I've been practicing Northern Shaolin Long Fist with Sifu Kevin
Miller in Memphis TN for about two years now, and, just reasently,
i visited his masters school in Chicago where one of the long time black belts has been training for MMA fighting.

The black belt has won his first fight, tapping the guy out 30 seconds, and he is an incredibly skilled teacher to work with. Thinking about how the black belt fought when we were sparring, how he looked just like any other skilled MMA fighter in terms of technique, I began to think about why their was nothing particularly "kung fu" about the way he fights.

The answer i've come to is that the many styles of kung fu, excluding Sanda and contemporary wushu, were developed for no rule street fighting , im not saying that kickboxing, MMA, and other sport based combat forms are useless on the streets (many sport fighters would woop poorly trained TMA's). What im saying is that the many techniques and options of kung fu are based in a format where their is no right way, no set environment, no rules, meaning that their is no way to come to a perfect method of fighting as the context of a street fight is never the same.

In MMA one fights in a set environment, with set rules, what this creates is an almost permanent context, whats called a constant in science. This means that with every MMA bout, just like an experiment, the techniques and methods of the practitioners can be modified to better suit the specific context of an MMA cage, rule set, etc.

the conclusion is that a well trained Kung Fu practitioner, like the black belt I spoke of, can have great success but not without adaption. kickboxing (or muay thai)/ jujitsu (or wrestling), combination has already been found to be arguably the most effective combination for an MMA environment and rule set. I don't believe that one will ever see the wide rage of Kung Fu techniques and methods on display in the MMA venue; not because they are not effective, but because, unlike the street, the MMA environment offers a set context where a perfect combination of techniques and methods can exist and one must adopt in order to succeed