What exactly is China Wushu?

The following is Professor Ma Mingda's speech in the lecture room: I think it is the best interpretation of China Wushu:

Wushu is a very fascinating topic, because it is a very important part of our traditional culture, and Wushu has many mysterious colors, and everyone is always willing to talk about it. There are many contemporary martial arts novels, so there are many martial arts films, which also leads us to become more and more interested in martial arts.

We always say that Wushu has a long history and profound knowledge. The so-called long history means its history, which has gone through a very long development process. This shows that it is a deep-rooted culture, not a sudden phenomenon.

So to say that it is profound means that it is broad and profound, and its content is rich, huge and profound, so I will mainly talk about my understanding from these two aspects.

Speaking of a long history, I think it is easier to understand. It means that our Wushu has a long history, which is in step with the 5,000-year history of our Chinese nation. But specifically, when did Wushu come into being? This is a very academic and difficult question to answer.

To put it simply, we think that at least in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Wushu has formed a relatively complete structure. Some characteristics of our modern Wushu were universal at that time.

What was the most important content of Wushu in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period? This is a sword that we are all familiar with. At that time, sword was the highlight of Wushu culture. As far as swords are concerned, there have been professional swordsmen in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. For example, Sima Qian once said that his ancestor Sima Qian's branch in the state of Zhao once passed on swords. Is to teach fencing and become a local celebrity. At that time, in addition to the sword, the folk non-military unarmed combat technology was also very developed, and an early form of boxing in China appeared, called unarmed combat. In fact, hand-to-hand combat is hand-to-hand, and this word is still in use today. Then in the Han Dynasty, we had the first official catalogue, or our official system, which is also known as the History of Hanshu Art and Literature. There is a classification of military books in Hanshu Yiwenzhi, which is called military technologists. This martial arts expert has not only some ancient martial arts works, such as Kendo and Handball, but also various specialized works on archery. We can say with certainty that the contents of these books should be earlier than the Han Dynasty. It is a symbol. At least before the Han Dynasty, China's martial arts actually matured after the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period, the Qin Dynasty and the early Western Han Dynasty. And this maturity just marks that it has experienced a very long-term development process.

China has been a unified multi-ethnic country since ancient times, and the conflict and blending of national cultures have permeated the whole process of our history. Therefore, Wushu, a cultural phenomenon, is actually gradually formed in the communication, integration, re-conflict and re-integration of the Chinese nation with the Han nationality as the main body. This inevitably determines the complexity of its structure. It is its numerous schools. As we all know, there are many schools of martial arts. Then there are many ethnic minority things in it, which happens to be one of the most noteworthy cultural characteristics of Wushu. It can be said to be an advantage.

Second, our country has never existed in isolation in the world. We are studying with neighboring countries, even with further Europe, and even with current scholars. Did our ancestors arrive in America long ago? We are constantly communicating with other cultures, so-called foreign cultures or foreign cultures. This kind of communication has an impact on the overall culture of our Chinese nation, and so does martial arts. Then there will be external factors in Wushu, which will also have an impact on the complexity of Wushu structure.

For example, Shaolin, which we are most familiar with, is now called Shaolin Boxing, or Shaolin Kung Fu, and even China Wushu comes from Shaolin. As we all know, Shaolin is famous for two reasons. One is that it is the ancestral home of the so-called Zen Buddhism.

Second, its martial arts, especially those of the Ming Dynasty, are outstanding. Then, in the so-called Shaolin Kung Fu system represented by Shaolin Temple, there are external factors and the influence of Buddhist culture. Why is it foreign? As we all know, it is not the culture of China, but the culture introduced into China from India. Then many things related to this, many specific technical contents, should have external factors.

Then in its development process, Wushu has been called Wushu for a long period of time. In fact, it was not until the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China that the word Wushu was chosen, or as we all know, after the Republic of China 16, we called it national martial arts. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, we definitely used the word martial arts, but as we all know, overseas, in many areas where overseas Chinese live together, it is also called Kung Fu. These names are very different, each name has its own reasons, and there are many cultural factors behind it. So in our history, for a long time, it was called Wushu. Why is it called martial arts? Because in ancient China, Wushu was mainly used in the army, which meant that Wushu had many functions. In short, we have at least four functions.

The first function is the function of offensive and defensive fighting, the second function is the function of strengthening the body, and the third function is the function of practice and appreciation, which we can even call artistic function. The fourth function, which is often mentioned, is composed of these four aspects.

So which function has its dominant position? It is different in different historical periods. In ancient times, for a long time, its function should be said to be mainly offensive and defensive fighting, serving the military. Because the feudal country was still earlier than the feudal country, in the early days of slavery society, Wushu was mainly used for fighting, but for military activities. It is precisely for this reason that the state has a relative monopoly on it, and it is impossible for it to allow everyone in the folk to practice martial arts, or everyone is holding a knife and a gun and everyone is practicing there. Then this country will be unstable, and there will be no such stupid emperor.

So ancient Wushu actually formed such a military Wushu and such a folk Wushu. There are similarities and differences between them. There are similarities, all martial arts, military martial arts and folk martial arts, but to different degrees. And folk martial arts also use the value of martial arts to keep fit, trying to get a strong body. Therefore, as we all know, the forms and weapons of sword dancing actually declined after the Han Dynasty. Because in the later military activities, compared with the actual application, the sword is far behind the sword. So as we all know, it has been han dao since the Han Dynasty. Then the most glorious period of the sword is the bronze age. In the late Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, swords rose in wuyue. At first, it was a dagger. Later, at the end of the Warring States and the beginning of the Qin and Han Dynasties, iron or even steel swords appeared, and the swords reached a glorious period. But it soon declined slowly, because in the real battlefield, the practical value of the sword is not as good as that of the knife, which is easy to break and the technology is relatively difficult to cut. Knife is a cutting technique, while sword is a stabbing technique.

But people are different. Folk does not aim at whether it is really used in military activities, so the sword has been preserved among the people, and the sword has become a symbol of culture and a symbol. He is willing to wear a sword, or hang a sword at home to show that he is both a book and a sword. It is well known that he pursues a spirit. We ancient literati condensed it into two words, called "Book Sword" spirit and "Book Sword". So everyone knows that Li Bai's sword and article are juxtaposed. In other words, there are many things of little value in military martial arts, and there is still room for survival and even development among the people. Therefore, as we all know, in the Tang Dynasty, "Gong Sundaniang danced the sword". Then the content of this dance has been following us from the Warring States to the Han Dynasty. The so-called "Xiang Zhuang Dance Sword" is intended to be Pei Gong. He is dancing a sword there, which is its artistic appreciation value. It is still preserved among the people, not only preserved, but also developed. Therefore, for a long time, folk martial arts actually developed in parallel with military martial arts. When did this development last, it began to change the next day.

So what is the core of Wushu change? Military Wushu has declined, and Wushu is no longer the main content in the army, but folk Wushu is relatively prosperous. There are many kinds of folk martial arts, and the so-called prosperity is manifested in the emergence of a large number of new boxing methods and schools, and these schools, these boxing methods, obviously have some philosophical thoughts. For example, Tai Chi, for example, acts of kindness, for example, gossip, for example, communicating with the back. As can be seen from the names of these kinds of boxing, it is different from the names of more than ten kinds of boxing recorded by Qi Jiguang in the Ming Dynasty. What kind of symbol is this? Personally, it is a kind of sports transformation.

From the mid-Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China, Wushu suddenly flourished. There are many schools and many famous teachers. Such a process, in my opinion, is actually the process of Wushu completing its own movement, and as we all know, the introduction of western sports culture into China was not in the period of the Republic of China or the late Qing Dynasty, but earlier than this.

As early as around 1840, before and after the Opium War, Macao's sports culture began to spread to China through the activities of western missionaries in China, some western sports forms and their sports ideas. After the Opium War, the five ports traded with each other, and some western missionaries gained a great field of missionary activities in China, running schools in China and spreading western culture in China. Of course, including sports culture, it is impossible not to affect our own national sports, so the problem facing Wushu is not the contradiction between military martial arts and folk martial arts, but our own local sports, or the contradiction between national sports and western sports culture.

Because such a long historical process, coupled with our own rich cultural background, has a very broad cultural background of our Chinese nation, the second characteristic of Wushu has emerged. It can be said that its more important feature is what we often call broadness and profoundness.

