I agree with flying monkey in many ways.
I have seen some well respected kung fu masters that are probably able to hold themselves okish against a skilled opponent, then I have seen some masters who probably wont be able to fight their way out of anything, and then I have also met and seen some kung fu masters who are really serious about fighting. The last group usually don’t believe in all this ‘mumbo jumbo’ and are extremely serious and realistic about fighting. They understand that cross training is something you have to do, and they understand violence.
RD, although I agree with your statement, the San Shou in china is modern and very few of the ‘masters’ or coaches over there, have a traditional back ground. They approach san shou just like any MMA coach would approach MMA, but basically just focusing on san shou rules (no ground fighting). Non of them (or at least not the ones I have encountered) are under any false idea that their stuff is deadly.
A good fighter should be able to adapt. Plain and simple. If you cant, you probably not worth being called a fighter.
Most MMA fighters are under no illusions about their abilities. They test it regularly. They don’t have to kill people to show how good they are either.
But to answer Flying monkey, I do think there are still worthy Kung Fu fighters. But as with most things, they probably don’t care much about stylistic boundaries and probably do a fair amount of cross training.
All your (our) sihings and sisooks in HK cross train. I mean, Seem Lam Yuk runs a thaiboxing gym from Sifu Chow’s kwoon.
得 心 應 手
蔡 李 佛 中 國 武 術 學 院 - ( 南 非 )