Fact or Fiction Ep12 pt2 Why China did not have Knights/Samurai?

[@OneShadow7]

You assume quite a lot things wrongly, wrestling is the most natural fighting form for humans because you can train it and become stronger without injuring your training partner, every tribe on planet has a form of wrestling (given some might for cultural or religious reasons stopped doing it), but generally if you go to pacific islands, Asia and Europe proper, Africa or Americas (not sure about Australia and North Pole), people have wrestling folk wrestling forms with slightly different rules. Umbrella term for Chinese marital arts is Kung Fu, if you look at their techniques attentively for example White Crane which comes from Southern Shaolin temple, I'm using it as example because its the most widespread trough out the world, its descendant martial arts are most famously Karate and trough it Tae Kwon Do and many other Korean and American styles including kickboxing and of course famous Wing Chun. At its core was the idea of self defense meaning that one or more untrained people attacked you in some manner either they grabbed you, pushed you, or tried to kick or hit you with their legs or fist or with an object like a stick or what ever. All those funny techniques people have no clue what they are in kata are actually grappling techniques like grabbing someone before a throw, what to do if someone grabs your top knot (was a traditional hair style in China at one point), grabbing your wrist, or trying to hold you etc I read somewhere that style used around year 1000 AD was Mantis style for army training by one famous general (I might be wrong about the style and year it might've been another one but that is not that important). Anyway with time they changed in purpose some like Tai Chi changed into exercise for health for elderly, Karate became exercise for school children in 19. century (thus first priority was safety of kids not application), MA arts like Kendo, Judo, Greco-Roman wrestling and Boxing became competitive sports, Aikido was made to promote peace and harmony amongst humans, Krav Maga emerged to take spot in self defense and it was same with kung fu, each style develops for its needs. There is no wrong or right just the need. As for military China didn't have feudal system like Europe or Japan or Tribal warfare like Africa, it had standing military that is the term you are looking for, and central government suppled army with what it though it needed and whit what they could. That is the superior system we use it today as well, Europe devolved after the collapse of Roman empire and it took almost millennia to come back to having standing army.

[@TriEssenceMartialArts]

maybe you don't understand the meaning of the word "assume", because you are the one assuming a lot of things here because it's your personal opinion, while I on the other hand quoted from primary historical records, that is not called assuming, that's called evidence. You are wrong on so many facts when it comes to Chinese history and CMA history, maybe do some actual research from primary historical sources.

[@OneShadow7]

@@TriEssenceMartialArts I tried to learn everything I could get my hands on years ago, now I simply don't have time at this point in life. Back then I was very limited in sources (being from Europe), many books were obviously fiction and documentaries in which masters tell history might have mythological elements, that is why I'm assuming certain things but I don't think I'm terribly wrong. Have you considered, about your sources, what their focus was (that can influence lack certain things in them)? Sometimes its worth talking with historians who also read them to get their take on them, if you have possibility ? From what I've read about ancient Chinese texts, they are hard to understand and even historians debate the meaning of words, I'm specifically thinking about Sun Tsu's texts that were used to translate into book I've read. How do you read them, in their original form or from historians interpretations ?

[@TriEssenceMartialArts]

@@OneShadow7 I read classical Chinese so I read the original texts, I've also studied Chinese history and have spoken to friends in the field of Chinese history. Furthermore, not every piece of text is up for debate, some are highly straightforward and descriptive, especially when it comes to military records. Most of the texts I've quoted in my videos are directly taken from official period historical records written by official historians during the era or directly after that era, which are more accurate than any other form of records. And it is without a doubt that wrestling was not a must-have training for the military, it served very little purpose in the way the Chinese conducted warfare and what we call shuaijiao today was a separate discipline to the origin of what we call fist styles today. Just because some other group of people did something does not automatically mean every human group did the same, that's like saying just because certain people in the world never had their own unique writing system, no one else had either or vice versa. I don't disagree that almost every ancient people had some form of wrestling, but whether that impacted their military approach is not homogenous, drawing such an inference is a fallacy.

[@OneShadow7]

@@TriEssenceMartialArts I see I'm really jealous 😀 I really wanted to study Japanese and Chinese history back in the day and I still might do it in the future, it makes me happy other people could do it. I didn't mean to say that wrestling was important to Chinese military, it is not truly important to any, I just wanted to say it existed in China and some soldiers trained, learning how to use a weapon lets say a spear or rifle is much more important and if you become really good with it it has the same effect. I served in a small military, and in my squad 2 people apart from me trained martial arts, what I observed is, its hard to explain but essentially we were more comfortable facing danger and challenges than most, there were other people with other sports who were better runners, or just as fit but once placed in a stressful situation they tended to panic, like for example in ambush or during confrontation. That is the effect of martial arts its a good fitness tool and it makes you more comfortable when facing danger. Of course there are people who are naturally that way, I have a lot of family members and friends who were in war and they didn't need martial arts, another effect of martial art is that it helps with coping after the war, one karate trainer told me it saved his life. Of course none of it is important strategically, having good basic training, enough food, ammunition and educated officers is much more important but culture also plays a role, believes you grow up with and what society expects from you, that is why sometimes tiny countries can win wars against much bigger and better armed ones. Israel uses Krav Maga to teach aggressive mindset to its soldiers but that won't help them win a war, it might help some survive certain situations and fight a little better than they would otherwise but it will not help them win a war on tactical and strategic level. If you want to listen to military professional talking about strategic and operational level war watch smoothiex12 it is a great channel. It might give you some insights and show you how generals think, I had a privilege of talking to one (great grandfathers godson) that went trough a bloody war they are interesting people and military leaders in the past must've been similar.

[@TriEssenceMartialArts]

@@OneShadow7 oh not sure if you started watching this mini-series from part 1, but basically this mini-series was made in reaction to a pervasive claim that Chinese wrestling was an intricate part of the Chinese ancient military training, and this is all I was debunking, nothing more. In part 1, I cited historical records to show how Chinese wrestling was perceived throughout history, in part 2, I talked about the difference between Chinese military structure and European/Japanese, in part 3 onward I talked about different armour design and military tactics of various Chinese dynasties. Ofc any martial training including wrestling would benefit military personnel, but it's more of a luxury that the Chinese ancient military system could not afford most of the time, they had way more important priorities to focus on, which is the point this mini-series is trying to convey in a nutshell.