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The Spread of Kung Fu
This era of rapid social transformation gave rise of Wuxia novels and movies. Wuxia (武俠 ), meaning “martial heroes”, established itself as a genre of Chinese fiction concerned with the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Chinese novelists and movie producers consciously or unconsciously employed Chinese martial arts to invent a cultural identity that aided the construction of a collective modern national identity. The heroes in Wuxia fiction characteristically do not serve a lord, wield military power, or belong to the aristocratic class. Instead, they typically originate from the lower social classes of ancient Chinese society. A code of chivalry usually requires Wuxia heroes to right and redress wrongs, fight for righteousness, remove oppressors, and bring retribution for past misdeeds.
Wuxia flourished in British Hong Kong, and the genre of Kung Fu movie in Hong Kong action cinema became wildly popular, spreading to the attention of an international audience from the 1970s. Hong Kong served as a meeting point between Chinese and Western culture and during the 1960s and 1970s it was involved in the global exchange of goods, capital, people, and ideas in ways that other areas of China were not. The situation in Hong Kong was generally more hospitable to martial artists in the 1950s and 1960s that in mainland China.
Ip Man had fled to Hong Kong from Guangdong ahead of the Communist advance late in 1949 and began teaching Wing Chun Kung Fu on a professional basis in 1950. He transformed his teaching from that typically given in Foshan through a program of pragmatic modernization and reform intended to make the art both more attractive to Hong Kong students and more effective. Despite this modernisation of the style, Ip Man remained traditional with regards to not extending the teaching of Kung Fu to western students.
The final ingredient which propelled Wing Chun from its regional fighting system origins to one of the most popular arts in the global marketplace was Bruce Lee, Ip Man’s most famous student. Bruce was a skilled fighter, martial artist and budding film star who migrated to the United States in 1959 to make a fresh start, leaving a troubled past behind in China. Despite being explicitly instructed not to teach Kung Fu techniques outside of Chinese students Bruce Lee broke with a long-standing tradition taking on Western students and promoting Chinese martial arts.
Traditional Kung Fu Styles are called into question
Bruce’s interviews in magazines, TV and appearances in martial art films resulted in unprecedent exposure in a period when most American’s knew little of Chinese martial arts. During this time, Bruce did a great deal to expose the importance of the Chinese philosophy that underpinned Kung Fu, and show how effective it could be as a fighting art. But importantly, Bruce was promoting a new style of Kung Fu that challenged traditional schools.
Bruce initially trained in Wing Chun with Grandmaster Ip Man and quickly became an accomplished fighter, yet he did not master the deeper levels of mastery within the style. In particular, it was very noticeable that Bruce had not been able to master the rooted structure and relaxed, whole-body application that is fundamental with Wing Chun. As a result, Bruce adjusted his stance and approach to accommodate this this. It was clear also that Bruce felt that the focus of the Wing Chun Southern style in the hands, with kicks below the waist and with no real ground (wrestling type) elements was something he saw as limiting its effectiveness.
In developing his own style Bruce was reacting against traditional Chinese Kung Fu which he thought had become stale and had little to do with real world combat. He created this with a specific purpose to emphasize adaptability and fluid combat manoeuvres that could be used in a variety of situations. Bruce was deeply philosophical, and his understanding of Taoist principles were at odds with what he saw as fixed styles which were rigid and unyielding. A fundamental driver beyond this philosophy is the sense that martial arts themselves should be fluid and evolving, just as the movements and techniques within Kung fu should be. A key feature of this evolution for Bruce came about because of the importance of personal expression within Kung Fu – whereby different people had different skills and strengths based on their size, strength, and characters.
He expressed this through a core principle consistent with Taoist philosophy:
“Using no way as way; having no limitation as limitation.”
For Bruce, the Art of Expressing the Human Body, a title coined by Bruce Lee himself to describe his approach to martial arts, documents the techniques he used to perfect not only his martial arts, but his body and mind. He expressed this famously as:
“Research you own experience. Absorb what is useful. Reject what is useless. Add what is essentially your own.”
Bruce understood the importance of training his mind and body, muscularity, flexibility, relaxedness, and wellbeing in order to achieve and effectively use these advanced fighting skills. His approach was consistent with the traditional Chinese Kung Fu approach – recognised that this involved a deep mindfulness, introspection along with an understanding of the self, ones own physiology, anatomy, and psychology.
Bruce wrestled with the idea of giving his expression of a modified Wing Chun as a named style as this would result in giving this a fixed essence just as the traditional styles that he was so disdainful of. However, out of a simple need to refer to it the term Jeet Kune Do (translated: Way of the Intercepting Fist), was coined in 1967 by Bruce Lee to put a name to his martial expression. Despite this, Jeet Kune Do was focused on cultivating honest self-expression of the individual over any organized style.
