i dont mean to sound dumn

[Goju_boi]

lol, I meant if you can actually do all the physically demanding things in wushu.I'm sayinng this becuase from what I've seen you need a lot of flexibility ,agility, and physical conditioning.

[ChinaTown]

WS is like dancing, its an art. An performance art. Not a fighting art. They know that.

It is a dancing art that reflects someone fighting. Every dance is a reflection of an activity, like a hard working farmer, or a happy child in school. WS reflects fighters.

Its good to look at, and there is a histroy in the art itself.

Its is not a fighting art, BUT, so are Hand Sets.

Hand sets are for performance, and you pretend to be fighting an imaginary enermy. If you train WS long enough, and understand what the move is for, they can just as easily apply it in a fight.

So what is real fighting art? Sparring of couse.

But now a days, not a lot of Kung Fu school spar.

[Russell]

Check out the olimpic website for Beijing 2008, Wushu is one of the guest avents.

As ppl have said its like gymnastics, dance and Kung fu all in one. Jackie Chan did wushu.

[Menjo]

I learned soemthing new from this thread

[ChinaTown]

See, the thing is, if a person trains themselves HARD in an performance art that reflects what fighters do, they MIGHT just become great fighters themselves without even realizing it.

I know WS guys train HARD, sometimes even harder than kung fu people. The height they can kick, the speed they can move.

[Goju_boi]

"I know WS guys train HARD, sometimes even harder than kung fu people. The height they can kick, the speed they can move."

I totally agree with you on that because the way these people are conditioned.

[ChinaTown]

If you can do WS, you can basically do any martial art.

But if you can do Wing Chun, doesn't mean you can do WS.

WS is not easy man.

[Russell]

Wushu is a kung fu.

I do sort of agree with china town. However you cant determine what type of training they have had inside or outside there own style. I think your comment is to steriotypical.

Wushu is an art form where they study grace and body conditioning to a degree that most arts consider impractial. But wushu is still an effective martial art, my old kung fu teacher trained in wushu every summer when he went to beijing.

just like Karate have kata competitions, wushu have the same.

[ovine king]

wushu, as in the perfermance art, is not a fighting art. granted it might provide you with a better base with which you can base a fighting system on, it isn't fighting by itself.

something like wing chun on the other hand, is a fighting art.

if what you want to learn is a fighting art, you wouldn't go to a wushu class so that a few years down the line, you might pick up a fighting art easier.

you'd go to a fighting art class and spend more years getting hands on experience.

fighting ability isn't purely based on what you can do physically; a large part of it is mental. Actually hitting someone, without padding or gloves, full on, in the face is not an easy thing to do and most people will hesitate. No amount of wushu practice is going to help you get to that stage of mentality. A fighting art class will (or at least should) prepare you for the act of hitting someone.

going to a wushu class does mean that you'll be better prepared for any other martial arts class but it doesn't mean you'll automatically be better at it than someone else, especially in something like wing chun.

as a counterpoint, if you spent your years doing wing chun, sure you will find wushu hard to get into but why would you want to go into wushu is fighting is your goal?

wushu, as it stands today should not in any way be compared to a form from a traditional art. Traditional forms are not about fighting an imaginary opponent. traditional forms are collections of movements that try to record in them, every possible combination of movements in all directions. Best example of this would be the southern shaolin five animals form which, in one section has you repeating the same set of guard/break guard/ strike movements in four directions with both left and right hands.

that is ignoring the wing chun forms in which YOU are the only reference point in them.

you saying that "hand sets are for performance" shows a grave misunderstanding of them.

people say imagine an opponent there to get you to picture how the movements might work NOT that during a form there is an imaginary person attacking you. slightly different intent but an important thing to differentiate.

just because most people seem to have missed it, i'll repeat what was typed earlier by WW.

"Wushu was 'choreographed' in engineering under the eye of the Chinese government. It was devised as a means to present the martial arts, with all the flair and little to none of the functionality. Part and parcel to the process of changing the views of the Chinese people that Mao Tse Tung had initiated"

[Russell]

I understand what your saying but I think your just writing stuff youve read and heard. My kung fu sifu trains martial arts at a wushu school every year. He said there very tough fighters and fight just like anyother northern kung fu school. The reason why it would be hard for anyone to switch from wushu to wing chun or other way round is because wushu is the most charicteristicly Northern kung fu we know of, and wing chun is the most southern. They have diffrent backgrounds and are totaly diffrent. Both are fighting arts. There is a strong performance part to the style but its still a fighting art.