Modern Wushu - Worthwhile

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Last spring I did 90 minutes of modern wushu every monday through friday with another American here in China. He was my coach and although we only worked out together for 6 weeks I learned a lot from him. Prior to that I had 5 years of CMA in the US under a teacher who is well respected.

Two weeks ago I enrolled in a modern wushu class and I like it a lot.

Before coming to China I didn't think much of modern wushu. I thought it was pointless. Now my view has changed. Let me give you my new opinion:

1. Modern wushu is pointless if you are looking for deep traditional knowledge and/or information about real application. The forms of modern wushu are indeed a waste of time unless you are just trying to get conditioning
2. Modern wushu is extremely useful if you want to condition yourself for traditional styles. These people know a LOT about stretching, basic footwork, jumping, and stance drills.

I really recommend modern wushu as long as you just use it to improve your attributes. These people can make your basics perfect or near perfect. If someone did modern wushu for 2 years they would dominate the forms aspect of ANY traditional Chinese waijia style including the difficult northern stuff. It won't help you do bagua or something like that but you would make massive gains in styles like ying jow pai, er lang men, changquan, chaquan, mizongquan etc. These people are very hard working, and their attitude is professional. They have a lot of great drills, tips, and tricks for you to learn. In terms of athleticism traditional styles are a step down from modern wushu.

I think it's a great place to start if you want to go far in CMA. I didn't start in modern wushu but you should consider it. No, you can't learn authentic traditional wushu from these people but you can learn everything about the basic movements and that's crucial. I also think the qualities you could develop in modern wushu would serve you well. Your basics would be outstanding and that would show traditional teachers that you are a hard worker. It would also make it easy for you to learn forms from a traditional teacher.

 

[clfsean]

That's great & good to hear it works for you.

But I'm good with traditional CMA. Have been for the past 10 years or so. I appreciate the athletic ability of modern PRC style wushu players, but TCMA isn't the same. The habits learned in TCMA are for TCMA & for PRC wushu are for PRC wushu. They're similar, but not quite the same.

And your comment about a wushu player "dominating" forms over a TCMA player... sure. In a wushu competition. Not in a traditional setting. There are elements that have to be expressed and elements that are not to be expressed that a PRC wushu player can't do simply because their basics aren't the same as traditional basics. Similar, not the same. They could compete against each other & without a doubt the modern player would more than likely out-pretty the traditional player. But not if the judges are looking for body integration, energy and horses ... the wushu player isn't going to have what the traditional judges are expecting.

They're from the same root, but different limbs on the tree.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I still can’t see a reason why I needed to learn how to do a no handed cart wheel while holding jian.

22 years ago I started my training in CMA with a man who would be considered a gym teacher in China. He was trained in modern wushu and he taught modern wushu. I learned Taiji, Long Fist, Baguazhang, and Xingyiquan from him and I still do one of the Taiji forms ad that is the Beijing 24 form. However after spending close to 19 years in Traditional Yang style I no longer do it like he taught me. The postures are much more rooted and the upper and lower are connected. The form names are the same and the postures look similar but in reality they are very different. The Xingyiquan he taught me looked good from a judging perspective but from a Traditional Xingyiquan perspective it was all wrong. But I have to add his Bagua was not bad at all (with applications), which I still find surprising.

But I will say there is a guy near me that is a graduate of a Wushu university in China and I will say his athleticism is amazing and his Sanshou is pretty good too. Modern Wushu can be a pretty good base but then traditional Changquan would be too and it would be a better one. But there is a lot of athleticism and flexibility required for modern wushu and that can not hurt when it comes to traditional CMA. However like any other thing you train when you switch styles there are going to be things that you need to work REAL hard to forget

Oh, I never did successfully get that no handed cartwheel with jian in hand right and the one handed cartwheel with jian turned out only slightly better and I only did that once.