My old man was a Golden Gloves Boxer, he trained me some, then i went to Aikido, good lessons from this art. Then i went in to the hated Wing Chun. I love Wing chun, Started my W C training in 1994, still train to this day, i trained in Muay Thai, loved the conditioning. I fought an amateur match, This was enough for me. I learned distance, Movement etc. Sparing for me is development of core techniques. I'm not after money, nor Trophies, nor any other praises from others. I don't care for B.J.J., don't like going to my back on the street. I trained a little in Kali, Love it, however, i fount a home In Kuntow Silat, i do not concern myself with UFC mess, not for me, i am confident in my training, i do not need other's validation.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Sounds like a rich and varied training career! Yeah I'm certainly not going to drop to the ground and scoot around in the streets! But I felt like in this modern era, where it seems so ubiquitous, it is helpful to know enough to be able to deal with it

@josephmalone253

11 ай бұрын

I don't hate wing chun. It just isn't for me. It goes completely against my base and things I worked towards physically, philosophically/principles, and as a brand. I would struggle to incorporate it into my art.

Thank you so much for bringing up this topic. I also quit, mostly, but deep down in my heart I miss the training and the community. In its essence Kung Fu is self development within a non competitive and kind community.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Well it's never too late to come back! We can always get back to it and recapture that energy 😊 As I mentioned in the video, there are a lot more opportunities to train from anywhere these days

Great message! Thank you for this video. I'm really glad that you talked about how it's completely okay to step away from a community if it is negatively impacting you. It's so important to follow your gut feeling if something feels off because some people will try and take advantage of other's naivety or try and put others down (sometimes in subtle ways). A good teacher to me really seems to boil down to someone who is open, someone who loves the art that he/she shares, and who isn't doing it because of some power trip. Like you said in another comment the best thing is to train something that you get the most value from and that you enjoy!

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

You're welcome! 😁 You're quite right, if someone has passion and just wants to share it they are not only a better person to be training with, they often become a better teacher because of it. You have to have that passion to delve in deep into the details. I'll never forget one of my kung fu buddies saying that he would never train with a certain teacher again, because the very first thing they said to him was "have you paid?". Not even a hello!

I trained Shaolin Kung Fu in China from the Wugulun branch with Wunanfang and I'd like to say something about my experience in MMA and sparring. In Shaolin Wugulun we practice striking while our body is moving and we don't stop our body movement when we strike, so our body movement continues during and after our strike which causes the whole body power to manifest. After three strikes done in this way the opponent should be knocked to the ground, if not earlier. If you cant achieve this effect you don't have the basic skill in my experience. In MMA sparring, often much time is spent kickboxing. In kickboxing, you stop your body movement at a certain range to do punchs and kicks, that's why takedowns don't happen unless you shoot for a takedown, which is separate in the MMA paradigm from striking. My point is that Shaolin Kung Fu has a different paradigm for fighting then MMA. I had to go to the Wugulun lineage to learn this because the Shaolin temple performance monks don't know this in my experience. I feel bad for Ranton and for the many people in his situation who learned the aesthetic tradition of the Shaolin Kung Fu, meaning the skill of looking like you know Kung Fu. The Shaolin fighting paradigm and the traditional fighting paradigm as a whole is almost gone from the world.

@ubcroel4022

11 ай бұрын

Lots of cope

@rojcewiczj

11 ай бұрын

@@ubcroel4022 Its just to say that traditional martial arts was neither kickboxing nor wrestling, it had its own fighting paradigm. For modern people this is basically impossible to imagine because its outside of our frame of reference.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

There are indeed a lot of overlaps with the same technique being used for different things, or one technique blending into another. It is a very different way of looking at things.

great work Damien 👍 very well explaining and editing ☺ keep up the great work.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Thank you 😁

Well said and keep up the good work. The martial arts world is a huge, polarised mess, and yet the outsider thinks it's full of calm, disciplined monk types... if only. You benefit and inspire a lot of people with your content... but others will hate it, that's the world we live in. It becomes even harder knowing that kung fu is largely seen as nice looking, but useless in the martial arts world. The focus on taolu and the misunderstandings around its application damage the Chinese arts.... and yet who really understands combat, violence and fighting in all its forms... not many, 90% of the people in the martial arts will never have a truly violent and life-threatening encounter and have no idea what it is like but will judge the training of those that came before us that did live in far more violent times. That being said the martial arts is so much more than violence.... so much more.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Thank you very much. And very well said. Perhaps little by little we can change the perception again.

