Traditional-Fist

Depends on what you learn. Krav Maga will teach you faster than Kung Fu but Kung Fu(depending on the style) can be pretty devastating. just as long as you have a good self defense instructor, you will find what you are looking for I second that. If you want to commit time to your martial arts training I believe that kung fu is the better and the more devastating option. So the answer to which is better is as always dependent on what you want. None are better as such, but only better at serving YOUR needs. Longterm results in kung fu and short term in krav maga.

My inspiration started with the movie the Chinese Boxer with Jimmy Wang Yu which I saw in the 1970's and of course there was Bruce Lee and then Mas.Oyama. My current inspiration is my own Wing Chun sifu who is a long way away, but he inspires me on a daily basis. My new sifu is also very inspirational and will hopefully play an important part in my martial evolution in a different style of kung fu.

Thank you for that clip. It cheered me up when I needed it most.

And he adopted that right out of traditional kung fu (and later on traditional karate) training methods.

Don't worry it will all come in good time. Just practise regularly with dedication as kung fu practise is a longterm commitment.

Chin-na is already incorporated in Wing Chun. Be vary if your school does not teach chin-na within its WC curriculum. All major kung fu styles, if not all the non-major ones as well, will teach chin-na in one way or another.

Regular Chi kung exercises will help you relax eventually. Does your sifu teach you such exercises? Also think about making relaxed movements when you are doing your daily chores. When punching do not tense your shoulder any more than it is naturally necessary. The tension is in the wrist/fist and the forarm muscles at the moment of impact. Having said that, I don´t know the style of Shaolin that you practise, meaning that there may be slight changes in emphasis to what I have stated. I remember my own sifu telling me that people with solind karate backgrounds would have a very difficult time obtaining the the relaxation required for effective Wing Chun.

IT IS A SCAM. To be an effective or a "deadly" fighting machine all you need is a good and solid/complete style; a real school with an instructor who really knows what he is teaching and does so without compromise, and finally you need YOU. That is you need to be dedicated and train hard for a good number of years. That is all. If anybody offers you any short cuts, then be sure that it is a scam.

As I have stated countless times before. In the mainland chinese lineage of Wing Chun that I practise GROUND GRAPPLING is taught as part of the WC curriculum based on its own distinct concepts and methodology. Furthermore, I have come across another WC stylist in another forum who has been practising WC grappling in his WC school since the 1980´s, well before the popularity of BJJ. And guess what, his school practises a mainland chinese lineage of Wing Chun. First of all, they have a lot more than "some" takedowns and throws, a lot more than many martial artists realize. Secondly, some schools will train them regularly and some won´t. I am sure that the worse amongst the McKwoons, such great "references" for kung fu nowadays, won´t even know that they exist, let alone practise it regularly. However, all good schools (the relatively very few) will practise it regularly. Agreed. Good schools will practise it regularly, just like they would all the important aspects of their art, and the bad schools won´t. What I say here stands. The religion/philosophy of the Shaolin Temple, i.e. Buddhism, the biggest no, no or sin was the taking of life. It is something that is more than frowned upon. For them it can inhibit the development of ones eternal soul or spirit. YET, they did practise and develope killing techniques up to such a level that even today, some of those methods are not completely understood by most of the, shall we say, the "outside" martial arts experts. Why develope such perfection in something that was such a taboo area? Well because they were perfecting a martial art. They even based them on other creatures, some of which also grappled. E.g. The praying mantis, the monkey, etc. You are right. Because of certain striking methods, a kung fu stylist can deliver telling blows even from the ground. However, There IS ground grappling in kung fu. I know of its existance through my own research and as I have mentioned many times before, it is part of my school´s mainland chinese Wing Chun curriculum, taught at the latter stages of Chum Kiu. Yes it does have ground striking incorporated as well as the ground grappling, which includes the use of Chin-na techniques.

