As a kid, I did a few weeks of Karate, and in High School, I took a night class in Akido. Neither of them worked well enough for me to continue the effort. I was probably just the impatient American, but so be it.
I didn't really start Martial Arts until I was 31. One of my co-workers had done Martial Arts since he was young, and had fought off three gentlemen (one armed with a knife) who requested that he hand over all the money he had to buy his family their Christmas presents. He was very excited about the opportunity to study Southern White Crane under Jeff Bolt. I told him that when he joined up, I'd go with him. It was basically the only way I knew at the time to find a legitimate teacher.
The things I saw in the school convinced me that Kung Fu was dramatically different from the garbage I'd tried before. After almost three years with Jeff Bolt, my friend Jamie became ill. I dropped out thinking that we'd start back together and be on the same page. I'm not the easiest guy to train with, and in addition to being able to put up with me, Jamie was also my same height and weight (as well as a fan of excessive Fa Jing).
Alas, Jamie never recovered from his illness and passed away at age 30. I tried to go back, but got caught up between two instructors who couldn't agree on how I should run forms. After three years of Kung-Fu I was interested in working on sparring and advanced forms. Two hour long classes on Lim Bu Chen (pardon my spelling) for the rest of my Kung-Fu career weren't worth either my time or money.
Thankfully, Bloodybirds approached me and gave me a chance to focus on footwork, sparring, and techniques that would allow me to properly condition myself and become an effective fighter instead of a performance artist.
I don't claim to be the most worldly guy on the planet, but having viewed some other systems, and attended some ATA events, I can make the following observations:
Kung-Fu is a BIG TENT! Wrestiling, Grappling, punches, kicks, weapons, health, medicine... it's all in there. So much in fact, that I doubt I'd be able to cover it all in the few short decades I've got left on the planet.
Kung-Fu presents it's practitioners with the ability to DEFEND as well as ATTACK. I'd say that some arts focus on attack due to their lack of ability to defend.  |