Stop hiding behind linage and ancestors

If you practice Kung Fu for health reasons, tradition, as a form of spiritual system, religion, or something that helps you in your personal growth and development this article is not for you, on the other hand if you practice Kung Fu as a fighting art or at least you believe that you practice it as a fighting art this article is for you.

There is prevalent believe in Kung Fu circles that linage is not only important but crucial for determining the effectiveness of particular style. More than often can be heard, when a teacher wants to prove validity of the technique he is teaching to pull the argument “my teacher …(some famous name, supposed unbeatable fighter) taught me that way. Besides that, when teachers who don’t spar or fight want to prove the effectiveness of their system pull the argument like :” That ancestor had hundreds of fights and never lost” or something like that often underlining almost supernatural abilities of that ancestor gained through Kung Fu practice.

People take pride in following certain linage and believe that somehow they inherit supposed fighting abilities of some famous ancestor or founder of the style. While lineage may be important for people whose main purpose of training is to preserve and maintain tradition and in some cases for people who practice Kung Fu as a sort of surrogate religion in real life fighting, whether it is competition fighting or selfdefense, linage has no importance what so ever. Proving effectiveness of the style is simply not logical, effectiveness depends solely of a person not the style. Proving effectiveness of the style by putting up some supposed achievements of people who lived centuries ago is not only illogical it is stupid. Saying something like “ my art is efficient because some person 100 years ago had 300 fights and never lost” is same as saying “ I learned physics form Einstein’s son, the most famous physicist of all times, I know physics better than anyone”  

Empty hand fighting evolved more in last 100 years than in all human history before. Stubbornly keeping “tradition” and claiming it is the most effective fighting system in existence, and most of Kung Fu people claim that, is simply in collision with reality. Training approaches and “techniques” from past were proven inadequate in today’s fighting arena. ‘Tradition” has potential to completely destroy Chinese martial arts, at least to destroy them as fighting systems.

There is a lot of wisdom and experience preserved in TCMA. Centuries of fighting gained a lot of knowledge of the human body and how to use it in most effective way. Unfortunately, due to social and political changes TCMA stopped to be pure fighting arts and became what are they today. Pure fighting development simply stopped and martial styles started to develop in several directions, non of them fighting orientated.  Still, basic principles are still there and they can be utilized quite successfully with proper training approach. Modern martial arts starting to discover principles of body structure and efficiency known to TCMA for centuries, but unlike TCMA today , modern combat sports concentrate their training approach on fighting efficiency of each person in training. TCMA have great potential to enable a lot of people for at least basic selfdefnse  and more with just little changes in training approach.

Linage and ancestor will not help when someone finds him self in a situation where fighting skills are necessary. Spirit of Yip Man, Wong Fei Hung or Chan San Feng will take over your body and help you save your life, only thing that will save your life is proper training. Being part of some old, exotic, rare linage is cool but it doesn’t mean anything in real life fight. Be proud of your linage and your art but train hard and prepare your self for every possible situation.