Sensei Says | Tai chi master’s embarrassing KO showcases vacuum in China as world mocks idiocy on YouTube

Ma Baoguo’s embarrassingly quick knockout in a tournament fight in Shandong last weekend is tough to watch. Ma, 69, is clearly way out of his league. He moves like any normal sexagenarian, a little slower and a little stiffer. In many ways, the fight looks more like an assault video than a competition.

While the clip has become YouTube fodder for the masses, it paints an interesting picture about a number of larger macro-scope issues. Tai chi’s origins in China date back thousands of years and it has morphed over the centuries, passed on through various teaching styles and masters within the martial arts realm.

However, tai chi has remained predominately a Chinese-practised traditional martial art. The health benefits have given it new life in the modern world when it comes to its mind-body impact, as the Harvard Medical School even published a blog post about it being “medication in motion”, but it must be stated it is primarily geared towards older people looking to help with flexibility through low-impact movements.

The Harvard article goes on to state this “gentle form of exercise” can have a range of benefits. This is great – no one is going to debate practising tai chi as a form of light exercise – but it’s when the martial arts side of it tries to bring itself into the modern world where we find ourselves in a boat load of trouble.

China’s mass censorship, which includes the banning of YouTube among multiple other popular platforms such as Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, serves an internal purpose in controlling its citizens. However, the Chinese origins of tai chi create a perfect vacuum for cultural isolation. Ma is shown in a previously released video apparently beating Peter Irving, a legitimate mixed martial artist with a 13-8 professional fight record, in what is a clearly staged and choreographed fight.