A Case Study in the Modernist Mess

(and why you should care)

Scholastic Roach

Recently I have found an almost perfect example of the modernist tendency to simplify and streamline rather than practice and understand.  What's really scary is that it is passed off as a traditional style rather than being admittedly modern. To misquote a large ferret we know: if they say reality based training, leave and watch your wallet as you go.     

TInker: Did he really say that?

As has been pointed out by one of our more intelligent readers, not all traditions are valid nor are all pure. Traditional systems change:  the sport of boxe-francaise, still a traditional system especially as taught , started out as street fighting method used by the poor and working class, and many of the wu-shu styles were once local self defense systems. Traditional systems also developed for other methods: traditional aikido is more of a quest for personal improvement than fighting.  But what happens to a tradition when the degradation starts?

Chinese martial arts present an interesting opportunity to study this effect, as China has undergone three governments (imperial, democratic, communism) and at least one major conquest (WW2) during the last hundred years. So if you are really really lucky, you can find a lineage of hsing-i that dates back to the Imperial days, and if you look, you can find variations from the Republic and the Communist periods too. When you do, you will notice a couple of things. First off, the older style will tend to be more complex than the later ones. This is because both post-imperial governments try to simplify and classify the various styles of martial arts. This also happened in Chinese Medicine after the Cultural revolution where everything was adjusted to fit the acupuncture model. Add to this the fact everyone in TCM schools seems to want to learn sticking people with needles (faster, higher profit) and the subtleties of the related systems like massage, herbalism, etc is lost.

Secondly, little things that did not fit the understanding of the system were dropped. So the later the hsing-i is, the less fluid and more staccato it is, the more emphasis one sees on the elements instead of the harmonies and the animals, the stronger the overlay of Daoist theory. Since the systems of tai chi, baqua and hsing-i are supposed to be different styles, any overlap is removed and moves that don't look hsing-i enough are dropped.  Hebei Hsing-i seems to be a simpler form of Shanxi, rather than the complex blend with the baqua that it was in the Empire. This isn't just one of us sniffing the mothballs again either. Traditional had a discussion some years back with a Canadian who teaches older style hsing-i and he was asked: does all the modern Hebei stuff seem like Shanxi to you? His teachers follow a variation taught to troops after World War I and he sees a different. Similarly his stuff looks too hard to someone whose lineage came over when the emperors were still around. So what results is a art with a fraction of the depth and effectiveness of the older style.

The reductionism is taken even farther by the current trend, from both Republican and Communist teachers, of saying that hsing-i, baqua and taichi are three legs of one stool.

Traditional: heh. That's actually a good pun.

Practical: I think she mean a chair...

Traditional: Maybe. But it is true both ways.

The idea that all internal arts are one is a direct result of the purifying the systems. Older masters would say you could really learn one and then you could fake the other two, but the quality of the movement wouldn't be right. However the deep instinctual learning that makes them look like magic means its very hard to really learn all three. So rather than accept the fact that the problem has multiple solutions, the modernist trend is to force them into a fake relationship, one that shows the lack of depth of knowledge he has.

Tinker:  Which isn't to say that you couldn't pick up a form and benefit from learning

Tinker:  What?  I just admitted you're right for once...

But how does this apply to the classical mess? Well, when your system has been overly purified and reeks of empty ritual, when you haven't learned it all and still try to pretend you have, you end up here. It's like the story of the fellow who popularized the term "classical mess."  He ran into kicking techniques in the US and when he went back to Hong Kong, tried to show his teacher how he improved the system. He then accused his teacher of holding out on him because there was a way in the system to counter kicking attacks. Well, wing chun, despite the accusations of being a triply debased system, has been around a bit and had to learn to cope with kicks. His three years of study didn't get there. What he had was a fragment of the system, not the whole thing.

Similarly, with both the reality-based systems and the western martial arts, the vast majority of players have not totally mastered the systems in which they started out. For what ever reason, they decide to go out and create their own style. Now created or patched together systems can work. However, when they do, it is because the founder had great skill in the systems from which he drew. Great skill and a deep understanding.  I am not saying it can't be done, because it can, but it is harder than it seems. One can name a couple of really good styles that exist today because someone did this. One can also name hundreds of things that tried and failed.  Otherwise so much of western martial arts won't look like bad arnis (or truly horrific kenjutsu) and so many JKD players wouldn't be doing basically kali with some additions.

The classical mess exists because of two things: cultural degradations of the arts so they become empty rituals, and half- trained students wanting to teach more than to learn. Sadly, the second one is what the people who liberate themselves from the classical mess do to themselves. Except since they are now outside the system, there is no way to come back and compare what they've gained to what they've lost.  The combatives crowd has some justifiable concerns -- it is a sad fact that many so-called instructors wouldn't last ten seconds with a competent mugger.  But in the process, how much do they lose?  A member of the combatives community who is hung up on the "unbeatable" jab misses serious theoretical concepts preserved in the classical martial arts... one being that circles counter straight lines, and straight lines circles.  If the better representatives of the breed -- not the cynical players fleecing the gullible -- were less belligerent and more willing to take data from those laboring in a slightly different social context, they would be able to take those axioms, and apply it to their reductio ad absurdum... and perhaps eventually come up with respectable product.

Traditional:  Said theory is not expressed in all traditional styles... and it's more complicated than that, anyway.

Practical:  Good Boy!  Wait a minute... who's been feeding Troll the brain flakes?

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