The Meaning of "Kung Fu" - It's More Than Just Self Defense

My first serious exposure to martial arts in the movies was from Bruce Lee years ago, and on TV it was the series “Kung Fu” starring David Carradine that I found very inspiring, all the way back in the ‘70’s.





That series portrayed a character named Quai Chang Caine, a young boy, half American and half Chinese, who was taken into one of the shaolin temples in China in the 1800’s and raised to be a warrior monk.





Kwai chang starts out begging at the temple gates, to be taken in, fed and taught. He begins by working in the temple kitchen, scrubbing floors and tending to all the needs of the monks, priests and masters. Then as he grows, they slowly started teaching him the ways and arts of the temple, until he graduates in his late teens as a shaolin priest warrior monk, having experienced many adventures along the way. His studies culminate when he fights his way through the Lohan Hall of 108 wooden dummies that attack him from every angle with a variety of weapons, and at the end he gains entry into the outside world by moving aside a burning cauldron that scars his inner forearms with the symbols of a tiger and a dragon, which all the people of China recognize in awe as the mark of a shaolin warrior priest. The series tells of his being condemned and hunted by the Emperor for defending his master, and his journey to the United States and adventures in the old west.





It was a great series that started with a pilot movie, now available on DVD from Netflix, and I’d highly recommend it. It was actually what inspired me to begin my training in 1998 when I saw a sign in a local parking lot that said “kung fu” on it.