Article taken from: www.scmp.com
Nobody is kung fu fighting: Chinese martial artists ordered to stop organising their own bouts
Sports authority issues series of orders to kung fu practitioners after tai chi master’s crushing defeat at hands of mixed martial arts fighter
The directive, issued by the General Administration of Sport on Thursday, bans a total of eight practices and follows an intense debate across the country prompted by the humiliating defeat of a tai chi master by a mixed martial artist in April.
Many questioned the merits of traditional martial arts after the fight, in which the founder of “thunder style” tai chi was defeated within 10 seconds by the MMA fighter.
In the directive, which aims to tighten regulations on martial arts-related activities, the General Administration of Sport said practitioners should “build correct values about martial arts”.
Among the top sins they should avoid were “creating one’s own style, organising a fight without a permit from the authorities, malicious attacks, slandering or discriminating against others”, according to the document.
Claiming to be the “authentic” successor of a particular art was also on the banned list, because the administrators said the practice was misleading the public.
The directive further warned against moneymaking activities such as accepting apprentices, making inappropriate remarks, creating and spreading rumours, as well as fabricating certificates for athletes, coaches and judges.
Mixed martial arts vs tai chi group brawl stopped by police in Shanghai but battle rages on online
The government’s intervention in fights between martial artists, a traditionally private activity, raised eyebrows on social media.
“Creating one’s own style of martial art [is banned]? Weren’t all the existing styles created by people? Organising private fights [is also banned]?
“Isn’t competing and finding out their strengths and weaknesses what martial artists should do?” one user commented on the social media platform Weibo.
Gone in 10 seconds – Chinese MMA fighter wipes floor with ‘thunder-style’ tai chi master
“It’s just afraid that more kung fu masters will be defeated, isn’t it?” Wang Xu, an online commentator in Beijing, wrote on the microblogging platform.
The defeat of Wei Lei, a tai chi master, at the hands of Xu Xiaodong, an MMA fighter, in April had followed a war of words over which of the two arts was stronger.
Xu, who is known for his provocative comments, had described traditional martial arts as a “farce”.
Wei, who was described by state media as one of China’s greatest tai chi masters, said he wanted to take the fight because Xu had insulted tai chi and “cursed at the ancestors”.
April’s fight between Wei Lei, left, and Xu Xiaodong ended swiftly. Photo: SCMP
Xu’s comprehensive and swift victory in front of a large crowd in the western city of Chengdu only served to pour fuel on the fire.
His microblogging account was deactivated in light of the attention he had attracted and a new account that appeared to be his was also later blocked, the Beijing Times reported.
Xu arranged a contest with another tai chi master Ma Baoguo in Shanghai in June after tai chi supporters demanded a rematch, but the fight was halted by police,
Xu later claimed that the officers had been tipped off by a relative of Ma’s in an attempt to sabotage the bout.
Tai chi master ‘sabotaged fight’, MMA fighter claims after police halt Shanghai contest
Gong Maofu, associate professor from the martial arts school of the Chengdu Sport Institute, said the directive was apparently motivated by a desire to create a better environment but whether it would be truly implemented remained a question as this was only an administrative order.
“It’s very difficult to carry out [these bans]. There’s no legal clause for reference if there’s another fight like that. It’s still unclear who is to supervise this and impose the punishment,” Gong said.
He added that it was meaningless to conclude that Chinese kung fu was weaker than Western martial arts because of a contest between two individuals.
“The result of a fight depends on several factors – who is fighting, how they are fighting, and when,” he said, echoing many internet users’ opinion that Wei was too weak to represent Chinese kung fu.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Authorities don’t pull punches with martial arts rules
Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 March 2018
Wednesday, 16 April 2014
The Modern Chinese Fighter
Article source: http://fightland.vice.com/blog/the-modern-chinese-fighter
The Modern Chinese Fighter Fightland BlogBy Sascha Matuszak
Deep in the mountains of southwest China, lives an ex-bare knuckle kungfu fighter named Zou Fan. She says she fought “hundreds” of fights in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, before the Chinese Wushu Association, which governs combat sports, outlawed unsanctioned, bare knuckle matches. Now she spends her time practicing taiji in a courtyard of her Kungfu Eyrie, overlooking the lush valleys below.
