Competitive Wushu

by An Tianrong

The new martial art known as competitive wushu was developed after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. While inheriting the essence of traditional martial arts, it also took on new characteristics to meet the needs of modern competitive sports.

The history of martial arts is long and involved. Though it dates back to kung fu contests and performances during the Spring and Autumn Period, it was developed for and served mainly military purposes. After the sea battle with the Japanese in 1894, the Qing Dynasty government started to use western weapons to equip what they called the "New Military." Western sports were introduced into China at that time, and martial arts became separated from the military. In the Minguo Period, martial arts were introduced as modern sports. After the People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded, the National Sports Committee of China included martial arts into National Sports Meeting.

As martial arts became a part of modern sports, a question arose. Every competitive sport has to establish its own set of standards, criteria, and corresponding competition conditions in order to carry out fair competitions. However, traditional martial arts includes many different schools and a large variety of quan types (fist styles). The National Sports Committee organized more than 8,000 people and launched a countrywide survey on quan types. After re-categorization, there were still 129 types of quan. It was impossible to have 129 types of quan compete with each other at the same time. In 1959, the Nations Sports Committee had to select several representative quan types for formal contests and competitions. These several types of quan have become what we now call modern competitive wushu. The founder of International Martial Arts Association, Mr. Xu Cai, says that the birth of competitive martial arts meets the needs of modern competitive sports' and Olympic Games' development, and marks major progress in wushu's development.

Annual martial arts exchanges and communication conferences took place from 1953 to1958. Every school came to display their traditional prescribed sequence of movements. Their performances were incandesced with athletes' excellent performances. The judges chose first and second place champions from the best performance of "eighteen types of martial art" in the tournaments. During that period, the National Sports Committee also developed a simplified version of Taiji Quan, which has only 24 movements, and prescribed the sequences of movements for the beginning level. The Committee also established the categories of A type and B type of dao (broadsword), jian (straight sword), gun (staff), qiang (spear), and quan in Changquan type. In the spring seasons of 1959 and 1960, martial arts training classes were held nationwide to promote the A and B types. These two types played an important role in standardizing the contest. They also became the major content in martial arts textbooks. In 1959, Wushu Competition Rules was published. The first book to divide martial arts into different groups, it allowed people practicing the same course to compete in the same group. In 1959 the first National Youth Martial Arts Tournament and the first National Sports Meeting's Martial Arts session followed Wushu Competition Rules. From then on, the Changquan classes, which involve distinct movements, have seen much development. To meet the needs of sports competition, the classes put more emphasis on performance. The athletes, in order to capture the high score in the competition, perform not only the traditional repertoire stipulated by the contest rules but also their own special skills for the optional repertoire. The repertoire configuration, starting from the right side, going back and forth between left and right sides along a straight line, returns back to the right side. The path of this style is polytropical; beginning and ending poses are on the same side. Soaring and posing in the air are displayed, too. High soaring, beauty posing, fast speed, powerful manner, difficult movements and combinations and stretching postures became the standards and criteria of performance levels. These standards pushed the Changquan class to become more artistic and graceful. This situation greatly influenced the development of martial arts' prescribed sequences of movements.

In 1961 the Sports Institute's course handout, Wushu, was published. The first systematic textbook on wushu after the founding of PRC, it recorded the 50 newly organized fists weapon repertoire, as well as the Changquan basic training and some popular traditional Quanxie repertoire. It also adopted the principles, procedures and methods of sports teaching and training for wushu teaching and training, as well as promoting the inclusion of sports fundamental knowledge into the competitive martial arts.

In the early sixties, the Physical Culture and Sports Commission decided that competitive wushu needed to improve its "quality, difficulty, and aestheticism." Since then, wushu has given greater emphasis to skillfulness, high performance and finesse. All Chinese wushu professional teams targeted speed, pose, and cadence. All wushu professional teams created different martial arts styles in different provinces. For example, Jilin martial team emphasized "speed, ferocity, light, and natty." Shanghai team designed performances around elegance and stretching, which greatly influenced many other teams. Newly-designed JIA type Chuang Quan was selected and became one of the tournament events, which improved Chuang Quan's training program among all martial art teams. As these many teams strove to excel, the level of difficulty for their movements increased, leading to - for example - a 720-degree turn around, kicking 360 degree.

Around the 70's, wushu programs were revived after a 20-year lockdown. Many martial art forms have been selected to become tournament programs, such as Taiji, South fist, Xingyi quan, Bagua zhuang. Wushu Competition Rules was published again in 1973. With a new interest in athletic martial arts, traditional martial arts (as practiced by the folks) ran into a depression. 1979's Martial Art Competition Manual, eliminating the rules made in 1973, allowed extra points for creativity and difficulty. Objections quickly arose about this trend towards emphasizing motions that are more gymnastic and dance oriented, especially in Long Fist category. Moreover, the new rules limited performances to fifteen kinds of motions and categories, which did not represent practical fighting technique, and also restricted the occurrence of the above categories. This led to too many Long Fist forms and dancing movements in competitions, because only Ba Gua fist, Yi Xing (Impressionistic) fist, Tong Bi (Arm) fist, Fan Zi fist and Pi Gua palm were allowed by the new Manual.

In brief, we can see from this history how martial arts has evolved into this competitive repertoire. The athletic martial arts repertoire has two prominent characteristics:

1. it inherited the essence of the traditional;
2. it added brand-new technical movements.

