Kung Fu

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[Dean H.]

Has anyone here ever tried Kung Fu?
Please share anything you might feel is relevant.

Thank you very much,
Dean
:triangle: :circle: :square:

[Lyle Bogin]

What is it exactly that you think might be relevant?

Do you have any specific questions?

Kung fu is a broad term covering hundreds of styles of martial arts.

Generally is is used to denote Chinese martial arts (CMA), but it's literal meaning meaning is something more like "achievement of your goals through constant effort". Therefore, you can have kung fu in cooking, or aikido, or writing, or relationships, etc.

[MaylandL]

Did Wing Chun Kung Fu for a number of years. Really enjoyed it. It was a lot of close in work especially with a wooden dummy and alot of the techniques were done in static stances. Alot of open hand work as well and set forms and moves that needed to be practiced. Kinda similar to karate katas.

Did you have any specific questins about Kung fu?

[Dean H.]

Thank you both for your replies.

I really don't know anything about Kung Fu, but was just curious of any possible comparisons / contrasts with Aikido.
Just wondering if anyone had any strong opinions on the pro's / con's of cross training.

-Dean

[MaylandL]

Hello Dean

That's a real tough question to answer. There are so many different Kung Fu styles and to do a comparison is a real hard ask. You might want to do some research on the net. Try the following search terms:
Kung Fu, Wing Chun, Hsing I, Shaolin, Choy Lay Fat, Pak Hua, Tai Chi Chuan. I am sure there are more.

As for cross training I wouldnt think that would be a problem as long as you are clear about what you are training at any point in time. Your progress may be a little slower in each discipline since you're training in multiple disciplines. I would choose disciplines that have similar philosophies and principles. I think that might make it easier. You might want to think about why you would want to training in different disciplines at the same time and what you want to achieve form doing that.

Other than that, just enjoy what you're doing. I hope this helps.

[Lyle Bogin]

Well, I don't have any particularly strong opinions since each of us has our own unique experience with training.

I live Manhattan, where there are about 100 martial arts schools (and more if you count those that do not advertise is any way). Living here provides the unique oportunity to observe the relationships between the arts fairly closely.

There is a bit of resentment from the Chinese martial arts circle towards the Japanese and Korean arts, which has a lot to do with the level of credibility automatically given to to JMA and KMA by our society. Therefore, when crosstraining you might find some fairly competitive folks out there who might want to test your JMA skills. This is fine, but it also can be dangerous. Ofcourse this is not always the case, but it happens enough that you should be aware of it.

In CMA there are two main factions, the internalists and the externalists. There is no clear cut answer to what an "internal" or "external" style is, but generally Hsing-I, Ba Gua, and Tai Chi are the main internal styles (the sister styles). Other arts will claim to be a combination. I mention the internal arts because they have the strongest resemblence to aikido. After researching internal and external styles, I find no difference at the more advanced levels except for marketing tactics.

The national sport of China is called Wushu. Wushu literally means "martial art". It is a bit like gymnastics in its structure, with compulsory forms (like nan chuan, xiao hong chuan) and free style forms. There is a fighting form used for competition in the ring called sanda or san shou. In sanda the fighters stand on a "lei tai", a square platform (9'x9') elevated 3' off of the floor with no ropes surrounded by mats. You can win by knock out, by scoring with strikes, by throwing and doing takedowns (but no groundfighting), or by knocking your opponent out of the ring. It is in this art that I focused for several years.

Well, that's a bit of a primer, and some mild opinion. Any other questions?

[Dean H.]

Thanks again to both of you.
You have given me a very good
primer, I would say, and I am
grateful. I don't think I am
ready to tackle Kung Fu,
especially since I am fairly
new to Aikido, but you have
given me much to think about
in case I have a chance later
to explore this area.

Take care,
Dean