Wushu or Kung fu

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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I was wondering. What do you guys think you do? Kung fu or Wushu? Saddly, there are a lot of people who think they know kung fu when it really is wushu. I think if your teacher came from PRC, they probably do wushu. I know people may jump on me because of that statment. However, I would say that maybe 15% of the MA in mainland China is Traditional. The Commies messed everything up. Thanx a lot Mao! :wink:

Im writing this because I’ve been to tournaments where the judges would get mad because of all of the wushu guys in traditional.

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i do kung fu, but i don’t have no fancy lineage or anything.

i just go to my sifu’s house where he beats us down and builds us up.

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Personally, I prefer my wushu over most “American” kungfu. I also tend to use the term wushu to refer to all Chinese martial arts.

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“I also tend to use the term wushu to refer to all Chinese martial arts.”

Me to. The irony of kungfu vs. wushu is lost to most on these boards. I have to agree most people who complain about wushu just feel insucure about what they do. Don’t use the arguement “they make us look like dancers” cause if people think no CMA work for combat then let them, what they don’t know can kill them. Anyway most “traditional” people who hate wushu are just jealous that they aren’t as athletic as sanda/sanshou or talou competitiors are. I’ll have to agree with richie to an extent to. Most of the stuff comming out of PRC is contempory now, but they are good at what they do. I don’t we should count out the american kungfu people yet though, just cause I’m not asian doesn’t mean I suck or have to bow to another who is asian. My system has been completely out of taiwan for 2 generations and my sigung was brazilian…so other countries have good kungfu to, just maybe a little different flavor.

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Shaolin D.

Yeah, I agree with you. A lot guys hate wushu because they do what they do well. I’m not a wushu hater. I like watchin g wushu (esspecially the women). I just dont like it when a guy enters traditional and busts out with butterfly twist, and other wushu stuff.

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I read you, it kinda confuses stuff doesn’t it? I have mixed feelings about traditional kungfu forms comps anyway. I feel they are good as a promotional tool but they don’t really look as spectacular as contemp stuff. I think the reason why is cause trad. forms are a tool like drills etc. to build fighting abilities. So for me somtimes I feel like traditional forms competition is a little like going to demonstrait an exercise. I wouldn’t get worked up about forms comps. Contemporay on the other hand was created with performance in mind, so they would kick the crap out of traditional styles in forms comps. I guess what I mean to say is if my main interest was to go to talou comps I would go learn wushu for sure. Seeing as how real use not competitions is my focus then I go with traditional stuff(or anything combat ready). If you compete often in forms I would suggest you learn wushu since it’s what scores, and winning is what matters in competitions( in the street to for that matter).

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I don’t practise kung fu, however some people may be insulted by confusing wushu with kung fu, regardless that wushu, does stand for ‘martial arts’ in Chinese.

I thought that wushu is more about flexibility, combining gymastics with dancing and fighting…or am I wrong? please feel free to correct me, and that it is more a demonstration art? no?

Oh well, I like it anyway, only cos Li Lian is involved…

:wink:

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I thought that wushu is more about flexibility, combining gymastics with dancing and fighting…or am I wrong? please feel free to correct me, and that it is more a demonstration art? no?

Yes & No. The beginer & intermediate leval modern wushu stuff is very similar to the traditional styles it was created from. It’s mostly just the compulsory competition routine and self coreagraphed stuff(what everyone sees in competition) I think really differs. Personally I feel the main purpose of modern wushu is to build a good physical base for other arts. This seems to be how my teacher uses it (he’s from the older wushu generation-pre cultural revolution). I guess I was little hard on American Kungfu. I’m not talking about non Chinese. It’s just that it seems like nearly half of what I see isn’t even kungfu/wushu. Of course there’s still a lot of non mainland schools that I like(wutan for example). It just seems like the bad outwieghs the good.

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Don’t even get me started.

All I’ll say is something can mean whatever it wants to mean, but what is it taken as? When I think of Wushu, I think of pink satin, flexible foil swords, and cartweels.

Someone asked if I am jelous? No! If I put as much time into gymnastics as I do into gung-fu, I’d be an olympic athlete.

Do I find it beautiful, no, not really. I am impressed with their ability to move at first, because anyone devoting thsat much time to something, and acquiring that skill get’s my respect. Then I remember that they consider themselves Martial Artists and I get a sick feeling in my stomach – that they even get coverage in a MARTIAL magazine. Hey, good for them, but they fit better in an entertainment weekly mag that one devoted to any martial content.

Guess I couldn’t keep from commenting. In the end, I have a strong distaste for Wushu. I met soemone who trained with a Shoalin Monk in the city (NYC), I don;t know which one. We were at a party and my aprtment was across the street. Invited them over because I wanted to see the flavor of their stuff.

Started doing a form and right away I knew – Wushu. Hands held out far to the side, weak structure, high kicks with a straight leg, no bend, no forward momentum, leaning back to gain hight. I asked to chi sau. What? I asked to demonstrate some self defense, off a simple routine, and very user friendly straight blast: COULDN’T DO ONE TECHNIQUE. COULDN’T RECALL ONE WAY TO STOP A PUNCH.

Now, it wasn’t so bad because this was a chick – ha ha – and she was good looking, but after her display, I found her to be ugly, she was contributing to the ba$tardization of something I hold dear.

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It wasn’t her fault, it was her instructor.

Wushu is a great sport and can teach you a lot about martial spirit (besides getting you into crack shape).

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wushu vs Kung fu.

here we go :smiley:

contemporary wushu, that is to say the competition forms that were created in teh 70’s and then recreated again later to conform to the governing bodies ideas about how wu shu should be done in order to compete in a governed and structured format is actually highly athletic and demanding of it’s practitioners.

