Inner Peace? Olympic Sport? A Fight Brews
Kung Fu's Absence From Games Reflects Divide Over Art Form
By IAN JOHNSON
August 20, 2008; Page A14
MOUNT WUDANG, China -- At the Olympics in Beijing, spectators have been treated to the flips, kicks and punches of judo from Japan and taekwondo from Korea.
China's Martial Artists Getting Their Kicks
But except for an unofficial competition due to begin Thursday in the capital, they won't have seen any martial arts from China, even though Asian martial arts originated in Chinese fighting styles widely known as kung fu.
Why that is could be put down to the usual reasons that any sport is kept out of the Olympics. Some say the Games are already bursting at the seams and can't host another sport -- 302 events are on tap this year in Beijing. Others say Chinese martial arts aren't popular enough internationally to warrant inclusion.
But travel to this cloud-covered mountain in central China and you are confronted with a more central question: How do you make a sport out of something that might not really be a sport? And if you try, what do you risk losing?
Mount Wudang is one of the centers of Chinese martial arts, which are more accurately known as wushu. The mountain is home to a bevy of Taoist temples, many dedicated to Zhenwu, the Perfected Warrior. Legend has it that tai chi shadow boxing was revealed to a Taoist alchemist while he slept here. The mountain's fame spread internationally when dramatic fighting scenes in the film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" were shot on its slopes.
Yet the form of martial arts practiced here -- and in many parts of China -- are hardly of the punch-'em-up variety. Students learn to kick and spin and punch, but the goal isn't so much to knock down opponents as to use the physical activity to achieve a meditative inner peace, a cultivation of the mind.
"There aren't a lot of fancy, rehearsed actions in Wudang martial arts," says Chen Lisheng, a Taoist and martial-arts instructor. "It is humble and plain. It starts from the nature of the human being."
That was a problem for China's ambitious sports administrators. During the 1990s, they began to organize wushu with an eye toward adding them to the Olympics. They identified 129 schools of fighting but realized this was too complicated. So forms were mixed together and stripped down. The inner cultivation was jettisoned. The slow movements were discarded and the more theatrical side played up. The result is part gymnastics and part boxing: A competitor is judged on a set of routines he performs on the mat alone, like a floor exercise, and he spars with another competitor, both in boxing gloves.
"It's a question of how do you transform a traditional art form into a competitive sport," says Nancy Chen, an anthropologist at University of California, Santa Cruz, who has written on the topic. "Or can you?"
Officials at the China Wushu Association concede they have had to make major compromises. The association's general director, Kang Gewu, says the entire idea of competition is foreign to Chinese martial arts. Traditionally, martial artists didn't compete against each other, and there was no ranking or points system. "It owes something to the forces of market economics," he says.
But the idea was correct, he says. If wushu is to join the international sporting world, then it must become like other judged sports. That means standard routines so judges can award points and winners be identified. Cultivating one's inner soul is fine, but how can judges give points for that, he asks.
Mount Wudang's Taoist martial-arts masters are supportive of the government's overall thrust. "We want to popularize wushu, too," says Mr. Chen. But the way it is being done leaves something to be desired, he says.
Mr. Chen explains what he means during a visit to an institute of Taoist studies to meet students. Officials invested $100 million in an institute that teaches the Taoist classics, music, art and martial arts. But none of the students learn the government's version of wushu because instructors deem it too simple.
Mr. Chen enters a courtyard and surveys young Taoists practicing martial arts. Mr. Chen nods appreciatively as the three young men, their shoulder-length hair tied up in knots on their head, perform "Crouching Tiger Fist," a complicated series of slow moves punctuated by explosive kicks and punches.
"The key isn't the punches," he says, "it's the stuff in between. It's the breathing, the way they move their feet, their attitude." By contrast, government-sponsored wushu competitions "cater to society's needs nowadays," he says. "It tries to satisfy the demands from the public."
Another prominent Taoist martial artist, Shi Fei, is less diplomatic. "Competitive wushu is pretty, but it's empty," he says. Mr. Shi left Mount Wudang 10 years ago to open a school at the foot of the mountain. His 20 or so students learn only traditional wushu.
"Children can learn the government form of wushu," he says. "It's fine for beginners. But no one who really wants to learn wushu learns that. It's like a show."
The lack of support is reflected in the China Wushu Association's difficulty in getting its sport into the Olympics.
"Virtually nobody outside of China performs their form of wushu," says Stanley Henning, an independent academic who has written widely on Asian martial arts. "It's like a dance routine."
Officially, there is an International Wushu Federation, but its officials are all Chinese and its address is the same as Mr. Kang's China Wushu Federation. It is sponsoring an international competition that begins Thursday, but it doesn't have sanctioning by the International Olympic Committee.
One problem, Mr. Henning says, is that Japan and Korea beat China to the punch. While China was caught up in political turmoil, Japan got judo accepted in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and South Korea got taekwondo accepted in the 1988 Seoul Games. Wushu has had a hard time defining itself because those two sports -- which primarily involve throwing, kicking and punching -- have already covered most of the basic fighting techniques of wushu.
Back on Mount Wudang, Taoist Master Shi is taking his students through their paces. He pulls out one, a boy of 10, and has him perform that national standard form. The boy jumps around the square, kicking his legs up and punching into the air.
"Now watch this," he says and instructs the boy to do "Xing Yi," a style that might be translated as "form with meaning." The boy stands with legs apart, bends his knees and lowers his center of gravity. He moves his legs slowly, like a fighter gauging his opponent. Then with a quick whirl he lashes his leg around like a roundhouse punch.
"Guess which one is better in a real street fight?" Mr. Chen asks, a smirk breaking out beneath his small mustache. "It might be slow, but our ancestors handed us this down for a reason."
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