Spot-on, all of it. What people don't realize is "sportification" is the reason we still have so many of the martial arts we do. Karate? Probably would have gone extinct after the Meiji Restoration if not introduced into Okinawan schools as a PE program. Taekwondo? Post-WWII/Korean War Korea wanted its own PE program intentionally distinct from Japanese Karate. Quan Fa ("Kung Fu")? Nearly wiped out in the Cultural Revolution, saved as Wu Shu, again as sport (and culture export, not unlike Karate and Taekwondo). And it's not just Asian martial arts - how many people are aware that tennis was originally intended to build up the skills and movements required for fencing? And we haven't gotten to Greco-Roman wrestling or Pankration... The point is, training for sport is valid in and of itself if that's what you want to do. The flipside is, you will improve only according to your training. Kicking and punching air in stylized forms will not by itself make you an effective fighter any more than playing tennis by itself will make you a skilled swordsman. These activities can certainly *contribute* to those outcomes, but without a specific training focus towards an objective, it's virtually impossible to make progress on achieving that objective. Bottom line: know *why* you're training, then train as hard as you can, and don't lose sight of the big picture. (Now, please excuse me, I need to go train!)
It's a bit of a myth that the Cultural Revolution almost wiped out Kungfu. There were certainly many teachers that had a very tough time during that period, but there were also many other teachers that had political connections, and they could practice while officials looked the other way. I won't go into why or how this myth was propagated because it's controversial, and that controversy would be a distraction from my point. My point is that not as much was lost as is commonly believed. Many more MA styles were lost because of Japanese Imperialism and WW2, and not just in China, but also Okinawa, Korea, and Japan.
The only reason to train is for the sports and health aspects. For self defense weapons are just way more efficient. Unless you're living in a country like Germany or Australia where you're don't allowed to carry shit.
Good video. A lot of people need to hear this, and they need to hear it specifically from you. As far as the title: "The problem no one talks about", there is of course a caveat to that. It's not a popular thing to discuss in the 武术套路 community, and understandably so. It does come up fairly often when combat sports youtubers interact with viewers seeking validation in the fighting community for the 10 years they spent doing nothing but forms. They don't appreciate the message that forms ≠ fighting, because they feel like they're not hearing it from one of their own. That's why you needed to make this video. A young woman with a masters degree in wushu taolu from the Shanghai University of Sport came to my MMA gym wanting to be a fighter, and she became endlessly frustrated at how radically different forms and fighting are- not just that, but how complete noobs were better than her at fighting (in spite of the fact that she had never actually trained to fight at that point in her life) I tried my best to kindly and diplomatically explain what you said in this video, but she didn't want to hear it from an MMA coach. Just one example of many. Funny how that works.
I really appreciate it! In the same way you just mentioned, one with an academic degree (and one with a masters in Wushu Taolu nonetheless) represents accomplishment in an academic sense. It does NOT translate to how things work in a real life. Also...OMG it is Ramsey Dewey from Shanghai China!!! Your videos inspired me to start doing skits and rants about martial arts, especially your early takes on bad self defense tips! You were THE UA-camr I followed that shared a lot of the sentiments I had about traditional martial arts!
@3:02 Yes, technically that is true. Wushu (武術) does mean martial arts, and yes, Taekwondo, karate, bjj, etc. is technically wushu (武術). But what they ignore is the words that follow wushu; Taolu (套路) which means routine; which is kind of like Kata, or Poomsae/teul. So if you want to imagine a more familiar equivalent to the sport of Wushu Taolu, imagine a sport that is based purely on performing kata. That’s pretty much what the “Taolu” part of Wushu is. If Wushu was to be a more combative variation, it would be called something like Wushu Gedou （武術格鬥） or as he mentioned himself; Wushu Sanda (武術散打). Wushu Taolu is literally a martial arts PERFORMANCE.
Additionally, there is a huge difference between contemporary forms and traditional forms. I studied in both Taiwan and in mainland China and the difference is quite marginal. Both have their ups and downs.
You can, and I do, use forms to help my fighting. That's what forms were originally designed for. Some are more obviously applicable than others, but like he said, it's what you choose to use it for.
@@joeysingingchannel - yeah, you need a solid foundation in (essentially) kickboxing and some form of grappling. But if you do, it's entirely possible to apply traditional martial arts techniques within that framework. It's just that most martial arts schools teach a broad array of techniques, whereas an applied sport fighter will have a really solid understanding of a core set of principles and applications. Personally, I've been doing Fillipino stick fighting for 20 years now, and can (usually) get a basic disarm off when I spar - but I know a lot of more fancy ones that (maybe) might come out by accident. But I am nowhere near as good with them as I am with the basic "high-low X strike." (And I frankly suck at grappling, even though technically I know some techiques - I just don't have the Wrestling/Judo background to actually use them.)
I really appreciate your candidness here. I'm a BJJ black belt who also loves fight choreography. Both are great activities to be involved in with their own benefits. There's this prevailing idea in the martial arts community that everything has to be for MMA or street fighting. But martial arts is much broader than that and I think that's a good thing. Without wushu, we wouldn't the inspiration for decades of incredible Hong Kong action movies, anime, video games, etc. Yes MMA is awesome for fighting, but every MMA gym owner knows it isn't the fighters who pay the bills-it's the regular people who train as a hobby that keep the lights on. As long as everyone has their head on straight about what they do and what its' for, I believe there's room for everyone in martial arts. Love your video!
absolutely - fight choreography really benefits from wushu taolu and definitely inspired filmography and artwork that in turn inspired others to experiment different styles of martial arts. i totally agree with the belief that martial arts is for everyone - there isn't a one size fit all, but that is what makes your martial arts journey personal and rewarding (and to me...fun!)
I am a wushu taolu practitioner, and like you said, I do it because I like to perform, and I want to look cool. A friend once asked me if I will be able to defend myself if I was attacked. I told him, I probably have enough muscle strength, speed, and coordination to defend myself from a drunk / drugged out guy, but I won't be able to defend myself against a trained fighter.
I like this guy, he’s really smart and obviously spends a lot of time reflecting. Good on you for the amazing introspection, I personally find wushu moves really aesthetically pleasing and impressive from its sheer physical difficulty. I could never in a million years see myself performing feats like that.
I really appreciate this comment! I'll be honest and say that the introspection started from frustration and about 10 years of sitting on this feeling, haha.
At Shaolin Temple the Monk I trained under focused on fighting yet taught basic forms & their applications within the confines of Sanda aka Sanshou. His system of teaching Shaolin Gong fu & Chan na Buddhism was to make you understand how to fight both in life as self-defence or to attack in order to defend when other de-escalation methods fail & how to fight in the ring with a focus on Sandai but also giving fighters the tools they need to apply his system to other combat arenas such as Muay Thai, K1 & various MMA promotions! Peace & Love!
i love wushu taolu, for all the reasons you listed here😂😂and whenever someone asks me what wushu is, i just say it’s gymnastics but for kung-fu. i realized _pretty_ early on that there was no way i’m gonna use a slap kick to knock someone out 💀
if you done your taolu well, you can transition to proper sanda really fast.. but problem was, i seen many casual taolu practitioner, whom didnt do it right n the instructor also kinda didnt care.. and this will jeopardize their future, when they decide to transition, as the movement has already baked deep in their brain
Right! My brother, who doesn't practice any fighting art be it for show or reality combat, actually thinks he can pull off techniques he saw in a Steven Seagal film. His delusions actually got his ass handed to him by his own wife when she put his head through the rear windshield of his car.
