The Repositioning of Traditional Martial Arts

in Republican China

By

Albert Travis Joern

East Asian Studies

McGill University, Montreal

December 2012

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of Master of Arts

Copyright by Albert T. Joern 2012

 ABSTRACT

In this thesis, I discuss how practitioners of martial arts in the Republican era of China

were engaged in a process of reinventing what embodied the field of martial arts during a time

when physical culture was treated as an instrument of nation-building in response to colonial

discourses and the process of modernization. Martial arts were repositioned from being a loosely

associated field of practice for people who engaged with a set of combative skills that focused on

weapons training that championed archery and spear fighting, towards being a recreational

activity with a formalized body of knowledge, skills and practices imbued with a Chinese sense

of identity suitable for the modern class of urban and educated Chinese citizens. It is my belief

that these efforts were a very important factor in why the practice of martial arts today is so

closely associated with concepts of self-cultivation.

This repositioning of Chinese martial arts was driven by a schism between the

traditionalists who defended the beliefs and practices from the imperial age of China, and the

modernists who saw the complete adoption of Western technologies and concepts as the only

course for the modernization of China. Due to the shifting politics around education,

understandings of the body and its representation in society, the efforts to preserve traditional

practices were complicated through the dynamics related to identity and state power. The field of

martial arts was criticized by reformists and modernists such as those involved with the New

Culture Movement, who argued that China needed to embrace scientific notions of the Western

nations and abandon “feudal superstitions.” Within this context, the field of traditional Chinese

martial arts was stigmatized by associations with the failed Boxer Rebellion, the diversity of

practices and the secrecy that existed between different schools of practice.

i
 In response to the modernity movements that criticized the traditional systems of belief

that martial artists drew upon to substantiate their systems of practice as a recreational pursuit,

associations such as the Jingwu Tiyu Hui and the Zhongyang Guoshuguan were formed

according to Western institutional models as part of the effort to unify and “modernize” Chinese

martial arts. The teachers and administrators involved with these institutions wanted to preserve

the practice of martial arts, and to accomplish this they had to develop new ways to systemize the

training methods, essentially reinventing them by promoting them to a new generation of

students in a format that had never existed before.

ii
 RÉSUMÉ

À travers cet essai, j’examine la façon dont les pratiquants d'arts martiaux dans l'ère

républicaine de la Chine étaient impliqués dans le but de réinventer ce qu’incarnait le domaine

des arts martiaux à une époque où la culture physique était traitée comme un instrument de

construction de la nation en réponse au discours colonial et au processus de modernisation.

Les arts martiaux ont été repositionnés à partir d’un ensemble de personnes indirectement

associés qui se livraient à un ensemble de combats et qui concentraient leurs compétences sur

des entraînements aux armes encourageant le tir à l'arc et le combat à la lance, afin de devenir

une activité de loisir avec un corps formalisé de connaissances, de compétences et de pratiques

imprégnées avec une identité chinoise adapté à la classe moderne urbaine et de citoyens chinois

éduquée. Ceci est ma conviction que ces efforts ont été un facteur très important dans la raison

pour laquelle la pratique des arts martiaux aujourd'hui est si étroitement associée aux concepts de

la culture de soi.

Ce repositionnement des arts martiaux chinois fut motivé par le schisme entre les

traditionalistes qui défendaient leurs croyances et leurs pratiques de l'époque impériale de la

Chine, et les modernistes qui, eux, ont vu l'adoption complète de technologies et de concepts

occidentaux comme le seul mouvement bénéfique à la modernisation de la Chine. En raison de la

politique à travers l'éducation, la compréhension du corps et de sa représentation dans la société,

les efforts visant à préserver les pratiques traditionnelles ont été compliquées par la dynamique

liée à l'identité et le pouvoir de l’état. Le domaine des arts martiaux a été critiqué par les

réformistes et les modernistes incluant ceux qui furent impliqués dans le « New Culture

movement», qui a fait valoir que la Chine devait embrasser des notions scientifiques des pays

iii
occidentaux et abandonner leurs «superstitions féodales. » Dans ce contexte, le domaine des arts

martiaux traditionnels a été stigmatisé par des liens avec la révolte des Boxers, la diversité des

pratiques et la discrétion qui existait entre les différentes écoles de pratique.

En réponse aux mouvements de modernité qui ont critiqué les systèmes de croyances

traditionnels dont les pratiquants d’arts martiaux ont fait appel à l’appui de leurs systèmes pour

justifier leur pratique comme une forme de loisir, des associations telles que les Jingwu Tiyu Hui

et le Zhongyang Guoshuguan ont été formés selon les modèles occidentaux institutionnels dans

le but d’unifier et de , en quelque sorte , moderniser les arts martiaux chinois. Les enseignants et

les administrateurs concernés par ces institutions voulaient préserver la pratique des arts

martiaux, et pour ce faire ils ont dû développer des nouvelles façons de systématiser les

méthodes de formation, les réinventer en les promouvant à une nouvelle génération d'étudiants

sous une forme qui n'avaient jamais existé auparavant.

iv
 Table of Contents

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………….i

Table of Contents……..…………………………………………………………………………...v

Acknowledgements…...…………………………………………………………………………..vi

Introduction…………………….………………………..………………..……………………….1
- Outline of Research
- Limitations of Research
- Sources
- Conventions
Chapter 1: A Historical Context for Chinese Martial Arts………………………………………13

Chapter 2: The Role of Tiyu Leading up to 1928……………….……………………………….41

Chapter 3: Positioning Undertaken by the Guomindang Party.………….…......……...………..61

Chapter 4: The Jingwu Tiyu Hui and the Zhongyang Guoshuguan..………………………..…..80

Chapter 5: The Transformational Potential of Chinese Martial Arts.....………………...…......106

- An Examination of Training Methods

Conclusion.……………………………………………………………………………………..142

References.……………………………………………………………………………………..145

v
 Acknowledgements

Above all others, I would like to thank my father, Albert Terry Joern, and the support he

gave me as I set out on this path. I learned some of life’s most important lessons from him, and

will always keep him in my heart as I continue forward. I would also like to thank my mother for

all the ways she has been there for me through the years and the challenges that came along.

I would also like to thank all my teachers, including Prof. Robin Yates whose knowledge

has inspired me to reach for new heights, and whose patience has helped me get closer to them.

There were many people who have assisted me along the way and were generous enough to

share what they knew with me. In particular, I would like to thank Ethan Murchie, Ge Guoliang,

Li Xueyi, Liu Shuhang, Sloan Ambassa, Kenneth Dean, Fabrizio Pregadio, Vince Black, Paul

Higgins, Andre-Philippe Chenail, Chris Macdonald, Cameron Shayne, Phillip Gelinas, Annick

Robinson, Mitchell Macintyre, Christian Lamothe, Dorion Sherwood, Stanley Henning, Hajime

Nakatani, Peter Button, and Ho Lok Victor Fan.

vi
 Introduction

This thesis looks to the Republican era in China (dating from 1912 to 1949 CE) to argue

that it was one of the most important periods of time in the evolution of Chinese martial arts, as

the entire field of practice was caught up in a process of reinvention as physical culture was

treated as an instrument of nation-building in response to colonial discourses and the process of

modernization for China. The field of martial arts was repositioned from being a set of

combative skills that focused on weapons training that championed archery and spear fighting,

towards being a formalized body of knowledge, skills and practices that became a recreational

activity imbued with a Chinese sense of identity that was suitable for the modern class of urban,

educated Chinese citizens.

Although martial arts remain divided between stylistic differences that came from

separate lineages and schools, the fundamental similarities between them make it possible to

consider them together as a single field of practice. Due to the process of reinvention and

repositioning that was occurring throughout all levels of society during the Republican era, we

find a distinct shift in how martial arts were perceived, taught, and trained at this time. This shift

was one that came to emphasize aspects of self-cultivation derived from traditional concepts of

Chinese medicine, and the development of the perception of martial arts as a peaceful practice

that was suitable for the refinement of civilized men.

The appearance of western style academies, associations and institutions engaged with

the public dissemination and promotion of martial arts was a critical element of this process.

Two in particular are looked at here as an important point for the transition of martial arts into

the modern era, the Jingwu Tiyu Hui (精武体育会 which literally translates as the Pure Martial

1
Arts Association, but it is commonly referred to as the Jingwu Association),1 and the Zhongyang

Guoshuguan (中央国术管 Central Martial Arts Academy). The Jingwu Association predated the

fall of the Qing dynasty (1644 to 1911 CE) and it presented an entirely new approach to martial

arts within Chinese society. The teachers involved with this project worked towards a

standardization of training methods, made the teachings available through public classes, and

defended martial arts from the criticisms of reformists. While the Jingwu did have the support of

figures such as the revolutionaries Chen Qimei (陈其美 1878-1916)2 and Song Jiaoren (宋教仁

1882-1913)3 who also collaborated with the Tongmeng Hui (同盟会 Chinese United League,

also translated as Chinese Revolutionary Alliance),4 it did not have the same degree of

government involvement as we see in the Guomindang’s (国民党 Nationalist Party, often

referred to here as GMD)5 role within the Guoshuguan.

Opened in the city of Nanjing in 1928 with support and finance provided by the

Guomindang, the Zhongyang Guoshuguan brought together martial arts teachers from different

schools to work with political and military figures to establish a nationwide, standardized system

of indigenous calisthenics and self-defence by providing a form of centralized regulation over

the practice of traditional martial arts through a process of establishing fixed sets that were

presented as “nationally” recognized systems of training. The efforts of this academy were not

1
Morris, 2004, p. 186.
2
Chen Qimei was a close ally of Sun Yat-sen, an early mentor of Chiang Kai-shek and one of
the founders of the Republic of China. He led forces that occupied Shanghai in 1911, and fled to
Japan with Sun Yat-sen where they collaborated on the formation of what would later become
the Guomindang. He was assassinated in 1916.
3
Song Jiaoren was a republican revolutionary, and another founding member of the Guomindang.
He was assassinated in 1913 after leading the GMD to victory in China’s first democratic
elections. As with Chen Qimei, Yuan Shikai was suspected as being responsible for the
assassinations.
4
Morris, 2004, p. 187.
5
Also known as the Kuomintang (KMT), the National People's Party, or the Nationalist Party.
2
limited to Nanjing. By 1933, the academy had expanded to more than three hundred branches,

operating in twenty-four provinces and municipalities.6 Although the work of this institution was

disrupted by the Japanese invasion of Nanjing (where it was closed, and eventually reopened in

Taiwan), the Guoshuguan presents a project where a group of well-known teachers tried to

analyze the challenges for the field of Chinese martial arts, and determine how to create a

national form of practice that could bring this field into the modern era. The role of the

Nationalist government of the Guomindang in this project was related to their nation-building

efforts, where it served as an opportunity to take a position of authority over the field of martial

arts as a whole, and subsume it under the body politic the party sought to create.7

The Guoshuguan and the Jingwu Association both represented important steps in the

effort to consolidate the variety between different schools and lineages to create a unified system

of practice that could serve as a coherent representation of “Chinese martial arts.” This effort

towards unification and standardization was an attempt to defend the field of practice against

criticisms from those involved in the process of designing a new structure of governance and

administration for China, who viewed the traditional practices and systems of belief as

superstitious elements of the feudal establishment that had weakened China.

A martial arts journal article from 1934 highlighted the nature of these criticisms, where

it pointed out that some of the backwards schools of the time still clung “to factional views,

siding only with their own and attacking all others, and cultivating slavish bigotry in all who

enter. They are always bragging about themselves but never teach their secrets to others, selling

6
Morris, 2004, p. 207.
7
Lorge, 2012, p. 223.
3
their bunkum to the fools who come to study with them, flaunting their artifice and dazzling all

with their mystery and wonder.”8

While divisions between different schools of martial arts may still exist, with depictions

of martial arts in Chinese mythology, literature, cinema, video games and commercial products

being so commonplace in the world today, the reinvention of martial arts during the Republican

Era led towards the field of practice becoming a celebrated part of China’s cultural history.

During the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, for example, over two thousand

people put on a performance of Taiji Quan (太极拳, commonly referred to as Tai Chi), going

through a set of complicated movements together in unison. One version of the official logo of

the Olympics was designed as a star shaped like a person performing Taiji Quan, referring to the

essence of China’s traditional sports culture, which is now seen as “an embodiment of

smoothness, harmony, vitality and mobility.”9

In many of these contemporary references, martial arts are presented as an ancient

practice that has remained unchanged for centuries, connecting with the oldest philosophical

beliefs and medical practices. I would argue that we do not find a direct and unbroken line in the

development of martial arts. The forms of practice that were trained in the ancient past are not

the forms that exist today. Many important aspects of how we understand the training as it exists

today has its roots in contesting notions of modernity, identity and state power.

Because of the enormous social and cultural changes of the Republican era, the teachers

of martial arts had to establish new parameters that could define a unified body of knowledge for

8
Morris, 2004, p. 217.
9
Morris, 2004, p. 243.
4
the entire field of martial arts,10 and reposition how this knowledge was perceived. In his theory

of practice, Pierre Bourdieu points out how these fields of practice function within a certain

social hierarchy, and the agents involved are both positioned by, and create a position for, the

field in which they are involved. This concept of the field of practice is part of Bourdieu’s

attempt to make visible the way a social apparatus (appareil) functions and how it carries the

ideological apparatus (dispotif) in practice. This work observes how a field of practice is

imagined, formed, and performs the social power vested in it by the socio-political ideology or

authority. In similar ways to this dynamic, the Guomindang reinforced a certain form of body

politics through their efforts to define identity and culture in what was being constructed as the

modern nation of China. While in the context of this thesis I will not be fully engaging with

Bourdieu’s use of this theoretical concept as a way to develop his critique on how it is

constructed in a capitalist society, I find that elements of his work can help us better understand

how martial arts were repositioned during the Republican era.

Outline of Thesis

In the first chapter of this thesis, I summarize the historical context, pointing out some of

the important developments for martial arts that have occurred over time. With the length of

Chinese history, it is impossible to do justice to the full complexity of these historical changes,

so the goal here would just be to provide a general perspective on the issues affecting the field of

martial arts history leading up to the Republican Era, and an understanding of where martial

artists were starting from with their efforts to reposition the field of practice. The Chinese

concepts of wen (文 civil) and wu (武 martial) are discussed here in the context of how Chinese

10
Vercammen, 2009, p. 126, and Filipiak, 2010, p. 48.
5
literati have consistently devalued the military side of society and made efforts to marginalize wu

within the realm of culture. In this chapter, the historical context moves right up to the

modernization movements, and the reasons why traditional practices like martial arts were faced

with severe criticisms.

In the second chapter, I examine the role of the Tiyu (体育 Physical education)11

movement in China, in which intellectuals discussed the role of physical culture as a method to

improve the nation. This connected with the belief that to build a strong nation, you needed to

create strong citizens. Finding the roots of this movement in the reformists of the late Qing

dynasty, I will explain how the Tiyu movement was influenced by Herbert Spencer’s concepts of

the survival of the fittest and the value of an individual’s capacity to struggle and survive in a

world of limited resources. The public debates over these ideas came to influence the objectives

of both the Guoshuguan and the Jingwu Association.

The third chapter covers the dynamics underlying the social positioning conducted by

members of the GMD party. By presenting a brief history of the evolution of the party, I will

highlight the instability it faced throughout its history, and demonstrate how its involvement in

the field of martial arts was driven by the ways it sought to use cultural practices and the work of

creating a modern Chinese nation as tools for reinforcing its authority. An important example of

these efforts can be found in the goals outlined in their 1930’s project known as the New Life

Movement.

Within the fourth chapter I will analyze the mandates of the Zhongyang Guoshuguan and

the Jingwu Association and how their objectives may have been influenced by the people

11
Tiyu as a concept refers to far more than just physical education, and I will explain more on
that in Chapter 2.
6
involved. As mentioned earlier, both associations worked towards the modernization and

unification of martial practices, but the Guomindang involvement within the Guoshuguan

reinforced an aspect of the project that focused on not just creating an institution that taught a

national form of physical culture, but also on the creation of a centralized examination system

that granted authority over the field of practice by having a role in the definition of what

constituted a “proper” martial arts instructor.

The fifth chapter is the most ambitious, where I explain the aspects of self-cultivation that

came to represent the modern identity of martial arts following this work to reinvent and

reposition the field of practice. This chapter is an effort to go beyond a mere historiographical

reading of martial arts history to engage with a sociological examination of how practitioners

understood the process of training, and how they were able to emphasize the potential for a

transformation of oneself across different levels of the body and mind. Within the context of this

thesis, this Chapter is where I determine what kind of value the people involved with martial arts

might have seen in the practices, and why they worked so hard at preserving them.

From this, it is my hope that the reader will gain a better understanding of the ways in

which the Republican era featured a dramatic shift in how people in China understood

themselves and the cultural practices which they integrated into their lives.12 Because of the

turbulent changes that took place at all levels of society, teachers of martial arts were put in a

situation where they had to respond to criticisms of their traditions, and accommodate martial

arts training to new concepts of education and a public school system established in the

modernization efforts for a “modern China.” The change in the language used to promote martial

arts, and the new emphasis on the practice as a peaceful recreational pursuit for self-cultivation,
12
This remapping is best elaborated upon by Gail Hershatter’s publication in 1996, Remapping
China: Fissures in the Historical Terrain.
7
led to an historical change in the perception of these practices, the ways they were taught to new

students, and how it was carried forward by this new wave of students.

Limitations of Research

This thesis is largely based around the period from approximately 1895 to 1937. This

time marks a very distinct transition in Chinese society, between the conclusion of the first Sino-

Japanese war in 1895, and the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese war in 1937. The selection

of these dates was based not on the combatants involved in the two wars, but on the dynamics

that occurred within China during that time. One of results of the first Sino-Japanese war was

that the Liaodong peninsula, Taiwan and the Penghu islands were ceded to Japan. The loss of

this national territory demonstrated to many contemporaries a stark decline in the ability of the

Qing dynasty to protect its borders. Compounding the humiliations that the Qing dynasty had

endured in earlier losses in conflicts with western nations, the defeat it suffered at the hands of

Japan fuelled the growing movement against the Manchu rulers of the Qing Dynasty, where a

growing number of people argued that the foreign Manchu rulers had to be removed, and control

returned to the Han that claimed to have ruled China for the most of its dynastic history.13 They

believed this could restore the harmony that had been lost, and allow them to rebuild and reassert

the strength of their borders to protect themselves from more invasions.

Following the Sino-Japanese war in 1895, reform movements and intellectual debates

grew in number and intensity. These movements carried through the collapse of the Qing

13
This legitimacy of this claim is complicated by issues such as the division into multiple
kingdoms during several periods of China’s history, the Mongolian domination during the Yuan
dynasty from 1271 CE to 1368 CE, the Manchu domination during the Qing dynasty and the
general complexity surrounding ethnicity and sovereignty in China.
8
dynasty in 1911, the formation of the Republic of China in 1912, and the chaotic period of the

Warlord era which lasted from the death of a powerful military leader Yuan Shikai (袁世凯

1859-1916)14 up to 1928 with the conclusion of the Northern Expedition when the Guomindang

party assembled an alliance of generals and warlords strong enough to establish itself as a central

authority in China. The founding of the Zhongyang Guoshuguan occurred during a period

referred to as the Nanjing decade of 1927-1937, in which the GMD established their capital in

Nanjing after the Northern Expedition.

The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 marked another distinct shift in China’s

history. The GMD response of withdrawing from many of the invaded regions caused a very

negative impact on their popularity amongst the people, and most of the fighting was limited to

small, localized engagements. For many reasons ranging from the disunity of political forces, to

geographic limitations of the influence of GMD and internal conflicts between Chinese warlords,

there was no significant push to retake Manchuria and the occupied territories in the northeast. A

full scale war with Japan only broke out six years after the initial attacks. As Japanese forces

slowly increased the size of their occupied areas, it was the Lugouqiao shibian (卢沟桥事变

Marco Polo Bridge incident) on July 7th, 1937, that truly sparked a full engagement of GMD

forces. The bridge was an important link in the supply line with the Pinghan railway from

14
Yuan Shikai served as the president of the Republic of China from 1912 to 1916. He began his
political career with a posting in Korea, where he served as the commander of the Chinese forces
in Korea during the first Sino-Japanese war. His power was increased when he was put in charge
of the first New Army in 1895, and he served other positions such as the Governor of Shandong,
Viceroy of Zhili, Commissioner for North China Trade, Minister of Beiyang, and Prime Minister
of the Qing dynasty just before its collapse. Sun Yat-sen granted Yuan Shikai the position of
president of the new Republic because of the military force Yuan held with his control over the
Beiyang army, which was one of the strongest armies in China at the time. His actions set the
foundations for the Warlord era in China by giving more power to military governors and
undermining the representative democracy Sun Yat-sen hoped to build.
9
Beiping15 to Wuhan, and served as the main passage linking Beiping to the GMD controlled

areas in the south.

The outbreak of a full-scale Sino-Japanese war had an enormous impact on the

administration and development of China. As more and more people were pulled away from

different projects like the Guoshuguan so that they could assist with the war effort, many

developments were put on hold. As the Japanese forces advanced and captured the city of

Nanjing in December of 1937, the people who were involved with the Guoshuguan were forced

to relocate, many of them losing touch with each other because of the chaos of the invasion and

the civil war that followed. A number of them eventually ended up in Taiwan, where they tried

to rebuild the Zhongyang Guoshuguan project. The scope of this study cannot properly cover the

events that occurred throughout this conflict, and the dramatic changes that followed, so I have

limited this analysis to the point just before the war started in 1937.

Another limitation of this thesis is that the developments of the Chinese Communist Party

(CCP) during the Republican period have not been included. Founded in July 21st 1921, the CCP

had its origins in the modernity movements of this time, and came to control China in 1949 after

a civil war with the GMD forces. Starting from ideological disagreements between members of

the two parties, the civil war began in April of 1927 as Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石 1887-1975)16

decided the CCP as too great of a threat to the rule of the GMD. He arrested and executed

15
Beiping (北平 Northern Peace) is known today as Beijing (北京 Northern Capital). First called
Beijing by the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty in 1421, the Guomindang changed the name
to Beiping when they established the capital of the Republic of China in Nanjing. After the
Communist Party of China took control in 1949, they established the capital of the People’s
Republic of China in the north, reverting the name of the city back to Beijing.
16
Chiang Kai-shek was a significant figure in the Guomindang party, and he served as Chairman
of the National Military Council of the Nationalist government of the Republic of China from
1928 to 1948. More details of his life will be discussed throughout this paper.
10
members of the Communist party, and sought to purge the GMD of leftists. The relation between

the two parties and the impact of their civil war is far too complex of a topic to incorporate into

the focus of this thesis. Their exclusion from this study is detrimental to historiographical

elements of the study, but after reviewing the available materials, I do not believe the CCP had

any major impact on the field of martial arts practice until after they came to power in 1949.17

Sources

The primary sources used for this study are some of the publications made in the 1920s

and 1930s in association with the Guoshuguan, as well as an anniversary book published by the

academy which chronicles a significant portion of their history. A few teachers at this school

such as Sun Lutang (孙禄堂 1861-1933)18 and Yang Chengfu (杨澄甫 1883-1936)19 published

some books in the early twentieth century, and there are also a few articles written by Zhang

Zhijiang (張之江 1888-1966),20 one of the key founders and the first director of the academy.

For this thesis, I have also consulted some publications by famous martial arts practitioners

whose lineage of teachers can be connected to martial artists who taught at associated the

Guoshuguan. These publications often contain a brief history of martial arts as it relates to the
17
For those interested in learning about the impact of the CCP on martial arts training after they
came to power, an excellent starting point is Susan Brownwell’s work in Training the Body for
China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People’s Republic.
18
Sun Lutang was originally named Sun Fu Quan 孫福全, and he was born in Wan County, near
the city of Baoding in Hebei province. He was a famous teacher who integrated concepts of
Bagua Zhang, Xingyi Quan and Taiji Quan together to create his own style called Sun Style Taiji
Quan. He published several books, and was considered an accomplished scholar of Neo-
Confucian and Daoist thought.
19
Yang Chengfu was renowned a teacher of Taiji Quan who was asked to contribute to the
Guoshuguan project.
20
Zhang Zhijiang’s history is explained throughout chapter three, but in essence he was a
military figure of Republican China that retired from service to open the Central Martial Arts
Academy in Nanjing.
11
school of the practitioner, though deviations are found between each story and different

interpretations of events surrounding the school. Secondary sources include works such as North

American publications from the 1960s up to 2012 which describe different aspects of the history

of martial arts, and works by teachers who examined the practice and intentions of martial arts

training. Many books that appeared relevant to the political, cultural, historical or military history

of this period were also consulted, and theoretical works on social theory and conceptions of the

body were important to understanding the theoretical dynamics of this study.

