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The Essence of Kung Fu
What is Kung Fu?
For most people outside China, the answer seems obvious: Kung Fu is Chinese martial arts.
But the term Kung Fu (功夫) has a much broader meaning.
It can refer to skill, ability or accomplishment developed through sustained effort, practice and time. A person can have Kung Fu in martial arts, but also in calligraphy, cooking, craftsmanship, music or countless other activities.
This broader meaning tells us something important about martial arts as well.
Kung Fu is not simply a collection of techniques.
It is a process of development.
Kung Fu Is Never Finished
We often think about martial arts in terms of accumulation.
Learn another form.
Learn another technique.
Earn another rank.
Master another weapon.
Eventually, we imagine, there must be some point at which we have finally learned the system.
But I don't think Kung Fu works that way.
A technique can be learned.
A form can be memorized.
A curriculum can be completed.
Kung Fu itself cannot.
The moment practice becomes completely static—when nothing is questioned, examined, refined or developed—the process that created Kung Fu begins to disappear.
This does not mean constantly inventing new techniques.
Sometimes progress means spending twenty years investigating something you learned during your first month of training.
The movement may remain the same.
Your understanding of it does not.
From Effort to Effortlessness
Kung Fu begins with conscious effort.
At first, almost everything requires concentration.
Where should my feet be?
Where should my weight go?
When should I breathe?
Which muscles should be relaxed?
Where should the force come from?
The beginner has to think about everything.
Then comes repetition.
Hundreds of repetitions become thousands.
What initially required considerable conscious attention gradually becomes easier.
Balance improves.
Coordination improves.
Unnecessary tension begins to disappear.
The body no longer has to be consciously instructed through every stage of the movement.
Something that once felt difficult begins to feel natural.
This is one of the transformations at the heart of Kung Fu:
Through practice, effort gradually produces effortlessness.
But effortlessness does not mean the absence of work.
It is the result of work.
Beyond Physical Technique
Martial arts are obviously physical activities, but serious practice is never purely physical.
Attention matters.
Perception matters.
Timing matters.
Decision-making matters.
The ability to recognize pressure, distance and movement matters.
The body learns, but so does the mind.
Eventually, separating the two becomes increasingly artificial.
When an experienced practitioner responds to movement, he may not consciously calculate every angle, muscle contraction or change of balance.
He perceives and responds.
The physical and mental aspects of practice have become integrated through experience.
This does not require a mystical explanation.
It is what happens when something has been practiced deeply enough to become part of how a person moves and responds.
Kung Fu Is Personal
Two people can practice the same system for thirty years and not develop identical Kung Fu.
They may learn the same forms.
They may have the same teacher.
They may practice the same exercises.
But they do not have the same bodies, experiences, personalities or understanding.
Eventually, the art is expressed through the individual.
This is why simply copying a teacher cannot be the final goal.
Imitation is necessary at the beginning.
We copy because we need something to learn from.
But gradually we must understand what we are copying.
Why is the movement performed this way?
What principle does it express?
What happens when circumstances change?
What works for my teacher because of his body but needs adjustment for mine?
At that point, technique begins to become understanding.
And understanding begins to become personal.
Tradition and Development
There is no contradiction between preserving tradition and continuing to develop.
In fact, every living tradition depends upon both.
Without preservation, knowledge disappears.
Without continued investigation, knowledge can become fossilized.
Respecting our teachers does not mean stopping where they stopped.
Their Kung Fu was the result of their own journey.
Ours must be the result of ours.
We inherit methods, principles and experiences from previous generations, but then we have to work with them ourselves.
Tradition gives us a place to begin.
It cannot determine where our understanding will end.
When Kung Fu Becomes Part of You
After enough years, something else happens.
Training is no longer confined to the training hall.
The principles you have practiced begin appearing in ordinary movement.
You notice balance when walking.
You notice tension when lifting something.
You recognize distance and positioning without consciously looking for them.
Your body responds in ways shaped by thousands of hours of previous practice.
At that point, Kung Fu becomes difficult to separate from the practitioner.
It is no longer simply something you do.
It becomes part of how you move, perceive and respond.
This is perhaps the closest I can come to describing what I believe the essence of Kung Fu to be.
It is not a particular style.
It is not a collection of forms.
It is not a belt, certificate, lineage or title.
And it is certainly not a destination.
Kung Fu is the process through which sustained effort becomes skill, skill becomes understanding, and understanding eventually becomes part of the person.
There is always something more to learn.
There is always something to refine.
And as long as that process continues, so does Kung Fu.
Sources and Further Reading
Lorge, Peter A. Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Shahar, Meir. The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008.
Henning, Stanley E. “Academia Encounters the Chinese Martial Arts.” China Review International, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1999, pp. 319–332.
Yuasa, Yasuo. The Body, Self-Cultivation, and Ki-Energy. State University of New York Press, 1993.