Wushu Staff Tape

[John Giacoletti]

I received a Wushu Staff forms tape for Christmas. The giver obviously knew as little about Wushu as I do. This is not traditional Okinawan kobudo

The performers display an exceptionally high level of acrobatic ability. The staff seems to be fiberglass or composed of a very light material. Several of the forms seem to end with dramatic slams of the staff on the competition floor.

Is Wushu considered a martial art? Nor do I see any realistic self-defense applications

Is Wushu the evolutional result of quanfa in China?

[gmattson]

Following the "cultural revolution" and beginning the present era of "open door" policy, the Chinese government recognized how popular the martial arts were becoming throughout the world and decided to capitalize on this interest. The government felt that they could best control the direction of modern martial arts by getting rid of the "martial" (war-like) reputation associated with the art (Which the government believed was not a good label for their peace-loving nation) and redefine everything from the name (Wushu) to the movements (gymnastic based).

Over the years the government become much more tolerant of the "old" ways and now travelers to China will find many varieties of the old styles of Gungfu being taught in the open, peacefully coexisting with the modern, government created Wushu.

(Information based on interviews with Taiwan & Chinese martial artist during my trips to Asia in the '80s)

[JimHawkins]

Quite correct; It is the difference between 'Wu Shu' – the correct term for Chinese martial arts, which means 'war' or 'protection' art, and 'Modern Wu Shu' which as George mentioned is a government sponsored, defanged artistic expression of Wu Shu intended for international public consumption and enjoyment.

[Oldfist]

I received a Wushu Staff forms tape for Christmas. The giver obviously knew as little about Wushu as I do. This is not traditional Okinawan kobudo

The performers display an exceptionally high level of acrobatic ability. The staff seems to be fiberglass or composed of a very light material. Several of the forms seem to end with dramatic slams of the staff on the competition floor.

Hi John, the staff should be made of white waxwood. Here's a good example of a traditional (not modern or contemporary) wushu gunshu ("gwoon shu" or staff form):

Zhao Changjun - gunshu
http://jiayo.com/videos/oldschool/zhao_changjun_gs.mpg

Is Wushu considered a martial art? Nor do I see any realistic self-defense applications

The answer is that traditional wushu is of course a martial art. I don't know about your tape, but as you can see, this performer has great speed, agility, and martial focus. A good teacher can explain the martial application of every move, except the tornado kick into splits and the aerial, which of course are athletic embelishments. The smashes that you see in this form are of course examples of vicious strikes against an opponent. This practitioner makes various difficult kicks, strikes, transitions, and stances look easy, though your average martial artist could not approach this level (e.g. his type of flexibility, balance, coordination, leg strength, and power generation) without years of additional training.

Unfortunately, the flavor of wushu that gets the most press these days is not traditional, but rather modern or contemporary wushu. Sadly, this flavor is moving toward more tricks and gymnastic's type pauses and runs with almost no martial focus at all - which is very evident from the way in which some of the comtemporary forms are performed and from their content.

[Glenn]

The Chinese have used several terms as a collective name for their martial arts. Most of the following comes from the books of Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming. I highly recommend his Taijiquan, Classical Yang Style and Essence of Shaolin White Crane for discussions of chinese terminology and history of the Chinese martial arts in the 20th century.

During imperial times Chinese martial arts were collectively called "Wuyi", which means "martial skill".

"Wushu" means "martial technique", and was adopted by the post-imperial Chinese governments. During the Republic, Chinese martial arts were called "Zhong Guo Wushu", which means "Chinese national martial techniques", or simply "Guoshu" (literally "country techniques"). According to Yang (Essence of Shaolin White Crane page 9):

This was the first time in Chinese history that under the government's power, all the different styles of Chinese martial arts sat down and shared their knowledge together.

With the Republican government's retreat to Taiwan in 1949 Guoshu remained in usage there.

After 1949 mainland China's communist government adopted simply "Wushu" as the collective name for Chinese martial arts, largely so as to not use the Guoshu term used by the preceding government and Taiwan.

Sadly, only the aesthetic and acrobatic parts of the arts were preserved and developed. Eventually, it became known that the athletes trained during this period did not know how to fight or defend themselves. Performance was the goal of preservation. This situation was not changed until the late 1980's. After the communist government realized that the essence of the arts - martial training and applications - started to die out following the death of many traditional masters, the traditional training was one again encouraged. Unfortunately, many masters had already been killed during the so-called "Cultural Revolution," or had simply passed away, and many others had lost their trust in the communist party, and were not willing to share their knowledge.

Yang refers to modern Wushu as "beautiful martial arts" and talks about an added problem in that the ones in control of the martial arts in mainland China had built successful lives over the 40 years leading up to the late 1980's in the "beauty arts" and were not necessarily willing to lead the change back to more martial martial arts. He goes on to describe steps taken by the communist government to revive the more martial aspects of the Chinese martial arts on mainland China since the late 1980's.

Use of the term Wushu has also filtered over to Taiwan and of course Hong Kong now, but in these places it refers to traditional Chinese martial arts and not modern mainland Wushu.

Yang does not mention "Quanfa", which I believe means "fist/hand way". To my knowledge it is sometimes used to collectively refer to traditional named styles like Hung Gar, Taijiquan, etc to differentiate them from both the esoteric Shaolin concepts of "snake style", "tiger style", etc and the newer gymnastic Wushu. I believe Quanfa is much less used by the Chinese than is Wuyi, Guoshu, or Wushu. (Interestingly there is Czech Uechi Ryu site that refers to "Pangainan Quanfa" at http://jagor.srce.hr/eukf/pangainun.htm)

An interesting online article on these and other terms used to name Chinese martial arts is found at http://www.martialartscity.com/kungfu/l ... ndex6.html, including the following quote:

TODAY, WE KNOW THE FIGHTING ARTS OF CHINA AS "WUSHU", BUT THEY WEREN'T ALWAYS CALLED WUSHU.
DURING THE QING AND MING DYNASTIES, THEY WERE CALLED "WUYI" OR MARTIAL SKILL.
DURING THE QIN AND HAN DYNASTIES, THEY WERE CALLED "SHOUBO" OR HAND FIGHTING.
DURING THE TANG AND SONG DYNASTIES THEY WERE CALLED "BIAN" OR WHIP.
IN 1911, THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA WAS FOUNDED, AND THE ARTS WERE CALLED "GUOSHU" OR NATIONAL ART.
IN 1949, THEY BECAME "WUSHU" OR MARTIAL TECHNIQUES TO DISTINGUISH THE ARTS FROM THE ARTS OF THE ROC TERM.