Is Kung Fu really a martial art?

[kaizasosei]

Kung-fu as in hard work, innovation or mastery may not be a martial art in itself, but you can still use it to kick ***.

j

 

[kidswarrior]

Note to self: I need to call Kidswarrior and inform him that we've trained in a bogus art all these years.

OMG, say it ain't so! :wink2:

I just love it when people use their specific, limited experience to expound a general, unlimited 'truth'. Cos after all, if they haven't seen or heard of it, it must be bogus, eh?

 

[sparky12]

I am always leary of anyone that says black belt in kung fu. The Shaolin arts use sashes as far as I know. In bak Sil-Lum we start with white, red, blue black, and gold. There may be non-Shaolin styles that use belts, but I have not personally heard of them.
Regards, Don

 

[clfsean]

I am always leary of anyone that says black belt in kung fu. The Shaolin arts use sashes as far as I know. In bak Sil-Lum we start with white, red, blue black, and gold. There may be non-Shaolin styles that use belts, but I have not personally heard of them.
Regards, Don

That's really more your schools thing with the colored ranking systems.

My BSL teacher uses no sashes. His teacher didn't.

My CLF sifu didn't, then did. One of his CLF teachers did, one didn't. Neither was right, neither was wrong. Both held the idea of 1 sifu under a roof, everybody else is a student.

 

[JadeDragon3]

I am always leary of anyone that says black belt in kung fu. The Shaolin arts use sashes as far as I know. In bak Sil-Lum we start with white, red, blue black, and gold. There may be non-Shaolin styles that use belts, but I have not personally heard of them.
Regards, Don

I think it's really up to the school to determine the sash colors and so forth since curriculums very from school to school when it comes to Chinese martial arts. My sifu used the colors white, yellow, green, purple, blue, red, brown, and black. He teaches Sil Lum (5 animal) Kung Fu.

 

[Xue Sheng]

OMG, say it ain't so! :wink2:

I just love it when people use their specific, limited experience to expound a general, unlimited 'truth'. Cos after all, if they haven't seen or heard of it, it must be bogus, eh?

I don't have belts OR sashes...in 3 different CMA styles.... how do you think it makes me feel :uhyeah:

 

[kidswarrior]

I don't have belts OR sashes...in 3 different CMA styles.... how do you think it makes me feel :uhyeah:

Umm, like you're focused on fighting instead of what someone else says about you...?

Seriously, I only wear a uniform at all - belt included - to help my students envision being successful...for most, it'd be the first time in their young lives. :bangahead:

 

[Touch Of Death]

Someone today said they had a black belt in kung fu, which I previously thought was just a white term for a martial art, since you know, white people tend to generalize quite a bit. I'm really used to ignorant people calling any sort of martial art kung fu, and I have even seen some dojos advertise that they teach kung fu, but I had just brushed them off as idiots. Anyways, is kung fu really a martial art?

Kung Fu simply means you are really good at something; however, just as Karate doesn't mean Martial art and is narrowly refering to a sport invented in the twentieth century, Kung fu has come to represent, to Americans, Chinease Martial arts. Perhaps you feel comfortable writing us all off as ignorant fools, but its a dead end street.
Sean

 

[Ninebird8]

First, I should not even answer as your racist remark is beneath the honor of this whole group, and then I thought someone who would ask this question in the first place and is on a martial arts forum would be construed as very ignorant anyway. But, in the interest of this forum, to paraphrase someone else here, the term kung fu is generally anglicized while wushu is generally the term for the war art. However, due to the post Mao edict of stripping most Chinese martial arts styles of fighting application and renaming it for local consumption, kung fu was and is used to separate the bastardized use for wushu these days. In fact, kung fu has a long history of fighting application and only recently was it disparaged as a martial art due to either people viewing the current wushu as the whole art or the art being watered down because it took relatively longer for a person to become good at it than other arts due its many techniques, forms, etc. In the end, all arts are martial or not depending upon the ability of the instructor to define, break down, and disseminate the hidden information in the forms, sets, etc. into applicable standards, then techniques, and then finally natural movement.

