Just a few years ago everyone wanted to learn kung fu and now kung fu is considered a joke. Everyone wants to learn BJJ and mma in the present year. What happened?
>>269894Did you mean to make this thread 20 years ago?
>>269897What do you mean?
>>269894Nowadays it's all about practicality and what works in a fight. And as physically impressive as kung fu can be, it's closer to a dance routine than anything combat related
>>269909You're implying that "just a few years ago" kung fu was super popular meanwhile that was pretty much a big thing in maybe the 80s-00s.
>>269894The internet happened. Kung fu masters got their asses whipped all over the place, on video, and the jig was up.
>>269952Anon, it was a thing in the 2010s because of the Ip man movies. A tiny Chinese man beating Mike Tyson with wing chun was impressive. I knew Mexican gang bangers that wanted to learn wing chun after the Ip man movies came out.
>>269954The ip man movies were decently popular but in no way inspired a martial arts craze like ninjas in the 80's or BJJ in the 10's. People may have thought wing chun was cool but there was no wing chun bubble. A bunch of wing chun schools didn't pop up and rando coworkers weren't talking about their sparring sessions or white belt stripes ala BJJ. Actually training that shit has always been niche. I would say the general public is still pretty ignorant/apathetic about kung fu rather than dismissive. Its basically been in decline since Bruce Lee died. As anon points out >>269953 the digital video era has not helped matters either for those who actually bother to do a bit of research.
modern MMA demystified martial arts but also killed all the cool martial arts culture you saw in the 80s and so on
>>269975I mean, nothing is stopping you from practicing your niche clunky martial art, there's still gym available for most of them, even if you need to move a little for some depending on where you liveIf you want to practice something and not give a damn about what people says, you can.
>>269894The memeification of eastern martial arts has been a slow rolling chain of events for decades now but to tldr its a combination of lack of firsthand information and its practitioners drinking the kool-aid. For example, Chi was always just a metaphor for breathing and somehow got turned into this life force super ultra energy cultivation bullshit. Now imagine that but for everything else about Kung Fu. It still works for fighting when you really study it but you'd be better off finding a boxing gym or something than the luck it takes to find a good Kung Fu school.
>>269894the problem is it's marketed as an unarmed martial art when "Kung FU" should be weapons based
I just watched Ip Man for the first time. It was super disappointing.
>>269894Should lean more on Sanda but most teachers are frauds so real fighting is off limits.
>>269894I've been practicing traditional kung fu/wushu for the last 11 years and I'm gonna keep at it until I die. Mostly praying mantis, tai chi, bagua, five animals. I also practice sanda and shui jiao, and I wrestled in school for 12 years placing in my state a few times.My Shifu passed away 4 years ago now, me and my fellow senior students are still practicing. I have 40 ish more forms before Ill get my teaching certificate from Hong Kong. I'm practicing with them as much as I can, both of them have their certificates and 400+ individual forms each (not the same 400). Technically I could get my black sash now, or very soon, but I'm going to wait until I have 100 total forms. Only my Shifu required the 100 form minimum. The athletic association we technically certify through, only requires the base 50 some form main curriculum for black sash. My Shifu was a gluten for punishment and studied under many different styles and masters in the USA, hong kong, and mainland china. So there's lots to learn, for years to come even with him gone. Next year I probably won't go to the panamerican games with the USA wushu kung fu team. I still might, but I'm on the fence. I will at the very least go to a few us based international kung fu tournaments just to see friends and collect a few more medals.But in two years I'm going to China to learn from Chinese Shifus in the same taoist lineage as us. Then after that who knows. But I want my teaching certificate and my taoist priest certificate. The priesthood will be at least three or four years of flying back and forth to china assuming geopolitics in the future allow. I just really hope I can go over seas a few times and finish up my priesthood, I really hope the world doesn't blow up before then
>>270724Is that 400 forms between all the styles you practice? That’s insane. Most karate styles only have 20-30 forms.