An art that teaches defense against grappling attacks and ground grappling will also teach proper takedowns, independent of opinions made over the video clips. Are you now disputing the existance of "proper" takedown techniques in shaolin kung fu? Ground Grappling has existed in kung fu for a long, long time. Remember that the development of kung fu was an ongoing research in the Shaolin Temple with the ultimate aim of perfecting a COMPLETE and effective martial art system independent of cultural taboos (ground fighting, killing etc.). The fact that this and other facts are "questionable" has more to do with the quality of instructions available nowadays than anything else.

Traditionally, meditation has been used together with martial arts training to nurture calmness.

I practise Wing Chun but will be adding another style of kung fu to my training program (while I continue WC on my own).

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. May we all have a new year filled with good, healthy and relevant training in our chosen martial arts.

There are a video clips of some matches in the site. As the competition has already taken place, does anyone know if these clips are from the most recent event or the one from last year? Anyway, whatever happens or has happened, it will be interesting to know the official resulsts.

The question was wether there was any ground fighting/grappling in Kung Fu and the answer to that question is an obvious YES. Wether it is as good or better than other grappling arts/techniques is irrelevant. That is another discussion for another thread. It is also irrelevant what some acquantances thought of its validity based on what they saw in the video clips. Furthermore their opinions could be subjective. The original question was regarding the existance of groundfighting training in kung fu and not anything else. That question HAS been answered. There IS grappling in the Seven Star Nothern Mantis and probably in other branches as well. As far as Southern Mantis is concerned, it is possible, but I just don´t know. In Wing Chun it exists, at least in some mainland chinese lineages. The problem, yet again, is the Mcdojo/kwoon phenomenom. There are some bad ones there are some not so bad ones. There are even some that are considered good when compared to what is available. What they all have in common is that they teach an incomplete kung fu. This, in the long term, helps create a general opinion of what is or is not kung fu, or what constitutes kung fu. That is, it influences public opinion about this great art, based on what is taught by sharlatans or at best mediocre teachers. Ironically when real information does appear about kung fu, many MA people seem to find it "questionable".

It was another thread. A thread in which I stated that Wing Chun ground fighting/grappling, based on the WC concepts, is taught at the late stages of Chum Kiu. I also stated that the Northern Praying Mantis kung fu stylists also practised grappling/groundfighting as part of their system. I also refered you to a site that demonstrated Shaolin groundfighting/grappling. Here is the link, again: https://www.wongkk.com/video-clips/wrestling/overview.html and here is the original thread with the relevant comments: click here and then go to PAGE 3 of the thread. https://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=23987 Shaolin Kung Fu does not "lack" ground fighting/grappling it is the so called experts, who teach it incorrectly, who "lack" indepth knowledge of what they are teaching.

Notice I said that only like four of them gave mt an honorable mention... that refers to quality. It's a very biased site. That one page, was in my opinion, very biased towards MT, I mean high quality biased. A site that was described as "very biased" towards chinese MA's would never show so many pictures of kung fu fighters being clobbered uncermonously by MT fighters. In reality, what some people see as biased are merely facts with which they do not agree. And what some people see as facts are biases. So on some level opinions(idependent of the facts) play a big part in the perception of what is biased or not. If you have made up your mind that that site is biased then that is fine but I am sure other (not all) forum members will have a different opinion.

How do i tell if the school really is the same and not some wannabe Kyokushin school? If I am not mistaken Mas. Oyama's successor, Shokei Kancho Matsui, heads the IKO, the international karate oraganisation kyokushinkaikan. Try to check out dojos that belong to that organisation.

You can do some easy resistance training exercises, such as getting into the press up position and holding it at various levels as long as you can. If you have access to to a horizontal suspended bar you can do chin ups in various hand positions. You can also go on all fours and do the "crawl" where only your hands and feet/legs are touching the ground. There are various types of these exercises based on the Shaolin Animals training. E.g. doing it like a tiger or a lizard. Anyway it may be best to talk to an instructor about the latter exercises. Good Luck

Elbows and Knees, There IS ground fighting in Wing Chun as well as in other major kung fu styles (as seen in the other related thread in which you were participating). It is effective when combined with other WC techniques. I am not aware of the type of grappling that you learnt in your cma training and maybe, as you put it before, someone did try to apply chin-na to the ground, but in your school and not in the AUTHENTIC WC schools that practise ground grappling. You see, WC grappling is distinct as it sticks to WC concepts and methodology. So in effect what you learnt was not WC grappling and wether it was authentic kung fu grappling I don't know. Based on what you said before about kung fu grappling in other occassions, it seems that you did not believe that there was any ground fighting/grappling in kung fu as a whole. Since I did refer you to a traditional kung fu site where it showed that grappling did indeed exist in kung fu would you now consider the grappling that you yourself studied in your Long Fist school as anything similar to what you saw on that site or not? From your own description of what you studied and from your comments about WC and Kung Fu grappling in general I would say that what you studied in your cma school was not anything like what you saw in that site. Just to close. WC does take longer to make effective and workable than it would if one was training MT. It is the nature of the beast. It does have effective ground fighting as well as many hand and leg techniques that are not taught in many WC schools. There are also kung fu styles that take even longer to make effective but once an effective level is reached then wether one is fighting a another kung fu man or MT fighter is irrelevant and of course on one level it is important on who is DOING the fighting as well, as stated by ZepedaWingChun.

A more careful study of that site should reveal that the site is not as biased towards chinese styles as one may think. There may be like four articles there favoring MT and some honorable mention in others, but it is no secret that that site is biased. As I said before, the site is not as biased towards chinese styles as one may think, it is not the quantitiy of articles favoring MT but the "QUALITY". Just click here and you will see: https://www.crane.50megs.com/index6d.htm

By that logic there would be a few million Shotokan derivatives in the MA world and I won't even go into Wing Chun . I believe that you are right in saying once someone teaches you an art then you can make it your own but my understanding is that this is true when you yourself are practising it, i.e. you become the art and the art becomes you. So when you really absorb an art you become it and it becomes you but the art is still constant i.e in this case Shotokan will be Shotokan and will be recognised as Shotokan by those who know it. You may teach it to someone eventually and if they are dedicated and learn it well then they can make it their own, but the art would still be Shotokan. Anyway, that is how I have been taught about the traditional oriental MAs.

If you find a good school that teaches Mas. Oyama's (the style's founder) teaching closely then you will learn a very effective martial art. However, be warned because the training is tough and yes the sparring is full contact and bare knuckle (no punches allowed to the face). This style of karate is very rich in technique, at least the way it was practised in its original form, and has even grappling and ground applications, again in its original form. I hope that you find a good school as faithful to the original kyokushinkai as possible. Good luck.

I agree. I will also add that in my opinion the biggest con of Wing Chun and that is that there are numerous CON artists who teach it as an incomplete art i.e. minus grappling;minus sparring;minus many hand and leg techniques that have somehow been "forgotten"; etc. etc. thus giving the art a bad name and a lousy reputation at least in some MA circles. Another result of this phenomenon is the unnecessary cross training that many WC practitioners undertake by sometimes practising irrelevant arts (to WC) without having built sufficient knowledge in their core art. E.G. "I will practise BJJ because my art does not have ground fighting"; "I will do TKD because WC does not have 'enough' kicks" etc, etc, etc. This mindset has evolved to the point where some Wing Chun sifus are teaching secondary irrelevant (to WC) arts to make their students more "complete" thus further validating their incomplete Wing Chun. This is sad really. Since I moved to London I have practised WC with a friend of my sifus. Sadly he is leaving soon and so far I have been unable to find any school that resembles the WC system that I practise. This is ironic because WC is reputed to be the most popular kung fu style in the west and I live in a major world city where sometimes it seems that you can't swing dead cat without hitting a WC sifu/school, but unfortunately the McKwoons rule. I have seen only a couple of WC school that I would consider but they are quiet different in certain applications, not wrong, but just different from what I am used to. So rather than confuse myself I prefer to go for a different style of kung fu that is not too similar but not too different either and luckily and ironically here in London one is more likely to find a good kung fu sifu from an obscure kung fu style then one from a popular style such as WC, which seems to be the victim of its own popularity. So I will start in my chosen school of kung fu in January, but of course I will continue with Wing Chun on my own.