Why are Kung Fu masters getting BEATEN UP in China?

so what's the deal with all these Taichi masters and martial arts kung fu guys in China getting beaten up all the time I think we can all agree that kung fu is one of the things that attracts a lot of people to Chinese culture it is an ancient art form it's got a lot of history it's a very beautiful thing to look at it's interesting and of course was popularized through kung-fu movies by Bruce Lee and others there's one problem though and that is when the Chinese government tries to use it as propaganda it unfortunately falls flat now I certainly am NOT an expert on martial arts so I decided that I would get somebody who is an expert on specifically Chinese martial arts to come on and talk to all of us and tell us exactly why it is that these kung-fu masters keep getting beaten up this man lives in Beijing has been studying Chinese martial arts for most of his life he was actually part of the wushu Federation and was involved in the Olympic bid for wool shoes inclusion in the Olympics he's a technical and judge representative so this guy knows what he's talking about I would like to introduce you to my friend and martial arts expert byron jacobs so byron i'm super happy to finally chat to you again and introduce you properly to my audience over here how about a little introduction about yourself what actually got you into martial arts bruce lee i think like most kids you know at that time nobody knew the difference between Chinese martial arts what was available but was karate and Japanese martial art so I started with those and then later on got involved in Chinese martial arts when I found you know a teacher it's fantastic now we've known each other since we were probably about 1920 there abouts I can't even remember but we used to have a lot of fun I used to have these kind of Japanese pop culture anime screenings and events and you used to come there and sell all your like DVDs and stuff that you were getting from China at the time I remember so anyway I've always known that you as being a very very serious martial artist I mean it's kind of been the driving force in your life at least from what I've observed well when I started in South Africa training Chinese martial art at the time there wasn't a body that was affiliated to the recognized international wushu body so at the same time as me being an athlete and I was training for competition I set up the the National representative Federation that got recognized with the International Federation so that bridge that and we started doing you know trying to start things in South Africa with competitions and educational things as well and and when I stopped competing I became an international judge and it carried on from there I became an international certified judge which I was invited quite a few times independently because of my results and in 2011 I became a member of the international bodies Technical Committee and that tenure ended in 2018 unfortunately not on a happy footing but it's somewhat connected to the changes that have occurred here and and within the politics that are involved with the sport which are connected to unfortunately national politics so in a way but the politics is always an issue absolutely I mean it makes total sense and for those who aren't aware biron lives in Beijing he's he has a Chinese wife and he's been living there for how long have you actually been living in China for training yeah that's right so yeah you know China in and out and the one thing about martial arts of course I think most people know is that it's very deeply entwined in whichever culture the martial art comes from especially East Asian martial arts so you know karate is very Japanese and kendo and all that stuff and then your specialty which of course is Chinese martial arts is very intertwined especially in the more older Chinese history an ancient Chinese history and so on so you have a pretty deep understanding of China from that perspective and I actually this is kind of what we're leading up to here is I would like your take on this whole situation that we're finding now where you get these Tai Chi masters being beaten up by sort of MMA people what's actually going on you know with all that okay well I mean what you said is a hundred percent on the on the button its martial arts in general especially Asian martial arts that are connected to the cultures that they emerged from and they're as much a cultural practice as they are a physical practices kind of a physical culture if you will so one of the things that I realized in the beginning time when I started doing Chinese martial art was to really have an understanding you need to understand not only the culture but the language and that set me on my path you know and and these cultures are old so these cultures are older than any system that we understand today whether it be political system whether it be a societal system or whatever we're used to today these cultures are much older than that and and that's the important thing that that's where this clash comes in the clash that you're talking about between Tai Chi so-called masters and today's the MMA guys for example which has been in the news is a clash between two separate cultural mentality but that is only when you look at it on the surface there's always been this issue between classical martial arts and sport martial arts and athletes and amateurs and and things like that and style versus tile those are that's one whole kettle of fish but what happened recently with regards to more recently ism when it came out into the Western audience was was a guy called shoe shop gone when he defeated that Tai Chi master and a handful of second.you actually we've met him you've met him right yes I knew him before that and during that and after that and it was because I was also doing I was doing grappling and my teacher my grappling teacher would teach in his gym so I have known him and his guys for a while so for me it wasn't anything amazing I didn't realize that it was going to blow up like this and even for him but it wasn't anything serious it just was this this guy Taiji person that had had an interaction the guy had said some things about his abilities and she said I'm Austan to prove it right and that's but what happened there was not simple as people in the West think because the guys name was Lele and he actually in reality is not a recognized lineage holder he is not what we know within the circles of Chinese martial arts as a legitimate high level martial artist representing any method in fact his self prototype right and the proclamation was enabled due to you know very well what's been going on the entire for maybe the last six or seven years extensively which is a nationalistic drive yes a nationalistic pride Drive and they connected that to Chinese culture so we started to see probably seven years ago the advent of a lot more in the media so you see it deliberately in the media these