China Popular Itineraries |
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Wushu in the Dynasties of Song and Yuan |
Wushu grew in a tortuous way in the Song and the Yuan dynasties be-cause the ruling classes took different attitude toward it. The Song Dynasty was an important period in the formation of Wushu. Compared with the Tang Dynasty when Wushu and Wuyi (martial art) were a mixture, Wushu began to diverge in the Song Dynasty and began to exist as a kind of social entertain-ment. There had been professional performers of Wushu. Wuyi began to have its own practical teaching diagrams, while Wushu was performed in reg-ulated series.
There was a variety of weapons in the Song Dynasty and, at the same time, martial art developed divergently. Sword was made with sharper blades and gained more popularity. Saber was improved and divided into eight forms as shoudao , zhaodao , qudao , yanyuedao , jidao , meijiandao , fengzuidao, and bidao. With the growth of saber skills, many good saber users arose, among the best was Guan Sheng. There were also many kinds of spears, of which nine were used most often. They were shuanggouqiang, dangouqiang, huanziqiang, sumuqiang, mingxiangqiang, zhuiqiang, suo-qiang, chuiqiang, and daningqiang. The spear skills grew into different sects such as donglu and hedong. Yue Fei, the national hero in the Yuan Dynasty, as well as Li Quan and Yang Miaozhen, were best well-known spear users at the time. Other weapons in the Song Dynasty were stick, axe, whip, ham-mer, and multiple-section chain.
The Yuan Dynasty saw the declining of Wushu. In order to prevent peo-ple's rebellion against their reign, the rulers practically prohibited all kinds of Wushu activities in the public, even group hunting. In the army, the sol-diers' were restrained to archery, horsemanship and wrestling.
Because of the boosting of opera in the Yuan Dynasty, Wushu was put on the stage. Wushu series were artificially modified in the theater. Never-theless, the bodywork and serial skills of Wushu were still improved at the same time. |
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