Conventions

I have used the Pinyin system of Romanization throughout this thesis, except when

quoting another author, where it was left according to the original format. While older books on

Chinese history often used the Wade-Giles system of Romanization, Pinyin is currently the most

commonly used system. Chinese terms have been italicized, though proper nouns remain in

normal font. For the first instance of any Chinese term, I present it in the format of having the

pinyin Romanization, the Chinese characters and the translation organized as the following:

zhongwen (中文 Chinese writing). After introducing the term, in many cases I continue to use

that term rather than its translation. Titles of organizations, publications or systems in Chinese

are capitalized (such as Taiji Quan and Guoshuguan) whereas Chinese terms and phrases are left

in lower case (such as zhongwen and qi).

12
 Chapter 1: A Historical Context for Chinese Martial Arts

The field of Chinese martial arts is complicated by the diversity of traditions and styles

transmitted by different schools and lineages. There is a polarity between the individuality of

each school and the similarities that unite them in the larger context of being part of the same

field of practice.21 In just a single chapter it is impossible to do justice to the full breadth of

Chinese history and how it influenced the practice of martial arts, so the goal of this chapter is

just to try and bring more awareness to the general context building up to what represented the

field of Chinese martial arts leading up to the process of repositioning that occurred in the

Republican era.

Peter Lorge’s recent publication on Chinese martial arts serves as an excellent starting

point to understand the history of martial arts in China. He presents a study of Chinese martial

arts in multiple contexts, not just as military tactics and sport, but also social class, gender

relations, ethnicity, philosophy, religion, popular fiction and the performing arts. Lorge was

critical of the belief of martial arts having an historical affiliation to peaceful or spiritual

practices and argued that martial arts were best defined as the various skills or practices that

originated as methods of combat.22 This definition accommodates many performance, religious

or health-promoting activities that no longer have any direct combat applications but clearly

originated in combat. He saw that, historically, these arts developed physical practices of armed

and unarmed combat, which must be understood as military skills, not methods of self defense or

21
Demarco, 2000, p. 10.
22
Lorge, 2012, p. 1.
13
religious activity. Martial arts pre-existed religious Daoism and Buddhism, and were practised

outside the religious context of those belief systems.

Through extensive research of the available materials Lorge offers a review of the

practice of martial arts throughout Chinese history leading up to the modern era. He has

determined that the contemporary understanding of martial arts is inconsistent with most of its

earlier practices, and that there is an erroneous perspective on these practices when they are

defined in terms of peace, self-defence and religion. While performance of martial arts for ritual

and even entertainment purposes seems to be a fundamental aspect of their origins, its

association with improved health or self-cultivation practices is not something that featured

strongly in its history beyond the Qing dynasty, and he argues that religion was never really seen

as an important aspect to skill in martial arts.

One of the problematic issues found within the study of Chinese martial arts history is

how often people emphasize that important knowledge about its origins and development is

traditionally orally transmitted from martial arts teachers. “Adding to the misunderstanding of

the past, this imagined oral tradition seldom places the martial arts in the broader context of

Chinese history, or when it does, uses a simplistic, static, and inaccurate description of the

past.”23 Any work on the history of Chinese martial arts has to confront the issue of authenticity

because history is often used to “authenticate” systems of training when a teacher tries to

validate his practice on the basis of it being the oral tradition passed down through a lineage of

instructors. An approach proposed by Lorge to this question of authenticity was to avoid

examining any particular system of practice, and to just start from the beginning of Chinese

23
Lorge, 2012, p. 1.
14
history and move through the significant phases of its history and the role of martial arts in

society.

Going back to the Zhou dynasty (1045 - 256 BCE), archery, and more specifically,

archery from a chariot, is what set aristocrats apart from commoners on the battlefield.24 Archery

was placed at the forefront of martial skills, and would retain that position even after the

invention of firearms.25 Studying some of the earliest records, he saw that hunting, warfare, and

violent inter-clan feuding were not just struggles for power but were assertions of identity. The

early conception of an aristocrat was often that of an individual who regularly used violence in

defense of honor, or to prove his martial skills. The identity of the entire group of aristocrats was

based upon the individual use of violence, and thus, martial arts.26

The association of chariot-driving and archery with the upper class would cement a long-

lasting connection between these particular skills and noble character, as they came to be

included as two of the six arts of ruxue (儒学 scholarly studies) proposed by Confucius. The

other four arts were far more academic in nature, including the rites, music, calligraphy and

mathematics. Amongst the ru, chariot-driving evolved into horseback-riding as the chariot fell

out of use.

24
Shaughnessy, 1988, p. 194.
25
Recent work on rediscovering ancient practices of archery is demonstrating it would have been
far more effective than the earliest forms of guns. In Arab Archery, an Arabic Manuscript of
about A.D. 1500: A Book on the Excellence of the Bow and Arrow and the Description Thereof
by Nabih Amin Faris, it is mentioned that Saracens who fought with the Crusaders were tested to
fire 3 arrows in 1.5 seconds. Though this claim was initially rejected by modern archers, the
Danish archer Lars Anderson was able to master the art of keeping multiple arrows in the hand
while shooting, and has been filmed firing 10 arrows one after another at a record speed of 4.9
seconds, at a strength that could easily penetrate mail armor. He mentioned that some of his
research in this practice came from Chinese sources as well as Persian texts.
26
Lorge, 2012, p. 29.
15
 In the Warring States period (475 – 403 BCE), archery came to be imbued with even

more concepts of nobility connected to the idea of self and group discipline, order, and self-

cultivation. Perhaps due to its association with aristocratic members of society, archery was the

first martial art promoted for the positive effects it had on the practitioner. Texts such as the Liezi

(列子)27 and Zhuangzi (莊子)28 made references to the development of a superior mental state

through archery, where a “true archer achieved a higher order of functionality that transcended

the mere physical performance of shooting.”29

It can be difficult to determine fact from legend within the stories from the Warring

States, but they do contain reoccurring elements related to the trope of the heroic martial artist.

Skills in combat seemed to be something that was a means to empower men to resist the

subordination of society to political control. The martial hero of this time was often positioned as

a counterpoint to the state’s monopoly over the licit use of force.30 Men known as shi (士

“Knights-errant”) were valorized in history and fiction as a response to the subordination of

individuals to the state. Unlike a dismissed government official, the exemplary martial artist

could take revenge or prove himself against the political order. For much of Chinese history

works of fiction featured righteous heroes often finding themselves at odds with a corrupt state.

Those in pursuit of moral virtue made references the ideal of a junzi (君子 often translated as

27
The Liezi is a Daoist text attributed to Lie Yukou (列圄寇), a circa 5th century BCE Hundred
Schools of Thought philosopher, but it is believed to be compiled around the 4th century CE.
28
The Zhuangzi is seminal text in daoism, attributed to a philosopher of the 4th century BCE
known only as Zhuangzi, or Zhuang Zhou. The importance of this text is far too great for the
scope of this paper, but works on the Zhuangzi are an important starting point for anyone
interested in learning more about philosophical Daoism.
29
Lorge, 2012, p. 52.
30
Lorge, 2012, p. 49.
16
“noble man”) who represented an earlier, mythical ideal of a moral, cultivated warrior.31 Similar

to the example with archery, this linked martial arts with a form of moral or mental cultivation of

these figures, but it does not indicate a clear system of practice including medical concepts of the

body as we see later on. It would appear that, during this time, it was moral cultivation that made

one a heroic warrior, and not the training in fighting arts that made one moral.

Armies of the Warring States period had evolved into trained and controlled instruments

of violence for the state rather than chaotic assemblages of independent warriors, and the

fighting arts shifted from its earlier function as a marker of the aristocratic class to become a tool

of state authority. An important factor of this change was the formation of official armies

wherein military law was far harsher than civilian law as a result of use as means to order and

direct the expression of violence rather than just suppress it. At a time where bringing back the

head of a defeated enemy was a means to promotion within the Qin empire (221-206 BCE),32 the

ideology of serving the state through licit violence became a sign of morality and self-control.

Licit and illicit violence are culturally defined through a number of institutions, both

formal and informal. Mark Edward Lewis’s classic study, Sanctioned Violence in Early China,

describes the evolution of a number of linked violent practices connected to changes in political

authority and social organization. Even in times of peace, however, martial arts persisted in all

cultures. Violence is often a tool of government, or a distinctive feature of the state in the form of

a monopoly on the licit use of force.33 Martial arts in this instance were simply understood as

better trained and executed violence. It enhanced the ability to compel others to do one’s will, or

to resist the compulsion of others.

31
Goldin, 1999, p. vii.
32
However, the existence of the kingdom of Qin predated its time as an official dynasty, when it
was one of many kingdoms caught up in the conflicts of the Warring States period.
33
Lorge, 2012, p. 241.
17
 During what is referred to as the Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties period (220 - 581

CE),34 the kinds of weapons used and martial arts practiced in China shifted markedly. A heavy

influx of different ethnic groups, particularly of peoples from the Steppes, into the different

kingdoms that dominated what is regarded as “Chinese” territories, generated a new level of

interaction and exchange. Local strongmen all over the land formed bands of men trained in

martial arts that were effective below the battlefield level. This phenomenon was bolstered by

prolonged exposure to Steppe culture.

With the development of stirrups, horse archery allowed light cavalry to compete with

heavy cavalry for dominance on the battlefield, where mobility and the range of the bows offered

tactical advantages. Some of these changes reached their maturity by the Tang dynasty (618-907

CE). Armed forces ebbed between different ratios of professional to conscript soldiers, and

between more and less culturally Chinese commanders. With the ongoing military conflicts with

Steppe peoples at the frontiers, it became particularly useful for culturally Chinese elites on the

frontiers to develop some non-Chinese military and political capabilities, even if this could

alienate them from the predominantly agricultural nature of most other Chinese people.35

An important innovation of the Tang period was the introduction of military

examinations. The formal system of military examinations was instituted in 702 CE during the

reign of Wu Zetian. A few men were recommended to higher ranking positions based on their

military skills, but this appeared to be a limited occurrence for important command positions.

Along with considerations for height and tests of strength, this formal exam had five key aspects:

firing an arrow for distance, mounted archery, mounted spear fighting, foot archery, and verbal

34
These included the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu, the Jin Dynasty, and the Southern
and Northern Dynasties.
35
Skaff, 2000, p. 28.
18
responses.36 Once again, we see the centrality of archery as a military skill, as well as riding and

spear fighting. Previously, most officers came from a family of officers.

The period of disunity following the Tang dynasty was known as the Five Dynasties and

Ten Kingdoms period (907-960 CE), which was a time where much of China was highly

militarized. The particular modes of warfare across different parts of China were more

pronounced. Whereas the official armies had to maintain well-developed armies capable of

fighting across a wide range of environments from the plains of north China to the rivers of south

China, more localized fighting units reappeared during times of disunity and typically fell into

categories such as “bandit-rebels whose activities were of a ‘predatory’ nature, local elites who

organized forces to protect their community from the depredations of the bandits, and local

[former] officials, who now enjoyed unaccustomed freedom from maneuver as a result of the

weakness from the center.”37 These were essentially sub-military units predominantly limited to

local fighting, but their formation required the broad teaching of at least rudimentary martial arts

skills throughout the countryside.

During the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE), society and culture were far more complex and

specialized than what was found in the Steppes. The rise of a professional bureaucratic class of

highly educated civil service examination graduates who largely did not practice martial arts or

lead in war brought about a concomitant subordination of the military categories of society. With

the exception of the highest-ranking military families, national-level Song elites did not practice

martial arts. Physical skills were, by definition, markers of low status. The shift away from the

martial arts required of the founding emperor and generals of the Song was extremely rapid. By

36
Lorge, 2012, p. 111.
37
Graff, 2002, p. 161.
19
the reign of the second emperor, the younger brother of the first, poetry competitions were more

valued in court than martial demonstrations.38

Despite this disdain and subordination of physical skills at the higher levels, martial arts

still seemed to permeate much of society during the Song. Over the course of the dynasty it came

to develop into regular, mainstream entertainment. Official martial arts performances,

government sponsored wrestling and fighting competitions and military examinations took place

within an official context, and regular performances such as wrestling or martial arts

competitions were held on festive days in the entertainment quarters, or even at village markets

or temples.39 This rise of the entertainment quarters and the performance spaces for martial arts

was seen by Lorge as the most important change for martial arts in the Song. Martial artists

would once again become romanticized for their ability to defy authority in an unjust world, and

the practices were seen as a means to empower the individual against larger structures of power,

particularly in fiction.40

Prior to this new-found emphasis on aesthetics, a martial arts instructor was only really

involved in teaching a student the basic use of infantry or cavalry weapons. He occupied a

position that is better conceived as that of a specialist for training soldiers, where his

responsibilities included the training of conscript soldiers, directing large groups of men,

providing combat leadership and generally making farmers into effective fighters. For practical

purposes, both armed and unarmed combat used a very limited set of techniques. This simplicity

is further emphasized by the need to teach large numbers of students simultaneously, and, in the

military, for those students to fight as a unit rather than as individuals. Effective fighting is more

38
Lorge, 2012, p. 118.
39
Lorge, 2012, p. 132.
40
Smith, 2006, p. 382.
20
the product of learning to perform a simple set of techniques with power, speed and accuracy,

and doing this correctly against an opponent, than of learning a large number of elaborate

techniques or complex theories.41

The Yuan dynasty (1271-1368 CE) brought in the element of Mongol rule, though

Mongol rule became “Chinese” rule, or at least foreign control over an institutionally Chinese

government administering what was conceived of as an eternal, natural Chinese territory.42

During this period, northern Chinese that demonstrated Steppe characteristics might serve in the

military when needed, but southern Chinese (as well as some northern Chinese) were prohibited

from practicing martial arts or owning weapons. The Yuan government was very interested in

establishing who could legitimately maintain a capacity for violence. During this time, Mongols

characteristically fought as horse-archers, and used wrestling as a form of entertainment or

competition, though they were cosmopolitan in some significant ways, famously adopting the

weaponry and technologies they came across during their campaigns.

In either individual or battlefield combat, as new weapons and techniques were developed

there was a re-occurring cycle to the development of weaponry and its use in combat. When a

weapon is first produced, it comes in many forms as users search for a balance of form and

practice. It then enters a mature stage where there is a fairly narrow range of form and practice,

and the weapon’s characteristics are well understood.43 As a reference point for the popular

forms of martial arts weapons during its time, Shuihu zhuan (水浒传 The Water Margin)44 lists

eighteen different types weapons: bow, crossbow, silk corded lasso, whip, metal tablet, sword,

41
Lorge, 2012, p. 134.
42
Lorge, 2012, p. 155.
43
Lorge, 2012, p. 79.
44
A famous work of fiction written in the 14th century.

21
long sword, chain, truncheon, fu-axe, yue-axe, ge-halberd, ji-halberd, shield, staff, mao-spear,

shu-spear and claw head.45 There was often greater diversity in the weapons used by individuals

as opposed to those used to equip soldiers, but this still helps give a sense of the variety in

weaponry at the time.

During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE) a general named Qi Jiguang (戚繼光 1528-

1588)46 was famous for his leadership and his ability to train and lead soldiers to victory. He

went to great lengths to improve and regularize the overall armament of his troops, emphasizing

the importance of training. Although he had them do some boxing practices, it was seen as a

means to prepare them for weapons training. A book he wrote around 1560 CE titled Jixiao

Xinshu (紀效新書 New Book on Effective Discipline) serves as one of the key sources for our

current understanding of martial arts during the sixteenth century.

Qi Jiguang and other authors of the time were not just assembling lists of styles out of

mere curiosity; they were attempting to find the most functional skills available. One of the

central issues of the discussion of boxing styles was effectiveness, with a constant comparison of

styles, or anecdotes recounting how other practitioners had an ineffective or flawed style. Qi

Jiguang complained about the incompleteness of many styles, that they were only good in parts

and lacked a comprehensive set of techniques.47 In his efforts to develop the most effective

methods to prepare men to fight, he had clear concern with what he referred to as hua quan (花

拳 “flowery boxing”), ineffective and overly elaborate styles that only looked nice. He had a

45
Smith, 2006, 274.
46
Qi Jiguang was famous for his effectiveness in campaigns against Japanese pirates, where he
was reputed for his success at raising new military units from the pool of local militias.
47
Lorge, 2012, p. 168.
22
strong preference for simple, effective training methods that could be easily taught to large

numbers of people and produce strong fighting units.

As the Ming dynasty took shape, there was a blossoming of literature and literacy which

led to more authors writing about different subjects and in every genre, from fiction to history.

Martial arts changed during the Ming dynasty, but the largest shift was intellectual rather than in

practice. People began to write about the martial arts in ways they had not before, and authors

became much more specific in describing martial arts, not only surveying the available styles in

many categories but also providing illustrated accounts of specific techniques. Far more books

on military affairs were written during the Ming Dynasty than in any earlier period. Martial arts

came to be featured in numerous works on fiction, linking novels, performances, and theater.48

This new development featured the publication of two great novels that featured martial arts a

strong component of the stories, the Shuihu zhuan and the Sanguo yanyi (三国演义 the

Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

This flowering of the intellectual interest in martial arts connected with two concepts that

had existed since the earliest records of China’s history, and remain at play in people who

position themselves in relation to each other; wen (文 literate, civil) and wu (武 martial, military).

They are related to each other as two antagonistic, yet complementary, pathways of human

action.49 The stereotypes reflecting this polarity can be found in the Chinese tradition of the

macho hero represented in ways such as yingxiong (英雄 outstanding male) and haohan (好汉

48
Lorge, 2012, p. 182.
49
Di Cosmo, 2009, p. 4.
23
good fellow) being counterbalanced by a softer, cerebral male tradition such as the caizi (才子

the talented scholar) and the wenren (文人 the cultured man).50

Wen is generally understood to refer to those genteel, refined qualities that were

associated with literary and artistic pursuits of the classical scholars, and can thereby be partly

interpreted as a leisure-class masculine model. This type of masculinity is best typified by the

image of groups of men writing poetry for mutual amusement or to mark a memorable occasion.

Wu was conceived as embodying seven virtues which were the qualities “that suppressed

violence, gathered in arms, protected what was great, established merit, gave peace to the people,

harmonized the masses and propagated wealth.” 51 Wu is therefore a concept which embodies the

power of military strength but also the wisdom to know when and when not to employ it. Wu

attributes of physical strength and military prowess were cultivated by large sections of male

society – from elite Tang polo players to Qing street acrobats. In practice, wen can refer to a

whole range of attributes such as literary excellence, civilised behavior, and general education,

while wu refers to just as many different sets of descriptors, including a powerful physique,

fearlessness and fighting skills.52

A disdain for the military by scholarly officials meant that throughout most periods of

Chinese history, the balance between the two concepts often swayed in favor of wen. “The

military examinations, rankings and posts, though parallel to the civil ones, were explicitly

disesteemed by the literati.”53 Generally speaking, it was difficult for a warrior who was illiterate

50
Louie, 2002, p. 8.
51
Louie, 2002, p. 14.
52
Louie, 2002, p. 133.
53
Song, 2004, p. 80.
24
or unfamiliar with Confucian teachings to be promoted to senior posts at the command level.54 A

phrase dating back from the Song dynasty said “A good piece of metal does not become nails,

and a good man does not become a soldier” (好铁不打钉，好男不当兵 haotie bu dading,

haonan bu dangbing).55 Unfavourable stereotypes of generals and military figures reflected the

bias against wu aspects of society by many civil officials.56 The differences between the

perceived values of wen and wu could also be seen in the records of the civil examinations and

the military examinations. Although both were channels towards official positions in much of

Imperial China, Ma Mingda (马明达 1943-) noted in his studies on martial arts history that the

records of the military examinations were less valued. Ma Mingda is a respected contemporary

scholar of martial arts history, who advocated for archival research into the development of the

traditions of martial training. He was both a martial arts teacher and a practitioner of traditional

Chinese medicine, which gave him an insider’s perspective of the training, though it also may

have given him a certain bias. From his archival work, he pointed out that more attention was

paid to archiving the records of civil examinations and preserving associated documents. In

contrast, the records of military examinations are incomplete and, for certain years, quite

unreliable.57

Even though Confucius advocated skills such as archery and driving chariots, and he

himself could be considered a member of the knight-errant class of his time, he argued for the

supreme value of the moral man over the warrior or functionary. He argued that rulers should

hire moral men who had cultivated themselves through wen aspects of study. These good men

would be better able to run a government and assist a ruler than men whose only qualification
54
Song, 2004, p. 80.
55
Louie, 2002, p. 18.
56
Ryor, 2009, p. 228.
57
Kennedy and Guo, 2005, p. 89.
25
was skill in a particular job. A good ruler needs to employ good men, and the positive effects of

this configuration of leadership would spread throughout society to its great benefit. For

Confucianism, the emphasis was clearly on the intellectual aspects of study and the quality of

written essays. The wu elements of ruxue declined over the centuries, and by the Ming era most

scholars concentrated solely on literary studies.58 This concept carried over throughout most of

the imperial age in China, where social order came to be based on the image of the Confucian

scholar-gentleman.

Even the members of the military families that typically rose to official positions were

not completely without wen cultivation. Some of these military figures were known to be active

in writing poetry; receiving, commissioning, and collecting works of art; and even practicing

painting. The bias against military men as undiscriminating and uncultivated men of action by

many civil officials has disproportionately influenced the perception of these men.59 Qi Jiguang

was known for his literary pursuits, and also collected paintings and took an interest in art. Two

noted literati of the day, Wang Daokun (汪道昆 1525-1593) and Wang Shizhen (王世貞 1526-

1590) thought highly of his poetry, but other scholars criticised how acquiring a literary

reputation only attracted self-styled “recluses” who parasitically clamored for his writing and

patronage. As many generals and fighting men made their reputations in frontier conflicts,

scholars tended to painted a picture of the frontier where fortunes made by the lowest sorts of

people.60

58
Graham, 1994, p. 31.
59
Ryor, 2009, p. 242.
60
Ryor, 2009, p. 224.
26
 Despite these expressions of disdain for wu, throughout the social history of imperial

China important roles have been attributed to military aspects.61 During the Ming, some literati

were known to have been immersed not only in the practical side of military matters but also in

the emblematic and symbolic aspects of martial life. Regarding the collected writing of many

prominent intellectuals, writers, and officials, one sees that swords, swordsmen, and

swordsmanship occupied a large part of the literati imagination.62 A variety of sources describe a

situation where there was more fluidity in civil-military relations than is generally acknowledged,

with the prevailing opinion urging the separation of civil and military roles in society.

Regardless of which side an individual favored, it is indisputable that wen and wu were

perceived to be essential for men of substance. The Confucian Analects touches on this paradigm

in the phrase “Worthy men of virtue know the greater principles, and unworthy men know the

smaller principles. There is no man who does not have something of the way of wen and wu in

him.” (贤者识其大者，不贤者识其小者，莫不有文武之道焉 xianzhe shi qi dazhe, buxianzhe

shi qi xiaozhe, mobu you wenwu zhi daoyan.).63 For many Chinese men however, achieving both

concepts of wen and wu was tantamount to achieving power over both body and mind.64 In the

late Ming, there was a drive towards wenwu shuangquan (文武双全 “being well versed in both

wen and wu”).65

“At that time [Ming] athletics were still admired, young students practised boxing, fencing
and archery, and riding and hunting were favourite pastimes. Thus bodily strength was one
of the recognized attributes of a handsome man. They are depicted as tall and broad
shouldered, and the nudes of the erotic albums show them with heavy chest and muscular
arms and legs… Under the Manchu occupation the martial arts were monopolized by the
conquerors, and as a reaction the Chinese, and more especially the members of the literati

61
Ryor, 2009, p. 220.
62
Ryor, 2009, p. 230.
63
Analects, XIX.22, Translation slightly edited for clarity. Louie, 2002, p. 11.
64
Louie, 2002, p. 116.
65
Song, 2004, p. 35.
27
 class, began to consider physical exercise as vulgar and athletic prowess as suited only to
the ‘Ch’ing barbarians,’ and Chinese professional boxers and acrobats.”66

During the Qing dynasty, the Manchus promoted wu elements, because of the martial

elements of their own Steppe culture. Hong Taiji (洪太極 1592-1643), who reigned as emperor

from 1626-1643 expressed “What I fear is this: that the children and grandchildren of later

generations will abandon the old [Manchu] way, neglect shooting and riding, and enter into the

Chinese way.”67 This comment demonstrates there was a distinction between the literary

mannerisms of China in comparison to the more physical lifestyle of the nomadic Manchu

people.

