Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

new orientation for martial arts suitable to the new Communist China, a twofaceted
program came into being: a standardized form of taijiquan and the
concept of wushu. Taiji was promoted as a few simple and standardized routines,
the Yang twenty-four-section form, and the five-section form. All instruction
was geared toward improving and maintaining health, and practical
application was discouraged. Wushu originally meant “martial,” or “military,”
arts, and as such this is the proper term for those systems designated
kung fu in contemporary popular culture. In the postmodern sense of the
Communist Party, however, the term designated acrobatic martial gymnastics.
This program gave the people what they wanted, but only in a form
modified by the Communist Party. Many of the wushu forms seen today
are replete with high leaping kicks and fast and furious punches. There are
also flips, somersaults, and other acrobatic maneuvers best performed by
the young. Weapons forms have been developed as well, but only using
what are called thunder blades, very light and very thin blades that fold and
bend and make a loud noise, but that are far easier to handle than real
combat-quality weapons. Wushu has its merits as a sport and art form, but
the current system is not a traditional combat art.
There was a push in the last few years of the 1990s to promote what
is called san da (loose hit) or san shou (loose hand). These are martial
sports reminiscent of kickboxing, which allow various throws, locks, and
sweeping techniques. The bouts have been compared to the earlier Lei Tai
form of contest in which combatants, sans protective gear, would fight on
a raised platform to see who had the better skills. A contestant tossed off
the platform would be declared the loser. The no-holds-barred spectacles
popularized in North and South America, Europe, and Japan during the
1990s undoubtedly gave impetus to san shou.
The state-sanctioned forms of boxing developed within the People’s
Republic of China may have eclipsed the traditional fighting arts, but they
did not eradicate them. Even outside the mainland, practice of the traditional
external (and internal) arts survives with refugees who fled after the
Communist victory of 1949 to Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, the United
States, Canada, Europe, and particularly Taiwan. Many external arts, in
fact, have enjoyed a renaissance in new settings. Yongchun (more commonly
known as wing chun), for example, can easily be found in most big
cities in Europe and America, due probably to popularization by the late
Hong Kong film actor Bruce Lee. The motion pictures of Jackie Chan
(trained in Hong Kong opera), wushu great Pan Qingfu, wushu-trained actor
Jet Li, and others from the 1990s through the turn of the twenty-first
century have continued to popularize hard-style boxing and perpetuate the
legendary connection of the Shaolin Temple to these styles.
Richard M. Mooney
Boxing, Chinese Shaolin Styles 43