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Kung Fu, Once Central to Hong Kong Life, Is Waning

• cousin_it 10y ago
  (deleted)
  • crististm 10y ago
    There was recently a discussion here about Bushido being invented late in the 19th or early in the 20th century as a propaganda tool.
    • dotsamuelswan 10y ago
      Relevant article: https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/ https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/
  • dagw 10y ago
    Maybe kung fu should pivot into being a dance style, like capoeira. Modern Kung Fu has already 'forked off' a more practical fighting version, Sanda, and there are handful of decent Sanda practitioners in various MMA orgs.
    • speeder 10y ago
      There is Sanshou too, that resemble a more rulebound kickboxing. And for routines there is a split between the "dancing" for presentation, called "modern wushu", and traditional routines, that are used to practice actual deadly fighting moves. I used to train traditional routine, but for it to go beyond "dancing" the teacher regularly scheduled sparring session for students to attempt to use in actual combat the moves (the ones we could test... I made the mistake once of wanting to spar with a particularly weird and ugly move, only to almost get a broken shoulder. happily my partner knew enough to make the move against me with just enough force to hurt a lot without damaging me)
      • gosukiwi 10y ago
        Sanshou and Sanda are the same thing :p
    • jasonjei 10y ago
      This is interesting. With the wave of workout studios like Barry's Bootcamp and Core 40 becoming extremely popular in America, I wonder if Kung Fu could be transformed into a workout class in America, or even in Hong Kong. I wonder if turning Kung Fu into a workout in the ethnic Chinese areas could work. How is karate holding up in Japan and elsewhere? I know kids in the US take it as an after-school activity. Wushu, too, is now a competitive artform, at least for the Asian-American diaspora anyway.
      • saikit 10y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tae_Bo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tae_Bo That ship has already sailed.
  • bpyne 10y ago
    After the Communist Revolution, kung fu instructors took jobs as dance instructors. A lot of the modern wushu - very gymnastic and often aerial movements - came out of the altered teaching. Much of what you see in modern movies is non-traditional. There's been a range of opinion in the Chinese martial arts community about modern wushu. My own opinion is that the new teachings, while not being practical, keep to the spirit of the origins of kung fu in chi kung - promotion of health and better control of your body. So, the short answer is that it did become dance-like.
• gakada 10y ago
  Another casualty of the internet. Before the web, you would pretty much only learn about whatever martial arts were available in your area. There was no objective truth. In the absence of evidence, comparisons between martial arts were done on a subjective level: does it look cool? Now, anybody can look up kung fu on youtube, and if they do they'll see that it's a bit shit, compared with the others. No sane person is going to dedicate years of their life into learning something that is a bit shit. In general the world has become a lot more factual in the last 25 years.
  • speeder 10y ago
    Kung Fu is sadly sort of ignoring the Internet. The kung fu academy I went had self defense, routines, championship fighting and flashy presentation classes... sadly, little of it is on Internet, I saw amazing stuff there in person that I can't find on YouTube to show to people. That said, they recently hired a krav-maga teacher too.
  • arcanus 10y ago
    I think you are over-selling the internet's contribution. The growth of MMA has been the real driver. UFC1 (and even PRIDE, a bit) was originally billed as a 'meeting of martial arts styles', where different disciplines could compete. The fact that an undersized ji-jitsu master won the first UFC really demonstrated the efficacy of that martial art. The present ascendency of Muay Thai and BJJ (Brazilian school of ji-jitsu) is a direct product of this sorting of martial arts effectiveness against competing disciplines. Karate and Kung-Fu's substantial drop are also related, as they are essentially unused in modern MMA.
    • gakada 10y ago
      And where does the average young person in Hong Kong go to watch MMA? YouTube. As a Brit, the only reason I can even comprehend your comment, is because I have read Americans talking about UFC on the internet, and watched some clips on youtube.
      • Ntrails 10y ago
• primitivesuave 10y ago
  The term kung fu refers to anything that is acquired through determination and practice. A great artist, dancer, singer, or even a great janitor, all have kung fu. So a measure of kung fu in a society is really a measure of how many people choose to become great at the things they do. This is more a commentary on martial arts capabilities, which is less relevant in a world where physical danger is increasingly rare. While I strongly advocate for practicing it (I have been a student of Wing Chun for 3 years now), it makes perfect sense why Asian millenials don't find it very important.
