Contemporary Wushu (revisited)

[mantis]

hello fellow martial artists...

A dear friend of mine asked me about wushu today and I thought you guys might want to participate in the discussion. The discussion was about the effectiveness of wushu. Please note that this thread is not in anyway intended to offend wushu practitioners, or show it's superiority or inferiority in the world of martial arts.

I would really like to hear your opinion on it whether you are a traditional kung fu practitioner, wushu practitioner, or you practice any other art.

I will start by quoting Adam Hsu (again!!!) on what he thinks of wushu:
"...this problem is most apparent in the new modern kung fu developed by the mainland Chinese government. they use the term wushu...the emphasis is purely on performance, however. Movements from modern wushu are mixed with ballet, western floor gymnastics, and elements of Chinese acrobatics and Peking opera. In addition, the authentic fighting techniques are modified with the intention of making them more beautiful and graceful. Wushu is certainly enjoyable to watch, but this modern fusion of movement arts and kung-fu, including the two-person and multiple-person fighting forms, is completely useless for fighting. If you execute the movements correctly, showing the correct usage, power, flavor, tempo, and spirit, there will be a natural beauty to your forms"

I only bolded the last part because it is kind of my opinion.

what's yours?

 

[yipman_sifu]

hello fellow martial artists...

A dear friend of mine asked me about wushu today and I thought you guys might want to participate in the discussion. The discussion was about the effectiveness of wushu. Please note that this thread is not in anyway intended to offend wushu practitioners, or show it's superiority or inferiority in the world of martial arts.

I would really like to hear your opinion on it whether you are a traditional kung fu practitioner, wushu practitioner, or you practice any other art.

I will start by quoting Adam Hsu (again!!!) on what he thinks of wushu:
"...this problem is most apparent in the new modern kung fu developed by the mainland Chinese government. they use the term wushu...the emphasis is purely on performance, however. Movements from modern wushu are mixed with ballet, western floor gymnastics, and elements of Chinese acrobatics and Peking opera. In addition, the authentic fighting techniques are modified with the intention of making them more beautiful and graceful. Wushu is certainly enjoyable to watch, but this modern fusion of movement arts and kung-fu, including the two-person and multiple-person fighting forms, is completely useless for fighting. If you execute the movements correctly, showing the correct usage, power, flavor, tempo, and spirit, there will be a natural beauty to your forms"

I only bolded the last part because it is kind of my opinion.

what's yours?

Thanx again Mantis. I practise Wing Chun kungfu. I choosed it upon it's effectivness for street encounters. Regarding being used at competition, it is not easy because you are limited from using vital points strategy. Only a very good trainer could win controlled competition fights using Wing Chun. Old Wing Chun master including Wong Shun-Leung, Bruce Lee, Hawkins Cheung, and as some says William Cheung:miffer: . Such Sifus participated in what is called by Beimo matches. They were street brawls that were allowed to some extent by police. It was bare hands fighting matches. Such Sifus produced the best results. Especially master Wong who fought around more than 60 matches without losing any?!. They were the tops. Now these days like wushu became a showy thing and it's applications almost changed. Wing Chun trainers became confused because many organizations are lying to them to teach them the whole system in 4 years time. That's why you see them deceived when it comes to fighting in the street. I recommend who ever trains Wing Chun, learns under Yipman's students or the second generation only.

Regarding Wushu. I still beleive that masters teaching the traditional Wushu are very good. Wushu itself gives you the opportunity to practise everything. It helps you to build your body, mind, and spirit. I actually recommend this. http://www.answers.com/topic/chinese-martial-arts?method=22

 

[chessman71]

Seeing this quote from Adam Hsu (you seem to really like him) is funny considering that he does not teaching fighting at all. In fact, I was visiting the park where he teaches one day and I watched his students go through a two-man sword set and they didn't even let the blades touch on moves where they obviously should have. It was weird to watch.

Out of the many teachers I know here, his style(s) are some of the closest to wushu that I've seen. His group heavily stresses performance.

FWIW, I have studied from two or three different wushu people in my time and they can be great teachers. Most of them know traditional as well as modern wushu.

I got to train Wu style taiji from a provinical coach from one of the backwoods provinces of China. He moved to Colorado for his children's education and was cooking fried rice is a chop suey place. No, I'm not kidding. If you wanted to compete with the Wu style under his name you could do that but you had to go through tradtional training first which meant working at thigh-parallel in the form right from the beginning. Needless to say, it was really intense.

But in general, I agree with Hsu on this one. Traditional training (sparring included) is the way to go.

Dave C.

 

[AceHBK]

I feel that before all that you still need a basis of solid kung fu first if you are interested in wu shu.

 

[mantis]

haha.. it's not that i like him or not. i do agree with him on some points and do not agree with him on others. but i was reading his book last week and i wanted to share some of the things he's presenting.
i hope i can visit his school next time i head up north. I'm curious to see what he wrote in action.