The history of the martial arts spans thousands of years and has very strong traditional Chinese cultural characteristics. People who practice martial arts should always inherit and develop the essence of martial arts. At the same time, we should also keep improving and innovating. That's what today's martial arts' characteristics are. Tradition itself is the process of continuous development from the past into today. Martial arts development is always like this, combining the achievements from the past with new ones. Take Taiji Quan as an example: from Chen Wangting to Yang Luchan, Wu Yuxiang, Wu Jianquan, Sun Lutang and so on, people are inheriting and innovating all the time. That's how we acquired so many kinds of Taijiquan school. This reminds me of the Beijing Wushu Team, which appeared in the '70s and dominated the Chinese wushu fields for more than ten years. That was exactly because the team inherited and absorbed the essence, skills, and styles from martial arts all over China. And then the team recreated and innovated to make its own styles. Some people said, "The Beijing Wushu team is raised by shared food." That is very correct. Modernism is based on tradition. Only stupid people will abandon tradition to pursue modernism. Martial arts research must respect tradition, and reject its unscientific aspects, so that martial arts can be developed into real modern sports. Some people reject modernization and are limited by the tradition. They refuse any kind of modification to the traditional martial arts. Obviously, this is not correct at all. People who love martial arts should devote themselves to developing the tradition and improving martial arts.

Aesthetics is an important aspect of sports. The human form and its movements are a thing of beauty; there are no exceptions both in the past and today, both in China and other countries. Although beautiful movements are not the sport's main objective, one cannot ignore the role of aesthetics in competition. Some aesthetics researchers judge wushu, gymnastics, figure skating, etc., by artistic factors, regarding them as having the most beautiful movements. At its core, wushu involves attack and defense movements, offensive and defensive onset and retreat, fast and slow moving and staying still, masculine and feminine movements, etc. Different schools have different aesthetic characteristics, with particular fastidiousness regarding the movements of hands, eyes, and body, as well as shape and spirit. Therefore, it is not convincing to label today's wushu movements as "flower trellis," meaning it is beautiful but not powerful. Of course, wushu still needs further improvement.

The 1980s saw an unprecedented growth in popularity of the martial arts. At the end of 1982, the National Martial Arts Workshop was held. This was a new milestone in Chinese martial arts history, inaugurating a new aspect of martial arts. Several significant decisions were made at this conference: First, martial arts want "to be positive with steady steps to the overseas promotion." The goal should be to promote Chinese martial arts to the world, gradually developing it into a world sport and benefiting humanity. Two, launch research into the history of the martial arts at the national level, excavating lost traditional fist metrical arts to ensure that they are preserved and inherited, and promoting the popularity of martial arts across the city and countryside. Three, encourage an atmosphere of scholarly research into the martial arts, as well as theoretical discussions, such that martial arts textbooks and periodicals are published like spring bamboo shoots breaking ground. The Chinese Martial Arts Academic Association was founded to meet the need for a martial arts research center. Later, The Chinese Martial Arts Research Institute was established, which facilitated martial arts development under an organizational structure. Afterwards, the national martial arts training workshop summarized, "firming movements specification, manifesting poses characteristic, reinforcing the attack and defense consciousness," and provided a clear guide for future martial arts development. Chinese athletic martial arts has transformed into a modern sport. Many outstanding athletic martial arts athletes appeared on the stage, such as Chen Daoyun, Wang Jinbao, Jet Li, Zheng Jianguo, Zhao Changjun, Li Xia, Wang Erping, Gao Jiamin and so forth. They all gained recognition for their elegant style and excellent technique, which had a remarkable impact on athletic martial arts development. Athletic martial arts became a world athletic sport in the 80's. Since the first international martial arts invitational tournament held in 1985, the international or intercontinental martial arts competition has been held annually. With help from all supporting countries, organizations sprung into being in rapid succession, such as the international military association preparation committee, the European martial arts alliance, the South America martial arts association, the Asian martial arts federation and others. Jet Li's outstanding performance in Shaolin Temple created a "martial art" tornado around the world. In 1988, the Asian Austrian Council decided to accept martial arts as the Asian Games formal game event. In 1990, The International Martial Arts Federation was established. The world martial arts championship tournament (athletic martial arts competition), conducted by IMAF every two years, has been managed for 7 years. More and more martial arts festivals were conducted in the late 1990's, including Wudang international culture martial arts festival and Shanghai international martial arts exposition.

On October 16, 2004, the first World Traditional Martial Arts Festival began in Zhengzhou, China. More than 2000 traditional martial arts athletes attended the event. Athletic martial arts and traditional martial arts now compete on the international field and shine together. Even though the international Olympic committee denied the application for wushu to become a formal event at the 2008 Olympic Games, martial arts has become a people's favorite all over the world due to its enchanting nature. One day, wushu will become a part of the Olympics. Chinese people will encourage the cultural exchange between East and West through wushu, and believe wushu will benefit humanity in many different ways.

References:
• Qi Jiguang. Jixiao xinshu.
• Xu Cai. Wushu Wenji.
• Kang Gewu. Zhongguo wushu shiyong daquan.
• Zhonghua Wushu
• Wulin
• Wudang
• Wushu Competition Rules. 1959, 1973, 1979.
• Wushu. Sports College handout, 1960.

Written by An Tianrong for KUNGFUMAGAZINE.COM

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