Gong Fu Cha - or what does the Chinese tea ceremony have to do with martial arts?

When you hear the term gong fu, you first wonder how making tea is related to martial arts.

However, the word kung fu means more than just martial arts. The most basic meaning of the term relates to the words "art," "skill," and "effort."

Surely you have come across a wide variety of Gong Fu scripts. Here are the most common examples:

• Kung Fu
• gung fu
• Gong Fu
• Goong Goo

All variations lead back to the same Chinese characters:

kung fu

• Gong = achievement stands for work - effort - diligence - artistry
• was =husband means quality - skill acquired through long practice

In summary, one could say Gong Fu means something like "The art of doing something very well and further improving one's skills".

Tea

• Of = Tea means tea

To learn Chinese martial arts skills, students go through a demanding training program. The kung fu students are required to have a strong will, perseverance, patience and discipline when learning the exercises. 

In general, the term gong fu or kung fu describes how to acquire a skill with hard effort and perseverance.

Another good example is the practice of Chinese calligraphy, which requires a lot of gong fu to be able to do it to perfection.

Jackie Chan summed it up very well with one sentence, which I definitely don't want to withhold from you: 

“Kung fu lives in everything we do. It lives in how we put on a jacket and how we take off a jacket. It lives in how we treat people. Everything is kung fu”

Jackie Chan

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