Why did traditional martial arts decline?

1. In the past, martial arts could be a job. In the past, there was a martial arts profession among the 360 trades, and martial arts was a means and skill to make a living. The simplest to open a martial arts school can charge. During the Qing Dynasty, due to the rise of Jin merchants' ticket houses, bodyguards and guards were prevalent, and this was also a trade for earning a living. In the case of the poorer ones, as it was too difficult to accomplish a disciple. Need to teach according to the person, use and create all kinds of conditions for the disciple to understand the boxing theory, the effort to be put in potentially more laborious than training a son. What's more, it is usually necessary for the disciple to live and eat at the master's home, so that he can have more time to learn and understand. Therefore, in the past, when an apprentice learns martial arts, the master teaches the apprentice the skills to earn a living, and the apprentice needs to bear the obligation to support the master, the master and the apprentice are like father and son. Narrowly speaking, the master will always worry about teaching the apprentice starving master. That is why there is the saying that the son does not pass on the word. Therefore, it will bring some disadvantages of inheritance and loss of the essence of martial arts.

2. Wushu has a special role. Wushu can strengthen the body and can have super fighting ability. If a disciple learns martial arts and then commits crimes, bullying the township, as a master is responsible. Some people at the extreme end of the spectrum may bully their masters and disrespect them. That is why the masters will not teach those who do not have a high moral standard and bad character. Only those who have gone through a heavy examination of character will be taught. But for those who have been examined, each person has a different level of enlightenment, and there are those who can learn and those who cannot. Passing it on further down the line, there may be deviations. Material civilization can be inherited, and one can stand on the shoulders of one's predecessors, while spiritual civilization is not, and there is no way to inherit it. For example, if a father has a house, he can give it directly to his son after his death; but if the father is knowledgeable in the past and the present, the son cannot directly inherit the culture that his father has mastered after his death. He has to start all over again, learning and understanding on his own. At most, with the father's guidance, he can learn a little faster. So the traditional martial arts this thing, deep cultural heritage, most of the content is the content that can be understood but can not be passed on, the inheritance is naturally very difficult.

3. Limited social conditions. Ancient society's low level of development, can not be written, images to carry the essence of martial arts morality. We can only rely on our ancestors to teach by word of mouth, but individuals have different levels of education and understanding, and naturally benefit from different levels. In addition, each person's own conditions are not the same, so the formation of their own things after each different, and then the process of transmission, and gradually abandon the end, resulting in the loss of the essence.

4. The core thing to keep secret. The core things should always be kept secret and taught within a small area. So in the past, once said to teach, the master's moral character is very noble, and it is also on the disciple complete trust, recognized the no two standards. As the old saying goes, you can't do harm to others, but you can't prevent others from doing harm. No one can guarantee to see the character of the disciple to see very accurate, and in the future in case the disciple becomes bad it, bullying the township, for the wrongdoing, and even more winners recognize the thief as the father, deceiving the master to destroy the ancestor, betrayal of the country. If the master has not left a masterpiece, he can not even clean up the door. From the perspective of our present society, the loss of the essence of martial arts transmission is very regrettable. We very much hate this stubborn practice, and would rather lose the tradition than pass it on lightly. Because in modern society martial arts are only a way to understand our traditional culture and a way to strengthen our bodies. On the actual combat to protect their own safety, then, the significance is not great, as opposed to often years of training time, I'm afraid that no one wants to, the gain is not proportional to the effort. But in the social environment at that time, martial arts has a very important significance, go out and walk, self-defense and life-saving this role is irreplaceable. So due to the apprentice is not virtuous to master the essence of the master, or because of the apprentice bad behavior, the master does not teach the core theory of martial arts, resulting in the loss of the essence, although it is a pity, but there is nothing to be done.

5. Metaphysical martial arts training. In order to increase the interest of martial arts training, and to protect the core theory, or in order to charge more tuition (this is in Xu Haofeng movie "Master", describes very clearly, the martial arts firms to teach the real teaching false.) And so on for other reasons. Deliberately complicate the martial arts cultivation system and metaphysicalize the training methods. Retained the core useful, added a lot of ineffective training methods. Resulting in disciples practicing and practicing, little effect, resulting in more and more people have a misunderstanding of martial arts, more and more fake things, more and more widely spread, but the core of the thing is gradually lost. Let's talk about our taijiquan, there are many taijiquan practitioners in the world, but most of them just know a routine and movements, how many of them know internal strength?

6. Poor expression. Masters don't talk too much and are not allowed to ask questions. Because a lot of things in martial arts are abstract, belong to the category that can be meaningless. You want to understand the principle, even the master can not understand. But he knows how to practice it, the method is there. So generally require you to practice whatever you want to practice, whether you understand it or not, so practice. When you have practiced a thousand times, the meaning will come to you. When one understands, when one reaches the standard. Therefore, to accept disciples to talk about enlightenment, not necessarily accept the bad enlightenment. As a method of training, the sets and stances became more and more important. Ancient masters hoped that through the sets, they could train their disciples' internal energy and comprehensive fighting ability. And it was precisely these routines that misled the trainees on the side. The descendants were unaware of this and thought that martial arts were all about routines, treating the method as the goal. Taking the carrying of the inner form as the ultimate goal, the road is wrong, and it's normal to not be able to practice.

7. The change from ring fighting to sports competition. Because of the emergence of sparring, many people mention martial arts, in order to make a distinction with sparring, automatically narrow the concept of martial arts to the routine. It is believed that learning martial arts is to learn some routines, some fancy movements. Even now there are a lot of martial arts students who think so. Especially the martial arts competitions, than the action of the fancy and coordinated, so many professional students think that martial arts only sets, learning martial arts is to learn the action, the action of the fancy and coordinated on behalf of the level of martial arts. This is a fallacy! Instead of this, why not learn gymnastics, gymnastics is more fancy and difficult than the movements of martial arts. Of course, this can not be blamed on the competition, after all, the traditional martial arts of internal strength and actual combat is no suitable form of competition, how to compare is not scientific. Unless no rules ring actual combat, but after all, the ring may hurt the athlete, human life is at stake, can not advocate. Missing the harsh social competition environment, the role of martial arts fitness and the role of combat artificially divorced, the loss of the essence of traditional martial arts, I'm afraid it is doomed.