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Awesome footage.
I have a friend that went and trained w/ the Beijing Sanshou team last year. He said those guys were animals!!
It’s going to be interesting to see how far Cung Le’s going to go in MMA with his background in Sanshou.
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Yeh, Cung Le is the man.
Here’s him in Strike Force this year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4QdFcWOwOsNice spinning back kicks! Kind of a slow match thru much of it, but damn…if the dude was any more relaxed in there, he’d have a brewsky in one hand and a smoke in the other.
Wow—I hope he continues with the MMA. I just wonder if anyone is going to be brave enough to try and take him to the ground.
Actually, that is probably like the grandpappy kung fu- but not your daddy’s kung fu. A return to the good old days.
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quote \”CLFMak\:Actually, that is probably like the grandpappy kung fu- but not your daddy’s kung fu. A return to the good old days.Really? From what I read, this was developed rather recently by the chinese military.
I am curious though, how in the world can this be termed ‘kung fu’? I mean, this looks nothing like what they do in those movies I used to watch every sunday morning.
btw, this looks like some strong shit in terms of self defense. I really like the idea of dumping my opponent on his head, without having to roll on the ground with him.
Kung Fu?
Well yes in the generic sense. This is just a general term used to describe various fighting systems. FYI….. I love this! I’m not sure that everyone has the athletic ability to do this though. But for those who can I can’t see how this style would not be effective. It is aggresive and it turns defense into offense very quickly. I love it!
San Shou came about from traditional kung fu styles. You might even get to see a fighter doing some part of a set before a match like you’d see a thai boxer doing ram muay.
In the old days, there were matches called lei tai matches (something like that- never seen it written), where you fought on a sort of raised platform in front of the public. You could win by convincingly beating the opponent in the ring with strikes and grappling, or you could toss them out of the ring. Matches like these were done if you challenged the head of the local kung fu school to the rights to teach in an area.
Often times the kung fu seen in demos is not really meant to be used the same way in fighting. For example, the low stances develop flexibility, posture and leg strength, but in fighting the stance gets higher. The high kicks are similar- they make low kicks easier. Forms also consist of fighting techniques as well as force training- which is like dynamic tension exercises- thats why it doesn’t all look fighting. But the fundamental techniques can work in san shou. For instance, in Luohan Shenda, a monk kung fu style, the fighting stance is as such- the feet are just past shoulder width, in a T pattern with 70% of the weight on the back leg. The hands are bent in front of the body, with the fists above the shoulders but below the nose and the elbows down. Very similar to a kickboxing stance. San Shou as it is today has in some cases broken away from traditional styles, but usually you will see it taught in schools that also teach something like hung gar, choy li fut, tai chi chuan, etc. Its basically the sparring of kung fu, using the strikes, sweeps and throws you’ve trained.
Anyway, I was referring to the old days where kung fu was practiced for fighting over looking good or health benefits, and as such things were usually pretty rough. For instance, a main fighting aspect of tai chi is an exercise called moving step push hands, where you try to throw your opponent to the ground or get them out of the ring- like judo randori without sacrifice throws. But now you see tai chi practitioners without any noncooperative drills, and sometimes not even knowing the applications of the moves. Similar ideas permeate lots of kung fu- less sparring, more forms.
As Psyops points out, kung fu is a generic term used in the West for Chinese martial arts. Over the years, the term has changed lots of times- wushu, wuyi, juedi etc. Tai chi, choy li fut, wing chun, Shaolin chuan, san soo, san shou etc are all kung fu because they’re all Chinese martial arts.
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