You done very well buddy ,keep up the good work and do what you love and forget about haters and jealous ,envious people ,please continue to delight us with your videos.👍👍👍.

@KungFit

8 ай бұрын

Thank you very much for your kind words 😁

Spreading value. I love that

Well Done, thank you.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Thanks. You're welcome :)

I agree with him to a certain degree. Most Traditional Martial Art schools are lacking when it comes to proper physical contact, and putting form applications into a functioning useable context. If people would like to learn to fight, I think they should train in an MMA type of way for a while. A Traditional type style such as Shaolin will become easier to work out applications, and how to use them better when the practitioner has a better idea on how to fight. Most Traditional styles such as Shaolin are fantastic for all the reasons explained, but I feel that training in a traditional style like Shaolin has more advantages , as I feel I can train more when I get older, and fuse the applications learned to mix with freestyle.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

I completely agree, it can be used to train well into your later years. I train a number of people in their 50's and 60's who for various physical reasons would struggle with something like Muay Thai or MMA. It also has it's links to Buddhist practice, and whether you follow that or not, the benefits of meditation, including moving meditation which forms and qi gong can be used for are well scientifically backed these days. I agree on the MMA front too. There are a bunch of things from Shaolin that I can't do in Muay Thai, which is annoying 😂 But we work with what we can, where we can. 🙂

@seculardojo7738

11 ай бұрын

I agree with you on the meditation aspect with forms and Qi gong, that's the most enjoyable aspect of Shaolin in my opinion, and it can practised by most people later on in life. Have you tried Sanshou Kickboxing training? I have trained at Muay Thai schools in the past, but never found a Sanshou school.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

My first Shaolin teacher taught us Sanshou/Sanda as well. Never come across a school that only trained that though. Usually did modern wushu or traditional styles too. There's lots I miss from it in Muay Thai, like the wider range of sweeps and throws permitted.

amen, brotha!

50 seconds in that's a Mantis form. I spotted that in Ranton's original video

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Good spot 🙂

well will find out when he goes though the ultimate self defense challenge soon

@KungFit

9 ай бұрын

Yeah it will be interesting to see how much Shaolin he uses versus boxing and BJJ. If anyone wants to spam his videos saying he should meet up with me, I'd be down with that 😂 He'll be in Sydney where I'm based. I actually bumped into Sensei Seth and Icy Mike when they were over for the last one

stay positive! greetings from the other side of the world! (Argentina)

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Thank you! You too!

All best to him his nice guy your right lt sad people keep.haveing ago

I honestly cannot agree with him on what he said about forms applications and fighting. Forms are not meant to be taken literally, they lay a foundation for applications in fighting. It's not like this move does this and this move does that. To use an analogy, forms are the concrete foundation of a building, and fighting is the walls, roof, doors, garage, furniture, and so on that goes on top of the foundation. Like different architects designing and building different structures on the concrete, different people will derive different applications from forms. For example, you can have 2 students learning the same material, and they will use different techniques in fighting. Because people are different. Also, traditional forms have a LOT of grappling, and I mean a lot. And a lot of those grappling techniques in the forms don't work well with boxing gloves. To get the most use out of those forms, you need to be bare handed. I agree with what he said about traditional schools not fighting and sparring enough. Should a school pressure test it's material? Absolutely. But that is totally different than forms not being effective. The reason that most traditional schools don't have a lot of fighting is the customer base. Most customers in today's business society train in traditional martial arts for stress relief from work, and to get a good work out. They have sparring in house, but fighting full contact in stuff like MMA is the last thing on their mind. I was like that for a while, I was working 2 full time jobs to support my family and squeezing in 2 classes a week. That's how it is. And that's where forms come in, they are great for solo training on lunch breaks. I'm sorry, I cannot agree with him.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

I think what he was trying to say was that training forms alone doesn't teach you to fight; there's a lot more you need to train. But I completely agree with you that forms have a lot of value for fighting nonetheless. Yeah boxing gloves do get in the way of a lot of the more technical movements, but there are still things we can use, depending on the rule set you are sparring under. Boxing obviously limits a lot, Muay Thai blocks out certain sweeps and throws, Kickboxing sometimes excludes elbows and/or grappling. MMA is the really the closest analogue to how these old styles are meant to be used, but in the modern world when most have jobs to go to the next day, getting battered fighting in tiny gloves isn't a viable or desirable option. We do what we can, choose our limits and our direction of travel. Whichever you choose, if you get value from it, then it's good 🙂