  • coldtea 10y ago
    Not in the article's sense (or the common non-Chinese sense).
  • astazangasta 10y ago
    'yoga', btw, has the same meaning in Sanskrit.
    • ferentchak 10y ago
      I have never heard it referred to that way. Usually I have heard Yoga described as union. As the term applies to the asanas the union between breath and movement. My quick 30 seconds of googling supports what I had been taught but those old words can really have a broad set of meaning depending on who is using them
      • astazangasta 10y ago
        I've started hearing that use of the word 'yoga' in the context of yoga instructors as well, but I don't think it's accurate even if it is evocative. The closest meaning of 'yoga' is probably 'control', having the same root as the word 'yoke'. The earliest techniques are about control of the breath, so the idea of the word meaning 'union' doesn't really make sense to me, except in that the goal of yoga, like most activities in the Hindu sphere, may be couched as seeking samadhi/unity with creation. I've always thought of "yoga" as meaning "discipline", as in, "a discipline or practice", or even "school of thought".
• St-Clock 10y ago
  Kung Fu means "hard work" so of course it is waning :-) More seriously, a couple of observations: 1. Most styles of kung fu require dedicating years of practice before one can be called skilled. Compare this to Systema or Krav Maga where one can become a killer very quickly and you can expect people with little time to train to prefer these more modern martial arts. This says nothing about the depth of these martial arts, just the way they are organized and taught. As a concrete example: one of the first block I learned in Flying White Crane Kung Fu is actually very difficult to use in a street fight. Once you're good with it though, the opponent is in a very bad situation. With Krav Maga, the first block you may learn is usually very basic, very effective to block a punch, but you get less counter-attack possibilities. 2. Most of us do not need to fight for our life so of course, martial arts are waning as a whole. 3. MMA is very popular and most Kung Fu styles are not suitable for MMA: again it takes time to become an expert and many techniques cannot be used in a MMA ring (can I put my finger in your eye? what about using pressure points while you are tackling me on the floor? can you hit the neck with a spear hand?). 4. Kung Fu masters are usually very secretive and they sometimes die with most of their knowledge, especially if they do not find someone suitable to transfer that knowledge. 5. Finally, a sibling comment mentioned youtube. Many kung fu schools hesitate to use Youtube and when they do it, they usually do not show the best they are capable of. When I was training, I remember a master asking to only capture the movements of the upper body and hide the footwork :-)
  • Donzo 10y ago
    There have been a few successful kung fu practitioners in MMA. Most notably Cung Le (former Strikeforce champion) and Roy "Big Country" Nelson. While Roy is probably better known for being fat and punching hard, his first discipline was Shaolin Kung Fu.
    • crypto5 10y ago
      The question is: did they present actual Kung Fu techniques while competing in MMA? Or learned some kikboxing + wrestling? For example when I see Machida competing in UFS, I clearly see base of Shotokan karate in how he fights. I can't say anything like this about Cung Lee or Roy Nelson.
• cagey_vet 10y ago
  this can mainly be attributed to nationalization, the chinese government bringing all traditional elements under a single authorized form of martial arts. so, real esoteric arts will eventually disappear in favor of state-sanctioned 'wushu', which is still effective, just not as rare and revered, and more of a dance than something readily applicable to fighting or defense.
• mrbonner 10y ago
  Kungfu mostly just for show. Karate or taekwondo is more practical in modern age. Have you ever seen any police department taught people kungfu? Have you ever seen kungfu as a competition in the Olympics games?
• jonstokes 10y ago
  Sadly, you could also write a very similar article about Japan and Kendo, right down to the "the government promoted it for nationalistic reasons in its heyday, but now it's waning and most of the interest in it is overseas." In 2006, the Japanese men's team placed 3rd (behind Korea and the US) in the World Kendo Championship, and it was the end of an era. It was the first time in the event's history that those guys didn't come in first. Japan is still a Kendo powerhouse, but it's not like it was.
