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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 practi
by 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 agoThere 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 agoThe 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.
- Donzo 10y agoYeah, good question. One could probably make an argument about Cung Lee using a Kung Fu style, but probably not Nelson. Nonetheless, it is interesting to think about Nelson starting there, and I do wonder if he would give you a better answer than I. Edit: vague pronouns
- the_rosentotter 10y agoI see a lot of Kung Fu Panda in Roy Nelson :)
- agumonkey 10y agoIs Qi Gong / Tai Chi fading too ? There were discussion in France to use them as "physical" activity in the morning at school. It would be strange if they start to like it while Asia start to dislike it.
- gbog 10y agoThere's this joke by one of my Chinese colleague: "When I was at school, we had to choose between swimming and taiqi, but there was no swimmig pool..." So I think a big slice of Chinese people have praticed taiqi or some related "quan", but not many still do it regularly. I still some old guys or ladies practicing in the morning when I bike to work, but again not many. Yoga is kind of fashionable in China among the younger people, however, and anyway local traditions may well revive for some reason.
- agumonkey 10y agoI get the weight of enforced traditional practice. But if Tai Chi wasn't useful, elders wouldn't keep doing it don't you think ?
- Hydraulix989 10y agoMore bizarre useless rituals have been done before in the name of "health." The placebo effect is powerful.
- Florin_Andrei 10y agoOh, c'mon. It's not magic, sure. But it's low impact whole body exercise. Beats sitting on a couch any day now.
- hosh 10y agoAt some point, it's less about usefulness and more about whole body-mind-emotion integration. At the very least, there may be spontaneous feeling of rightness and perhaps, happiness and joy that arises. This is true of yoga as well. I am Taiwanese. Unlike my sister, I'm considered an oddball: Most of my friends are not Asian and I practice traditional martial arts. I tried to go and find the teacher myself, however, if I had not been so out of sorts with my mother, I probably would have gotten consistent training when I was young. I would have been the spoiled only grandson (so to speak), it's difficult to find any kid of Chinese ancestry eager for it. I also went in for all the wrong reasons though I thought I knew why I should get into this stuff. Now, in the middle age, with my body the way it is, I recognize a lot of the motivation I had were fantasies. My wife is of American descent. Her grandmother, also American, picked up Tai Chi a couple yeara ago. It was suggested to her as a pain management thing, and she did not want to take drugs for pain. She stuck out with it even though there wasn't a result. She said the first result came after a year: the pain went away. She could sleep. She told me she wished someone had told her about this when she was young. But I think we both knew: if someone told her about this when she was young, it's doubtful she would have listened. Pain management sounds useful, but the art goes deeper than that. Using a metric like "utility" to describe it's value asks the wrong question.
- tiatia 10y agoYour post shows a lot of "voodoo" claims. MMA is the best thing that ever happened to martial arts and showed where most MA belong. BTW, Grace always agreed to any "yes but no rules" challenges from voodoo Kung Fu masters. Where are they now?
- joyeuse6701 10y agoSome martial arts, modern and unmodern, are not fit for sparring competitions. Live weapons against open hand is usually considered too dangerous to attempt to prove a point of superiority in a system. Same goes with some martial arts techniques that are too dangerous to be used for sport, i.e. knee reaping.
- dethstar 10y agoKnee reaping happens a lot in Sambo. Nothing dangerous when practitioners are well educated. Also it is allowed in many of the submission grappling competitions such as EBI and so far in their few shows I haven't seen anyone had an issue with it. Same way as they allow scissor takedown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwl4Bk_ZHgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwl4Bk_ZHgc) The problem with not being able to practice a technique in sparring, or "live" with a resisting opponent is that you don't know how good you are when time comes and you have to apply it.
- naravara 10y agoIn a real street fight situation you also don't know if the guy is going to shank you, so most arguments about "which style is best" kind of go out the window at that point.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> In a real street fight situation you also don't know if the guy is going to shank you, so most arguments about "which style is best" kind of go out the window at that point. Well, appeal to non-lethal sport competitions to settle those arguments go out the window, but martial styles intended for real use (including lots where the unarmed subset has been popular in sport) tend to teach both techniques for dealing with armed opponents and techniques for using weapons (including, often, things that stand in for improvised weapons) -- because that's a pretty big factor in serious fights. Purely unarmed intended-for-use-in-anger martial arts are a rarity.
- knodi 10y agoAs someone who trains in BJJ (grappling), muay thai and boxing. I don't see much utility in spending time learning a skill that has no basis in reality (Kung Fu). I'm not staying that Kung Fu doesn't have techniques that work in a fight, it does like the side-kick (Google Bruce Lee's sidekick) but most of it is for a lack of better word useless in terms of usefulness in a fight. Even Bruce Lee realized that and created his own art because of this realization. I agree that Kung Fu like all martial arts add discipline to one's life and is a form of meditation which is its greatest gift but in terms of martial use the world has moved on to more lethal arts.
- codingdave 10y agoAs someone who trained in kung fu for 20+ years, I don't see much utility in learning to fight when I live in such a safe location and culture. But the strength kung fu gave to my body still serves me well. The experience, as the article mentioned, of your school becoming your community as you all spend your evenings practicing together, was a wonderful one. Sure, you could kick my ass. I'm OK with that. I've enjoyed a lovely hobby, made good friends, and am satisfied with how I spend my time.
- gambler 10y agoI don't see much utility in spending time learning a skill that has no basis in reality (Kung Fu). As judged from events on TV and random videos uploaded by BJJ practitioners to YouTube?
- kentosi 10y agoUsing sarcasm is one thing, but why not follow it up with points to counter his/her argument? How about giving examples of where it can be useful in real life?
- 2close4comfort 10y agoAnd that response is why most of the skills you mentioned are not arts. They require some memorization but little mental effort. That is why boxers are paid more than MMA fighters there is less technique needed than artistic skill. Martial Arts are more focused on being a path for the whole of a person to interact with their world. And not simply to beat the piss out of it.
- mtgx 10y ago> Kung Fu means "hard work" so of course it is waning :-) Gosh darn it. Millenials are killing kung fu, too, aren't they?
- bfuller 10y agoNot to mention kung fu is traditionally taught from father to son. That doesn't scale well.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]