Equally MMA takes hold in China, many old masters worry the state's traditional fighting style is dying. But they're missing a golden opportunity.

It'south simply subsequently dawn on the outskirts of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, and Li Quan is kicking a pocketbook of sand. H2o is boiling on his stove, aural above the roar of buses headed into the urban center. After practise, Li checks his phone for letters and pours himself a loving cup of tea. A few foreigners are on their mode today to train with the kung fu master.

Beyond Cathay, the number of martial artists similar Li—people in their tardily 30s and 40s who concur the flame of an aboriginal tradition—is shrinking fast. A lucky few operate martial arts schools full of students, only the majority have day jobs as security guards, physical instruction teachers, truck drivers, and bodyguards. In the movies, a kung fu chief'southward day chore is a encompass for night heroics. In reality, it's a ways for survival.

Traditional Chinese kung fu is a gutted hulk of its former self

Today, after repeated purges by the fundamental government and decades of commercial exploitation, traditional Chinese kung fu is a gutted hulk of its one-time self. While masters struggle to market their increasingly diluted styles, prospective students are being lured abroad by mixed martial arts (MMA), a gainsay sport that is exploding in popularity beyond the world. As a result, few fighters retrieve of kung fu as a legitimate martial art.

Kung fu—an umbrella term that includes a number of Chinese martial arts, developed over centuries—has in contempo years been broken down into its component parts, each vying for marketplace share: performance wushu, which has been trying in vain to become an Olympic sport for years; sanda, a striking and takedown manner specifically designed for combat sports; and tai chi, an "internal martial art" that focuses on harnessing the body's energy—or qi—for self-defense force.

Students practicing Brazilian jiu jitsu at Shaolin's Tagou Wushu University. All photos by Sascha Matuszak

Chinese accept an uneasy relationship with their national martial art: while kung fu is considered beautiful and traditional martial artists are widely respected, the exercise is considered useless in the ring. It has likewise been tainted by commercialization; at the famed Shaolin Temple, for instance, a facade of tradition hides a moneymaking machine that allows the abbot to drive luxury cars and travel the planet promoting the Shaolin make.

Fighters working their way through the regional circuits scoff when asked if they practice kung fu. Although many began grooming wushu—the acrobatic performance art derived from traditional kung fu forms—equally soon every bit they enter the ring, Chinese fighters realize that sanda, muay thai, and wrestling are much more effective.

This has meant a big-scale motion away from Chinese martial arts and toward strange combat techniques. The Ultimate Fighting Championship is active in Cathay, as are smaller MMA promotions, such as the Ranik Ultimate Fighting Federation (RUFF), China's showtime nationally sanctioned MMA organisation, and Singapore-based OneFC. Chinese who grew upward watching the UFC as kids now take a legitimate take a chance at competing in the world's most popular fight promotion.

MMA fighter and motorcoach Vaughn Anderson with Zhao Yafei, an MMA fighter with China's RUFF promotion. Photograph by: Sascha Matuszak.

Local promoters are also trying to cash in on MMA'southward boom. Small-fourth dimension regional operations put on shows every month, alluring local sponsors and filling minor stadiums to chapters.

Among the about successful is China's Wulinfeng, a fight promotion named after the Chinese phrase wu lin ("martial woods"), which refers to the martial customs at large.

Wulinfeng bills itself as a platform for Chinese kung fu to show itself on the international stage, but most of the fights feature sanda practitioners pitted confronting muay thai fighters and kick boxers. Sanda is a simplified combat sport that has come under fire for diluting traditional kung fu. Even so, Wulinfeng has a fan base of more than 40 million and is flush with cash. Top fighters can earn $l,000-$60,000 per fight. Wulinfeng is televised weekly on Henan Provincial Satellite Television in China, and has staged international shows in Las Vegas, Tokyo, and Dubai.

Traditional kung fu masters who have defended their lives to practicing are struggling to get by

As Wulinfeng and Sanda fighters flourish, traditional kung fu masters who have dedicated their lives to practicing are struggling to get by.

Emei Mount is one of China'due south four dandy Buddhist Mountains, rising three,800 above the Chengdu Basin in Sichuan Province, and abode to a in one case-flourishing martial arts tradition. Today there is not one single main who tin lay claim to the tradition, and all that is left of their once mighty temple is a unmarried, crumbling gate.