The martial influence of the Qing dynasty was such that by the mid-eighteenth century,

contemporaries acknowledged that some connection to military success, whether through

soldiering, strategizing, logistics, historiography or otherwise was, if not prerequisite to, then

certainly instrumental in the achievement of a successful political career.68While the Manchu

rulers of the Qing dynasty monopolized the military power and set limitations on the capacity of

anyone outside of the Baqi (八旗 Eight Banner) armies69 to engage in martial training, the Revolt

of the Three Feudatories of 1673-1681 pressed them to make these limitations even more severe.

The revolt was led by the Han general Wu Sangui (吳三桂 1612-1678), and the Manchus sought
66
Gulik, 1961, p. 188.
67
Waley-Cohen, 2009, p. 283.
68
Waley-Cohen, 2009, p. 285.
69
The Eight Banner armies formed the basic framework for Manchu military organization. The
banner structure called for eight separate organizations each for Manchus, Mongols and “Han-
martial,” being the Chinese who joined the Manchus before the fall of the Ming. Many of the
Han soldiers who volunteered to served under the Manchus, including high concentrations of the
Muslim Hui minority in some regions, were classified into the Lüying (綠營 Green Standard
Army) which operated as more of a constabulary force next to the official armies of the Eight
Banners. This military framework drew new apparently ethnic distinctions and created a new
elite status based on martial roles, distinct from Chinese elites whose claim to elevated social
status rested on their superior education and literary accomplishments.
28
to prevent the possibility of another rebellion by enforcing strict laws regarding the possession of

arms. Bannermen were faced with prohibitions as well, where they were restricted from

practicing a trade or doing manual labor. Ideally, from the perspective of the Qing government,

the privileged bannermen would maintain a loyal and effective military force in return for

government economic support. By living apart from the subject population in their own garrisons,

working and functioning within their particular banner, the bannermen kept a strong group

identity,70 and were able to maintain the characteristics of their Steppe homelands.

There was a significant relation of the wu aspects of society to the lifestyles of the Steppe

people in the north, and during the Qing there was an even more explicit case for this within the

Manchu prohibitions over certain martial aspects of society which led towards the further disdain

of it by scholars who identified themselves as Han and felt subjected to foreign domination

throughout the Qing dynasty. Any male who was not Manchu was constantly reminded of his

subjugation through a pig-tail or “queues” they were forced grow and maintain. Regardless of

how scholars and thinkers tried to cast the relative positions of martial and civil as categories,

brains or moral cultivation might create inner strength, but it in a direct confrontation they would

often be overcome by brawn.

This created a further divide in the distinctions between wen and wu, and Confucian

scholars shifted away from the relative balance that was encouraged during the Ming, which led

to the bookish, frail self-presentation that came to stereotype Confucian scholars.71 “Masculinity

was mainly defined in the political and public realm, and this was particularly true for the

Confucian literati, who regarded self-cultivation, and more importantly, political achievements
70
Lorge, 2012, p. 187.
71
The criticisms of Confucianism for “weakening the bodies of students” and promoting the
stereotype of the “sick man of the East” is elaborated upon in the second chapter with a closer
examination of the modernity movements.
29
as the primary criteria for genuine manhood. Therefore the male anxiety came to be driven by

frustrations in the pursuit of political power and fame.”72 This politicized construct of

masculinity became a kind of “master narrative” of ideal man in the society. It may be argued

that it was through this discursive interplay that this masculinity was produced, manipulated and

controlled by imperial power.73 The image of the fragile scholar and the bodily rhetoric of wen,

as a signifier of knowledge and civility, became the dominant version of the male body in a

society that encouraged the production and training of obedient subjects and subservient

bureaucrats.74

For various reasons beyond this wen-wu paradigm, the late Qing dynasty proved to be a

difficult era of Chinese history. The mid-nineteenth century in China was a panorama of conflict,

racked by incessant civil strife, political upheavals, foreign incursions, and natural catastrophes

resulting in famine and widespread banditry, especially in the northern provinces and along the

coast. All this led to a steep increase of the need for private security, which marked an important

stage of the development of martial arts schools and how they were perceived in society. Despite

Qing limitations of the private possession of weaponry, there was a distinct rise in the number of

local militias as well as a growth in biaoju (镖局 private protection agencies, also known as

baobiao 保镖).75 Most of these agencies were run by professional martial artists, and they served

to escort the transport of goods and to protect banks, pawn shops, the homes of the wealthy, and

other commercial enterprises.76 There were two basic forms of protection agencies, huyuan (护

72
Song, 2004, p. 64.
73
Song, 2004, p. 91
74
Song, 2004, p. 84.
75
Kennedy and Guo, 2005, p. 138.
76
Henning, 1981, p. 176.
30
院 compound guards, literally “protecting the compound”) and zoubiao (走镖 traveling guards).

Secret societies, bodyguard agencies and town militias flourished during this time of chaos.77

Within of this economic boom in protection services, the fighting arts were seen as a

viable career path, as opposed to being something intended for health maintenance or spiritual

growth. Many of the people who practiced these arts were uneducated farmers who studied in

order to join their local militia or to obtain a job as a bodyguard or caravan escort. Some students

may have seen a practicality in learning how to defend themselves, but there was this stereotype

amongst many of the educated people that martial arts were closely associated with low-class

ruffians, for whom fighting was a common occurrence. As Sun Lutang wrote in the preface to his

book Xingyi quanxue (形意拳学 The study of mind-body boxing) “There was a prejudice in the

old days that literates despised martial arts, and that martial artists were short on literary

learning.”78

In this environment, anyone involved with the field of martial arts was expected to be

capable of fighting. True enough, many famous martial arts teacher had a history in which they

had been tested in the real world of violence. 79 In the biographies of many of the renowned

teachers during the Republican era, there are plenty of references to people fighting and

overcoming bullies, bandits and gangsters. Considering the economic benefits that would come

with having the status of being a teacher, there would have been incentive for others to challenge

77
Philip Kuhn discusses this chaos of the late imperial ages at length in his 1970 publication
Rebellion and its Enemies in Late Imperial China, Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-
1864.
78
Though included in the republication of Sun Lutang’s text, this quote was made by the
translator in his preface, it was not written by Sun himself. Sun, 1915, p. 2.
79
Apparently when Sun Lutang was studying with the renowned teacher Cheng Tinghua (程廷
华 1848-1900), Cheng encouraged Sun to go out and test himself in the world, emphasizing he
should study more from other teachers and hinting that he should develop more real-world
experience. Sun, 1915, p. 21.
31
them to prove that they were the better martial artist and should be the one to lead the students,

and receive the financial rewards and status associated with the position of running a school.

After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, there were numerous issues causing a negative

perception of martial arts. For many people, particularly peasants and labourers, they had a quick

association of martial arts with the soldiers, guards and ruffians who harassed them and

threatened them with violence in many circumstances. An unfortunate experience many people

were exposed to was the severe taxes levied during the Qing dynasty, and moving into the

warlord era, harassment was commonplace and it was the soldiers and fighting men who would

go out to enforce orders, collect taxes and requisition property, manpower and goods, typically

without the acquiescence of local civil administrations.80 From 1912 to 1931, the armies of China

did not fight a single foreign foe for the defence of the integrity of the country. The conflicts

were defined by numerous power struggles, and it was typically the common people who were

the unfortunate source of funding for many of these armies.

While many fighting men were guards, soldiers and thugs who enforced the power of

others, Paul Cohen found in his study on the Boxer Rebellion that town militias also trained

martial artists to simply protect their farmlands and households from theft. However, the official

stance of the Qing dynasty was against the private ownership of weapons and the training of

martial skills that could be used against them. The ability for those other than Qing soldiers to

perform martial training, particularly weapons training, was a complicated issue which increased

the necessity for discretion and secrecy.

80
Ch’en, 1979, p. 4.
32
 One of the most prominent factors for the criticisms of martial arts was the link that the

practices had with the Boxer Rebellion which took place from 1898 to 1901.81 It was an anti-

foreign rebellion led by the Yihe Quan (义和拳 Boxers United in Righteousness), who did not

actually practice the type of training found in curriculums of later associations such as the

Zhongyang Guoshuguan. The use of the term “boxer” in this rebellion can be misleading. Those

affiliated with the Yihe Quan actually trained in ritualized forms of what could be described as

spirit-possession. Although these sects identified themselves as boxers, and brought people

together under the pretext of protecting local communities and preserving traditional social and

moral values, their training was not coherent with the forms of martial arts we find within the

training at the Guoshuguan and the Jingwu academies.

While some people understood the difference between the ritualistic practices of the Yihe

Quan and the physical training of traditional martial artists and village militia organizations,

many other people perceived a clear connection between the two and called for an elimination of

anything related to boxing practices. In truth, content of the “boxing” practiced by the new

Boxers United in Righteousness was clearly religious in nature, including invulnerability rituals,

mass spirit possession, the swallowing of charms, and the recitation of spells.82 The characteristic

features of the rebellion, from its name and principal slogans to its practice of mass spirit

possession and beliefs in the invulnerability its followers were given, all reflect forms of ritual

81
The Boxer Rebellion was set in motion by a culmination of conflicting issues, and a breaking
point from the pressure of diminished food supplies resulting from a series of natural disasters,
mismanagement by a corrupt administration and foreign efforts at colonization. The failure of
this rebellion to expel the foreigners in China resulted in an invasion of China by an Allied force
of European and Japanese armies. The ordeal is well described in Paul Cohen’s History in Three
Keys, and Joseph Esherick’s The Origins of the Boxer Rebellion.
82
Cohen, 1997, p. 26.
33
practices that were built on superstitions and fears that existed in a difficult period of the Qing

dynasty. 83

In Esherick’s work on the origins of the Boxers, he argues the true nature of their

practices were not derived from sectarian or martial arts groups which happened to have the

same name many years before. The popular culture of the area served as the strongest influence

amongst the sources for the distinctive boxer ritual repertoire. Its influences drew upon popular

religion and the dramatic tales of local opera.84 The Boxers sought to quite literally embody the

values of the heroes of China’s martial arts tradition: loyalty, integrity and selfless altruism, and

through this, receive the fantastic abilities they believed these deified heroes possessed.

The New Culture Movement of the early twentieth century, which advocated the virtues

of science and reason, saw the Boxer Rebellion as the representation of everything that was

objectionable and threatening about the old culture. The Boxers became a trope in arguments

over modernization and how people of the new Republic of China should react to the foreign

presence in their major cities. In many ways, the Boxers came to be perceived as being the

embodiment of superstition and irrationality, and all the things that served to weaken the people

of China.85

The main reason for the animosity of modernists in Republican China towards the Boxers

was the damage caused by the anti-foreign rebellion. The response of foreign countries to this

rebellion was to form an allied military force, which included the participation of Austria-

Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Because the Boxers of this rebellion relied solely on the powers they were promised from ritual

83
Cohen, 1997, p. 17.
84
Esherick, 1987, p. xvii.
85
Cohen, 1992, p. 84.
34
performances, they were butchered in large numbers when they faced organized and well-armed

military units of foreign countries. This allied military force used the rebellion as an excuse to

attack and occupy the city of Beijing on August 14th of 1901, when it was the capital of the Qing

dynasty. The swiftness with which this army swept aside Chinese military forces served as

concrete evidence for the military superiority of the foreign nations. Key defensive positions

were overwhelmed in mere days, sometimes hours. The complete failure of the Boxers who

sparked the conflict, as well as the imperial armies who also failed to stop the allied invasion,

served as a powerful argument for those who believed that the abandonment of the traditional

ways was a necessary step towards building a stronger nation.

Such national humiliations were a major contribution the animosity towards the failure of

the Qing dynasty to keep pace with the developments in the West. In the Republican era, an

ongoing motto was “In service to society, under the guidance of the scientific spirit, for the

realization of our ideal of the creation of a New China.”86 This strong orientation towards the

future and notions of modernity was a response to the failures of the past. The emphasis on

Westernization focused on the aspects of how the Republic of China needed to become equal in

power with Western nations to receive fair treatment on the world stage. The land concessions of

the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 had sparked a heightened antagonism when German rights over

Shandong were given to Imperial Japan after six months of negotiations with international

powers at the Paris Peace Conference. These results from the Treaty of Versailles stirred the

86
Motto on the frontispiece of the first issue of Xin Qingnian (the New Youth journal) which
appeared in 1919 (Unschuld, 1985, p. 244).
35
political aspects of these modernization movements which became known as the May Fourth

Movement.87

In the minds of these modernists, the Chinese polity could no longer be effectively

governed by Confucian cultural values which had dominated intellectual developments in China

up to the end of the Qing dynasty.88 The students and intellectual leaders of this movement

stressed Western ideas of science and democracy. Traditional Chinese ethics, customs, literature,

history, philosophy, religion, and social and political institutions were fiercely attacked.

Liberalism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, anarchism, and many varieties of socialism motivated the

movement.89 There was a revision, if not an outright rejection, of the belief “in the uniqueness of

indigenous culture and in the universality of its underlying principles.”90 Under chaotic

conditions of political upheaval and warlord rule, “Chinese public opinion for the first time in

modern Chinese history had an opportunity to express itself. The voice of the new intelligentsia,

conveying the public feeling of national humiliation, was widely heard throughout the

country.”91

The May Fourth Movement was not just an event that occurred on May 4th, 1919. It was

the culmination of the dynamics that followed China’s contact with Western civilization, with

the influx of new ideas, belief systems, social structures, and scientific practices. Chow Tse-

87
This was an anti-imperialist (targeting western imperialism and colonization) cultural, political
movement that had a definitive launch with large student protests on May 4th, 1919. The protest
fought for five resolutions; to oppose the granting of Shandong to the Japanese under former
German concessions, to draw awareness of China’s precarious position to the masses in China, to
recommend a large-scale gathering in Beijing, to promote the creation of a Beijing student union,
and to hold a demonstration that afternoon to protest the terms of the treaty of Versailles. Chow,
1960, p. 4.
88
Chang, 1971, p. 297.
89
Chow, 1960, p. 1.
90
Unschuld, 1985, p. 230.
91
Chow, 1960, p. 21.
36
Tung summarized the key phase quite well when he explained that “during the first phase, some

new intellectuals concentrated on instilling their ideas in the students and youth of China. During

the second phase an all-out attack on tradition and conservatism was launched principally by

students, and the movement was carried beyond purely intellectual circles.”92

Facing this attack on traditional culture, teachers of martial arts tried to communicate the

value of the training practices through modern rhetoric, and had to determine how they could

present it as a modern, nationwide recreational practice of indigenous calisthenics and self-

defence. Fortunately the martial arts did have a strong history of being associated with popular

entertainment, with sources going back to the tenth century of the Song dynasty with the practice

of martial arts in special amusement districts where practitioners demonstrated routines and

“show fights” and theatre and opera groups incorporated elements of martial arts into their

performances.93 Various forms of martial dances can be found across Chinese history, and Lorge

saw these as not just being used for physical training, but also emotional, mental, and spiritual

training as well. They served to legitimize certain groups by creating lineages of practice, or

physical histories, through the regular repetition of orthodox patterns,94 and they also served as

influences for the development of later forms of entertainment.

One of the more challenging endeavors for martial arts instructors was to determine the

best way to improve the general understanding of martial arts as a way to maintain health. Most

people did not yet understand it as a health-related practice due to the common public perception

was that it was something practiced by so many ruffians and superstitious trouble-makers.

Amongst all the examples discussed to this point, very few could be easily connected to concepts

92
Chow, 1960, p. 6.
93
Filipiak, 2010, p. 34.
94
Lorge, 2012, p. 31.
37
of self-cultivation, where the training with weaponry or unarmed methods of combat could be

understood as having positive physical or mental benefit of practice. The earliest examples could

be seen in the practice of archery, but those examples were strictly based on the improvement of

the mind, not one’s physical health.

Up to the Qing dynasty, the available evidence seems to indicate that martial arts were

understood simply as a method to enhance an individual’s ability to fight. This remains the case

with many schools even today, but a significant number of martial artists beginning in the

nineteenth century, or possibly somewhat earlier, gave increasing attention to the other effects of

training by integrating concepts taken from traditional forms of Chinese medicine and

philosophy, and in Chapter 5 I will elaborate on what these concepts were. 95 This reinvention of

the emphasis in martial arts training among a certain group of literate practitioners had a

disproportionate effect on the overall understanding of the martial arts because unlike most

illiterate martial artists, their accounts of the martial arts were published in books that came to be

widely disseminated inside and outside China.96 However, shortly after this effort began to take

root, China entered the Republican era, and these traditional systems of belief came under attack

by modernists and reformists and these martial arts teachers had to turn around and determine

how best to explain these traditional concepts under the modern rhetoric of the efforts to create a

modern Chinese nation.

The National Essence Movement of 1916 – 1929 featured a direct attack on practice of

Chinese Medicine. While some efforts at creating modern forms of medical care in China sought

the preservation of Chinese medicine and the integration with western practice, there was a shift

95
We see these concepts in Republican era publications on martial arts such as those by Sun Lu
Tang. Sun, 1924, p. 3.
96
Lorge, 2012, p. 198.
38
underway at this time towards the wholesale Westernization of medicine. This shift was fostered

by the general disillusionment with traditional Chinese culture, and anger towards the failure of

the Chinese Republic to address the problems of the country and to prevent foreigners from

violating China’s sovereignty.

This attack on Chinese medicine carried over into the Scientism Movement of 1929-1937,

where there was a desire for an alternative completely removed from the values of the past.

Science was based on the methodical search for objectively reproducible truth, and people

followed principled such as the one outlined by Hu Shih (胡适 1891-1962)97 in 1923, when he

stated “Ever since the beginning of reformist tendencies in China, there is not a single person

who calls himself a modern man and yet dares openly to belittle science.”98 The Ministry of

Health99 followed the idea that Chinese Medicine had to create a medical infrastructure along the

lines of Western medicine in order to create a system of national healthcare.100

This criticism of traditional Chinese medical practices impacted the field of martial arts,

because all the aspects of training linked to health maintenance employed these traditional

concepts of the body and how it functioned. Within the Ministry of Heath, western-trained

97
Hu Shih was a Chinese philosopher, essayist and diplomat. He is widely recognized as a key
contributor to Chinese liberalism and language reform and an influential figure of the May
Fourth Movement. He was nominated for a Nobel prize in literature in 1939, and served as the
president of Peking University.
98
Unschuld, 1985, p. 230.
99
The Ministry of Health was founded in 1928 by the Guomindang, to create a medical
infrastructure along the lines of Western medicine in order to create a system of national
healthcare. It was supported by two groups, a domestic board of Chinese medical and public
health specialists and political appointees, and an international council of “honorary advisers,”
who were integrated so that the Ministry could “benefit from the experience of international and
other foreign health organizations through foreign experts.” Croizier, 1968, p.60.
100
Taylor, 2005, p. 6.
39
doctors such as Yu Yunxiu (余云岫 1879-1954)101 sought to outlaw Chinese Medicine in 1929,

viewing it as a “national embarrassment and a public menace.” He believed that old-style

medicine did not obey scientific principles of objective truth, the medical administration was not

unified, public health constructions stagnated in many aspects, and that it represented the stigma

of “The Sick Man of the East.”102

While traditional concepts of medicine had been connected with martial arts to flesh out

the content of the practice and work towards a balance of wen and wu that would be more

appealing to intellectual figures, these efforts were complicated by the harsh climate of the

Republican era and the desire to rid society of these traditional belief systems as part of the

efforts to transform China into a modern nation-state. Those who wanted to create a modern field

of practice for martial arts had to respond to the intellectual movements and the discourses they

generated. Through this process, the early 20th century became a significant turning point in the

ways that people viewed Chinese martial arts.103 It was only with the passage of time from the

tragedies of the Boxer Rebellion and the exerted efforts of people associated with projects such

as the Jingwu Association and the Zhongyang Guoshuguan that people became more accepting

of the idea of martial arts as a recreational activity suitable for people of the modern age. These

efforts came to emphasize the capacity of martial arts to promote a positive transformation that

could allow Chinese people to shed the criticism of being the “sick man of the East,” which led

towards a repositioning of how the practices were perceived by the general public, as well as the

new generation of students.

101
Yu Yunxiu was responsible for the proposal of “Abolishing Old-Style Medicine in Order to
Clear Away the Obstacles for Medicine and Public Health” at the first National Public Health
Conference, Scheid, 2007, p. 199.
102
Scheid, 2007, p. 213.
103
A point was reiterated in an introduction by the translator, in Sun, 1915, p. 4.
40
 Chapter 2: The Role of Tiyu Leading up to 1928

As a time of dramatic change within intellectual thought, the transition from the imperial

age into the Republican era marked a very important shift in the course of the traditional schools

of martial arts. During the Republican era, modernization movements touched every sphere of

life, with multiple discourses developing at the same time. The main focus of these movements

was the integration of western technologies and scientific practices as a part of the effort to move

beyond the imperial age of China and create a strong, modern nation. The field of physical

culture and how people understood the human body became important issues in this process, and

they were discussed at length in what came to be known as the Tiyu movement.

Throughout most of the Tiyu movement, traditional practices and systems of belief faced

heavy criticisms from those involved in the process of designing a new structure of governance

and administration for China who viewed these beliefs as superstitious elements of the feudal

establishment that had weakened China. The practice of martial arts in China fell into a space in

between the field of traditional beliefs that people wanted to eliminate from Chinese society104

and the aspects of Tiyu movement that sought to use physical practices and gymnastics to

strengthen the bodies of the people and to transform them into strong citizens.105

Following the work by Robert Morris on the history of physical culture in Republican

China, we find that a “useful search for the roots of modern Chinese physical culture must begin

with a study of late Qing self-strengtheners, reformers, and revolutionaries who, alarmed by

imperialist advances over the Chinese empire, looked to individual bodily strength and physical

104
Morris, 2004, p. 185.
105
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 20.
41
fitness as the key to larger issues of national and racial survival.”106 Morris’s work on physical

culture in Republican China fits within a new wave of academic work related to the field of

Chinese martial arts that features a much broader examination of how the practices fit into the

context of Chinese civilization than we find in earlier publications, particularly those written by

practitioners who mainly sought to position the style they were learning into an historical lineage.

Morris included Chinese martial arts as a component of his exhaustive work on physical culture

and the roots of Olympic sports in China leading up to their hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games.

The Self-Strengthening Movement of 1861-1895 represented one of the first major

movements towards the study of Western knowledge, which was set in motion after the series of

invasions by foreign powers. The movement faced many difficulties, as China struggled between

reformists who advocated state sponsorship of programs to acquire Western scientific knowledge

and the traditionalists who believed that such approaches neglected the importance of Chinese

knowledge and values.107 Initial studies of Western modernization were piecemeal rather than

systematic, incorporating new information and techniques into traditional knowledge.108 Prior to

this movement, the intellectual impact of the west on China remained superficial. “Except for a

small number of scholar-officials in positions of official responsibility and a few figures of

marginal status in treaty ports, Western influence had hardly penetrated into the scholarly world

of China.”109 Figures, such as the reform leader Kang Youwei (康有為 1858-1927),110 identified

that Confucian scholarship at this point was largely composed of Han learning and Song learning,

106
Morris, 2000, p. 878.
107
Croizier, 1968, p. 39.
108
Scheid, 2007, p. 204.
109
Chang, 1971, p. 4.
110
Kang Youwei was a scholar, noted calligrapher and a political thinker engaged with the
reform movements of the late Qing dynasty. He worked towards the establishment of a
constitutional monarchy, and while his writings were influential, his political ideology was never
put into use.
42
which meant it had two aspects: cultivation of the personality, and practical statesmanship.111

Within this, many “Confucian” thinkers envisaged a universal empire as the only desirable form

of political community. One of the prominent views of the traditional gentry-literati was their

“general and enduring consensus on the central values and institutions of the traditional

order.”112

Alternative forms such as the city-state and nation-state, which figured so prominently in

Western traditions did not exist within Confucian culture.113 This underlying rejection of

alternative forms of the state and the associated values of statesmanship and citizenship led to

shortfalls in previous attempts to incorporate western learning, as scientific concepts or technical

skills did not compose a significant component of the official education system which trained

officials during the Qing dynasty, and those from the west were initially studied with skepticism

and distrust.

Western intellectual influences only really began to take root in the 1890s as a wave of

political thinkers experienced a sustained contact with a wide range of western learning that

would not have been possible before with all the limitations on the ways that foreigners could

enter China, how the people under the Qing rule were unable to leave, and the lack of reliable

translations of Western publications. European science and technology as a whole challenged the

Qing economy as well as the intellectual basis of the Qing worldview. One of the responses to

this European challenge was to portray European technology and science as an external and

peripheral knowledge or practice, in contrast to the internal and fundamental Chinese culture.114

111
Chang, 1971, p. 42.
112
Chang, 1971, p. 122.
113
Chang, 1971, p. 28.
114
Lorge, 2012, p. 189.
43
This approach was seen as a way to allow the retention of Chinese values while the society

remained hesitant to adopt Western objects and practice.

These intellectuals exposed to western learning came to be deeply involved with the

central problems and concerns of traditional thought. People began to question some of the core

cultural values and institutions of the traditional systems of thought. An increasing number of

newspapers, schools, and study societies were established, which started to pull the debate on the

necessary intellectual changes away from the limited sphere of a few isolated scholar-officials.

This dialogue on the issues faced by the Qing dynasty spread to wider and wider circles of the

gentry-literati who became involved in these open publications and collaborations, which led to

larger and more public intellectual debates in the late 1890s.115

This period of time marked a prominent shift in not only the ability of intellectuals to

study Western learning, but also the type knowledge that scholars encountered when they had

chance to travel abroad. Previously, military technology and political institutions had been

viewed as the most important subjects to learn from the West. This newer wave of intellectuals,

unlike the reformers who had preceded them, paid more attention to ethics, ideas, and principles

rather than just the techniques of industrialization and material construction.116

As these scholars brought back these new forms of thinking, the opportunities for them to

enhance their influence or achieve success became more diverse as well. The traditional course

of “good scholarship leading to official posts” had developed into different paths. Talented

students went abroad wherever possible for further education, and returned to join the civil

service, or open their own business, edit periodicals, write essays and novels, or become teachers,

115
Chang, 1971, p. 121.
116
Chow, 1960, p. 366.
44
lawyers, accountants and doctors.117 This created an ever-growing class of educated people who

understood more and more of the mechanics of society, where students were no longer being

groomed solely for a career as an official.

Within this changing intellectual environment, an eminent Confucian trained scholar and

translator named Yan Fu (嚴復 1854-1921)118 planted the seeds of the Tiyu movement with his

argument that a driving force of the development of Western civilization was a Darwinian vision

of reality that prized the ideals of dynamism, evolution, and the struggle for survival and

prosperity. As a response to the scarcity of resources in the world, Yan Fu found in western

societies there was a greater emphasis on how the struggle for existence amongst people within a

society would be not only inevitable, but even desirable. A distinct shift from notion in

Confucian training that emphasized harmony and balanced measure, Yan Fu felt that “it is this

struggle for existence which leads to natural selection and survival of the fittest – and hence,

within the human realm, to the greatest realization of human capacities.”119

Another leading intellectual of the era, Liang Qichao (梁启超 1873-1929)120 shared this

perspective. In his view, even while ideals of internationalism, great harmony, and universal love

could be morally sublime, they were antithetical to the value of competitiveness which Liang

117
Ch’en, 1979, p. 11.
118
Yan Fu was a Chinese scholar who was selected to study at the Navy Academy in Greenwich,
England. After his return to China he failed to pass the Imperial Civil Service Examination and
he taught at the Fujian Arsenal Academy, followed by the Beiyang Naval Officer’s school at
Tianjin. His writings became famous after 1895, and he was celebrated for his translations of the
works by western thinkers such as Adam Smith, Thomas Huxley, Herbert Spencer and John
Stuart Mill.
119
Chang, 1971, p. 65.
120
Liang Qichao’s writing was widely read in the early twentieth century and they are credited
with playing an important part in forging the basic outlook of early Chinese intelligentsia.
45
saw as essential to the progress of human society.121 Traditionally, Confucianism included a

commitment to xiushen (修身 self-cultivation),122 but this was not conceived of as sufficient in

itself. Ren (仁 benevolence) was an element held in higher regard, where the imperative of

cultivating the moral character of an individual aimed at developing people capable of helping

others to pursue moral cultivation.123

It did not seem that Yan Fu and Liang Qichao believed that value of struggle was

something that could replace moral cultivation, but it was seen as something worthy of

development and further exploration. Liang Qichao began to examine traditional thought in new

ways, bringing forward arguments such as how the law of Karma in Buddhism could serve as the

antithesis of fatalism, and evidence of the value of struggle. Liang said that “Buddhism teaches

belief in effort without fate; even if it says there is fate, then fate is purely something which can

be shaped and swayed by human effort itself.”124 His drive towards creating a new future for

China could be found in statements such as “If there is only the present, then there is not the

slightest meaning and value. Only for the future does the present take on meaning and value.”125

With these discussions on survival of the fittest and the value of struggle, Tiyu came into

debates on the importance of an individual’s capacity for struggle, and how they could be

strengthened in order to fight for themselves and for their loved ones. An article written by Yan

Fu in 1895, titled Yuan Qiang (原强 The Origins of Power) was one of the earliest essays that

121
Chang, 1971, p. 157.
122
A careful preservation of the body was an important aspect of how one venerated the
ancestors, as the body is inherited from them. Care would even be given to a person’s hair and
fingernails. This element of Confucian reinforced the oppression faced by Han people under the
Manchus, when they had to shave their foreheads and keep their hair in a queue as symbols of
submission.
123
Chang, 1971, p. 8.
124
Chang, 1971, p. 179.
125
Chang, 1971, p. 177.
46
used the term Tiyu in a manner which represented concepts such as sports, physical education,

physical fitness, and recreation. The term Tiyu derived its meaning from Yan’s analysis of

Herbert Spencer's formulation of the trinity of moral, intellectual, and physical education. In Yan

Fu's formulation, Tiyu consisted of “energy, dynamism, struggle, self-assertion, and the fearless

realization of all human potentialities on ever higher levels of achievement.”126

Surrounding the developments of the Tiyu movement, Lu Zhouxiang has discussed in his

research on the building of a modern Chinese nation state, that sport “contributed to the shaping

of a national conscious among the Chinese people and greatly consolidated the unity of the

newly established nation state. It became an essential part of Chinese nationalists, politicians and

educationalists’ strategy to achieve national salvation and revival.”127 At this time, sport was

seen as a link between the dual responsibilities of citizens to keep healthy and fit in body and

mind, and to work and unite with their fellow Chinese people. In this domain, Lu argued that

sports was seen in Republican China as a valuable tool in the construction of the nation state.

The articles in Liang Qichao’s biweekly journal called the Xinmin Congbao (新民叢報

New Citizen Journal) built the logic of the Tiyu movement.128 He criticized the legacy of the

“weak Chinese body, which had everything to do with the absence of concepts of progress,

public morality, and duty in China.” 129 Liang saw jingzheng (竞争 competition) as jinhua zhi mu

(进化之母 the mother of evolution). He argued that not only must there be deliberate self-

cultivation, but also competition to test oneself against others and to develop oneself in the

pursuit of victory.

126
Morris, 2000, p. 880.
127
Lu, 2011, p. 1030.
128
This journal was intended for Chinese readers though first published in Japan on February 8th,
1902. It ran until 1907, after releasing ninety-six issues.
129
Morris, 2000, p. 879.
47
 The calls for technological and military innovations, constitutional reforms, and the

remaking of intellectual features addressed the issues made obvious by military failures and the

weak positioning China faced on the international stage. The Tiyu movement represented an

important branch of this system of thought. Not only did the administrators of China face a call

to modernize the bureaucratic system and improve the technology used for industrial and

military purposes, but also a call to modernize the people and to create an ideal citizen for the

modern face of China.

As it developed, Tiyu became “a totalizing and systematic ideology of personal behaviour

and its physiological implications, which was invested with definite ideals of the relationships

between the individual and the national body, and between the individual body and personal

character.”130 However, within this ideology it would appear that misguidance and mishandling

of important issues was a constant problem for the reforms of the Republican period. Intellectual

trends and the shifting debates on modernization would often undermine the indigenous physical

practices of China such as martial arts. At times it seemed that the future of the field of martial

arts would be decided by people who had little to no understanding of what this field actually

consisted of.

One of the key problems with this entire movement was that the lack of a focused and

deliberate effort to design the most effective form of physical practice from an amalgamation of

the materials available. The arguments demonstrated more of a chaotic amalgam of ideologies,

political movements, and attempts to completely redefine what would be identified as “Chinese

Culture.” Modernists pushed to move away from anything connected with traditional belief

130
Morris, 2000, p. 877.
48
systems, as they saw these beliefs as the cause of the weakness and subsequent collapse of the

empire.

The general appeal of Westernization prevailed in many aspects of society, so traditional

forms of physical culture often came to be disregarded in favour of the complete adoption of

foreign practices. Ma Mingda found that “serious research was lacking for the evaluation,

dissemination, and creative development of indigenous physical culture, and the academic

discipline specifically created for its study suffered many weaknesses, including superficiality,

lack of interdisciplinary perspective, and an inadequate theoretical framework.”131

Physical education is predominantly a construction of socio-cultural developments,

created by people for people on the basis of particular goals and values.132 People are not just

taught how to move, they are taught how to move in specific ways. Often these movements are

developed through games, dances and etiquette surrounding the body, and all of these practices

play a subtle role in the social cohesion of communities. Official, or state-approved forms of

physical education followed guidelines for instructing the behavioural manner expected from a

proper citizen of that state, which becomes particularly important in the process of building a

nation.

The national field of physical education in China became the domain of Western forms of

sports because they were perceived as something closely linked to modernity. 133 The influx of

these new political objectives and modern conceptions into the understanding the development of

the body and the various systems of practice made the traditional forms of Chinese physical

culture seem obsolete, with some people deliberately trying to relegate them to history. Martial

131
Ma, 2009, p. 5.
132
Loland, 2006, p. 60.
133
Morris, 2000, p. 899.
49
arts and indigenous games were pushed into marginal positions within the overall formation and

development of this national field of practice, and it was only due to this process of repositioning

that some of them were kept.

Within Tiyu, the strong orientation towards Western practices led to the promotion of

Western sports such as track and field, gymnastics, and ball games introduced by missionary

schools.134 While there was no obvious link between sports and Christianity, missionaries found

that sports and physical education was a path for them to move beyond simple evangelism into a

broader effort to reshape Chinese society.135 In 1896 the Educational Association of China (EAC)

declared that the Christian schools no longer existed solely to speed conversions or to train a

native clergy, but also to impart a good general education.136 This meant that Chinese students

were not just being given religious teachings, but a type of education with instruction in Western

subjects similar to what the missionaries themselves had.

Missionaries began to promote sports and physical education for several reasons. In part,

physical training was intended to help improve student health, for the missionaries tended to

regard their students as sickly, frail and prone to wasting illnesses. They believed that exercise

could build them up and help prevent disease.137 How missionaries perceived their students took

on larger significance as the missionaries applied it to their perception of China's political and
134
Graham, 1994, p. 24.
135
Missionary schools began teaching subjects such as mathematics, astronomy, music, history
and geography. They justified these new subjects by associating them loosely and
idiosyncratically with the evangelist enterprise, with explanations such as how mathematics was
useful for everyday life, that history could show China what had been and where the country
stood amongst the nations of the earth, and that geography could demonstrate how much more of
the world existed outside of China. Graham, 1994, p. 28.
136
Graham, 1994, p. 28.
137
This perception of vulnerability to disease was somewhat accurate. Trachoma, malaria,
smallpox, the plague, and particularly tuberculosis were rampant in late nineteenth-century
China. Mission schools were sometimes forced to close temporarily because of outbreaks of
illness among their students. Graham, 1994, p. 29.
50
national health. As China was seen as "the sick man of Asia," American missionaries projected

this pejorative assessment of China's health back onto the bodies of their students and in so doing

reconfirmed their superiority over the Chinese. Vigorous health was also an aspect of the

missionary concept of masculinity, which they perceived as related to national strength.

American schools touted the rhetoric of creating men who were courageous, decisive leaders and

team players. This effort to reshape their students to embody the American image of strong

citizens was also a component in the missionary’s sports and physical education agenda.138

Throughout their work, missionaries drew on their own gender ideology, in particular,

“their construction of masculinity within a religious or Christian context. ‘Christian manhood’

was two-fold: first, physical strength, stamina, and muscular development were important; the

second half was character-possessing personal virtues such as courage, courtesy, honesty, self-

discipline, diligence, and sportsmanship.”139 Character training was an important aspect of

teaching physical education to girls as well as to boys. Physical education in the mission schools

opened up new social spaces for Chinese women and girls; the gymnasium, the track, and the

basketball court were places where girls with unbound feet140 could assert their physical presence

in a forthright, competitive way that was previously unknown to traditional Confucian society.141

The missionary schools that encouraged young girls to do sports, which required healthy,

unbound feet, were controversial to those who saw these unbound feet as being associated with a

138
Graham, 1994, p. 30.
139
Graham, 1994, p. 32.
140
The practice of chanzu (缠足 footbinding) was a practice that originated in the early Song
dynasty (960-1279). It was a painful and debilitating custom, based on a perception of tiny feet
being more feminine and beautiful. It was symbolic of the degree of patriarchy within Chinese
society, as women with bound feet had difficulty walking or doing anything on their feet without
assistance.
141
Graham, 1994, p. 43.
51
low social standing. Footbinding was seen as a hindrance by these schools and teachers

encouraged family heads to come and watch their girls do outdoor physical activities and observe

what a great hindrance their bound feet were.142 Mrs. Archibald Little, the celebrated founder of

an anti-footbinding society, had the following to say about Chinese girls in the 1890s: “Instead of

a hop, skip and a jump, with rosy cheeks like the little girls of England, the poor little things are

leaning heavily on a stick somewhat taller than themselves, or carried on a man’s back, or sitting

sadly crying. They have great black lines under their eyes, and a special curious paleness that I

have never seen except in connection with footbinding.”143

With the growing interest in all forms of Western practices, the redevelopment of the

education system created an opening for the adoption of Western sports into the official

curriculum and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) took full advantage of this

opportunity at the end of the nineteenth century.144 Since the YMCA had established its first

branch in Shanghai in 1876, it was well situated to have an important role in the promotion and

dissemination of Western sports. The faculty of the YMCA in China organized some of the first

sports tournaments in the country, as in Tianjin and Shanghai in 1902, and they even organized

China’s first National Games in Shanghai in 1910.145

As Darwinian and Spenserian concepts based on the survival of the fittest gained favour

in the intellectual arenas in China, the YMCA’s emphasis on fitness and competition served as a

key factor to its acceptance. The YMCA’s guiding symbol of a "three-self" formulation of the

complete individual as being healthy in body, mind, and spirit fit in nicely with some of the

essays sympathetic to modernity movements, such as those of Yan Fu.

142
Gimpel, 2006, p. 322.
143
Gimpel, 2006, p. 323.
144
Morris, 2000, p. 889.
145
Ma, 2009, p. 10.
52
 According to the principles of the new scientific culture inherently linked to these

modernity movements, martial arts were not seen as something appropriate for modern forms of

physical culture. The field of practice received criticism because many of the intellectuals saw it

as representative of everything that these “modern men” wanted China to leave behind. The

principles and theories that had been integrated into newer systems of martial arts practice used

concepts from ancient philosophies, and that meant that at their core the goals of training were

unquantifiable and therefore unscientific. The criticisms often ran along the lines where the

martial arts “belonged to the wandering jianghu [江湖],146 not to the enlightened classes of urban

China. It left no written records that could be spread among the masses. The field was heir to a

legacy of secrecy and division, clearly the exact opposite of what was needed to unify the

nation.”147 The division between different schools of martial arts stood as one of the greatest

faults within the field of practice. It made it difficult to determine the difference between proper

and improper training, and most teachers did not want to openly present what they saw as the

most important elements of mastering their style of practice.

The disillusionment of the New Culture Movement with traditional Chinese culture was

founded on the cynicism felt by the people when the newly formed Republic of China failed to

address problems that had contributed to the downfall of the Qing dynasty. Scholars such as

Chen Duxiu (陈独秀 1879-1932),148 Lu Xun (鲁迅 1881-1936)149 and Hu Shih made their

146
The literal translation is rivers and lakes, but it is a reference to vagabonds, drifters and
itinerants of the countryside. The term was often associated with entertainers, swindlers and
quacks, though its exact usage could be the subject of a debate that goes beyond the scope of this
study.
147
Morris, 2004, p. 193.
148
Chen Duxiu is an extremely important literary figure of the twentieth century in China. He
was an educator, philosopher and politician. A leading figure in the May Fourth Movement, he
was involved in the foundations of the New Youth journal, as well as the Chinese Communist
party.
53
criticisms of Confucian culture public through journals such as the Xin Qingnian (新青年 New

Youth), which was founded in September 1915. It is widely identified with the high tide of the

“all-out Westernisation” in twentieth century China. In the name of science and democracy, this

journal had spearheaded an attack, first, on aspects of the Chinese national character; and then,

more explicitly on Confucianism.150

These writers called for the development of a new form of Chinese culture, one based on

global standards that championed democracy, science, and egalitarian values.151 In this discourse

on modernity, they included martial arts as a subject of their criticisms of traditional practices. In

an article in a 1915 publication of New Youth, Lu Xun stated that “I do not mind if some people

think martial arts is a special skill and enjoy their own practice. This is not a big matter. However,

I disagree with the propaganda of traditional Chinese martial arts because educators promote

martial arts as a fashion, as if all Chinese people should do the exercise, and most advocators

promote martial arts in a ghost-like spirit. This social phenomenon is dangerous.”152 Lu Xun felt

that the traditional concepts being applied to martial arts were unscientific and based on

superstition. He worried that their promotion might result in a similar outcome to that of the

149
Lu Xun was the pen name of Zhou Shuren 周树人. Zhou Shuren was another major Chinese
writer of the twentieth century, he was a short story writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and
poet. He was an influential figure of the May Fourth Movement, and the Communist party held
his work in high regard even though he never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party. He
worked at the Ministry of Education, and taught at several important colleges and universities in
China.
150
Uberoi, 1995, p. 115.
151
It is important to note that these three figures did not work together in harmony on this project.
All three were writers for the New Youth publications, but they did not always agree with each
other. They are listed together here in the context that the fundamental aspects of their work
moved against the continuation of traditional practices such as Chinese martial arts, and they all
agreed with the literary trope of the boxers (from the Boxer Rebellion) as a symbol of all that had
weakened China.
152
Xin Qingnian, 15 October 1915, translated by Grant Jarvie and Tony Hwang.
54
Boxer Rebellion.153 In 1918, Lu Xun once again denounced the promotion of martial arts: “There

are many now who actively support and advocate boxing. Remember, this was advocated in the

past, but then it was pushed by Manchu kings and princes; now it’s Republican educators. …

These educators take these old ways, ‘passed down from a mystic woman of the highest heavens

or some such, to the Yellow Emperor, and then to some nuns,’ now called ‘new martial arts’ or

‘Chinese calisthenics,’ and tell youngsters to practice.”154

Chen Duxiu’s opinion on the preservation of martial arts could be seen in a criticism of a

program designed by General Ma Liang (马良 1864?-1947). “We have already had enough of

the 1900 ‘Spirit Boxers,’ but now we are supposed to teach Commander Ma’s martial arts in

school. Do not once allow the ‘extraordinary feats of strength, chaos and spirits,’ of which even

Confucius did not speak [because of their supernatural content], to come and ‘deceive the next

generation.’”155 Ma Liang had published some manuals under the title Xin Wushu (新武术 New

Martial Arts) in 1917 for use by military and police organizations, and he was pushing for the

integration of martial arts into the public schools.156 Chen Duxiu fought this proposal, as it

conflicted with his aim to effect a complete dismissal of any elements of China’s cultural

heritage linked to what he saw as mystical or superstitious beliefs.

Chen Duxiu saw value in physical training; his criticisms of the classical education

system was that it over-emphasized literary memorizing and neglected physical exercise. In a

publication of the New Youth journal, he wrote “Whenever I look at our educated youth, I see

that they have not the strength to catch a chicken, nor mentally the courage of an ordinary man.

153
Jarvie and Hwang, 2001, p. 13
154
Morris, 2004, p. 193.
155
Morris, 2004, p. 194.
156
Green and Svinth, 2010, p. 343.
55
With pale faces and slender waists, seductive as young ladies, timorous of cold and chary of heat,

weak as invalids-if the people of our country are as feeble as this in body and mind how will they

be able to shoulder the burdens to go far?”157 He was influenced the approach of Yan Fu and

Herbert Spencer in advocating the trinity of wisdom, morality and the body. While Chen Duxiu

argued that a student’s physical strength is one of the essential elements in present educational

policy, he disagreed about putting martial arts in the school curriculum because of his anti-

traditionalist position. He insisted on three warnings on sport - no martial drill, no boxing and no

violent competitive games.158

The value of physical education was understood by modernists not solely because of their

desire to overcome the stigma of being the “sick man of the East.” The Western thinkers who

inspired their work also advocated for the necessity of physical culture within the education

system. In one of his speeches given at Nanjing University in 1919, John Dewey159 claimed that

“Mass physical education development is the most urgent problem for every country today. Can

China approach this mission? It is better to improve personal and mass hygiene, teach knowledge

of physical education in society rather than focus on military education and military training

which only applies to military schools.”160 During this time of Westernization in China, John

Dewey became one of the most influential American intellectuals on psychology and social

157
Xin Qingnian, Vol. 1, No. 2, Uberoi, p. 117.
158
Jarvie and Hwang, 2001, p. 13
159
1859-1962, John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational
reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. A stern advocate of
democracy, Dewey considered schools and civil society as major topics needing attention and
reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that
complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring
that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by effective communication among
citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt.
160
Jarvie and Hwang, 2001, p. 6.
56
affairs in China due to the relevance of his work to the social reforms underway, and the two

years he spent promoting his ideas in China from 1919-1921.

Other aspects of this movement included the ways in which classical Chinese writing was

positioned as the written language of scholars and officials and deemed unsuitable for the

movement geared towards the people and the youth of China. Figures such as Hu Shih

proclaimed as they introduced a new form of vernacular Chinese referred to as bai hua (白话)

that a dead language like classical Chinese could not produce a living literature. The objective

ran along populist trends, with the hope that people with little education could be able to read

more texts and articles. This fostered a new literary establishment, which involved publishing

houses, journals, literary societies and universities, which gave form to an entirely new literary

and intellectual scene around the years 1910 to 1930. The New Youth journal was one of these

publications, and it became a forum for the debate of why China was weak, and how Confucian

culture could be blamed.

As with the others who criticized the epithet of the “sick man of Asia,” martial arts

instructors rallied together under the banners of the groups such as the Jingwu Association, and

later the Guoshuguan to reinvent the “scholar’s appearance” that had for so long been the ideal

for Chinese men. As these intellectuals were arguing over expected forms of a proper, modern

citizen, Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on habitus becomes an appropriate concept for how this

scholarly appearance was embodied. Bourdieu describes habitus as a system of generative

schemes that are both durable (inscribed in the social construction of the self) and transposable

(from one field to another).161 At an unconscious level, these schemes influence how people

understand themselves, and how they understand their ability to act upon the world they perceive

161
Lipuma, 1993, p. 116.
57
around them. In this instance, the “scholar’s appearance” is a reference to a form of habitus, a

generative schemes of traits and dispositions.

This appearance connected with the habitus expected of a proper Chinese gentleman in

traditional society, whereby he spent his time cultivating wen virtues, studying books or writing

calligraphy, contemplating the finer details of philosophy, rituals and the cosmological links

which motivated everything on subtle levels. As discussed in the previous chapter, muscular

bodies were seen as something distinctive of the lower classes, associated to those engaged in

manual labour. Cultured and successful people were not supposed to have developed muscles.

The paradigm of wen and wu can be interpreted through concepts of class habitus that

mediates human agency through the development of certain perceptions and life-practices in

response to objective social conditions.162 Because of the ways in which conditions of existence

can be formative of a person’s preferences, these conditions can act as a method of social

reinforcement. “The habitus implies a ‘sense of one’s place’ but also a ‘sense of the other’s

place.’ … Agents classify themselves and expose themselves to classification by choosing, in

conformity with their tastes, different attributes, clothes, types of food, drinks, sports, friends,

which go well together and which they also find agreeable or, more exactly, which they find

suitable for their position.”163

Human beings become socialized into a hierarchy through the dispositions and

perceptions they develop according to their understanding of themselves and the world in which

they live. The way people perceive the world in which they live is influenced in very powerful

ways by institutions set in place to guide their growth and education from childhood. From

162
Harvey and Sparks, 1991, p. 172.
163
Bourdieu, 1987, p. 132.
58
childhood, dispositions and perceptions are fed to people through various channels and

relationships that connect with cultural forms and the conditions of social categories.

These cultural forms embody, sustain and reproduce the social field in which they

exist.164 The people who decide how these social activities are preserved thus become an

important component of the social fabric of a community, as their decisions impact how these

activities are transmitted to the next generation, and how they can serve to strengthen or weaken

social hierarchies. Although teachers in Republican China knew nothing about the theories of

Bourdieu, they were caught up in certain dynamics of society that he outlines, and the

Guomindang were active participants of this reordering of social hierarchies. As I will elaborate

on in the next chapter, the Guomindang were actively taking on the role of state authority within

these new social hierarchies of the modern Chinese nation, where they worked at redefining the

social power of different fields of power, and subsuming them under national institutions that

were granted the authority over the recognition and certification of what could and could not

exist within that field.

While it is framed in a context of social power and authority, habitus is a concept that

integrates the mind, body and society in a fundamental way, and martial arts as a bodily practice

is quite interesting when considered in the model of habitus because it can be categorized in so

many different ways. The practice simultaneously represents a system of self-defence, a holistic

health exercise, an aesthetic dance-like art, a recreational activity, a form of moving meditation,

and a relic of Chinese antiquity. This complexity within the practice consolidated itself around

the principle of self-mastery, which infers a complete transformation of the body and mind, with

a continual refinement of the mental processes and philosophical understandings. While this was

164
Lipuma, 1993, p. 27.
59
not historically a key aspect of martial training, it came to be an emphasis of various martial arts

systems in the Republican era.

The teachers who tried to create a new perception of their practices by publishing books,

articles and essays, and participating in associations such as the Jingwu and Guoshuguan were

caught up within this process of positioning. Because of the developments underway at this time

with the Tiyu movement, in addition to the restructuring of social hierarchies that followed the

collapse of the Imperial era, these martial artists had an unique opportunity to integrate their field

of practice into these discussions on physical culture, the need to create a new sense of Chinese

identity, and the search for a way to strengthen the people of China. As teachers argued that

participation within the field of martial arts would lead toward positive transformations in an

individual, they had to reply to the question of what role this individual would have, or should

have in a modern China. While they may not have been aware of it, in essence they argued that

the form of habitus generated by the practice of martial arts would give rise to set of social

practices that was desirable for the position in society they wanted martial arts to occupy.

60
 Chapter 3: Positioning Undertaken by the Guomindang Party

With the disunity of the Warlord Era that defined much of Republican China, members of

the Guomindang party were engaged with trying to establish themselves at a place where people

believed that they had the right to legitimize culture and create a new form of citizen. This was a

project they undertook in the mid-1920s after a very difficult period of factionalism within the

party and struggles against those who opposed them. One of the goals of the GMD party

members was to strengthen their political position by defining themselves as the guardians of

China’s cultural heritage.

This chapter looks at the development of the GMD party to determine the approach it

took towards building a modern Chinese nation, and how the field of Chinese martial arts fell

under these efforts. This would explain their involvement in the Zhongyang Guoshuguan, and

draw out some of the underlying objectives of the institute. I argue that a number of the party

members in Nanjing saw the Guoshuguan as another opportunity to reshape Chinese culture,

legitimize their fledgling government, and further their efforts towards building a modern

Chinese nation in which they could act as a centralized authority over what would constitute a

proper citizen. It certainly was not the only project the GMD used to accomplish their goals, nor

would it be their most important, but it does have a strong connection with the repositioning of

Chinese martial arts in Republican China.

Throughout most of the early twentieth century, the GMD was far from anything that

could represent a centralized authority in China. Much of the party’s existence relied on tenuous

relations with generals who could easily turn against the GMD and the party had to contend with

61
localized power bases controlled by warlords. To understand the scale of the conflict, Jerome

Ch’en put it into the terms that if we were to define a warlord as any officer who held the rank of

brigadier-general or above, then China had about 1,300 warlords over the period from 1916 to

1932.165 The number of biographies available on the great warlords who influenced the political

changes of the time only represents a small minority of the number of the ones who lived at that

time. All efforts to grow and build a nation were undermined by the power struggles of these

military figures. It is estimated that upwards to eighty percent of the entire revenue of the nation

was illegally diverted by the warlords, and schools, houses and institutions alike were often

closed and occupied by soldiers as barracks.166

The Guomindang was a bureaucratic political party with an awkward upbringing from its

roots as a subversive movement constituted by a network of secret societies, and it lacked the

raw military power it needed for its goal of the unification of China.167 Having to navigate

complicated alliances and personal relationships to build this military backing, this effort to

define themselves as the “guardians of China’s cultural past” was demonstrated in the GMD’s

support of art forms and practices such as the martial arts. The party members wanted people to

perceive them as having a symbolic role that they could balance against the military power of the

warlords and generals.

Going back to the history of the party, we see that, following the collapse of the empire in

China, the republic that Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙 1870-1925)168 and his associates envisioned did not

165
Ch’en, 1979, p. 6.
166
Chow, 1960, p. 260.
167
Letsz, 1982, p. 48.
168
Sun Yat-sen was a revolutionary and political leader commonly seen as the father of modern
China. He played an important role in overthrowing the Qing dynasty, and served as the first
provisional president of the Republic of China.
62
take root. The revolutionists lacked an army, and the power of Yuan Shikai began to outstrip that

of the newly established parliament. The GMD could be understood as an amalgamation of

smaller groups or societies, including the group that Sun Yat-sen was originally part of, the

Tongmeng Hui.

The Guomindang also had its foundations in the Xingzhong Hui (兴中会 Revive China

Society), one of the organizations that sought to overthrow the Manchus of the Qing dynasty and

reform China. The three slogans of this society were: expelling the Manchus, restoring China to

the Chinese, and creating a republic. Since the imperial administration in traditional Chinese

society did not tolerate opposition, members of societies such as this had to operate in absolute

secrecy, and discovery would typically result in torture and death. While the Xingzhong Hui was

not the only secret society that quietly planned the downfall of the Qing, fierce debates

surrounded the relations of power that divided these groups and even the Tongmeng Hui that Sun

Yat-Sen worked with was formed by loosely associated factions, with various centers of power

each independent of the others.169

These divisions fed into a fear of internal strife. It seemed clear that uncoordinated and

separate provincial uprisings would bring chaos as they had done in the past when dynasties

were overthrown.170 Many of these fears were realized as the revolution started not as an

orchestrated movement but with a blunder. A bomb exploded at a revolutionist’s headquarters in

Hankou, and officials investigating the incident found lists of Tongmeng Hui members and

contacts. Panic broke out amongst those associated with the planning of the uprising, and

knowing that exposure to official jurisdiction meant death, revolutionary members of the army

169
Yu, 1966, p. 52.
170
Yu, 1966, p. 42.
63
mutinied in self-defence. The uprising, though anticipated by the central division, took many of

the revolutionary leaders by surprise.171

Military figures took control while the political groups, isolated in the distance they had

given themselves from the central administration to safely plan the foundations of a new republic,

were left ill-prepared to control the events that followed. Factionalism grew even deeper during

chaos with prior loyalties, diversity of goals, differences in ideology, divergences in tactics and

strategies, and the conflict of strong-willed personalities.172 Many of these military figures

dreamed of China as a strong, centralized and unified state, but they became impatient with the

inherent rigidities which arise from a territorial division of powers in a federal scheme, and

lacked confidence in the ability of politicians to guide Republican China.173

The concept of parties, meaning the existence of two or more competing political groups,

was alien to the very basis of traditional Chinese political thought and practice.174 This was

demonstrated in November 1915, when Yuan Shikai, who was legally the president of the newly-

born Republic, ordered the GMD dissolved and its members removed from parliament. Within a

few months, he suspended parliament and the provincial assemblies and forced the promulgation

of a new constitution as a part of his efforts to extend his powers. Even with this, Yuan's

ambitions still could not be satisfied; and, by the end of 1915, he moved to re-establish the

monarchy with himself as emperor. Widespread rebellions ensued, and numerous provinces

declared independence. Losing many of his supporters, and facing a growing opposition as other

military leaders began to turn against him, Yuan Shikai died in June of 1916.

171
Yu, 1966, p. 62.
172
Yu, 1966, p. 49.
173
Yu, 1966, p. 74.
174
Yu, 1966, p. 6.
64
 The chaos following the death of Yuan Shikai became known as the Warlord Era, during

which regional generals and warlords competed with each other for resources, soldiers, territory

and influence. No single leader was strong enough to assume a centralized position, so each

carved out his own territory, making and breaking alliances with others to secure power. This

caused a shift of control even further from centralized authorities to territorial bases in a constant

state of flux, where “the size of political authority varied from multi-provincial alliances, to

single-province enclaves, to sub-provincial garrison commands.”175 This continued up to 1928,

when the conclusion of the Northern Expedition176 marked the beginning of the "Nanjing

decade." However, even as old warlords were deposed, new ones persisted into the 1930s and

1940s. The GMD struggled to keep its allies under control, which was a great problem

throughout the Japanese invasion and these military divisions culminated with the outbreak of a

full scale civil war, which they ultimately lost. Even after the victory of the Communist Party in

1949, deals and alliances with regional warlords were negotiated to ensure their cooperation with

the changing political systems of mainland China.

From 1916 until the Northern expedition in 1928, the Beijing government was subject to

the whims of those who controlled the armies. The country split into various semiautonomous

areas, each governed by a military figure.177 In the most significant ways, China became divided

175
McCord, 2002, p. 189.
176
Also known as Beifa 北伐, this was a military campaign led by the Guomindang that lasted
from 1926 to 1928. The main goal was to unify China under the Guomindang banner and end the
rule of local warlords. While they had managed to unify much of the south through alliances and
build a powerbase in Guangdong province, the north remained in control of warlords. Three
powerful warlords where the main targets of this campaign; Zhang Zuolin (张作霖 1875-1928)
in Manchuria, Wu Peifu (吴佩孚 1874-1939) in the Central Plains region, and Sun Chuanfang
(孙传芳 1885-1935) on the east coast.
177
Yu, 1966, p. 142.
65
between the north and the south. In the midst of all this, the GMD found themselves having to

establish the different channels through which they could build their influence and control.

By 1924, the GMD was still very far from a party of big landlords, capitalists and

powerful warlords. It was more of a collection of small property owners, lower-tier warlords,

salaried men and intellectuals. At this point, the party began to develop a new emphasis on the

technique of winning the masses by presenting a challenging ideology (redefined in the light of

changing conditions), with an emphasis on propaganda activities.178 This connected to the

reorganization of the GMD, to combine Chinese traditional concepts with Western methods to

create a new appreciation of all things traditional.179 The process appeared to be that they first

had to reorganize the party so that it could be transformed into a modern political party with

ideological and organizational solidarity. Second, they took leadership of the administrative

structure in Canton and the military academy in Whampoa, and third, they began to send party

cadres to work among the workers and peasants so as to promote social change.180

Yifeng yisu (移风易俗 transforming customs and common practices) was a concept

featured on the agenda of imperial governments, but few were properly armed with the

ideological understanding or technical capacities to probe deep into everyday cultural

practices.181 The GMD involvement in projects such as Tiyu and Guoshu reflected the direct

application of the theories on social positioning. The role of culture in people’s livelihood and

the channels that bind a society together meant that it was extremely important to the

management of the masses. Understanding how to control the dynamics of culture represents an

178
Yu, 1966, p. 171.
179
Yu, 1966, p. 177.
180
Ch’en, 1979, p. 178.
181
Li, 2001, p. 31.
66
important form of symbolic capital and power. Within the reorganized party, a number of

influential veteran politicians believed in the value of China’s traditional civilization because it

was the very basis of their own education. They shared notions about the functions of culture and

discipline as organizing forces in society which could be traced back centuries in the political

culture of China.182

In subsequent years, the GMD became, as it never really had been before, a revolutionary

party that reinforced its legitimacy by its self-appointed role as this guardian of the past.183 A

renewed focus on establishing schools for the training of civilian cadres rapidly began to change

from the free-wheeling and contentious revolutionary party it had been in the early 1920s into a

huge patronage system.184 They worked with nationalist and culturalist views on many issues

touching on national life and reached into an increasingly diverse range of social circles and

fields of practice. GMD schools emphasized morality and nationalism, and the independence of

educators was diminished by stress on technical subjects and the supervision of the Ministry of

Education and the party.

This movement drew its influence from the ways in which the emergent form of

governance, acting as the sovereign state, could grant itself the role of reshaping society and of

maintaining social order to help legitimate and preserve its sovereignty. Education played a vital

part in this program, and had an overtly political function, the training of an individual who stood

as a member of a nation formed by a collection of citizens. Physical culture functioned along

these parameters in nineteenth century France, where gymnastics became a form of physical

training that could contribute to the reshaping of society, to the "forging of the free but docile

182
Letsz, 1982, p. 2.
183
Letsz, 1982, p. 102.
184
Letsz, 1982, p. 106.
67
citizen.”185 After the GMD solidified their power in 1927, their government policies were based

on anti-imperialism and self-strengthening, and “sport and physical education were used to serve

the consolidation on national unity, cultivate patriotism and build up the physical strength of the

people.”186

One of the key institutes in the efforts of GMD to create their revolutionary soldiers was

the Whampoa Military Academy, which was intended to be the cradle of for the GMD’s social

revolution. The leaders of the Whampoa Academy sought to create the officers and leaders of the

“party army,” which would combat the far-reaching corruption of warlords in Republican

China.187 Self-sacrifice, loyalty, discipline and, if necessary, martyrdom for the revolution served

as the guiding ideals taught at this academy. Many of the officers who led the Northern

Expedition were trained at Whampoa.

Even more complicated than the education of citizens, the education of soldiers

incorporated a special form of political education. Expected to risk their lives for the nation, their

devotion to this ideology had to be an ideal as powerful as a religion. The GMD built up the

notion that “to be a real revolutionary soldier, to protect the nation and win the respect of the

people, it was necessary for the soldier to cultivate zhi (知 knowledge), ren (仁 compassion), and

yong (勇 bravery).”188 Many soldiers receiving this training came to see themselves not merely

as fighting men, but as members of a revolutionary vanguard. Most of them had witnessed the

cruelty and selfishness of warlords first hand, and the idealism of the project was driven by the

concept of creating soldiers of a new order, something more than just another warlord army.

185
Harvey and Sparks, 1991, p. 178.
186
Lu, 2011, p. 1048.
187
Letsz, 1982, p. 191.
188
Letsz, 1982, p. 73.
68
 The curriculum of this academy was influenced by Chiang Kai-shek’s six training

principles:

Teach them to be men

Teach them to be modern men
Teach them to be modern Chinese men
Teach them to be soldiers
Teach them to be modern soldiers
Teach them to be modern Chinese soldiers189

This drive for a military academy did not simply rise out of propaganda movements and

party reforms. Generals and politicians alike understood the very real need for quality soldiers

and officers capable of leading and organizing men. The quality of troops in China was notorious

for being extremely low. Most of them were untrained, having been recruited from the peasantry,

along with a mix of small craftsmen, bankrupt merchants, dropout students and workers

returning from abroad.190 In 1927, a GMD officer criticized the men he commanded, describing

them as follows:

The quality of our troops was not very good. Few could read. The majority were
dull and illiterate. Most of them were drifters with no profession and bullies or riff-
raff from market towns. The expression “Good iron is not made into nails, good
men do not become soldiers” really fits. Their aim in becoming soldiers had no
basis in feelings of wanting to serve the nation or the people, but came instead from
their desire to use the army as a hotel. When they were stymied in civilian life, they
would run into the army, take their two meals a day and forget their problems. Thus,
every day there were deserters and every day new men were taken in to fill the gaps.
As soon as they had a little training they would run off and in a few days a new
bunch would come in.191

Many soldiers were apt to desert in the middle of a battle, and when they deserted they

had the tendency to cast away their weapons. Of those deserters who held onto their guns, many

of them would join bandit armies formed from disbanded or disorganized soldiers. This problem

189
Letsz, 1982, p. 201.
190
Ch’en, 1979, p. 78.
191
Letsz, 1982, p. 72.
69
was persistent enough for Li Yuanhong (黎元洪 1864-1928) 192 to have remarked “When

disbanded, soldiers change into bandits; when reorganized, they become soldiers again.”193

Many soldiers either lacked an awareness of the political issues at hand, or an affection

for the figures leading them. Following many victories, men often just switched sides to the

winning party. It was more of a paying job to fight for one side or the other than some campaign

they actually believed in. The army of the Fengtian clique194 doubled the strength of their army

from 170,000 to 350,000 with the men who crossed over onto their side after a battle. Feng

Yuxiang was well known for growing his army from two divisions and six brigades to eight

divisions and eleven brigades by recruiting from the armies of his foes. 195 Almost overnight, he

became a deciding factor in the success of the Northern Expedition. Military leaders were caught

in a position where they had to continually bestow favours, and as the size of their armies grew

they needed an increasing amount of resources in order to outbid the offers of their potential

rivals and maintain the loyalty of their followers.196

Some people in the GMD wanted to push for a shehui junshihua (社会军事化 the

militarization of society) and model its political activities and national consciousness on forms

developed by the army. A goal of this transformation throughout the people was to see that

192
Li Yuanhong was an officer of the Qing dynasty who was recruited by the revolutionaries
despite having fought against them in the beginning. He served as president of the Republic of
China after the death of Yuan Shikai, from June 7th 1916 – July 17th 1917, as well as a second
term from June 11th 1922 – June 13th 1923 after President Xu Shichang was forced out.
193
Ch’en, 1979, p. 82.
194
One of several mutually hostile cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang Clique during
the warlord era. It was named for the Fengtian province, now known as Liaoning, and led by
Zhang Zuolin, who was fiercely anti-republican. Enemy of the Northern Expedition led by
Chiang Kai-shek, Zhang retreated north until he was eventually assassinated in 1928 by Japanese
forces that supported for a short him for a short period of time. His son, Zhang Xueliang (张学良
1901-2001), took over leadership and pledged loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek.
195
Ch’en, 1979, p. 54.
196
Ch’en, 1979, p. 102.
70
“boundaries between spheres of society would dissolve and a new spirit, like the Whampoa spirit,

would provide direction and a focus for the energies of the nation.”197

The efforts of the GMD to position itself as being able to legitimize and protect culture in

their efforts at nation building link with Michel Foucault’s concepts regarding the role of

institutions. Foucault argued that the rise of modernity has required the “disciplining” of “docile”

bodies.198 Discipline in this sense refers to the result of the institutionalization of schools,

hospitals, prisons and factories where there is a process of individualization that emphasizes the

individual as a locus of social production and control. The discipline of others and self-discipline

were posited as two qualitatively different forms of bodily discipline.199 The institutional

discipline of others entails a negation of the body where it is developed and categorized in a way

that reinforces the sovereignty of central authorities. The body is relegated to the status of a

commodity which is selectively developed to realize its utility for specific goals, many of which

are tied to labour and productive capacities that can address the needs of a nation state.200

This is a process tied in with Foucault’s criticism of bio-politics. At the level of bio-

political production of the individual and the population, techniques of discipline and

government craft the bodies of individuals as bodies capable of work, and create their needs and

interests as members of a population. Foucault points out that “there are not first relations of

production and then mechanisms of power that modify or disturb them. Mechanisms of power

are an intrinsic part of all relations, and in a circular way, are both their effect and cause.”201

197
Letsz, 1982, p. 218.
198
Foucault, 1979, p. 222.
199
Uberoi, 1995, p. 110.
200
Ingham, 1985, p. 47.
201
Foucault, 1979, p.2.
71
 Bio-politics actually serve to introduce and define populations before acting upon them,

where the individual body or population does not pre-exist relations of power. Power is not

generated by itself, but there are sets of procedures that serve to establish, maintain and

transform it. The authority to create laws framed by the permitted vs. the prohibited, as well as

the judicial power to select punishments to be accorded to specific crimes and even kill people

who act against these laws, represents sovereign power that establishes a relation of power in

bio-politics where the life of populations becomes the target of the articulation of power. In the

efforts of the GMD to establish themselves as the “guardians of China’s cultural history,” in

addition to their claim of sovereignty over the newly founded institutions, and the drafting of a

new system of law for the modern nation of China, there are very strong indications that the

approach undertaken by the GMD to establish their power had elements similar to the nature bio-

politics.

These theoretical concepts surrounding the political interest in the body certainly come to

bear when we look at GMD’s project entitled the Xin Shenghuo Yundong (新生活運動 New Life

Movement). On February 19th, 1934, Chiang Kai-shek inaugurated the New Life Movement in

Nanchang, Jiangxi, with goal of “revolutionizing” Chinese life. Although the program was

ultimately unsuccessful, it still provides some insight into the Guomindang`s perception of their

role in society, as well as what they targeted as China`s “most serious problems and how they

could be resolved.”202 The leadership of the GMD blamed the material and spiritual

“degeneration” of the people for China’s continued crisis, and to address this Chiang Kai-shek

launched a movement aimed at a behavioral reform across the country.203 While the focus on

morality had some elements of the traditional Confucian models, the New Life Movement built

202
Averill, 1981, p. 596.
203
Dirlik, 1975, p. 945.
72
on a combination of elements from Western Christianity, nationalism, authoritarianism and even

some aspects of fascism.

The Guomindang designed the New Life Movement as a modern movement to address

modern problems, in a country besieged with corruption, factionalism, and opium addiction. The

concept behind the project was that national salvation lay in hygienic activities and purging

unhealthy habits of the body and mind from the people. The New Life Movement had

connections to the intellectual and social mobilization that dominated Chinese politics in the

1920s. Student and labor movements in the cities and peasant movements in the countryside

represented the emergence of new social forces onto the political scene. With the growing

number of urban professional careers available, as well as the need for factory workers in the

efforts to industrialize the nation, urban labor emerged as an important political force for the

modernization of China and the development of a market economy. The social involvement of

the intelligentsia in the twenties became organized political action over time.