>>270724>>270735I’ll add that there aren’t any places that teach kung fu where I live and 2-3 hours away there’s some larpy looking kung fu teachers without a lineage. My options are mma, BJJ, or taekwondo. Going to china would be fun but I’d have to learn the language and I’m poor. Does your tai chi work well in a fight or is it more for health?I watch videos of kung fu and think it looks cool but it’s not practical for me to learn, at least not right now. Some kung fu looks like you’ll get your ass beat but there’s a few styles that might last a little longer against Muay Thai. This is based on what I’ve seen but I don’t currently train in any martial arts. I’m mainly lurking this board and holding out until I can train in tma.
>>270724I'm a fellow grappler with an interest in CMA, primarily historical CMA but wushu is also cool. Do you have any advice for this post >>265140 ?How's the shuai jiao scene in the US these days? Last I looked into it I got the impression one of the main promoters died and the scene was kind of fading out--at least in Ohio, which was the only tournament location I remember seeing within reasonable overnight driving distance.
>>270735400 is between multiple systems. Each full curriculum we know is only about 20-50 forms long. But Shifu learned lots of different smaller Mantis systems all over china and Hong Kong. So that's representative of at least 10-15 different full Mantis systems including hand forms and weapons>>270736Some kung fun you will get your ass beat, but the point is to study all of it not just one part. Many tcma practitioners nowadays put themselves into camps and won't get out of them. "Tai chi the best, wing china the best, shaolins the best, etc" when they all should be practicing all of it. My Shifu always used to say the forms and styles are just there to give you inspiration and it's up to you to put it into practice and you should take the best of all your styles and knit them together like a tapestry. But he was also very esoteric. Tai chi teaches great stance work, balance, and discipline. Contemporary wushu teaches flexibility and acrobatics. Longfist teaches long extended strikes and blocks and kicks. Wing chun teaches short fast strikes and blocks and kicks. Drunken styles, animal styles, bagua and other moving flowing styles teach non-conventional striking and movements as well as training secondary muscle groups, balance and continuous movement. Putting it all together makes you a good kung fu practitioner. My Shifu always did chinn na and sanda every single day. We practiced four to six hours a day five to six days a week. At least two to three hours every day was fighting, self defense applications from forms, and body conditioning. So much wooden man, iron palm bags, and forearm chest and shin conditioning with partners. Most kung fu teachers nowadays do not do it like that in the USA.I will say too I've found tcma very practical. My one senior student to me that I practice with was a correctional officer and now a baillif. Hes used chinn na and tcma applications more times than he can countCont.
>>270736Cont.I don't want to be one of those "I cannot even show you my kung fu or I would kill you" kind of cringe dudes. But the truth is most of kung fun is not punching and kicking. If you are going to a good tcma school where they teach real fighting and applications, most of it is maming and killing. Most praying mantis styles weather it's plumb blossom, seven step, black sect, tai chi Mantis, Jing wu Mantis etc. most of the applications are lethal. A prime example is a student of Shifu's in the nineties. In chicago the student was a gang banger. When he got sent up state he got in a gang related altercation in the prison and supposedly when the one guy grabbed the previous student by the neck, he grabbed the guys wrist with one hand, and blew out the dudes elbow with his own elbow. Compound fractured the guys arm so bad the bone was sticking at far enough the previous student began stabbing the man in the neck with his own compound fractured arm. It's a direct plumb blossom mantis application put into real practice. Another example of practicality, especially from a "goofy" style like drunken boxing. My Shifu was an inheritor of two different taoist martial arts lineages, and one Shaolin lineage. All three of them have lots of drunken forms. When I was in high school I got in a fight with a kid who had done to summers at an "mma muay thai BJJ camp". He threw his first punch absolutely as hard as he could. I caught the punch with my upper arm behind my elbow and spun around forward, rolling around the punch. When I turned around he was gone, he was behind me literally tumbling across the floor because he's lost his balance that bad when the punch didn't connect. After that he popped up and started barraging me with fast muay thai combinations which I admit I couldn't answer. They were too quick for me and I was just backpedalling swatting then away. At least two got through. So I started "slap kicking" him. I was snap kicking with the toe of my shoe Cont