shows you see these performances these so-called documentaries which were not real documentaries they were they were actually just compiled they were they were they were staged right Oh amazing master showing amazing skills to to these ignorant Westerners you know being beaten up by this amazing martial artists and the Westerner in the beginning of the show will be some Thai boxing or crime my god champion and he'll beat up one of the you know you'll see if I'm a match and he's physically really good and then this that this Chinese martial art master will come out and and defamation will apply my you know amazing technique you know what from for my person to understand commented you realize well this is not for most of the people in the way like well that's fake you know doing magic trick I mean literally like they had pigeon that were on his hands and they couldn't take off because his sensitivity was but it was just so amazing that any food for their legs to fly he would just relax and the bird couldn't take off and watermelon and then after they cut the watermelon they could see the internal damage but no damage for the hump out of the water no and all of these things were done deliberately you know this was like oh this is a this is just some guy doing self-promotion this was presented like a legitimate documentary was on the TV series called experiencing will come true and it kind of went on from there into more things you had you had famous 10 file family people that we're doing these same similar little piece like going into a judo school and defeating on throwing a black pathway oh what an amazing Tai Chi skill or going and challenging professional senses and you know doing well again entire rugby team all of them scored on the other side and you know like I said for most logical sane people who trained for oculus you could have to see it for what it was you know but it was a propaganda drive and there was a reason for it and the reason was because of the connection between nationalism the drive tough power and culture that connect the do you think they realized that this is a way of fishery to to drive soft power in the West because Westerners are interested in Chinese culture and specifically Chinese martial art so you started seeing a lot more of these kind of thing officially from legitimate a couple of legitimate ten people but then you started seeing the crazies come out because because no one is calling it because no one is saying well this is mountain because if you say it that's locally then your auntie paper you're not patriotic right you know you're against so these people get in emboldened to to present themselves more and more ridiculously and make claims more and more because no one's calling them out right and it this culminated in what Lele did and actually he contacted two-shot Gong on one at that time she's a long had a he had some my online presence quite a quite a big online presence and and he was saying things on there and he even put a demonstration Leila oh you could get out of a rear naked choke without with one hand and and yet his student party was really bad rear naked choke he got out of it and we could all see that as nonsense and he claims like he can to be MMA with traditional Chinese wushu funny show came out with him doing magic tricks and defeating is really a result of that environment yeah he's like let's let's try it out like yeah you claim you claim you can do this how about we go go at it in the ring and prove it right it's correct well you know we don't use rules and she's like whatever you want to do no gloves poke me in the eyes and kick me in the groin whatever you want to do and the result is history because we all know what happened to that guy a couple of years ago yeah well I saw it live on candy food onto this want to do that so I watch this I'm like well unexpected results but guys a bit of a problem Yeah right the whole thing's become a bit of a circus and I thought that was the end of it he flew back to Beijing everything was quite suddenly three days later four days later explosion all over time yeah why well if an MMA guy against what is supposed to be Chinese culture that the department promote and it's a Western idea of defeating a a Chinese idea and and then there's backlash now now there is backlash because irrespective of who irrespective of the reality that the guy's not a pudgy guy reading and that it had nothing to do that now there is some there's an unfortunate truth that have been pushed out and perceptions that are going to be threatening to the direction you know what they're trying to do promotion and for me and a lot of Chinese most a lot of Western time and even it's done local we were actually supporting what he was saying because he wasn't saying anything about Chinese martial art although it has his problems like any traditional martial art he was just calling on a fraud yeah and unfortunately the the step back wasn't showing that tipping back it was talk up to Chinese versus the wit and you cannot have the with the Chinese and his life got turned into help he had a lot of things happened to him I remember at this period even in his gym goddess was walking into the gym challenging numerous times like and he took them out of it I mean they're like traditional guys off the street and I'm out of shape not that she shot long did shape where he's an athlete he's my you know he's but he's 24 for any professional in there were many years ago but you know this was a common thing and he was getting lambasted in social media he got his Social Credit everything yeah he couldn't travel as you know you got all these social media accounts are like blocked and deleted and stuff at some point yeah it's absolutely terrible they're just there's too much loss of face yes I mean you could say that his mouth made it work the reality of it I mean it should have simply just been an issue that guy was not representative ID he was a fraud he got beaten up because of claims and things that he did maybe it's time to look at what the official direction was and what was a result of it with all these documentaries and let's just control that so it doesn't happen again but she's out I'm gonna challenge a few more times since then an official five a couple of winter guys a pressure point guy all of them ended the same way yeah I mean they all ended the same way and now more recently we have a week ago and this is connected to Shu Xiao Tong because there was a guy called mapa born in Shanghai with an elderly self-appointed representative of a type of Tai Chi and the mixed hybrid style who the official people have said a long time ago that he has nothing to do and but anyway he's another one of those self proclaimed people true and came out against who shall come back then and she saw them try to arrange the match formally you know doing it correctly you know all right we'll arrange it we'll get a place we'll find things we'll get it done he flies down to