A Mixed Martial Art before MMA

Below is a video about Nippon Kempo. A truly mixed martial art before MMA was cool. Enjoy.

 

 

Northern vs Southern Kung Fu Styles Explained

 

Boxing and Martial Arts in the Movies

Budo Journeyman had an entertaining post on boxing and martial arts as portrayed in movies. Below are some excepts. The original may be read here, where there are lot of clips that you may enjoy.

 

Boxing.

Below is a list of the main themes encountered in boxing movies. But bear in mind that boxing on film has probably the longest history in cinema. Ideal for the silent era, because language is not needed to explain the drama (very early documentary movies feature famous boxing matches).

First theme:

The Underdog.

Pitched against the injustices of society, whether it’s race or class, or the wrong side of the tracks; the ‘zero to hero’ story always has appeal; it offers hope to even the most downtrodden.

Notice how many boxing movies come out of America, clearly it taps into the myth of the American Dream. You could start with Rocky (Stallone) and carry all the way through to the ‘Cinderella Man’ (Russell Crowe), a biopic where the underdog theme is really larded on.

Probably the most famous non-boxing scene from a boxing movie, every line quotable. Great acting ‘On the Waterfront’ 1954, Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger in the back of a taxi.

Second theme:

Obsessions and consequences.

Tragic individuals and catastrophic results.

Probably the most gritty story rendered on to screen is that of Jake LaMotta in the movie ‘Raging Bull’, artfully told by Martin Scorcese. A true-life story of how LaMotta’s urge to make a success of his life and career, results in human carnage, in terms of relationships and family.

LaMotta played by De Niro; strong stuff, not pleasant.

We also need to consider how neither LaMotta nor the fictional Rocky Balboa are blessed with high intelligence; but that seems okay in boxing movies, where philosophy never really gets a look in (unlike martial arts movies). You don’t need deep thinking to understand a boxing match.

Theme three:

Violence packaged for the public in the name of sport.

Naturally, everyone pretty much understands the rules and objectives of a boxing match. Consider also how the contest and the drama is all conveniently contained in a small space; no need for long rolling tracking shots to follow the action. Compared to other action movies, this makes things so much easier to manage.

Also, the narrative on every boxing movie is split into two zones; inside the ring and outside the ring. The viewer unconsciously understands this, and accepts it unconditionally.

We also tolerate the brutality of the ring, no matter how graphic. Example; ‘Raging Bull’ was a movie shot almost entirely in black and white, but it didn’t lessen the gore-factor. In fact, it enhanced it.

The next theme:

Masculinity, and, a place for women?.

There are women’s boxing movies, but they are quite rare (think of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’). Decades ago, the idea was totally unthinkable. There have been combat sports movies with women as the central protagonists; recently ‘Tatami’ 2023, a judo movie which is worth watching, for many reasons, cerebral, cultural and political, and then there’s the judo.

From the male perspective there are often very positive themes of honour, duty and responsibility, as well as sportsmanship (there is also pressure against corruption).

A quick mention of bare-knuckle, whether historical or not. (But, let’s put aside anything with Brad Pitt in it).

My go-to examples for historical bare knuckles fighting are; the short section in Robert Downey Jnr’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

And, the not very successful, ‘Prizefighter, The Life of Jem Belcher’, 2022. The Americans don’t seem to have an interest in these stories, leaving it up to the Europeans, despite having their own pantheon of fighters from the bare-knuckles age. I suspect that across the Atlantic everything has to hook on the myth of the, previously mentioned, ‘Great American Dream’. Europe and the UK tend to be more historically nuanced.

Comparison with martial arts movies.

Now, on to my main objective.

The common ground:

· Discipline and grind (Rocky chasing chickens and Shaolin types carrying buckets up steps).

· Underdog tales in both genres. It taps into something fundamentally human.

· Final climactic showdown. Think ‘hall of mirrors’ in ‘Enter the Dragon’ and any Rocky movie.

All of the above are found in martial arts and boxing movies, but…

The real differences:

· Martial arts movies don’t go for the same grit as boxing movies. They are more about grace and aesthetics.

