Comments on: Everybody was kung fu fighting

Question: Everybody was kung fu fighting

Astro Zombie — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:31:02 -0800

If I was a teenager in the 70s, what style of martial art would have seemed the most badass to me? And why?

By: 45moore45

45moore45 — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:32:51 -0800

Everybody was Kung-fu fighting. Man, those cats were fast as lightening.

By: JaySunSee

JaySunSee — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:34:59 -0800

Drunken Monkey, because it looks so trick.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:39:34 -0800

Whatever Bruce Lee called his thing. Tae Kwon Do also had a rep.

By: selfnoise

selfnoise — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:41:54 -0800

Seconding Kirth Gerson:

Jeet Kune Do.

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:13:37 -0800

Yeah, Jeet Kune Do is a good one, but if you had a slightly more eccentric bent I'd say Savate, that would be my choice for a Wes Anderson type teenager. French Martial Arts, good stuff.

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:25:25 -0800

It definitely would have been Kung Fu. Bruce Lee is one reason. This TV show is another.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:34:00 -0800

It definitely would have been Kung Fu. Bruce Lee is one reason.

That doesn't even make sense. Bruce was doing JKD.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:34:19 -0800

I kinda think you would have been a Capoeira guy. It's all subversively political and sexy, what with the danciness and the Brazilianness. It would be great for picking up chicks, which you were really into in the 70s as a teenager, with your striped shirt and white belt.

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:40:22 -0800

"Jeet Kune Do" is a style of Kung Fu. The term "Kung Fu" was used generically here at the time to refer to Chinese-style martial arts, essentially all the styles derived originally from Shao Lin. By the same token, "Karate" was generic for a large number Japanese styles of martial arts (including "Ryo Bu Kai", the style I studied at the time).

Irrespective of whether that's what the words really mean, or how they really should be used, that's how we did use them. I didn't learn the term "Jeet Kune Do" until 20 years after Bruce Lee died.

The badass martial art starting in the mid 1980's would have been Ninjutsu, because of the Turtles.

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:55:27 -0800

Bruce was doing JKD.

Nobody knew that. Everybody just thought he did 'kung fu' (which is what he was originally trained in, and taught on his arrival in the US), and thought all his movies were 'kung fu' flicks. Even today a google for 'bruce lee kung fu' gets you twice as many hits as 'bruce lee jkd' or 'bruce lee jeet kune do'. I don't know anybody who even knows what JKD is.

By: geekyguy

geekyguy — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:15:36 -0800

Elvis was doing karate. He was TCB, baby!

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:19:58 -0800

Elvis was old news by the 1970's.

By: LarryC

LarryC — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:54:01 -0800

Absolutely Kung Fu. There was the song, the TV show with David Carradine, and even a Saturday morning cartoon. We were all crazy about Kung Fu.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:58:43 -0800

I was a teen in the 70s, and it was always Kung Fu. Kung Fu. There was a whole entire TV series named Kung Fu. Any discussion of martial arts among my friends always ended with the conclusion that no matter what you knew of any other other discipline, Kung Fu trumped any and all of it. If anyone we knew actually took Karate classes, and they took anything but Kung Fu, those of us with zero experience would always disdain them, asking, "Why didn't you take Kung Fu? Idiot!" Kung Fu was the best.

This conclusion was arrived at based on total ignorance of any actual teachings or abilities, and purely on the having watched the TV show and our "knowledge" that Bruce Lee did Kung Fu, and what we heard some guy say once who knew a guy who did Kung Fu. With Kung Fu, you can KILL someone with your PINKY! With Kung Fu, you can break a 6x6 with a swift kick, bringing down an entire house. A little bit of Kung Fu could beat a lot of Judo and Tae Kwon Do, and even Kung Pao Chicken.

Kung.
Fu.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:14:23 -0800

Kung Fu. No contest.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:17:55 -0800

Yes, Kung Fu was all the rage in the 1970s, but Hap-Kido was pretty cool, too.

By: dzot

dzot — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:18:10 -0800

Kung Fu was a big part of pop culture (thanks David Carradine) and familiar to the masses. Those who really dug the Martial Arts scene were all about Bruce Lee, so if you were in the know, the answer's Jeet Kune Do.

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:20:19 -0800

Kung Fu. Two more anecdotes from popular culture:

Hong Kong Phooey

Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu

By: konolia

konolia — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:02:02 -0800

I was a teenager in the Seventies.

Kung Fu. No contest.

By: RavinDave

RavinDave — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:19:28 -0800

Gung Fu (most of us first heard it that way) may have seemed exotic in the 70's, thanks to "Kung Fu", but since the question was specifically: Which style would have seemed more badass to someone IN THE 70's -- I'm gonna hafta go with Hapkido, with a tip my big black round hat to Tom Laughlin, Bong Soo Han and the wildly popular "Billy Jack" movies.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:37:27 -0800

since the question was specifically: Which style would have seemed more badass to someone IN THE 70's

Actually, the question was which style would have seemed more badass to Astro Zombie.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:02:41 -0800

True dat. All right, lor of votes for kung fu. Anything more off the beaten path?

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 03:20:06 -0800

Anything more off the beaten path?

Taido started up around '65 so it would have been relatively new & exciting for those in the know. It doesn't rate much in terms of badassness (the moves are pretty impractical outside of a movie & they're big on tenkai, choreographed mock fights) but it has neat looking rolling/jumping/spinny moves being roughly a Japanese mix of karate, gymnastics & capoeira.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:17:46 -0800

Gung Fu (most of us first heard it that way)...

Because that's the Mandarin pronunciation of the term, Just as Kung Pao is pronounced 'goombow'.

By: box

box — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:07:42 -0800

Judo, or aikido. The stuff about energy and flow and qi and using your enemy's strength against him would play well with someone who just finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance while high.

By: box

box — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:09:25 -0800

(Dunno if that's you, AZ, and no offense intended to anybody--I was just thinking ''70s teenager who's concerned with bad-assery")

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:56:35 -0800

That doesn't even make sense. Bruce was doing JKD.

Bruce was doing "traditional" Kung Fu before he created JKD. The form is called Wing Chun. But the only people that cared about specifics in the 70s were practitioners. To the lay-person, it was all just Kung Fu.

So, Kung Fu for the win.

By: arnold

arnold — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:13:32 -0800

A friend of mine caught the tail end of the seventies, but was in Hapkido, fwiw.