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Kung-Fu fighters pop up from time to time in MMA style fights. Early on in the UFC, there were a small number of kung-fu fighters. But by the end of its first year, you didn't see any. Why?
Well there's a reason for that. The first UFC's were open to all. They were very much about putting style vs. style. So they had karate, Taekwondo, kung-fu, wing-chun, ...
28
Can anyone learn martial arts techniques without sparring?
Sure! I mean, you can learn that they exist.
Can you learn how to effectively apply martial arts techniques without sparring?
Oh, no. Gosh no. No, no, no. Nope.
Sparring is how we turn things we know of into things we know how. Until you can do it in sparring it's all a bunch of theory. Not ...
27
Your question isn't what you are really asking. Your question is "Can I learn Kung Fu without sparring", and that answer is yes. Sparring is not 100% necessary to learn any art. You can learn all the kicks, punches, blocks, stances and so forth without ever facing anything more than a heavy bag or possibly a human holding a pad/shield.
What you really want ...
21
Short answer: Yes, they teach foreigners. No, it wouldn't be possible for an outsider to become a monk there. You can, however become a disciple under a monk. And you can become a sifu of your own school while being a disciple of a monk.
At the Shaolin Temple at Songshan in Dengfeng, Henan, monks routinely take on foreigners for training. Usually the junior ...
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KUNG FU, MMA, and UFC
Roy Nelson, a top tier UFC fighter, commented on his kung fu background:
The Lohan school of Shaolin, I actually got started in my Sifu’s garage. I think I was 15 1/2, 16. Kung-fu is the root for I would say 95% of all martial arts. I practice it every day.
(With Sticky Hands) basically you’re just working with their body movement, ...
17
It will be pretty difficult to do Judo alone. You can practice kung fu or any other martial art with forms (pre-arranged patterns) by yourself though. If you don't already know the martial art, though, you're setting yourself up for failure. Save yourself and any future teacher a few headaches and don't try to learn from DVDs or Youtube.
Don't get me ...
15
Stances
Like squats or push-ups, stance training is often not directly about fighting, but in acquiring strength, flexibility, and coordination.
Acrobatics
Modern wushu is closer to gymnastics, a display of athleticism and not really for fighting. Large flashy movements have always been crowd-pleasers with questionable fighting utility.
Kung fu is a rather ...
14
I have not been impressed with the stories I hear from people who have gone to these Asian martial arts retreats. These camps seem like a way to separate Westerners from their money while providing a bare minimum of services. Much like the explosion of "teacher training" yoga retreats, they provide an experience, not an education.
First-Person Accounts
...
14
Sanshou (similar to sanda) is a major competitive outlet for kung fu styles, allowing kicks, punches, kick catches, and throws. Several fighters with sanshou experience have fought in the UFC, most notably Cung Le. Zhang Tiequan appears to also have some sanshou experience, but today seems to fight primarily as a grappler.
There are a small number of kung ...
14
Protecting yourself from bullying has more to do about confidence than about martial arts. Learning martial arts will raise your confidence, but coming across as unsure and uncertain, even if you're a grandmaster, will still get you bullied.
Because of that reason, the style of kungfu matters less. The club you go to and your trainer matters more. Make sure ...
14
I don't think it's possible to give an answer to such a broad question, other than to say something along the lines of
It can be, to the extent that...
It trains on realistic, damage-inflicting strikes, with "realistic" indicating targeting realistic targets (e.g., knife hands to the neck are not open if the guy has his guard up), and not many (if ...
13
Yes, I've been to China to train at the Shaolin temple at Songshan mountain in Dengfeng, Henan, China.
I did this only for a couple of weeks, mostly just for fun. My wife (then girlfriend) was training at a school in Houston where the head instructor was an actual Shaolin monk who had moved to the U.S. to start up a school. So the monk offered to arrange ...
13
Height gives a considerable advantage to striking martial arts. The first and most obvious advantage is that height means you can reach out further than your opponent, meaning you can hit him before he hits you.
But there are other advantages that you don't immediately consider:
If you have to punch upwards towards a taller opponent's head, you don't punch ...
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Source: Black Belt in Ju Jitsu
First, I completely agree that learning to fight won't fix your problem; it'll probably just get you into trouble. However, learning a martial art is a great way to build confidence and THAT can definitely help with the bullying (speaking from experience here). One thing to note though, is that NO martial art is "fast and ...
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It depends on context, skill and time spent training.