The New Life Movement connected with this growing realization in the value of the

peasants, students and workers for political goals. For much of Chinese history, these social

categories were largely irrelevant to political work that focused on scholar officials. In realizing

the potential use of the people, the GMD leaders wanted to set in motion a massive movement

that focused on junshihua (军事化 “militarization”), along with shengchanhua (生产化

“productivization” or a renewal of productivity), and yishuhua (艺术化 “aesthetization” or a

renewal of aesthetics) as the core changes that the movement hoped to bring about.204

The impetus of this movement was a perception Chiang Kai-shek had of the common

people of Republican China. He felt there was unbearable filthiness and disorder in every aspect

204
Dirlik, 1975, p. 972.
73
of their lives, and an overabundance of hedonism and laziness in people. His criticisms were that

most people seemed to have no sense of the value of time, and that they were careless, negligent

and irresponsible. Chiang saw many of the common people as being both physically and

spiritually decrepit. “To sum up in one word, the life of the average Chinese at present is

barbaric (yeh-man) and devoid of reason (pu-ho-li).”205

The promotion of principles of behavior that were to constitute the public morality of the

“New Life” of China was a key feature of the movement. Six main principles were promoted:

orderliness, cleanliness, simplicity, frugality, promptness and precision. At times this list also

included harmoniousness and dignity, though all these principles could be summarized under the

fundamental aspects of “cleanliness” and “discipline.”206

Highly controlled by the political and military elements of the party from the beginning,

mass demonstrations were organized through bodies such as state sponsored schools.207 They

worked towards a zhengshihua (正式化 “politicization”) of the people and a push for them to

overcome an indifference to politics in order to better understand the political situation and

actively participate in reform movements. However, the New Life Movement was not intended

to extend political participation to the people and have them challenge the existing structure of

authority. Rather it was to mobilize them “in support of state goals, to convert them into

voluntary functionaries of a bureaucratic machinery that encompassed the whole nation.”208

The policies and nationalist programs laid out by this movement covered areas of local

control, education, and agrarian reform, but the emphasis on morality and hygiene at the top

205
Yeh-man in pinyin is yeman 野蛮 and pu-ho-li is bu heli 不合理. Dirlik, 1975, p. 954.
206
Dirlik, 1975, p. 956.
207
Dirlik, 1975, p. 950.
208
Dirlik, 1975, p. 953.
74
levels proved problematic. The divide between the upper level ideologies and the ground level

necessities for execution plagued the movement with poor planning, bureaucratic ineptitude and

a failure to accommodate to entrenched local elite who were determined to retain their power.209

In addition to the basic conceptual and organizational challenges, a major problem was the

bewildering array of organizations, agencies, and bureaus established by the provincial and

central government levels to direct the movement.210 Many of these groups developed their own

specialized figures throughout what Averill Stephen described as the “lower stratum of the

elite,”211 which included a variety of different leadership roles including lineage heads, village

elders, militia captains, traditional local schoolteachers and dispute mediators. Many of these

people became involved with smuggling, extortion, opium growing and other illegal practices as

this Movement brought in new resources and further reaching connections.

Studying how the New Life Movement was applied in Jiangxi, Stephen Averill found that

the exact characterization of the movement was problematic. It was by no means the “cosmetic

approach to ‘national regeneration… built on the toothbrush, the mousetrap, and the fly swatter’

which characterized the New Life Movement.”212 The project became a complex program aimed

at far more than simply the return of law and order. Through various programs for local control,

education and gradual land reform the government intended to produce “a prosperous, peaceful

and well-educated citizenry which would be concerned with national affairs and responsive to

government wishes.”213

209
Averill, 1981, p. 596.
210
Averill, 1981, p. 612.
211
Averill, 1981, p. 621.
212
Averill, 1981, p. 627.
213
Averill, 1981, p. 627.
75
 Although this might be a short summary of yet another large and complex movement of

the Republican China, a noteworthy aspect is how the New Life Movement served as a concrete

example of the GMD’s recognition of the necessity of engaging the general population in the

political process if it wanted to achieve its goals. It demonstrated the realization that an effective

government “demanded the ability to serve as an agent of change, to transform society in the

direction of greater national cohesion and unity of purpose.”214 Not only was the engagement of

the general population important for political reasons, but it was also key to the labor force and

productive capacities of the nation.

This drive for health, hygiene and discipline in the New Life Movement indeed linked

with the Tiyu movement that preceded it. In a speech titled as such, Tiyu Yu Xin Shenghuo (体育

与新生活 Physical Culture and New Life), made in 1936 by Meng Guangpeng (孟广澎 1887-

1959),215 a focus on the body of the common person related to its potential for labor and

production:

“Production, in China with its weak nation and poor people, is naturally of paramount
importance… The most important factors in production are capital, land, and labor, and
everyone knows that of these, labor is the most important… The source of labor is the
human body – without strong bodies there of course could be no powerful labor for
production, agriculture, or handicraft work. To increase efficiency one especially needs
healthy bodies. In the great enterprises of Europe and America, for the sake of
rationalization, the health of all workers is especially emphasized. Workers are
supervised not only during working hours but event during rest time. Equipment and
counselling are provided so that their bodies can stay healthy.”216

214
Dirlik, 1975, p. 976.
215
Meng Guangpeng was a renowned social scientist who was recruited by the Guomindang
party in the Republican era, serving in administrative duties within the military where he rose to
the rank of a Major-General.
216
Morris, 2004, p. 122.
76
 Another speech, made by Shao Yuanchong (邵元冲 1890-1936)217 as he represented the

Central Party Department at the 4th National Games on April 1st of 1930, highlights the

importance of physical fitness for the masses, and also gives credit to the value of martial arts:

“We should know that in the past, when the masses were interested in physical fitness
and martial arts, they always paid attention to the individual rather than the entire
society’s physical fitness (shehui tili [社会体力]) or competition with other nations of the
world. Now we must make sure that physical fitness and martial arts are taken to the
masses and that the masses pay attention to physical fitness and martial arts in order to
make the minzu healthy and strong. This will be the success of racial nationalism (minzu
zhuyi [民族主义]).”218

Considering the divisions within the GMD party and its need to reinforce its social

positioning to counterbalance the military strength of the generals and warlords they faced, and

the internal policies that took hold in regards to becoming the “guardians of China’s cultural

history” as well as the goals of transforming the people through projects such as the New Life

Movement, it becomes somewhat clearer why the GMD would have wanted to become involved

with a martial arts academy that had the ambition of becoming a national institution. It fed

directly into its efforts to pull together a unified China with itself at its core, and it represented an

institute involved in education and a reformation of the body, which had important links to

traditional culture, military practice, and the notions about the transformation of the people.

The Guomindang took these efforts of establishing sovereignty over the education system

to the point where they made an official decree in 1927 aimed at banning any schools that did not

have their official involvement or approval. According to the decree, all schools in China had to
217
Shao Yuanchong was a senior official within the Guomindang party, who rose to become the
incumbent minister of the propaganda department before his death at the Xi’an incident when
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was arrested and kidnapped by Marshal Zhang Xueliang, who
wanted to forced the GMD and the Communist Party of China to make peace so that the two
could act as a unified front in the face the threat of the Japanese invasion.
218
From the Quanguo Yundong Dahui Zongbaogao (全国运动大会总报告), Morris, 2004, p.
103.
77
register under the government. Foreigners could no longer be president or the chairman of the

directorate, schools were not allowed to force students to practise religion, and further decrees

were published to ban religious activities in schools in 1929.219 This was a direct response to the

growing number of missionary schools and foreign institutions like the YMCA, and the presence

of foreigners within a domain now perceived as essential for the formation of proper citizens.

Political initiatives within physical culture and the practices they entail are undertaken

primarily for purposes of social cohesion and control. In this, they connect with Foucault's

conception of the disciplines of the body as forms of domination and integration to the social

order within modernity.220 As sports and physical education are determinate life-style practices,

in Bourdieu's view they are therefore reflexive with specific class conditions and relations and

can be instrumental in expressing identity. As such, sovereignty over sports and physical

education becomes a step towards the construction and reproduction of specific relationships of

power, and fall into the nation building efforts of this era, along with the invention of what

would constitute a modern Chinese culture.

Within a socio-political-cultural dimension, Deborah Kapchan discussed how performing

genres such as the martial arts become significant in as much as they can create new and hybrid

identities. Actors use them “to maintain, reinforce or revise social imagination according to their

interests. As a discursive field where the traditional past meets the contemporary invention of

tradition, genre is a crossroads – of time and space, of convention and creativity, encoding

history and determining the future.”221

219
Lu, 2011, p. 1039.
220
Harvey and Sparks, 1991, p. 183.
221
Kapchan, 1999, p. 209.
78
 Interpreting these formations of social relations, categorization and habitus as forms of

cultural memory, Kapchan speaks of how we “live in the body as presence.” We are possessed

by the repetitions that we perform each day, and by the sights and sounds that we experience

through our bodies. But we are also always involved in the coming to terms with cultural identity,

the codification and objectification not only of other cultures, but of our own. 222 Martial arts

represented a field of practice at a “nexus of citizen-state relations, body disciplines, and the

manipulation of tradition,”223 during a time when this tradition was being compared to, and

integrated with, concepts of modernity.

The training at the Zhongyang Guoshuguan was not as specific to the interests of the

GMD as other institutes such as the Whampoa Military Academy, but the Guoshuguan certainly

would have been an institution it would have seen beneficial to its work. For the purpose of this

thesis, understanding the complexity of the issues that surround a political party is important to

understand the dynamics underplaying the decision of political figures consider taking on a

project such as the Guoshuguan as a means to act upon the field of martial arts practice. This

form of political involvement in a cultural institution emphasizes the ways in which martial arts

practitioners would have been influenced by the socio-cultural dynamics at play throughout the

Republican era.

222
Frank, 2006, p. 12.
223
Gainty, 2007, p. x.
79
 Chapter 4: The Jingwu Tiyu Hui and the Zhongyang Guoshuguan

Having covered so many different aspects of Chinese history, and the underlying

dynamics that took place during the Republican era, it is clear that the Jingwu Association and

the Zhongyang Guoshuguan occupied an important stage in the evolution of Chinese martial arts.

This chapter looks at what the objectives of these associations were, along with the potential

motivations of the people involved. In both organizations, they were not just involved in a

preservation or maintenance of martial arts, but also a reinvention of it, and the development of

its potential as a form of recreation imbued with an inherently Chinese sense of identity. This

would have been a distinct break from earlier roles of martial arts in Chinese society.

Founded in the middle of the Tiyu movement in 1907, the Jingwu Tiyu Hui, was

originally known as the Jingwu Ticao Xuexiao (精武体操学校, the Pure Martial Calisthenics

School), until it was renamed in 1916.224 Jingwu Tiyu Hui was a project initiated by a group of

martial arts practitioners who sought to preserve and develop Chinese martial arts and to

guarantee that these systems of practice would survive the transition from traditional to modern

China. This association had a vital role within the conflict between traditionalists within the field

of martial arts and the intellectuals fighting for the complete adoption of Western forms of

physical culture. Some contemporary martial arts historians such as Brian Kennedy and

Elizabeth Guo go so far to claim that the Jingwu Association was the school that saved the

traditional martial arts of China.225

224
Morris, 2004, p. 186.
225
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. ix.
80
 The Jingwu Association signalled a turning point in the organization and promotion of

martial arts. It was the first public Chinese martial arts training facility, and the first association

to position Chinese martial arts as a sport or recreation. The Jingwu Association used books,

photographs, magazines, and even film to promote the development of Chinese martial arts. It

even ranked among the earliest institutions in China to place women’s programs on an equal

footing with men’s programs.226

The women’s program at the Jingwu Association opened in 1917, and within a year, it

operated in several schools in Shanghai.227 The Jingwu Association’s anniversary book contains

a number of essays by women who participated in the Jingwu program. The general theme of

these essays was that in the new, modern, scientific China, people should be able to move past

the belief that gender could be a limiting factor to physical or martial arts development.

The idea of bringing together different styles of training and developing their strongest

elements was not something started by the Jingwu Association. We find an earlier example of

this approach taken in Jixiao Xinshu, with the chapter on hand-to-hand martial arts, “Quanjing

Jieyaopian” (拳经解要篇 Classic of Boxing, Chapter on Essentials) where Qi Jiguang took the

best parts of popular boxing styles and organizing the material into two parts: the written

framework with basic principles, and illustrated examples.228

Unlike Qi Jiguang, who worked to prepare soldiers for war, the Jingwu Association

sought to build a place where people could just walk in, sign up and learn Chinese martial arts.

This aspect of openness was critical to their efforts to reinvent the field of practice as a form of

health maintenance and recreation. While teachers at the Jingwu Association did not want to

226
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. x.
227
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 15.
228
Henning, 2006, p. 11.
81
abandon the traditional forms of martial arts, they did not defend the ways that these forms had

previously been taught. While they still included competitive training that had a relation to

fighting, they sought to foster the public understand of martial arts where the fighting aspect was

only one part of something greater.

The Jingwu Association pushed for the incorporation of a modern mindset into the

traditional forms of practice, following the slogan of “Scientize martial arts, and spread them to

the millions.”229 In this, the Jingwu Association encouraged the movement away from traditional

schools and forms of teaching. In many ways, it followed the concepts of achieving

modernization through westernization, describing the benefits of martial arts through western

concepts used in the debates of the Tiyu movement and encouraging the study of western

practices. It was the first sports organization to combine Western and Chinese physical culture,

teaching not only Chinese martial arts and military training, but also Western sports such as

gymnastics, athletics, football, basketball, volleyball, tennis and swimming.230

The Jingwu project was intended to create a tangible shift in the way that Chinese martial

arts were commonly perceived as the domain of soldiers and bodyguards, and stop any

connections from being made with the Boxer Rebellion or any superstitious elements of training.

As a public association built on Western principles, the people involved with the Jingwu

Association wanted martial arts to be a form of recreation with cultural attributes, and even an

intellectual pursuit appropriate for the modern, Westernized citizen of the new Republic of China.

The Jingwu treated martial arts training as an ideal youth activity. It was physically

demanding, meaning it could help students become strong and healthy, and it had the potential to

229
Morris, 2004, p. 192.
230
Jarvie and Hwang, 2001, p. 12.
82
instill in a sense of pride in a Chinese person’s cultural heritage.231 But in order to convince

others of the utility they saw in the practice, the directors of the Jingwu Association had to work

against all the negative public associations of the martial arts, such as boxers being illiterate,

violent or immoral. Novels such as Shuihu zhuan reinforced stereotypes linking martial arts with

fighting and outlaws, where the main characters spend most of their time divided between

drinking bouts, immoral sexual liaisons, street fights and running from the law.232 The popularity

of this book within literary culture over the years influenced a certain expectation for the

common martial artist to be some type of brigand or vagabond. Through their actions to cultivate

important links to powerful political figures, and demonstrate through commercial acumen and

the institutional format of the association, the leaders of the Jingwu Association wanted to assert

that “true” martial artists did not possess negative qualities like those seen in Shuihu zhuan, but

instead they had the intellectual abilities necessary in the modern world ready to face the

challenges ahead.

One of the most important projects of the Jingwu Association worked to separate the

effective and useful aspects of Chinese martial arts training from the practices connected with the

rituals of spiritual possession used in the Boxer Rebellion.233 The teachers involved with that

association wanted to foster the idea of applying Western principles of scientific study separate

fact from fiction in martial teachings. They had to distance the training from the perception of

having any affiliation with the Boxer Rebellion. To achieve their goals, members of the Jingwu

Association incorporated many Western strategies and took some revolutionary initiatives. They

emphasized written texts, welcomed women’s participation to the world of modern martial arts,

231
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 63.
232
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 88.
233
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 86.
83
and reached to a broader audience so that they could promote the practice of Chinese martial

arts.234

The Jingwu Association served as an important forerunner to other martial academies that

opened in the 1920s and 1930s. It laid out new possibilities for unification of martial arts and

played an important role in improving the general perception of their field of practice. The

Chinese public learned about the activities of the Jingwu Association inside the pages of New

Culture Movement journals and newspapers, as many of the driving members of the Jingwu were

also members of the New Culture Movement.235 They incorporated Western sports and

intellectual activities into the Jingwu facilities to defend traditional systems of practice by

creating a new field of physical culture for China; one firmly based in the indigenous practices

that could be learned from respected teachers open to the incorporation of new ideas that could

refine and improve the training methods.

The vision of the Jingwu Association for the traditional Chinese martial arts included the

importance of using scientific sports methods to ensure that the traditional practices would not

only stay alive but remain vibrant and develop with the growth of modernity in Chinese

society.236 This reflected the goal of the Jingwu to raise the overall level of Chinese culture, to

connect with the rhetoric of these social movements and to ensure that the practice of Chinese

martial arts was positioned as something more sophisticated than simply the activity of

uneducated guards or soldiers. When the original hall of the Jingwu Association was damaged in

a typhoon, and they had raised the funds to build a new space, they designed it to resemble a

234
Morris, 2004, p. 203.
235
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 8.
236
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 26.
84
Western-looking facility.237 It was planned as a place in which the polarizations of Western and

Chinese, science and culture, intellect and body could all be brought together.

Huo Yuanjia (霍元甲 1868-1920),238 a co-founder of the Jingwu Association, was made

into a symbol of the “new Chinese citizen” they hoped to create: an individual who was well-

educated, physically fit, morally upright, proud, and able to stand up to physical challenges from

any source, whether on the leitai (擂台 raised platform),239 the sports arena, or the battlefield.

There was an understanding amongst the people involved that the Jingwu Association relied on

the pillars of society, which they identified as journalists, politicians, business people, academics,

military officers, and women’s organizations.240 They understood the potential of these different

elements of modern society to influence how martial artists were perceived and to improve how

they were positioned within society.

One of the Jingwu Association’s early victories in the popularization of martial arts was

that they were included in the first National Games of the Republic of China in 1910, in a three-

day program of what were called Guocao (国操 national callisthenics) demonstrations.

Organized by Chen Tiesheng (陈鐡生),241 the program consisted of one hundred and seven

martial arts exhibitions, all scored on the basis of five standards: orderliness, spirit, strength,

237
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 29.
238
Huo Yuanjia was a Chinese martial arts and co-founder of the Jingwu Association. He was
considered a hero in China for defeating foreign fighters in highly publicized matches.
239
The leitai was a traditional arena for challenges between different schools of martial arts.
They were also used by the community for theatrical performances and other communal events.
240
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 12.
241
Chen Tiesheng was a journalist and editor who started the Jingwu Association’s literary
efforts in 1916. He wrote many articles for popular magazines and newspapers to promote the
Jingwu Association program. Chen Tiesheng “Di san jie quanguo yundonghui guocao,” in
Morris, 2004, p. 81.
85
posture and dress.242 This involvement in the National Games represented a significant

advancement in effort to create a place for martial arts within the modern field of sports. The

Jingwu went on to build their organization up to where they had forty-two branches by 1929,

with over 400,000 members spread through China and South East Asia.243

The initial work of the Jingwu Association had made some progress, but by the 1920s

there were still many criticisms of the field of martial arts, even by other teachers. Wu Zhiqing

(吳志青 1887-1949)244 pointed out that martial arts were still not openly discussed, petty factions

kept their skills secret, many schools in the martial arts world were dominated by the

“supernatural,” “sorcery,” and “occult talk in total darkness,” and that the terminology of martial

arts was too abstruse and obscure for the masses to understand.245

Wanting to take pioneering efforts of the Jingwu Association even futher, the Zhongyang

Guoshuguan (中央国术管 the Central Martial Arts Academy) founded in Nanjing, the heart of

the Guomindang controlled Republic of China as a centralized institution for the practice of

martial arts. While many of the teachers involved might have had a personal interest to help

preserve martial arts, the financial and political contributions to the Guoshuguan was driven by

their efforts in nation building, as well as their growing authority over the education system in

China.

Founded by Zhang Zhijiang, who was named the director of the academy in the National

Government decree # 174 on March 15th, 1928,246 the academy was opened with the support of

242
Chen Tiesheng, “Di san jie quanguo yundonghui guocao,” in Morris, 2004, p. 81.
243
Jarvie and Hwang, 2001, p. 12.
244
Wu Zhiqing was a leader of the Chinese Wushu association of Shanghai during the 1920s.
245
Morris, 2004, p. 217
246
Morris, 2004, p. 205, and Filipiak, 2010, p. 43.
86
the GMD party and Nanjing heavyweights like He Yingqin (何应钦 1890-1987),247 Kong

Xiangxi (孔祥熙 1881-1967),248 and Yu Youren (于右任 1879-1964).249 The GMD supported

the academy with a funding of 4,000 yuan (元 Chinese unit of currency, tael) per month, with

overseas contributions of an initial 250,000 yuan at the founding of the program.250 The goals of

the academy were to generate a new culture of martial arts instructors, enhance the health of the

people, standardize teaching materials, improve research, create a centralized examination

system, and to promote the value of Chinese martial arts to the young nation state of the

Republic of China.251

The people in charge of the Zhongyang Guoshuguan sought to construct and disseminate

an official and coherent ideology situating the Guoshu (国术 national arts) they taught as a

scientifically and rationally based native Chinese sport.252 Guoshu refers to a field of practice

that combined a mixture of different styles of martial arts, with agonistic competitions in bare-

handed and weapon fighting at its core. Guoshu is believed to originally be shorthand for

247
He Yingqin was one of the most senior generals of the GMD during Repblican China and a
close ally of Chiang Kai-shek. He was a general instructor at the Whampoa Academy in 1924,
and recruited with a number of the students into the National Revolutionary Army, where he
started as the commander of a division before working his way up to become the Minister of
Military Administration Department of the GMD government.
248
Kong Xiangxi, often known as Dr. H. H. Kung, was a wealthy banker and politician of the
early twentieth century. He was highly influential in determining the economic policies of the
GMD government in the 1930s and 1940s. He was the Minister of Industry and Commerce for
the party from 1928-1932, served as the Minister of Finance from 1933-1944 and even the
Premier of the Republic of China from January 1st 1938 to November 20th 1939.
249
Yu Youren was an educator, scholar, calligrapher, and revolutionary politician. After a
tumultuous period for him during the revolution, in 1927 he was a standing member of the
Nationalist government committee, and appointed the Director of Audit. In 1932, he was the
Director of the Control Yuan, while he continued his work on calligraphy with the compilation
of a few books.
250
Filipiak, 2010, p. 47.
251
Vercammen, 2009, p. 126, and Filipiak, 2010, p. 48.
252
Morris, 2004, p. 216.
87
Zhongguo wushu (中国武术 Chinese martial arts), which became imbued with the notion of

representing “National Skills.” This reflected the effort to connect the martial practices to the

same categories as Guohua (国画 national painting), Guoyi (国医 national medicine), and

Guoyue (国乐 national music), which emphasized their indigenous qualities. The invention of

this new term for martial arts reflected the effort to give martial culture a modern, scientific and

national packaging, as when the Jingwu Association first started calling martial arts wushu.253

Zhang Zhijiang served under the warlord turned Guomindang general, Feng Yuxiang (冯

玉祥 1882-1948).254 Zhang Zhijiang was one of the five generals of the Northwestern army and a

former dutong (都统 military governor) of Suiyuan province,255 who was sent to Nanjing to

serve as an official liaison to Chiang Kai-shek after Feng Yuxiang agreed to stand behind the

GMD. Using this guanxi (关系 personal relations)256 with some of the most powerful political

and military figures of the time, Zhang Zhijiang lobbied for the support to found a martial arts

academy which became the Guoshuguan. Feng Yuxiang was an active supporter of the practice

253
The martial arts skills and training that had been passed on for centuries in China had
previously been referred to with terms such as quanyong (拳勇 fist of valor), wuyi (武艺 martial
arts), jiji (击技 skills of assault), shoubo (手博 hand combat) or yiyong (義勇 skills of valor).
Terms like wushu, Guoshu, quanshu (拳术 skill of the fists) or Guoji (国技 national skills) were
only introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century. See Morris, 2004, p. 188.
254
Feng Yuxiang was known as the Christian general. He was a powerful warlord with Soviet
military connections who helped Chiang Kai-shek in his Northern Expedition to unify China and
bring the Northern warlords under control.
255
Morris, 2004, p. 204.
256
With an inclination to a continual exchange of gifts and favors, guanxi serves as an essential
part of society in China. It reflects a style of obtaining influence or favors through the cultivation
of personal relationships and expanding one’s network of contacts, both direct and indirect. As
described in Lin, 2010, p. 33, “Although both Zhang Zhijiang and Li Jinglin had very impressive
civil, military, and administrative credentials, their knowing the right people at the right time
facilitated the founding of this institute.”
88
of martial arts, giving a speech that touched on the criticisms of the New Cultural movement

against martial arts practice on May 4th, 1927:

“I don’t oppose playing ball in the least, but I do oppose this feverish consumption
of foreigner’s goods. This is exercise, but it is the exercise of the gents and ladies of
the leisured class. If you want to exercise your body, is a blade not enough? Is a
sword routine not enough? Are wrestling and boxing not enough? Of China’s
eighteen types of martial arts, not one is incapable of drenching our entire bodies in
sweat, stimulating all the body’s blood, tendons and bones. You say those activities
are old-fashioned, but you don’t even know that the Western sport of track and field
is all left over from the Greek and Roman eras… Now it is all just about blindly
following the West, and when you think about it this is really our greatest national
shame.”257

Built on an institutional framework, the objectives of the academy entailed the

establishment a universal, nationwide, standardized system of indigenous calisthenics and self-

defense by providing a form of centralized regulation over the training of martial arts teachers.