Shanghai he's waiting there the guy doesn't show up eventually he shows up the police the police closes the whole thing down you know at that same time this guy mop-up what he did was he went to England because he had been teaching English for some time and he contacted an MMA fighter in England to shoot a video and it was supposed to be a flat piece you know he that was the that was the arrangement the old man is doing a creative flat piece just a video it's not supposed to be a real fight and just go along with him do some lights just go along with the old guy that was what they may make I gotta pay for and he went along with it but when my mom came back China he decided to claim that he repeated England's MMA champion and here's this video which we all can watch in like that not fighting if I wanted to smash you he could we could see it right the reason he challenged she felt wrong saying you know I defeated that guy who shot but if I don't get him up on it the result was the way it was handled which made it look even worse the police never found the guy run away you know creepy and all of this is not tarnishing the name of Chinese martial art but there's one LCD these people are all fraud I mean they're all deluded fraud they're like the epitome of of the weird uncle you know deluded weird uncle who's making claims that we all know unreal but for some reason people are taking them seriously and I can't understand that and and and that was the end of my Bongo story she shot dong as well I mean it's been quiet in general and with him for a while we just hear out of the woodwork a week ago there's a match between Magua and yet another another guy apparently he was said to have been assigned a guy and the true son of our guy in his Honda is a competitive Chinese martial arts free fighting event if you're on this basically boxing gloves punch kick and throw that's about it okay I'm funny and he's an amateur and same thing happened he smashed this guy very quickly in a way that that for me was a little bit shocking because he's an old man he's innocent even he was knocked out I mean very seriously but you know no one heard about this it was going to current I mean we all know I was being a bit of a weirdo and and now I can see yesterday because the guy who beat my ball will have no media he kept silent he didn't wanted to talk to the press he got contacted and he did what he doesn't look quick and nothing we we didn't expect to happen but if I would have seen them on yesterday come out and what is the story is come on saying the following we come out of saying no no he actually did a TV show which is my farm right didn't fund that is a scene each em I've seen each other's direct no longer a reputation for being like whitey martial art but one of the more reputable files of Chinese martial arts within a comment context with a lot of reputable people used it in their line of work and as far as aimed at that is very little slapping I too many alarm bells went off that why do you think this now and why is he saying that he does Shinichi okay what's the fight he did a couple of who can across I mean very straight up stand up boxing flash general basic combat he didn't use any specific you know identifiable technique it makes sense I mean obviously they want to now paint it in such a way to say it was actually Chinese martial arts that beat this guy right we both understand China very well and so we know why these kind of things happen of course you know this is quite fascinating you've really helped shed a lot of light at least to me on why this went down because although I followed what xuxa don't did in the past we talked about him on our podcast I think when he you know came out and had that big rant on social media and stuff I've never really put enough thought into obviously this is your game this is what you do martial art so you have a prop understanding what's happened and I think you've probably helped everybody else understand why this kind of stuff has happened and it's all because of this push of propaganda and you know nationalism is has kind of resulted in this weird situation earlier that these cultures martial cultures and specifically Chinese martial art culture that we're talking about now is older than any of the stuff yet older than the current political system is older and so we shouldn't latch these ideas onto one another you know that is the beauty of Chinese martial art than any martial art and the culture that they that they share is that they unite people it shouldn't become a factional thing that's separate yeah that's a very beautiful thing to say because quite honestly and you know most people who've been watching my videos for the last couple of years I'd say last two three years have noticed that I'm finding it very hard to say anything positive about China you know and that's simply because of how how it's changed so drastically over the last couple of years and how did the direction that's going in is is completely opposite to when I first got there and the reason I fell in love with the country and one thing that I keep coming back to that I can say that is positive about China are the more traditional things like martial arts and like tea ceremony and you know those kind of things and I think it is still a very beautiful thing and it's a very important part of Chinese history and it's something beautiful that we can look at that comes from China and it's it's not tarnished by what's going on right now at least in my mind and so anyone who's interested in martial arts you really have to check out Byron's channel because that's what he does he's instructional he does instruction he talks about it he has a podcast anything you if you want a deep dive into Chinese martial arts this is the guy to go and check out for sure and I can promise you now out of everybody I've ever met Chinese or otherwise he's the most dedicated and probably the most knowledgeable about all the different martial arts and things are going on out there at least from the point of view of someone you can relate to and understand well thank you for that you know I'm trying to I'm trying to share these things on my channel and to demystify them if you will to a Western audience because there's a cultural and a language barrier and there's also on the experience barrier that needs to be breached and I'm trying to do that with all these little endeavors on my channel in planica because as you said there is value to these things there is value to anybody around the world they are beautiful things that have a long history and they enrich your life you know we should make our lives as rich as possible for the things that are valuable and important that had a deep level and this is one of it absolutely a fantastic Biron it's been so good catching up with you and thank you very much for you know coming onto the channel in my honor to be on your channel I'm glad to see you and with all of you as well awesome stay awesome man