In its long history of development, Wushu has been influenced by China's classical military science, followed by philosophy. Wushu itself has a strong color of China's classical philosophy. These things have been absorbed by many martial artists and many boxing schools, and become boxing theories and methods. Even in boxing, then an idea is formed. In the traditional martial arts terminology of martial artists, it is called "ceremony", which directly affects the level of martial arts etiquette in China, and derives laws and regulations from this ceremony. Then these "rites" will eventually penetrate into the specific actions of Wushu, and in the specific actions, martial artists call it "style" Qi Jiguang's 32 styles, or how many styles, and many of our boxing schools use several formulas to express its technical structure. This is a very important feature of Wushu.

So this is what our martial arts call profoundness, because it relies on our own traditional philosophy.

Then the second point is that there has been an independent fitness activity called health guidance in China since ancient times, which appeared very early and there is not much information about it. We only read a few words in the pre-Qin philosophers, such as Zhuangzi and Laozi. Now it's different. Due to the development of archaeology, we have found many works in this field, such as the map discovered by Mawangdui and the "Map of Yu Pei of Qi State" later discovered during the Warring States Period. Another example is the "cited books" found in the Han bamboo slips of Zhangjiashan Han Tomb, and there are 52 sick prescriptions found in Mawangdui. It allows us to take care of ancient health, and guide our own nation to have two cultural forms of fitness and disease removal. Then health care and guidance should be said to be a great contribution of our nation to the world body culture.

Simply put, guidance is a useful and regular action to strengthen one's life means, while health preservation is to strengthen one's life with a regular lifestyle and some complicated means of self-regulation and self-care.

Therefore, health care and guidance were quite developed before the Warring States period, and after we got the guide map of Mawangdui, we realized that guidance was not as simple as we later imagined. Many movements in it are difficult. In fact, we can't be excluded from guidance and health care. We have also absorbed the influence of some neighboring countries or some foreign cultures. For example, Indian things, then in the Sui Dynasty, according to the records of famous doctors in the works of the Sui Dynasty, there were Indian things in our classic medicine or classic health guidelines. These things later relied on Buddhism, Taoism and an independent folk communication system, and it even developed into the Han Dynasty. Sean, one of the so-called "three outstanding men" who helped Liu Bang conquer the world, was called "crossing the valley" in his later years. He even strictly controls his diet. Of course, he didn't skip meals or eat nothing. His overall goal is to reduce metabolism. Then strengthen your life and minimize your energy consumption.

Health and guidance and martial arts? There is intersection and communication. Especially in the later period of Wushu, when folk Wushu flourished, many martial artists absorbed things from health guidance. There is a most important combination between the two, which is about breathing. Our martial artists and predecessors' health guidelines pay great attention to the importance of breathing. Regular breathing, how to adjust breathing, how to solve the biggest benefits of breathing and breathing, the biggest fitness benefits. On these two points, they quickly and easily found the combination point. Therefore, our martial arts also contains a lot of health guidance. Obviously, some schools of boxing are influenced by health guidance. For example, Tai Chi, the reason why Tai Ji Chuan adopted such a relatively slow way of exercise, paid special attention to the conditioning of breathing, and paid special attention to the rationality of the movement rhythm. And put fitness or improve the quality of life in the first place.

Therefore, it is obvious that Tai Ji Chuan has developed so fast because it has absorbed health guidance.

Then the third point is that we have our own medical system, which is Chinese medicine. We cherish it, and we call it Chinese medicine. In the historical process of Wushu development, it is also deeply influenced by Chinese medicine. Because we have our own outlook on life, we always regard life and nature as a whole, which is the so-called idea of "harmony between man and nature". In fact, we relate our existence, development and even the rise and fall of life to the whole external environment, and we seek a kind of harmony between man and nature and environment. This idea also reflects our medicine and martial arts in China. In this way, the combination of medicine and martial arts is a natural thing. Even military martial arts, or military martial arts, or the more intense part of folk martial arts, will be a branch of Chinese medicine, called traumatology. Linked together, because you have to practice, there will always be falls, and falls need traumatology treatment. This traumatology department was also called Jin Chuangke in ancient times. When we read the Ancient Art of War, there is always a part of military medicine besides the content about military strategy and technology. We have a system, and it is very good for our ancient army to deal with surgical problems by itself. Let's think about it. Without this system, who dares to join the army and fight?

Qin Qiong, a famous Tang Dynasty star, was in poor health in his later years. In the Tang Dynasty, he always joked about how brave you were. Why are you like this now? Then Qin Qiong was unhappy, so he took off his clothes and showed them to Emperor Taizong. His clothes were covered with scars. He told Emperor Taizong that the minister's injury was interrupted in that battle and where it broke. Emperor Taizong was very moved and allowed him not to come to the court in the future, showing such a good relationship between the so-called Zhenguan monarch and ministers. This is how we think about this story from a general perspective. But let's think about it, Qin Qiong's dozens of injuries didn't kill him, which means he still got better treatment.

