Which of the 4 paths of modern Kung Fu are you on?

Modern kung fu has endured a century of twisting, turning, and nerfing. Ol' school Kung fu practitioners and sects were historically a hotbed of descent with the reigning power in China. It became crucial for the ruling factions to control the fighting spirit of kung fu schools, much like eunuchs. Since physical fights were prohibited, kung fu became a forms or dance battle show much like the video game "Dance, Dance, Revolution."

"I hate that game 'cause I suck at it, but like kung fu forms, I love watching people do it."

Many Kung Fu experts ran from China and established their schools, associations, and styles. Not only did these new kung fu schools have to compete against other kung fu schools but also other martial arts from around the world.  We'll write about the real state of kung fu in China in another article.

Kung fu school owners still suffer under trends of the populace and will continue to cater to trends to pay the bills. Kung fu's original path of combat for survival is a difficult path to trudge on personally and business-wise.

All the by-products of kung fu combat training became as prevalent as its main purpose or path. These paths are relevant now since it's what everyone wants from kung fu.  

1. Kung fu for Health for body and mind - The largest community in kung fu. We love and live on this path but expect many strange concepts and mystical bull from this path.  
2. Kung fu for Performance - the coolest community in kung fu. Movies, Youtube, Instagram, and all the other slew of social media platforms crave to watch this community. It's fun to pretend and be the main story of other people's lives.
3. Kung fu for Competiton - the competitive forms, and ring fighting community is large and also a tough path to be on. Expect to commit to lots of training to get any headway on this path. This is the path of super athletes and gladiators but understand that this is a world of rules and viewers.
4. Kung fu for combat - this is the main path that all other paths come from. This is obviously our favorite path. It's less demanding on you physically(still painful though) than the competitive path but much more mentally and emotionally disturbing since you are training to efficiently stop someone permanently. This path is not for health, to be viewed by millions, to win via points, or to spar against other martial artists, but to escape and even obliterate a random attacker so you can get home to your family in one piece. It is the same path that soldiers go through. If you are taught both physical and mental concepts correctly then the benefits to your life and self-esteem are immense.

Our KKP crew walked or continues to walk on the paths above at one time or another but we're predominantly walking the combative path. We would never denigrate any path above but this article is to let you realize what you get from each path.

Our advice, do the combat path and you'll notice all the other paths open up for you to decide to jump into or not.