@blockmasterscott

11 ай бұрын

@@KungFit You made a very valid point. I was very lucky to have a traditional teacher. My first master was an old Vietnamese man that I worked with on the graveyard shift that trained in Vietnam in the early 50s. Up until then I was fighting full contact Tae Kwon Do with the rule sets. I had no clue that martial arts were made without rules, and he was puzzled that I fought with rules. He told me that he was trained to kill, which he did in the Vietnam war. He had no conception of rules. Anyways, for some reason he took me under his wing and taught me on the graveyard shift(it was the the two of us) for the next two years. He taught me Chinese forms with all the eye gouging and bone breaking stuff in the applications, he taught me how to stab with a pencil, fight with a belt, staff, escrima sticks, and so on. It was a real eye opener. i remember him telling that when he was born in the early 40s his parent looked at a scroll, and according to the scroll, he had to study Kung Fu from midnight to three in the morning, so from when he was 6 years old to about 18 or so he had to study in the middle of the night from a master. All this from a poor Vietnamese guy on the graveyard shift in a factory that just happen to see me practicing one night. That was my first master, Sang Traung. I owe him everything.

I am a former 9th Gen Pak Mei Disciple from the Lam Hung Branch I do agree with Ranton , Jessie ,and yourself I learned Pak Mei for 10-11 years now I still practice the art along side Jook Lum Tonglong and applied the fighting essences of the 2 in my Boxing in my backyard with my MMA friend .

@KungFit

10 ай бұрын

Awesome. How did it go?

@Dillagent

10 ай бұрын

@@KungFit It's a wonderful experience and still experimenting combining a bit of Western Boxings essence

@KungFit

10 ай бұрын

That's great to hear. Keep at it! :)

Heyyy men. Interesting and nice video! i guess every martialartist with a opens mind will come to this point where he has to disicde to go all in into one art and hopefully he will have a good kungfu school at his side at this point cause as said there are not many good onse or he has to move on.... By the way. at 5:28 and 5:35 the two clips of Sifu Adam and mr Jap are not fake. i trained with studens of both and the power that you gain by there practice is defently a big level up if you intigrate this in your system.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Thanks very much! I don't think you necessarily need to go all in with one art, you can do multiple, but certainly the more you dabble the less of a clear structure and skill in each you will have. I think getting good at a base art and then experimenting from there is the way to go, if you want to. It ensures you have a solid base to build off of, and know what works for you and what doesn't. I'm not necessarily saying all of this stuff is fake, much is just misrepresented. For example the Taizu's blades in the second clip has nothing to do with Yi, it is simply biomechanics. Even a small person's latissimus dorsi muscles will win versus a large person's front deltoids, which is what this position sets up. It's on the to do list to make a video about this at some point. You can certainly gain power from proper biomechanics, but mystical it is not. When it comes to people being propelled across the room with energy powers, I'm sorry but there is zero evidence that this is real. There is nothing within physics which would explain someone hopping backwards like that. I respect eastern and western world views, but things still need a rational explanation. There is even a long standing award of a million dollars for anyone that can legitimately demonstrate any form of power like this, telekinesis, mind reading etc. under scientific conditions. No one has claimed it.

The problem of today was the problem of the past. Hence so many styles.

I think kung fu just needs to quit doing handfighting as striking and get back to using a chambered strike. It's just like kyokushins and taekwando fighters use with one arm extended and the other chambered with the elbow behind the body

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Kyokushin doesn't allow head punches though, which changes the game a lot. Having some form of guard is essential if people are going for your head, which most people do, unless you have very good movement. Although forms do use a chambered hand, for a variety of reasons, traditional Shaolin does actually have a lot of guards, generally referred to as shields. A common one is the tiger mouth shield, which I've done a video on, but there are lots of others too. Some are a bit weird compared to what we think of as a guard these days, but they can be really effective if trained.

@PeytonLacroix

11 ай бұрын

@KungFit ah so are you saying there is shelling up in kung fu to some extent?

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

It depends on the style, I'm sure some do. I wouldn't describe Shaolin's approach as shelling up, like you see in boxing etc. The guards used are a lot more active for the most part. I guess occasionally you might see it as shelling up upon entry, but this is still often with it in mind to do something active with the arms if needed. They often involve actively intercepting the strike, but generally aren't quite so dependent upon timing as the often seen traditional block. As some examples there are a few where you use your arms as a shield and push forward into a punch, there is one where you palm strike their punch, there are a number where you use positioning to encourage attacks down a certain line and then move into that line as soon as you see an attack coming, knowing where it is going to come from. There's plenty more too.