• nicholas73 10y ago
  Kung Fu has failed to adapt, by which I do not mean MMA, but changing market conditions. The quotes in the article more blame young people than having an idea of what's not working. I've done many martial arts, but I'm not here to debate whether Kung Fu is effective. It's not, but there is no reason why it cannot be. What makes a martial art effective is simply having a large population of skilled practitioners. It can be institutional support like Judo in Japan, or wrestling in the US. Or it can be effective marketing like BJJ. Anyone with real fighting skill can tell you that an art's effective has little to do with its techniques. Technique is only a starting point, that practitioners constantly improve upon. What is needed is a large number of highly competitive and athletic bodies to constantly test and improve on. It's brute force algorithm 101. Nothing can replace experience when actually fighting, because you don't have time to think. Kung Fu will lose every time, unless they get institutional support, because you have practitioners who not only have questionable methods, they know nothing about building athletes either. Step on a wrestling mat or BJJ practice and compare the intensity versus a Kung Fu class. There's your answer right there. There is no 'kung fu' in Kung Fu. I've got nothing against Kung Fu. I've learned some interesting concepts. But, similar to Aikido's flashy technique, I am able to put them to use from being a master in another art. Whereas its practitioners cannot. Maybe a "high level" many year practitioner can do it, as they will tell you it takes many years, but that to me just tells me they are doing this the wrong and slow way. Even Olympic martial arts have shown that countries like Japan are far behind modern science in competitions. One can only image how backwards some random Nth generation guy in your neighborhood is. Again, nothing against Kung Fu in theory, and maybe it had its heydey at some point, but a lot more needs to be done to save any of it. And it won't matter what style or what not - everyone is different even within a style.
  • 2close4comfort 10y ago
    Very true this has been happening since the 1950's Kung Fu carries with it eons of dogma. It would truly be a loss to humanity should the art be lost altogether...
• hosh 10y ago
  It's interesting to see the comments here on HN. It's like a compression of all the various things I've seen people talk about with martial arts. The same arguments, the same assumptions. There isn't really anything insightful. It tells me that as a society, we still have not figured out the role of martial arts.
  • ghiotion 10y ago
    eye roll Ok, please enlighten us. What's the role of martial arts in a society?
    • hosh 10y ago
      Why are you asking that in a sarcastic, contemptuous tone?
      • ghiotion 10y ago
        Because your original comment offered a contemptuous, know-it-all tone devoid of any meaningful content. It's kind of a shitty feeling, isn't it?
        • hosh 10y ago
          Uh, no. You took it upon yourself to be some kind of a hero with this and projected meanings that are not there. I don't feel shitty about your sarcasm and contempt, though I understand that you would like it if I somehow feel some suffering here over it. However, argumentation by contempt is not a persuasive rhetorical technique. I asked you why, to see whether you understand your own motivations. Setting aside the posturing and seriously answering what you asked: I don't have an answer to "what is the role of martial art in modern society". Lots of people have asked that. I see people who have answered "what is the role of martial art in my life" to their satisfaction, but nothing is clear about the role of martial art in the modern society. I notice when discussion goes around in circles -- the same pattern of arguments that happen across the years over different forums. For example, TMA vs MMA; what is reality-based or evidence-based fighting; whether you really need to be able to fight on the streets. There are also whole swathes of modernist anachronistic views that don't jive with traditional teachings (even if traditional teachings appears out-moded in modern societies).
• gosukiwi 10y ago
  The "X martial art vs Y martial art" thing is quite common, but IMO the best is to just learn several and integrate what you like though sparring and competition. Kung Fu has a bad reputation, mostly for beeing fake and not effective. Personally I think a lot of instructors _are_ fake, but there are some which really know their stuff. The thing is, most "americanized" kung fu is not nearly as good as "original" kung fu. And even "original" kung fu will lose when sparring with, say, a Muay Thai guy. A lot of videos you see of Kung Fu guys fighting on a ring, they seem to just do Sanda (which is basically chinese Kickboxing). So much for traditional martial arts! I think the lack of sparring really hurts traditional Kung Fu, you can't just close yourself in your own little work and just do Chi Sau (Wing Chun) or Tuei Shou (Taiji) or whatever your style does. Sure, it's good to practice that, but learning a martial art without sparring with people of different styles is like reading about riding a bicicle and never actually ride it. I've practiced Taekwondo (both ITF and WTF), MMA (Muay Thai + BJJ), some Wing Chun and now I'm doing Taijiquan (Yang). Out of all of them, MMA is by far the most effective, but it's not like my time with other martial arts was wasted. They give you some tools you can use to adapt to your own style. I think the most valuable thing I learned in MMA was sparring with guys with different backgrounds (Boxing, Karate, Kick Boxing, etc), you learn to be smart and adapt to your opponent, it gives you more tools. I think devoting your whole life to a single style, it's nice if you want to just use it for health and as hobby, but not effective in a fight. I've never met a guy who practiced a single traditional martial arts style and was able to spar with Muay Thai, Kickboxing or Boxing guy, but I don't live in China, maybe there it's more common. Anyways, my point is that you need to actually fight to be proficient with any martial art, not just Kung Fu.
