Kung-Fu FoRum
About Kung-fu:
The phrase of Kung-fu used by Cantonese frequently in the past has been brought to every comer all over the world along with the Cantonese abroad since they had been seeking to make their living worldwide. "Kung-fu" in its broad sense is generally defined as craftsmanship and feat. If we say that somebody plays Kung-fu, it means that he performs a skilled feat. In case we indicate that somebody knows Kung-fu, it means that he practices the Chinese traditional Kung-fu well. So it is easy for us to reach the conclusion that somebody knows Kung-fu means clearly that his Kung-fu performs quite well and excels all. This conventional concept was also brought abroad by the Cantonese.
When it dated back to the 70s-80s last century, the authority of China attached great importance to discovering and coordinating the traditional Kung-fu. Along with the accelerated process of reform and opening-up policy in China, the activities of Kung-fu in China are now quite famous in the world. All at once, the new generations of different schools of Kung-fu, the practice-goers and teachers in the Physical Education faculty, the professional coaches and the sportsmen began to teach Kung-fu both at home and abroad. The quintessence of Chinese culture is imparted to other countries and makes headway to be popular. However, different people have different conceptions, and perform different methods and forms of Kung-fu. So we have various explanations and parlances in terms of the traditional Chinese Kung-fu. Quite a few of people are unintelligible about the nature of Kung-fu.
For the past decade, the Wu-shu athletics are extensively introduce to every comer of the world. There are many competitions on Wu-shu athletics. But in fact, they are not the cases of Chinese traditional Kung-fu that are the parts of the quintessence of Chinese culture in terms of training process and the demand of application. So the continuators and fancier of the Chinese traditional Kung-fu all over the world distinguish the two forms by the essence of performing. They define the traditional Chinese Kung-fu as Kung-fu, while for the other form aiming at participating the sports competitions; we call it "practice Wu-shu."
"Kung-fu", "Wu-shu" are definitions of a kind of form, conception and contexts by people around the world. They are established by usage and recognized by people through generations. So we have to be aware of the two different types of Kung-fu as I have explained before. One is for the traditional Chinese quintessence and the other is for pure sports competitions.
But as for the conception of Chinese Kung-fu, different people bear different thinking and recognitions. CHINESE TRADITIONAL KUNG-FU has invited over three hundred experts and masters from both home and abroad to express their ideas and opinions and we will publish them in the following issues.
If you are interested in Chinese Kung-fu, you can e-mail us. The language should be concise and clear. Thank you for all your concerns.