In the case of fighting with cold weapons, one knife and one shot are fatal. If there is no proper treatment, this person will have to wait for death, so we have our own set of methods, which can be summed up as the so-called "Golden Maker".

At the same time, our own Chinese medicine also has a lot of content to help you practice. There are many skills in Wushu, which need to be cultivated by some methods of traditional Chinese medicine, which leads to the content of traditional Chinese medicine in Wushu, and even Wushu itself has the function of strengthening the body. In the words of martial artists, strengthening the body and even bones, strengthening bones and muscles, then such a set of methods.

Fourth, on the surface, practicing martial arts is just a technical exercise, acquiring a certain technology and strengthening the body in the process of acquiring this technology, but more deeply, practicing martial arts pursues a kind of personality cultivation, which we generally call self-cultivation, so this is a very old tradition. So today, it has become a part of the overall structure of Wushu, called Wude. Such a tradition, in fact, before Confucius, we had already seen its clue in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Wu is confrontation, and we in China put forward the weapon of soldiers long ago, which is Xiao's murderous look. It is related to the life and death of a nation and a person, so there is a requirement for morality. So this point occupies a very important position in our traditional Wushu culture. Later, Confucius summed it up as "shooting with official morality." Archery is the most important content in classical martial arts. Confucius doesn't put your shooting speed and your concrete achievements first. He pays more attention to the role of archery in cultivating a person's character. He depends on whether you complete archery according to strict shooting principles, so he puts forward the idea of moral shooting. He even put forward the view that "you can't shoot without skin". Skin is an arrow target, made of leather. Archery is not aimed at penetrating this leather target, but depends on whether you have the qualities of a real archer and whether you can engage in shooting activities according to the strict etiquette agenda of archery. In the process of archery, is there anything impatient and impatient, that is, something that strives for merit and profit? It regards the process of archery as something to improve a person's level in the spiritual field, so this kind of thing has deeply influenced China's own ancient and our own national sports concept.

Otherwise, if a person is strong in martial arts, brave and aggressive, it may become a disturbing factor for one side. In the Song Dynasty, a guy appeared in the capital of song dynasty, named "Cattle No.2 without caterpillars". I think everyone is familiar with this guy. Because he is brave and aggressive, he becomes restless here. When Niuer came out, everyone ran away, saying that the bugs were coming, and the bugs were coming. Yang Zhi was surprised that there was a big bug in broad daylight, only to find that it turned out to be a villain. I think you have seen many such villains in Water Margin. Ximen Qing, who is not bad at martial arts, and Jiang Menshen, who won the Taishan National Wrestling Competition three times, are also villains. He is not bound by morality and is a danger to society. Therefore, in the spread of folk martial arts, putting martial arts morality in a very high position has become the top priority of spreading martial arts morality, so this is a level.

On the second level, it is not only to restrain you from obeying the law, but also to cultivate people with higher moral character than ordinary people, people who pursue justice and people who are brave in upholding justice through martial arts. Therefore, as we all know, the most perfect person in Water Margin is Lu. A famous scholar called him Lu Spirit, which is the acme of human nature. He has been helping people all his life, and he wants to help until the end. He has a famous saying: "Help people thoroughly, and kill people with blood." The last sentence sounds terrible, but it mainly means that you must help others thoroughly, that is, people from Wu Degao.

So when we say martial arts, we don't just mean that you practice martial arts. Don't bully others casually. No, you are taller than him and look more cultured. Therefore, a brilliant martial artist and a respected martial artist should first be a modest gentleman, a model of health and morality. Everyone is brave and aggressive, bullying the weak, and even making things up, and they are not worthy to be martial artists.

Finally, Wushu is a science. Wushu is more than just a technique. Wushu is different from a specific sport technique in the west. Wushu has a complicated structure. It is a system, so we regard it as a science. It won't be that simple when you really master it. You don't kick a few legs, you can kick a few whirlwind feet, and one whirlwind foot kicks 720. Martial artists are not like this, so at this level, in addition to what we mentioned earlier, martial arts have their own independent literary system, which is an important reason.

