Or come out in the open. I’m curious as to reasons why. Private messages are fine if you don’t want to post here. Thanks
I thought Gong Fu came out of the closet years ago.
And are you stealing this from Bolo/Roy’s Q&A? 
I think so. It seems like everything is better underground. Just like music, pizza and “gentlemen’s clubs”. I am serious too. They started making the dancers wear little nipple covers in some of the bigger clubs here.
Originally posted by Merryprankster
[B]I thought Gong Fu came out of the closet years ago.
And are you stealing this from Bolo/Roy’s Q&A? [/B]
No and Yes
DO you mean, should we, as people who study gung fu, tell others and show others?
Or do you mean, should the masters teach openly (publicly)?
I dont go around advertizing that I study combatitive arts, but I dont really hide it - if someone I didnt know came to my house they would quickly learn that I like to cause myself pain. :rolleyes:
I dont think that the masters should have, or should teach openly in big public gyms/kwoons/dojos whatever. Too late for that.
Maybe thats my ass talking for my fingers, since I learned and do learn in one of those open public places.
the more hardcore schools probably won’t have a large following regardless of whether they stay underground or not.
What paul said.
The harder you work, the fewer people show up.
The smaller the school and less known the better the students and the teacher!
the more hardcore schools probably won’t have a large following regardless of whether they stay underground or not.
The harder you work, the fewer people show up.
This is my point exactly. If more of these schools came out in the open, only those who would train hard would stay. All of the “secrets” I’ve been shown have been of the nature of “Practice the hell out of this for months at a time” Even if people wanted to collect that, they wouldn’t get it. Too much work.
In that Kung Fu strategy thread, I had a hard, hard time trying to think of examples for people I could recommend as saying "Check this guy out, you’ll see what I mean. It’s not that they’re not out there. There about as common as solid BJJ or boxing. They just choose not to be found. Thoughts?
Just look at the harder styles. Only a few dedicated students ever make it to the higher ranks. This won’t change if a style is massively marketed or relatively unknown - so long as the masters keep true to the style and don’t sell it out.
Well, Water Dragon, I don’t know what to tell you. Good BJJ and Boxing are pretty easy to find actually–all the comps help that.
I think what you are looking at is a cultural difference. There has never, in the Judo world, been a hesitancy to share knowledge, and that’s where BJJ draws its sportive and training tradition from nor do you have that mentality in boxing. So the good schools in KF are “underground,” as you describe it.
I don’t think that coming “above ground,” would hurt good kung fu at all. Hard work is hard work, whether it’s “common knowledge” or not, and only those willing to do it will stick around anyway, underground or not–just as you point out.
The secrecy has created an air of mysticism. What you are asking is that people give that air of mysticism up, in a lot of cases, and show everybody that plain blood and sweat is what it takes to get good. I’m not sure that many people WANT it demystified… they like it the way it is. They don’t like getting the crap kicked out of them day in and day out–and I’m talking about the ego abuse of investing in loss–BJJ is a primary example.
I’ve seen more people than I can count walk through the doors, beat up on the new white belt, think they’re tough because they just waxed a guy who is 30 lbs lighter and knows about as much as they do… and then… we never see them again, because that same night, they got their arse handed to them by my girlfriend, or our 48 year old blue belt who only weighs 150, or our 136 lb ex gymnast blue, or in the case of some of the 200 and above guys, me.
Nope… they’d rather stick with going somewhere they feel comfotable, doing things with “hidden meanings,” being taught by a “master” with a pot belly who claims to have studied and hold rank in 50 styles, and thinking that, even though they’ve never taken a punch, and never worked with anybody outside their style, they can fight.
To my mind, that secrecy era should be long gone, at least here in the US. Secrecy my arse. If I pay you for a service, I expect to receive it. All the talk of knowledge being held back turns my stomach. Hard work will scare away the non-hackers and the dabblers.
Well written, MP!
It’s all about hard work.
“To master martial arts, perseverance is the key.” (Tao of HSTLKF)
Agreed on all counts but one. There’s a reason for that pot belly. It’s a training method known as Iron Body.
OK.
I will believe you when you tell me that Iron Body creates a pot belly, because I don’t know any better.
But if you tell me that a fat, out of shape “master” who studied 50 different arts has iron body… please tell me you were kidding?
No, I’m just saying that the training exists, and that you can verify who’s telling the truth.
It’s not so difficult to tell a big hard belly from a big soft one. Bulging abdominal muscles have lots of uses, y’know, especially in disciplines where carefully controlled breathing is important.
There’s no secrets in kungfu. It’s just a matter of training. There really has never been any secrets. The “secrets” of both taijiquan and baguazhang, considered by many to be the most obscure of the chinese martial arts, were published open source as soon as they were found. You can find them in 15 seconds on a google search.
I agree that KF is much better off “in the closet” than available to the general public. Popularization tends to denigrate the heart of the system ,and reduce it to uselessness.
If someone wants to learn Martial Arts , they can just go to their local Karate or TKD place , I don’t see a reason why we MUST go public.
I,myself go to a closed door school in an area where there are NO open KF , or Chinese MA , schools at all. So for all purpouses, we are deep ‘underground’ here.
Kf is not my first martial art, but I do love it very much , and I don’t think the outside world would understand (or want to) the effort and the will that goes into creating a good fighter.
BTW I do 7* Praying Mantis KF. I am also a western Fencer, I have done TKD, Aikido as well.
Personally, I don’t see it making a real difference in the long run.
Serious students will be serious students and slackers will be slackers.
You also need to ask yourself if Boards like this and your own personal training would be there if everything is hush hush and underground.
As far as I am concerned the Cat is out of the bag and the miau has been heard.
No use putting it back into the bag and pretending it doesn’t exist.
You have to agree though , that the difference between closed and open schools, sometimes lies in the fact that the quality and quantity of the education is much ,much higher.
I could go into a comparison of my TKD class and KF ,but I won’t. Siffice it to say that one was quality, the other was crap.
High qunantity = low quality
High quality = Low quantity