• alexchantavy 10y ago
  > And its real estate is among the world’s most expensive, making it difficult for training studios to afford soaring rents. It seems that everyday on HN there are articles showing examples of how cities are becoming increasingly unaffordable - this one makes me feel really sad.
• ghiotion 10y ago
  I earned a black belt in Karate last year, have messed around with TKD, Judo, and Kali, and this year got reasonably serious about BJJ by starting in a belted program. It's impossible to overestimate the role MMA/UFC has had on martial arts in the past 20 years. The internet has allowed that knowledge to spread far and wide, but UFC #1 dramatically changed the face of martial arts forever. Before that, you could argue about which one was the "best". After UFC #1, it was pretty clear how dominant Gracie jiu-jitsu was if you wanted to win a fight. All the traditional martial arts have a place. Simply analyzing the phrase "martial art" should give you some indication of its intent: discipline and beauty. Most traditional martial arts schools are on the decline and, for those that aren't, the caliber of student they get is nowhere near as high as it was 25 years ago. Point sparring tournaments are a shell of their former selves. MMA and, to a lesser extent, BJJ are more a fighting system than a martial art. There's no bowing, there's little formality, there aren't any forms, and it's ruthlessly focused on the practical. Toward that end, if you want to learn how to fight, study american boxing for punching, muay thai to lean to kick, and BJJ to learn how to grapple. If you want a "martial art", then you're probably looking for something more traditional. You can learn decent self defense in them, but there's a lot of non-practical stuff you learn as part of the package.
  • gosukiwi 10y ago
    Check out Sambo, those guys have been doing that for quite some time. You have several "levels" of Sambo. It includes striking, throws and ground-fight. They were really ahead of it's time, and Fedor shows that, he was undefeated in MMA but was not #1 in Russia's Sambo championships :-) My MMA instructor did some Sambo before he did BJJ, and it's nice to know a little bit of Sambo, the throws are really simple but quite brutal.
  • o_____________o 10y ago
    Is Gracie jiu-jitsu really best for winning a fight, or just for the controlled environments in MMA-style competitions? I frequently hear Krav Maga cited as the most effective for real world fighting. Grappling with parties unknown seems dangerous.
    • 10y ago
• Fifer82 10y ago
  The problem with Martial Arts is that you can just blow someone away with a nine.
• bpyne 10y ago
  I’ve read some interesting comments on this post: some clearly from practitioners and many not. Here’s a little extra background about Chinese Martial Arts. They date back thousands of years: some scholars claim 2000 while others claim 4000. In either case, it wasn’t martial arts at that point. It started as health exercises that we now call Chi Kung (Qigong). They developed into martial arts later when people became intrigued by the stronger, healthier bodies and quicker reflexes of the practitioners. In particular, military-minded people saw the potential benefits and contributed greatly to the development of Chinese martial arts. Another major contributor was the famed monks - both Shaolin and Daoist (Taoist). As they traveled around Asia, they accepted challenges and worked out with martial artists from other cultures. What they learned was incorporated into Chinese martial arts. So, mixed martial arts is nothing new, it’s been happening for hundreds if not thousands of years. Martial arts competitions were considerably more brutal than they are currently. They didn’t wear gloves and anything went. Deaths occurred and sometimes people were handicapped for life. Even training was much more brutal. My instructor’s master recalled training on a beach in China. When they practiced throws, people landed on rocks periodically: no head gear or padding. As someone mentioned already, kung fu is a generalized expression meaning any endeavor that requires prolonged, conscious effort to master. So, a skilled software engineer would be said to have “good kung fu”. I’ll keep to the popular use of Kung Fu even though it’s not completely accurate. Chinese martial arts divide into two major classifications - Internal and External. What we call Kung Fu is a collection External styles. There are thousands of them, many of which are similar. The Internal ones are Bagua, Xing Yi, Tai Chi, and Liu He Ba Fa. Other than Tai Chi, the Internal ones are lesser known, although Jet Li showed elements of Xing Yi and Bagua in his movie “The One”. Again, there are probably hundreds of Internal styles. In this era when people use their bodies less, what will preserve Chinese martial arts are the health aspects from which they derived, not their application to MMA.
