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Comment by cousin_it | Hacker News Reader

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After the Communist Revolution, kung fu instructors took jobs as dance instructors. A lot of the modern wushu - very gymnastic and often aerial movements - came out of the altered teaching. Much of what you see in modern movies is non-traditional.

There's been a range of opinion in the Chinese martial arts community about modern wushu. My own opinion is that the new teachings, while not being practical, keep to the spirit of the origins of kung fu in chi kung - promotion of health and better control of your body.

So, the short answer is that it did become dance-like.

There was recently a discussion here about Bushido being invented late in the 19th or early in the 20th century as a propaganda tool.

Relevant article: https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/

Maybe kung fu should pivot into being a dance style, like capoeira.

Modern Kung Fu has already 'forked off' a more practical fighting version, Sanda, and there are handful of decent Sanda practitioners in various MMA orgs.

There is Sanshou too, that resemble a more rulebound kickboxing.

And for routines there is a split between the "dancing" for presentation, called "modern wushu", and traditional routines, that are used to practice actual deadly fighting moves.

I used to train traditional routine, but for it to go beyond "dancing" the teacher regularly scheduled sparring session for students to attempt to use in actual combat the moves (the ones we could test... I made the mistake once of wanting to spar with a particularly weird and ugly move, only to almost get a broken shoulder. happily my partner knew enough to make the move against me with just enough force to hurt a lot without damaging me)

Sanshou and Sanda are the same thing :p

This is interesting. With the wave of workout studios like Barry's Bootcamp and Core 40 becoming extremely popular in America, I wonder if Kung Fu could be transformed into a workout class in America, or even in Hong Kong. I wonder if turning Kung Fu into a workout in the ethnic Chinese areas could work.

How is karate holding up in Japan and elsewhere? I know kids in the US take it as an after-school activity. Wushu, too, is now a competitive artform, at least for the Asian-American diaspora anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tae_Bo

That ship has already sailed.

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