>>270736I was snap kicking him with the toe of my shoe right in his ribs, while smacking down on my own shin with my hand at the same time. He didn't know whether to try to block my foot or my hands at first, and it visibly hurt him kicking him in the ribs with my big toe. Eventually he fell for my trap, the third example of a silly traditional application. He caught one of my snap kicks. I stepped through his arm, jumping/pushing off my base leg, so my kicking leg where he was holding it by the ankle is now pushed all the way through where my hip is against his and he's holding me practically by my crotch. I wrapped my kicking leg around his leg, and with my index finger nail I cut up and around his neck while twisting and slamming him into the ground on his back. In Chinese that moves called yellow viper wraps around pole and drinks from the morning dew or something like that and it's from a Shaolin five animals form my Shifu learned from ark wong in the 70s. When we got on the ground it was all over. He had taken some BJJ classes but I was a multiple time state wrestler at this point, and actively lettering on our high school wrestling teamThe conclusion is, mma muay thai and BJJ is really good. It teaches people punches and kicks and blocks very quickly. That guy in four weeks was throwing extremely fast and effective combinations that had me practically running. But there's also a lot of ego there. A lot of BJJ and MMA guys think that's all there is. Before the fight he literally said "kung fun is retarded karate I went to an mma camp this summer I'm gonna kick your ass" But experience trumps everything. I've also practiced punches and kicks, a fucking lot. But I've also practiced wrestling a lot longer than he practiced BJJ. I practiced silly non traditional moves longer than he practiced practical traditionally accepted mma strikes. I wasn't hubris about it, he wasFinal cont
Lol what a load of shitWe got the last kung fu holdout here and he still believes in silly stories like a guy stabbing a guy with his own arm boneYeah sure I totally believe thatTell me about the five point exploding heart technique next, sensei gullible
>>270736Learn grappling, take a BJJ class take lots of them. Then learn a striking discipline. Learn how to punch and kick and wrestle. Then learn tcma. Starting with tcma is a long long road before you can use it practically in a fight. Mma and muay thai even karate and tkd will teach you "how to fight" very quickly. Then you can spend a lifetime learning the extended curriculum. Then you can start adding silly kung fu shit to it. The absolute encyclopedia of Chinese martial arts techniques are extremely valuable and practical, but only if used by someone who already has already achieved a high level of fighting and physical conditioning.Most kung fu schools don't focus on fighting anymore and that's a shame. A day didn't go by Shifu didn't beat the shit out of us or we beat the shit out of each other and that's important.>>270746Shuai jiao is slowly dying but it's not gone. The great lakes kung fun tournament and USA shuai jiao championship is fucking goated. I WILL be going next year. I love John and Gino, the guys that put it on are great. There's still high attendance and those guys go super hard. I would 100% recommend you go next year. If you do sign up for the advanced adult traditional kung fu continuous sparring and hopefully we'll fight each other that'll be fun! There are a couple shuai jiao schools in ohio too I think. I used to live in ohio most my life, but now I live in wv. If you thought it was hard to find a kung fun teacher in ohio, appalachia is way worse lolSorry for rambling and shitting up the thread guys, I hope I typed everything out in a somewhat intellectual wayKung fun is fun and you should do kung fu, but also fight all the time and practice grappling
>>270754Lol to each their own my man. I'd still rather have fun playing with chain whips and guan daos and shit. Kung fu is a lot of fun. But I promise you, if someone elbows the back side of someone's elbow while their arm is held extended it will break. That's not bullshido, it will break your arm that's real. Its no different then someone popping an arm lock in BJJ. Your body is much weaker than you think it is. Just because it was a Chinese guy that said your arm will break, doesn't mean the story needs totally thrown out
It makes me so mad reading this back and realizing spell correct fucked up every other word lol. But that's what I get for work posting
>>270756nta but your own examples show kung fu is a larp.
>>270755>appalachia is way worse lolI'm in rural Pennsylvania. I haven't attended judo class lately because it's a two and a half hour round trip for an hour of class and it'd be a six hour round trip to attend a shuai jiao tournament in Cleveland. The lack of anything close enough to attend daily is why I'm interested in self-study of wǔkēdāo/guāndāo forms.