The last standing gate of Emei Mountain'southward Hong Ya Temple. Photo past: Sascha Matuszak

Zhang Shi Zhong teaches physical education at Emei No. 1 Schoolhouse, at the human foot of the mountain. He is a hard looking homo, with a flattened olfactory organ and old scars on his cheekbones. We meet in front of his schoolhouse and head to a teahouse in the erstwhile part of town. The teahouse is a tiny unadorned physical shell with wooden beams covered in plastic and corrugated aluminum keeping out the steady drizzle.

When Zhang walks in, anybody pays their respects. He may non have a school or any students, only anybody in this little town knows that he "has kung fu"—a term that commands respect.

We drink the local green tea, and Master Zhang tells me that the Emei manner is on the brink of extinction. Simply a few masters yet practice anything resembling the original style, and they accept no students. Many of them exercise on their ain and none of them has a consummate knowledge of the system. According to Zhang, Hong Ya Temple, on the shoulder of Emei Mountain, held all of the written records of the style, which dates back to the Warring States period. But that temple was burned down during the Cultural Revolution, along with endless other temples in Mainland china.

Throughout Chinese history, governments have routinely supported, and and then cracked-downward upon, martial arts

But the Emei Fashion was already expressionless past the fourth dimension the Red Guards showed up. Throughout Chinese history, governments have routinely supported, and then cracked-down upon, martial arts. In times of war, martial artists tin be useful, but in times of peace, a powerful kung fu association tin can exist a liability. In the 17th century, as victorious Qing soldiers chased Ming dynasty sympathizers—generally Han nobleman, Taoists, Buddhists, and martial artists—across the land, entire towns and traditions were uprooted and destroyed. Thousands of martial artists fled to Emei Mount, deep in the interior of the country, and hid out in the folds of the mountains.

"A hundred dissimilar masters representing a hundred dissimilar styles came to mountains like Emei and became monks," he says. "They so secretly taught a few students their secrets, only orally, and simply at night or early in the morn. That was the outset slap-up handful of the styles."

Zhang Shi Zhong in front of the concluding standing gate of Emei Mountain'due south Hong Ya Temple.

Since then it is hard to speak of any lineage in Chinese martial arts that goes back more than a century. Even those that tin trace their lineage dorsum have done so from away, condom from Communist purges. The connection betwixt quondam and new has been broken, and and so far the traditional kung fu masters have not yet figured out how to rebuild information technology.

"The quondam masters left aught behind, and we are getting older, besides. What petty we know, no one wants to learn," said Zhang, as we stood in the shadow of Hong Yan Temple's final gate. "Kung fu is dying."

"I am not really sure that 'dying' is the right metaphor for what is going on right now," says Benjamin Judkins, a professor at the University of Utah and a martial arts scholar. "I would prefer to say that kung fu is 'evolving' in an near Darwinian sense, with everything that this implies regarding competitive selection, differentiation, the development of new forms and the consolidation—or 'extinction'—of some old ones."

MMA fighter and coach Vaughn Anderson. China is hiring foreign coaches to aid their fighters along.

Ren Gang, Political party Secretary of the Sichuan Wushu Association, would concur. Ren was a fellow member of the first grouping of official wushu practitioners to emerge out of the Cultural Revolution with the mandate to re-innovate, re-discover, and revive the ancient art. His 1983 movie, Picayune Heroes, influenced an entire generation of martial artists, including Li Quan and Zhang Shi Zhong.

"I watched that movie countless times every bit a child," Li says. "Every kid wanted to exist a kung fu chief after they watched Little Heroes."

Along with inspiring immature boys to become kung fu masters, Ren also coaches the Sichuan Provincial Wushu Team and organizes fight events in minor towns and cities beyond southwest Red china. His office hands out all belts and titles in the province. Any master who wants to open up an official school, learn state for a schoolhouse, or compete in anything martial arts related has to receive approval from Ren or 1 of Ren's associates. He is likewise a part owner of a company that plans to found ultra-high end Tai Chi-themed spas similar to Taiji Zen, a boutique martial arts concept started by Jet Li and Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of the Alibaba Group.

"History ever moves forward and some things are lost and some things remain," Ren told me. "If you are useful, you will remain, if not, you will disappear."

MMA fighter and motorbus Vaughn Anderson with Zhao Yafei, an MMA fighter with Cathay's RUFF promotion.

For Ren, the sometime traditionalists are dinosaurs unable to wake up to reality. Specialization is the key. Sportification is the trend. The romantic ideal of the one-time kung fu main passing on his clandestine wisdom to a select few disciples has no identify in the modern world, where "undercover manuals" written by 19th century Chinese masters are available in online PDFs and iPhone apps allow anyone to study and practice tai chi sword forms.

Today, most traditional kung fu is either supported by the government'southward Wushu Associations or in a state of steady turn down. Hundreds of schools take disappeared or moved away in the last century, and those that accept remained serve the interests of the country. For China's leadership, a controlled and patriotic Buddhist tradition combined with a manufactured martial lineage going back into legend is a great tool for keeping public order.

Regional circuits in China nonetheless ready fights on a regular basis, only there is no place for that in MMA

The Chinese accept realized that the health and vitality of their martial tradition demands an international presence. Merely the Chinese land has a hard fourth dimension putting together a soft ability package that could promote the country's martial traditions abroad, while still maintaining control. Flatulent yarns about a 5,000-yr-former martial arts heritage, stock-still lucifer scandals, and the poor showing of Chinese fighters on the international stage has the fight community unconvinced that China can produce its own elite fighters.

And so the Chinese are looking abroad for help. The UFC held its The Ultimate Fighter: China event in Macao in March, which led to several Chinese fighters gaining contracts for at least iii fights on a UFC card. That has led to an increase in private gyms offering MMA training, but more importantly, MMA's entry into the Chinese market has likewise had an impact on the Chinese gainsay sports system.

Wang Sai, left, and Zhang Lipeng at this twelvemonth's UFC match in Macao.

Regional circuits in China notwithstanding fix fights on a regular basis, but at that place is no place for that in MMA. The sport itself requires a fighter to be effective in the ring, and the fan base—no matter what country they are from—is accustomed to authentic fights. China'south powerful sports universities, the get-go line in the combat sports industry in China, are slowly establishing MMA training camps, hiring foreign coaches to aid their fighters along, and allowing their Sanda-trained fighters to foray into the MMA scene.

MMA is fascinating in that it breeds a certain type of hungry fighter

For the industry itself, and for the fighters also, profit is the main motivation. Merely MMA is fascinating in that information technology breeds a certain type of hungry fighter. Chinese athletes who choose MMA are choosing the hard road. A typical Sanda fighter volition have his room and board provided for, likewise as regular fights (and therefore a steady paycheck), and the all-time of them have chance to compete for cash at the National Games, or at the almanac Mainland china Fundamental Idiot box-sponsored fight consequence, or fifty-fifty Wulinfeng. MMA does not hand out that kind of paycheck, and yet more and more Chinese fighters are choosing that road. Information technology's not but about money for the new generation of Chinese fighters, it's nigh the dream to be the best, and that is a large change for Chinese martial arts.

MMA fighter and coach Vaughn Anderson with students of Shaolin'south Tagou Wushu Academy.

At the same time, foreign fighters and coaches are moving to Red china to compete on the regional circuit—although sometimes just in sham fights with Chinese fighters—and to passenger vehicle the immature Chinese Sanda athletes who dream of making information technology big on the earth stage. The exchange is interesting not just because of a Chinese fighter who sucks upward enough jiu jitsu moves in iii months to submit his side by side opponent, but also because mixed martial artists from abroad are teaching local fighters and their coaches how to train scientifically, how to include nutrition into their training, and how to constantly introduce.

Perhaps even more telling, the UFC low-cal heavyweight champion Jon Jones recently displayed some Chinese techniques in his victory over Glover Texeira, and Li Jingliang, a well-known fighter in the China MMA globe, recorded the first victory for a Chinese fighter in the UFC last month. Foreigners coming to Red china, with a fascination for kung fu and a scientific arroyo to preparation, may provide a fresh await into an one-time art. In fact, the arrival of mixed martial arts—with an ethos of innovation and actuality—may practise more for the revival of traditional kung fu in Prc than all of the state-sponsored programs combined.