Future of kung fu

Discussion in 'Kung Fu' started by huoxingyang, Sep 29, 2016.

  1. huoxingyang

    huoxingyang Valued Member

    There have probably been threads on this topic before, but for some reason I've been noticing a lot more of it recently, particularly with the following video and article which seem to be getting around on Facebook at the moment:

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-tGWzjDOfE"]China's kung fu masters struggle to keep art form alive - YouTube[/ame]

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/world/asia/hong-kong-kung-fu.html

    It's the same old story... various people lamenting the fall in popularity of traditional Chinese martial arts (particularly in their traditional "homeland" of China and Hong Kong) and wondering about its future.

    Personally, while I am pretty sure that traditional Chinese martial arts are indeed less popular now than a few decades ago, they are still very much alive and popular on a global level. Maybe not healthy as effective fighting arts, but the tradition of practicing and "handing down" arts doesn't seem to be showing any sign of vanishing, in my opinion.

    As a bit of a counter to the doom and gloom, I recently came across this fun promo video for a university kung fu club in Taiwan:

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjcvm4Zvdh4"]å°å¤§åœ‹è¡“社2016招生影片 ã€ç´„練】 2.0 - YouTube[/ame]

    Ok, not the most traditional kung fu, but it's nice to see young people enjoying themselves with it.

    I'd be interested to read what others' thoughts on the topic are. What shape might we see kung fu in come the next generation, when our sifus are retired and it is some of us or our peers trying to pass things on?
     
  2. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    It's probably got a lot to do with MMA, the Internet, and general flavour of the month. Kung fu will always be there.
     
  3. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    I think it's dying out as anything more than a health art, take tai chi out of the equation and the numbers practising fall dramatically, especially in China itself. A friend and training partner has been in China teaching English for years in a major city, nearest kung fu school was hours away the locals were more interested in making money than learning ancient arts he ended up at a private sanda club who ironically liked the fact he could fight with something different than their boxing and kick boxing lol. Even more ironically with the popularity of the yip man movies the private school he is at kitted out a gym for him to teach the teenage girls wing chun, so the only kung fury school for miles is taught by a white foreigner lol.

    Chinese arts will never go away but the type of students they attract are turning the art into something very un martial, students want forms and don't want to spar hard those guys now skip the kung fury schools and head straight to the local bjj and mma places.
     
  4. Mushroom

    Mushroom De-powered to come back better than before.

    It kind of depends on what people think Kung Fu should be. Majority of those think that "true" KF is learned via the romantisized notion of it being in a temple, high in the clouded mountains in a dirt trek. And no in the local youth centre.

    A lot of styles/lineages disappear, that's an unfortunate (or not) issue. Yet what can be done to pass it along? It's not like you can force people to spend years in an art. Students come to the Teacher and rarely does it go the other way around in today's times.

    Other people blame this generation of wanting to learn things too quickly, not willing to dedicate themselves or possibly unable to dedicate themselves due to work, social life etc.
    Popularity is also a factor.
     
  5. huoxingyang

    huoxingyang Valued Member

    I don't get why this should ever be an issue. It's even the main point of some arguments you hear about the demise of Chinese martial arts... it's not that they are necessarly disappearing, but that there are fewer Chinese people practicing compared to the number of non-Chinese.
    In my mind, it is a given that once something (such as kung fu) becomes a global phenomenon, then it shouldn't be unusual for the situation to arise where the majority of practitioners are "foreigners". After all, there are way more not-Chinese people in the world than Chinese people.

    And if there are more non-Chinese people practicing kung fu than Chinese people, it stands to reason that there should be an amount of non-Chinese who are capable of teaching the art - including to Chinese people - or else something is quite wrong.
     
  6. Subitai

    Subitai Valued Member

    I've often heard that after all these years post MAO...i.e. Communist revolution, that if you wanted to learn CMA = you needed to do it outside of China.

    Having been to China myself I can honestly say that just like everywhere else in the world...they have their fair share of people who suck. It's not about race.

