kung fu or wushu?

[God]

correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't kung fu an insanely generic term?

kung fu = time/effort
wushu = end the use of weapons


or something similar in chinese...i could most definately be wrong...

[Aravi]

Translations aside, Wushu is often used these days to describe forms of Kung Fu that have adopted flashy moves over effectiveness.

And yes, Kung Fu is a very generic term. Thats why the name of the style is typically included.

[quartermaster]

another, more popular translation is
wushu = a literal translation for the western idea of kung fu, meaning all chinese martial arts

[shunyadragon]

In chinese Kungfu or gungfu are the skills and knowledge aquired by studting anything.

In the commercial corruption of the Arts it has been adapted to mean a group of Martil Art styles associated with Shaolin and other temples in China called Wushu in modern China. In traditional Shaolin after the warrior Arts developed it was called Chuanfa. In the original Arts of Buddhism it was nameless or had no name.

Wuyi are the skills and knowledge aquired by studying Wushu

[The_Atomicfreak]

Wushu's literal translation is "Martial Art"

[Wanderer]

Wu Xue: study of fighting and warfare.

Wu Yi: martial arts.

Wu Shu: techniques of fighting.

Kung Fu/Gong Fu: skills that require time and practice to perfect.

It takes some Kung Fu to do it. It takes time and skills.

Wu Xue= Wu Yi + Wu Shu

:cool:

[El Tejon]

Kung fu=any skill (cooking, lawyering, drawing, guitar, golf, Internet board administrator) acquired via time and effort.

Wushu=martial techniques

wu=martial, derived from Chinese ideograms for zhi "stop, end" and ge, "spear, or lance", meaning "to stop weapons."

wuyi=all categories of martial arts related to battle, not just striking or wrestling but archery, horsemanship, design of weaponry, armour, logistics and tactics.

Yang, Jwing-Ming, Shaoling White Crane: Martial Power and Qigong 3 (1996) (wuyi defined on page 18).

[Wanderer]

Cool.

:cool:

[Wanderer]

Wu is all inclusive of fightings which means ways to stop fighting. (Wu=Zi Ge)

That is why all schools of Wushu are heavily on defense. They differ from each other by their designs, philosophies of defense or means to neutralize the opponent's attack.

Bin means soldier or military.

Bin Shu (military sutra)

Sun Tzu Bin Fa is written 2500 years ago and summarized ways/arts of 2000 years of warfare since Yellow emporer 5000 years ago.

Sun Tzu is the first Bin Shu/sutra.

There are 13 chapters and over 6000 words.

So to fight is to stop fight, to preserve and to survive. It is a means and not an end.

War is to stop wars. Peace is the end.

:)

[little_monkey]

kung fu means mastery through time and effort which essentialy means anything you do that you master through time and effort, but it is mostly associated with the martial arts created by the shao-lin monks and the other temples( fukien, shantung, kwangtung, wutang, and hua).

wu shu on the other hand literally means martial arts. wu shu, compared to kung fu, is just flashy acrobatics that resemble martial arts. wu shu was created in part by the chinese communist government during the cultural revolution. wu shu is now the national sport of china.

[Matt_Bernius]

Ok technical definitions aside let's get to the functional defs:

1. Kung Fu: "English" catch all for all external Chinese Martial Arts. Essentially same as "Karate".

2. Wu Shu: Since 1950 or so, it's become synonimous with modern Performance Martial Art, created by the Chinese Government, that fuses acrobatics, dance, and aspects of traditional Chinese Martial Arts.

So for all intents an purposes for discussion and marketing of the martial arts in the western world:

Kung Fu = Chuan Fa = Traditional External Chinese Martial Arts
Wu Shu = Government performace art neutered of most traditional martial application

Note that Internal Martial Arts (Tai Chi, Ba Gua, Hsing Yi) are typically referred to by name.

- Matt

[OblivionsAvatar]

literally Wushu means war art (wu = war, shu = art), and in China any martial art is called wushu. Modern Wushu though, is the...er..neutered :rolleyes: version of chinese martial arts...its all flashy and no fighty (those leotard clad leaping dudes can do some INSANE sh!t though)

[The_Atomicfreak]

literally Wushu means war art (wu = war, shu = art), and in China any martial art is called wushu. Modern Wushu though, is the...er..neutered :rolleyes: version of chinese martial arts...its all flashy and no fighty (those leotard clad leaping dudes can do some INSANE sh!t though)

It depends on who's teaching you. Plus, there are a lot of studies being made by the Wushu Institute, in regards to restoring the "martial" into "art".
It's actually kind of a popular thing for people to learn wushu along with San Sau, these days.

[kenpoguy]

just a quick note to add about kung fu and wushu. Wushu was derived from one of the grandmasters of kenpo, and later seperated into being thought of a kung fu style. Though this is also somewhat contradicting, as kenpo is essentially kung fu.

[Mushroom]

Ah everything is just lost in translation....

Chinese becomes confusing when translating into English.

Kung Fu basically means 'work'.

So when we say - thats a lot of work = tai dor gung fu

And any expert in any field is called Sifu.

But we still call kung fu...kung fu except we say it 'hoc gung fu' (learning kung fu)