Note: This is all speculation. I have never trained in any traditional martial arts myself. Everything I say below comes from conversations with traditional martial artists a Chinese upbringing spent poring over martial arts lore.
A few years ago global martial arts superstar and Wing-Chun icon portrayer, Donnie Yen, was asked whether he could beat Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan in a fight. His response? No.
This despite obvious facts to the contrary: Donnie has trained in modern mixed martial arts, he’s adept at a variety of techniques that were relatively unknown during Bruce or Jackie’s heyday. While Bruce is widely acknowledged to be the father of MMA, he trained during a time when most schools still reserved their best techniques for the dedicated few. A relative unknown until just before his death, Bruce also did not have the resources, the sparring partners, or the access to top experts that Donnie does today.
As for Jackie Chan, the man has always claimed to being a stuntman first. His training lies in Peking Opera show-fighting, and he is relatively unschooled in the defensive grappling necessary for today’s top strikers to carry out their game plans. It’s the main lesson Royce Gracie taught the world at UFC 1, 2 and 4: if you can’t defend a takedown, then you’re unlikely to land anything decisive against your opponent.
So why would Donnie, who has access to all of today’s martial arts schools and the good health necessary to learn, claim that he wouldn’t stand a chance against two martial artists who lacked these advantages?
The answer: face.
All traditional martial arts are obsessed with respect. It’s the foundation on which discipline and good character are built. Respect for your fellow students gives you the discipline to consistently come to class and give them a worthy training partner. Respect for the art and those who came before leads you to train harder because you are a representative of your school. Respect is why you take every encounter seriously, developing appropriate strategies for your opponent whether they’re a fellow competitor or a tough life problem.
Many traditional Chinese martial arts take this respect to an extreme, fueled in part by the culture’s ingrained ancestor worship. Martial arts schools were originally surrogate families, with masters serving as father figures whose aim was to cultivate the mental, physical and spiritual development of their students. Just as you would never challenge the persona of your elders (aka ‘breaking his face’), you must never claim to be better than your senior students and masters. Doing so would deny the part they played in your development.
This unwavering commitment to face is so strong that many see bending reality to maintain it as justified. So if you best your master in combat, you thank them for '“letting” you win. It’s a gracious form of mutual respect. Supporting the social order, even with a white lie, is seen as upholding the Confucian ideals that underpin traditional Chinese martial arts.
They also explain why a brash, middle-aged Mixed Martial Artist by the name of Xu Xiaodong is being pilloried in China.
Xu has fought several traditional martial artists and won. His stated aim has been to help China move beyond the fake martial arts that are now proving to be ineffective against trained MMA practitioners. His point is that these techniques aren’t just useless, they may even be dangerous to the overconfident practitioner. If someone as out of shape and past his prime can crush these supposed masters, how can the average student stand a chance?
Remember when I said that lies to save face are justified in traditional Chinese martial arts culture? Well, for his troubles, Xu’s own school was pressured into disowning him, his social credit score got so low that he was barred from flying or taking high-speed trains, and he’s been forced to compete under the moniker, “Xu Dong Gua”, which roughly translates to “Idiot Xu”. Most tellingly, he must cover his face with clown makeup during every bout. If he won’t let his opponents save face, then it seems he must ruin his own.
Could any of this have been avoided? Maybe not. But I can’t help thinking that Xu, whose gruff demeanor, rough appearance and habit of calling the martial arts styles he’s bested “useless”, has unwittingly made himself into the perfect villain. He’s as close to being a real-life version of the “arrogant kung fu guy” trope as you can get.
What if instead of trolling martial arts masters on social media and then calling out traditional styles as useless, he followed the model of another challenger of traditional martial arts, Rickson Gracie? When asked what he thought of the abilities of Bruce Lee or Steven Segal, he praised them both for being conceptually accurate and good role models, then begged off answering the question of how good they were in real combat by claiming he’d never seen them actually fight. This allowed him to save face for both men without having to lie.
What if, instead of claiming that traditional martial artists were useless, he claimed that there was much that could be learned from both disciplines? After all, traditional martial arts offer a philosophical grounding in development and growth that modern styles rarely emphasize. What if he had decided to focus on common principles for success in all styles—hard work, discipline, and respect? What if he dedicated himself to disproving the common misconception perpetuated by trolls and trash-talkers that MMA practitioners are just well-trained thugs?
Sadly, these are questions that may never be answered. Xu Xiaodong, as adept as he is in the physical arena against traditional masters, hasn’t adapted one of the main concepts of all fighting arts to the art of life.
Don’t charge your opponent head-on. Instead, find a way to win with as little resistance as possible.
That’s why you let others save face.
In life, you aren’t just trying to win the fight in front of you, you’re also trying to win in a way that settles all the fights that come after.