Even Muay Boran train something like Taolu but they dont directly use it that way 100% in real fight every Taolu had traditional secret to adapt in fighting and taolu can make you strong
I like your take and the differentiate from taolu and sanda, I myself studied under a teacher from Shandong, he taught praying mantis fist, which wasnt pretty to look at like wu shu, he also taught wu shu but when I told him I wanted to learn how to fight he threw boxing gloves at me and taught me sanda, I was like no what about the wu shu moves, and he told me, thats a performance, fight is another thing, hit the bag, grapple and spar, thats fighting, thank God my Shifu taught me that
Don't they have wushu Sanda for the fighting part? Also Taolu stuff can be applied to showbiz, movie magic and stunts. Would not be surprised if a HEMA/Buhurt version of it manifest sometime in the future with the weapons. Not a 'street whatever' but a competitive thing.
Technically the HEMA version existed before HEMA - stage fencing. But stage fencing that takes cues from HEMA - that seems to be a work in progress. Also intrieguing to see where Montante goes. The sword's too big to safely spar with (Longsword being right on the boundary) as the popular understanding goes; but some competitions exist on the Montante forms now...
As he's explained, the problem is when a taolu specialist thinks they can fight. And the highly rigorous and competitive nature of each branch means that it's actually quite unfeasible to take up both taolu and sanda. Taolu is the soft power, the showboat and physical culture aspect of the martial culture known as Wushu.. Someone more casual should be able to take both and enjoy a balance but it's unlikely cos they're both so competition driven...
I think your rants are definitely worth listening. Another problem that's been bugging be lately with the sport nowadays is its integrity. I feel like now, athletes compete without any understanding or purpose behind the style they're performing, sort of going with the flow for the sake of glory. And with the influence of social media, it really feels too much like people "just" want to show off for the sake of clout without much respect of the sport itself. I'm curious on your thoughts and what you have to say about taolu's evolution over the years.
Couldn’t agree more with this video and you really hit the nail on the head with all your points. For someone who had trained in Wushu & Sanda in the past and when I was much younger, I had also had that fantasy, dragonball z urge and phase to feel empowered and strong that I could fight. But as later on as I got older and transitioned to other martial arts, wushu became less relevant and non practical in learning to fight. Wushu did give me a very good foundation in my legs and coordination that I think no other martial arts can provide you unlike wushu does. Despite it just looking cool and fancy and mainly for performance there is still lots of good take aways from training wushu. Just that fighting and practical self defense techniques is not it if you only train in wushu
Thanks for sharing! Side note, I remembered watching your channel wayy back for your WWC videos! I rewatched them pretty much every year when I did wushu!
@@sifudough Thanks bro for watching my old videos and content. Those were good old wushu days. Brings back a nostalgic memory of how wushu was then compared to what it is now
The problem is, as you said, with "how one trains". Taolu for itself must be a part of the training, as same as conditioning training and sparring. I am glad my teacher focus on those three approaches, so do I when I teach. Form, practice, application...
My first martial art was Muay Thai and then Karate and Aikido. Then I studied Wushu Taolu because I love movie fights and I like choreographing one. I just realized that training in Taolu enhanced my muay thai skills due to forms and that flexibility training, ban tui. I wish I started Wushu Taolu before training other martial arts.
I think it's nice to train martial arts in both ways, for combat and for forms, and for combat both for self defense and for combat sports. In my martial arts journey and as a content creator, I've mostly focused on representing Kung Fu in terms of combat... sometimes sparring with animal styles (trying to avoid eye pokes which there's a bigger risk of, imagine if I tried to land them :p ), or for the most part using Kung Fu flavoured MMA, mixing boxing and BJJ with Kung Fu kicks. I have trained Kung Fu for 10 years formally, then some Krav Maga, then some MMA.... nowadays I solo train.... forms were never my primary thing, hut I still do forms for the movement challenge and medtitative aspect, as well as as you expressed so well living out that "martial arts fantasy" in my head, though it's with awareness that only some isolated parts of the forms are practical.
agreed - combat informs you in ways that forms do not, but forms help you pick up on technique and details that combat itself often overlooks. thanks for sharing!
@@sifudough You're welcome :) Feel free to check out my content, if you're interested in usually improvised less smooth forms, and more often pressure testing under combat sports rules, in self defense situations, or with various Kung Fu weapons :)
Its when I learned TKW. We did forms and drills and a little bit of sparring. But I didn't get into a real sparring match until I went for a test and the other dude was trying to knock out the English speaking foreigner. I loved doing the forms as it was a really good workout, but loved the sparring training just as much. They were quite different tho, just like u said.
when i was young i was a tma nerd and after i transitioned into being a mma nerd i was very snobbish at tma, feeling kinda betrayed by the supposed effectiveness i was sold about tma. after maturing a little and learning more i found out that there is no right or wrong and that you gotta have an open mind. will a fancy tkd kick be as efficient and effective as a muay thai kick, no, does it have a place in your arsenal though, def yes. you need to spice things up to catch people off guard and the more you know the better. one advice i have is that you need a strong base, like learning bjj and muay thai basics for example and then you can mix it up and experiment and see what works for you. knowing the basics allows you to break the rules in your own sport and also add new experimental stuff from other disciplines.
Agreed - it really is how you interpret it and piece it together. Being overly snobbish about your style won’t end well, especially if you are trying to represent your martial art
Wushu taolu will work in a real fight only under these conditions: Having practiced those moves in a real situation simulation. Your body is acclimated to real fight, hard muscles, stressed bones... Having the mindset of a street fighter/ understand what combat is about. In an all out war, being able to not panic in front of a weapon that just shreded someone else....tolerating blood smell, being ok with the idea that maybe you are going to die in that fight. Other wise its just beautiful fancy moves. Im myself an ex wushu taolu practicionner and i love it for what it is
Its sad to watch so many martial artists that has training for years, decades and cant fight against a guy with 6 months, 1 year of MMA training! Real Chinese Martial Arts are strong to fight, one of the most complete like Kali, Hapkido, Ninpo Taijutsu etc, but both "modern wushu"* and Sanda are just sports and shows! I watched a master teaching a technique of taolu that is a "short jab", if someone punch like this jab he broke his pulse! *Its a shame to call this modern wushu, WuShu means Art of War! Qi Jiquang say this same things centuries ago!
I just discovered your channel! Love your content! Subscribed! Sanda I do honestly think is underrated. It’s gaining more and more popularity in North America. And when you see it get to the popularity levels of Muay Thai, you will see some real beasts come out of the sport! We already have a few MMA champions from Sanda like Weili Zhang, Cung Le, Muslim Salikov, etc
With wu shu tao lu you cultivate attributes like coordination, balance, flexibility, endurance etc... which can be used in fighting with proper training in san shou. It's similar to how some football players cross train in ballet.
Wushu taolu is a dance performance which can set up some good foundation in terms of agility, speed, stamina and flexibility helpful for productive transitioning into adapting actual combat sports later. But taolu on its own is just a set of dance moves but has its usage for setting good foundation. Also did taolu bcos i felt really cool.
I think Wushu is a great supplemental art to train if one is already experienced in a more combative style, or even if one wants to start with Wushu and move on to another style. Wushu is great at getting someone more flexible, athletic, and explosive!
Nanquan or beiquan can be practical if you understand Fajin(how you generate power). Once understood it’s easy to transition into kickboxing/Muay thai etc
You could make the exact same video about karate kata competitors. Unfortunately, there are also some who believe they are super fighters without ever having fought.
@@7771Java yes it is wrong and foolish, what i meant is the illusion is easier to maintain when you haven't fought, coz once you fight and get destroyed the illusion will be broken
This man may believe that he could not fight, even after learning all of those kung fu forms. But if you opened up the application of those forms, there are many fight oriented moves in them. I studied martial arts in both Taiwan and in mainland China. Part of the classes they will teach you forms part of the classes they will teach you fighting strategy many of the strategies look like San Da散打 or San Shou 散手. In the end if somebody wanted to teach in a martial arts class forms, sparring/competition, and self-defense it can be done. It takes research and practice.