To achieve these goals during the era of modernization movements, the Guoshuguan needed to

construct and disseminate an official and coherent ideology situating martial arts as a

scientifically and rationally-based indigenous Chinese sport.258 To this end, the academy funded

research and publications on the martial arts, established a new method of training teachers, and

provided open instruction for interested students. Chu Minyi (褚民谊 1884-1946)259 wrote in the

inaugural essay for the journal Guoshu Unification Monthly that only a “unified” Guoshu that

was “scientized, particularized, and common-ized [i.e., made more common throughout society]

257
Morris, 2004, p. 196.
258
Morris, 2004, p. 216.
259
Chu Minyi was a prominent figure in the Chinese Republican movement and the early GMD
government. Another Tongmeng Hui member, he was a member of the GMD educational
commission and the head of the medical school at the Guangdong University in 1925. As a
member of the Central Executive Committee of the GMD in 1926, he organized the Chinese Arts
Association. Due to various political differences with Chiang Kai-shek, he resigned from these
positions.
89
would be able to achieve a Chinese martial arts influence that was internationalized, globalized,

and humanized throughout the universe.”260

While founders of the academy understood the ability of martial arts to instill self-respect

and patriotism in the hearts of the people, and we can also see this as well in quotes such as one

from 1933: “Standing on this twentieth century stage where one cannot survive without

competing, how can we prevent insults and gain respect? … The only path we can take to self-

defense is to practice the martial arts… Comrades let us loudly affirm: … the spear and staff of

the martial arts will strike down the Imperialism that has invaded us… The knife and sword of

the martial arts will cut up all the unequal treaties! … Long live the martial arts of the Republic

of China!”261

The founders of the Guoshuguan strongly believed in the dictum that a strong mind in a

strong body would lead to a strong nation,262 and they also believed the ethos of the Guoshu

element of this movement, whereby the use of “national arts” in the title touched on how the

people of China not only needed to strengthen themselves to face global competition and

modernize their country, but they also needed to maintain a connection to their cultural history.

The Guoshu aspect was an important part of defending these traditional practices as something

still worth preservation by virtue of the fact that they reflected the cultural identity of China.

The first two directors of the academy were former generals in warlord armies with an

admiration for martial arts. Their military experience would have given them a familiarity with

the competitive nature of the world and the need for modern technology and weaponry in combat.

260
Morris, 2004, p. 221.
261
Henning, 2006, p. 19.
262
Lin, 2010, p. 32.
90
Particularly with the victory of their armies in the Northern Expedition,263 they would have

recognized that not only did a modern nation require advanced weaponry and soldiers with the

technical skills to use them, but it also needed men instilled with strength, discipline and

confidence to win a battle.

The support of the Guoshuguan aligned with a movement led by Cheng Dengke (程登科

1901-1991)264 where educationalists and nationalists called for the implementation of the idea of

“National Physical Education” in the mid-1930s. Their objective was to promote militarized

physical education and let all the Chinese people participate in sport.265 The teachers at the

Guoshuguan encouraged everyone to study Chinese martial arts regardless of social class, gender

or position. The idea was to help the people unite and to teach them how to defend themselves

from any threats, either foreign or domestic.

In his research on the foundations of Taiji Quan, Douglas Wile saw that there was a sense

of the national self that could be produced through the practice, which was helpful against the

challenges faced with understanding oneself within an increasingly international environment.

Wile trod carefully around defining legends in the origins of martial arts such as Taiji Quan that

claimed to go further into Chinese history beyond the Ming dynasty due to the lack of textual

evidence, and he felt that the growing popularity of the practices in the Republican era “may be

seen as a psychological defense against Western cultural imperialism.”266 Not only was it the

263
An important military campaign during the efforts to unify China during the Republican Era,
which is elaborated upon in Chapter 4.
264
Cheng Dengke served as the head of the College of Physical Education at Nanjing Zhongyang
University. He studied at the University of Berlin from 1929-1933 and was inspired by the
militarized physical education in Germany. He published his theory on physical education in
1936 in an essay entitled “The Theory on National Physical Education and the Way of
Implementation,” Lu, 2011, p. 1033.
265
Lu, 2011, p. 1033.
266
Wile, 1996, p. 26.
91
issue of training people in a practice that could make them strong, but it was a distinctly Chinese

practice. With this, the people behind the Guoshuguan worked towards the promotion of martial

arts as a basis to strengthen the minds, bodies and cultural identities of the people.

Of course, the challenge with promoting martial arts as a tool to help unify the people

meant that the promoters had to reconcile the disunity of the practices themselves. Advocacy for

gejia quanfa jian er xizhi (各家拳法见而习之 practice every style of boxing as one)267 related to

their goal of establishing a unified field of martial arts in China. Despite their efforts, situations

occurred where one system or school of martial arts gained favour over another, and vicious

infighting could break out amongst different teachers. The Zhongyang Guoshuguan originally

emphasized the division between the Wudang (武当)268 and Shaolin (少林),269 but conflicts

between teachers to settle administrative disagreements led to this form of organization being

abolished. Some of this infighting reached the point where Liu Yinhu (刘印虎 a Wudang Taiji

267
Original translation of quote taken from Ma Mingda. The Chinese line can also be translated
as “To see every style of martial arts and practice them.” The emphasis seems to be on the active
pursuit of different styles and an openness to different concepts in training.
268
A term from a mountain range known as Wudang Shan (武当山) or simply Wudang, in the
northwestern part of Hubei province, near the city of Shiyan. This term Wudang is used to refer
to the martial arts of Taiji Quan, Xingyi Quan and Bagua Zhang. The legend to the Wudang
mountains was that a Daoist master, Zhang Sanfeng (张三丰) lived there in the twelfth century
and invented Taiji Quan after witnessing a battle between a white crane and a snake. This is a
highly contested story, falling into the criticized areas of martial arts based on mythology. Tang
Hao (唐豪 1887–1959), the historian working at the Guoshuguan could find no truth to figures
such as Zhang Sanfeng, and felt that the proliferation of unfounded myths discredited the
reputation of martial arts. However, there is indeed a Daoist temple at the Wudang mountains
that incorporated some physical training and the practice of Taiji Quan, but when and how they
integrated those practices into their training is uncertain, and beyond the focus of this thesis.
269
The Shaolin temple is famous for its martial arts practice, although the exact history of it is
uncertain. An excellent source on the martial history of the temple is Meir Shahar’s monograph
The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion and the Chinese Martial Arts. Though it perhaps puts
too great a focus on the role of Shaolin in the greater field of Chinese martial arts, particularly
with an inadequate reading of martial arts before the Ming dynasty, Shahar’s work is widely
treated as one of the most significant academic works on the role of martial arts in the Shaolin
temple.
92
Quan expert) and Ma Yufu (马裕甫 a Shaolin wrestler) are said to have attacked each other with

bamboo spears in a disagreement over how to structure the curriculum.270

The new structure of the Guoshuguan was designed from a western institutional

framework. At the top, the head director and his administrative committee oversaw all aspects of

the institution. Below him, the organization branched out into all the various departments that

oversaw each function. There were five weiyuan hui (委员会 committees) and a lishi hui (理事

会 board of management) that gave direction to the institute, including the publishing committee,

recruitment committee, examination committee, miscellaneous committee, and a canshi hui (参

事会, counselors, with a political connotation).

For the actual classes, they came to be divided into age groups rather than the previous

stylistic divisions, with an additional class for people who wanted to come and study, but not

immerse themselves in the full program. They were grouped together under the xunlian dui (训

练队 training department) and listed four different sections, minzhong ban (民众班 common

people), children, women, and adults, which separated the full time students of the institution

from local people that wanted to come in and take less formal classes.

There was a jiaowu chu (教务处 academic services department) that was divided into the

library, a teacher’s class and a wangce zu (汪册组 literary acquisition department), and each

section had its own director. Following this, the pianshen chu (编审处 editorial department) was

divided into a publications department, a shenhe zu (审核组 verification department) and a bianji

zu (编辑组 compilation department). The zongwu chu (总务处 general affairs department)

270
Morris, 2004, p. 205.
93
included the clerks for general affairs, a finance and accounting department, and a wenshu zu (文

书组 secretarial department). Finally, the institute also included a research department, divided

into four yanjiu hui (研究会 research teams). These included the wushu wuxue yanjiu hui (武术

学术研究会 martial arts academics research team), the yundong caipan yanjiu hui (运动裁判研

究会 athletic judging research team), the jiaocai jiaoxue yanjiu hui (教材教学研究 teaching

materials and teaching methods research team) and the shehui jiaoyun yanjiu hui (社会教育研究

会 social education research team).271

This structure allowed for more progress towards the development of a list of recognized

styles and sets that should be learned for practice. The curriculum itself was divided between two

main aspects of martial arts training, which included quantao (拳套 boxing sets, also known as

taolu 套路, forms training or simply “forms”) and liangong (练功 training drills). Quantao are

choreographed series of movements that can range anywhere from two or three moves to over a

hundred moves that are practiced together as a single form. These forms are intended to be

practiced daily, and in a fluid manner where each move feeds into the next. Liangong are fairly

straightforward exercises and calisthenics that are simple to learn but challenging to practice.

When training liangong, a student would be told to do hundreds of repetitions daily to attain any

true level of skill. The emphasis on method of training versus the other would differ between

teachers, but in general the mentality was that the quantao contained the essence of the style of

movement, and the actual techniques that could be applied in the fight, but the liangong was the

method to cultivate ability to use those techniques with power.

271
This information was taken from the organization chart from the Zhongyang Guoshuguanshi
(中央国术管史 History of the Central Martial Arts Academy), 1996, p. 27.
94
 Zhang Zhijiang’s approach to the content of training revolved around a central precept,

that lianda bingzhong, shuxue jianbei (練打並重，術學兼備 practice and agonistic competitions

should exist side by side, and technical knowledge should be acquired at the same time as

rational understanding). One of his most significant contributions was the creation of a

preliminary system of indigenous sports with the guoshu kaoshi (国术考试 National

Examinations, also known as simply guokao 国考) at its center.

Instructors in the different academy branches were allowed to teach their local martial

arts specialties, but they tried to maintain consistency across the different branches. All academy

students would study an official curriculum that included Taiji Quan, Xingyi Quan (形意拳

mind/form boxing), Bagua Zhang (八卦掌 eight-trigram palm), and wrestling styles.272

A feature incorporated to work on creating a more “scientific” practice of modern

physical culture, was that academy students also had to master a scientific and nationalist

educational curriculum consisting of the Sanmin Zhuyi (三民主义 Three People’s Principles),273

272
While Xingyi Quan and Bagua Zhang are not as commonly known today as Taiji, All the
aspects of Chinese culture synthesized in Taiji can also be found in other two styles. Foreign
popularity has enhanced Taiji’s status within China, making the study of its history more
common. Lorge, 2012, p. 207.
273
The Three People’s Principles is a political philosophy developed by Sun Yat-sen as part of
his effort to make China a free, prosperous, and powerful nation. The Principle of Minzu Zhuyi
(民族主义) is commonly rendered as "nationalism", literally "populism" or "the People's
rule/government," Minzu clearly describing a nation rather than a group of persons united by a
purpose, hence the commonly used translation "nationalism." By this, Sun meant freedom from
imperialist (Manchu) domination. The Principle of Minquan Zhuyi (民权主义) is usually
translated as "democracy"; literally "the People's power" or "government by the People." To Sun
Yat-sen, it represented a Western constitutional government. He divided political life of his ideal
for China into two sets of 'powers': the power of politics and the power of governance. The
Principle of Minsheng Zhuyi (民生主义) is sometimes translated as "the People's
welfare/livelihood," "Government for the People." The concept may be understood as social
welfare and as a direct criticism of the inadequacies of both socialism and capitalism.
95
Guomindang party principles, written language skills, Guoshu history, mathematics, geography,

physiology, hygiene, history, and geography.274

While some differences remained in how students were trained throughout the various

branches, at the central academy in Nanjing students lived in dormitories where they had forty-

four hours of courses each week over a span of three years. 275 In a standard term, sixty students

participated, and many were sent by provincial governments, likely with the expectation that

they would return to their province to open another branch of the academy and spread the

teachings.

Within the Guoshuguan, the effort to become tongbei wuxue (通备武学 “thoroughly

versed in civil and intellectual matters and martially prepared”) served as a guiding mandate.

This demonstrated an interest in cultivating both wen and wu aspects by combining the academic

and martial pursuits, reviving the Ming ideal of having established a balance between the two

concepts. Through this, the people involved with the Guoshuguan tried to engage the entire field

of martial arts from both a physical and a scholarly perspective, and did not just limit themselves

to the training of a specific style or single school of practice. Ma Mingda discussed this idea in

his own studies, where he supported the effort to preserve traditional martial arts regardless of

their style under the phrase “blend, understand, and combine their qualities.”276

The examination that the different branches of the academy was expected to take

combined elements of the examinations taken in Ming and Qing dynasties to qualify for imperial

military service, the leitai competition fighting at traditional local martial arts contests and

festivals, and modern sporting competitions. Like the imperial military examination, the Guoshu

274
Morris, 2004, p. 211.
275
Morris, 2004, p. 208.
276
Henning, 2006, p. 11.
96
examination consisted of physical and academic testing, although the trope of the martial expert

equally trained in the letters was much more crucial in the Republican era. Where imperial-era

military examinees had only to memorize passages from three military classics, the successful

modern candidate now had to demonstrate proficiency across a wider range of subjects, with

elements of Western learning.

While the philosophy of modern competition was important to the Tiyu movement and

the New Culture Movement, martial arts competitions were notoriously difficult to judge fairly

because of the diversity between styles. Zhang Zhijiang tried to address this by restructuring the

chaotic forms of popular competitions into a framework with one performance and three matches,

which included one set-performance (and point-scoring) and a series of three competitive

matches in sanshou (散手 barehanded combat), duanbing (短兵 short weapon), and changbing

(長兵 long weapon). Many flaws were still present in this system of martial arts competition as

experienced judges were lacking, and considerable problems existed in respect of regulation,

safety facilities, and the standard of training. Despite these difficulties, it represented an

important step forward. Their challenge was to resolve problems that had existed within that

field of practice for centuries, so it certainly would not have been an easy process to work

through them within the few years that the Guoshuguan had.

There was a large competition in Beiping in April of 1928 which was presided over by

Zhang Zhijiang.277 This was followed by a national martial arts tournament in October which

was sponsored once again by the Zhongyang Guoshuguan, this time in Nanjing. The Nanjing

National Tournament was held so that the people involved in the organization of the

Guoshuguan could choose the best instructors for its national and provincial schools.

277
Lin, 2010, p. 38.
97
Approximately 600 men entered this competition, which was essentially no-holds-barred combat.

The rules allowed everything but strikes to the eyes, throat or groin. Many people were severely

injured during the tournament, and it had to be stopped before the end. A total of fifteen finalists

emerged. 278

The difficulty to conduct a clear system of competition highlighted one of the faults of

the field of martial arts practice that the Guoshuguan hoped to address; no single style was

dominant enough to be made a curricular model. There were too many variations of the older

styles, and new ones lacked sufficient reputation to be accepted. As it brought in masters of

various backgrounds to teach, it encouraged these masters to be open minded and share their

knowledge. From the diversity of training within the curriculum that the Guoshuguan assembled,

we can see evidence of collaboration amongst these different teachers, where knowledge was

exchanged, and the teachers learned forms from each other and compared how the emphasis

within the movements differed between one style and another.

Many of the divisions between martial arts styles were fostered by a tradition where

secrets and fundamental texts of each lineage were not supposed to be published, but kept by the

elders. Only the best disciples were allowed to see them, and maybe copy them down by hand.279

This collaboration encouraged amongst the teachers at the Guoshuguan was an important part of

the entire project. This was an opportunity not only for new students, but even for skilled

practitioners to expand their knowledge, and compare notes on fundamental principles for

training through their exchanges with other teachers. While the histories of famous teachers

indicate various exchanges and encounters they had with other teachers, several of them refer

specifically to teachers they met through the Guoshuguan, and it seems that people became more
278
Lin, 2010, p. 40.
279
Vercammen, 2009, p. 121.
98
open to the idea of sharing their knowledge as this drive to unification took root in some of the

people associated with the academy.

Higher quality research and publication of texts on the history and development of each

style became possible through these collaborations. Intended to better understand the practice as

it existed in their day, this work served as part of the effort to develop a training curriculum for

instructors that could be unified and regulated. Through this, it hoped to overcome criticisms

such as one put forward by a famous teacher who taught at the Guoshuguan, Sun Lutang, who

said “the martial arts have developed into many branches in which the true is often mingled with

the false. Some do not look so attractive though they have been put into use. Some are rather

good looking but come to failure for lack of actual effect.”280

This aim for standardisation was a determining factor in what how they decided on the

curriculum for the academy. It needed to formulate teaching materials that could be used on a

national scale. Books started to feature photographs of different postures and moves, and more

teachers such as Yang Chengfu began to prepare sets of movements specifically for books that

would be distributed to beginner level students. The vice president of the Guoshuguan, Li Jinglin

(李景林 1885-1931), a former General of the Fengtian clique who had studied Taiji Quan and

who was known for his mastery of Wudang swordsmanship, was actively supportive of this

project of documenting and standardizing styles of practice.281

The field of martial arts was multiply-conceived, chaotic and divided, and the Republic

of China reflected this chaos in many ways. This made the Guoshuguan a site of both control and

creativity; the academy stood as a place where individual citizens could find not only a chance to

280
Sun Lutang, 1915, p. 54.
281
Vercammen, 1998, p. 125.
99
redefine the role of martial arts in a modern China, but also the opportunity to reposition how

this field of practice existed in Chinese society. Political figures such as GMD officials and

famous teachers became involved with academies or schools such as the Guoshuguan, because

of “the crucial role that the school system plays in the reproduction of the social order, not only

through the allocation of academic credentials commensurable with inherited cultural capital, but

also through the inculcation of mental structures and of dispositions (especially linguistic and

cultural) universally recognized to social structures.”282

In its efforts to take the formerly diverse schools of Chinese martial arts and consolidate

them into a new form of national arts, the Guoshuguan stood as an ideal location for the GMD to

continue its revolution of science, discipline and unification. In this era of national crisis, the

Guoshuguan was well-positioned to represent the nationalist objectives of the GMD party, at a

time when it wanted to have itself perceived not only as the key to modernization for the nation,

but also as the guardians of China’s cultural legacy. Official Guoshuguan rhetoric presented a

picture of a levelled China united by participation in this new national realm, without the least

regard to social, economic, or geographical hierarchies that operated in the Nanjing Decade.

Linked with the imagination of Guoshu as a “national realm,”283 a centralized

Guoshuguan stood in a position where it intended to take a body of arts and knowledge and

dedicate it towards the goal of building and unifying the practice along the lines of the Guoqing

(国情 National Conditions). As academy officials spoke in ways that promoted popularization,

and working from a realm where all citizens of a nation could be linked with common factors

such as their ability to be strengthened by a practice native to their country:

282
Lash, 1993, p. 268.
283
Morris, 2004, p. 206.
100
 “Standing in the twentieth-century arena, where if one does not compete one cannot
survive, we beseech the Chinese people, how can we avoid the disrespect of
others? … Guoshu is not something in which one is constrained by financial status
– it can be popularized (pingminhua). It doesn’t matter if one is old or young, poor
or rich, male or female, and it doesn’t depend on how many people are present, or
how much space or time one has available – it can be practiced anywhere.”284
This popularization could only be achieved through a unification of practice and the

establishment of a coherent curriculum. The objective of this process was to transform the field

of martial arts from being a symbol of the “fractured and backwards” legacy of traditional

Chinese culture to a modern sport particularly suitable for the development of Chinese bodies

and minds as well as a legitimate form of self-defence. Political figures would benefit from their

involvement in this process in multiple ways. Aside from the whole dynamic of bio-politics that

was discussed earlier, the relationship between the social hierarchy and what people perceive as

legitimate culture is straightforward: those atop the social hierarchy seek to impose their view of

legitimate culture, while holders of legitimate culture use it to reinforce their perch atop the

social hierarchy.285 By contributing to the process of legitimatizing martial arts in the context of

the modern world, the political leaders who became involved in this work could reinforce their

position within the social hierarchy.

The organizers of Guoshuguan attracted some very famous teachers towards their project.

Shortly after the founding of the academy, one of the martial artists whom Zhang Zhijiang and Li

Jinglin invited to teach at the academy was Sun Lutang. Sun Lutang traveled to Nanjing and was

appointed the senior advisor of the internal arts program.286 A well-known teacher and publisher

of martial arts texts, Sun Lutang’s perspectives on training were in line with the principal

objectives of the Guoshuguan in using this practice to unify and strengthen the people of China.

284
Morris, 2004, p. 206.
285
Lipuma, 1993, p. 27.
286
Sun, 1915, p. 31.
101
In his book Xingyi quanxue (形意拳学 The Study of Xingyi Boxing), Sun writes: “A strong

country cannot be composed of weak people. We cannot make people strong without physical

training. To brace up the people through physical training is the way to strengthen the country…

Martial arts have been put into the curriculum in schools so that the students can be trained in

both literary and military arts.”287

In many ways, Sun Lutang himself stood as a prime example of the Chinese citizen

empowered in both body and mind. A renowned teacher of martial arts, and a very capable

fighter, he was also skilled at philosophical debates, and published several books on martial arts

between 1915-1930 that have been translated and are still read today by practitioners of Chinese

martial arts. Because of the combination of his literary and martial skills, Sun Lutang symbolised

the type of educated martial arts master that the Guoshuguan hoped to create. While teaching in

Nanjing, in 1928 he received an invitation to become the provincial president of a martial arts

academy established in Zhongjiang county, Sichuan province. During this period of time Sun

traveled frequently between Nanjing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou to instruct students.

One of the most famous Taiji Quan instructors associated with the Guoshuguan, Yang

Chengfu, expressed his perspectives as the following;

“Taijiquan was not created just to engage in quarrels or tests of strength. Perhaps the sage
Sanfeng created soft boxing to use in increasing our store of good health. People who
wish to protect their bodies (委身 weishen), and cultivate their nature (养性 yangxing), to
prevent illness and promote longevity, no matter whether they are literati, whether
emaciated and weak, old or young, women or men, all can study this art.”288

Fu Zhensong (傅振嵩 1872-1953) also joined the ranks of the martial artists who were

asked to teach in Nanjing at the Guoshuguan in 1928 as a means of spreading their

287
Kennedy and Guo, 2005, p. 106.
288
Yang, 1934, p. 12.
102
knowledge.289 Fu Zhensong had also taught at a branch of the Jingwu Association in Guangzhou,

where he had promoted martial activity as a scientific art that would build the health of the urban

populace and help the people of China become stronger.290 He went on to become a teacher of

Bagua Zhang in Dongbei, appointed by Zhang Zuolin to teach in 1921.291 In 1925 Fu Zhensong

was named leader of a battalion of six hundred men in Li Jinglin’s army, when Li served as the

civil and military governor of the province of Hebei from December 1924 to December 1925. In

1928 Fu Zhensong asked to be discharged from his position in the army, and was invited by Li

Jinglin to teach at the Guoshuguan.292

Bu Xuekuan (布學寬 1876-1971), a well-known master of Xingyi Quan, established an

academy in the Taigu County of Shanxi province. He began his own training in the 1890s, and

had disciples from the regions in Shanxi where he taught over twenty years. A short chronicle of

Bu Xuekuan’s background found in an article by Jarek Symanski293 has an interesting note,

where it mentioned that Bu Xuekuan had taught in Taigu but he had learned Taiji Quan and

Bagua Zhang from Sun Lutang. This exchange may very likely have taken place through the

collaboration of the two instructors at the Guoshuguan. This serves as an example of the type of

connections made through these academies. When considering all these renowned teachers

coming to participate in this national project, Andrew Morris mentions an important point. “The

willingness of masters like Bu to work with the state’s rationalized martial arts apparatus gave

instant local legitimacy to the academy system and its hundreds of branches. At the same time,

289
Lin, 2010, p. 32.
290
Lin, 2010, p. 41.
291
Lin, 2010, p. 30.
292
Lin, 2010, p. 31.
293
Jarek Symanski is a martial arts enthusiast who started training in the 1980s, and went to
China in 1990 to learn Mandarin and continue training. He remains there today, meeting with
different teachers and learning about their histories, and chronicles this information on a website
www.chinafrominside.com.
103
their presence allowed state Guoshuguan functionaries to present each academy enterprise as a

truly local manifestation of and contribution to the national cause.”294 While some martial arts

masters did not want to reveal their training in such an open manner, others recognized the

opportunity to contribute to the preservation of the field of martial arts, as well as the opportunity

to receive the symbolic capital of the titles and recognition that could be attained through

association with the Guoshuguan.

