for example, forbid his soldiers to train in Pankration in order not to lose their fighting edge. Spartans did the same and they were holding the Pankration in contempt (in Pankration eye gouging and bitting were forbiden, but in Sparta during training these were allowed!!). MMA fighters are well trained ATHLETES. Great stamina, great punching power (with gloves on), great punishment threshold, but... that's it.

This sounds much like Gurdjieff's system.

Good, neither am I. I can definetely say to you, that eating pork is NOT prohibited in ANY way, in the orthodox or catholic tradition. That is your interpretation (I don't agree) and it is fine by me.

Scotty, I didn't say that the laws were abolished, but they were "perfected" and "revised". For example the Moses' law of "an eye for an eye" became, "turn the other cheek when being hit", etc. This is not as you said a christian forum and this kind of discusion will take forever. As far as eating pig is conserned, there is absolutely no restriction in the religion as it is practiced today.

My friend, the old testament is not consider a book of rules by the christian tradition as it is practiced today. There are NO restrictions imposed to eating pig or any other meat.

Christians are allowed to eat any kind of meat they desire in moderation. In the bible (new testament) there is no restriction whatsoever about eating pig or any other animal. The above passages they have nothing to do with pigs or eating for that matter. I don't know where you find or who gave you these information.

Hi there! This is an amazing community and I'm hoping to learn a lot about the current qigong/neikung practices and the contemporary "big names" in this industry. I've been studying qigong mainly from Yang Jwing Ming's books and DVD's but I haven't seriously done any of the practices. I guess I believe that without a guidance of a true master my efforts will be wasted. Anyway, it's good to be here and I hope my stay will be rewarded. Cheers!!