The fact that simply learning forms is not a direct way to become a "fighter" should be common knowledge, I can't really understand why this isn't an obvious truth in this day and age. There are also other training tools besides forms which are all building blocks to become a fighter. One of these is obviously sparring, which can be done with various intensities and limitations.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

It should be yes, but some people still don't get it. Equally there are others who refuse to see value in anything but padwork and sparring. As with many things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle

Man it's hard to make positive content online haha every time I try to make some educational videos I get random hate from people they don't even know what's kung fu :D I think the biggest problem is than there is so much bullshait videos online so kung fu has such a bad reputation amongst the "ordinary people"...

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Haha, yeah I get that. Sometimes they just don't know any better and a positive and informative reply helps them understand, sometimes they are just trolls. Keep at it, as long as someone finds value in it, it's making a positive difference 😁

I dont do shaolin, i do ying jow pai This message makes me feel good Thank you for it. I hope Ranton finds his way, if we didnt sparr in Ying Jow Pai, maybe id feel the same... I often think of peoplw trying several diferent martial arts... none of them comoletes their search, always trying to fill the holes... So.. wich one is better? None, its always about the fighter (or student) everyone has diferent needs... And everyone needs to loose the macho stance, we are just humans fighting for fun, and if its for wining money and medals, remember the other dude is fighting for the same... and you or he might lack more training, no one is saitama or goku here

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

I couldn't agree more

Its specifically why i dont train at shaolin schools. They dont train the old way.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Goes back to a lot of what we were talking about this week

@Thaumaturge2251

11 ай бұрын

tbf from what I've heard a lot of the 'old way' is a fking stupid way to train, things like sitting on people to get them into splits or beating the crap out of students for getting a position wrong. Screw that noise, that don't make anyone better it just increases the likelihood of becoming a broken mess.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

@@Thaumaturge2251 It depends on what you constitute as old. That is certainly the modern way in certain schools looking to churn out wushu champions. It's a very different culture, much like in Thailand with muay thai fighters. You have a lot of potential candidates so high risk high reward activities predominate. Going more traditional, for many, the long term approach with a focus on overall health is more prevalent.

Shaolin Kung Fu is not the only Kung Fu out there. Kung Fu is NOT one thing, it's 400 different systems and styles. It's not the system, it's not the style it's the student. You can bring fighting skills to whatever system you're in. Fu Jow Pai Tiger claw for instance has a long history of tournament and ring fighting. One of our older practitioners was Paul Vizzio with 47 wins and 1 loss and 17 world titles in professional kickboxing. Fu Jow spars regularly and paired down to its essentials, it is a just mixture of kickboxing and grappling. All good fighting systems are combination of 3 fighting styles, kickboxing, grappling and wrestling. You need at least 2 of those styles in any system for it to be effective and most systems do that if you can find it and apply it. You don't have abandon Kung Fu or Karate or any of the traditional martial arts to learn how to fight. You just have to fight and apply what you know.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

I completely agree with you on the effectiveness of styles. I would say it is also your training methods and by extension teacher, as well as the individual practitioner. Everyone needs someone to learn from at least to some degree No one said Shaolin is the only kung fu. It just happens to be the style myself and (formerly) Ranton practice.

@yestoadventure007

11 ай бұрын

@@KungFit Yes no one said Shaolin is the only kung fu, I just wanted to stress to others who may read this that Kung Fu is not monolithic. After almost 30 years in Fu Jow Pai I'm still surprised how many people even in the martial arts do think Kung Fu is one thing.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

That is true. Plenty of those tier list videos out there that have variations of this that and the other, and then have kung fu as one thing, as if it isn't a term that encompasses most of the martial arts from the most populous country on the planet!

Simple pressure tested movements, will always be more practical under highly stressful situations. Which is why most beginner boxers have a better fight IQ and conditioning, than traditional martial artists with almost twice the training time.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

Most definitely, the more complicated something is the more practice it takes to apply in any situation, ramp up the pressure and that just multiplies. If you can learn the basics and extras, and put them to the test, that's where the benefits start to come in

You mean the guy who can't even fight with his style? Who is a gymnast? There are real masters who can actually fight, like my Southern Dragon Sifus, or my Wing Chun/ Hung Gar SiSooks.