Every martial art has this problem to different extents. Sparring in the gym gives us a false sense of how we'd do in a fight. BJJ? Oh shit turns out playing guard against an angry drunk on the asphalt is a bad idea. Wresting? Oh shit I just skinned my knee to the bone shooting for that double Boxing? turns out most street fights turn into grappling matches pretty quick All of these are still very valid martial arts but the amount of times I've been humbled by a noobie mashing all the buttons in a fight is too damn high.
i get Wushu open hands Tao Lu not being applied in sparring because a lot of it isn't really applicable in a fight. but the one thing i don't get is why Wushu weapon styles don't have sparring
Lol, even a Muy Thai practioner is going to bag on your trying to diss dancing. Ram Muy is super important. And nothing wrong with dance in of it itself. Hell I made it with more women by being willing to dance than from from 8 years of jiu-jitsu + 1 year of Muy Thai.
I did Northern Shaolin and loved it but after two years I'd still get my ass beat by an untrained fighter. Switched to Sanda and eventually Muay Thai. I still love the beauty of talou, kata, tricking etc. but in a real fight it's only slightly more useful than a background in dance.
@@sifudough and lets not forget that taolu are, in some way, a full, clean and complete extension of a short, dry, functional movement, and single daolu movements contains several application. The same is fore macebell, clubbell and other functional excercises which activates the same kinetic chains, transferring strenght (where strenght means "applying energy to a certain movement"). The matter is: how able are to translate a full kinetic chain to the use we want?
Wushu did help me when I was younger in a real fight. I kicked someone in the head who was trying to hurt me. Him and his friends decided it wasn't worth it. But I'd never compare it to combat sports that spar regularly and compete by fighting. I later trained boxing. I'll always have a soft spot for wushu but understand that most of it isn't something I'd use if I had to defend myself.
100% The same applies to most practitioners of traditional CMA that I have seen. They think that practising taolu alone will teach them how to fight. This delusion is akin to imitating the moves of Roger Federer or Serena Williams your garden and then thinking you might have a chance of winning Wimbledon. And that is the fault of their instructors, many of whom also suffer the same delusion. At least modern Wushu clearly identifies itself as a competition sport/performance art and it requires a high level of skill to compete at international level. However, so many practitioners of TCMA dress like they stepped out of an old Jackie Chan movie but have little understanding of what they are doing, even if they have some athletic skill. Sanda is a modern version of kickboxing. It is not the application of taolu, whether modern taolu or traditional. I doubt anyone could watch a Sanda match and identify the martial art that the combatants practise (whether modern or traditional). In fact, I know some Sanda competitors who do not practise any Chinese martial art at all. They only train in Sanda.
Totally! And you articulated the point about Sanda. Skills in taolu don't necessarily translate to skills in Sanda. There are definitely elements of athleticism, balance, and mobility that help (as many people in the comments mentioned here), but in isolation they are different: different sport, different scoring system, different focus, and different methods of training.
It's a perpetual binary problem like the bad times < strong men < good times < weak men < bad times type of situation. Some Wushu demonstration practitioners yap that they can fight, causing them to attempt to prove the situation with the obviously failed result, consequently producing those who are as prejudiced as today's society is litigious to be against any video showing these humbling and wholesome video's to lash out. There we have our timely keyboard war. I saw one with two people going off on each other, like grade-schoolers, about the validity of Wing Chun and responded with a twit-longer myself on why it isn't presently valid and what can be done to possibly make it valid again. Stopped the entire fight right there.
Your video reminds me of male ballerinas. Those guys are among the most badass people I have ever seen. There’s no way in Hell I would ever mess with one of those guys. I’m 100% serious too.
In my youth I was Nanquan/dao/gun champ and also thought I was badass and could take on the world without actual sparring until I got my ass kicked on the street. My spinning back kick which looked quite cool, once it actually connected with the target I fell down. I'm thankful for that experience though because it made me learn muay thai and later kyokushin karate. The wushu background did make learning kata very easy in karate though. The many sparring and getting my ass kicked in muay thai class helped me with the fighting aspect later in karate as well. Wushu is still my 1st love and still enjoy watching it (can't performance those things anymore except li yu dating ) but yeah let it be a lesson for everyone. Just doing taolu will get your ass kicked in real life
Wushu is an excellent form of discipline and exercise but I do feel like the lack of grounded talk about it’s actual combat application can just wind up hurting people who think they’re in a Jet Li movie
It seems that over time, without being used in actual combat, martial arts become more art, and less martial. An issue for Wushu Taolu may be that people are only interested because they think it's for actual combat. It seems like it would be a fairly niche crowd who would be interested if they recognized it as beautiful choreography without much carryover to actual fighting.
To be fair, the weapons in Kung Fu/Wushu would work in a real fight against multiple opponents assuming none of them use firearms. I mean that's exactly how Quan Fa first started in Ancient China before they incorporated empty-hand combat (while still practicing the weapons aspect) in times of relative peace...
This seems like a really good sport if you want to be a stuntman or play in action movies. Even if you aren't performing the techniques exactly the same, you already have a solid foundation in the acrobatics and flashy performative fighting with spears and swords. Can just be a performer in general. On another note the whole issue of people thinking their martial art will win a street fight or MMA match is an issue that stretches to the majority of martial arts, even arts that have real legitimacy in MMA. There's a handful of arts that were designed with real no-holds-barred combat in mind, and the rest are not well rounded enough on their own. Probably sambo, kudo, sanda, and muay thai. Maybe kickboxing as well as long as it doesn't go to grappling, and BJJ but only if they can get into a grapple. The reason is because they all (besides my two slight exceptions) allow punching, kicking, clinching, throws/takedowns, and grappling (except muay thai). Any martial art not mentioned will likely not do as well as they had hoped in a street fight or MMA match. Not that they can't win, just that all else being equal they are less well-rounded and generally less effective. Even a champion boxer could lose to a pro-am Muay Thai fighter because he's gonna get hit in the leg with what feels like a baseball bat over and over and not know what to do, and when he tries to close the distance to land punches he'll just get push kicked in the stomach. Against sambo he would get thrown to the ground and choked out. A kickboxing vs BJJ fight would illustrate how when standing up striking one guy has an overwhelming chance of winning and then if taken to the ground will instantly flip to an overwhelming chance for the other guy. Those two are incredibly well respected arts that still can end up useless when not in their favored position. If concerned with real self defense the only place to go is an MMA gym in the states since you're gonna have a tougher time finding a sambo, kudo, muay thai or sanda gym unless you live in a very big city. You can find kickboxing and BJJ gyms, but most MMA gyms teach both anyways, and there's no guarantee that the BJJ gym will teach no-gi.
Thanks for articulating your thoughts here - and I agree - we cannot just be too dogmatic with what style works / what’s the best. To me, it is what you want to get out of it and how it serves your goals!
I love fighting and sparring. The biggest downside is that I get hit alot on the head. There is no avoinding it, even pros get hit regulary. In this aspect wushu would be better for me to train since I'm doing it for health and fun. But I do enjoy a proper fight a bit too much 😂
You’re open about your intentions. So you aren’t held to the same standards of expectations. There is no shame in that. You’re not a martial artist so people need accept that. Other people who are martial artists know the standards they’re being held too. And to be fair. A lot of contact sports prize fighters aren’t martial artists either, because they’re not training for combat. It’s a step closer but prize fighting is not true martial arts if it isn’t done with the correct intention. Competition is just a tool to create incentive to achieve skill.
@paulconrad6220 It’s MARTIAL arts. Martial means that it pertains to warfare. In war the intention is to maim, kill, and destroy the enemy. So to have the correct intention in martial arts is to have this mentality. It’s honestly not that complicated even though it is very difficult to achieve high level proficiency in the martial arts.
Okay but by that definition none of the hand to hand martial arts have even the most limited relation to actual warfare. Maybe a thousand years ago they did. Otherwise the only real modern martial arts, using your definition, would be training to use guns, artillery, and drones.
