Misc. on martial arts styles

The following is based on an e-mail to a friend; thought I'd recycle it as a blog entry.

In some ways, it's a follow-up to an older blog entry (June 29th) about martial arts.


What I was saying is that when people talk about Japanese martial arts, they tend to break
them down into further categories: karate (of which there are several), aikido, ju-jitsu, judo. Each of these are pretty distinct from one another -- although there's variations within (as I said, esp. w/ karate).

Likewise, Korean arts have hapkido, tae kwon do, hwa rang do, and one or two others (e.g. tang soo do).

But "Kung Fu" (or more phonetically, "Gung fu," since it's more of a ''hard G'' sound) has a bazillion styles. So, saying ''Kung Fu'' really is just saying ''a Chinese martial art'': there's a huge difference between the different styles. Some focus on footwork, some on hands, some on throws and takedowns. Some are very linear, and some are circular.

''Gung Fu'' is generally broken down into northern (more footwork and higher kicks) versus southern (low, stable stances and lower kicks, but somewhat more hand work). Another dimesion that differentiates the styles is "external" (strength and physical force) vs. "internal" (finesse, blending with the attack). Tai chi is an example of an internal style; also Aikido [a Japanese art], for that matter.)

The style I've had ttaken the most of is Hung Gar, which is a tiger-crane style. My impression is that it's fairly Old School, in that there's lots of calisthenics and repetition, and thus doesn't advance very quickly as far as new skills and techniques. However, this could just have distinct to the head instructor's philosophy.

I've sat in and observed a lot of different martial arts classes. The style of Gung Fu at my current university Sports/gym looks worthy: I'd never heard of the style before, but they looked legit, the training style seemed to make sense, and the instructor and senior
students seemed nice. (See here, and here.)

One of these days, I might also take Wing Chun (good for hand-based close-range fighting), kali/escrima (focuses on short stick or baton), capoeira (Brazillian, a lot of cartwheel-style kicks).

Would be intersted also in trying Ba Gua -- internal Chinese style, featured in the "good" Jet Li in the movie "The One" -- lots of circular movements. Hard to find instructors in it, though. Whereas Wing Chun schools are fairly easy to find, and there's a Kali/Escrima instructor about two neighborhoods over from where we live. There's a Capoeira class held on campus here, which I've also observed, and they look good as well.


--GG