· Superhuman potential is really ramped-up in martial arts tales. The bar is set really high. With boxing it tends to be grind and muscle, and, dare I say it; more realism?

· Endurance versus self-actualisation and philosophy. Eastern religions and disciplines very much guide the martial arts storylines. While in the world of boxing, it tends to be just doggedly staying in the fight and clawing your way out of poverty etc.

· With boxing, the themes tend towards Western individualism, while the Eastern traditions lean heavily into collectivism, even heritage or ancestor worship.

· Technical aesthetics: In boxing it’s the close-up toughness of the brawl. While in martial arts movies we find the viewpoint is pulled back away from the action, so we can appreciate the artistry and the flair of the fighters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cradle of Karate

 Below is an interesting documentary on the history and development of karate on Okinawa.

 

 

The Great Hammers of Xingyiquan

 

 

Karate Day Demonstrations

Below are some Karate Day demonstrations held on Okinawa.

 

Vintage Kobudo Video

Okinawan Kobudo is the weapons art that often accompanies Karate. Below is a vintage video.

 

 

The Taijiquan of Maggie Newman

Over at Bloke on the Path, a video was posted of Maggie Newman doing the Yang 37 Taijiquan form. Ms Newman was one of the most senior students of Cheng Man Ching in the US. She was a storied dancer; widely known and respected, and threw it all aside to study Tajiquan under Master Cheng.

 

 

The Aikido of Ryuji Shirakawa

Ryuji Shirakawa is just so much fun to watch. Enjoy.

 

 

The Aikido of Takeshi Kimeda

 

When I trained in Yoshinkan aikido under Kushida Sensei back in the 70's and 80's in Detroit, a frequent visitor was Takeshi Kimeda Sensei, who was in charge of Yoshinkan Aikido in Canada. I was able to snag him as a training partner a few times and it was a wonderful experience.

 Below is a video of a demonstration he gave in 2018. Enjoy.

 

 

The Four Standards of the Sanchin Kata

 

The Aikido of Kanshu Sunadomori

 

The Fundamental Practice of Karate

 

The Most Rewatched Fight Scenes of All Time

Below is a compilation of the top 15 most rewatched fight scenes.

 

the Aikido of Tsurozo Miyamoto

 Ryote Dori variations.

 

Wu Family Style Taijiquan Applications

Here is a short video of some Wu style taijiquan push hands applications, from the 4th generation of the family, Wu Dakui.

 

 

The Aikido of Morihiko Murashige

 

The Aikido of Kyoichi Inoue

Kyoichi Inoue, along with Takashi Kushida, developed the training system that we now recognize as Yoshinkan Aikido. Below is a video of his aikido.

 

 

 

Overview of Different Styles of Taijiquan

At Thoughts on Tai Chi there was a post that provided a nice, concise overview of the different major styles of Taijiquan. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

 

Here is a brief guide to the different styles of Tai Chi Chuan. There are five main styles, five big ones and then there are also a whole bunch of several lesser popular arts. Some of the smaller ones have quite a big amount of followers as well. Here I will list 8 of those smaller Tai Chi schools that are reasonable enough to call individual styles. This means that a total of 13 (!) different Tai Chi styles will be discussed here.

Off springs and variations that belong mainly to any of the larger schools as Cheng Man Ching’s Yang and Dan Docherty’s Wudang Practical Tai Chi Chuan (Wudang PTTC) are not considered. here. But if we were to actually add every school with decent popularity, we would probably get a list of well more than 20 schools.

(Also: Please, don’t get offended by my intentional ironic and disrespectful tone in this post.)

The five main Tai Chi styles

The five big traditional styles are:

• Chen Style
• Yang Style
• Wu Style
• Wu (Hao) Style
• Sun Style

The Tai Chi styles of Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu (Has) and Sun are all recognized, well known and has many practitioners throughout China and the whole World.

