Chain of disillusionment

[Maddie]

I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, (I'm pretty sure its likely though) but I feel like the UFC/MMA phenomenon exposing a lot of traditional martial arts as BS has caused me to question things way beyond the scope of just martial arts. Basically in my mind I think "well if these martial art forms that I used to admire were shown to be frauds then what else from the East that I admired is a fraud? Qigong, religions, philosophies?". Has this happened to anyone else? 

[silent thunder]

Nope.

I haven't seen any form wide fraud, or one form of utter dominance. 

Only flaws, or excellation in personal expressions of forms, that varies from bout to bout and with opponent to opponent.

[Maddie]

14 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Nope.

I haven't seen any form wide fraud, or one form of utter dominance. 

Only flaws, or excellation in personal expressions of forms, that varies from bout to bout and with opponent to opponent.

 

Have you never seen the early UFC's or early Gracie material in general? They basically owned every style of traditional martial arts. 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Maddie

[Taoist Texts]

 

17 minutes ago, Maddie said:

then what else from the East that I admired is a fraud? 

east or west all things are just like a mirror

[silent thunder]

@Maddie yes.  I've trained and studied in many forms and watched and participated for decades.  No one style has ever revealed as 'the ultimate' to me.  Certain practioners will rise and diminish, but no one style is 'the ultimate' in my perception.

 

BJJ is effective in certain circumstances, but is still a sport based form and is not the be all and end all of combat forms.  The Gracies met their 'Gracie hunter' and several generations of them were owned by him for about 17 years if memory serves.

 

All combat is situational and dependent upon many factors... most seemingly the training habits and current overall health of each combatant.

 

Sport combat is not full combat.  So all speculation about superiority is based on projection of assumptions and bias about perception of such, (at least for me).

Edited November 9, 2023 by silent thunder

[Maddie]

35 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Sport combat is not full combat.  So all speculation about superiority is based on projection of assumptions and bias about perception of such, (at least for me).

 

I wasn't really talking about combat, just the issue of systems that made claims that turned out to be unfounded.

[silent thunder]

I hear you Maddie.  The topic is a remarkably deep well with so many intricacies that wend so many ways, talking about it often seems like trying to gather mist with one's hands. 

I appreciate your sharing. 

[Gerard]

Please watch this documentary:

 

https://youtu.be/yxaPxNWNzK0?si=Lsf6HTTeBxGwEiVj

 

It will certainly answer your question.

 

MMA are not martial arts. End of story.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Gerard

[Nungali]

5 hours ago, Maddie said:

I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, (I'm pretty sure its likely though) but I feel like the UFC/MMA phenomenon exposing a lot of traditional martial arts as BS has caused me to question things way beyond the scope of just martial arts. Basically in my mind I think "well if these martial art forms that I used to admire were shown to be frauds then what else from the East that I admired is a fraud? Qigong, religions, philosophies?". Has this happened to anyone else? 

 

Yep .... but stuff from my own culture as well    

[Nungali]

5 hours ago, Maddie said:

 

Have you never seen the early UFC's or early Gracie material in general? They basically owned every style of traditional martial arts. 

 

 

 

Errrmmm they popped a huge fraud  in their 'take on all challengers' and win comp . people didnt see though it, thought they where tops  and flocked to them to pay to learn .

 

The whole thing was a scammy set up .  Not saying they cant fight and win ... they did ... for a while ... until

 

" The Gracie Hunter "   ....   old Pop Gracie was  fair sportsman, he did acknowledge the defeat of his sons  by this guy ..... but the sheer look of 'I wanna rip your head off' certainly accompanied his 'acknowledgement nod' .  They knew how that was gonna effect their incomes . 

 

 

[Nungali]

17 minutes ago, Gerard said:

Please watch this documentary:

 

https://youtu.be/yxaPxNWNzK0?si=Lsf6HTTeBxGwEiVj

 

It will certainly answer your question.

 

MMA are not martial arts. End of story.

