Chinese Kung Fu in Japan

[Royal Dragon]

Hello all!

My recent inquirery into a local Chicago school has me wondering about the history of Chinese martial arts in Japan.

It's well known that Southenr styles like Five Ancestor's Fist, and White Crane were big influances on Okinawian Karate, which in turn influanced Japanese Karate, but what about direct Chinese to Japanese influances?


For example, the school I was asking about claim to have learned something called Kang Chuan Do which was founded here by a guy who originally learned something he called Gung Mao Gung Fu.

This is what the site says about Gung Mao Gung Fu




Gung Mao incorporated open hand as well as closed fist techniques in both blocking and striking. Kicking was kept to solar plexus level or below with the exception of two secret kicks kept at head level. Jump kicks were limited to front kick types. Last but not least, Forms, which came from an array of styles.

See that part in Bold? Does that mean this is a system of random Chinese martial arts that was collected in Japan and taught under the name Gung Mao? what does Gung Mao mean anyway? Does it mean "Skill of Mao Zedong?"


either way, what DIRECT influance has Chinese martial arts had on Japanese systems? How much Chinese Kung Fu was being practiced in Japan? Do we know now if it was historically posiible that Chinese martial arts were in Japan in an underground fashion and highly secrative in nature?

Maybe systems like what Shaolin Do evolved from really were Chinese in origin? Maybe we all just "Think" there is no connection? Not that I think Shaolin Do is Shaolin mind you, but based on comments on another thread I suspect it may have some sort of Southern Chinese or Hakka connections in Japan. Same with this Gung Mao system.

What is the plausibility of Chinese Kung Fu being in Japan, and has surfaced here in the US in the form of these strange Karate-ish schools, claiming to teach *Chinese* arts from Okinawia and Japan?







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[BlueTravesty]

From what I've read, there are certain Northern styles that enjoy some small degree of popularity in Japan as well. These include Baji, Pigua and Praying Mantis. There are quite a few of Adam Hsu's students that have brought these styles to Japan. The webpage is here http://www.geocities.jp/ichikawashika/fset.html However, I have to warn you that using Babel Fish or similar translation tools to read its content will yield results like "Positive happening shade raw? It is thick the pole" and "it is thick, the ancester/founder fist" (thought you might like that one fue to your interest in Taizu :D )

Now whether this supposed Sino-Japanese kung fu school is legit is another story, but there are many branches of Adam Hsu's schools, one of which is in okinawa.

[Royal Dragon]

That is more modern, I am wondering about pre vietnam war era. There is a whoole geration of old military types who sem to have this twisted,mixed convoluted perspective on Chinese martial arts, as if thye are seeing them through the filter of Japanese karate. My thought is maybe they are not marketing frauds after all, and really did learn *Chinese* martial arts while stationed in japan. It was something that could be taught openly to the US soldiers, but had to be kept underground to the japanese population due to bad Japanese/Chinese relations.

Chinese martial arts in Korea seemed pretty open with some known Chinese masters becomming rather famous, like Lui Shui Tien. Maybe the same happened in Japan around that time, only due to really bad relations and cultural attitudes it was kept very quiet and closed door...except to US service men, for which there was no need to hid anything?

[Black Jack II]

It's a good question. I think some of the Ryukyu arts are pretty effective if done old school, a lot of non-wasted movement, hard striking, condition specific weight training, some good ideas.

I think the two primary branches which had southern chinese influence were Shuri-te and Naha-te and the one's which were pure Okinawan styles are distinguished as Uchina-di or Koryu Uchina-di. One of my buds who is a shorin-ryu player told me that his style has some northern shaolin influence.