We often encounter a problem, that is, many people who like martial arts abroad will ask, what is the biggest feature of martial arts? Compared with the Olympic Games and European sports, what is the biggest feature of Wushu in our neighboring countries, Japan and South Korea? Wushu came into being under the cultural background of China. For thousands of years, the people of China have contributed their talents to Wushu, including our own sports talents.

Compared with Europe, we don't have the institutionalized competitive sports like the ancient Greek Olympic Games, but it doesn't mean that we didn't have competitive sports in ancient China, and we didn't have our own sports logic and sports form in ancient times. If we study Wushu seriously, we can see that Wushu has been developing from the beginning to the present. In fact, it contains many China people's own sports concepts, which embodies our sports intelligence. It is not without competitive activities in Chinese history. In fact, as early as the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, there were many large-scale competitive activities in the army. During the Zhou Dynasty, Confucius taught his disciples six arts: ritual, music, shooting, imperial, calligraphy and counting. In fact, he inherited a set of teaching system since the Western Zhou Dynasty, so we usually talk about six arts, and "archery" is all related to sports, one is archery, and the other is driving. As a matter of fact, "Li", as the key link of the Six Arts, has its own sports elements and folk competitive activities. I think everyone knows the Water Margin very well. "Water Margin" has repeatedly said that after Liangshan ranked 108th, Yan Qing and Li Kui jy went to Taishan to fight, and Yan Qing defeated Optimus Prime with superb wrestling skills. Such a description of the whole process is the truth of history and the history of literature. Because there was such a large-scale wrestling competition in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and it was combined with gambling activities, because it was advantageous that it would get a very generous bonus after winning the championship, even sponsored by the local government and the people. Famous entrepreneurs gave100,000 yuan, so there were people, so everyone went to grab those profits, so these things gradually disappeared after the Ming Dynasty, and cultural absolutism was strengthened. These things are declining, such as polo, which flourished from the Tang Dynasty. Polo has been played in Liao, Jin, Song, Xia, Yuan and other countries, and it has even become a form of cultural exchange among ethnic groups, especially archery. In the Song Dynasty, there was a very good system. For example, when the envoys of Liao came to the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty must send one of the best archers, the child prodigy bow and arrow, to occupy a high position. It is a sports competition with certain political significance, and we have such competitive activities.

The competitive feature of China Wushu is "combination of practice and fighting", that is, both practice and fighting are equally important. We attach great importance to "practice", which is a way for individuals to exercise themselves, mediate themselves and improve their moral cultivation. Then some people compete on the basis of practice, which is playing. So we don't compete directly like some sports in Europe. We value this drill, that is to say, in the four important functions of Wushu, we combine watching performances with fighting defense.

I think this is a very, very important feature of Wushu, and even I think it is the biggest feature. There is a well-known figure, an outstanding hero, and that is Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee's foundation is Wing Chun Boxing, which originated from Fujian Wing Chun Boxing. He went to America alone as a first-generation immigrant. He went to college there and has a good foundation in traditional martial arts. In the United States, he studied philosophy in college, and he is familiar with many of China's own cultural classics. I have seen him read some notes of Lao Zi. He is a person who deeply loves his traditional culture. Then he absorbed some foreign things, including Japanese, Korean and overseas, and created Jeet Kune Do on the basis of our own traditional martial arts, which achieved great success. The word "China Kung Fu" has spread all over the world, and Bruce Lee has almost become a world famous person and a symbol of China Kung Fu. So I once said in my article that Bruce Lee was one of the most outstanding national heroes in the last century, and he publicized the spirit of China's martial arts culture. Bruce Lee's success, to a great extent, is the courage to absorb, communicate and integrate, which has given us great enlightenment. We are very sorry for his untimely death, because he died in his thirties. He left us a rich legacy, but on the whole, because he died too early, there may be a lot of deeper thinking and better things left unfinished.

What we are facing now is the world martial arts, which needs the world and the world needs it. Under such circumstances, we should boldly absorb all kinds of cultures, not only to maintain the cultural level of our martial arts and our own excellent traditions, but also to have the courage to deal with the world and absorb all kinds of cultures in the world, so as to make martial arts move from classical to modern. Become an important part of the real world culture. Become an integral part of the world sports culture that best represents the characteristics of oriental culture. I think all martial arts lovers and people who care about martial arts are deeply looking forward to this day. That's all for today. Thank you.