An introduction to Wushu
Wushu, also known as martial arts, is a traditional Chinese sport. It integrates kicking, striking, punching, catching, pushing, splitting, stabbing, and other actions into the regular patterns of kung fu, which comprises offensive and defensive fighting skills and styles with bare hands or the application of weapons. Deeply rooted in the masses and practiced for centuries, Wushu has become a precious cultural legacy of the Chinese people.
(photo from the official website of Beijing 2008 )
The Wushu exercises have become an official competitive sport and one of the official sports of the National Games. They are an important component of the physical education curriculum at schools and are widely practiced in urban and rural areas across China for bodybuilding purposes. The military and police also practice Wushu as an important training subject to improve the soldiers' and policemen's physique and fighting techniques. In the years of reform and opening-up, China has tapped into traditional Wushu resources and engaged in the theoretical and technical research of Wushu sport, thus improving its organizational and management systems. Currently, Wushu has become popular outside China and is once again flourishing.
Wushu is a collective term to describe boxing, sanshou (free sparring), weapon play, and other Chinese Kung Fu skills. Wushu includes long boxing, southern-style boxing, taiji boxing, short weapon play, long weapon play and sanshou.
(photo from the official website of Beijing 2008)
Long boxing is also called northern-style boxing, a collective term for the snake boxing, Shaolin boxing and others. Long boxing is characterized by big movements, multi-heaping, and flexibility. A long boxing competition can be a gracious and beautiful martial arts demonstration.
Flourishing in southern China, southern-style boxing features by comprehensive hand skills. Taiji boxing has various schools of practice named after the founders of the schools, such as Chen's taiji, Yang's taiji, Wu's taiji, Sun's taiji, Wu's taiji, and so on. Taiji boxing is characterized by remarkable flexibility and gentle movements. Short weapon play includes saber and broadsword techniques, and long weapon play features spear and cudgel. In the weapons category there are also popular items like southern-style cudgel, southern-style broadsword, and taiji sword.
Wushu in China has evolved from a simplified form to a complicated one and from a low level to a higher one, in the process of rejecting the dross and assimilating the fine essence as well as adopting the advantages of the hundreds of schools. In the long history of its development, it has incorporated feelings of national pride and national psychological diathesis. Wushu in China has become richer in its movements on the basis of additions and deletions by Taoists, Confucians, monks, and laymen from generation to generation. Its magic skills and varied patterns have won it a unique banner among the world's fighting skills. China's Wushu is indeed a crystallization of Chinese wisdom.
resource http://en.beijing2008.cn/goodluckbj/wushu/n214200778.shtml
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