Kung Fu vs MMA

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

In the street fight, Kung Fu looks much cooler. But in real life, "MMA" gives you the basics you need to dominate. And, of course, all this depends on your training.

I think you're mixing up kung fu with wushu.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I have seen some flying head buts work. There was a cop here almost killed with one.

I count it as at least legitimate whether or not I would try it is a different case.

Oh, I don't doubt they work. Surprising, and possibly harder to avoid than some other attack. I still wouldn't do it.

 

[drop bear]

Oh, I don't doubt they work. Surprising, and possibly harder to avoid than some other attack. I still wouldn't do it.

I am not keen to do it myself.

 

[Steve]

but light contact is less real, reality is after all relative, as Einstein pointed out.

when people are bouncing of the floor because of the force they were put down with, that has at least as much reality as tkd playing foot tag with padding everywhere

I don’t think you are tracking the theory of relativity.

 

[Steve]

I think you're mixing up kung fu with wushu.

I though wushu is Kung fu. Someone pointed that out to me a few weeks ago. Wushu is a generic term much like Kung fu.

 

[jobo]

I have seen some flying head buts work. There was a cop here almost killed with one.

I count it as at least legitimate whether or not I would try it is a different case.

yea that's the one, you need to get your feet up more for extra,style points

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I though wushu is Kung fu. Someone pointed that out to me a few weeks ago. Wushu is a generic term much like Kung fu.

From how I understand it, that's true if you are being literal about it. But in terms of how the words are used, kung fu is the generic term for all martial arts in China, while wushu is a generic term for the performance martial arts. So all wushu would be part of kung fu, but not all kung fu is wushu.

 

[Encho]

Hi Steve,
The term wushu means martial art, and the term kungfu means time and energy. One can have kungfu in anything even in MMA. However, the term kungfu became common in English to mean Chinese martial arts and the more acrobatic performance arts became known as wushu. Usually when speaking with a native Chinese speaker the term wushu is used in talking about martial arts and it is implied you are talking about martial arts and not performance based arts.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Hi Steve,
The term wushu means martial art, and the term kungfu means time and energy. One can have kungfu in anything even in MMA. However, the term kungfu became common in English to mean Chinese martial arts and the more acrobatic performance arts became known as wushu. Usually when speaking with a native Chinese speaker the term wushu is used in talking about martial arts and it is implied you are talking about martial arts and not performance based arts.

Is there a word a native Chinese speaker would use to talk only about the performance based arts?

 

[DanT]

Is there a word a native Chinese speaker would use to talk only about the performance based arts?

Wushu

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Wushu

I mean besides wushu, since according to @Encho that's an English distinction, not a Chinese distinction.

 

[Encho]

Hi kempodisciple,
I don't think there is a distinct word for the wushu competition vs wushu fighting unless you just said basically wushu competition in Chinese or form competition. I was having this conversation last night with a native Chinese who does martial arts and though they understand kungfu as martial art they think of wushu as the whole meaning fighting, competition so I don't think there is a clear distinction at least in newer generation but for us westerns I think using kungfu is a better way to separate from the more competition side that is now using wushu.

 

[mograph]

I don't think that the Chinese group the arts into martial versus performance: I think that they do that when communicating with Westerners.

The western analogy might be grouping ball sports together (football, baseball, basketball) versus puck sports (hockey), which we don't really do very much.
I think that the Chinese separate xingyiquan from taijiquan, baguazhang and so on, naming the specific art. I don't think that, within themselves, they care about a name for the performance arts as a group. In other words, I think that "wushu" came about as a name for export.

I could be wrong, of course.