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Follow us on FacebookCrowdfunded project uses 3D motion capture to catalog ancient Kung Fu styles
@ 2014/08/22The influence of Hong Kong action cinema stars like Bruce Lee lives on in today's cinema, but the ancient styles they based their techniques on are slowly dying out. There's now a crowdfuding project aimed at preserving the heritage of different Kung Fu fighting styles, called the Hong Kong Martial Arts Living Archive. It's a collaboration between a martial arts society called the International Guoshu Association (IGU) and the City University of Hong Kong. The goal is to use photos, high-speed video, panoptic video and motion capture to capture and quantize the different techniques.
The project organizers believe that fighting styles like Hung Kuen and Wing Kong from the south of China, along with various northern styles, are best preserved in Hong Kong. That's because many of the Kung Fu masters from the nation's north and south converged on Hong Kong due to political instability on the mainland around the turn of the 20th century.
The project organizers believe that fighting styles like Hung Kuen and Wing Kong from the south of China, along with various northern styles, are best preserved in Hong Kong. That's because many of the Kung Fu masters from the nation's north and south converged on Hong Kong due to political instability on the mainland around the turn of the 20th century.
