Kung Fu, by Kevin

Kung Fu is really brilliant. Some people think that it is not really brilliant, but they are wrong. The reason why they think that it is not really brilliant is because kung fu requires years of dedication to become as good as the people on television and they are too lazy to make the effort.

Kung Fu, or gung fu as it is called in China because they cannot pronounce their k's properly, is a martial art invented by Bruce Lee, who was, at that time, the best kung fu master in the world. Lee was a Chinese Buddhist monk born in San Francisco in 1940 who did not believe in violence but who was constantly being beaten up on the way to the monastery every morning on account of being a Chinese in America and therefore much smaller than everyone else (Buddhist monks usually become as fat and obese as Americans, but it is only after years and years of sitting around training). Although he was a pacifist, Lee kept having his dinner money stolen, so it became a matter of principle for him. In order to resist the bullies, he learned himself kung fu, only it was called Wang Chung back then, under a wise guru named Master Po, who was an expert in Chicken-style kung fu, which mostly involves running away. Unfortunately, Lee was not a very fast runner, having only short Chinese legs, so he decided he would learn himself another kung fu that involved less running of the legs and more the kicking of them. There were many different styles of kung fu, such as Tiger style, Monk style, Doggy style, Emu style, Drunken Wino style, and Randy Goat style, and Lee became proficient in all of them, taking from each one the most lethal manoeuvres and incorporating them into his own system, which became proper kung fu.

Once he was able to decimate all his opponents and keep his sister out of his room, Lee was approached by Hollywood who wanted to make films of him showing off his skills to the world for a lot of money. At first, Lee said, "No way! These are valuable, esoteric treasured cultural traditions that should not be reduced to circus antics performed by trick ponies for the delectation of decadent Western audiences," which was true, with the exception of Trick Pony-style kung fu, which was invented for precisely that purpose. Nonetheless, Hollywood was very persistent and promised not to demean Chinese culture in any way. So, in his first film, Marlowe, Lee played a Chinese henchman who accidentally jumps off the balcony of a skyscraper doing kung fu after James Garner calls him a gayboy. In the next film, The Big Boss, he plays an ignorant Chinese yokel working in an ice factory that is a cover for heroin smuggling. In The Way of the Dragon he plays an ignorant Chinese yokel who travels to Rome, with hilarious consequences.

It wasn't until Lee got directorial control over his movies that kung fu became world famous, however. In Enter the Dragon he plays an MI6 agent infiltrating a martial arts tournament organized for no apparent reason on an island full of prostitutes and drug addicts. In Game of Death there is nothing but kung fu, but Lee was killed before the film could be finished by sinister kung fu masters who thought he was revealing too many of its secrets to the Western world. Since then, Lee's mantle has been taken over by Jimmy Wang-Yu, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude van Damme, and Will Smith's baby.   None of them are anywhere near as good as Bruce Lee, of course, and I think he could have taken them all on at the same time and whipped their arseholes.

Kung fu itself has survived Bruce Lee's death, however, and you can easily find a kung fu school near you where you can learn how to defend yourself against your sister, bullies in the staff common room, and snidey quips when you ride your bicycle on the campus and people say "that's a girl's bike," which it isn't, just because it has a basket on the front. It depends on where the crossbar is, so there. I have been doing kung fu now since I was 13 and have a green belt. This is very good. The highest belt is purple belt, although many people think it is black belt and they are wrong. The grades go white, yellow, green, blue, brown, black, purple. If you see anyone wearing a red belt, it is probably Timmy Mallett.

When you do kung fu it gives you a greater level of self-respect but also more self-discipline because you become aware of the awesome power at your disposal to be able to poke someone's eye with your bare finger. With great power comes great responsibility, and therefore all kung fuers are required to take an oath when they become grand masters that they will only use their ability to maim, disfigure, and kill for good. This means most you cannot use it at football matches, against traffic wardens, or against the man in the newsagents with the funny voice who always makes conversation but you can't understand what he's saying and everyone looks at you. No. You can only use it in self-defence, which is why most kung fuers find they have to go looking for fights and then provoke their assailant into making the first move. Otherwise learning kung fu would be a waste of time.

I hope that now I have shown you how good kung fu is that you will join your local kung fu class straight away. Tell them Kevin sent you.

And that is the end.


(Kevin MacPherson is Grand Sifu and Kwai Chang Caine professor of Modern Dance at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Hereford. His book The Dying Swan: Contemporary Ballet and the Triads will be published one day.)