Essentials of Chinese Wushu, English, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1995
About authors: Wu Bin, President of the Technical Committee of the Wushu Federation of Asia and Director of Teaching and Research Section of the Wushu Research Institute of China, Li Xingdong, Wushu researcher, and Yu Gongbao, Qigong researcher.
Wushu (also known as kung-fu or martial arts) is one of the typical demonstrations of traditional Chinese culture. It is a sport which utilizes both brawn and brain.
Wushu is not only a sporting exercise but also an artistic form. It is used to cure illness as well as for self-defence and is a comprehensive form of culture of the human body.
The authors give a simple and clear introduction to the history and characteristic features of Chinese Wushu; its health-keeping effects and entertaining value, various schools and styles of Chinese boxing, and weapons, and Chinese Wushu's morality, etiquette and competition rules.
This book also introduces over 30 different schools of Chinese boxing and almost the same number of apparatus, including short apparatus, long apparatus, hard apparatus, soft apparatus and hidden weapons used in ancient China.
Included in this book are some 70 pictures, from which readers can vividly see graceful postures of various kinds of Chinese boxing and Wushu apparatus.
Contents
- General Description
- Content and Classification
- Schools of Chinese Boxing
- Weapons
- Martial Ethics and Etiquette
- Competitions
The skills of Chinese wushu consist of various forms of fighting: fist fights, weapon fights, and other fighting routines (including such offence and defence acts as kicking, hitting, throwing, holding, chopping and thrusting) and unarmed combats. According to Statistics, there are over 100 schools of Chinese boxing alone. Many individual styles within each of these schools.
Yongchun Quan (Eternal Youth Boxing) originated in Fujian Province, later spreading south to Guangdong, Macao and Hong Kong. Yongchun Quan is just one of a number of styles under the general term, Nan Quan, the Southern School of Boxing, a vigorous and aggressive school popular south of the Yangtze River. Of the many styles of Nan Quan, the most well-known are Hongjia Quan, Liujia Quan, Caijia Quan, Lijia Quan, and Mojia Quan, "the Five Great Schools." Other schools of Nan Quan are: Tiger and Crane Boxing, Eternal Youth Boxing, Knight Boxing, Hakka Boxing, Buddhist Boxing, White-Eyebrow Boxing, Confucian Boxing, Souther Skills Boxing, Kunlun Boxing, House of Kong Boxing, Han-Exercising Boxing, Diao School of Teaching, Yue School of Teaching, and Song School of Teaching.
Bei Quan, the Northern School of Boxing is a generic term for those schools in the provinces north of the Yangtze River. Characterized by speed and strength, the Northern School emphasizes variations of kicking and footwork, hence the common saying "Southern fists, Northern legs." The major styles of the Northern School are: Shaolin Boxing, Wheeling Boxing, Zha School of Boxing, Essence Boxing, Flower Boxing, Cannon Boxing, Hong School of Boxing, Full-Arm Boxing, Maze Boxing, Six-Harmony Boxing, Springing Legs, Jabbing Feet, Eigh-Ultimate Boxing, Great Ancestor Extended Boxing and Silk Floss Boxing.
There also the popular Taiji Quan and Chang Quan, the energetic Xingyi Quan (Imitation Boxing), the flowing Bagua Quan, the vivid Hou Quan (Monkey Boxing) and Zui Quan (Drunken Boxing), the acrobatic Ditang Quan (Tumbling Boxing), and more. Each has its own characteristic skills.
Chinese wushu involves practice with weapons as well as the standard bare-hand skills. "Weaponry" includes nine kinds of long weapons and nine short, such as knives, spears, swords, and clubs, which together constitute what is called the "Eighteen Types of Martial Arts." The majority of these weapons have been adapted from traditional weapons, hence the use of the term the "eighteen military weapons." This term was already widely used during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The Ming novel, Outlaws of the Marsh mentioned it frequently. One version of the book records the "eighteen military weapons" as the lance, mallet, long bow, crossbow, jingal, jointed bludgeon, truncheon, sword, chain, hooks, hatchet, dagger-axe, battle-axe, halberd, shield, staff, spear and rake. Today, the term generally refers to the broad-sword, lance, rapier, halberd, hatchet, battle-axe, shovel, fork, jointed bludgeon, truncheon, hammer, harrow, trident, staff, long-blade spear, cudgel, dagger-axe and wave-bladed spear. This is only a general term, since military weapons were never restricted to just eighteen forms. Other weapons frequently used include the rope-dart, Emei dagger named after the Emei Mountain in Sichuan Province from which the style originated, as well as the bent-handled club and hook. Today, the wide variety of weapons used in wushu practice fall into four groups: 1. Long Weapons: Longer than the height of a person and wielded with both hands during practice. They include the lance, staff, great broad-sword, spear, halberd, fork, trident and spade. 2. Short Weapons: Shorter than the height of a person and wielded with one hand. These include the broad-sword, rapier, hatchet, hammer, truncheon, jointed bludgeon, dagger and shield. 3. Soft weapons: Rope, chains, or rings are used to create linked weapons which are able to strike close or far and are wielded with one or both hands. They include the nine-sectioned chain, three-sectioned flail, flying hammers which is tow iron balls linked by a long iron chain, the rope dart, flying claw and the ordinary flail. 4. Twin weapons: Here a pair of weapons are wielded, one in each hand. These include twin broad-swords, handled clubs, twin lances, twin hatchets, twin daggers, double-bladed daggers, Panguanbi (Twin rods with fist-shaped heads) and duck and drake battle-axes.
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