Kung fu (term)

The term kung fu, Gongfu or (rarely ) Gung Fu (Chinese功夫, Pinyin gongfu, W.-G. Kung Fu, something through hard / patient work achievements ') is mostly used in the West to refer to various Chinese martial arts styles ( for example, " Shaolin Kung Fu " or " Wing Chun Kung Fu " ). In Chinese, the term originally referred to rather the degree of craftsmanship, which was acquired through hard work, but is now also being used there mainly for the martial arts.

Spellings

There are several Umschriftsysteme to represent the Chinese writing of standard Chinese in Latin characters, resulting in the different Latin spellings for the characters功夫. The spelling of Kung Fu is in the western world probably the most widespread and goes back to the Wade- Giles system, especially previously used in the United States of America. In the pinyin system of internationally officially used the spelling gongfu applies. Without the diacritics for the sounds of the standard Chinese Gongfu is then obtained.

The nowadays rarely encountered spelling Gung Fu goes back to Bruce Lee.

Importance

In the West, the term Kung Fu ( or Gungfu ) was popularized as a term for Chinese martial arts in the 1960s by Bruce Lee and the Hong Kong movies (Eastern ) in the United States of America, and later by the TV series Kung Fu.

In traditional Chinese language gōngfu is no name for the martial arts in particular, but for any skill, the one in which one has earned by hard effort and brought it to a certain mastery. This may relate to the martial arts, but also on other skills. Although Thus, for example, with Shaolin Kung Fu (Chinese少林 功夫, Pinyin Shaolin gongfu, W.-G. shaolin kung fu, Shaolin skills ' ) refers to the martial arts of the Shaolin monks, but also a calligrapher can " from gōngfu be fulfilled ".

The Chinese term for all Chinese martial arts is traditionally wǔshù (Chinese武术/武术, martial arts '). Meanwhile, however, is also in China the term gōngfu increasingly used to conceptually separate the martial arts from martial arts ( Wushu ).

When the term is broken down into its individual characters, it means the character功"achievement ", " merit" or "achievement", and夫means " person" or " man ". However, the combination of letters has the meaning given above.

Use of the word in Chinese philosophy

The word "Kung Fu" is from the character gong (Chinese功, W.-G. kung achievement ') and Fu (Chinese夫, W.-G. fu ' man ' ) is formed. The composite term has a profound meaning in Chinese philosophy.

" [ Kung Fu is the ] task of man to perfect himself by constant effort. [ ...] [ Whatever we do ], always comes in what we do our inner Constitution. [ ... ] If we perfect our actions, we perfect ourselves "

In this sense, Kung Fu is working on his own person through consistent dedication to a craft. This is similar to the concept of the use of the term Dō ( = way, path) in traditional Japanese arts. In addition to the literal meaning of this is also an indication of the spiritual dimensions and the impact of Dào to the practice of individual disciplines.

Mark Salzman describes in his book Iron and Silk, that Kung Fu is also a " non-measurable quality" is inherent in a thing. A painted characters can gong fu have - had the Creator, as described above, invested long training in the perfection of his art. So may things, but also activities such as dance, music or combat movements have Kung Fu.