 

[DoubleZ711]

Okay well I guess what I said could be considered quite racist, but that's besides the point. I just wanted to know if kung-fu was an actual art, because that word seems to get thrown around quite a bit in reference to martial arts such as karate and taekwondo. And I apologize for making the comment on white people, I should have said American. It seems that most Americans throw the term around, not just white people. And if you flame me for saying that alot of Americans are ignorant when it comes to cultures outside of their own, you need to open your eyes.

 

[geezer]

And I apologize for making the comment on white people, I should have said American. It seems that most Americans throw the term around, not just white people. And if you flame me for saying that alot of Americans are ignorant when it comes to cultures outside of their own, you need to open your eyes.

Yep, a lot of Americans are ethnocentric and unaware of cultures other than their own. But it's also pretty clueless to equate being American with being "White". Why would you do that?

 

[Flying Crane]

I don't have belts OR sashes...in 3 different CMA styles.... how do you think it makes me feel :uhyeah:

I am a collector of martial arts belts. Call them belts, call them sashes, whatever. It makes no nevermind to me.

I just beat people to death, then take their karate belt/kung fu sash, whatever it happens to be, and add it to my collection. I hang them on my wall as war trophies. Right alongside their left ear, that I bite off. That's how I keep track of who's who.

 

[Tames D]

I am a collector of martial arts belts. Call them belts, call them sashes, whatever. It makes no nevermind to me.

I just beat people to death, then take their karate belt/kung fu sash, whatever it happens to be, and add it to my collection. I hang them on my wall as war trophies. Right alongside their left ear, that I bite off. That's how I keep track of who's who.

So thats what happened to Jorn Brandt.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I am a collector of martial arts belts. Call them belts, call them sashes, whatever. It makes no nevermind to me.

I just beat people to death, then take their karate belt/kung fu sash, whatever it happens to be, and add it to my collection. I hang them on my wall as war trophies. Right alongside their left ear, that I bite off. That's how I keep track of who's who.

:lfao:
You too :highfive: I KNEW there was a reason you were the head of Xuefu west..... except I take the right ear... seeing that I am on the right coast and all and not the left :mst:

 

[kidswarrior]

So I've reread the thread and think I got it.

Kung Fu means martial art, but only to white people on the left coast in America. For everyone else, it refers to a great Dim Sum chef...but one who doesn't wear a belt and uses hard work instead of machinery.

Am I close?

 

[bowser666]

So I've reread the thread and think I got it.

Kung Fu means martial art, but only to white people on the left coast in America. For everyone else, it refers to a great Dim Sum chef...but one who doesn't wear a belt and uses hard work instead of machinery.

Am I close?

ROFL !!! If only life were that simple

 

[Flying Crane]

:lfao:
You too :highfive: I KNEW there was a reason you were the head of Xuefu west..... except I take the right ear... seeing that I am on the right coast and all and not the left :mst:

I'm a mean, spiteful bastard. I've had good teachers.

 

[Xue Sheng]

So I've reread the thread and think I got it.

Kung Fu means martial art, but only to white people on the left coast in America. For everyone else, it refers to a great Dim Sum chef...but one who doesn't wear a belt and uses hard work instead of machinery.

Am I close?

Well pretty much... but you appear to have missed the entire part about the removal of ears

 

[JadeDragon3]

So I've reread the thread and think I got it.

Kung Fu means martial art, but only to white people on the left coast in America. For everyone else, it refers to a great Dim Sum chef...but one who doesn't wear a belt and uses hard work instead of machinery.

Am I close?

Exactly! And his name is Chef Ming Tsai.

 

[kidswarrior]

Well pretty much... but you appear to have missed the entire part about the removal of ears

Oh yeah. Please tell me that Sum of the ears aren't used by the beltless, hard working but Dim chef. :bangahead: