Difference between Kung Fu and Wushu

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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Forgive my ignorance on this, but I thought a good place to post my question would be here.
What is the difference between Wushu (not contemporary) and Kung Fu?

I have heard people saying that Kung Fu refers to higher level Wushu, that Wushu is Kung Fu but without the conditioning and training outside of sparring and form/application practice, or that it is only a difference in name etc.

I apologise if there have been countless threads about this or if it is blatantly obvious, I have tried to find information but havent got a satisfactory answer.

Thanks,

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Two answers here…or may be three.

First off Wu Shu is a proper term for chinese military arts, but has been used by the PRC to denote sport martialarts.
Kung fu on the other hand is just a term that Bruce Lees used once and was picked up by the press.

The other, more real answer is that WuShu is Gey dancing for guys in tights, whilst kung fu is the real deadly.

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Wushu in it’s modern form is more for performance or acrobatics. Do not mistake this for worthlessness.

The conditioning and the abilities a Wu Shu performer has would allow them to beat up most people. With the focus on MMA these days, peoples minds have become too narrowed to see reality.

MMA is about a cage where people cannot get away. MMA is about people who know they are fighting. In real life, you are in the open, you can move around, get away. In real life, fights usually happen unexpectedly.

The main thing that people miss I think is speed. Wu Shu people are blinding fast. If a real life a fight was to pop up, they can react so fast that I think they would take out the other people before they were even ready to fight. I have some footage of Wu Shu people. Their speed is unbelievable. They do things that look impossible.

When people talk about kung fu these days, they are usually talking about training for fighting. The training is very similar.

What is the difference? If you want to learn some kung fu, I don’t think you would notice any difference until you had been training for years. The people that say Wu Shu does not work? I think they are being tricked. Trickery is martial arts. The Wu Shu people look pretty and flowery so they can’t be dangerous right? What better way to stick a knife in peoples back than to appear harmless? Go watch Chinese kung fu movies. High level martial artists will tell straight lies right into someone elses eyes, then stab them in the back. That is like the pinnacle of attainment.

People need strength, power and flexibility before learning kung fu really makes any difference. Anything that gives you strength, power and flexibility is a good thing to train in until your body is ready. Kung fu, Wu Shu, Skateboarding, Surfing, whatever it takes to get basic balance and coordination and strength.

Teach a guy all the martial arts techniques you want. If he has no power, none of them are going to hurt. You see lots of cage fights where some trained guy hits the opponent 20 times. The opponent shakes off all 20 strikes because there is no power and then smashes the other guy.

If the guy is not balanced or coordinated or flexible, he cannot properly execute all those techniques he knows. His aim will be off, he will wobble on one leg when he kicks, he won’t be limber for jiu jitsu moves.

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Long and short of it:

http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/info/faq02.php

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Wushu is much in the form and without the substance. There is the Chuan, but not the Kung. The PRC wants to promote this art for its cultural relevance as a showy thing but it has lots much roots in my opinion.

The difference. Kung Fu is training to fight and to better health. To increase the physical as well as the mental and emotional. Wushu may carry some of these latter two points, I suppose it would depend on the teacher, but Contemporary Wushu is about performance and physical abilities.

Another issue at hand is the comment on the UFC guys not striking with the proper power. Even in sparring it is very difficult to land a really good hit at a novice level, and I mean like five years as a novice. You can’t expect to just take someone out, you have to really mean it and you have to be very prepared. Although I think there are better ways to train than always fighting due to the nature of combat, but sparring as close to a reallity as possible is necessary. WIthou this or kung training, you will not be as capable as you think.

I don’t doubt that maybe a Wushu person could fight, just like I don’t doubt that a UFC champ could break out a beautiful Flamingo dance or start an Opera, the issue is what they are training for. In Kung Fu you are training, in the fighting sense, for a street fight and to defend yourself from violence. Wushu is a competition with points and judges.

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I’ll reiterate.

Kungfu doesn’t necessarily apply to martial arts or the study of them at all. However, one can achieve Kungfu in Wu shu (Mo I).

The divisions and the use of the terms in such a manner as to use Kungfu to refer to Chinese martial arts is strictly a western thing. In Chinese culture, this is not the standard usage of the term Kungfu and all martial arts are referred to as wushu whether they are traditional with all the esoteric practices or contemporary athletic martial performance.

