The three most powerful words in the world.

(No, they aren't "I love you," although they are a close second.)

I deal in uncertainties. Other martial artists are certain. They are certain that their teacher knew everything. They are certain of the history of their martial art, all the way back to the Paleolithic Era. Doubting either of these things will drive them to anger.

Me, I'm never more that 70% certain about anything in the martial arts. If I am more certain than that, it's a bad sign.

The reason the martial arts are dying these days is that people's egos are closing their minds. I'm out here setting aside my own ego, even reversing it. Every day, I try to prove what I think I know wrong. I'm delighted when someone pokes a massive hole in my theories.

This has cost me, and it will probably cost me more. I'm currently releasing books on "secret" styles. I expect to be ridiculed just for claiming Taiji lineage other than Yang Chengfu.

The only way the martial arts are going to survive is if we all get together and say the most powerful words in the world:

"I don't know."

Real Training in the Chinese Arts

I just ran across an interview of Yang Fukui, a member of the Yang family who is known for his fighting prowess in full-contact competitions. I was immediately gratified to read that his training didn't consist of long forms, but rather of the individual movements in different combinations. This supports my arguments that modern Chinese arts are too focused on memorizing the forms and often fail to escape them. Here's a quotation (He's talking about Yang Banhou and Yang Jianhou, second-generation masters):

"First of all, they devoted most of their practice to gongfu and martial arts, not to health or “spiritual development,” although these two latter aspects certainly underlied their practice. Their emphasis was different. For example, they never practiced more than a two or three form or movements in sequence, in order to develop fighting skill and gongfu, and they never linked more than five forms together. There were no such things as the 24 or 85 or 108 form Taijiquan."

The entire article can be read here.