Zou Fan came up in an interesting period for traditional Chinese martial arts. In 1979, after protracted infighting, a bout of nationwide insanity, and the death of Mao Zedong, the Head Communist in Charge, Deng Xiaoping, opened China’s doors and exhorted the downtrodden masses to get rich or die trying.
Part of that opening up included the establishment of a national Wushu Association, with provincial and local offices, each with the mandate to revive and sustain traditional Chinese martial arts on the Mainland.
Bruce Lee’s fame was already spreading across the globe and filtering through into Mainland China, despite the government’s—and many traditionalist’s—initial snub of the unpatriotic kungfu kid who had taken his skills to the West. The official line softened against Bruce Lee, and kungfu in general, after 1979. A generation of kids born in the late 1970s—brought up on Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan’s “Drunken Fist,” and other more obscure kungfu films, like the Wushu Association sponsored, “Little Heroes”—were finally able to legally and openly seek out kungfu masters.
From 1979 to the mid 1990s schools popped up across China, eventually leading to small fight circuits pitting martial artists from different styles and schools against each other. Zou Fan came up during this period, a wild explosion of martial arts fed by long pent up desires, and the appeal of modern martial arts movies.
I asked Zou Fan why she fought in bare knuckle matches.
“I loved fighting back then, I wanted to be the best. I fought anybody. We had a lot of organized matches, there were also grudge matches between people who didn’t like my master, or who wanted to discredit Kun Lun style. ”
Many traditional martial artists who fought or trained during this period believe that those days, when people fought for honor and pride, are over. Today, they say, it’s only money and bullshit. No art. No realness. It is ironic to hear that from traditional kungfu masters, who themselves are routinely dismissed by competitive fightersand Chinese society in general—for having no use in today’s modern world.
But a lot of what these old kungfu masters say is true. After the underground, regional martial arts fight circuits were dismantled and replaced with combat sports and performance wushu, a different type of Chinese fighter took the stage.
Today’s Chinese Fighter
Two major trends came together to put an end to the kungfu fight circuit: sportification and the one-child family.
China’s Wushu Associations are the agent of sportification. They promote performance wushu—the acrobatic routines based on kungfu forms—and Sanda combat sports through tournaments, standardized rules, state-sponsored training facilities, certified coaches, and most importantly, pay. Like most things communist, the system is heavy on numbers and low on excellence. The system basically relies on a continuous supply of work-horse fighters and performers to compete constantly within the regional and national circuit, generating a steady supply of cash from sponsors along the way. For strong provincial teams, or strong sports institutions, the fight game can be very lucrative.
And lucrative is the absolute key to growing anything in China today. Money and the pursuit of wealth rules this country and bothers the minds of all Chinese living in Mainland China. Traditionally, Chinese parents provide their children with education, and oftentimes their first home, whereupon the children repay their parents by taking care of them in old age. It’s common for three generations to live together in one home.
Now with the one-child policy, this tradition of taking care of each other is breaking down. Parents can’t always afford homes; children can’t afford to take care of their parents. There is a ton of pressure on everyone to be exceedingly pragmatic about their choices. Doing anything for “honor” is considered by most Chinese to be stupid, and contrary to one’s very basic self interest. Getting kicked in the face for pride is just ridiculous.
Most of China’s fighters come from the poorest regions of China. A lot of them are also ethnic minorities or farmers, in general a notch below everyone else in terms of living standards. For urban kids, fighting for a living makes no sense at all; for rural kids, fighting only makes sense if the paycheck is proper and guaranteed.
So today’s Chinese fighters often ask their promotions not what the win bonuses are, but how much they get paid to show. State-sponsored Sanda or MMA fighters in China receive room and board from their training facilities, and the best ones get a salary. They also fight a few times a month, outside of any contracts they have with say, the UFC or RUFF, to make extra cash. It’s a job, not a pursuit.
Major Western-oriented promotions like the UFC, RUFF, and OneFC have had issues with their Chinese fighters not taking fights seriously, not performing up to their best abilities, and not training properly. But in this context, “training properly” means fighting for excellence, and that may not be the major motivation for most Chinese fighters.