If they just start training they're a student 学生(xué'shēng), when they become an official disciple they'll be called 徒弟(tú'dì).
Then when they become an instructor/teacher they'll be called 老师(lǎo'shī).
When they take on disciples of their own they'll be 师父(shī'fu) and when their skill is widely ...
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I had a Trig professor in college who asked us on day one, "What do math and sex have in common?" The answer was, "You cannot learn them through reading about them in books, and you cannot learn them through watching other people do it. You can only learn them through participation."
Martial arts is so varied that one has to first ask, "What do you want to ...
9
I know one person who went to train in bagua and tai chi. He went to a relatively small training camp, got some good basic skills.
But. That was 6 months of his life spent doing nothing but martial arts training. A lot of that was conditioning. Although he got a good set of basic skills, I can't say it'd be much different than if he spent the time here, ...
9
It is the same as asking if you can learn a language without having conversations with real people. In a sense, yes, you can learn to read and write that language from books and instruction. But you'll be in for a heck of a big surprise if dropped into a city where people speak that language for real -- everybody will talk so much faster than you imagined ...
9
Well the short answer is: Why not try it for a month and see whether or not it's something you're capable of doing? Because you won't know until you try.
One of the main concerns of practicing more than one style at a time is that you might confuse them, and it will annoy your teachers as well as perhaps slowing your progress. This is a bigger concern for ...
9
NO, or at least not until about 900 years after both Buddhabhadra and Bodhidharma died.
In Meir Shahar's The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts, there is a whole chapter (number six) dedicated to that topic. It basically debunks this (with reference to studies and historical sources) as a myth that had been raised as late as ...
8
Your option to learn new things is pretty limited.
Forms have some, limited value
Since you've mentioned kung fu as one of the directions you might go, there's plenty of video online of various forms and lots of books to back it up that you can do. This might help you develop leg strength and coordination, but your options for learning how it flows/...
8
What is the most effective method for the roundhouse kick?
You've got a one-adjective criteria there, and a vague one: effective.
Overall effectiveness might reasonably be defined as what helps you win reliably, or perhaps you'd prefer something less reliable if it meant the average or median injury you sustain is less even though the worst case outcome's ...
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There are all kinds of places on the body where fighters can get hit (the nose, the jaw, the solar plexus, the thigh, the liver, the kidneys, etc.), and each one of those triggers not just pain but subconscious, automatic physical reactions and altered psychological states. The pain is really the least of anyone's problems in this situation. It's the other ...
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When I went to train at Shaolin temple (Songshan mountain), I was with a group of English speakers. Our monk grew up in the temple and had moved to the U.S. to teach there, so he understood English. Most of the monks who never left the temple do not understand English.
We were trained by several junior monks. They didn't understand English. But as it turned ...
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Bruce Lee's training partner, Dan Inosanto, gives some insight in an interview for the book The Masters Speak in regards to forms (emphasis mine):
Q: What do you think about forms?
A: I have to say that Bruce was not anti-form and neither am I. Forms or katas are a way to learning proper body mechanics. Forms can be a part of your training, but your ...
7
There are no such things as "street fighting" martial arts. Each martial art has its own story for how it came to exist and how it has evolved over the years.
Wing Chun kung-fu, for example, is often called a "street fighting" art, but it is nothing of the sort. The founder of that art had a specific purpose in mind for it, and that purpose was to allow ...
7
Disclaimer: I've spent too much time over thinking the differences between Japanese and Chinese martial arts
To quote Bruce Lee's opinion on the styles, getting hit by a Karate punch is like getting hit by a crowbar, while getting hit by a Kung Fu punch is like getting hit by a ball on a chain. Both hurt. You don't want to be on the receiving end of ...
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Catching a kick is a common technique in Muay Thai and a major part of san da/san shou (Chinese kickboxing).
In Muay Thai, I've seen lots of kicking out or sweeping the other leg. This clip teaches one method, and the video ends with clips of competition applications against opponents doing their best to stay standing. Other techniques I've seen in that art ...
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I just want to point out that a lot of martial arts demonstrations like these are actually illusions. Bricks used for breaking are often chemically treated and baked longer to become more brittle. They look like ordinary bricks, but they're far easier to break. At some demonstrations I've seen, I laughed because I saw bricks actually crumble into pieces just ...
7
The answer to this question entirely depends on the form and the history behind it.
Most forms have changed in small and often big ways since they were first created. Sometimes movements are repeated slowly just because someone thought it would look better in a demonstration. That's the truth for most of what you'll see out there when you see something ...
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