Well, I guess what people do is they say kung fu for almost every chinese martial art, where as Gung fu is a very specified form and kung Fu is more general. I'm limiting how much I say about it, because I don't know everything about it and don't want to provide false information. That way I won't have to double back and retract statements.

As far as spelling difference Happy is different then Sappy, just like gung is different from kung.

But I think what I'm trying to say is kung fu is a more general term for Chinese martial arts while Gung is specific.

Not to get too deep into it, but 'kung fu' and 'gung fu' are exactly the same. Just different English spellings of the same word as written in Chinese. If you ask any Chinese person how to write each spelling they will give you the exact same characters.

hey, thats cool. I'm jsut going by what my master taught me. Don't worry about offending me. i can tell your not trying to be a jerk, lol.

anyways, what you practice shouldn't hang in the balance of one letter. I practice kung/gung fu and its hard core.

quote:

I'm not sure if it's even possible to study 'wushu' in the US, as the only possible meaning that isn't hopelessly general refers to a non-combat form artificially created by the Communists after 1949 to prevent the practice of 'real' (ergo dangerous) martial arts.

Ive never heard that Evan. To my knowledge Wu Shu is a southern style Kung Fu which many say is ideal for street fighting because it focuses much of its style to short ranged attacks, usually with the fists, and a lot of slight but effective movments (vs the large circular movements of a style like northern shaolin)

Its also the style I believe Bruce Lee first mastered if my memory serves me correctly.

Foresaken-

I wont oppose your teacher either. Im sure he has far more experience then I do. However, what I was always taught, by experienced practitioners, was that Kung Fu and Gung Fu were the same thing. They were different spellings/pronounciations of the general term for the chinese martial arts.

What specific styles are you learning from that school?

Also is there a difference between master and sifu?

While master is a direct translation of Sifu, I feel that Sifu carries a very different connotation, much like Sensei, or even Rabbi.

Today we learned Gung Chi. While most of Kung/Gung fu focuses on animal type movements, Gung Chi is almost an entirely literal animal movement that links all the animals together.

Also, the pukolao (I know i'm spelling that wrong! I can't figure it out) was reintroduced today. It uses short linked kicks. you raise your knee to the kick position and fromt here lanuch three to four kicks to closely positioned vital points.

yea thats what I figured but I thought maybe at your school they had sifu and then master or something

Ill have to check pukolao out. Thats a new one to me. Kinda sounds like that one dude from tekken tag lol

quote:

Ive never heard that Evan. To my knowledge Wu Shu is a southern style Kung Fu which many say is ideal for street fighting because it focuses much of its style to short ranged attacks, usually with the fists, and a lot of slight but effective movments (vs the large circular movements of a style like northern shaolin)

Its also the style I believe Bruce Lee first mastered if my memory serves me correctly.

Actually, Bruce Lee didn't 'master' any style other than his own. He learned only a little bit of Tai Chi Chuan, Hung Gar, and Wing Chun with Yip Man for only a year or so (per Wikipedia; also backed by my own fairly extensive research on Lee).

And 'wushu' has two uses: the only one that is a specific style is the Communist-created dance/sport form. The other meaning of 'wushu' is a general term referring to Chinese martial arts. It's obviously more specific than 'gung fu' ('hard work'), as 'wu' is 'martial' and 'shu' is 'art/technique.' This is from wikipedia.

Since Wushu (the 'new' form that Jet Li was a multiple champion in) is very popular in China, this is largely understood to be what people are referring to.

As a general term, then, it doesn't refer to any specific style. Your description could apply to many southern styles but sounds maybe like Hung Gar or Wing Chun. In general southern forms focus on close-range fighting and the upper body instead of the legs and 'open' moves. "Northern leg, Southern fist."

I thought Bruce Lee was a very advent student of gung Fu. and then started to recognize its flaws and then developed his own style . . . Jeet Kun do. He got tired of seeing fat "masters" who wouldn't last 5 seconds in a fight, hence, there really isn't a ranking system in original Jeet Kun Do.

I'm trying various spellings on Pukalao, but I still can't find anything on it.

He did develop his own style, but he was not an actual 'master' of other styles before doing that... as I said, check Wikipedia. His formal studies that were probably taken the farthest were Wing Chun with Yip Man but either Yip died or Lee had to leave HK. He certainly didn't train for long enough to achieve full mastery.

You know Evan your totally correct. I have no idea why I have been saying Wushu this entire time. I meant to say Wing Chun. I guess its been longer then I thought since I was involved in Kung Fu and I managed to mix up the terms and not catch myself.

THanks for correcting me.