steriotypes (sp?)

[chris_มวยไทย]

the term kung fu seems to mean all martial arts these days , and when i say i know someone that does kung fu they seem to think its some kind of matrix and if u know it your one of the most danderous people in the world and they never believe me , i think they have seen too many kung fu movies. the majority of people on MT are from the USA so this may not be the case where you live , so what is it like where you live , do people understand better than they do here?



chris

 

[bydand]

Not in the least. In the area I'm in, every MA is refered to as Karate. Even people who train in the same dojo I train in call it "going to Karate" when we are talking. They know it isn't the name of the art, but still fall back on that terminology. Then everybody who doesn't train, do not have a darn clue what any type of MA training involves.

 

[Kacey]

I'm with bydand on this one - everything around here is Karate, even if it's not. When TKD started getting more widespread in the 60s, no one knew what it was, so it was advertised as either Karate or Korean Karate, and many of the school still use that terminology... and, of course, Ralph Macchio learned "karate" in the Karate Kid movies, which further spread that terminology. I see very few kung fu classes, and the ones that use kung fu in their names are actually teaching kung fu.

Like Kleenex becoming a generic term for tissue, Karate has become a generic term for most martial arts.

 

[Hand Sword]

For me, early on it was "going to Karate" when everyone would talk about it. Karate was at the forefront then. Slowly, with the Kung fu craze, and then the aftermath, Kung Fu came more into the limelight, in the public speech, hearing "I'll kung fu your ***" came about more often. Now I hear the same phrases but UFC is in place of the other terms alot, but, I would say overall I hear kung fu and karate about 50/50, when people refer to it. Practitoners usually just designate to what they do. Karate based, it's karate class, only specifying which style, when asked further. The same for CMA based practitioners.

 

[Carol]

No, people don't understand any better here. I used to train in Kenpo wiht a fellow that I vaguely knew professionally. He had once told me that he didn't want any of the folks from our industry to know that he trained in Martial Arts. There are a lot of people that don't "get it".

Personally I don't mind the perception. My own choice of work is in an a field that's 90% male. The questions from other women about whether I can handle myself going up against "all those guys" seemed to vanish when I started training.

 

[chris_มวยไทย]

where i live if someone is refering to martial arts they will say "fung fu karate stuff" , and anyone with an ounce of knowlege in MAs know the names of the more common arts taught here , mainly judo , jujitsu , karate , kickboxing.

and even some of the people that do a martial art will think muay thai is kickboxing , ive had 2 cases where this lead into an argument , once i was talking to a boxer and he said "hey you're the kickboxer arent you?" i said no im a thai boxer and he kept sayin there the same thing and he even thought boxing isnt a martial art , he thought a martial art has to have "spiritual philosphy" in it , he cleary didnt know what he was talking about , and the 2nd argument was with a karate practitioner he couldnt accept that kickboxing and thai boxing are diferent.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

it's a little better in the pacific northwest, but then the pac nw has slightly more influence from japan, china, the philipines, korea than the east coast.

but yeah, most of the uninitiated say 'karate'.

it's one of the reasons kenpo karate is called kenpo karate. in many ways, kenpo more closely resemles kung fu or wing chun. but at the time of its introduction to the states nobody knew from kung fu. so 'kenpo karate' it was and 'kenpo karate' it still is.