Kung Fu or not

[dippedappe]

I hear and read this over and over again. Everyone puts Wushu and Kung Fu in different categories and its the same thing with Tai Chi and Kung Fu. Why dont people see Wushu and Tai Chi AS Kung Fu? Now I wanna know the truth.

 

Is Tai Chi Kung Fu? Is Wushu Kung Fu?

 

Heres my thoughts on this matter.

 

Yes, both styles are Kung Fu. Because, Kung Fu is not a style in itself but a name that stands for all Chinese Martial Arts, and both Wushu and Tai Chi is Martial Arts.

 

What do you think?

[1kickKO]

I agree, in a sense. Tai Chi is not quite a kung fu style, but moreso a style within itself. Wushu is a kung fu style though.

[ovine king]

this has been explained many many times before.

 

in the mandarin, wushu can be taken as a reference to ALL (chinese) martial arts.

 

BUT

 

the chinese national art is also called wushu (used to be called quo shu). seeing as people never refer to their own style as 'wushu' anyway (unless they actually do wushu), instead using it's actual name (i.e hung kuen, yong choon etc), wushu is used to describe the national (sport) martial arts. a big part of the sport martial art is the forms performances. these forms are sometimes modified version of the original forms from which it is taken and this modified version is the standard version used for judging. there is a standardised wushu tai chi form, not to be confused with REAL tai chi.

 

hence wushu is a style.

 

kung fu is primarily a cantonese term meaning (loosely) results through hard work, or simply hard work. it is commonly used to describe any art/skill where time and experience is required to gain that skill. it is most often used to describe the martial arts although in general, any skill where there used to exist a teacher/apprentice relationship this term is used.

 

tai chi is a style.

 

it is a form of kung fu.

 

wushu is a term that technically means 'martial art' but is used mainly to describe the sport martial art and is therefore also a style of kung fu.

 

(whether or not modern wushu is a martial/fighting art is another matter)

 

kung fu is a term commonly used to refer to martial arts.

 

wushu is hardly ever used to refer to all martial arts.

 

this makes more sense in chinese........

 

the only time people get confused is when someone who does not understand the languages involved and the cultural references attempts to understand the differences based purely on the 'english' terms.

 

for example, in cantonese, people sometimes say they are learning 'mo' (the cantonese version of 'wu'). sometimes they say they know 'mo-shu' (the cantonese version of wu-shu' ut not the art....).

 

however, cantonese not having the exact same meanings as mandarin, some people might mistakenly take that to mean that the guy knows wushu (the sport/art) as opposed to knowing martial arts.

 

by the way,

 

this isn't what i think.

 

this is what i know.

[dippedappe]

I know about the difference between Wushu the name, and Wushu the styles, although you brought up a lot of details I didnt know of.

 

I know your reply was about more than just this ovine king, but this post isnt about if Wushu is a more correct name to use over Kung Fu.

 

This post is about Tai Chi, a Kung Fu style, or a system of its own. And Wushu, a Kung Fu style, or a system of its own. And if so, then why do people use those names separately.

 

I have also seen a few using the names Wing Chun and Kung Fu separately, as though WC isnt a KF style.

 

1kickKO. Why dont you think Tai Chi is a Kung Fu style?

[ovine king]

kung fu is an all imbracing term.

 

wing chun is kung fu.

 

hung kuen is kung fu.

 

everything is kung fu.

 

like i said, if you read my post carefully, people tend to refer to their style by name. most styles do things differently and so saying that kung fu does this is meaningless where-as saying wing chun does this isn't.

[dippedappe]

Then why do people refer to Kung Fu, Wing Chun, Wushu and Tai Chi as individual styles, and not just plain Kung Fu or Wushu?

[ovine king]

that last post doesn't make any sense to me.

 

what is the question?

 

why do people like to call their martial art by it's name instead of the 'umbrella' term?

[dippedappe]

That question has been in all my replies in this post.

 

Why do people say like this..."In that place they train both tai chi, wing chun and kung fu", instead of saing..."in this place they train kung fu" or..."in this place they train tai chi and wing chun kung fu"??

[ovine king]

because they don't know the correct grammer.

 

like i said, the only cases i have seen where people get confused is when someone who doesn't know the language tries to use the language.

[dippedappe]

Okay, thanks. In Japan the school is called Dojo. whats the Chinese name?