Western linguistics in the defining of cultural idioms has been a problem in more subjects than this one.

Kind of similar reason why people wind up with Chinese characters tattooed on their back that say “I am ignorant and a gwai Lo” and they think it means “power machine” :smiley:

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Or how the japanese take random english words and combine them. A perfect example is a store there called “violence jackoff”

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well, we’re off on a bit of a tangent with this new line to the question, but, yes, precisely. :stuck_out_tongue:

Unless of course the store sells items that aid in violent jacking off in which case it would be quite apropo wouldn’t you say?

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You are so wrong about so many differant things.

I find it ironic that we have one thread insisting that San Shou is kung fu, then you here insisting that wushu dancing is the real.

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Wushu is the politically correct, PRC approved dance and acrobatic Kung Fu. No doubt they are good acrobats. Kung Fu is a generic term for hundreds of different martial arts styles that were developed by different families and monks inside of China. Now many styles have developed outside of China. No doubt a Wushu performer with a spear or sword would be very dangerous. In any empty hands competition with any of the top MMA competitors, they would get their heads handed to them. There are some styles of kung fu, such as Choy Lay Fut and San Shou where this may not be the case.

If a competition were held outside an octagon, then they might be able to flip and run fast enough to get away.

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Master say… “picture worth thousand words”.

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Wushu is a very exaggerated form of traditional kung fu. they also added many elements, to increase the display effect, which have no direct fighting application at all. also some was changed to make it more universal.

before we get any flames, can anyone here truly figure out what is traditional in the modern wushu forms? (or probably a better idea, the ones during the 1980s?)

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Modern wushu, such as nan quan and chang chuan are made up forms in the mainstream of similiar northern and southern styles hence north fist and south fist.
Basically the chinese govt grabbed all the top sifu from nth and sth said make some comp forms now and they did. Who’s gonna say no?
every 10 years they change the forms and poof you have new competition forms.
The old forms from the 70’s and 80’s had more martial content so when you see performers of nan quan many hung gar clf etc can see the influence, in the way they punch etc the essence was still there even application was taught but niow adays only the form is taught no application and the players used to be taught a balance of sorts they all had to learn external and internal styles to maintain harmony, now you are taught only what u are good at, so if u can hit hard u learn san shou only etc etc(this is in china).

Kung fu=hard skill/hard work in cantonese meaning you have to train hard to aquire the kung fu, it is used to mean anything that is hard to achieve such as mountain climbing i.e a mountain climber who can climb mt everest has kung fu.

Wushu in its proper form= chinese martial art.
as stated by and earlier poster that also includes modern performance wushu.

hope thats been informative.

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wushu means martial arts.

kung fu just means high skill or soemthing. most people associate kung fu with “traditional chinese martial arts” and wush with “modern chinese martial arts”.
its all the same to me. they both complement each other. “modern” wushu is based off of “traditional” wushu. so whatever, let narrow minded people argue.

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Today, Wushu means jumping around, rolling, moving beautifully but with no martial merit.

Unfortunately, Kung Fu’s definition today isn’t very different either.

You have to do some searching to find someone who has real kung fu, can use it, and teach it. But it’s out there.

Don’t believe what you hear. Go look and see. Seeing and feeling is believing. Don’t fall for long histories and stories of masters old … see what the person in front of you can do.

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Civil War re-enactments are based off of real battles. That doesn’t give them martial merit.

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In general, Wushu is a big gear with a big crank. Take that same crank, but put it on a small gear. That’s Kung Fu.

Clear enough? :rolleyes:

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i dont know what the hell you people have been watching. most of the “modern” wushu i see takes a level of athletisism (sp?) skill, and flexibility, over “traditional” kung fu, and good “modern” wushu has that explosiveness that “traditional” has. many of the moves are from “traditional” kung fu. and i see them training a lot harder then traditional kung fu most of the time too. plus there isnt as much bikkerying it seems in the world of “modern” wushu comapred to “traditional” wushu.

this is a wack ass subject. you train kung fu cause you like it. practice wu-de and just train and stop argueing over which is better.

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One is penut butter, the other is jam, and the world is the bread. They go better if used at the same time, but can be used by themselves if your picky.

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which is peanut butter and which is jam? there are many flavors of jam liek there are many styles of traditional kung fu. very good comparison :wink: