Is kung fu a meme?
KF thread I suppose.
>>1470180
what do you think OP do you practice. these threads usually suck because the proponents dont really contribute anything good and get overwhelm by the critics.
>>1470180
If it were any good then countries besides China would've begun using it in combat sports.
>>1470207
>If it were any good then countries besides China would've begun using it in combat sports.
Unless the Chinese were racist and had something against outsiders.
>>1470180
Yes.
>>1470180
Kung Fu got memed on pretty hard. People will tell you that it was the Cultural Revolution, but the rot had set in way, way, before then. Kung Fu still sucks in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Chinese Expats around the world. There's a couple reasons for it sucking
1) A lot of them aren't really martial arts, as we think of them. See stuff like that in your image? Stuff like that was never intended for fighting. There's a huge overlap with general health/qigong/wellness techniques.
This isn't the western equivalent of boxing but of gymnastics: techniques thought necessary for a capable warrior, but not actually the techniques of combat.
2) Incomplete systems. A lot of Chinese systems, when you start looking at them from a reconstructionist part of view, seem to be working on the assumption they are not teaching a beginner. This isn't the usual special pleading "you must study for 20 years to get kung fu techniques to work" thing. A lot of styles appear to be built around offering novelty and specialization to someone already with a key foundation in fighting. So you get styles that offer things like takedown defense and grappling mobility training, and no actual grappling offered.
3) Founded the McDojo. This is the saddest fact. Commercialization of Martial Arts had already set in in china during the late Qing. All the shit we associate with it, snake oil approach, unwillingness to cross train, practicing in secret, insisting on purity of lineage above effectiveness, had already been dug in.
Is chain punching a meme?
>>1470340
you cant see shit
>>1470340
What's with this shitty gif
>>1470340
Kind of.
Like it's not completely retarded but it's a close range tactic. Works better when the opponent can't move backwards freely, or chooses not to move backward.
The ones being taught at shady US dojos?
>Yes
The ones taught to old people for health and wellness exercise?
>Yes
The ones performed by people in the streets as a performance?
>Yes
The ones that are kept a secret and taught to those who spend their whole lives as monks without being distracted by "smart phones" "computers" "video games" "twitter instagram snapchat and other shit"
>No.
>>1470180
>>1470180
The original meaning of "kung fu" essentially meant anything that took time or patience to master, so basically, your specialty at whatever it is you do, not necessarily martial arts. So even a scholar or a baker could be said to have great Kung fu if they were skilled at their craft. But when the Kung fu craze hit, a lot of people didn't realize this, so a lot of things that were never meant for martial arts were classified as martial arts, when in reality, they were just a way to teach patience, hard work, and discipline. The martial arts Kung fu that we think of today can work, but so can anything if the person using it is good enough.
>>1470207
Sanda/Sanshou?
>>1473072
>The ones that are kept a secret and taught to those who spend their whole lives as monks without being distracted by "smart phones" "computers" "video games" "twitter instagram snapchat and other shit"
Your autistic "sooper sekrit deadly mountain monk" fantasy doesn't exist in reality.
What do you guys think it means for something to be a meme?
>>1474044
Anything I don't like
>>1473212
There are in fact groups in rural china and south east Asia who practice martial arts, and in fact most Chinese martial arts began in small groups and rural locals.
So not so much super secret as tied to a specific local and not readily spread outside it
>>1474452
That's not what the asshole above said though. Being an isolated rural community is different from being a sekrit mountain warrior monk.
And even so, the assertion that there's good kung fu it's just isolated so nobody has ever seen it outside of this small circle is fucking retarded. How would you know if it's any good?
>>1474534
>How would you know if it's any good?
Applied mathematics and applied psychology.
>>1470272
I think it's something bigger than that, it's a concept that encompasses every martial art.
It's impossible to teach someone how to fight without making him actually fight.
You can make the best system in the world, but it will only make full sense in your head, teacher by teacher it will inevitably become a series of movements you do because the older teacher said so.
The instant something passes to a new teacher, it stops being "guy who risked his life in 20 fights in his teens is trying to make you learn something" and becomes "guy who fought once to get his snack back makes you repeat what the other guy made him do".
Going full contact is just giving up the idea of passing something on and telling the guy to learn by himself
>>1474660
I think that is probably a miss-characterization of how most of these arts were historically set up.
for one thing these students would be expected to fight. going back to my point about small village martial arts, those marital artists would at times be a villages primary means of self defense, and during times of war, militias would often swell with the ranks of martial artists
Pattern practice in some form or another is found in marital arts from Asia to Europe While they might have started with movements and qi gong, after they trained for awhile they almost certainly would have gone at it with those movements, first in a controlled manner, then with as much "free style" as safety would permit. such training can still be found in surviving Asian martial arts systems
>>1474785
>those marital artists would at times be a villages primary means of self defense,
It was a lot easier to rob and rape people back in the day. they didn't have fancy photo cameras and shit, either. If you got a band, you could just kill everyone and completely get away with it.
>Westerners associate Kung Fu to Bruce Lee
>Bruce Lee openly criticized Kung Fu for being outdated and not being useful on a real fight
>>1474586
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Please prove to me mathematically that there is good secret kung fu on some isolated dirt farm in China even though there's no real observable evidence of it even existing.
>>1474660
I'd point theres also the old cultrual appropriation with finding that "one" student, that no longer just emulates the moves but totally understands the format and treats it religiously.(we see this trope all the time in kungfu movies)
The problem with a system like this is these kind of people are few and far between so you have systems entirely die out because inevitably people change. Thats pretty much what has happened today
>>1475074
It was not so much a cultural appropriation as a normal expectation at one point. More than a hobby, these were the means in which a young man could attain physical power and social status. Under those conditions it would not be surprising to find a cadre of younger men training together in such a fashion. Such a group would almost certainly be insular, and unlike many traditional styles today, very much reality focused
>>1470180
Did kung fu purely to lose weight in uni.
It increased the tone of my body, I was able to jump higher and run faster.
I don't take it to the mystical levels that some do, but sure mind over matter is possible for many humans.
One thing I will say, sparring is the best fucking way to get better at fighting. Not just because it improves technique, but I'm short sighted and my vision and reflexes got WAY better just from sparring without glasses.
Kinda highlights how the human body will respond to external pressures.
>>1475222
>Did kung fu purely to lose weight in uni.
How much weight did you lose?
>>1476007
I gained 15 pounds.
>>1476033
Why does kung fu attract so many fatties?
>>1476451
Because it's easy and makes them feel superior.
>I'm a Xingyiquan guy
>>1474785
>those marital artists would at times be a villages primary means of self defense, and during times of war, militias would often swell with the ranks of martial artists
Oh, yes, the famous kick punch wars that unarmed armies used to have all the time...
If kung fu limited its claims to being effective at weapons fighting you might have a point, but since it doesn't, you don't.
>>1476663
I.m not sure what you mean, most older styles of kung fu included weapons.
Talking about the historical origins of fighting systems in no way proves their effectiveness today, it just puts things into perspective. That its not that the people who designed these systems had no idea what they were doing, just that how they lived, trained and expected to fight is so vastly different from us
>>1476680
The guy I was quoting invoked ancient kung fuers as if the idea that they were expected to be called up for the militia (as all peasants everywhere have always been) somehow indicates that their methods of empty-handed fighting were worthwhile.
Weapons kung fu and empty-handed kung fu can't fairly be discussed in the same conversation. Nobody's learning swordfighting any more. It's all some level of either pool noodle play on the sport end or baton twirling on the non-sport end. Is kung fu better than kendo or whatever the HEMA guys are doing? I don't know. None of them are ever really going to fight with their real weapons, so we'll never have an answer.
>>1478585
>The guy I was quoting
was me
>invoked ancient kung fuers as if the idea that they were expected to be called up for the militia (as all peasants everywhere have always been) somehow indicates that their methods of empty-handed fighting were worthwhile.
I did not. I commented on the idea that these arts were passed down without fighting. Which is largely true today but certainly was not the case in their heyday.
Looking at modern kung fu practice and extrapolating that the people who laid the foundations a few hundred years ago did not know what they were doing is silly.
All of this has little bearing on the kung fu your likely to see today, less you trek to some of the more rural parts of china and south east Asia to train with those small groups that survive and have kept their arts martial character in tact. But its interesting non the less and puts things into perspective
>>1478620
>less you trek to some of the more rural parts of china and south east Asia to train with those small groups that survive and have kept their arts martial character in tact
The words you're looking for are "lest" and "intact." That's legitimately not snark.
Anyway, you're assuming that those are a thing. There's this big genetic fallacy going on with Asian martial arts that if we just find something that's old enough and obscure enough and pure enough that THAT is going to be the real shit. I don't buy it. Especially that first part about it being old enough. Everything else human beings do has gotten better with time, but somehow martial arts are supposed to be the exception. Nope. They are also improving with time, at least on the unarmed side.
Armed, I have little doubt that your average Chinese foot soldier from a thousand years ago with a couple of battles under his belt could run roughshod over a modern guy who trains probably anything, but certainly any modern CMA. Unlike you, I am quite positive that that ancient foot soldier's expertise is irretrievably lost.
>>1478802
As to my comments about small obscure groups, such groups did exist at the time of Dreager's surveys of Asian fighting traditions half a century ago. Perhaps they are all dead now, perhaps not.
>There's this big genetic fallacy going on with Asian martial arts that if we just find something that's old enough and obscure enough and pure enough that THAT is going to be the real shit.
That certainly is a potential fallacy, to an extent however, there is a grain of truth in that once an art is removed from its native environment it often undergoes swift and radical changes to both its character and its methods. There are many interviews and even videos that establish how quickly a martial art can change especially in such a situation.
Now if you want to talk about innovation, tradition and stagnation in martial arts, that's a different topic. I personally think its a lot more complicated than "everything has gotten better with time". this isn't an essay so forgive my ramblings
Certainly there have been improvements made in marital arts. Especially in unarmed stuff there has been testing and refinement of techniques perhaps unparalleled in history. yet at least in grappling, many of the most successful modern techniques are simply adaptations and variations of far older material. Many of the improvements have been better rulesets for safely testing the stuff, and adapting a teaching model that fits the modern day
Certainly for weapon based arts,the last hundred years has seen only a few positive trends. Despite that I think a lot of material on the skills men at arms has been retained both in living traditions and in some cases manuals. I certainly do not think most CMA are good examples of this btw. I approach them as an outsider, interested in what survives can tell me about the Chinese fighting man, and hopeful that at least some arts have survived close to their original vitality
