Wushu Needs Name Rectification

[Shaolinlueb]

for me, the only people i have seen seperate kung fu and wushu are the traditionalist. the modern wushu people seem to call it all wushu. but the traditionalist's are the ones that make a big deal out of it. this has been my experience.

[Kristoffer]

Modern Wushu gets all the flexible chicks though..

[SPJ]

Some perspectives from students of CMA from Taiwan. They are trained in the old ways.

Wu Xue= Wu Su + Wu Yi.

Wu Xue is the study of fighting, warfare, combat, tactics, strategy, history, geography, weapons, open hand combat, soldiering, commanding, morales, supplies, weather, -- everything about how, why, people fight.

Wu Su is the techniques of fighting: open hand, weapon, in groups of people etc.

Wu Yi is the arts of fightings. Not just study of the method and techniques of fighting but also theories and principles and derivations of new techniques etc.

Wu Xue >>> Wu Yi> Wu Su.

So arts are called Yi + Su.

Xue is the study of Yi and Su. Or all the knowledge of Yi and Su and all related topics, medicine, anatomy, physiology, pyschology etc, a scholarly study.

[SPJ]

There are 3 developments of CMA in China.

A. There are research committee setup for each school of style. Ba Gua Zhang research commitee in Bei Jing. Chen Tai Ji in Chen Jia Gou. Wu style Ba Ji in Meng Cu etc. There are books and vcd published with all the info of original training, history, theories, forms researched and compiled. The students and teachers are linage bearers usually.

B. Wu shu and PE curricullum from high schools to colleges. There are some in depth studies and but not as good as those in A. For example, Tai Ji would be the composite 27, 48 forms. Shaolin Xiao Hong was reduced 50% and became the Shaolin WU SHU intro studies, etc.

C. Wu shu demo and GYM comp are just DEMO and GYM comp. The rules are changing all the time. The central and local organizations are renamed and changed all the time. And yes they are more limited from B. They may call it Wu Shu Academy. If there are not A or B. Then it is the C. It is only for promotion, demo and comp as such. International events are even more limited. Gun Shu routine or staff is composite to be flashy and flowery. It does have the essence of fighting. But showy is stressed. Nan Quan and Chang Quan are adopted initially. Eventually from A and B, they hope to have more representations of all schools of styles, such as Tang Lang, Pi gua, Ba Ji , Tong Bei, Ba Gua, etc. Swordplay or Dao and Jian Shu are limited and formulated already. All the southern boxing such as CLF, etc from the last 400 years are "lumped" or studied as Nan Quan already.

So there are 2 ways or paths. The old school preservation and improvement. The modern lumping and composite studies.

There are 3 forms or routes, which are A. B. C. mentioned above.

They are to involve more public and the rest of the world to study CMA.

And you may guess right.

I and many others old schoolers are always in the A from day 1.

Such as Cheng Ting Hua Ba Gua, Zhang Xiang San 7 stars and Liu He Tang Lang, Liu Yun Qiao Ba Ji and Pi Gua, etc

Edit: Dong Hai Zhuang->Cheng Ting Hua. Zhang Xiang San is linage holder of Ding Zhi Cheng' Liu He although Dang Xiang Ling, Liu Yun Qiao and many others also study Liu He with Ding etc.

Peace.

[Wang Rui Xuan]

Poorly planned, poorly written, obviously skewed!

In the beginning the author makes a case for the umbrella term ‘wushu’ being too broad, too confusing, and even in need of a name rectification. He references its long history of development in China and the current existence various ‘diversified sectors’ as creating confusion. He states that the term wushu is in need of more systematic and definitive analysis.

But after reading it I didn’t see anything more than pointless semantics, broad sweeping generalizations, out of context examples, and an in-conclusive conclusion.

Where in any of the entire article did the author draw clear distinctions between the various sectors existing within the umbrella term ‘wushu’. I noticed that in two occasions he made reference to wushu as representing a large multi-faceted science of sport, combat, health, medicine, philosophy, culture, and so on. But that is where it ended. Why didn’t he further examine and explore each one, the obvious ones being combat, sport, and health. Did the author achieve his quest of definitively addressing the various market components of wushu?

