Society

Martial arts growth needs Chinese expertise

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-30 16:52

VANCOUVER - Chinese martial arts experts are being encouraged to come to North America and pass on their knowledge to help develop the increasingly popular sport.

Speaking at the 32nd annual Can-Am International Championship for martial arts Sunday in the Vancouver-suburb city of Richmond, event organizer Ken Low said martial arts participation was currently booming because of the popularity of mixed martial arts -- or MMA.

With the sport a combination of Muay Thai kicking boxing, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, wrestling and boxing with a bit of judo thrown in, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the largest of the MMA promotion companies, regularly sells out its live cards -- currently at 130 events and counting -- with millions more watching in around the world via pay-per-view.

The nearly-anything-goes fights, which have been dubbed blood sport by some, have struck a chord with fans, mainly young men, making millions for the UFC promoters, and those on some of the other circuits.

With about 700 athletes participating in his annual championship, Low, himself a ninth degree martial artist master, isn't in on the MMA financial windfall -- but he is seeing an increased number of students coming to his classes.

"It's moving from a sports arena and closer and closer to actual combat. MMA means mixed martial arts so in a sense we can stand, kick and punch. And when we grapple, there's no referee to separate you," said the Hong Kong immigrant.

"It is because of the sheer popularity of the MMA, or the more extreme is UFC, it opens up an arena where a lot of martial artists before have trained only in above-ground techniques, stand-up techniques, kick and punch. Now everybody is kind of training at how to protect themselves once they are grabbed, once they are rolled on the floor -- what do they do."

Low originally started the championship with the goal to bring all the martial arts under one roof. At the Richmond Olympic Oval where the event was being staged, the various rings featured bouts in karate, kung fu, taekwondo, wushu, tai chi, kenpo, kickboxing (Muay Thai), shanshou, pankration and jiu-jitsu.

While the majority of the participants had come from Vancouver, around Canada and the United States, for a second year a Chinese group was in attendance in a wushu delegation from Zhejiang province.

"We are looking to build a very, very close bridge with them and we want to cooperate with them so they can bring their teams," said Low, who is also president of the British Columbia Wushu Association.

"The Chinese Wushu forms are just incredible. They're clean, they're fast and I don't think any North American athletes can compete with them in forms. In traditional kinds of swords and forms -- or Tao Lu competition -- they are simply the best.

"But in other contact sports, I think we can come close. We can compete against the Chinese athletes."

Another person encouraging Chinese martial arts masters to pass on their knowledge is Ken Trang, Canada's middleweight Muay Thai champion. After struggling with a back injury that had affected his performance over the past five years he recently returned to MMA fights.

Earlier this month in front of an audience of 4,000 people in Las Vegas for the WBC International title, the Vietnamese-Canadian was beaten by Chaz Mulkey in a unanimous decision.

"(UFC president) Dana White was sitting front row, there was a lot of UFC guys. They flew in guys from Brazil, France, Canada, it was a really good show. They had WBC titles on the line. I fought for a WBC title. It was great," said Tran of the experience.

"A few months ago I fought a couple of guys in China and they're right up to par with the rest of the world in their martial arts. Their style is a little bit different, they are really based on sanshou and sandai, which is kick boxing plus take downs, it's not straight Muay Thai. It's a little bit different style. But the stuff they have to offer is great for MMA, the switchover to MMA, because they do the take downs as well, the throws and stuff. But like I said, they have a lot to offer too. It would be great to work with some of those guys."

Tran said martial art training was also great for children as it taught them discipline. With the training they instinctively know how to respect inflicting their newfound powers on innocent bystanders.

"There's not actually that many fighters. If you go to a gym, maybe you will have five fighters tops, and then the rest, say you have 150, 200 students, there will be five fighters out of the whole group. The majority of them are doing it for the technical aspect of it and also to get in shape."