Although Bruce broke with tradition in accepting Western students, importantly, Jeet Kung Do remained consistent with Chinese Kung Fu principles inasmuch as this ‘style’ contained not only techniques that could be applied to real combat, but also an underlying Taoist philosophy that was about growing as a person and helping with challenging life situations. In this way, Jeet Kune Do evolved to become both physical techniques and applied philosophies requiring an individual to train themselves to the most cultivated state of being-ness so that when faced with a combat situation or a challenging personal situation, the tools needed are available in the moment and can be executed without thought.
Having burst the bubble of Chinese Kung Fu being restricted to Chinese students only, by further breaking with tradition and not limiting himself to a single style, and through the massive popularity of the Bruce Lee films on the back of the Wuxia audience, interest in Chinese culture and martial arts sky-rocketed. Wing Chun and other Chinese Kung Fu styles seemed to be on the cusp of a new global golden age as they started to be taught around the globe.
The Rise of Mixed Martial Arts and Decline of Kung Fu
Despite this initial global expansion of Kung Fu in the 21st Century across China the number of martial artists who practise in accordance with ancient tradition is shrinking fast. Traditional Chinese Kung Fu is a shadow of its impressive former self. Masters are struggling to market their increasingly diluted styles with prospective students no longer interested in pursuing traditional styles, instead favouring mixed martial arts (MMA).
MMA as a combat sport better reflected Bruce Lee’s approach of combining the best elements from across a range of traditional styles. Given Bruce was so instrumental and influential in the global expansion of Kung Fu it is no wonder that his approach and distaste of traditional ‘fixed’ styles should also be spread. The MMA mindset seeks to combine elements from a variety of different styles to create a more general, effective fighting still. The primary styles are drawn from wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, kickboxing, boxing, Muay Thai, Taekwondo, and Karate.
In the wake of MMA’s growth few fighters now think of traditional Kung Fu as an effective fighting style, which in turn has questioned its legitimacy as a martial art. This has meant a large-scale movement away from Chinese martial arts within China and towards foreign combat techniques. This movement has resulted in an uneasy relationship of the Chinese with their national martial art. While Kung Fu is still considered beautiful and traditional martial artists are widely respected, the practice of individual styles is considered useless in the ring.
MMA fighters are unquestionable good at what they do – like Gladiators of their day, the effectiveness of their fighting skills is nothing short of impressive. Their commitment to training, fitness levels and honing their fighting skills through hard work over many years is consistent with the concept of Kung Fu. But it is important to remember that Kung fu was not developed purely to ‘win in a ring’ 1 on 1 and extends deeper than the fighting application alone. It was developed out of principles of meditation, balance, mental discipline, personal and spiritual development, where its use does not fit within prescribed rules, and where weapons or multiple assailants could be encountered.
As much as Bruce Lee was a passionate advocate of personal expression and breaking away from individual styles to create the most effective fighting art as possible, the Taoist philosophy that underpinned this was equally important to him . This balance of technique and philosophy was at the heart of Chinese Kung Fu and has now been all but lost in both Western and now Eastern martial arts. As a result, Kung fu within China has in recent years once again been broken down into its component parts. Wushu has returned to become a performance-based art. Sanda is a combat sport style that is consistent with MMA that focuses on striking and takedowns. Finally, Tai Chi, represents the ‘internal’ martial arts that focuses on harnessing the body’s energy—or Qi—but purely within the realms of relaxation or for self-defence.
Although Bruce was a figurehead of this movement to MMA and away from traditional Kung-Fu, he was part of a more general movement of changing attitudes within an evolving social and cultural landscape. We must accept that we live in quite a different time compared to that of ancient China. In the modern age the pressure of jobs, families, earning enough money to keep up with the rising cost of living, maintaining a social life, whilst maintaining good physical and mental health often leaves little other time for other things. This approach of trying to find time to attend martial arts training classes means many students have poor attendance or lack consistency, training as and when rather than every day.
A key difference here is a subtle yet fundamental shift of mindset. Within traditional Kung Fu physical, mental, and spiritual health are integrated elements within the concept of best developing the self within the wider universe, they are not bolt-on activities that we need to try and find time for. The concept of kung-fu fundamentally entailed a path of disciplined training, a cultivation of martial morality and a deep expression of the underpinning religious and philosophical teachings. Although most martial arts schools today embrace and mention their importance, few enforce them or delve deeply into their meanings.
This is not surprising given the decline of these religious and philosophical teachings in modern societies. A student looking to start a basic martial arts class is quite different from a student who is looking to dedicate their life at the Shaolin monastery. A student turning up for a class to learn basic self-defence once a week would quickly find a different class if the focus of that session was not on how to defend against a round-house punch but instead on the Chinese philosophical, ethical, and religious tradition of living in harmony with the Tao.