    Often times you see the foreigner who loves Chinese culture so much that he/she moves there learns the language, integrates and eventually becomes "more Chinese than the Chinese" (sort of). I know of at least one uncle who is very legit but also "fits that bill"

    I guess the same can be said in reverse, how many times you see an Asian who's good or exceptional at things that are not Traditional to their country...examples ballet, classical music, Italian opera, ect.

    So really it's all about the skill and ability and not the race. I don't judge a teacher based on race...only by their skills and ability to apply them or sometimes just teach them.

    I've always personally blamed Kung fu movies. I'm a big fan of them but they seem to set the fantasy barr way too high in people expectation wise.
     
  7. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    Kung fu will never die as long as Kwoon is available on DVD, which is forever. :D

    The central theme there, is "The Devil hates kung fu", as Subitai well knows, so it's important to develop and maintain one's personal kung fu, in order to continue the eternal struggle against the forces of darkness.

    Or put in non-Chinese, layman's terms, "Idle Hands are the Devil's Workshop".

    Kung fu, in any real form, is the antithesis of this.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2016
  8. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    Aaradia's school has 2000+ students over 7 locations. They don't seem in any danger of dying out.
     
  9. Sandy

    Sandy Valued Member

    I wonder if that's not only true for kung fu, but many other TMA too. I've seen several martial arts schools are more art than martial.
     
  10. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    Which goes to show that many instructors' understanding of martial arts is so poor that they don't even understand the name. The phrase martial arts is old, and as such the meaning of art is not the same as our modern understanding. It means a discipline of finite rules based on rational experience, and has little to do with free expression.
     
  11. SWC Sifu Ben

    SWC Sifu Ben I am the law

    I think it's because of the niche that it's in. The white pj daycare, Olympic sport, and sport fighting niches are already thoroughly covered by several other arts so who's going to show up for kung fu? Usually the people who watch kung fu movies and buy into a lot of hype and like you pointed out that feeds back into the instruction.
     
  12. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    No one likes to eat bitter on a large scale.....but there are always people who will eat it
     
  13. Bozza Bostik

    Bozza Bostik Antichrist on Button Moon

    Old man rant time!

    I think it's just typical of a lot of people; they want something/everything but aren't willing to put the time or effort in and make sacrifices. They are quite happy to join the club, "play" at whatever, buy the t-shirt and fool themselves and people around them.

    Personally, I love the learning process, I love being totally crap at something initially, then looking back some time later and seeing how I've progressed...It's half the fun! Not everyone wants that, people want instant results.

    #getoffmylawn
     
  14. AndrewTheAndroid

    AndrewTheAndroid A hero for fun.

    You should check out the movie the Big Year. It's a Steve Martin movie about bird watching. It actually has a great commentary on what it takes to be the best at something and what it means to be successful.
     
  15. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    I think the goals of kung fu are well summarized by Syrio Forel teaching Arya Stark the Braavosi Water Dance as a helpless little girl, to her victorious departure as an elite assassin from Braavos years later.

    Arya's journey is the basic story of kung fu (and I swear the whole subplot is basically straight out of 1970's Shaw Brothers):

    Family murdered, her sword master is captured or worse, she escapes, she finds monk-assassins to teach her crazy fighting styles (you don't get more 'Shaolin' than blind staff fighting..imo), she returns, and proceeds with kicking butt and taking names :D She goes from dropping the sword clumsily in her first session, to killing her enemies in the dark. Look at what she had to suffer in between. Various times she's seen repeating her list of names, and practicing the Water Dance. That's what 'kung fu' is supposed to represent, eating bitter, and learning to stick with it and eat worse, as Hannibal masterfully put it.

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Invy0tvOc"]A Game of Thrones (HBO) - The Water Dance (scene) - YouTube[/ame]

    What I took away from kung fu (and Arya's tale) was this: there's a time you are nubile and clueless, followed by a time of great work, even questioning your investment, before final mastering of the art. BY mastery I don't mean perfection, but the ability to self-improve your skills. It's not that you can't learn new things, but you've learned how to keep going without being so blind. So I think it stands to reason whatever it is you're trying to 'master' is the key point of kung fu. Strength? Kung fu teaches that. Health, sure. Fighting skill in theory? Every one of them claims that. Fighting skill in competition? That list of schools is most certainly is the shortest one, but only because it's the highest level of attainment (at least with regards to fighting).

