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5. No Substitute For Skill

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No Substitute For Skill?

A lot of modern martial artists would consider technical skill to be the most important quality. In America some tournaments have now done away entirely with objective assessment of skill such as awarding points for successful strikes or throws and instead require the judges to rate each competitor as belonging to one of five levels. For example someone rated as very advanced would receive an "AA" rating of between 9.00 and 10.00 points, while someone rated a beginner would receive a "C" rating of between 6.00 and 6.99 points.
I don't agree with this method of assessment. I have seen many fights both in and outside the competition arena where the less technically skilled fighter has won. This can be done by using superior tactics, or by having greater endurance, or by possessing greater power or spirit. I don't wish to discuss tactics much in this article. Instead let me repeat an old saying about Chinese martial arts:- "Learning chuan (i.e. any martial system) without learning Kung, even if you train until you are old it is useless."
In other words it is quite possible to learn all the forms and fighting techniques of a system and yet still be unable to defend yourself effectively. So what is Kung?
Most experienced martial artists would agree that office workers attending a 10 week self defence course are hardly capable thereby of taking on bodyguard duties yet many police officers are patrolling the streets and attending violent incidents with little more training than this. And people wonder why there are so many assaults on police.
But let's not take the easiest case scenario. There are many myths in the martial arts which people buy into when they join a martial arts club. For example in karate there is the concept of "one block, one punch" in response to an attack. Yet this is an ideal that most black belt exponents would be hard put to aspire to. I fully accept that a 10 stone bank clerk with a karate black belt from a reputable school could usually beat other 10 stone bank clerks who have no training. It is a big step from there to assume that our bank clerk could usually beat a much larger and rougher gentleman who also was without formal training.
When I first did Chinese full contact fighting, I was neither 10 stone nor a bank clerk, although I did have a karate black belt. I quickly learned that Kung or the acquisition of abilities through effort was of the utmost importance.
Technique takes time to refine and improve, but power, endurance and spirit can be built up in a much shorter period. This is evident from my own experience. In 1976 when I represented Hong Kong in the 4th South East Asian Chinese Full Contact Championships, in my first fight, I received two black eyes, a bleeding nose, a cut lip and severe bruising from the left hip down to the foot from Thai Boxing kicks and stamps. When I won the open weight division in 1980 at the 5th South East Asian Championships, I didn't have a mark on me. On the first occasion I relied more on my kung training, while on the second occasion although I did at least the same amount of kung training, the crucial difference was in increased skill and tactical knowledge.
In Tai Chi Chuan we train Nei Kung or internal strength. This is a set of 12 yin and 12 yang exercises. The yin exercises train the body to withstand blows help to develop focused power and refine technique; the yang exercises are more dynamic and are designed to increase muscular strength. Apart from this we have other types of training which help to condition the body and improve strength or stamina; we can call these kung also in that they are also methods of acquiring ability through effort.
So is it just a matter of going along to your local kung fu school to learn their kung method? Unfortunately life is a little bit more complicated than that. In Chinese martial arts there are two types of students and two corresponding methods of teaching. In open classes all students train together in most of the forms and techniques of the particular system. However, there are also closed door classes for those students who have gone through a formal ceremony to pay their respects to the memory of the system's founder, to their teacher and to more senior members of the school.
In Tai Chi Chuan Nei Kung is only taught to closed door students. When my teacher first started teaching Tai Chi Chuan in the Hong Kong of the 1940s, he was 19 years of age. At that time there were many famous old teachers resident in Hong Kong. He became successful not just because of his knowledge and ability, but also because unlike the old masters, he did not require students to wait six years before starting to show them Nei Kung. I have adopted the same policy in the belief that although advertising in Combat is essential (the cheque's in the post), the best advertisement for any teacher is his students; for them to be an effective advertisement it is necessary to give them kung training from an early stage.
Some time ago some of my students were doing full contact training with students from other Chinese styles. One young man who attended was hit by a hand technique to the body by a Choi Li Fat stylist. He went down and stayed down for a while. The young man took some time out to recover. He then resumed sparring with a Tiger Crane stylist. He was kicked to the body. He went down again. He took more time out. The young man had a lot of guts, what he didn't have was kung. I hope he has acquired some now.
Students of Choi Li Fat Sifu Edmund Ng from Newcastle attended the same training session. I have never met Sifu Ng, but I was impressed by the attitude and spirit of these young men. They were a credit to their teacher. They could hit and they didn't complain when they were hit. They had kung.
Rather than helping Chinese martial arts to prosper and survive, many teachers, sometimes with the best of motives are emasculating them in the same way that many teachers of Japanese and Korean martial arts have emasculated their systems. In traditional karate schools in Okinawa, training aids such as makiwara and chi'ishi are routine, yet there are many "traditional" karateka who have never seen either let alone used either.
I think it is important for martial artists to learn technique, but many become mere technicians, knowing and teaching many different concepts, able to talk intelligently about fighting, and showing techniques which are effective in seminars only. Many technicians affect to despise full contact fighting and make derogatory remarks while claiming that they train "street-fighting techniques". Yet they do not consider whether it would preferable to fight a highly skilled and fit opponent in open competition or a beer-bellied lout in a back alley. In either scenario my money would not be on the technician.
The fact is that kung training is tough, tiring and time consuming. It's a lot easier to teach forms and techniques and let the students think that they are doing real martial arts. A lot of martial arts teachers don't know kung training, some know it but don't want to teach it, either because it might cost them students or their students might be a danger to them.
So ask yourself why you are training in the martial arts. Are you a technician? Do you do enough kung training? Remember it is the best substitute there is for skill.

Other articles by Sifu Dan Docherty can be found on
 the Practical Tai Chi Website

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My Sifu, Edmund Ng

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