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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Chinese
Martial Arts
Meaning
of the Words
There are several
definitions for martial arts in Chinese: wushu, quanfa, gongfu (kungfu). Most
popular in the West is kungfu, which originally had no such a meaning; it primary
means "skill", and when the stars of Chinese movies said "I'll
show you my kungfu!" it actually meant "I'll show you how I'm skilled
in fighting". But the word kungfu became very popular in the West, so it
returned again to China as a synonym to wushu and is used widely, especially
in the westernized Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Now the official name for whole variety of Chinese martial arts is wushu; moreover,
"martial arts" is exact translation of wushu.
Quanfa means "fist techniques" and is applied to fighting without
weapon. It generalizes the techniques of emty-hand fighting that are common
for many traditional schools of wushu.
Internal and
External Schools
There are so many
schools and styles of Chinese wushu that no one can exactly list them. Among
several nationwide ones, there are much more regional modifications and even
those which are practicized by members of not more than one family. Due to this,
Chinese wushu cannot be classified formally. In fact, all schools of wushu are
divided in two: waijia, or "external family", and neijia, or "internal
family".
The schools of waijia concentrate on developing stamina, agility, physical force,
strenghtening of body parts exposed to strikes. The neijia schools give priority
to psycho-physical training and qigong (mastering of qi). Using a metaphor,
waijia is training of body and neijia is training of spirit.
Such a division is rather relative, because every school of wushu has these
two sides of training. The matter is the proportion between them.
Traditionally, external schools are under influence of Buddhism; internal schools
are inspired by Taoism - the most famous one, known as Wudangpai is named after
Mt.Wudang, the sacred place of Taoism.
The Chinese names of wushu styles and schools are formed of two parts: first
is the name of style properly, and the second usually is quan (fist), less usually
pai (school), jia (family), zhang (palm); very rarely there is dao (way) - this
is common for Japanese but not Chinese martial arts.
Waijia
Shaolinquan - the
most famous class of wushu. Elaborated by Buddhist monks of Shaolin Temple.
Legend says that the process was initiated by Bodhidharma. Can be divided into
Beishaolin (Northern) and Nanshaolin (Southern), according to Shaolin Monastery
of Henan Province and its affiliate in Fujian (which promptly became almost
equally important) respectively. There are also so called "animal styles"
(Tiger Style, Monkey Style, Crane Style etc.) within Shaolinquan. Nonetheless,
those styles are often treated as independent ones.
Tanglangquan (praying mantis style) - stand-alone of animal-imitative styles,
unlike styles of tiger, crane, monkey, leopard and dragon, which belong to Shaolin
stream.
Zuijiuquan (style of drunk) - most funny of imitative styles. All the movements
imitate behavior of the drunk. They are impulsive and look very unlogical. Wushu
experts count this style as a very effective one.
Changquan (long fist) - a style derived from Shaolin roots. Its primary purpose
was to train soldiers of emperor's troops. Compared to Shaolin, it is simplified
and formalized.
Nanquan (southern fist) - this style take roots from Southern Shaolin. Unlike
Changquan, greatly grounds on jeopardizing instead of straight attack.
Yongchun (wingchun) - this style became very famous in the West through the
efforts of legendary Bruce Lee. The style is named after its lady-founder's
name, which means "eternal spring". Distinguished by short economic
movements and "sticky hands" techniques. Practiced outside continental
China mainly.
Neijia
Wudangpai (school
of Wudang) - most famous of Taoist wushu styles. On its combat side, pays great
attention to techniques of lethal points.
Baguazhang (Pa Kua, "palm of eight trigrammes") - school based on
ideas contained in famous Yijing (book of changes). The great master of Baguazhang
Sun Lutang wrote a book Baguazhang Xue (Study of Baguazhang). This book
is considered as a primary manual by contemporary Baguazhang masters and was
reprinted recently.
Xingyiquan (Hsing-I Chuan, "Fist of mind form") - famous neijia school,
widely practiced in China and abroad.
Martial
Arts
http://cclib.nsu.ru/projects/satbi/satbi-e/martart/index.html