The conclusion was well….inconclusive. After stating in his introduction that the term wushu, was too broad, too confusing, and in need of ‘name rectification’, he concludes that the term ‘wushu’ is actually just fine as is. He says that it is impossible to separate wushu from it’s long history and multi-faceted phases of development. Did the author answer or address his original question? Doesn't look like it. Maybe I missed something.

Do you think the author:
a) Knows perfectly fine what the differences are but doesn’t say
b) Is a stakeholder in supporting and promoting international competitive wushu
c) Is a poor writer
d) All of the above

Best regards,
Wang Rui Xuan

[Wang Rui Xuan]

Woflen is on his 'communist' rant again, and obviously keeping in tune with conventional political analysis. He references that anyone who doubts him and his crack China analysis 'just refer to weekly CNN or Time magazine'. That was classic stuff Wolfen!

Almost as good as our 'Western idea of equal opportunity and equal standards for all'. I'm guessing you won't be climbing the corporate ladder anytime soon. But keep beleiving!

Best regard,
Wang Rui Xuan

[Brad]

An laoshi defenitely refers to all Chinese martial arts when saying "wushu". In fact, he's primarilly a traditionalist and doesn't seem to particularly care for the direction sport wushu has taken in recent years. Aparently, some of the old rules that kept it closer to traditional that An laoshi helped develop have been changed. So now rather than develop strong traditional basics the athletes are more like gymnasts.

I'd like to know more about the dates (i.e. pre and post 1949) and the leadership or bosses, of the development of modern Wushu in China, both the "Wushu gymnastic" and the "Wushu Composite" and whatever else can be categorized.
Were they lumping Wushu styles and modyfiing techniques for performance esthetics pre-1949?

I can give a very brief rundown, but it's hard to find too many specific details. I know two people who were competitors in the 1950's, and back then competitions were traditional wushu. In 1961 a standardized chang quan form was created for competition. Basically, this form was used as a qualifier and in the finals the athlete would use their traditional area of expertese. I'm not sure if there was any fighting competitions going on during this time. I know my teacher fought quite a bit with barehands and weapons, but I'm not sure if he did any of that competitively. When the cultural revolution hit, all wushu was banned except for a few people who were used as propaganda tools(and military/police, of course). I think Jet Li and some other youngsters were allowed to train and were taught by a select few high quality teachers. I think An Tian Rong and Ma Xian Da were both involved in training these kids and An laoshi's former classmate Pan Qing Fu was involved as a police officer of some kind. I'm not positive when An laoshi was teaching the kids or what his situation was like during this entire time. I've never bothered to ask. They ended up developing very very stong traditional basics, and would learn what a technique is suposed to be used for, but I doubt the government would've allowed them to learn any real fight training (officially at least). Though someone like Jet Li could handle himself ok, he's not really a fighter(by his own words). Wouldn't want their little stars to get hurt After the cultural revolution died out all martial arts were allowed again though many chose (and still do choose) to keep anything application based secret for a select few or just let that part die out. I'd probably do that too if I'd been persecuted by my own government for practicing martial arts. Anyway, while some sport wushu continued to be close to its traditional roots(the first set of international compulsories was mostly straight up Cha Quan techniques, and An laoshi had students able to win with kick ass traditional baji), you also had all these guys now teaching wushu without application to the public. These no application guys go on to become coaches, judges, etc. and now everything in mainland sport wushu looks the same. A lot of the real traditional guys have moved elsewhere(like here in the U.S.) or been drivin from the sport like the other 1950's era competitor that I know. Now the rules are being changed because a bunch of people who don't know real wushu are now in charge. It got to a point where the athletes all had great basics and the forms were too hard to judge. So what do they do? Rather than make the forms more complicated and technique based they take the easy way out and come up with really difficult acrobatic moves that have nothing to do with anything. The last set of standardized international forms reinforced this idea scraping the superior technique of the previous sets and focusing on increasing physical difficulty(though my old classmates still found the old forms harder). Now there is no compulsory forms or even a standard uniform so it'll be interesting to see if some try to go back to basics developing their own unique styles or if they try to play catch up with China still and go for high difficulty moves. Personally, I've given up on forms competition stuff and I think An laoshi has pretty much retired from teaching those kinds of competition forms.