    People will train kung fu to acquire different things, and there is clearly a spectrum as others pointed out, from health and wellness type stuff to brawlers who like Chinese culture so much they adorn themselves with it.
    A lot of people seek kung fu for nothing more than to clear their heads, and in that respect, it's one of the best arts there is, in my opinion.

    If I wanted to learn ground grappling better I would go train Jiujitsu, if I wanted to fight in a ring for cash or get tough in general, I'd train MMA. NO brainer, as they say. These produce results. I consider them both 'kung fu'...skill obtained over time.

    But if I wanted to learn a way of bettering myself physical and mental self general, I'd probably still take kung fu. Whether or not I gained any fighting skill would directly depend on the teacher and training regime. Clearly without a very specific set of things in that regime you are not going to be prepared for real combat, and that's where a kwoon has to make a choice: teach real combat preparation skills, or admit you're only teaching the foundations of an art form, not the whole enchilada.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2016
  16. YouKnowWho

    YouKnowWho Valued Member

    To me Kung Fu is not how many forms that you have learned. Kung Fu is whether or not you can

    - crash walnut by your finger tips squeeze,
    - crash walnut by your palm squeeze,
    - crash coconut by your arm squeeze,
    - punch/kick a hole through your heavy bag,
    - break a Karate belt by your arms,
    - ...

    You may never be able to achieve your goal in your life. But you will try to get as closer to your goal as possible. I like to use a Karate belt to do my belt cracking exercise. After many years of hard workout, I finally broke that Karate belt.

    It also takes me many years to be able to crush walnut with my grip strength.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2016
  17. Guitar Nado

    Guitar Nado Valued Member

    Based on this post I ordered the Kwoon DVD. Was able to get it for $2.75 used (plus shipping). Was well worth the investment!

    I compare it to the collected works of Chris Seaver in terms of movie style/budget/acting. In other words, the lowest of low.low budget. The Kung Fu in the movie to me is pretty cool, from what I know from when I did Kung Fu a few years back. Now I know the true use for Lion/dragon dancing (besides being really loud when I was trying to listen to sparring critiques and corrections).

    If you don't hear from me for a while, it is because I am learning moves from this movie.
     
  18. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    I wonder if anyone here even gets the joke. I don't have many 'inside jokes', but I have this one.

    When I mention Kwoon and people know what I mean, I know I'm in good company. I don't get to mention Kwoon often.
     
  19. Subitai

    Subitai Valued Member

    Woah! I came to visit MAP and see some interesting things...hmmmm inside jokes??

    Is this a bad time for "Bodhidharma's Ghost, maybe" hehehe
     
  20. Subitai

    Subitai Valued Member

    Dude...please drink at least 3 beers before watching KWOON. You'll suffer the acting less.

    About the martial arts in the show, if we had more money it was my intent to steadily and progressively hire MORE and MORE real Martial Artists to come on the show and beat us up. :)

    I had so many fun ideas for that: one of them was cool with an Olympic Level Judo player totally throwing us around and through tons of walls...and furniture and windows. haha. Also, sweeps and locks and such. But the chance to allow the Judo master to represent his skill in a way that they most approved would have been awesome.

    In another script...Todd and I were trapped in a department store and faced a crazy (albeit) very skilled Kung Fu Janitor who slept in the store at nite. I had written a scene to fight with sporting equipment. My favorite had to be with Long saltwater fishing poles ala kung fu long pole fights. I had a famous Wushu competitor in mind at the time. Oh the creative things we could've done with that. haha

    Did you guys know? We had an offer on the table to live in Vancouver and whilst there, the Canadian show (at the time) "MuchMoreMusic" was going to film us "Real World MTV Style" ...whilst we in turn were filming and working on more kwoon episodes. TOO BAD man, the deal was on the table but it fell through. So sad.
     

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