>>270761>>270761It's all a larp anon. Its just which larp is more fun to you. I'd still rather do the fun acrobatic stuff and learn a couple hundred weapon forms, then larp as the tough guy mma tap out sheep dog. It's all the same shit. It's all still punches and kicks. But man kung fu is way more fun. The silly stuff adds to it, it doesn't detract. A tcma hears shit like this all the time. We know half the stuff is non practical, but some of it is. We enjoy what we do and don't care about it being silly. I think most MMA guys get really ego hurt. I think most MMA and muay thai BJJ boxing etc, I think those guys take themselves way too seriously and I think it does detract from their martial arts, and it detracts from their public imageAcrobatics, performative, and non practical stuff in kung fu is still practical. Because it's very physically demanding nonetheless. Even the pointless stuff trains flexibility, endurance, balance etc. Any contemporary wushu artist is more physically impressive from a body conditioning, flexibility, and body control perspective, than any karate tkd or muay thai guy hands downWhether it's larp or not, a b twist into a splits with double broadswords will always be ridiculously impressive, and only someone who's trained very hard for a long time will ever achieve thatAny guy who's in there doing sanda, including myself I fight at least two sanda matches a year or more. Is also practicing butterfly kicks, sweeps, crescent kicks, and all kinds of other silly shit too bc it's just really good practice. And you overall just have a deeper bag to pull from
>>270763that's a lotta cope coming from an acrobatic queer engaging in pretentious theatrics
>>270764Just dont call me Shirley
>>270762Guan dao is super fun a great arm exercise. I don't think you'll have any issue learning it through self practice. The biggest part of any tcma is stances. Especially for a weapon like guan dao. It was a cavalry weapon. So most of the forms you see performed with guan dao are done in horse stance or in riding stance. Having those super deep and good will be paramount to having a good looking form. Also, make sure you're always cutting with the blade. Traditional artists are better at this I feel then wushu guys. You don't want to be paddling the blade through the air like youre rowing a boat. Even when you're doing clouds or behind the back stuff, the blade or hook must always be leading. Sifu kuttle is a hung gar guy that's somewhat in the same lineage as me, I know he's got lots of guan dao forms on his YouTube I think. Anything wudang or Shaolin puts out is usually good. And don't be afraid to learn a contemporary wushu guan dao form. It'll require higher flexibility and acrobatics, but if you can do a butterfly kick with a traditional full weight guan dao, you're a fucking big chad and I will respect you for life. Its a great training weapon and I love guan dao, pu dao is also basically the same thing. Any pu dao form can be done with a guan dao and vice versa
>>270762>Kuttelhttps://youtu.be/cz4_ZsYd--k?is=bNJEHD5jfm7F-Sy4There wasn't as many on his channel as I thought there was. This is a very good form though, minus the flexible steel wushu guan dao. He also didn't get his butterfly kick way up there. At 0.19 his butterfly kick should've been parallel to the ground, he basically just jumped and kicked up his back feet. You want to be totally flat flying in the air horizontal for a split second before you come downA form like this has everything. Majority of the basic movements of the weapon, lots of different stances and a nice butterfly kick assuming you get it up off the groundJust use a full weight traditional guan dao like real nigga (pic related anything like this, also short Chinese man is short), wushu spring steel is only okay when you're doing broadsword or jian imo. I think a well made wushu jian or dao feels really good in the hand, but a wushu steel polearm is straight puke. It's disgusting.
>>270767I'm going to learn this form, from the video, and do it better with a bigger butterfly kick. Just for funsies because I don't got shit going on rn and this drunken jian form I'm learning is super fucking tough and I want to take a break from it for little bitIf I'm capable of recording and uploading it here without doxxing myself, and assuming this thread or similar one is up, I will do so within a week
>>270763All the attributes you described are trained more efficiently with dedicated training. A b twist into splits with double broadswords is not impressive at all and can be learned in a couple of months to half a year with limiter being splits if you approach it properly instead of treating it as a wushu meme because you want to live that anime life.
>>270767I’d put you into a chokehold with my BJJ. Kung fu is for larpers that have never been in a fight.
