This is why Gongfu is "being forgotten"

[JusticeZero]

People say that Gongfu is being "forgotten".

It isn't being forgotten, it's that it has been picked clean of its foreign-ness. It's no longer a thing where you go to some dark room in a racially-concentrated slum to take lessons from some guy who you can barely understand to learn crazy mystical skills that nobody else around you understands. Now, you go to the school, the teacher is a white guy who explains it clearly, everybody has seen it and recognizes it. It's popular now so everybody hates it.

We can no longer consume it as an exotic thing, and so it has lost value as a cultural marker of high class. That's right; our culture is based on hipsterism

If you want to learn how to hit people, it is oh so clear to virtually anyone in this country that there is very little value in wandering uptown, grabbing a burger, and heading to Joe's Gym, reading tired old inspirational phrases on a poster tacked to his wall, and learning how to throw a solid right cross punch.

To really have value, one must first travel to a small village nestled into a mountain range that most people cannot find on a map. You leave the airport and find someone who looks sufficiently ethnic to bring you along the winding trails uphill from the highway to get there. After you have arrived, you must schmooze with the locals for a week, amazing them with your foreign and wonderful technology (as they try so very hard to not let on that they are the ones who stomped you in that last tournament on WoW). Finally, after a night of eating traditional village foods (of the kind that the villagers rarely eat anymore, because it's cheaper to just order a pizza to be delivered), you must take a pilgrimage to see a hermit on the mountaintop. There, you will gaze upon ancient inspirational proverbs painted onto hand-woven tapestries crafted from yak hair, before the wise hermit and your translator reveal to you the secrets of the Da'hau Buk Faugr, which translates literally as "Right Cross Punch".

People will go out of their way to express the might and power of the Da'hau Buk Faugr. Clearly there is no equal or equivalent technique in the industrialized world.

...Gongfu just doesn't have the value it used to. There is, of course, the hundreds of thousands of people who still practice Gongfu (or Karate, or Judo, or..) every day, spreading their knowledge. But they don't really count, do they?

[clfsean]

Yeah... I can get behind that in a general sense.

[lowereastside]

The Mystery - Mystical is no longer what it use to be. Not just in Kung Fu but other arts - like karate....... Back in the 1960's a person having a black belt was considered a killing machine -Don't mess with so and so he's a Black Belt. Kung-Fu was even more Mysterious - with the Alter's and the Incense and the rituals........and the kwoon in some walkup or basement with barely enough heat in the winter and no fans or air-conditioners in the hot summers - Boy do I miss the old days.

By the way Nice Post JusticeZero

[clfsean]

The Mystery - Mystical is no longer what it use to be. Not just in Kung Fu but other arts - like karate....... Back in the 1960's a person having a black belt was considered a killing machine -Don't mess with so and so he's a Black Belt. Kung-Fu was even more Mysterious - with the Alter's and the Incense and the rituals........and the kwoon in some walkup or basement with barely enough heat in the winter and no fans or air-conditioners in the hot summers - Boy do I miss the old days.

By the way Nice Post JusticeZero

Very true. I remember starting in 81 thinking "I'll never make it". Our class was held in a building with minimal heat, no AC and one door. The building was cinderblock & polished concrete for the floor. Our black belts were that perceived spooky good back then. There were no kids classes. I was 11 & started in the only class held.

Now I look back & feel a sense of accomplishment in earning that first rank there, let alone a black belt at the earliest age they would award one (16), as compared to the run-of-the-mill "junior black belt club" type schools so common now.

That was magic & mystery back then & before. Now it's payable over a guaranteed contract price.

[lowereastside]

clfsean says " Now it's payable over a guaranteed contract price. "

So True - So True.

[bushido_man96]

clfsean says " Now it's payable over a guaranteed contract price. "

So True - So True.

I don't think it is this way as much as people say so now.

I also think JusticeZero makes a good point. We tend to have revisionist history of what was awesome way back when, and there was nothing ever wrong with it. Things just weren't like that.

Its like the idea that the "old school" was the better school. Not always the case.

I also like the term "hipsterism." And I see it every day, and dislike it. High school is a place I see it sprout from, and these kids follow like blind beggars to struggle to be "hip." Such a waste of valuable time.

[KALIPUTRA]

I agree it is being revived though Il admit that for a while there was a seriouss lack of skillful instructors and that led something of a decline. Individuals such as Bucksam Kong and Jerry Smith are now proving that the traditional approach to tai chi and Kung fu is most definitely the best. Too much playing around with the formula so that certain people can begin to grasp something clearly beyond them just lessens the efficacey and purity of said arts.

[sensei8]

I sincerely believe that "Gongfu" or Kung-Fu will never be forgotten because it's too much engrained in our society, therefore, permanent.

[SteyrAUG]

People say that Gongfu is being "forgotten".

It isn't being forgotten, it's that it has been picked clean of its foreign-ness. It's no longer a thing where you go to some dark room in a racially-concentrated slum to take lessons from some guy who you can barely understand to learn crazy mystical skills that nobody else around you understands. Now, you go to the school, the teacher is a white guy who explains it clearly, everybody has seen it and recognizes it. It's popular now so everybody hates it.

Maybe where you live. Of the approx. 75 "kung fu" schools in my area there are about 4 that are genuine. I've yet to meet anyone who knows correct Seven Star Praying Mantis in person. Most people you can tell they learned from a book and you can usually figure out the book in question.

In my experience it's exactly the opposite. It is so unknown and has largely been replaced by MMA/BJJ, etc. that it is almost completely secret again. I've seen some legit Choy Li Fut and Hung Gar guys around here, and what they know is definitely not in the mainstream.

And among those in my area who practice authentic Chinese boxing, none of them hate it. YMMV.

[CredoTe]

People say that Gongfu is being "forgotten".

It isn't being forgotten, it's that it has been picked clean of its foreign-ness. It's no longer a thing where you go to some dark room in a racially-concentrated slum to take lessons from some guy who you can barely understand to learn crazy mystical skills that nobody else around you understands. Now, you go to the school, the teacher is a white guy who explains it clearly, everybody has seen it and recognizes it. It's popular now so everybody hates it.

Maybe where you live. Of the approx. 75 "kung fu" schools in my area there are about 4 that are genuine. I've yet to meet anyone who knows correct Seven Star Praying Mantis in person. Most people you can tell they learned from a book and you can usually figure out the book in question.

In my experience it's exactly the opposite. It is so unknown and has largely been replaced by MMA/BJJ, etc. that it is almost completely secret again. I've seen some legit Choy Li Fut and Hung Gar guys around here, and what they know is definitely not in the mainstream.

And among those in my area who practice authentic Chinese boxing, none of them hate it. YMMV.

There's one guy in my area of Ohio that instructs legit Siu Lum Hung Ga Kuen... One of his top students was my Hung Gar instructor...

I think he might be the only real Kung Fu / Taiji instructor in my area, period. IMHO, the others are all the "book" type that you mentioned...lol