But they totally would. High survival skill+hunting knife. Clear out like two hospitals (or even one, if you are lucky) and you would have far more than 100 “human fleshes”.
Do you, personaly, practice any “more philosophical” martial art?
It has nothing to do with rigor, and everything to do with correct state of mind.
And by what criteria you declare it to be “one of the best martial arts in the world in practice”?
Military martial arts are centered around “how good can you teach them to punch with the least amount of learning”.
And which of proposed “parts of the tradition” aren’t directly related to end results?
Then why keep themselves separated from “Old Guard”? In such case they would be undistinguishable and there would be no reason for them to be separated.
This guy begs to differ =)
And no offence, but your acquaintance with martial arts seems to be too superficial for such assessments.
Look, Stretop, I’ll ask you a crazy question: why do practitioners of pragmatic martial arts perform as well as, if not better than, practitioners of traditional martial arts in arenas like mixed martial arts, the original concept of which was to let practitioners of different martial arts square off to see how well they performed against each other? Brazilian jiu-jitsu, as an example, performs quite well in it, despite having no philosophical or spiritual elements. Also, the clip you linked is from the History Channel, which is about as reputable as a tabloid, and the guy mentioned in the video’s title–y’know, that guy who’s kind of known as the best fighter ever to walk the earth–actually advocated for letting go of techniques and traditions that aren’t useful and not restricting yourself to particular forms or formalities. And don’t even get me started on how all supernatural phenomena mysteriously have no measurable effect (to pre-emptively answer rebuttals: “placebo”) around these strange creatures called “scientists.”
As for what spiritual/philosophical elements are unnecessary in the game: any that the devs decide are unnecessary, since any supernatural effects are going to be fictional anyway.
You can harp on my personal experience all you like, but the plural of “anecdote” is not “data.”
Don’t forget that if you look at military history, you’ll notice that a lot of the modern martial arts are basically a product of the disconnect between post-gunpowder warfare and hand-to-hand combat.
It’s no surprise that the swordfighting that soldiers practiced in the middle-ages/renaissance in Europe, Africa and Asia is far superior to whatever fencing and kendo people invented later on.
Back then if you were bad at sword fighting, you didn’t lose a match. You got stabbed and your stomach and guts got spilled all over the sand.
I can’t help feel but the point i made about socializing while having social disorders was ignored, oh well.
That said, will martial arts training be changed significantly from wha is now? It is rather silly to learn martial arts instantly, though it serves it’s placeholder position well.
Because those martial artists have such level of mastery in their respective arts. Humans are bad measuring sticks - too unstable and variable. By martial artist’s performance you can only assess how great is his mastery of his art. You cannot assess the greatness of art itself. Remember: such… exhibitions attract only certain types of people. And the Third Jewel of Daoism is “not dare to be ahead in the world”. Do not think that participants of those exhibitions represent the arts as whole.
When you stop to think about martial artists as “woo-hoo, I am learning to punch really hard so I can punch my way to world championship” - you would know the answer to this question =)
And you did not understand a thing of what he was advocating. He was advocating achieving taiji - the form that is formless - and practicing the state of mushin - mind without mind. But to correctly understand it you must first understand daoist philosophy, and I am seriously not in the mood for such explanations and do not think that you would understand it either. In short - yes, the highest form is formless, but to achieve it you have to master other forms and their underlying philosophies as “special cases” of said formless form. He was speaking against mastering one form and staying in it, as all forms are merely a means to achieve formlessness. It is like mathematics: you have to really understand all kinds of natural numbers, integers, fractions, irrational numbers and transcedental numbers before you could really start to understand that they all are special cases of complex numbers.
You should do your research more carefully. For example.
I do not harp on your personal experience, I merely mention its absence. And yes, plural of “anecdote” is not “data” and your “mixed martial arts arenas” is exactly this - anecdotes.
Eastern mysticism is just that, and any of the benefits Kung-fu or Karate offer can be seen in their contemporaries elsewhere. Bare-Knuckles boxers, Indian wrestlers, modern day soldiers and athletes of all shapes/ages/genders or country of origin have and continue to prove that the upper limits of humanity are astounding.
Yes, a shoalin monk can punch very hard through intense training and mental focus, I’d argue a professional boxer does that just as well (I’d argue better, honestly) and that the punishment these athletes can take is essentially ‘iron body’ in itself.
Yes, martial arts require mental focus. No, they don’t require you to be a monk. Given similar training, similar builds and a similar will to fight a monk would be no more equipped to defeat someone that knows his particular style of Kung Fu than the other way around.
That’s the point to take away from this. A system of martial arts is a tool, once someone knows it they can use or ‘misuse’ it however they see fit–or teach others to use that tool. It’s the end of the world, these styles persist because the people using them have done a very good job of not being killed.
Assuming Factions are procedurally generated there’s no reason a group of cannibals famed for their martial arts should be disallowed from practicing shaolin styles, or that the ‘good guys’ haven’t learned one of the five deadly venoms…
Because those martial artists have such level of mastery in their respective arts. Humans are bad measuring sticks - too unstable and variable. By martial artist’s performance you can only assess how great is his mastery of his art. You cannot assess the greatness of art itself. Remember: such… exhibitions attract only certain types of people. And the Third Jewel of Daoism is “not dare to be ahead in the world”. Do not think that participants of those exhibitions represent the arts as whole.
When you stop to think about martial artists as “woo-hoo, I am learning to punch really hard so I can punch my way to world championship” - you would know the answer to this question =)
And you did not understand a thing of what he was advocating. He was advocating achieving taiji - the form that is formless - and practicing the state of mushin - mind without mind. But to correctly understand it you must first understand daoist philosophy, and I am seriously not in the mood for such explanations and do not think that you would understand it either. In short - yes, the highest form is formless, but to achieve it you have to master other forms and their underlying philosophies as “special cases” of said formless form. He was speaking against mastering one form and staying in it, as all forms are merely a means to achieve formlessness. It is like mathematics: you have to really understand all kinds of natural numbers, integers, fractions, irrational numbers and transcedental numbers before you could really start to understand that they all are special cases of complex numbers.
You should do your research more carefully. For example.
I do not harp on your personal experience, I merely mention its absence. And yes, plural of “anecdote” is not “data” and your “mixed martial arts arenas” is exactly this - anecdotes.[/quote]
A heads-up: the link you posted (at least, that particular page) actually said that there’s nothing mystical about what was being observed, and it says that the same thing happens in other dedicated high-level athletes like Olympians. What’s being observed is the result of rigorous training and not specific beliefs about the nature of the universe. You would do well to remember that people who participate in combat sports are also athletes (and at the level where anyone’s actually paying attention to them, high-level athletes), and not disrespect their dedication, training, and ability just because it isn’t philosophical or spiritual.
I’m really not in a mood for explanation of daoist philosophy any more than you are. I could probably understand it just fine; what I would probably not do is agree with you as to its necessity in mastering skills, including any level of excellence in fighting.
What one generally needs to get really good at a skill is focus, discipline, and adherence to what one has started. If dedication to the skill gets you there, perfect. If dedication to being the champion gets you there, perfect. If being determined to not be dead gets you there, perfect. If dedication to a mystical philosophy gets you there, perfect. In the end, the old “ten thousand hours” to master a skill to any degree is something that can be achieved so long as you have some drive to keep you going through all those damn hours.
Tl;dr my belief on this issue: the motivator getting you to the result of ‘accomplished fighter’ has little impact on the quality of fighter produced. The presence of any motivator can mean the difference between bothering to reach mastery at all, and quitting early.
And there should not be anything mystical. Of course all of this is purely neurological IRL. What I am trying to make you to understand is that those martial arts are not about face-punching, they are about attaining specific states of mind and body.
No. The “flow” state of mind there is occuring due to execution of hard and repetitive task. It has nothing to do with them being olympians or “rigorously trained” per se - only with them repeating an automatized action (of swimming).
Specific philosophy (that governs interpretations of perceived phenomena, it is not some kind of “belief”) is the thing that helps you to learn how to enter such state of mind at will, not only through repetitive tasks.
First. I do not think in categories of respect so it is irrelevant for me.
Second. Contemplate on this: to what are those people actually dedicated? For what do they train? They ruin their bodies and minds, limiting their development to one narrow path - and for what? For chance of fleeting moment of glory. And not even glory for doing something useful - glory for providing entertainment for masses. So tell me: what exactly is it here that deserves respect?
Second. Contemplate on this: to what are those people actually dedicated? For what do they train? They ruin their bodies and minds, limiting their development to one narrow path - and for what? For chance of fleeting moment of glory. And not even glory for doing something useful - glory for providing entertainment for masses. [u]So tell me: what exactly is it here that deserves respect?[/u]
The fact that for the most part any athlete competing against a steady stream of the best human beings at their particular skill and proving themselves to be better is a demonstration of what an amazing animal humans truly are.
No matter how you dress it up, yes martial arts ARE about face punching. (Or kicking, strangling, throwing, etc.) Otherwise it’s just meditation. Just as the katana is just another sword masters of karate, Kung-fu, Judo or whathaveyou are still only martial artists. They are only capable of what is humanly possible. Nothing they can do can’t be seen in say, a french savate master or circus strongman. It doesn’t matter HOW you get to being one of the best, only that you get to being one.
If you, for example, do not know mathematical theory, all focus, discipline, and adherence in the world are not going to help you to advance your skill at mathematics beyond the very basics.
If it is simple mechanical skill - yes. But martial arts are not skills - they are arts (and ways of life - if we are talking about Kung Fu or T’ai chi ch’uan). And such arts also have their theories (like music).
My brother writes excellent music and he only continues to improve with further writing and practice. He has no formal training. Focus, disclipine, and adherence (and access to information) has in fact advanced his skill in music theory far beyond mine despite the fact I am formally trained via royal conservatory. I find comparisons to other tasks to be a clumsy method of making our respective points, as the tasks are not equal in complexity. This renders both of our examples rather anecdotal at best. But there’s hopefully some truth in both.
I will concede that one also needs access to information with which to push one’s self forward. A teacher, a book, wikipedia… however, trial and error will still suffice. So I still disagree. It is possible to learn and uncover more on a topic even when you do not know of it. Otherwise we would not have built such knowledge bases to begin with. I will admit that learning something without a source of information is in fact the hard way of doing it.
Martial arts is a set of skills. I consider painting a skill, not an art. The difference between an art and a skill is an issue of semantics more than factual difference.
Well, in case of Kung Fu and Tai Chi that “someone” was a taoist. Those martial arts not only incorporate this philosophy but actually entirely built on it in the first place. And it was mental skills that were formalized first and got aided by the physical skills later.
DDA martial arts are noted in the design doc as getting a bit cinematic at high levels. The KF styles in particular are where that happens, and no, the Deadly Venoms of themselves need not be “evil” any more than the Shaolin styles need be “good”.
(I made that mistake originally, so no worries.)
That said, I’m not sure this thread is accomplishing anything productive. Any reason not to lock it?
(moderator hat)
Just the fact that we don’t lock threads solely for being pointless.
If people want to debate an issue, they can, that’s what a forum is for.
(developer hat)
I’m sure I’ll glance through the thread again to make sure, but I don’t recall any good arguments being put forth to change the status quo. shrug
It would have been more productive if there was more information about Shaolin and other planned in-game factions. In fact, is there a place were we can find current up-to-date list of planned factions and their supposed agendas?