Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

France. His military exploits and hatred of the English endeared
him to the Welsh people, and when the Welsh rebelled
against the English in 1402, Owain Red Hand became the subject
of many legends and stories. These stories in turn inspired
Shakespeare’s character Owen Glendower.
About 1380 Bornean Muslims settle the Sulu Islands. During the holidays
and coronation ceremonies of their sultans, Muslim soldiers often
did sword dances known as dabus. These had Indonesian
and Sufi roots, and provide one source of the modern Filipino
stickfighting art known as arnis de mano (harness of the hand).
Christian Moro-Moro plays produced for performance during
Carnival provide another major root.
1383 German butchers establish the Bürgershaft von St Marcus von
Lowenberg (The Citizens’ Association of Saint Marcus of
Lowenberg) at Frankfurt-am-Rhein. This was a sword-dancing
club where members learned a mimed dance using carving
knives instead of swords. To reduce injuries, the sword techniques
taught used slashing movements rather than thrusting
blows. Dances were done publicly during Carnival and Christmas.
Although the dances themselves were festive in nature, rival
guilds often fought over which should have precedence during
parades and speeches. Butchers also danced the sword
dance in Zwickau in Bohemia, while in Breslau (now Wroctaw,
Poland), it was the skinners.
About 1391 According to a seventeenth-century hagiographer named Wong
Xiling, Zhang Sanfeng, a Daoist (Taoist) alchemist turned minor
deity, creates taijiquan (tai chi ch’uan; Grand Ultimate Boxing).
But the alchemist wasn’t associated with boxing until the
sixteenth century, when the boxer Zhang Songqi mentioned
that he had learned his methods from the alchemist in a dream.
1393 According to Okinawan tradition, emigrants from Fujian
province introduce quanfa (fist law) to the Ryûkyûs. Unfortunately
for the tradition, these Chinese emigrants were navigators
and shipwrights rather than boxers, and, in the words of
the U.S. historian George Kerr, “There is no evidence that they
were more than very ordinary folk at home on the China
coast” (Kerr 1972, 110).
About 1410 A swordsman of the Bolognese school named Fiore dei Liberi
publishes Flos Duellatorum in Armis (Flower of Battle).
1411 According to tradition, two Thai princes resolve a dynastic dispute
by agreeing to be bound by the results of a boxing match
between picked champions. While this wager is often claimed
as the first manifestation of Muay Thai (Thai boxing), that
claim remains unsubstantiated.
About 1413 Because the Daoists (Taoists) believe that qi (internal energy)
develops fastest at places that are 2,000 to 4,000 feet higher
than the surrounding territory, during the thirteenth century
some of them start building hermitages in Hebei province’s Wudang
Mountains.
1416 Buddhist monks establish the Drepung Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet.
It housed over 7,000 monks in 1901, and was one of the
largest Buddhist universities in the world until the Communist
Chronological History of the Martial Arts 803