• ohsnapman 10y ago
  There's a lot of disinformation about martial arts in any online discussion, especially because people are obsessed with determining which martial arts is "the best". That's a sort of reductionist argument that never takes into context the history of each martial art and why/where it is effective or ineffective. Let's start with some history: Judo was never heavily practiced historically, because you had a sword. Judo techniques were used as a last resort in case you lost your weapon. In a society where the peacekeepers carry weapons, you are at a serious disadvantage with any kind of unarmed combat, be it BJJ (which I practice, for sport), Muay Thai (which I practiced briefly and is effective in 1:1 situations in a stand-up and clinch), even Krav Maga (I tried this), or Chinese martial arts. So here's an argument for why certain martial arts are "better" than others, depending on the situation and the era you live in: Kendo/sword martial arts - you are likely going to war. The Chinese martial arts fall under this category, where you can quickly use certain forms to train thousands of troops at once to be "more ready" in general warfare than your enemy. Your troops will have slightly more conditioning, and practicing forms lets you have a 1:many trainer to student ratio. Even if the martial arts are not the best for close quarter 1:1 combat, or ground fighting, it makes no sense to spend time training your troops for these situations if the odds are VERY stacked against them in a wartime situation. Krav Maga is a great martial art to teach for modern, urban self defense because the movements are basic. If you might end up in a bar fight, for instance, Krav Maga teaches something called stacking, where your goal when you have to maximize your chances of getting away from multiple attackers is to quickly subdue one attacker, then using head control, using that attacker's body to defend your own while you create space so you can escape. There are more advanced techniques that teach knife or gun defense if you are caught off guard, but it should be noted that you are probably at a disadvantage unless you are highly skilled if someone with a weapon attacks you! Training Krav Maga takes a bad probability of survival and turns it into a less bad probability. Back to Judo: judo and karate took off as effective when peacekeepers could not carry weapons, and had to learn to effectively do their jobs without weapons. The key here is that society had to chance so that weapons were only carried by the warrior caste. Filipino martial arts - unarmed, sticks, knives. No swords or spears, because this isn't what they went to war with. Surprisingly effective now, because you are likely to have a cane or umbrella, and you will have a slightly better chance defending yourself against a knife attack, which a modern attacker is more likely to have than a sword or a spear. Now where does Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which many people talk about, fit in? Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is an extremely effective martial art for one-on-one, unarmed confrontations. For children, if a bully throws you to the ground and gets on top of you and starts to hit you, you can escape and get away. If ONE PERSON attacks you in public without a weapon and you both go to the ground, you can probably subdue or escape if you have practiced BJJ. If two people attack you, or if it's one group on another group, BJJ is probably not so effective. I saw a version of MMA on TV that was effectively a 5v5 team fight, and it quickly turned into who could tap or KO a another member first, then it became a 5v4, and 5v3, and so on. The effectiveness of BJJ in group fights is greatly diminished - now we are back to martial arts like Krav Maga where you might have learned to group fight or even the Chinese martial arts. BJJ and Muay Thai have really taken off because of MMA/UFC. The rules used to heavily favor BJJ practitioners, who in that particular environment, thrive. Karate practitioners were not traditionally used to ground fighting, and the Jiu Jitsu fighters would stick to their strategy of taking someone to the ground and quickly submitting them. UFC is a 1:1, no-hitting-eyes-or-neck-or-groin fight. No stomping. In the early era of UFC, there weren't any rounds. This GREATLY favors BJJ practitioners, who can simply hold someone indefinitely on the ground and tire them out. If you've never grappled before, even if you are in great shape - HOLY MOLY prepare to get wiped out in minutes. Many of you may disagree with some of the details of my interpretations, but the general spirit of my argument is this: different martial arts thrive in different eras because society changes. Claiming one martial art is better than another without adding context is disingenuous.