If you read it you can see the only concern is in winning competitions.
They practice for that moment they are before a judge watching their performance.
Things like "road work" are dismissed because they don't help jumpng and are a waste of time. He says "BIG WASTE OF TIME. We are doing martial arts but we are not in the Military."

You jump to conclusions. Everyone has their own training routine. For example, he says don't waste your time with running(I assume that's what you are refering to by "road work"?). My former classmates and the Beijing team both do LOTS of running. Everyone's different. A surprising number of U.S. wushu people I know spar. I actually know more modern wushu people who fight, than traditional kungfu people, lol. There's a lot of variation and different groups of people doing different things.

[GeneChing]

Thank you, Brad, I was hoping that someone would recognize the name of the author, An Tianrong. And thank all of the rest of you for what is becoming a rather intriguing discussion. To be honest, I wasn't really that into this article, but I have such respect for Master An and he has another submission coming which we hope to publish this week, that relies on this one to set it up. Why wasn't I into it? Well, because I don't think you can 'rectify' language in America. Why did I still publish it? I publish plenty of articles that I'm not 'into' - that's what publishers do. We try to illicit dialog and progress the art. Now that this article has been so fruitful, I'm really into it and my respect for An Tianrong has increased even more.

As for my stance on this, I've always enjoyed modern wushu. I even dabbled in it during my college years. But I'm past the age where I can pursue it as a serious practice. What's more, I never possessed the kind of athleticism it requires. That being said, I've always felt that people who condemn wushu as a threat to traditional were just wimpy, myopic traditionalists. Sure, wushu was part of a government program and that government was communist. Sure, during the Cult. Rev. 30 years ago, the four olds were persucuted, inlcuding all arts, not just martial arts. And sure, things aren't the way they used to be. But there's room enough in the CMA world for all styles. There's room for traditional and there's room for sport wushu. There's even room for hippie tai chi (in fact, that's where the money is ). In America, the CMA world is very small when you compare it to the TKD world. We can grow in all directions. Now, I just went to the First World Traditional Wushu Festival in Zhengzhou last Oct. and there was plenty of traditional. That was not just from the over 2000 competitors (and even more observers) that came from all around the world to participate. It was also from many of the provincial teams. A lot of old masters came out - old masters who've probably never set foot out of China - and they had some very interesting traditional stuff. If you want to do something good for traditional martial arts, condemning wushu does nothing. It's mudslinging. It makes us all look bad. Better to go forth and represent. Don't tell me what the other lack. Show me what you got. There was a tremendous amount of exchange at that Trad. fest. Even if you don't beleive that traditional can still exist in PRC, there were traditionalists from outside exchanging skills. One could say that this is putting traditional back into China, but most of the exchange that I saw went the other way - it was non-PRC people finding their roots.

[cam]

What exactly is Hippy Tai Chi, that's not a family style I'm aware of

[PangQuan]

I like to look life from a scaled down perspective sometimes. As in the situation of traditionality in CMA dying off. I dont think this is possible. As with children and parents. The parent will never be able to completely control the child. There will always be things the child will do that the parent will never know, or be able to stop. We, as "the people", are our governments children. We are ruled, by and provided by our governments. Although they may set down the rules, it is entirely up to the individual as to how far they shall adhere to these rules.

You may drop a polished stone into the puddle of mud, though the stone is surrounded by filth, it in fact, is still a polished stone.

Being an American, it can sometimes be difficult to find this stone. Fortunately, it is possible for me to see the world as a whole on a level many other countries are not fully capable of. I find such joy in being able to take upon myslef studies of other cultures, and have at my disposal, so much of the literary works that the world, as a whole, has published into the public eyes.

It is through this method that I derive what I feel to be best for me. I personally do not like to stick to one side of the fence. I much like to walk along the top, able to gape at both sides. East and west combine and create a more satisfying whole. Old and new collide and create the picture of actuality.

I may live life rather phylisophically, yet at the same time I have a firm grasp of my surroundings and understand what it is I view.

