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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30730 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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Asians really are worse off though.

Kung-fucels in tatters right now. Even as a distant observer, it's funny how the harsh objective crucible of MMA has deflated the mystique of traditional Asian martial arts.

Would MMA allow all the techniques taught in Kung Fu though? I don't think so.

The marginal techniques like eye gouging, finger breaking, blows to the back of the head, soccer kicks to the head of a downed opponent, etc. Do nothing to prove hypothetical kung fu superiority.

The better fighter will be in a better position to gouge your eyes and to prevent his from being gouged.

I don't know enough to comment, but I was under the impression that pretty much anything goes in MMA except for kicking the balls and scratching out eyes and biting. Could very well be wrong!

Barred actions include: eye gouging, fish-hooking, ear tearing, hair pulling, attacking the back of the head, attacking a downed opponent while you are standing (both combatants being down is fine), manipulating the opponents clothing, spitting, and biting. I'm sure there are more. Early Japanese MMA allowed many of these, early US MMA actually barred more attacks like elbow strikes, largely based on the emotional decisions of state athletic commissions.

I don't remember many specifics but I think MMA/UFC has quite a few rules in addition to the ones you mentioned. I don't think you're allowed to intentionally break e.g. fingers, try to kill the opponent which some types of kung fu will teach, or hit the back of the head, and I wonder if they've outlawed the good old repeated knee to the face while holding the opponents head, too.

Traditional tai-chi masters are indeed in shambles from MMA.

On the other hand, Muay Thai has been proven to be effective fighting style (excuse the dramatic narrator).

This video is of showbox in 1988 between the top American Kickboxer and a Muay Thai fighter using limited rules preventing elbowing, throwing, grabs, and limiting below-waist hits to a low kick. The kickboxer gets kicked in the leg so many times he starts dodging and running around at 5:50, and ends up carried away in a stretcher.

MMA rules allow lowkicks and elbows in some positions. Fighters study techniques derived from Muay Thai, along with other lineages like Greco-roman wrestling and Juijitsu. And "MMA style" is just whatever works in the ring's rules.

Quoting https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/07/25/how-the-west-was-won/

An analogy: naturopaths like to use the term “western medicine” to refer to the evidence-based medicine of drugs and surgeries you would get at your local hospital. They contrast this with traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, which it has somewhat replaced, apparently a symptom of the “westernization” of Chinese and Indian societies.

But “western medicine” is just medicine that works. It happens to be western because the West had a technological head start, and so discovered most of the medicine that works first. But there’s nothing culturally western about it; there’s nothing Christian or Greco-Roman about using penicillin to deal with a bacterial infection. Indeed, “western medicine” replaced the traditional medicine of Europe – Hippocrates’ four humors – before it started threatening the traditional medicines of China or India. So-called “western medicine” is an inhuman perfect construct from beyond the void, summoned by Westerners, which ate traditional Western medicine first and is now proceeding to eat the rest of the world.

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