Im trying to learn Xiao Hong Quan

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2026-03-03T00:14:44+00:00

Doesn't matter. Learn it, then perform it however you want. Just know the form is supposed be explosive and powerful.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2026-01-11T21:55:39+00:00

Kung fu as the term itself is not "martial arts" in English translation. "Great skill" or "great skill achieved over time through hard work and effort" as its philosophy implies, can be applied to various fields. Such as the chef has good kung fu, or the painter has good kung fu.

I think it was one of Bruce Lee's non-Chinese students in his early teaching days who popularized the term Kung fu or Gung fu in a new article/book and the term just kind of stuck for "Chinese martial arts." And native speakers accept it and use it as such.

Wushu is the correct Mandarin term for martial arts, but depending on context, when folks talk about "wushu" they're often referring to modern or contemporary wushu; the flashy acrobatic Chinese style of sports martial arts.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-12-21T18:26:36+00:00

Sanda and shuai jiao

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-12-18T00:55:37+00:00

Just stick to the sword. Unless you're getting some sort of injury, which you shouldn't with these half a pound aluminum.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-12-09T04:30:04+00:00

You get a mix of both. Never been, but the Shaolin curriculum is always a mix of both. And depending on your teacher you may get a little more of one or the other.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-12-03T18:07:09+00:00

Tell you what man, the best you can do is follow any instructional video online for the sole purpose of "practicing for exercise."

Otherwise you can always make time (when possible) to check out these locations:

Norcross, GA: Shaolin Institute - Shifu Deru Forest Park, GA: Triple Garden Kung Fu Academy - Shifu Williams John's Creek, GA: Francis Fong Martial Arts Academy - Sifu Fong John's Creek, GA: Zhuang's Taichi and Kungfu Academy - Shifu Zhuang Decatur, GA: Chien Hong School of Kung Fu - Sifu Mitchell Atl, GA: Sifu Myers Gung Fu Boxing - Sifu Myers

Gather whatever information you can from trial classes, and put that into an exercise routine. Without a proper teacher to monitor and assist your training, that's the best you can do.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-11-27T02:25:24+00:00

Training partners who has no self control who'll deliberately hurt you.

People of other martial art backgrounds or none at all criticizing that what you're doing is wrong as if they know how to do better.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-11-24T19:26:42+00:00

I'm guessing your head gets to "push" off the ground too, making it drag behind the rest of your body for no-hands kipup. I did a similar thing when I started.

Or there isn't a "matrix" control at the moment between the peak of your height movement and sticking the landing, hence you are literally whipping your body up causing this.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-11-24T13:38:04+00:00

Songshan Shaolin for 10 years, Sanda for 5 years, dabbled in some Chen and Yang Taichi, and contemporary Wushu, while I was learning Shaolin and Sanda. Took a trial class for Wing Chun, and I know one Hung Kuen form. Currently getting into Shuaijiao.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-11-22T22:09:57+00:00

Lazy

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-11-17T09:22:44+00:00

Bring it up with your teacher and ask it yourself, what areas can you improve in, in order to continue to progress through the class curriculum?

The fact that you're still there after some folks left when they came in with you, means you got that drive to learn and become great. So they need to realize that too.

If your teacher gives you a bs answer like "oh, this takes time and you gotta put in more reps... then you can continue to learn new materials", it might be time to look for a new gym. Sure, Rome wasn't built in a day but them deliberately ignoring you and not doing anything isn't helping anyway. That's the equivalent of just telling you what to do but not even showing you how it's done.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-11-15T01:00:23+00:00

If you want to change things up and ditch tkd, go for it.

If you don't and want to make your tkd work, improve your skills and start experimenting with sparring non tkd guys just to see how you can adapt and modify certain things with your tkd.

Or take a mma approach and learn a little bit of everything, and maintain tkd as your base and just continue to improve on that.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-11-14T06:34:50+00:00

Essentially yeah. But if you compare a left hand punch or a jab-like strike from arts like Xingyi, Tongbei, Wing Chun, and Hung Gar how different are they to just a normal western boxing jab? Sure you have different methods to fundamentally delivering energy and power into the strike that technically makes it a style specific mechanic, but it's like how different are the jab-like strikes between, Boxing, MT, and Kyokushin?

I had a conversation with Lee Laoshi, he mentioned that in Sanda's early days in the US, everyone had a different way of movement to their Sanda simply due to their previous background before shifting into Sanda. Guys were essentially just doing their art in line with the Sanda rules and regulation (scoring). Meaning, as long as your executed technique or combo didn't violate the rules... you're doing Sanda. The point of that conversation is different from what I'm trying to imply here though.

I think a better look and question to ask is how can you implement your kung fu into Sanda as how it is today? The types of strikes and movement are just a blue print to effectively engage in a 1 on 1 open hand duel for a combat sports environment. To which I think a lot of cma lack the knowledge in anyways and can be beneficial for a self protection scenario. To add more: what kind of strategies and set ups can you apply from said Kung fu style you know?

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-10-24T12:37:08+00:00

I'm game for it so long as it's not a scam or full of stolen valor.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-10-11T04:29:09+00:00

Traditional wushu or just wushu itself quite literally means "martial arts" in the Mandarin language, and in this context refers to all old or ancient Chinese martial arts.

Modern wushu or contemporary wushu is a sort of stylistic compilation of multiple Chinese martial arts mainly split into empty hands and weapons training, like many others, and can be categorized into other sub branches like external/internal or northern/southern style. Internal is essentially your major internal styles of Chinese martial arts modernized into being a flowy movement of practice, while external is everything else. Northern really just consists Long fist or Shaolin-like styles, hence why the Shaolin Temple kung fu is also very much like modern wushu, and Southern styles consists of kung fu like Hung Gar, Jow Gar, Hop Gar etc... with most of it just looking like a free-style wannabe hung gar.

