What is Sanshou? Is it a style of its own or free fighting concepts of traditional styles?

Is it a fighting style of its own or is it the free fighting concepts of kung fu styles like Jow Gar or Choy Li Fut etc?


If its the later than Sanshou fighters are trained in traditional arts and the free fighting aspects that can be used in the cage?


Examples like Cung Le, Zhang Tie Quan, Liu Hailong and Bao Li Gao.|||To my understanding, Sanshou is a combination of two Chinese words meaning "Gift or Free"(San) and "Hand"(Shou), put together they are interpreted as a Gift of hand or Free hand, which refers to an exchange of technique between two skilled practitioners or simply put, a sparring session. When two masters of Kung Fu decide to spar, they are basically showing each other their favorite techniques which in turn gives the other guy a chance to know how to defeat him next time after having seen his style of fighting. In the old days when a practitioner says he engages in Sanshou he means he spars with different masters regularly in a formal match. Today, it is meant as a format or a stage in Kung Fu training where a practitioner pressure tests his skills. It is I believe the equivalent of the Japanese term Kumite or an MMA match. When a fighter is referred to as a Sanshou fighter, it's just like calling a martial artist a Kumite fighter or an MMA fighter.|||It's a training and competitive format. I believe it's taught as a "style" of fighting in mainland China in that when they train San Shou fighters, they don't teach them any preexisting martial arts style, but other than that, it's simply the sparring format for Chinese martial arts. San Shou fighters may come from any background.|||its actually a fighting style..a very dangerous 1 at that...my fav muay thai fighter cung li studied san shou and is vicious... i loved watching his fights...look him up and u'll c just how dangerous san shou really is... i've been watching him since i was oooh i'd say 12...he was the reason i got into muay thai...hope i helped a lil..in muay thai i studied muay boran ( its where u use hemp rope around ur fists ) but ive never studied san shou though but i know what it is cuz of cung li's background history...|||Like you said.





It's free fighting concepts from Classical Arts.





And it is not something new.