Kung Fu today means something radically different than what it did hundreds of years ago. Students who seek out martial arts schools nowadays do not seek to train to acquire a means of survival against army raids, bandit attacks, militarily against enemy confrontations or spiritual growth. Students training for the discipline of their mind or way of life, as in older times, are much more uncommon. Aside from those entering MMA to earn a living from combat sports most people are motivated by getting some basic self-defence skills, or from the health benefits gained from regular exercise.
As a result, students of today are also less bound to the teachings of proper martial morality of deed (humility, righteousness, respect, trust, loyalty) and mind (will, endurance, patience, perseverance, courage). Equally so, they are likely to be unaware of the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path to self-awakening and liberation (Right understanding, -intention, -speech, -livelihood, -effort, -mindfulness and right concentration) which provide guiding principles for how we should think and behave in our interactions with others and the world around us.
The modern scientific approach to medicine has also played a big part in moving away from the holistic approach within traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which has further eroded the importance of Kung Fu training. This ancient system, developed over thousands of years, looked at fighting and preventing by looking at health within the context of your entire well-being. Tied to the deeper philosophical principles it focused on balance, harmony and energy through the promotion and maintenance of vital ‘Qi’ energy in our bodies. Traditional treatments used with TCM include acupuncture, cupping, herbal remedies, meditation, Tai chi and Qi Gong development exercises within Kung Fu.
Modern medicine does recognise the importance of maintaining a balanced lifestyle, keeping good mental health and physical fitness but each of these areas are often treated as separate with a much more logical and mechanical approach. It approaches the mind and body as different systems with different inputs and outputs that require pharmaceutical treatment to cure diseases. Whereas medical knowledge was ingrained within Kung Fu Grandmasters of the past as part of a deep level understanding of physiology and anatomy, the prescription of pharmaceuticals in the modern age is a specialism very much detached from modern martial art teaching.
The consequence of this shift is significant. As much as modern scientific knowledge, medicine and technology have seemingly taken humankind to new heights of evolution, actually in many ways we have taken a step backwards in losing touch with the deeper benefits of TCM and Kung Fu. We simply do not train as deeply or as much as students of the past did. Understanding and ownership of our wellness and how our bodies function has been outsourced to scientific experts, who can quick-fix us when we breakdown with prescription drugs. It also means that we have become more focused on ourselves and lost touch with wider communities and the nature world. In the digital age of immediate access, where accomplishing several everyday tasks has been simplified to the push of a few buttons, and where illnesses and ailments are treated with cheap, fast-acting pill-popping, many people either simply marvel or laugh when they are told that achieving a profound level of martial arts takes decades of training and a lifetime to perfect. The relationship between being great at fighting and the deeper insights of mind, body and spiritual well-ness through a lifetime of development has been all but lost.
The Enduring Importance of Kung-Fu
It is important to acknowledge, however, that a lifetime of martial arts is not for everybody – something that is true today and was equally true dating back through to ancient China. In ancient China, many villages were in constant fear of attacks by bandits or armies. Without focus, discipline, and intensity in their training, they were unable to develop the skills to survive. But this does not mean that the villagers of that time committed to a lifetime of mastering Kung Fu. It does not also mean that the average farmer had a deep understanding of medicine and physiology.
If a short period of training is able to help a practitioner get to a better stage in his or her life, then it will already have been worth the trip, even if it is a short one. If a lifetime of Kung Fu practise helps them maintain good levels of personal fitness but does not extend to the deeper insights, there is no need to force any additional training if that is all the practitioner seeks or cares to benefit from. This is one of the advantages of modern-day training – the discipline and values we develop from it are genuinely our own.
It is just important to recognise there is a great culture and history that formed Chinese Kung fu which offers a deep insights and rich experience the student can choose to immerse themselves in to a lesser or greater extent. Chinese Kung Fu is more than just fast, powerful kicks and punches it is a way of learning that can have a subtle yet powerful influence on our lives. Although we may not be able to mimic exactly what martial artists of old have accomplished, in our modern age we can still extract and adopt the same principles that their training was built upon and gain the personal benefits from doing so.
The focus of this series of articles is not in seeking to preserving the authenticity and quality of a highly advanced ancient art form that was developed thousands of years ago that is no longer relevant. The benefits of a lifetime of hard work to achieve personal growth is as relevant today in our busy modern life as it was in ancient times. What’s more, a student today is far from equal to a student of ancient times, but we also live in an environment that offers many advantages over ancient times. With the advent of modern science and technology, we have the capability of better understanding and enhancing the performance of the human body.
We can take the thousands of years of learning from Chinese culture and apply modern insights into physiology, psychology, neurology, and anatomy to find balance and harmony in our lives, ensure we have good mental and physical health, and we can use our mind and bodies – through personal expression – to develop advanced fighting skills to effectively defend ourselves in the same way that modern sports science is used in attaining advanced sporting achievement.
Copyright @ Craig Sands
Related reading - Interested in exploring the history of Wing Chun further? Why not check out The History of Wing Chun - Link
Wing Chun Journey 