I see where you're coming from Xue Sheng, but I have to disagree just a little. Kun Tao in the broader sense is literally Chinese boxing. I forget which dialect the actual word comes from. There are Kun Tao players who do Xing Yi and Bajiquan, so insofar as they resemble their Chinese forbearers they are still the military-derived Chinese martial arts. Of course, most Kun Tao players do not do those martial arts, and in some cases I'm sure they have diverged quite a bit from the original style.
Your general point is spot on. Most Chinese martial artists do not do military martial arts. Why would they want to limit themselves if they don't carry spears or rifles for a living? Neither do most people practicing the Chinese martial arts as they evolved further South. Chances of running into a Turkic horse nomad in Sumatra? Darned slim. Chances of running into a slender Harimau-playing brown man with a big curved knife in Beijing? Not real high.
OK I sit corrected.. kind f hard to stand and type
There are is Kuntao in China and Taiwan but I have heard of it more form Indonesia, Malaysia and I see it is also in the Philippines and Singapore.
However I am betting that the styles of Kuntao vary greatly between what you find in China and Taiwan and what you find in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Regardless, it is, from what little I know of it, rather effective. However it is not, nor was it ever a Chinese Military martial art. It likely has bits and pieces of various Chinese Military arts may even resemble them but it was never taught to the Chinese military.
This is why I say it never was a Chinese military martial art since it was never trained, specifically, to the Chinese military throughout China's long history. This is not to say that a soldier here and there did not know or train Kuntao he just did not learn it form the Chinese military.
There are soldier today in China that do Shaolin were trained at Shaolin and trained Sanshou at Shaolin before joining the PLA but the Sanshou (Sanda) they learned from Shaolin or any of the Shaolin martial arts are not military martial arts, not even the Sanshou. They will learn a different version (considerably more nasty actually) of Sanshou from the military.
So I will continue to state that Kuntao was not nor has it ever been a Chinese Military Martial Art. However I will now say it is, at least one branch of it, Chinese. But I still have my doubts about the whole Royal claim thing.
Kuntao it is from Hokkien Chinese dialect meaning Way of the Fist or Fist Way similar to Quanfa.
And I have to admit much of the above location stuff is from the link I provided previously so I should read stuff more carefully and without bias
Note: Chinese Military martial arts such as Xingyiquan as it was taught years ago to the military were rather weapons heavy. Xingyiquan taught a rather wide rang of weapons at one time, but one of the big weapons of Xingyiquan is a long spear. Bajiquan I know less about the only thing I am certain of is it is the favored style of Bodyguards in Taiwan particularly those that were guarding Chiang Kai-shek and it is also rather effective.
As for the current CMA of the PLA it is Sanda and it is taught and trained with and against various weapons but of course the preferred weapon of any military foot soldier is a gun and you are not about to attack a guy carrying a gun with Sanda on a battle field if you to are carrying a gun.
But there are other version of Sanda taught all over China, Sport and civilian. Also the average civilian is not military arts, not even Sanda they are taught a civilian version but I am quite certain there are civilians that have been taught Police/Military Sanda in China. Hell if I have a sifu here (albeit this is a rare find in the US) I am certain they have them there. They must that is where my sifu learned it.