I spoke to Herb Dean on the sidelines of RUFF 12, and one of the things we talked about was the huge gap in living standards between an American MMA fighter and a Chinese MMA fighter. In Dean’s hometown of LA, people shot at each other over sneakers, but even in the worst neighborhoods, people had homes, yards, and refrigerators.
“These kids out here grow up with a lot less than any of those gangsters in LA,“ said Herb.
The New Chinese Fighter
The Chinese government is petrified of pretty much everything. One fear in particular is the fear of realness. Anyone living in a communist society is living in a big lie. Fake courts and fake judges, fake equality and fake morals. In China they are dealing with fake food and drink, fake faces and fake concrete. A famous Chinese author, Yu Hua, said that the only thing you can know to be real is a fake fake. Chinese politics dictates that the lie must be upheld at all costs.
But Chinese politics also dictates that globalization—controlled and filtered—is required in order for the state to survive.
Enter MMA. No sport, save perhaps football, is as powerful a globalizing force. And no combat sport is as real. MMA has its roots in parking lot matches and underground fight clubs, the appeal is both complete and utter realness and the power to tear down protectionist barriers and level the playing field. Everybody’s invited and fake fighters get stomped out, it’s that simple.
Moving toward realness in combat sports, and in society as a whole, seems to be a universal trend. In the US we may be going too far, as realness moves through irony into cliche in a heartbeat. But in China, the situation is unique because the people are in the very beginning stages of that movement. Chinese are sick to death of the bullshit, and they want some realness in their lives.
Combat sports is a good place to start. MMA is injecting realness back into the Chinese fight game, and the system is responding. Shows, even the notorious regional ones, place more emphasis on good fights. State-run schools and smaller, private gyms are getting serious about their training. The best fighters are rising to the top. The basic motivation remains the same, feed the family, but now there is more to fight for, because more is required by the game and by society itself.
Written by: Sascha Matuszak Tags: china, Zou Fan, kungfu
The Modern Chinese Fighter Fightland BlogBy Sascha Matuszak
Deep in the mountains of southwest China, lives an ex-bare knuckle kungfu fighter named Zou Fan. She says she fought “hundreds” of fights in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, before the Chinese Wushu Association, which governs combat sports, outlawed unsanctioned, bare knuckle matches. Now she spends her time practicing taiji in a courtyard of her Kungfu Eyrie, overlooking the lush valleys below.
Zou Fan came up in an interesting period for traditional Chinese martial arts. In 1979, after protracted infighting, a bout of nationwide insanity, and the death of Mao Zedong, the Head Communist in Charge, Deng Xiaoping, opened China’s doors and exhorted the downtrodden masses to get rich or die trying.
Part of that opening up included the establishment of a national Wushu Association, with provincial and local offices, each with the mandate to revive and sustain traditional Chinese martial arts on the Mainland.
Bruce Lee’s fame was already spreading across the globe and filtering through into Mainland China, despite the government’s—and many traditionalist’s—initial snub of the unpatriotic kungfu kid who had taken his skills to the West. The official line softened against Bruce Lee, and kungfu in general, after 1979. A generation of kids born in the late 1970s—brought up on Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan’s “Drunken Fist,” and other more obscure kungfu films, like the Wushu Association sponsored, “Little Heroes”—were finally able to legally and openly seek out kungfu masters.
From 1979 to the mid 1990s schools popped up across China, eventually leading to small fight circuits pitting martial artists from different styles and schools against each other. Zou Fan came up during this period, a wild explosion of martial arts fed by long pent up desires, and the appeal of modern martial arts movies.
I asked Zou Fan why she fought in bare knuckle matches.
“I loved fighting back then, I wanted to be the best. I fought anybody. We had a lot of organized matches, there were also grudge matches between people who didn’t like my master, or who wanted to discredit Kun Lun style. ”
Many traditional martial artists who fought or trained during this period believe that those days, when people fought for honor and pride, are over. Today, they say, it’s only money and bullshit. No art. No realness. It is ironic to hear that from traditional kungfu masters, who themselves are routinely dismissed by competitive fightersand Chinese society in general—for having no use in today’s modern world.
But a lot of what these old kungfu masters say is true. After the underground, regional martial arts fight circuits were dismantled and replaced with combat sports and performance wushu, a different type of Chinese fighter took the stage.
