Just finished reading Mr. An Tianrong’s article “Traditional Wushu and Competition Wushu”. The title alone gave the impression the paper would provide some nice analysis and make some clear distinctions between traditional and modern wushu. I assumed it would be definitive, informative and insightful.
All Show - No Go
Despite eloquent writing skills, the entire 4300 plus word article failed to effectively highlight the DISTINCTIVE technical features between ‘traditional’ and ‘competition’ wushu. Moreover it confused terms, made broad sweeping generalizations, provided irrelevant examples, and implied that traditional and modern competition wushu were somehow inseparable as a result of their shared connection with Chinese culture. In simpler terms the article was ‘all show - no go’. Of course this is not meant as a personal attack against the author or his abilities as ‘wushu’ teacher.
Setting the Stage – Modern wushu is inseparable from history and culture
First let’s go back to the author’s first piece entitled “Wushu needs name rectification’ for some background. The author briefly mentions some specifics of ‘competition wushu’, and then suggests it is more valuable to examine competition wushu from a larger social and cultural context. He says:
[INDENT]Quote - from Wushu Needs Name Rectification
“In formal international competition, Wushu is presented in two basic forms: performance routine and free-style attack technique (i.e. sanda). When examined in a cultural perspective, taking into account how it embraces the fields of ancient Chinese philosophy, aesthetics and medicine, Wushu is a sophisticated multilateral science of considerable content. Wushu is not limited to specific boxing techniques but embodies a vast area of human activities.” [/INDENT]
I severely question this directional approach and its value in definitively addressing ‘modern competition’ and ‘traditional’ wushu. Moreover it implies a very questionable underlying theme that is reinforced in the second paper. What theme? ‘Modern’ and ‘traditional’ wushu are more similar than dislike, based on commonly shared Chinese culture and history. This is a commonly perpetuated myth.
Follow Up – Traditional wushu is inseparable from history and culture
Moving on to the current article entitled ‘Traditional Wushu and Competition Wushu’ Mr. An states at the very beginning that ‘wushu’ cannot be separated from China’s 5000 years of social and cultural development. He says:
[INDENT]Quote from Traditional Wushu and Competition Wushu
“Over its (wushu) five-thousand-year history, it has acquired a theoretical framework that embraces many Chinese traditional cultures (classical philosophy, ethics, militia, regimen, Chinese medicine, and aesthetic, etc.). Its association with Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and hundreds of other Chinese philosophical systems cannot be ignored….” [/INDENT]
Although he never clearly states if he is talking about ‘traditional’, or ‘modern’, we will assume it is traditional. The result – more poorly defined terms that potentially confuse, and the assumption that we must look at China’s 5000 years of cultural development to understand traditional kungfu.
Four thousand word information dump – Where’s the beef?
The remaining 4000 words are dedicated to discussing the merits of ‘traditional wushu’. Not surprisingly the author focuses on a number of irrelevant broad based cultural themes providing little value in terms of really clarifying the distinguishing features of ‘traditional’ and ‘competition’ wushu. He talks about things like military versus folk wushu, social customs and traditions, philosophy, nomenclature, religion, ethics, medicine, value systems, etc…
What surprises me (or maybe it shouldn’t) is that the paper fails to mention the most important defining themes separating traditional from modern wushu; i) main purpose of training, ii) type of regimented training, and iii) skill attributes sought and developed.
The Result – endless debate into metaphysics
Both papers take us further away from understanding the fundamental differences and similarities between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern competition’ wushu. Instead of ZOOMING IN on the essential technical merits of traditional and modern wushu, both papers ZOOM OUT, adopting a very culturally generic and broad based approach to discussing wushu.
We see two key underlying messages: i) modern wushu should be viewed in the context of Chinese culture, history, philosophy, etc…, ii) traditional wushu should be viewed in the context of Chinese culture, history, philosophy, etc… In the absence of anything more insightful like discussing purpose, training methods, and skills sets developed, we are left to compare traditional and modern wushu based on the merits of Chinese history and culture? This is extremely limiting and does nothing more than perpetuate the myth that traditional and ‘modern wushu are somehow essentially the same.
While I do agree that the cultural, social, political, philosophical, and economic implications factoring into the development of martial arts are interesting and tangible, I fail to see the value it provides in effectively highlighting the unique distinctions between traditional and modern wushu.
On a side note this tends to be representative of how ‘modern competition’ wushu is marketed. How? In over generalized terms leveraging three factors: i) the interest in wushu itself as a sport/activity, ii) interest associated with Chinese culture, and iii) the brand awareness associated with ‘traditional kungfu’.
KISS Approach – Keep it simple stupid
As mentioned above, my suggestion in addressing the title of this article, “Traditioanl Wushu and Competition Wushu” would be to ask three simple questions: 1) What is the overall purpose of training? 2) What does the training regimen encompass? 3) What skill attributes (physical and mental) are practitioners attempting to develop?
Addressing these three simple questions would enable us to effectively and efficiently arrive at a list of fundamental differences and similarities between traditional and competition wushu, without having to analyze the complexities of cultural development over the past 5000 years. For all of you nerdy economists out there it runs similar parallels with the expression ‘it’s the economy stupid’.
Once again this is not a personal attack. Just my own personal assessment of a poorly written and misleading article.
Best regards,
Wang Rui Xuan
