UFC 1 turned into a catalyst to for all time reshape the ideology, foundation, schooling, method, and very makeup of self-defense and the martial arts. ‘without neglecting the records of Shoot Boxing, Catch Wrestling, Pancrase, Vale Tudo or even the philosophies of individuals like Bruce Lee and other multi-martial artwork disciplines pre-UFC, the practice of “move-education” wasn’t mainstream among western practitioners, nor changed into it thought of as something imperative to turning into aa hit or maybe in a position martial artist. Placed merely, Gracie’s own family changed the game.
Historical nuances aside, this occasion in 1993 may be visible as a defining marker in martial arts and how the lifestyle shifted to wherein it is now. In that span of 3 a long time, we’ve seen martial arts grow from traditional primarily based structures, rigid, linear, and based, to the fundamentals of combined martial arts. Slowly dipping their toes into what it manner to train in multiple disciplines, earlier than fast-forwarding only a few years, where
The practice starts to culminate within the ultimate form of move schooling determined within the “whole martial artists” like George St. Pierre or Jon Jones. And as combined martial arts persevered to grow and adapt, current patterns began to die within the early years of internet forums — the Bullshido days of MMA. Rather than death, a few traditional systems reinvented themselves and modernized with this converting panorama. Practitioners like Lyoto Machida, Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson, Michael Page, or Anthony Pettis, to call only a few, began surfacing years later and proving their styles had a place among those modernized systems.
But, unlike other styles, one of the most ancient systems of fighting, Kung Fu, and the martial arts of China hold almost zero have an impact on in 2019 and never regained that foothold of relevancy it once had. After UFC 1 and the ushering in the subsequent martial arts era, Kung Fu became confronted with the predicament all traditional martial arts were: adapt or die. The difference? Unlike Karate or Taekwondo who tailored, Kung Fu by no means recovered in Western combat sports activities considering, and in a few cases, globally too.
The reason is straightforward. An internet search of “Kung Fu as opposed to” can offer an almost a perpetual flow of movies of Kung Fu specialists in Gracie-style mission matches or “dojo storms” towards blue belt level grapplers or western boxers with just a few years of training. All of them ended with the same invalidating effects, leaving Kung Fu currently on lifestyles help. Gene Ching, the companion writer of Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine and KungFuMagazine.Com and a guns master featured on El Rey Networks’ Man At Arms, was requested to ask why Kung Fu hasn’t found achievement in Western fight sports.
The trouble with Sanda or Sanshou is maximum would barely apprehend the difference between it and any other kickboxing-related practices. A handful of great Sanshou-based MMA warring parties included UFC and Strikeforce veteran Cung Le or Filipino champions like Eduard Folayang and Kevin Belingon. However, the achievement of some outliers isn’t going to win the hearts and minds in a structures’ ability — which Kung Fu desperately needs, lamentably.
Everybody becomes Kung Fu Fighting… Kung Fu at the beginning exploded into the Western eye inside the ’60s and 70’s way to Chinese cinema and extra particularly, thru the influence of martial arts pioneer and icon Bruce Lee, as well as movies from the Shaw Brothers. These films now not handiest promoted the artwork of Kung Fu to the West, but genuinely the martial arts as a whole. It can even be argued that the martial arts wouldn’t have reached the worldwide stage of reputation and cultural effects if it weren’t for the Kung Fu movie genre. These movies took Kung Fu and martial arts mainstream.
Still, Kung Fu’s effect has been considered that remained, if no longer fully, reserved to cinema and subculture solely, slowly fading into obscurity in the international hand at hand fight. There is one person even though, who desires to alternate that and will take on everybody, abiding via a philosophy of “the mats don’t lie,” as he puts it, on the way to show Kung Fu’s legitimacy and bringing the Chinese martial arts returned into the communique of combat application. He is Lavell Marshall, who isn’t always the handiest accepting all challengers but is actively looking for them out in opposition.