@Zaotar1 It’s not “my definition” of martial arts. It’s “THEE definition” of martial arts till this day. You’re actually not wrong in thinking firearms are a martial art. It’s that your understanding is limited to only military organizations. Politicians, CEOs, and crime bosses need protection too. There’s cold wars, hot wars, and drug wars. The battlefield requires different kinds of soldiers and warriors to engage in different types of warfare. The most common use for martial artists today is a bodyguard, hired muscle, or assassin.
As much as we might criticize Kung Fu performance martial arts (I was a boxer and MMA fighter), we must admit that Kung Fu is the most graceful, most awesome looking martial art for cinema.
In all my 18 years of doing Kung fu and 14 years of wushu, I have never met a taolu person that said they could fight with the moves they use. That being said, I'm sure there are people that think they could fight someone with the moves in their form
@cfudough no thank you for making this! Sometimes not everyone is on the same page about taolu peoples' opinions on this subject and jts good to clear it up
I went to the once a week sparring and forms on all other days type of school, and I felt...I don't know, guilty? Looking back, however, I'm glad I didn't do daily hard sparring like in boxing, because I would probably have brain damage with noticeable symptoms by now. Wushu is one extreme of essentially no fighting utility, but the other extreme is literally fighting in a gym multiple times a week. Will you be a much better fighter than the wushu guy? Obviously yes. But there's a serious price to pay.. Fortunately, more and more gyms are finding a balance between these two extremes. Yes even MMA and boxing.
Most martial arts are really complex dance classes. And thats fine, most pwople dont actually want to learn how to fight because that means fighting. Almost no one wants to do that. The phys ed, strength, endurance, muscle control and flexibility are fine, its all most people want and its pretty good at that. Error 404, problems not found.
For fight you need Karate = kihon, kata, kumite Boxing = basics, shadow, bag, sparring Judo = waza, kata, randori Wushu = Basics, taolu, sanshou Basics only you can't fight Kata/shadow/taolu only you can't fight
I actually had this experience with an wushu athlete (don't want to give too many specifics). He was pretty aggressive and trying to tell me how bad I was, minding my own business as I was. Also, guy seemed like a Bruce Lee wannabe. They give a really bad name to the sport, which has many athletes I have plenty of respect for (I used to do it myself). I actually hadn't heard about the taolu guy at Cal, but I know the boxing team here is very competitive. Hope the guy doesn't go too hard when he learns he's unmatched; otherwise the boxer will likely go easy and nobody will get hurt that way. EDIT: forgot to say, thanks for the video!
as if other combat sport practitioners can fight they all practice a sport with specific ruleset check how well they can fight when you bring your wushu stick to sparring…
Dont feel you are missing something? I like wushu. But doing it without any contact sparring would make feel like i was missing out. Not everyone want to be a fighter. I will always respect that.
I eventually felt like I missed out (hence moving on from wushu taolu to Muay Thai and BJJ. and I feel the same about people not wanting to be a fighter - respect to those who go down that path (myself included, lol).
Light sparring. Much less risk, still viable practice against resisting opponent. If you can land punch for points, its more likely you will land punch in other situations also. No one can "train for real battle" by battling their sparring partners. Even in the old days. And telling that your skills allow you to disable opponents with secret moves without ever trying to land a hit on an enemy, it sounds like some bragging liar kid in schoolyard. Many great empires had martial arts and traditions, but main force was always army, spearmen, archers, swordsmen. So practicall application was always more importantthan secret moves.
Does that bunch claim they can fight though? For instance, I enjoyed playing dungeons, and ddragons doesn’t mean I’d be any good at fending off a village if push came to shove.
I mean, how many crippling injuries do you have? Training to fight is cool and all until you have permanent brain damage and knee injuries. I think its super dope what you do! You have a great attitude!
Finally, someone's out here saying what we were all (the non-delusional ones) already thinking. This whole thing is actually a lot like Pro Wrestling. If they had just come out in the beginning and said "this is athletic entertainment, not a combat sport", nobody would be shouting FAAAKE at them. Same with all this traditional martial arts stuff - just say "we're cosplaying martial arts" and nobody will have anything to say about it.
Spot-on, all of it.
What people don't realize is "sportification" is the reason we still have so many of the martial arts we do. Karate? Probably would have gone extinct after the Meiji Restoration if not introduced into Okinawan schools as a PE program. Taekwondo? Post-WWII/Korean War Korea wanted its own PE program intentionally distinct from Japanese Karate. Quan Fa ("Kung Fu")? Nearly wiped out in the Cultural Revolution, saved as Wu Shu, again as sport (and culture export, not unlike Karate and Taekwondo).
And it's not just Asian martial arts - how many people are aware that tennis was originally intended to build up the skills and movements required for fencing? And we haven't gotten to Greco-Roman wrestling or Pankration...
The point is, training for sport is valid in and of itself if that's what you want to do. The flipside is, you will improve only according to your training. Kicking and punching air in stylized forms will not by itself make you an effective fighter any more than playing tennis by itself will make you a skilled swordsman. These activities can certainly *contribute* to those outcomes, but without a specific training focus towards an objective, it's virtually impossible to make progress on achieving that objective.
Bottom line: know *why* you're training, then train as hard as you can, and don't lose sight of the big picture.
(Now, please excuse me, I need to go train!)
It's a bit of a myth that the Cultural Revolution almost wiped out Kungfu.
There were certainly many teachers that had a very tough time during that period, but there were also many other teachers that had political connections, and they could practice while officials looked the other way.
I won't go into why or how this myth was propagated because it's controversial, and that controversy would be a distraction from my point.
My point is that not as much was lost as is commonly believed. Many more MA styles were lost because of Japanese Imperialism and WW2, and not just in China, but also Okinawa, Korea, and Japan.
absolutely, thank you for sharing! you articulated this a lot better than I can!
And modern day fencing itself is more sport than practical with how the points are scored and the foils.
Spot on buddy!
The only reason to train is for the sports and health aspects.
For self defense weapons are just way more efficient.
Unless you're living in a country like Germany or Australia where you're don't allowed to carry shit.
Good video. A lot of people need to hear this, and they need to hear it specifically from you.
As far as the title: "The problem no one talks about", there is of course a caveat to that. It's not a popular thing to discuss in the 武术套路 community, and understandably so. It does come up fairly often when combat sports youtubers interact with viewers seeking validation in the fighting community for the 10 years they spent doing nothing but forms. They don't appreciate the message that forms ≠ fighting, because they feel like they're not hearing it from one of their own.
That's why you needed to make this video.
A young woman with a masters degree in wushu taolu from the Shanghai University of Sport came to my MMA gym wanting to be a fighter, and she became endlessly frustrated at how radically different forms and fighting are- not just that, but how complete noobs were better than her at fighting (in spite of the fact that she had never actually trained to fight at that point in her life) I tried my best to kindly and diplomatically explain what you said in this video, but she didn't want to hear it from an MMA coach. Just one example of many. Funny how that works.
I really appreciate it! In the same way you just mentioned, one with an academic degree (and one with a masters in Wushu Taolu nonetheless) represents accomplishment in an academic sense. It does NOT translate to how things work in a real life.
Also...OMG it is Ramsey Dewey from Shanghai China!!! Your videos inspired me to start doing skits and rants about martial arts, especially your early takes on bad self defense tips! You were THE UA-camr I followed that shared a lot of the sentiments I had about traditional martial arts!
@@sifudough Outstanding!
@3:02 Yes, technically that is true. Wushu (武術) does mean martial arts, and yes, Taekwondo, karate, bjj, etc. is technically wushu (武術). But what they ignore is the words that follow wushu; Taolu (套路) which means routine; which is kind of like Kata, or Poomsae/teul. So if you want to imagine a more familiar equivalent to the sport of Wushu Taolu, imagine a sport that is based purely on performing kata. That’s pretty much what the “Taolu” part of Wushu is.
If Wushu was to be a more combative variation, it would be called something like Wushu Gedou （武術格鬥） or as he mentioned himself; Wushu Sanda (武術散打).
Wushu Taolu is literally a martial arts PERFORMANCE.
Appreciate you sharing!
Additionally, there is a huge difference between contemporary forms and traditional forms. I studied in both Taiwan and in mainland China and the difference is quite marginal. Both have their ups and downs.
I've been fighting full contact for a while now, and some of the moves you use would be totally awesome in a real fight.
You can, and I do, use forms to help my fighting. That's what forms were originally designed for. Some are more obviously applicable than others, but like he said, it's what you choose to use it for.
@@joeysingingchannel - yeah, you need a solid foundation in (essentially) kickboxing and some form of grappling. But if you do, it's entirely possible to apply traditional martial arts techniques within that framework. It's just that most martial arts schools teach a broad array of techniques, whereas an applied sport fighter will have a really solid understanding of a core set of principles and applications.
Personally, I've been doing Fillipino stick fighting for 20 years now, and can (usually) get a basic disarm off when I spar - but I know a lot of more fancy ones that (maybe) might come out by accident. But I am nowhere near as good with them as I am with the basic "high-low X strike." (And I frankly suck at grappling, even though technically I know some techiques - I just don't have the Wrestling/Judo background to actually use them.)
I really appreciate your candidness here. I'm a BJJ black belt who also loves fight choreography. Both are great activities to be involved in with their own benefits. There's this prevailing idea in the martial arts community that everything has to be for MMA or street fighting. But martial arts is much broader than that and I think that's a good thing. Without wushu, we wouldn't the inspiration for decades of incredible Hong Kong action movies, anime, video games, etc. Yes MMA is awesome for fighting, but every MMA gym owner knows it isn't the fighters who pay the bills-it's the regular people who train as a hobby that keep the lights on. As long as everyone has their head on straight about what they do and what its' for, I believe there's room for everyone in martial arts. Love your video!
You have a great outlook on Martial Arts as a whole and their varying purposes.
absolutely - fight choreography really benefits from wushu taolu and definitely inspired filmography and artwork that in turn inspired others to experiment different styles of martial arts. i totally agree with the belief that martial arts is for everyone - there isn't a one size fit all, but that is what makes your martial arts journey personal and rewarding (and to me...fun!)
I am a wushu taolu practitioner, and like you said, I do it because I like to perform, and I want to look cool. A friend once asked me if I will be able to defend myself if I was attacked. I told him, I probably have enough muscle strength, speed, and coordination to defend myself from a drunk / drugged out guy, but I won't be able to defend myself against a trained fighter.
thanks for sharing!
@@RangerZero47 thanks for sharing!
I like this guy, he’s really smart and obviously spends a lot of time reflecting. Good on you for the amazing introspection, I personally find wushu moves really aesthetically pleasing and impressive from its sheer physical difficulty. I could never in a million years see myself performing feats like that.
I really appreciate this comment! I'll be honest and say that the introspection started from frustration and about 10 years of sitting on this feeling, haha.
At Shaolin Temple the Monk I trained under focused on fighting yet taught basic forms & their applications within the confines of Sanda aka Sanshou. His system of teaching Shaolin Gong fu & Chan na Buddhism was to make you understand how to fight both in life as self-defence or to attack in order to defend when other de-escalation methods fail & how to fight in the ring with a focus on Sandai but also giving fighters the tools they need to apply his system to other combat arenas such as Muay Thai, K1 & various MMA promotions!
Peace & Love!
thanks for sharing, appreciate it
Chinese people who are good at Wushu usually go into the movie industry. Less CTE.
i love wushu taolu, for all the reasons you listed here😂😂and whenever someone asks me what wushu is, i just say it’s gymnastics but for kung-fu. i realized _pretty_ early on that there was no way i’m gonna use a slap kick to knock someone out 💀
It'd just art
The gymnastics for Kung fu analogy is something I use to describe taolu as well - point based system with standardized movements. Thanks for sharing!
if you done your taolu well, you can transition to proper sanda really fast.. but problem was, i seen many casual taolu practitioner, whom didnt do it right n the instructor also kinda didnt care.. and this will jeopardize their future, when they decide to transition, as the movement has already baked deep in their brain
Great video, wish everyone could live in reality as you do!
Really appreciate you and your ongoing support!
Right! My brother, who doesn't practice any fighting art be it for show or reality combat, actually thinks he can pull off techniques he saw in a Steven Seagal film. His delusions actually got his ass handed to him by his own wife when she put his head through the rear windshield of his car.
@@SnakePlissken-gk7ix omg, lol
@@SnakePlissken-gk7ix oh goodness...tough way to learn!
You're brave. And right.
Appreciate it!
and honest, and sincere, and real.
@@gendoruwo6322 thank you!
Even Muay Boran train something like Taolu but they dont directly use it that way 100% in real fight
every Taolu had traditional secret to adapt in fighting and taolu can make you strong
Didn’t know that about Muay boran. Thanks for sharing!
@@sifudough In Media like Ong Bak was the best example as no one fight like that 100% at best around 50% and adapt
@@วิชชากรสุขวัฒน์ thanks for sharing!
Following this page cause im happy others have come to same conclusion
I really appreciate it!
@@sifudough lets do this!!!
I like your take and the differentiate from taolu and sanda, I myself studied under a teacher from Shandong, he taught praying mantis fist, which wasnt pretty to look at like wu shu, he also taught wu shu but when I told him I wanted to learn how to fight he threw boxing gloves at me and taught me sanda, I was like no what about the wu shu moves, and he told me, thats a performance, fight is another thing, hit the bag, grapple and spar, thats fighting, thank God my Shifu taught me that
Definitely rare to come by - thanks for sharing!
Don't they have wushu Sanda for the fighting part?
Also Taolu stuff can be applied to showbiz, movie magic and stunts.
Would not be surprised if a HEMA/Buhurt version of it manifest sometime in the future with the weapons. Not a 'street whatever' but a competitive thing.
Technically the HEMA version existed before HEMA - stage fencing. But stage fencing that takes cues from HEMA - that seems to be a work in progress.
Also intrieguing to see where Montante goes. The sword's too big to safely spar with (Longsword being right on the boundary) as the popular understanding goes; but some competitions exist on the Montante forms now...
Yeah, wushu sanshou/sanda is the combat/sparring aspect of wushu competition.
As he's explained, the problem is when a taolu specialist thinks they can fight. And the highly rigorous and competitive nature of each branch means that it's actually quite unfeasible to take up both taolu and sanda. Taolu is the soft power, the showboat and physical culture aspect of the martial culture known as Wushu..
Someone more casual should be able to take both and enjoy a balance but it's unlikely cos they're both so competition driven...
I think your rants are definitely worth listening. Another problem that's been bugging be lately with the sport nowadays is its integrity. I feel like now, athletes compete without any understanding or purpose behind the style they're performing, sort of going with the flow for the sake of glory. And with the influence of social media, it really feels too much like people "just" want to show off for the sake of clout without much respect of the sport itself. I'm curious on your thoughts and what you have to say about taolu's evolution over the years.
I appreciate it! Thinking about diving into the evolution of taolu and the sport soon!
Couldn’t agree more with this video and you really hit the nail on the head with all your points. For someone who had trained in Wushu & Sanda in the past and when I was much younger, I had also had that fantasy, dragonball z urge and phase to feel empowered and strong that I could fight. But as later on as I got older and transitioned to other martial arts, wushu became less relevant and non practical in learning to fight. Wushu did give me a very good foundation in my legs and coordination that I think no other martial arts can provide you unlike wushu does. Despite it just looking cool and fancy and mainly for performance there is still lots of good take aways from training wushu. Just that fighting and practical self defense techniques is not it if you only train in wushu
Thanks for sharing!
Side note, I remembered watching your channel wayy back for your WWC videos! I rewatched them pretty much every year when I did wushu!
@@sifudough Thanks bro for watching my old videos and content. Those were good old wushu days. Brings back a nostalgic memory of how wushu was then compared to what it is now
Respect to you good sir. It takes cahones to set aside one's ego.
much appreciated!
Great video! It's great to see martial arts grounded in reality. Please keep up the good work!
thank you for your support!
The problem is, as you said, with "how one trains". Taolu for itself must be a part of the training, as same as conditioning training and sparring. I am glad my teacher focus on those three approaches, so do I when I teach. Form, practice, application...
My first martial art was Muay Thai and then Karate and Aikido. Then I studied Wushu Taolu because I love movie fights and I like choreographing one. I just realized that training in Taolu enhanced my muay thai skills due to forms and that flexibility training, ban tui. I wish I started Wushu Taolu before training other martial arts.
thanks for sharing! the body mechanics and athleticism DEFINITELY transfers over!
it looks cool on screen so it's fine
True that, no arguing there
fax
I think it's nice to train martial arts in both ways, for combat and for forms, and for combat both for self defense and for combat sports. In my martial arts journey and as a content creator, I've mostly focused on representing Kung Fu in terms of combat... sometimes sparring with animal styles (trying to avoid eye pokes which there's a bigger risk of, imagine if I tried to land them :p ), or for the most part using Kung Fu flavoured MMA, mixing boxing and BJJ with Kung Fu kicks. I have trained Kung Fu for 10 years formally, then some Krav Maga, then some MMA.... nowadays I solo train.... forms were never my primary thing, hut I still do forms for the movement challenge and medtitative aspect, as well as as you expressed so well living out that "martial arts fantasy" in my head, though it's with awareness that only some isolated parts of the forms are practical.
agreed - combat informs you in ways that forms do not, but forms help you pick up on technique and details that combat itself often overlooks.
thanks for sharing!
@@sifudough You're welcome :) Feel free to check out my content, if you're interested in usually improvised less smooth forms, and more often pressure testing under combat sports rules, in self defense situations, or with various Kung Fu weapons :)
@@ZenDragonUA-camChannel definitely!
Its when I learned TKW. We did forms and drills and a little bit of sparring. But I didn't get into a real sparring match until I went for a test and the other dude was trying to knock out the English speaking foreigner. I loved doing the forms as it was a really good workout, but loved the sparring training just as much. They were quite different tho, just like u said.
agreed - both have their respective merits, and both are fun in their own ways!
when i was young i was a tma nerd and after i transitioned into being a mma nerd i was very snobbish at tma, feeling kinda betrayed by the supposed effectiveness i was sold about tma. after maturing a little and learning more i found out that there is no right or wrong and that you gotta have an open mind. will a fancy tkd kick be as efficient and effective as a muay thai kick, no, does it have a place in your arsenal though, def yes. you need to spice things up to catch people off guard and the more you know the better. one advice i have is that you need a strong base, like learning bjj and muay thai basics for example and then you can mix it up and experiment and see what works for you. knowing the basics allows you to break the rules in your own sport and also add new experimental stuff from other disciplines.
Agreed - it really is how you interpret it and piece it together. Being overly snobbish about your style won’t end well, especially if you are trying to represent your martial art
Wushu taolu will work in a real fight only under these conditions:
Having practiced those moves in a real situation simulation.
Your body is acclimated to real fight, hard muscles, stressed bones...
Having the mindset of a street fighter/ understand what combat is about.
In an all out war, being able to not panic in front of a weapon that just shreded someone else....tolerating blood smell, being ok with the idea that maybe you are going to die in that fight.
Other wise its just beautiful fancy moves.
Im myself an ex wushu taolu practicionner and i love it for what it is
Its sad to watch so many martial artists that has training for years, decades and cant fight against a guy with 6 months, 1 year of MMA training!
Real Chinese Martial Arts are strong to fight, one of the most complete like Kali, Hapkido, Ninpo Taijutsu etc, but both "modern wushu"* and Sanda are just sports and shows!
I watched a master teaching a technique of taolu that is a "short jab", if someone punch like this jab he broke his pulse!
*Its a shame to call this modern wushu, WuShu means Art of War!
Qi Jiquang say this same things centuries ago!
Great vid. That being said there have been great Kung Fu fighters like Zabit Magomedsharipov and Manson Howard Gibson.
no denying that! they definitely leveraged kung fu well!
Awesome video coach! And yes I do Sanda regularly and love it! ❤
I just discovered your channel! Love your content! Subscribed!
Sanda I do honestly think is underrated. It’s gaining more and more popularity in North America. And when you see it get to the popularity levels of Muay Thai, you will see some real beasts come out of the sport! We already have a few MMA champions from Sanda like Weili Zhang, Cung Le, Muslim Salikov, etc
Appreciate the support!
And absolutely - I think sanda is underrated as well!
With wu shu tao lu you cultivate attributes like coordination, balance, flexibility, endurance etc... which can be used in fighting with proper training in san shou. It's similar to how some football players cross train in ballet.
I remember my wushu instructor saying very early in my training, "if you want self defense, buy a gun. This is wushu, you're here to be *beautiful*"
Wushu taolu is a dance performance which can set up some good foundation in terms of agility, speed, stamina and flexibility helpful for productive transitioning into adapting actual combat sports later. But taolu on its own is just a set of dance moves but has its usage for setting good foundation.
Also did taolu bcos i felt really cool.
definitely good foundation for movement - appreciate you sharing
I think Wushu is a great supplemental art to train if one is already experienced in a more combative style, or even if one wants to start with Wushu and move on to another style. Wushu is great at getting someone more flexible, athletic, and explosive!
absolutely, great for athleticism, and I attribute a lot of my ability to pick up movement for muay thai and bjj to wushu itself!
The martial art you where dreaming of is called Khong Chang a mix of Karate, Judo, and Kung Fu Vagabond / Thief Arts.
Thank you. So true.
appreciate it!
Nanquan or beiquan can be practical if you understand Fajin(how you generate power). Once understood it’s easy to transition into kickboxing/Muay thai etc
If I could go back and do it all again I would have learned performance art style wushu. I’m far too old now
You could make the exact same video about karate kata competitors. Unfortunately, there are also some who believe they are super fighters without ever having fought.
And it's not performer's fault if there's someone actually believe that...
katas are based on basic movements for fighting. check out "karate kata grappling"
It actually makes sense to think so without having fought, because if you have fought you wouldn't think so
@@zzzzzz69 no, it's stupid to think you can do something you've never done before
@@7771Java yes it is wrong and foolish, what i meant is the illusion is easier to maintain when you haven't fought, coz once you fight and get destroyed the illusion will be broken
This man may believe that he could not fight, even after learning all of those kung fu forms. But if you opened up the application of those forms, there are many fight oriented moves in them.
I studied martial arts in both Taiwan and in mainland China. Part of the classes they will teach you forms part of the classes they will teach you fighting strategy many of the strategies look like San Da散打 or San Shou 散手. In the end if somebody wanted to teach in a martial arts class forms, sparring/competition, and self-defense it can be done. It takes research and practice.
Every martial art has this problem to different extents. Sparring in the gym gives us a false sense of how we'd do in a fight.
BJJ? Oh shit turns out playing guard against an angry drunk on the asphalt is a bad idea.
Wresting? Oh shit I just skinned my knee to the bone shooting for that double
Boxing? turns out most street fights turn into grappling matches pretty quick
All of these are still very valid martial arts but the amount of times I've been humbled by a noobie mashing all the buttons in a fight is too damn high.
i get Wushu open hands Tao Lu not being applied in sparring
because a lot of it isn't really applicable in a fight.
but the one thing i don't get is why Wushu weapon styles don't have sparring
If you aren’t sparing, you are just dancing.