Channel: serpentza

Views: 1,143,158

Rating: 4.837501 out of 5

Keywords: MMA, xu xiaodong, ma baoguo, ma baoguo knocked out, leilei, mma news, xu xiaodong mma, ufc news, xu xiaodong vs wing chun, tai chi master vs mma fighter, xu xiaodong opponents, real kung fu training, Kung Fu, Martial Arts, fake kung fu masters, espn mma, Chinese martial arts, Kung fu master, shifu, tai chi vs mma, mma espn, shaolin kung fu, fake martial artists, xu xiaodong vs tai chi master, fighter, news, tai chi, Xu, mixed martial arts, Xiaodong, documentary, martial, UFC, china

Id: pEkyXowI5_A

Length: 23min 7sec (1387 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/liftonjohn]

I still enjoyed the Ip Man movies. Tyson was in one.

[u/nanonan]

The youtube channel Fight Commentary Breakdowns covers the matches, it's quite interesting. He also tries to track down serious style vs style matches, like this Wing Chun vs Muay Thai fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tFa-SFg7iA

[u/Thomasduhtrain]

He would probably not make that interesting a guest. In one of the earlier episodes (2-400's iirc) joe talks about how most older/ancient martial arts and fighting styles aren't relevant to MMA because they involved with weapons or people in armor.

From what little I know of Chinese history specifically of the 6 confucian arts math music writing etc were the classical arts and archery and chariots/horsemanship were the martial ones

MMA is about hand to hand combat with very specific rules.... and a lot of historical martial arts are about bows and arrows and spears..

[u/uusrikas]

This guy doing the hosting has a really interesting channel but I had completely forgotten about him. Apparently he has left China for good after getting very disenchanted and some Chinese people online seem to loathe him and want to get him banned.

He had a video about how he noticed how much better people treated him when he wore a suit so he started wearing them all the time. I tried it for a bit as a test and it definitely changes how people treat you, but it felt really inauthentic and fake.

The highlight of his videos where he walked the streets of Chinese cities was always the kids insulting him with some dumb slur and him responding in chinese.

[u/K2mouth]

A lot has to do with the Boxer Rebellion, and the take over of Communism. A lot was lost, and the world has been left with watered-down traditions, starting from the source.

[u/The_Last_Czarnian]

As a mongolian and history lover I wouldn't mind a guest that delves into that a bit. Joe hasn't had an MMA podcast for awhile, I wonder what's going on.