 

I am on slow 3G here , so the video isnt loading .

 

Why is mixed martial arts not martial arts  ? 

 

I have done several martial arts in my time and now I mix the best parts of them that are most suitable to me and my situation , why is this not considered martial arts ?

 

The martial arts tradition  I mostly come from instructed us to do exactly that : rigid forms and following your teacher was only the first  stage . If you dont go beyond that , you are still practicing martial arts , just doing someone else's practice .

[Maddie]

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

Why is mixed martial arts not martial arts  ? 

 

Yes I have the same question. 

 

But I think everyone's getting in the Weeds about the martial arts aspect of this and not the questioning that comes out of it.

[ChiDragon]

4 hours ago, Nungali said:

Why is mixed martial arts not martial arts  ?

Mixed martial arts is to fight dirty without rules. You can hit any part of the body of the opponent. Except one place.

[Neirong]

9 hours ago, Maddie said:

Basically in my mind I think "well if these martial art forms that I used to admire were shown to be frauds then what else from the East that I admired is a fraud? Qigong, religions, philosophies?".

Just because you have disillusioned yourself does not mean everyone else has. People here will protect their cults and delusions with swords and fumes coming out of their mouths (a righteous and spiritual kind of fume, of course). Imagine spending your whole life living in a certain "reality", dedicating decades to training and reinforcing it.
 

People who talk poorly about MMA, a sport that produces fighters with lightning reflexes and massive strength, that compete at the highest level, claiming they are not real fighters because they follow some common-sense rules like no eye-gouging. Simultaneously, they promote McDojos with fragile individuals who seemingly have never seen a gym in their lives, as true martial artists.

This kind of reality denial/obscuration does not lend any credibility to whatever they want to promote; on the opposite, 'internal arts' already have a terrible reputation in society.

[Sanity Check]

 

Commercialization of the arts led to a softer and safer approach. Diminishing the reliability and effectiveness of the arts.

 

There are so many opportunities, time sinks and distractions in the modern world everything has to compete for a small pie slice of time and money people have available.

 

There's so much to see and do. So much information & content available. Its hard to focus and be single minded towards pursuits like martial arts or qigong. It may have been easier in past eras when there were fewer distractions.

 

The arts have adapted and changed to suit our shifting environment. As has qigong, religion and philosophy.

 

 

 

 

 

[Gerard]

5 hours ago, Neirong said:

People who talk poorly about MMA, a sport that produces fighters with lightning reflexes and massive strength, that compete at the highest level, claiming they are not real fighters because they follow some common-sense rules like no eye-gouging. 

 

Yeah right:

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Neirong said:

 on the opposite, 'internal arts' already have a terrible reputation in society.

Far from that:

 

Ba Gua Quan

 

https://www.energyarts.com/bagua-why-practice-this-old-and-obscure-art-part-1-2/

 

Tai Chi Chuan

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254613000999
 

Xingyi Quan

 

https://www.internalartsinternational.com/xing-yi-quan/

 

Wonderful arts that will change your life entirely for good. 

[Gerard]

10 hours ago, Nungali said:

Why is mixed martial arts not martial arts  ? 

Not much different than boxing.

 

Real Martial Arts are about conquering yourself rather than hurting others. 
 

The greatest battle happens within you! 

[Gerard]

10 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

I am on slow 3G here , so the video isnt loading .

 

If you ever can load it on YT, the title is:

 

Karate: The Heart of Propriety - Spiritual Explorers

[Maddie]

Again I want to reiterate that the point of this post wasn't to start another MMA versus traditional martial arts debate but to ask those who have become disillusioned with fake traditional martial arts because of the MMA phenomenon if it affected other things in their life such as religion and or philosophy?

[Vajra Fist]

I'm a member of a Facebook group called 'the Fajin project'

 

Basically, it's a group of sceptics who practice internal martial arts. They revel in this sort of the thing, where qi masters are exposed as frauds.

 

I find it pretty interesting as an observer. They're quite in to realistic fighting applications of taiji, rather than qi emission. But at the same time, refuse to practice an actual effective fighting art like MMA.

 

Personally, I feel taiji and other traditional martial arts have spiritual benefits that make them worthwhile practicing, even if they don't serve much use in an actual physical conflict.

 

For instance, I don't care about being able to light things on fire or give people electrical shocks, if I feel comfortable in my own skin. If I feel healthy, pain free and am able to remain mobile in my older age. If I feel emotionally balanced. These things are not fake.

 

With regards to buddhism, I don't know what stream entry is like, or how an arhat looks at the world.

 

But I do know that meditation calms my mind. I have the space to examine my own mind from a position of patience and honesty, and hopefully I'm becoming a better person to be around as a result. 

 

Conversely, I feel like the Judeo-Christian path of faith, where you don't feel any immediate benefit from your practice but expect to at the end of your life, is a riskier approach.

[Sanity Check]

9 minutes ago, Maddie said:

Again I want to reiterate that the point of this post wasn't to start another MMA versus traditional martial arts debate but to ask those who have become disillusioned with fake traditional martial arts because of the MMA phenomenon if it affected other things in their life such as religion and or philosophy?

 

 

Fake martial arts is a recent development.

 

Traditional martial artists used to train, spar, compete and fight.

 

Its only recently that they abandoned these practices.

 

The UFC began throwing money at martial artists to compete and that advanced everything to a higher level. But ultimately it became more about who the superior athlete is, more than which art is better. 

 

Traditional martial artists were incorporating wrestling and submissions into their game as far back as the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Chuck Norris was training with the Gracie jiu jitsu family back in the 1980s (video is 10 years old, he says he's trained with them for 30 years at that point in time 30 + 10 = 40 years ago):

 

 

 

[Maddie]

Anyway since everyone keeps wanting to bring it back to MMA versus traditional martial arts I'll move along with an example of my own lol.

 

Since there's video after video of a Tai chi Master being beat up by an MMA fighter I began to look at other examples where the claims didn't meet reality. As a Buddhist I began to question why even though Buddhism claims to teach the path to enlightenment you never see anybody that's actually enlightened and the sutra say it's supposed to bring benefit here and now. Just as one example.

 Dear I mention the lack of any actual immortals in Taoism?

Edited November 10, 2023 by Maddie

[Nahfets]

The World operates as a quantum realm. The enlightened and immortals don't usually cross paths with lower frequency thinkers. Doesn't mean they are not around. Also most highly developed in the true arts of the old martial skills would be able to knock out any MMA fighter from a distance even. Or worse snakefist them making their insides go black for them to die soon after. They don't show off nor allow themselves to interact with the scheme of prestige, competition and crowds. This is the fundamental ethics of higher powers, I thought most people in here would know that. 

If you wan't to learn these skills it requires a lifetime but I got a lot of the old manuals and they are indeed not bogus when you know the theory. To master it is a whole other thing and the disciplin is too much for most people today. But you can still find people around Asia with the skill of striking from afar. Even in Tenaga Dalam this is tought in levels very much like Mo Pai. 

A LDT at overfull capacity, and the ability to project the qi up along the du and ren mai at the same time into fully opened yang meridians and laogongs are just the basics. 

 

Most people today enjoy the false disillousionment of myth-busting spiritual truths and skills due to the pain of them not having acces to their own true higher self, and spiritual path, get's reverted into joy of arrogance. 

 

 

[Maddie]

11 minutes ago, Nahfets said:

. Also most highly developed in the true arts of the old martial skills would be able to knock out any MMA fighter from a distance even. Or worse snakefist them making their insides go black for them to die soon after.

 

 

Well there's certainly a lot of people who make that claim but every time they fight a real fighter they get their ass beat.

[Nahfets]

They don't show off nor allow themselves to interact with the scheme of prestige, competition and crowds." Quote: