"A Brief History Of Karate
& Gung-Fu"
by Tommy Morris
Gung-fu
This art originated some 2000 years ago in China and is the ancestor of all Eastern "boxing" type arts, including karate. Strictly speaking Gung-fu means only exercise, though the art is known in the East also as Ch'uan-fa or Kempo, which approximates in meaning to what boxing means to a Westerner. Once it was practised by Buddhist monks as a means of strengthening their physiques and maintaining good health, they also attached to it a mystical significance. Gung-fu secret societies formed the nucleus of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and they succeeded in convincing the peasants that an adept was invulnerable to Western bullets. Unfortunately for them this was not so.
The techniques of Gung-fu are not very different from those of karate, though in most Gung-fu systems high kicks are rarely used.
Karate
Karate is the best known of the boxing type arts and has by far the greatest number of practitioners in the West. Modern karate evolved in...