Of course each and everyone of us are all led upon a path of deception within our lives. We can only hope that we are able to identify this path before it is too late. It is with this intuitive human nature, that will enable us to persevere through the times and hold onto what we most treasure. For some that treasure will be the traditional methods in which they were raised.

So, phylisophically, by this reasoning. (not saying it is true) It is impossible for traditional martial arts to die out.

[SPJ]

I totally dig where Wolfen is coming from.

And agreed with Pang Quan.

During the culture revolution, there are only 10 plays allowed. They are called stereotype dramas or Yang Ban Xi. They were all about commie revolution. There is only book which is the little red book or Mao Yu Lu. All the other books were burned or banned.

True. Government is promoting Wushu to be like Judo or TKD into the Olympics.

Who cares?

MTV one or II may promote Britney or M&M. There are still many musicians writing and singing.

There is no way to say only Britney and M&M are singers allowed.

CMA or any arts are all from the people for the people.

Some like hip hop. I like beethoven, mozarts and bach.

You like Wush gym. I like my Chen Tai Ji.

So what?

[SPJ]

A link to a Wushu event last year.

Wushu comp 2004

Qian Shu is spear.

Jian Shu is straight sword.

Dao Shu is broad sword.

Nan Quan is southern boxing.

Chang Quan is long boxing.

etc.

It is WU Shu comp.

And TCMA is not dead.

Peace.

[Wang Rui Xuan]

I don’t’ think it is an issue of WHO is promoting ‘modern wushu’. Nor is it an issue of WHICH is superior, traditional or modern wushu.

The key issue seems to be more of HOW 'modern' is being MARKETED by formal organizaitons and schools, in an OVER GENERALIZED manner.

From both sides I will say that there is an obvious a lack of understanding. But my own personal feeling is that there seems to be more confusion stemming from modern wushu groups. Personally I've seen a number of 'modern' teachers who for fear of loosing students and the monetary reprocussions fail to explain the differences between the two to their students. This in itself is producing more conrfusion.

In the end though dedicated students in either or who train hard and do thier homework know very well what the differences are. Lazy students in both traditional and modern wushu haven't got a clue. Egotistical knob heads will continue create confusion. We see a all types on this thread.

Personally I think both are great, but without a doubt they produce two completely different kinds of athletes with different skills sets. Just depends which one you want, and how bad you want it.

[SPJ]

Too much idealogue may blind you the reality.

True. CCP wants to control every organization over 100 people.

True. CCP wants to survive in the ever changing so fast Chinese and global society in the 21 th century. And Vietnam, Cuba and north Korea are struggling.

The ideology is postponed indefinately by Deng.

Black cat, white cat? If it catches a mouse, it is a good cat.

The 4 insistences is window dressing. Everyone knows communism is dead and buried. The economy bankrupt China and hunger milions. The Great Leap Forward and Cultural revolution are lessons enough. The 4 gangs or Si Ren Bang already "tried" and "judged".

Everything takes time over the stability of 1.3 billion people.

CCP changed faster and faster then you can imagine.

Jiang 8 points are dismantled very quickly by Hu and Wen 4 points.

CCP and China are changing.

CCP tries to survive to continue the lead. But for how long? Nobody knows.

To change for everyone, not just CCP or China but Nafta, EU as well.

The globe is changing very fast.

The cold war mentality is outdated 30 years in China since 1976. Or After Mao passing.

---

[SPJ]

Wushu is oked.

The Olympics in Berlin in the 30's. Chinese Kung Fu was demo.

How do you involve all of the world into Wushu? That is the big question.

We need a format.

The routines may evolve. The rules may be change.

We need a format or a platform to start.

It has to be easy in getting all countries interested. How many athletes or countries needed to get into the O?

If you take the high road of TCMA; such as years of training?

Who is going to do it? You and any other oceaners? Or no taker.

True. TCMA feels sold out.

It is like to hip hop or rap the bach and beethoven remix.

Once you have enough crowd, you may start to rebuild the TCMA pyramid.

This is called united fronts or Tong Yi Zhan Xien.

I have nothing against Wu Shu.

I see it as the initial easier step for all.

A small step in the right direction.

And it is not the only step.

Peace.