Chen Style Taijiquan

Chen style is said by Chen stylists to be the oldest of the modern Tai Chi styles found today or the original art of Tai Chi, something that is usually accepted by Yang stylists as Yang style creator Yang Luchan admitted that he had studied with the Chen family. In the first half of the 20th century it was suddenly decided by the government that Chen Wangting (1580-1660) should be regarded as the inventor of the whole art of Tai Chi Chuan, a person suddenly discovered, that no Chen Tai Chi master knew anything about and no one had mentioned anytime before in any text about Tai Chi Chuan. Chen style was later popularised in the 20th century by Chen Fake (1887-1957) who was very upset and got revengeful when other Tai Chi masters told him that what he was doing was Shaolin and not Tai Chi.

Chen style has both slow and fast movements, often performed with sudden outbursts of “fajin”. It also has Shaolin movements not found in any other of the five main styles so that other stylists often says that Chen Style is just Yang Style with Shaolin stuff infused.

The main idea of body mechanics in Chen style is summarized into “spiraling silk reeling” where spiral movements are initiated from the belly area and connected throughout the whole body.

There are several big popular formal and informal lineages and traditions in Chen, As “the Village style” represented by Chen Xiaowang, “the Beijing style” represented by people as Chen Yu and Chen Practical Method lead by Chen Zhonghua. And “Chen Small Frame” is usually practiced in other lesser well known lineages.

Pros
Maybe the easiest style for development of strength and power.

Cons
Might be harder to and take longer time to develop calmness and deep relaxation compared to the other five big ones.

Chen Style Taijiquan is recommended for:
Anyone who wants to keep fit and healthy and everyone who wants to study a smart and very powerful martial art.

Yang Style Taijiquan

When people think about Yang style Tai Chi, they mostly think about slow, large movements performed in an even pace. Large frame Yang Style was created by “The Invincible” Yang Luchan (1799-1872) who killed a younger female relative with his spear when practicing. This style was wildly popularised as a health exercise by his illiterate grandson Yang Chengfu (1883-1836) who sold his name to a ghost writer for a book and got really obese and died young by eating way too much.

Yang Style is the most popular Tai Chi style, widespread “all over the globe” (citing Flateartherners expression of the popularity of their own movement), much due to several lightweight watered down versions with shorter and less demanding forms. Those are taught rather fast with little attention to detail. In the middle of the nineties for instance, going to Beijing to learn the 24 form in a few weeks and teach it in the west was rather popular. But fortunately the traditional Yang long form variations are very popular as well, and many practice it as a complete martial art.

Don’t be fooled by the calm, harmonious movements. Yang Stylists can be pretty good fighters and like to toss their opponents far away rather than offering a good punch, something that is mostly given to and restricted for the stupid ones who tries to attack them again.

There are also several off-springs and sub-styles of Yang Style as Cheng Manching’s version and Dong Style, sometimes recognised as an individual Tai Chi styles. A school as Erle Montaigue’s Tai Chi organisation claim that they do the “Old Yang style” from Yang Luchan.

Pros
Quite easy to find somewhat good traditional teachers and very easy to find teachers from various health only variations.

Cons
Hard to find people who teach anything similar to power generation for punches and other finishing methods necessary in any complete martial art.

Yang Style Taijiquan is recommended for:
Anyone and everyone on this planet without exceptions.

Wu Style Taijiquan (Quanyou/Jianquan)

Wu style is characterized by large movements performed with whole body leaning, something many Yang stylists say is wrong and contradicts basic Tai Chi principles. Wu Quanyou (1834-1902) was one of Yang Luchan’s students but became a disciple of Yang Banhou, and Wu Jianquan was his son and taught it publicly. Wu Jianquan was also one of those guys who popularized Tai Chi for the big masses together with Yang Chengfu.

One modern branch is called Wudang Practical Tai Chi Chuan created by Dan Docherty and focuses a lot on no-nonsense combat and realistic self-defence applications.

Cons
You’ll be hearing all of the time from people from other styles about how wrong you do things.

Pro
Has everything that Yang Style has, is seldom as watered down as much, and much easier to find good traditional teachers.

 

 

 

Classic Japanese Martial Arts Documentary

In 1978, Budo: the Art of Killing, a documentary on Japanese martial arts was released.

 Despite it's unfortunate title, it remains a classic and may be viewed below.

Enjoy.