I love it how dumb people are in not understanding how kung fu is applied in real situations but doing videos about the benefits of kung fu cause you get flexible while practising...

@KungFit

10 ай бұрын

I think it's fine to just do it for fun and the ancillary benefits, but yeah it definitely loses something from not learning the application, even if you never intend to use it

Ranton went to a Shaolin tourist learning program in China and claims to be the expert on all things Shaolin and kung fu 😂🙄

@bonsaiboi9083

11 ай бұрын

Nah he lived there for 3 years and trained with the warrior monks. He is probably one of the only guys from the west who has had the chance to get this much insight into the shaolin temple training, culture and community. But of course, a real shaolin master from the temple would know more, but they are all chinese, don't speak english, or if they do don't tell the truth because they want to sell you something

@bigwavesun

11 ай бұрын

@@bonsaiboi9083 He's not one of the only guys. There have been several. I know of one personally who was there for years with his son training with the monks. This program was bringing in people every year until C19. The majority of the program was athletics and training forms. He even said that while the monks know what they know best, there were talks of real and better kung fu teachers living in the surrounding areas. Ranton may know what he knows best, but I promise you he does not have the exclusive insights into Shaolin style trainings. I will give him credit on this....he's right, there are people that know kung fu better than the monks. Credit to him for focusing on what he wants to focus on with his boxing and grappling training, but I hate how the guy likes to come off as a know it all when it comes to the martial arts world.

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

You're quite right, there are a fair number of westerners that have gone to the region to train, whether at the temple training centre, schools in the wider area which generally have monks as coaches, or even a handful that have ventured off into the villages surrounding Shaolin. It's in the villages that you tend to see older versions of Shaolin forms and applications, which have some very different takes on certain things. Both approaches have value, but there are certainly some things I prefer about old Shaolin style. There are also plenty of former Shaolin monks that speak English and are have moved to the west to teach. Each has a different approach to martial arts and a different attitude towards the temple. I've experienced a number of each. I was lucky enough that my first teacher was a former monk that had a practical outlook on kung fu, and my second was a friend who had spent many years living in the villages around Shaolin learning the older style.

Stop taking advice about Kungfu fighting, FROM GUYS WHO CAN'T even fight, let alone use Kungfu

@KungFit

11 ай бұрын

At no point was anyone taking advice from Ranton about fighting here, this video is about access to coaches, ones approach to training application and the negativity in the community. Let's keep things positive, eh?

So the response is.. Ranton is right but he shouldn't give up on kung fu (no good reason stated) and there's online courses which aren't an option for Ranton since he stated clearly he misses training in groups and whatnot. Honestly don't see much value in this video, sorry. And it didn't paint kung fu in a good way for me, especially since i had an absolutely terrible time training wing chun.

@KungFit

9 ай бұрын

Sorry you feel that way. I think there are certainly good reasons not to give up on it, mainly that it is useful for fighting, contrary to what he stated. Not training with others was one of his issues, but the biggest one was lacking a teacher. I think training kung fu online and boxing/bjj in person could be a good mix for him. That's just my opinion of course, everyone is entitled to their own. Also don't forget that kung fu encompasses hundreds of different styles of martial arts which are completely different from each other. Just because you had a bad time with wing chun, doesn't mean all kung fu styles are bad or wouldn't suit you. Putting them all under one umbrella is a bit like saying wrestling is exactly the same as boxing because they both were practiced in Europe.

@miqvPL

9 ай бұрын

@@KungFit kung fu like all procedure-oriented martial arts arent good for fighting. They are supplementary at best. For fighting you need something sparring-heavy which is also encouraging students to develop their own style, not stay within tight borders of a style and be penalized for doing thing differently. But you would need to be a fighter to know this

@KungFit

9 ай бұрын

@@miqvPL I mean Muay Thai springs to mind; very tightly controlled rule set, designed to encourage certain actions and disallow others, with a view to creating more entertaining fights and encouraging gambling. From a fighting perspective there is no reason not to allow sweeps with the back of the leg for example. Nonetheless I train at a Muay Thai gym, because after I moved to Australia, it was what was available locally that had good sparring options. I do sparring sessions there 1-3 times a week, but the core of my style remains Shaolin. Some kung fu schools do spar a lot. Many don't of course, and that is a problem if the students are there to get better at fighting. If you look at things like lei tai matches, people aren't penalised for going outside a certain style. Styles emerge as a particular set of principles that work together to create a coherent system; you can go outside of that, but having an overall structure helps. For example you fight very differently with peekaboo and philly shell approaches in boxing. You could see these as analogous to different kung fu styles. Some kung fu styles are so large that they have overall guiding principles, but different ways of fighting within that, so you could still find a style that suited you. You could also say that many kickboxing, boxing, muay thai etc gyms do not encourage students to develop their own style, but instead mimic the coaches. It's really more about coach quality and the intent of the coach and students rather than X martial art vs Y. That is not to say that there aren't trends of course.