Pad work is dancing?
@@ChizeSOIdancing with the lads holding pads
@@ChizeSOIno. But most people who do padwork, also spar
Lol, even a Muy Thai practioner is going to bag on your trying to diss dancing. Ram Muy is super important. And nothing wrong with dance in of it itself. Hell I made it with more women by being willing to dance than from from 8 years of jiu-jitsu + 1 year of Muy Thai.
Doing HEMA it sometimes teeters close To traditional if You dont partake In any partner drills and sparring with swords.
Berkeley wushu vs boxing!?
Did this already happen?
nah, DEFINITELY DID NOT happen
I did Northern Shaolin and loved it but after two years I'd still get my ass beat by an untrained fighter. Switched to Sanda and eventually Muay Thai. I still love the beauty of talou, kata, tricking etc. but in a real fight it's only slightly more useful than a background in dance.
Nice - I did northern shaolin as well, and funny enough, had the same experience!
Thanks for sharing!
I've met taolu people transitioning to fight whom became even stronger than "hitters"... but now that i think about it, it depended much on the school
totally! and it also depends on how the athlete approaches fighting. wushu taolu is great for body awareness that translates very well to combat
@@sifudough and lets not forget that taolu are, in some way, a full, clean and complete extension of a short, dry, functional movement, and single daolu movements contains several application.
The same is fore macebell, clubbell and other functional excercises which activates the same kinetic chains, transferring strenght (where strenght means "applying energy to a certain movement"). The matter is: how able are to translate a full kinetic chain to the use we want?
@@AutumnKnight0 agreed. appreciate your insight!
Wushu did help me when I was younger in a real fight. I kicked someone in the head who was trying to hurt me. Him and his friends decided it wasn't worth it.
But I'd never compare it to combat sports that spar regularly and compete by fighting.
I later trained boxing. I'll always have a soft spot for wushu but understand that most of it isn't something I'd use if I had to defend myself.
absolutely, very helpful for movement, coordination, and mobility.
Really appreciate you for sharing!
100%
The same applies to most practitioners of traditional CMA that I have seen. They think that practising taolu alone will teach them how to fight.
This delusion is akin to imitating the moves of Roger Federer or Serena Williams your garden and then thinking you might have a chance of winning Wimbledon.
And that is the fault of their instructors, many of whom also suffer the same delusion.
At least modern Wushu clearly identifies itself as a competition sport/performance art and it requires a high level of skill to compete at international level.
However, so many practitioners of TCMA dress like they stepped out of an old Jackie Chan movie but have little understanding of what they are doing, even if they have some athletic skill.
Sanda is a modern version of kickboxing. It is not the application of taolu, whether modern taolu or traditional. I doubt anyone could watch a Sanda match and identify the martial art that the combatants practise (whether modern or traditional). In fact, I know some Sanda competitors who do not practise any Chinese martial art at all. They only train in Sanda.
Totally! And you articulated the point about Sanda. Skills in taolu don't necessarily translate to skills in Sanda. There are definitely elements of athleticism, balance, and mobility that help (as many people in the comments mentioned here), but in isolation they are different: different sport, different scoring system, different focus, and different methods of training.
It's a perpetual binary problem like the bad times < strong men < good times < weak men < bad times type of situation. Some Wushu demonstration practitioners yap that they can fight, causing them to attempt to prove the situation with the obviously failed result, consequently producing those who are as prejudiced as today's society is litigious to be against any video showing these humbling and wholesome video's to lash out. There we have our timely keyboard war. I saw one with two people going off on each other, like grade-schoolers, about the validity of Wing Chun and responded with a twit-longer myself on why it isn't presently valid and what can be done to possibly make it valid again. Stopped the entire fight right there.
Yeah, that’s what I see as well, issue is not just limited to wushu.
Appreciate you sharing
Your video reminds me of male ballerinas. Those guys are among the most badass people I have ever seen. There’s no way in Hell I would ever mess with one of those guys.
I’m 100% serious too.
oh yeah, I agree! I met quite a few male ballet dancers...some strong AND graceful folks
In my youth I was Nanquan/dao/gun champ and also thought I was badass and could take on the world without actual sparring until I got my ass kicked on the street. My spinning back kick which looked quite cool, once it actually connected with the target I fell down. I'm thankful for that experience though because it made me learn muay thai and later kyokushin karate. The wushu background did make learning kata very easy in karate though. The many sparring and getting my ass kicked in muay thai class helped me with the fighting aspect later in karate as well. Wushu is still my 1st love and still enjoy watching it (can't performance those things anymore except li yu dating ) but yeah let it be a lesson for everyone. Just doing taolu will get your ass kicked in real life
likewise, still have love for wushu!
your nangun is solid!
This is the same reason I want to start Wushu: To look good and not get hit during class.
Totally. Thanks for watching!
Trust me, real fighters appreciate this video
And I appreciate the view! Thanks!
Good for making movies. For example, like Jacky Chan, or even the Matrix with Keanu Reeves. Really cool to watch.
no arguing there!
that is why sanda exists
Wushu is an excellent form of discipline and exercise but I do feel like the lack of grounded talk about it’s actual combat application can just wind up hurting people who think they’re in a Jet Li movie
appreciate you sharing!
THE WAY YOU TRAIN IS THE WAY YOU FIGHT , SO F... SIMPLE
It seems that over time, without being used in actual combat, martial arts become more art, and less martial.
An issue for Wushu Taolu may be that people are only interested because they think it's for actual combat. It seems like it would be a fairly niche crowd who would be interested if they recognized it as beautiful choreography without much carryover to actual fighting.
To be fair, the weapons in Kung Fu/Wushu would work in a real fight against multiple opponents assuming none of them use firearms. I mean that's exactly how Quan Fa first started in Ancient China before they incorporated empty-hand combat (while still practicing the weapons aspect) in times of relative peace...
This seems like a really good sport if you want to be a stuntman or play in action movies. Even if you aren't performing the techniques exactly the same, you already have a solid foundation in the acrobatics and flashy performative fighting with spears and swords. Can just be a performer in general.
On another note the whole issue of people thinking their martial art will win a street fight or MMA match is an issue that stretches to the majority of martial arts, even arts that have real legitimacy in MMA. There's a handful of arts that were designed with real no-holds-barred combat in mind, and the rest are not well rounded enough on their own. Probably sambo, kudo, sanda, and muay thai. Maybe kickboxing as well as long as it doesn't go to grappling, and BJJ but only if they can get into a grapple. The reason is because they all (besides my two slight exceptions) allow punching, kicking, clinching, throws/takedowns, and grappling (except muay thai). Any martial art not mentioned will likely not do as well as they had hoped in a street fight or MMA match. Not that they can't win, just that all else being equal they are less well-rounded and generally less effective.
Even a champion boxer could lose to a pro-am Muay Thai fighter because he's gonna get hit in the leg with what feels like a baseball bat over and over and not know what to do, and when he tries to close the distance to land punches he'll just get push kicked in the stomach. Against sambo he would get thrown to the ground and choked out. A kickboxing vs BJJ fight would illustrate how when standing up striking one guy has an overwhelming chance of winning and then if taken to the ground will instantly flip to an overwhelming chance for the other guy. Those two are incredibly well respected arts that still can end up useless when not in their favored position.
If concerned with real self defense the only place to go is an MMA gym in the states since you're gonna have a tougher time finding a sambo, kudo, muay thai or sanda gym unless you live in a very big city. You can find kickboxing and BJJ gyms, but most MMA gyms teach both anyways, and there's no guarantee that the BJJ gym will teach no-gi.
Thanks for articulating your thoughts here - and I agree - we cannot just be too dogmatic with what style works / what’s the best. To me, it is what you want to get out of it and how it serves your goals!
I love fighting and sparring. The biggest downside is that I get hit alot on the head. There is no avoinding it, even pros get hit regulary. In this aspect wushu would be better for me to train since I'm doing it for health and fun.
But I do enjoy a proper fight a bit too much 😂
You’re open about your intentions. So you aren’t held to the same standards of expectations. There is no shame in that. You’re not a martial artist so people need accept that. Other people who are martial artists know the standards they’re being held too. And to be fair. A lot of contact sports prize fighters aren’t martial artists either, because they’re not training for combat. It’s a step closer but prize fighting is not true martial arts if it isn’t done with the correct intention. Competition is just a tool to create incentive to achieve skill.
Appreciate the sentiment - this was something I have always believed, so I really appreciate your comment
What's the "correct" intention?
@paulconrad6220
It’s MARTIAL arts. Martial means that it pertains to warfare. In war the intention is to maim, kill, and destroy the enemy. So to have the correct intention in martial arts is to have this mentality. It’s honestly not that complicated even though it is very difficult to achieve high level proficiency in the martial arts.
Okay but by that definition none of the hand to hand martial arts have even the most limited relation to actual warfare. Maybe a thousand years ago they did. Otherwise the only real modern martial arts, using your definition, would be training to use guns, artillery, and drones.
@Zaotar1
It’s not “my definition” of martial arts. It’s “THEE definition” of martial arts till this day. You’re actually not wrong in thinking firearms are a martial art. It’s that your understanding is limited to only military organizations. Politicians, CEOs, and crime bosses need protection too. There’s cold wars, hot wars, and drug wars. The battlefield requires different kinds of soldiers and warriors to engage in different types of warfare. The most common use for martial artists today is a bodyguard, hired muscle, or assassin.
As much as we might criticize Kung Fu performance martial arts (I was a boxer and MMA fighter), we must admit that Kung Fu is the most graceful, most awesome looking martial art for cinema.
Totally
To really fight is to really fight
I love training BJJ and Wushu. Two martial arts that emphasize vastly different things.
Likewise, a big fan of both, and I appreciate them for different reasons!
In all my 18 years of doing Kung fu and 14 years of wushu, I have never met a taolu person that said they could fight with the moves they use. That being said, I'm sure there are people that think they could fight someone with the moves in their form
thanks for sharing!
@cfudough no thank you for making this! Sometimes not everyone is on the same page about taolu peoples' opinions on this subject and jts good to clear it up
I went to the once a week sparring and forms on all other days type of school, and I felt...I don't know, guilty? Looking back, however, I'm glad I didn't do daily hard sparring like in boxing, because I would probably have brain damage with noticeable symptoms by now.
Wushu is one extreme of essentially no fighting utility, but the other extreme is literally fighting in a gym multiple times a week. Will you be a much better fighter than the wushu guy? Obviously yes. But there's a serious price to pay..
Fortunately, more and more gyms are finding a balance between these two extremes. Yes even MMA and boxing.
there is a give and take, definitely!
thanks for sharing!
Most martial arts are really complex dance classes. And thats fine, most pwople dont actually want to learn how to fight because that means fighting. Almost no one wants to do that.
The phys ed, strength, endurance, muscle control and flexibility are fine, its all most people want and its pretty good at that. Error 404, problems not found.
And honestly, nothing wrong with that!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts
For fight you need
Karate = kihon, kata, kumite
Boxing = basics, shadow, bag, sparring
Judo = waza, kata, randori
Wushu = Basics, taolu, sanshou
Basics only you can't fight
Kata/shadow/taolu only you can't fight
Wushutainment performed by wushutainers.
Wushucosplay performed by wushucosplayers.
That’s why there’s two aspects to sport Wushu, Taolu and Sanda. Just do both.
Thank Guanyu somebody said it!
appreciate you sharing!
Practice Makes Perfect ❌
Practice Make Permanent ✅
I actually had this experience with an wushu athlete (don't want to give too many specifics). He was pretty aggressive and trying to tell me how bad I was, minding my own business as I was. Also, guy seemed like a Bruce Lee wannabe.
They give a really bad name to the sport, which has many athletes I have plenty of respect for (I used to do it myself). I actually hadn't heard about the taolu guy at Cal, but I know the boxing team here is very competitive. Hope the guy doesn't go too hard when he learns he's unmatched; otherwise the boxer will likely go easy and nobody will get hurt that way.
EDIT: forgot to say, thanks for the video!
Appreciate you sharing!
Very honest 👍
Thanks !
as if other combat sport practitioners can fight they all practice a sport with specific ruleset check how well they can fight when you bring your wushu stick to sparring…
Refreshingly honest.👍
really appreciate it!
0:13 Lmao! Almost rarely commented before watching. Wushu’s cool though.
0:44 We all do no matter what style we choose to be honest. 😤
hahaah, that is true. really appreciate your support!
Interesting, I always thought that Wushu was just Chinese acrobatics.
Wushu sanda is a very effective fighting style. Many sanda fighters dominate in onefc.
Dont feel you are missing something? I like wushu. But doing it without any contact sparring would make feel like i was missing out.
Not everyone want to be a fighter. I will always respect that.
I eventually felt like I missed out (hence moving on from wushu taolu to Muay Thai and BJJ.
and I feel the same about people not wanting to be a fighter - respect to those who go down that path (myself included, lol).
Light sparring. Much less risk, still viable practice against resisting opponent. If you can land punch for points, its more likely you will land punch in other situations also.
No one can "train for real battle" by battling their sparring partners. Even in the old days.
And telling that your skills allow you to disable opponents with secret moves without ever trying to land a hit on an enemy, it sounds like some bragging liar kid in schoolyard.
Many great empires had martial arts and traditions, but main force was always army, spearmen, archers, swordsmen. So practicall application was always more importantthan secret moves.
thanks for sharing!
Taolu is for building good structure and nothing more.
Martial "art" - the focus is on the latter.
Still looks cool
If you want to learn to fight just learn Sanda.
Why are people training Wushu more humble in their fighting capabilities than people doing Taichi.
I dont get it 🧐
haha....you get the humble ones and you get the cocky ones everywhere!
hey youre real one 😅
A wise young man 🖐️👺
appreciate it!
More art than martial.
*cough cough Elina Ming and her family. Nice people but definitely can’t fight
Does that bunch claim they can fight though? For instance, I enjoyed playing dungeons, and ddragons doesn’t mean I’d be any good at fending off a village if push came to shove.
I mean, how many crippling injuries do you have? Training to fight is cool and all until you have permanent brain damage and knee injuries. I think its super dope what you do! You have a great attitude!
appreciate your support!
Highest likelihood of learning to fight with Kung Fu? Learn Jeet Kune Do.
Of course it's a martial art. It's just not not a combat sport. All of which are heavily compromised anyway for safety.
@@UnjustVerdict It's not a combat sport. Fighting gets you better at fighting, regardless of the system.
@@UnjustVerdict I don't know. It's impossible to test.
@@UnjustVerdict Facts only brother.
@@UnjustVerdict Which facts are those brother?
@@UnjustVerdict Didn't think so. All combat sports are contrived, and if they're lucrative enough, they're also rigged.
All these are from Bodhidharma Tamil Kanchipuram Pallava Dynasty. Taolu wushu is originally Tamil martial arts.
Wu shu was never for fighting😅
Finally, someone's out here saying what we were all (the non-delusional ones) already thinking. This whole thing is actually a lot like Pro Wrestling. If they had just come out in the beginning and said "this is athletic entertainment, not a combat sport", nobody would be shouting FAAAKE at them. Same with all this traditional martial arts stuff - just say "we're cosplaying martial arts" and nobody will have anything to say about it.
Any martial art is a cosplay
@2adamast wrestling amd boxing are cosplay? What?
appreciate it!
Hey, go UCMAP!
go BEARS!
@@sifudough I was on the tkd team back in 2006-2009!
@@bkcpisme oh nice! we JUST missed each other (class of 2013)