It requires great flexibility and as well strength and athleticism to be able to perform.

However, it is incorrect in a kinetic energy sense and the alignment of the body is also incorrect in terms that map across to power generation principles assoiciated with traditional or classical “Kung Fu”.

The arms and legs are often hyper extended in wushu, this is a no no in combat styles.

the back is arched on many a wushu performer and the long term benifits that one acquires with trad practice is not available in the modern wu shu curriculum.

the weapons are absolutely useless martially as they have no weight or tenacity to them.

also, in modern wu shu, power generation is not even comparable to that found in classical styles.

so, in my opinion, contemporary wu shu is great for providing general awareness of chinese martial arts, it is seeking to validate itself via san shou which is chinese kickboxing and is practiced by wu shu players as a way of applying skills martially even though the principles and tenets are obviously quite different.

wu shu has it’s place, wu shu is the correct term for “chinese martial arts” but to equate it to classical methods is like comparing the stopping power of a bb gun compared to a colt 45.

wu shu has it’s place, but many practitioners recognize that it does not provide much in the area of martially applicable skill until the players makes the bridge into the traditional principles and concepts that are driving the actual “fighting” arts as opposed to “performing” arts.

wu shu is to kung fu what balet is to boxing. Both require skill, but both have very different application.

Don’t get me totally wrong, I like wu shu, I like to watch it and I think the performers work very hard, but to make it martially usable, the player has to map that information over into the correct body mechanics that are recquired to make it so.

peace

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YES!

Bak mei and Kung lek

I couldn’t have said it any better.

Les paul

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Bak Mei

The girl you talked about would only be “contributing to the ba$tardization of something I hold dear” if she was touting herself as being Kung Fu, and not Wushu.

Did she say she trained KF?

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Shaolinboxer, I do not consider breaking spines and necks a sport – do you?

It always seems I’m coming off as the bad guy. I try to make my entire life a meditation, and live with the beliefe that each moment there is a choice between the right action and the wrong action, but in the end I don’t even think about it and just be myself. Most of the times I believe I do the right thing, sometimes I make fun of Wing Chun and get aggrovated by the slams in return.

BUT, I am 100% martial in my studies. Wu Shu is a sport, so is ping pong. Boxing is already crossing that line, I don’t think you would feel to sporty after taking a Tyson upper cut to the chin.

Martial arts is about battle – period. And yes, she mentioned she “practices kung fu”. If she told me wu shu I would have said, “That’s nice, wears the salsa dip?”

Since she said kung fu, my ears shot up. O, really, want to take a walk over to my place and show me some (remeber, at this point she was a cutie).

It’s not her teachers fault (he’s offering a service) and its not her fault (she doing what she wants), its the fault of mass conscious thinking and many MA are guilty of that. I have a sash and a flexible sword, I do kung fu – do you?

Think about it. You are swinging a sword around. Are you really ready to use it? In combat against someone else with a sharp, edges sword? Either $hit or get off the pot. Learn it for real, how to redirect the sword while maintaining your disposition, cutting, shielding, ect., or don’t. Other wise its drama, performance, entertainment.

I have played golf on video games, I don’t tell people I’m a golf player. I have played stick ball, not baseball. Call it what it is – dancing around trying to look martial, but to the martial it looks rediculous.

15

Bak Mei,
Beautifully put, Im with you 100% on that one.

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Am I going to have to drag out the parable of the elephant AGAIN!?

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Like I said, traditional for real, contemporary for sport. Man Bak Mei, this is twice we agreed on somthing, isn’t that a sign of the apocolypse?

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nah. but you better send satan some blankets in case it starts getting cold down there.

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Strange…I do TRADITIONAL Zha Quan (Cha Kuen)…

Gong Bu, Ma Bu, etc… all the same…

A punch…with full extension IS the ideal for Zha Quan..as are the low stances for Taolu…The saying is that you train low and long to use high. the extension is to train NOT letting your power stop and to find that magical area where the end of one technique naturally blends to the beginning of another. Shou Yen ShenFa Bu…All parts mix together as one.

The problem is and always has been that many modern people do NOT do their own routines correctly. If you look at the description of the move in the standard and then look at how a Beijing Team member does it…way different and not for any reason other than they were allowed to do the easy way.

This applies to the old compulsory routines. The old Changquan routine is perfectly fine when compared to any of the 10 Zha Quan routines…or the Pao Quan sets as well.

This is not the case for the latest ones…those routines are…in my opinion, just bad routines. They have moved very far from the ideal and the older generation of teachers are often refusing to learn or teach them.

This argument of Traditional Vs. Modern is a complete waste of time. It divides more than anything else. There are a lot more areas for commonality than anything else. Is it not enough that in events such as the one in San Diego last November that the Modern and Traditional are separated in divisions…and judged according to division standard…

Why do so many wish to divide on such a meaningless issue.

The real root of this goes all the way back to the Gou Ming Dan Vs. Mao…and personally, I refuse to deal with the PRC Vs. Taiwan politics…

It is ALL wushu…and worthy of being learned and preserved.

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I don’t have a problem with the idea of a couple of forms that everybody knows and can compete on an equal level with, I just get sick of the prancing.

The Wushu world has kind’ve lost me in the last couple of years, didn’t there used to be compulsary forms? I see the stuff now and everybody is doing their own thing, or are the commies changing the compulsaries yearly to give themselves an unfair advantage in 2008?

Ugh, wushu…

Come one, come all and watch the authentic Shaolin Monk (wushu) team! That p!sses me off more than anything. You go to watch what you think are Shaolin Monks and you get… Ugh, wushu…

Wushu makes good movies though.

Peace,

The B