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Chinese martial arts, commonly referred to with umbrella terms kung fu (/ ˈ k ʌ ŋ ˈ f uː /; Chinese: 功夫; pinyin: gōngfu; Cantonese Yale: gūng fū), kuoshu (國術; guóshù) or wushu (武術; wǔshù), are multiple fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in Greater China. These fighting styles are often classified ...
In Chinese folklore there is a saying, "Shaolin kung fu is the best under heaven," which indicates its superiority among martial arts, and "All martial arts under heaven originated from Shaolin," which indicates its influence on other martial arts.
The evolution of the martial arts has been described by historians in the context of countless historical battles. Building on the work of Laughlin (1956, 1961), Rudgley argues that Mongolian wrestling, as well as the martial arts of the Chinese, Japanese and Aleut peoples, all have "roots in the prehistoric era and to a common Mongoloid ancestral people who inhabited north-eastern Asia."
Although the earliest evidence of martial arts goes back millennia, the true roots are difficult to reconstruct. Inherent patterns of human aggression which inspire practice of mock combat (in particular wrestling) and optimization of serious close combat as cultural universals are doubtlessly inherited from the pre-human stage and were made into an "art" from the earliest emergence of that ...
The five animal martial arts styles supposedly originated from the Henan Shaolin Temple, which is north of the Yangtze River, even though imagery of these particular five animals as a distinct set (i.e. in the absence of other animals such as the horse or the monkey as in tai chi or xingyiquan) is either rare in Northern Shaolin martial arts ...
The various movements in kung fu, most of which are imitations of the fighting styles of animals, are initiated from one to five basic foot positions: normal upright posture and the four stances called dragon, frog, horse riding, and snake. The concept of martial arts styles appeared from around the Ming dynasty.
It integrates concepts and forms from various traditional and modern Chinese martial arts, including Shaolin kung fu, tai chi, and Wudangquan. [1] "Wushu" is the Chinese term for "martial arts" (武 "Wu" = combat or martial, 術 "Shu" = art), reflecting the art's goal as a compilation and standardization of various styles. [2]
The idea that Bodhidharma founded martial arts at the Shaolin Temple was spread in the 20th century. [3] [4] Martial arts historians have shown that this legend stems from a 17th-century qigong manual known as the Yijin Jing ("Muscle Change Classic," [2] "Sinews Transformation's Classic" [89]).