The disappearing world of White Crane

World of White Crane is disappearing quickly in Taiwan and seems no one cares about it. South of Taiwan is the repository of many old and unknown Fujian styles, many of them older than popular styles like Tai Chi or Wing Chun by far, and definitely more significant  historically culturally and technically. These styles, practiced traditionally for centuries, pretty much without contact with other styles still keep original technical content, language, mythology, oral histories even some aspect of religion. Traditionally, in Taiwan, particular kung fu style is practiced only by  family members or the members of the community (village). Styles were not secret in a sense that they were hidden behind closed doors but they were almost never taught to outsiders.  This tradition is very much alive today and it is one of the reasons why all these styles are on brink of extinction. Vast majority of these are some form of White Crane. Many styles are pure Crane styles while others have been mixed with styles sometime in the past but Crane flavor is still prevalent. Many of  these Crane styles are far older that better known White Cranes like Yong Chun Bai He fist,  Shihe, Suhe, Zonghe…

Having in mind that strong tradition prevents masters to teach people outside their community or family and that majority of these styles concentrated on the south part of Taiwan, endangeres the survival of these styles. For decades young people for the south , especially from villages, migrate to the north, to big economical centres in serach for better jobs and better life. It came to the point that many schools in far south had tobe closed because there are no more kids. Young people leave early, in search for better education that will give them better oppurtunities later in life and there is no time for the masters to pass the complete styles to next generations. On the other hand , young generation do not show much interest for kung fu. Baseball and tennis are much more popular than any other sport or activity. In Taiwan, kung fu is a thing of old people, those who want to keep and preserve the tradition, but there is not many of them.

Another reason for declining interest in kung fu is rasining popularty of MMA and asscoated arts. Kung Fu in general didn’t show well in full contact fighting and that is one more reason for declining interest in it. Thai Boxing and MMA gyms have much more students in Taiwan than average kung fu club.

Having all this in mind we can see that extinction process of kung fu is at the point that simply cannot be reversed. Many interesting Crane styles (and other kung fu styles) simply disappeard in the last few decades. The rest will probably disappear with last masters of those arts in the next decade or so.

Disappearing of these old styles will be irreplaceable loss for traditional Chinese cultural heritage. People’s Republic of China started a project of documenting rare and disappearing Kung Fu styles,which will  be preserved at least in digital formand could be revived some time in the future with some effort. If nothing else, preserveing Kung Fu in this format can be valuable source for all kinds of research in the future. Bottom line, these styles won’t be alive but they would not disappear completely. Unfortunately, In Taiwan such a project is not even considered.There were few tryes done by a private researches and kung fu pracitioners, but they simply lack resources to complete such a big project.

    To  conclude this article, chances are that we will have accept the fact that allthese beautiful old styles will disappear in the future, leaving an enormous gap in traditional kung fu heritage.