Chinese kiai?

[Ti]

I do karate and honestly Kiai serves very little purpose except for

displaying "spirit"

IMO spirit is in your movements, u don't need to make noise.

[parkerlineage]

haha...when I first read that, I thought you said displaying "spit." That's true, too.

After hearing everybody's responses, I changed my style of breathing to where I merely exhale for power and inhale at the proper time, and I have to say I like it more than kiai.

[bushido_man96]

haha...when I first read that, I thought you said displaying "spit." That's true, too.

After hearing everybody's responses, I changed my style of breathing to where I merely exhale for power and inhale at the proper time, and I have to say I like it more than kiai.

This is how I breath while doing the moves in the forms that don't have a kihap on them.

[ggg214]

in some higher kung fu practice, they do kias, but it includs breathing in and out with different voice,like "heng"and "ha"

in junior level of kung fu, we alaways are told brething normally, don't pay much attention to it. that is ok!

[TigerCrane]

My Sifu has always emphasized the importance of breathing correctly during my junior years. As my Kung Fu brothers and sisters and I advanced to higher levels, he began to teach us forms that require different shouts or sounds. In my opinion, the form with the most dramatic and powerful shouts / sounds is the Iron Thread Form.

[RealWingChun]

Bruce Lee did Wing Chun, didn't he? I wonder where he got the idea to yell so much.

I think his yelling was just a movie thing, and it worked.

[bushido_man96]

Bruce Lee did Wing Chun, didn't he? I wonder where he got the idea to yell so much.

I think his yelling was just a movie thing, and it worked.

People that he trained on a personal basis also commented on his unique yelling. I think it was something he did all of the time.

[RealWingChun]

Still, I find the act of yelling a little strange for a kung fu practitioner. I believe the loudest sounds in kung fu are usually made by Tiger stylists and that is because of the specific breathing requirements particular to some of the Tiger styles.

As far as I am aware most other styles of kung fu do not yell. The only time that I yell in kung fu is when I am hit hard

[bushido_man96]

Still, I find the act of yelling a little strange for a kung fu practitioner. I believe the loudest sounds in kung fu are usually made by Tiger stylists and that is because of the specific breathing requirements particular to some of the Tiger styles.

This could very well be the case. As we all know, Bruce Lee was not one to fixate to a style....he liked to do things his own way. I don't have any personal experience with Chinese styles, other than what I read.

[RealWingChun]

This could very well be the case. As we all know, Bruce Lee was not one to fixate to a style....he liked to do things his own way. I don't have any personal experience with Chinese styles, other than what I read.

This leads to an another interesting issue, and that is, wether what Bruce Lee actually practised in his final years, was really kung fu, or was it something that was influenced (perhaps largly) by kung fu, amongst other things, and hence lacked the essence of what kungfu really is (We must remember that Bruce Lee never mastered any given style of kung fu, not even Wing Chun).

This in turn leads to the question of wether we can use Bruce Lee as a reference anytime there is a discussion about kung fu.