>>270771>Not impressive>Takes months to half a year>Limiter being splitsAnd have you ever done the splits? I'm sure a b twist to splits is really easy for someone typing on a keyboard. If someone did a b twist to splits in less than 6 months of training I'd lose my fucking gourd, it's definitely not impossible but that'd be very very fucking impressive if the person had literally no martial arts experience. Also a b twist to splits is 100% a wushu meme. What the fuck do you mean approach it properly? The only way to approach it properly is as a wushu move, because it's only a wushu move. You would never do a b twist to splits in any situation ever, except while performing a contemporary wushu formI don't even know what the point of what you typed is. My whole point this whole time is the kung fun is fun and hard and takes a long time of dedicated practice. You said "yeah but anyone could do that with a lot of dedicated training". Lmfao yes, yes they can
>>270772I wrestled from 1st grade to senior year. The only people who've ever beat me rolling is other state placing wrestlers, and an iowa state full scholarship wrestler I rolled with in the army. If you are very good at BJJ you probably can. But that's apples and oranges. You'd be testing my wrestling skill because you think kung fu sucks? That just don't make no senseI have been in many fights. I take multiple sanda fights a year, and I have been in many school and adult fights. I do the punching and the kicking it's true
>>270773The constructive point is that kung fu packages together a long roundabout inefficient way to learn any skill/improve body composition, things irrelevant to fighting, and maybe some actual fighting stuff. That stuff is then perceived as something cool because of media. Which makes it inherently larp. The way to approach that move properly is to get a good coach to update you on stretching methods - cns and a couple weeks of high rom resistance training to failure to tear and rebuild the shorter fibers. Then google a "how 2 b twist youtube tutorial" and dedicate a weekend to it. Combat sports, otoh, focus on winning the meta, which is not larp at all.
>>270806>Thinking a wushu school does not have coaches who teach flexibility every day>Falls back on if it's not practical (a bald white guy in his 30s told me this'll win in the octogon) it's larpIf you b twist this weekend and upload webm of it without doxxing yourself I'll give you a paternal pat on the back. You don't even need the splits because I know you cant do them. You still haven't made any point. Wushu kids do this shit all day because they already have good coaches and flexibility training regiments before during and after practice just like any other gym. Literally 80% of any contemporary wushu class is stretching and acrobatics training, literally no different then little girls do in a gymnastics class. Most of those coaches are certified physical therapists and have degrees in sports medicine. Three sifus I can name off the top of my head, in the tri state area surrounding me, have sports medicine degrees.>Let me tell you how to approach this move properly, I used Google ai to generate this responseSo the right way is listening to the Google ai? Or does the right way involve a white bald in his thirties? Do I have to wear spandex shorts and work in a "sports therapy" clinic and post YouTube videos to teach you the "right way"I think youre just upset people have fun with something you don't know anything about, so you're jealous and grasping at straws to try and discredit it. It's okay to think wushu is physically impressive anon. That won't shatter your mma BJJ world view I promise. You can admit a b twist to splits is impressive, it is anon its okay
Train Kung Fu - live to old age happy and healthyTrain bjj /judo/wrestling - destroy your own neck, spine, knees, walk around in pain forever Train striking - destroy your eyeballs and brain and walk around like a moron
There was an MMA fight recently one guy was wrestling/judo MT baseThe other was Kung Fu shaolin temple Kung Fu sprawled repeatedly and btfo the other guyhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CFC93WRW4-s
>>270774>I have been in many fights. I take multiple sanda fights a year, and I have been in many school and adult fightsjesus christ lol
>>270808Kyokushin?
>>270009If anything they are being de-memified, martial arts used to try to infuse a semi-mystical (or outright mystical) basis to their movements and mentality because it made each individual dojo/martial art into an almost cult-like experience that locked in practicioners, MMA is dismantling the whole edifice and distilling it down to stuff that works by putting everything into a cage and banging it against each other until the stuff that works is the only thing left
>>270816Broken ribs and toesBonus - you still don't know how to fight
>>270808All the old kung fu guys I've seen are just as bald, fat and immobile as any other old guy who doesn't work out. If you want to be healthy your whole life just take up swimming. Skip all this fighting nonsense because there is hardly a more guaranteed way to pile up injuries. Maybe motorsports are worse, at least in terms of sheer calamitous outcomes.
>>270808>Train bjj /judo/wrestling - destroy your own neck, spine, knees, walk around in pain foreverI'd argue that's less of a problem in traditionalist judo schools, especially for guys who know when to retire from serious competition.
>>270768>without doxxing myselfbuy or make a Guan Yu mask with the beard
>>269894reality happened