Today’s Chinese Fighter
Two major trends came together to put an end to the kungfu fight circuit: sportification and the one-child family.
China’s Wushu Associations are the agent of sportification. They promote performance wushu—the acrobatic routines based on kungfu forms—and Sanda combat sports through tournaments, standardized rules, state-sponsored training facilities, certified coaches, and most importantly, pay. Like most things communist, the system is heavy on numbers and low on excellence. The system basically relies on a continuous supply of work-horse fighters and performers to compete constantly within the regional and national circuit, generating a steady supply of cash from sponsors along the way. For strong provincial teams, or strong sports institutions, the fight game can be very lucrative.
And lucrative is the absolute key to growing anything in China today. Money and the pursuit of wealth rules this country and bothers the minds of all Chinese living in Mainland China. Traditionally, Chinese parents provide their children with education, and oftentimes their first home, whereupon the children repay their parents by taking care of them in old age. It’s common for three generations to live together in one home.
Now with the one-child policy, this tradition of taking care of each other is breaking down. Parents can’t always afford homes; children can’t afford to take care of their parents. There is a ton of pressure on everyone to be exceedingly pragmatic about their choices. Doing anything for “honor” is considered by most Chinese to be stupid, and contrary to one’s very basic self interest. Getting kicked in the face for pride is just ridiculous.
Most of China’s fighters come from the poorest regions of China. A lot of them are also ethnic minorities or farmers, in general a notch below everyone else in terms of living standards. For urban kids, fighting for a living makes no sense at all; for rural kids, fighting only makes sense if the paycheck is proper and guaranteed.
So today’s Chinese fighters often ask their promotions not what the win bonuses are, but how much they get paid to show. State-sponsored Sanda or MMA fighters in China receive room and board from their training facilities, and the best ones get a salary. They also fight a few times a month, outside of any contracts they have with say, the UFC or RUFF, to make extra cash. It’s a job, not a pursuit.
Major Western-oriented promotions like the UFC, RUFF, and OneFC have had issues with their Chinese fighters not taking fights seriously, not performing up to their best abilities, and not training properly. But in this context, “training properly” means fighting for excellence, and that may not be the major motivation for most Chinese fighters.
I spoke to Herb Dean on the sidelines of RUFF 12, and one of the things we talked about was the huge gap in living standards between an American MMA fighter and a Chinese MMA fighter. In Dean’s hometown of LA, people shot at each other over sneakers, but even in the worst neighborhoods, people had homes, yards, and refrigerators.
“These kids out here grow up with a lot less than any of those gangsters in LA,“ said Herb.
The New Chinese Fighter
The Chinese government is petrified of pretty much everything. One fear in particular is the fear of realness. Anyone living in a communist society is living in a big lie. Fake courts and fake judges, fake equality and fake morals. In China they are dealing with fake food and drink, fake faces and fake concrete. A famous Chinese author, Yu Hua, said that the only thing you can know to be real is a fake fake. Chinese politics dictates that the lie must be upheld at all costs.
But Chinese politics also dictates that globalization—controlled and filtered—is required in order for the state to survive.
Enter MMA. No sport, save perhaps football, is as powerful a globalizing force. And no combat sport is as real. MMA has its roots in parking lot matches and underground fight clubs, the appeal is both complete and utter realness and the power to tear down protectionist barriers and level the playing field. Everybody’s invited and fake fighters get stomped out, it’s that simple.
Moving toward realness in combat sports, and in society as a whole, seems to be a universal trend. In the US we may be going too far, as realness moves through irony into cliche in a heartbeat. But in China, the situation is unique because the people are in the very beginning stages of that movement. Chinese are sick to death of the bullshit, and they want some realness in their lives.
Combat sports is a good place to start. MMA is injecting realness back into the Chinese fight game, and the system is responding. Shows, even the notorious regional ones, place more emphasis on good fights. State-run schools and smaller, private gyms are getting serious about their training. The best fighters are rising to the top. The basic motivation remains the same, feed the family, but now there is more to fight for, because more is required by the game and by society itself.
Written by: Sascha Matuszak Tags: china, Zou Fan, kungfu
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