@miqvPL

9 ай бұрын

@@KungFit bad example with Muay Thai mate, it's a result-oriented martial art. And "some kung fu schools aren't shit" isn't really a good argument considering most of them are. I keep hearing how useless taekwondo is but my dojang is actually decent, people are great and we light spar a lot, it's basically a diet kickboxing. Does it mean the general opinion of taekwondo is wrong? No, it's right, most dojangs especially from WT side are shit and promote leg fencing more than actual martial arts. And at the end of the day karate, taekwondo, kung fu and other more procedure-oriented martial arts won't be as good for fighting as boxing, kickboxing, judo or bjj since it's gonna take 2-3 times longer to produce a good fighter. Life is short, time for training for most people is very limited so you might as well train something that produces results faster. And you'll find a good kickboxing coach MUCH faster than a good kung fu school. Anyone who says differently tries to sell you something. And guess what- you ARE trying to sell people something.

@KungFit

9 ай бұрын

Muay thai being results oriented is precisely why it is a good example. There are techniques like sweeping with the heel or back of the leg which fit perfectly into Muay Thai's style, are not too dangerous and yet aren't allowed in the rules. This is because the rules are skewed to encourage more exciting action. Making it easier to sweep someone would break things up more. I agree, if you are looking to learn how to fight, it is easier to find a half decent coach in other styles, but that doesn't mean the style is bad. It's all about approach. As with your TKD, I think it's better we talk about the ease of finding a school/instructor that suits your needs and goals, than the style itself. Ultimately all this stuff was built for fighting, some schools have just moved further away from that. We can all still learn something from each other's styles. You're also quite right that I do have services for sale, let's be honest, most KZreadrs do have a product or service, it's how they earn a living. My main aim here isn't to sell things though, it's to educate. If someone likes my approach and wants to learn more then they are welcome to come train with me. If you just want to watch my videos (or don't) that's fine too. Anyway good luck with your training, sounds like you've found the right place for you, which is great. 👍

It's wushu and basically dance. so...he's not really giving up on Chinese martial arts. He never started to begin with. He learned war dances that are relatively modern. Nothing he did had any authentic roots in the way it's actually used by people who used it professionally to harm others.

@KungFit

10 ай бұрын

I'm afraid this is something of a misconception some people have. Although Shaolin has certainly changed over the last 100 years (as all martial arts have), it certainly does have roots in techniques used to fight. The monks and surrounding villages were a linked ecosystem and shared martial knowledge. You see the same things practiced in the temple and local schools today as you do in the villages, with stylistic differences. There was no break in the martial tradition as some people claim. You do see a big focus on performance these days, but there is a fighting root to it, and many do still train for this, even if it is not the majority. It's also worth bearing in mind, even very old forms still had acrobatic movements

You have offered great points to Ranton's situation. It could also be acknowledged that all of us in the martial arts communities must accept reality = our actual physical training days are, comparatively speaking, FINITE! And relatively short compared to the actual metaphorical "lifetimes" of any given lineage / style / etcetera. Thirty, forty years of training in our Art is extremely short, so best to make the most of it while one's still alive and kicking! Ranton has, in all intents and purposes likely evolved and grew naturally away and OUT of his Shaolin Kung Fu path. This is normal. The fallacy that everyone must stagnate and continually physically duplicate and regurgitate what came hundreds of years before you even existed (eg Shaolin Kung Fu), it leads any Thinking Human to ask her / himself: ~ why waste what little time I have? Expand, be unique, and trust oneself. Ranton has enough knowledge to create HIS OWN LINEAGE and style; afterall that is how so many lineages and styles expanded over the hundreds of years.

@KungFit

10 ай бұрын

Indeed, everyone needs to find their own way. That might be parts of a style, it might be multiple styles. Different things work for different people ultimately and we all have different interests