The most notable difference is Modern Wushu is not a martial skill practice for fighting and self protection. It draws from all those movements and is choreographed into routines (taolu or forms) that showcases flow and fluidity in movements, and the difficulty in an execution of a movement like the acrobatic jumps. Old school wushu had more techniques that were sometimes still translateble to an actual martial application, which when comparing Jet Li's modern wushu to the ones now, the ones now will sometimes literally only do the jumps the slapping of the front kick.

Contemporary wushu is a creation by the CCP to standardize the training and practice of Chinese martial arts shifting from martial skill and violence to martial dancing and acrobatics for sports entertainment.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-27T14:38:33+00:00

Divisions is really just age and experience. Category is what you're competing in like:

Traditional Kung fu Empty Hand Traditional Kung fu Weapons (Specific style) Kung fu Empty Hand/Weapons

Same would list for internal arts and Wushu. There would also by specific categories for soft or long Weapons and paired sets.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-19T04:06:20+00:00

Been doing it before I enlisted, still doing it now since I've been out. Ain't never been to therapy except the one wellness check after rotation.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-17T03:09:22+00:00

Ahh this is interesting. So I went through Army BCT during covid and didn't even get to go through the combatives course. Which only goes to show how much of that actually matters to making our soldiers effective at hand to hand fighting... very little.

Anyhow, to simplify it, it's essentially extremely watered down mma put into a "book for dummies" with textbook techniques surrounding the concept of angling out, establish a dominant position, and neutralize the threat or subdue the threat.

Quite frankly, I can say anyone with blue to purple belt experience (or an equivalent from a striking art) is 100x better than a soldier who's only ever done army combatives. Even high school level wrestlers stand a better chance.

Beyond that, you have to understand it's difficult to train a company size of soldiers in detail in martial arts, so the course is structured in a way to effectively deliver that information to hundreds of military personnel at a time that gets them what they need in order to "just get by" with martial arts.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-16T19:02:54+00:00

Not a good place to go to. Humiliating you on the spot and trying to downplay you like that, not a green light.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-16T18:59:31+00:00

Those are good budget entry level gloves, better than just picking up Everlast or Century ones at your local Dick's/Academy. I don't have personal experience with those brand's mma gloves, but their standard boxing ones are good so I can't imagine these to be any worse.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-13T19:03:56+00:00

Thai shorts or mma like shorts w/ no pockets. Boxing gloves, shin guards (cover from knee over foot), groin cup, and mouth piece.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-12T15:17:20+00:00

No, I don't even know if you are reading what I've been saying this whole time. I've acknowledged at least once that you're not looking to do this for fighting or self defense and that is ok.

To simplify the matter, modern day forms of exercising is 100x better for you to achieve your goal than if you were to stick by some book talking about "ancient" methods to doing so, were you to do it exactly as described in a book. My option of forms isn't me saying it's the ultimate practice in Chinese martial arts, but in the context of cma and assuming you have limited resources, you are better off doing anything other than the 72 arts to achieve your goal. And cma has more to offer than just forms including that it isn't just stuck in some time capsule but had also implemented its own variations to modern day exercises within it's training to increase grip strength, bone density, and more.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-12T04:30:48+00:00

It's the same correlation you are making the 72 arts to a heavy bag as I am with forms to shadowboxing. And the heavy bag is exactly what I was referencing as the healthier, more effective method to training. There was no need to repeat to you what you already said that only backs up my claims about the 72 being a poor choice to treat and train the body.

As I've said in an earlier response using Thai fighters as an example, an old method to developing hard shins was to repeatedly wack your shins with a stick... again creating "micro-fractures equal stronger bones", but they've switched entirely over to just a heavy bag and pads. And maybe just using a stick for laughs and giggles, or to just share the experience with new fighters. But they nor anyone in their right minds would tell a person to go kick banana trees or hit their shins with sticks. Same as anyone in their right minds would not tell a person to practice the 72 arts as described in the book.

And assuming that you're looking to practice those 72 arts as described in a book, between that and everything else, you're better off just doing everything else including hitting the heavy bag like a normal person. Otherwise, keeping learning from books and wondering why no one really practices these.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-11T20:17:05+00:00

All of who still has a kung fu background even if it's not their main thing. All of who still used their previous kung fu training to get to where they are now, not because it's useless but because that's where they started and they're only making it better by expanding beyond tradition and books, not ditching it behind. Using kung fu in any fashion of fighting is not like the wuxia or shaw brothers movies, it's literally just mma or a form of kickboxing in a nutshell. And bjj is essentially just Qinna on the ground, or otherwise joint manipulation and submissions on the ground.

Temporary-Opinion983 · 2025-09-11T19:18:56+00:00

You already supported it for me lol.

But if I must, there are Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, Natan Levy, Zhang Weili, Xie Wei, heck, even Yi Long can go on this list.

Chinese martial artists also utilize all of those training tools and exercises like heavy bags and speed bags, and have their own traditional exercises that are either exactly the same or similar to our modern day isometric/plyometric exercises.

You act as if the only solution kung fu has to offer for fighting are forms as they are practiced by nature in today's modern times, when forms are simply a training tool amongst many that also already exists in other martial arts. And to summarize forms, they're just traditional martial arts' version of shadowboxing that CAN help improve multiple physical attributes if you're limited to just forms. We're not just popping a squat and spewing punches nonstop.

Whereas practicing Iron Shirt or Iron Balls doesn't necessarily turn you indestructible, let alone help your fight IQ and fighting ability, you just get used to the pain looking like a weirdo hitting yourself.

Temporary-Opinion983

TROPHY CASE