China Popular Itineraries |
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The concept of Wushu is the basis for researches on Wushu. In the course of history, however, there were various interpretations and descriptions of Wushu in different periods of times, while the denotation and connotation of Wushu developed alongside the development of social history and Wushu itself.
According to the categorization and formation of Chinese characters, (wu) is an associative compound made up of and . The former means "stop" while the latter means war or any kind of martial activities in modern times. Therefore, the combination of the two means stopping marshal ac-tions. Compounded with (shu), which means strategies, methods and skills, the word (Wusku) means the strategies, methods and skills to stop martial actions and activities.
From the viewpoint of historical development, Wushu is based on the Chinese traditional culture. Generally speaking, Wushu theories have been influenced mostly by Chinese philosophies; its defensive and offensive ap-proaches by the Chinese martial arts; its approaches of bodybuilding and health care by Chinese traditional medicine and health preservation, and its arts of performance by the ancient Chinese dance.
The content of Wushu exercises is composed of defensive and offensive movements with either bare-hands or weapons.
Wushu can be categorized into three forms as basic skills, practical fight and the series. Basic skills include:
(1) hard work which strengthens the body ability of attacking, en-durance, balance, jumping and racing;
(2) internal work to gain integrity of willpower, qi, shape and spirit;
(3) soft work to improve pliability.
Practical fight consists of three categories: barehanded fight, fight with short weapons and fight with long weapons. The series include boxing series and weapon series. They are comparatively stable processes of exercise and performances, which are combined movements of defense and offense in accor-dance with certain styles and rules. |
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