The Republican era was a time for the complete reform of how education was structured

and understood, with a complete reformation in what type of citizen it sought to create. This

inculcation may to some extent be shaped or influenced through the efforts of individuals, but it

tends ultimately to emphasize the work of a system or a state that exists before the individual.295

Because physical education provides a set of teaching methods, principles, and conditions

through which a desired set of bodily practices is developed, it falls into Foucault's description of

discipline as a modality of power. Relations of power can coalesce strategically around certain

discourses, activities, and institutions without an apparent author of their tactic, and those which

permeate academies and educational institutions are pervaded by calculations and objectives.296

Martial arts teachers did not necessarily understand the notions and practices of the body

within institutions where martial arts might be manipulated as a means to discipline, limit and

control citizens. From the previous chapter and the examination of the historical aspects of

martial arts, we see that many teachers may have perceived the field of martial arts as an

opportunity for the opposite, where they believed the practices had the potential to imbue the

student with the potential to resist the subordination to political control, where they were

294
Morris, 2004, p. 211.
295
Gainty, 2007, p. 152.
296
Harvey and Sparks, 1991, p. 168.
104
potentially engaged in the creation a site where citizens could imagine and wield their own

power over their structure and their state.297 Of course, the prior examples of this dated back to a

time where skills at swordplay and archery had a much more significant role in one’s ability to

resist state authorities. In modern warfare, advanced weaponry and ammunition required access

to industrial facilities which complicated grassroots resistance movements. It is unclear whether

the instructors or the administrators had a greater impact in within the context of the

Guoshuguan, as both operated at different levels. While the institution itself laid down certain

mandates and created a framework in which teachers had to operate, ultimately they would be

the ones to directly interact with students, so they still had a certain degree of agency. In the

following chapter, we look towards the content presented by these teachers, and how they

understood the benefits that students could gain from this form of training.

297
Gainty, 2007, p. 165.
105
 Chapter 5: The Transformative Potential of Chinese Martial Arts

Given the pre-existing perceptions of martial arts, the change and turmoil occurring at all

levels of society, and the instability of authorities in Republican China, it is clear that the people

engaged with the preservation of the field of martial arts and its reinvention as a modern practice

were faced with complex challenges. The education of modern citizens was a critical issue to the

establishment a Chinese nation, so the role of martial arts as a method to train those citizens was

subject to scrutiny. Having discussed at length the social and historical context of this period, in

this final chapter I address what I feel are some of the most important questions; why did these

practices seem so valuable that these martial artists put so much effort into preserving them, and

what exactly was the form of self-cultivation they argued that one could attain through Chinese

martial arts?

There is precedence for the belief of a martial art being used as a means to refine the

mind of a practitioner in early examples with archery. But when considering the more elaborate

systems of medical beliefs associated with martial arts training found the available materials

from around the Republican era, it appears that the practitioners of traditional Chinese martial

arts had developed the potential for a fundamental evolution of an individual from martial arts

training by drawing from concepts of the yangsheng (养生 nourishing life)298 practices and

Daoist beliefs on the transformations of the essences of the body. These teachers believed that

through dedicated practice and focused intent they could develop a mind-body connection, refine

their character and maintain good health for longevity through a process of self-cultivation that

combined medical and spiritual beliefs. This was a conception of self-cultivation that had only

298
A Daoist term, it is often described as “nourishing the vital principle,” though it also has the
straightforward translation of “nourishing life.” This concept is explained later in this chapter.
106
been linked with martial arts training by some point around the early Qing dynasty, as Peter

Lorge was adamant that such a connection lacks substantial evidence prior to the Ming. By the

Republican era, we see very clear references to these concepts in texts based on martial arts

training that were published by renowned teachers of this time.

While martial artists during Republican China did not work with the concepts of social

theory that were developed much later by Western academic scholars, these concepts can help us

to understand how this potential for transformation might have occurred through a person’s

engagement with martial arts, even if it was described in different ways at the time. One element

that can be found in this process is that even today, the vast majority of people who engage in

prolonged, intensive periods of training with knowledgeable teachers in martial arts describe that

they feel different afterwards. When trying to understand the body, Loic Wacquant maintains

that there are "invariant ingredients and stages of the metamorphosis to which all bodies, no

matter their origin and characteristics, are susceptible and subjected, to the degree that they are

immersed in the specific universe."299

The immersion within the conditions of existence for a field of practice has the potential

to create a form of habitus, so a shifu (师傅 master)300 of martial arts is supposed to embody the

potential of how someone could benefit from training. It became the mission of the teachers

299
Buchholz, 2006, p. 489.
300
The title of shifu is commonly used for martial arts masters, though it can also be used for
other people who have mastered their trade, or even as a polite manner of addressing someone.
Within the field of martial arts, shifu has very important connotations. Not only does it relate to
the person’s level of skill, but also his relationship within the lineage formations of different
schools. Traditionally, students would address their teacher as shifu when they were accepted as
formal tudi (徒弟 disciples) through a Confucian style ceremony called the baishi (拜师
honoring the teacher, or obeisance to the teacher) where the student is officially entered into the
family lineage of the martial arts school (this role of lineage systems will be explained further
into this chapter). Before being accepted into that role, it is more proper for students to address
their instructor as laoshi (老师 teacher).
107
involved in projects like the Jingwu Association or the Guoshuguan to ensure that a martial arts

were perceived as something of value to the shifting needs of a modern China, so they had to

focus on improving the quality of teachers and the public perception of a shifu. We can see

indications of this in efforts such as the claims made by people affiliated with the Jingwu

Association and the Guoshuguan when they used the rhetoric of modernists and journals such as

the New Youth to make arguments such as how the true practitioners of Chinese martial arts were

good soldiers and strong citizens.301

There was a new emphasis in martial arts literature around this time on how there was

much more to the practices than simply learning to fight. Yang Chengfu explained that “If one is

able to cultivate one’s body (person) but not beat adversaries, this is civil skill; if one is able to

beat other persons but cannot cultivate one’s body, this is martial skill. If one is able to make

people cultivate the body and also resist adversaries and develop practical use at the same time,

this is totally civil and martial complete Taiji.”302

An important element of how martial arts were perceived was their relation with other

public arts.303 Across Chinese history, there is the presence of an aesthetic and literary tradition

that values military accomplishments and raises the status of those who accomplish martial

exploits to the level of heroes in visual art and literature.304 Within this tradition martial arts have

inspired mythologies, poetry, texts, novels, films, and television that act together to construct the

public image of the martial arts both nationally and internationally. Renowned poet and jinshi

(進士 imperial degree holder) Wang Shizhen (王士真) composed a preface to the Jian xia zhuan

301
Kennedy and Guo, 2010, p. 90.
302
Quote by Yang Chengfu from 1931, found in Vercammen, 2009, p. 127.
303
Frank, 2006, p. 195.
304
Ryor, 2009, p. 220.
108
(劍俠傳 Biographies of Swordsmen), written by Duan Chengshi (段成式, 803-863) of the Tang

dynasty. The painter, poet and collector Chen Jiru (陈继儒 1558-1639) wrote a preface to a

similar type of work, Xia lin (俠林 A Forest of Knights-errant). Novels and plays written in the

sixteenth century, such as Shuihu zhuan, Da Ming yinglie zhuan (大明英烈傳 Biographies of

Heroes of the Great Ming) by Guo Xun (郭勲, 1475-1542), Bao jian ji (The Precious Sword),

and Ci Mulan ti fu cong jun (此木兰替父从军 The Woman Mulan Joins the Army), reflect a

number of the classic stories focused on martial heroes.305

We see many of the stereotyped attributes of heroes being consistent through these works

of fiction, and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang`s study of Ming historical figures included an extensive

list of these expected traits of heroes. As described in the first point below, all these heroes were

positioned as capable martial artists, so there was a direct connection to people who identified

themselves as having mastered a style of martial arts. This link to the martial attributes of heroes

and myths had a strong influence on the expected habitus of a shifu. Chang listed these traits as

the following:306

1. Unusual physical strength and incomparable martial arts. With an awe-

inspiring appearance and majestic features, excellence in fighting, outstanding
commandership and mighty physical strength.

2. Fearlessness. A dauntless, fearless spirit, which is heedlessness of

consequences. An unyielding individual, never skulking when going into battle,
and never willing to surrender to the enemy.

3. Power of endurance. Enduring a great physical pain and corporal punishment

without flinching or uttering one cry. The ability to take humiliation in order to
achieve a far-reaching goal, facing death with dignity and serenity, and smiling
in the face of adversity.

305
Ryor, 2009, p. 231.
306
Chang, 2004, p. 65.
109
 4. Selflessness. Always being ready to lay down their own lives for friends. An
impulsive generosity, and loyalty to their lords (or leaders) and their country,
with a dedication to reciprocating favors to friends and taking revenge on
enemies.

5. Asceticism and other behavioral attributes. Showing little interest in women or

men, and never hesitating to fight against the rich or the powerful in order to
correct injustice. Showing filial piety to parents, especially widowed mothers.

6. As well as some eccentric traits, such as outspoken bluntness, volcanic temper,

and eating and drinking to excess.

Certainly it was rare for any single hero or heroine to be positioned as having all of these

traits, but they would have some combination of them. The transmission of stories, myths and

legends through different media influenced what people would expect in regards to the habitus of

a martial hero, and the transfer of these traits onto real world martial artists was not only a

product of the passive association to these stories. As the stereotypes from classic Chinese tales

were carried over into newer forms of media, martial artists, both in the Republican era and

today, described their teachers in similar terms.

An example of this is one of the stories told about Sun Lutang. It is said that while he was

living in the town of Xingtang, there was a famous bandit nicknamed “flying thief” because of

this qinggong (轻功 lightness skills).307 Sun was asked to catch the bandit, so he went out to find

him. When Sun came across the thief, he fled and Sun had to chase him. The chase went to the

edge of town there was a field of tall plants which are known for their very thick stalks. When

the plant tops were removed during harvest, only the thick stalk remained. The “flying thief” ran

to the field and leapt up on top of the densely planted crop and ran across the plant stalk tops.

307
Qinggong are martial arts training methods, or cultivated skills that relate to being light on
one’s feet. It was associated to skills like running and jumping, or things that were acrobatic in
nature. The exercises themselves would differ between teachers, but the basic principle of
qinggong was to train to be light and agile.
110
The thief was sure no one could follow him; however, when he turned around Sun was still in

pursuit, also running across the plant stalks. Sun ultimately caught the thief and turned him in.308

In this story, Sun Lutang is described as being courageous enough to chase down this

notorious bandit, and also as the only person in the village skilled enough to run across the stalks

of the plants and catch him. In many other stories told by students about their masters, the

teacher is spoken of in a heroic context, and seen as in possession of rare skills they attained

through their dedication to training and self-cultivation. One aspect of this veneration students

demonstrate for their teachers was the influence of the Chinese culture of ancestor worship.

Lineage systems were important in martial arts, so the general practice was that teachers not

aggrandize themselves; they would promote the skills and integrity of the masters with whom

they studied, and that they only humbly tried to follow their teacher’s example.

For the student to begin the process of working towards the attainment of some of these

heroic traits, self-discipline was necessary. In numerous stories about famous teachers, it was not

their natural abilities, but rather their determination that carried them through the years of

training to master a style of martial arts. In the practice of martial arts, there was an emphasis

that a student could never be complacent. They could not stop after a little training, or simply

practice on and off, as this level of dedication would prevent them from ever reaching a high

level of skill.309 A concept that was repeated by many teachers was that “If you practice one day

you gain one day. If you miss one day, then you lose ten days.”310 The ethos of martial arts

training was that an individual is capable of transformation, but a student could only realize the

full potential of the training through determination, struggle, diligent training, and “eating

308
Sun, 1924, p. 25.
309
Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. 103.
310
Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. 8.
111
bitterness.”311 This aspect of self-discipline reflected Foucault’s perception of the practices of

monastic asceticism “whose function was to obtain renunciations rather than the increase of

utility and which, although they involved obedience to others, had as their principal aim an

increase in the mastery of each individual over his own body.”312

As pointed out in Chapter 1, the potential of self-discipline and mastery of the body was

not a prominent aspect of how of martial arts practice was perceived by the general public across

most of its history. Throughout imperial China, martial arts were often viewed as little more than

a survival skill. Many of the martial artists and fighting men of the Qing era had little in common

with literary or philosophical figures.313 Like being good with a gun, the practice was considered

to be a physical trade or a form of manual labour. They were not commonly linked to esoteric

practices, nor were they viewed as a means for philosophical or spiritual growth.314

Unlike some other cultures, throughout most of Chinese history the practice of martial

arts was not a privilege restricted to special groups.315 The restrictions on the possession of arms

and the ability for common people to practice martial arts during the Qing dynasty had an impact

on the number of people that were able to train, but many still did in the context of town militias,

or by learning some basic methods of practice from family members. Farmers, craftsmen,

merchants and monks, as well as soldiers, members of nobility, and scholars practiced martial

arts. Very few of these people would have believed that this form informal training could imbue

someone with any forms of special skills.

311
Chiku 吃苦, literally “eating bitterness” was a Chinese maxim based on the concept that one
had to endure hardships to receive any benefit.
312
Foucault, 1979, p. 137.
313
Kennedy and Guo, 2005, p. 184.
314
Kennedy and Guo, 2005, p. 16.
315
Filipiak, 2010, p. 33.
112
 A true shifu came to be understood as someone who trained not to fight, but to cultivate

himself, preserve good health and pursue moral refinement. Masters of the martial artists were

supposed to stand out from the ruffians, bandits, warlords and superstitious boxers who were also

associated with the fighting arts. These new publications presented the idea of a shifu that was

someone knowledgeable in both martial arts and traditional Chinese medicine. This

understanding of medical and philosophical concepts would have necessitated a certain level of

literary skill, whereas previously most martial arts teachers would have most likely been

illiterate.316 The Guoshuguan even made an explicit effort to address this issue of literacy, where

they offered classes on skills related to scholarly studies, research and publications.

The contemporary ideal of a shifu is a concept that brings to mind characters such as the

wise Shaolin Buddhist monk talking in scriptural verse or the mysterious Daoist sage performing

“Daoist martial arts” while quoting Laozi, but they were not part of daily life in Chinese history.

The attainment of this ideal went beyond the mere practice of martial arts, and was more closely

related to the heroic figure seen across different ages within mythologies and works of fiction. It

was only in the late Qing and Republican era that publications started to appear that not only

described heroic figures, but some were even presented as training manuals that could permit

someone to develop mystical skills.

With the popularity of the myths and stories that came to surround martial arts, there is an

air of the exotic which emanated from the practice, making it both difficult to understand and

also attractive to individuals searching for a sense of meaning and purpose. These spiritual

overtones would put teachers in a position in which they represented a conduit for wisdom and

knowledge about how one should live, and the desire many people have to find those types of

316
Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. xiii.
113
answers can form powerful social bonds and relations. There was great significance in the

teacher-student relationship, as it took on the concepts of the father-son relation from the

Confucian beliefs surrounding the wulun (五伦 five relations).317 In this, the student had a

responsibility to care for his teacher, be respectful, and abide by his wishes regardless of any

disagreement. The teacher, in turn, had a responsibility for the upbringing of the student,

understanding his needs and preparing him for life.

With the significance of this relationship, there was resentment towards charlatans who

manipulated this exchange for their own ends. Some people claimed to teach practices that could

give the student great skills, but had they no real connection to known teachers and were

secretive about what they actually taught. They promised students heroic abilities, but demanded

loyalty and dedication over many years, or heavy payments for their teachings. Many of the

schools connected to the Yihequan groups and secret societies that sparked the Boxer Rebellion

were accused of using this process of manipulation. As mentioned earlier, a number of the

criticisms modernists made of the martial arts were in relation to these charlatans who would

trick people and make false promises. For people who did not know anything about martial arts

before beginning their practice, it was difficult to distinguish the true teachers from the false.

Even amongst actual teachers of traditional Chinese martial arts, there was also a disdain

for those who misrepresented the true potential of the practice, even if they were not

intentionally manipulating anyone.

317
The five relations were that of ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, older
brother and younger brother, and between friends. These relations were a governing aspect of
social relations in China. It is beyond the scope of this thesis to go into the full scale of how the
wulun was enacted in Chinese culture, but it is something that is interwoven into people’s belief
systems on how an individual should conduct himself in his relations with others, and how he
should behave in the public domain.
114
 “There are those who talk about the principles for a great length of time, they say
martial arts are full of secrets. When you ask them they don’t answer, or they
answer incompletely. How can this be! There are those who are easily satisfied, or
invite disaster by underestimating the art, or like to bully others. There are those
who have no perseverance, who study a little and think they know it all, they are
quite satisfied with themselves and rarely practice, they think they are a great
success, until they have to use the art and find themselves useless.”318

The diversity of the people who engaged martial arts, the difficulty in determining the

true from the false, and the secrecy with which some teachers treated their knowledge were some

of the main reasons that it was so difficult to have a unified system of traditional Chinese martial

arts. One of the social dynamics that gave rise to these complications is the concept referred to as

symbolic capital, wherein the knowledge that martial arts represented had the capacity to

empower people.

Symbolic capital is valuable because it contains a power for creating things with words.

A description of something can create the formation of the concept within the mind of the

listener. After this initial formation, it becomes much more difficult to change that perception.

This is important because it means that it is harder to convince someone that a certain idea is

wrong than it is to introduce them to a completely new idea. In this sense, symbolic power is a

similar to a power of consecration or revelation. Martial art teachers had an important influence

on their students; they had the power to conceal or reveal ideas and, supposedly, unlock the

secret potential of the body.

Symbolic capital is not limited to the possession of information, as a teacher is

empowered through the recognition and “legitimization” of his knowledge or skills, where they

become acknowledged by authority figures as a legitimate source for the revelation of true

information. Through titles and accreditations like becoming an official instructor at a national

318
Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. 37.
115
institute like the Zhongyang Guoshuguan, a teacher can legitimize his abilities. The Guoshuguan,

as an institution, represented a place where symbolic capital could be acknowledged in

accordance with the categories of perception that it could impose. This is linked with the

complicated way that symbolic power relations tend to reproduce the relations of power and

hierarchies which constitute the structure of society.319 In this case, there is a power relation not

only between a teacher and the students, but also between the teacher and the administrators of

the institution, who have the authority over the granting or revoking of the symbolic capital of

the teacher. Regardless of whatever knowledge they may possess, few people will study with a

teacher who had been publicly accused by an institution as being a fraud.

The Zhongyang Guoshuguan was built on a western framework that brought in these

dynamics surrounding institutions, which was new to the field of martial arts. Previously, when

identifying oneself as a master of the martial arts the most important source of legitimacy was

the direct connection to a recognized master of the art. Linking to cultural practices in China

where relations of power were maintained through lineage formations,320 the respect towards

one’s lineage of teachers was a critical element of how one could develop symbolic capital

within the field of martial arts. Not only had one to be familiar with one’s teacher and his master,

but one had to be able to track the genealogical connections from the founder of the art down to

one’s own teacher.

This validation through genealogical pedigree was typically reflected in aspects as varied

as dress, language, movement and belief. Through varied levels of influence, students were

ultimately required to adhere to group principles. Membership in a specific school or system of

martial arts may begin as casual, but ultimately the relationships of authority must become
319
Bourdieu, 1990, p. 135.
320
Takacs, 2003, p. 885.
116
distinct and the individual practitioners develop a complex and profound sense of group identity.

An opposition between disciplined forms of practice and individual agency can take place. The

more involved the practitioner becomes within the field, the more limits are placed upon how the

practitioner uses his body. The dedicated student is faced with ever growing limitations as to

what he must and must not do, when he can or cannot rest, what he is allowed to eat and what is

forbidden. These limitations are defined through certain perceptions on how the body develops

and what goals or objectives are set for this development. As the practice continues and the

practitioner gains more knowledge, there is a continual examination of the relation of the

individual with others around them through different theories of the body, correlative cosmology,

embodied linguistics and hierarchical relations.

Approaching the issues around notions of group identity and hierarchical relations,

Waysun Liao discusses the perception that “the true, dedicated masters of T’ai Chi remained in

the mountains, and, along with their followers, they led a monastic life in order to carry on the

pure art. They meditated and practiced daily in order to attune the spirit, condition the mind,

discipline the body, and elevate the essence.”321

This reflected a belief that only complete dedication and the removal of oneself from

society can allow for the full mastery of the practice. What this process entails is the removal

from a person’s regular world of experience in order to focus on the full incorporation of all

mannerisms, schedules and beliefs of the master. While there have been figures whose

“individualization” of their practice has been accepted and encouraged,322 this individualization

321
Liao, 1990, p. 12.
322
In this sense, individualization refers to the alteration or invention of the forms or quantao
that are practiced within a system of martial arts. This process also occurs on a more significant
level when considering examples of how famous teachers would have their styles named after
117
can only occur after there is a recognition of the practitioner having attained a certain level in the

emulation and mimicry of how the teacher trained. It is believed that the original system of

training can be preserved more or less intact with the fundamental principles, and the desired

forms of discipline in mind and body remaining at the core of this individualized style of practice.

This drive towards monasticism touches on an interesting dynamic that people associated

with projects like the Jingwu Association and the Guoshuguan had to contend with; many

serious martial artists often seemed to have difficulty with fitting into the larger areas of society.

When the patterns of behaviour a student is asked to follow by his teacher do not mesh with the

patterns common to the society in which he lives, the student may reject or criticize the patterns

common to society as being inferior or as being detrimental to a preferred style of living. In this

moment there is the possibility of a subversion of the bio-politics placed upon the student, but

then the rejection of these patterns can have consequences in how the student fits into social

hierarchies, and he can often be pushed towards becoming a marginalized figure by the rejection

of more and more of the practices which serve as forms of social cohesion, and the traditions that

hold a community together. Through this, there can be a tension between those who seek to train

in martial arts and still remain as recognized members of their society, and those who pursue a

more intensive dedication to the practice and cast aside any social expectations, seeing them only

as a distraction to their pursuit of mastery. These martial arts associations designed within a

Western framework were sought to establish a format suitable to a modern, urban environment

which could allow these practices to stay relevant to the changing needs of urban societies and

them. A student would not just learn Taiji Quan, they would learn Sun shi Taiji Quan (孙氏太极
拳 Sun style taiji) as taught by Sun Lutang, or Yang shi Taiji Quan (杨氏太极拳 Yang style taiji)
as taught by Yang Chengfu. Although the fundamental principles of practice between the two
were the same, they emphasized different points in the physical practice, or applied certain
techniques differently.
118
the bourgeois classes that had the time and resources to incorporate training into their busy

schedules.

John Donohue found in his studies on the Japanese forms of martial arts that within the

dojo,323 a struggle for identity and selfhood can take place. Through membership in a dojo or a

school of martial arts, the students seek to overcome feelings of anonymity and marginality to

create a link between the individual and the group. In the heterogeneous, complex societies of

the modern era, personal and social identity are often fragmented because of institutional

differentiations, and the dojo and the rituals it contains are often perceived as a place to

reintegrate the fragments of individual identity and create a selfhood through symbolic action. 324

The manner through which a person develops a stronger sense of integrated identity could

be the conscious or unconscious adaptation of the habitus linked with a particular community,

training space, or dojo. Through the ways in which the dynamics of habitus can encompass the

mind and body, there are schemes of dispositions that are largely implicit and developed through

engagement in social practices, serving to constitute an individual’s orientation to the social

world he or she inhabits as well as toward him or herself. People are not totally ignorant of these

dispositions; classificatory judgment presupposes that we are capable of seeing the relation

between practices or representations and positions in the social space - as when we judge a

person’s social category from his accent, choice of vocabulary and apparel.325 Through practice

and the transmission of knowledge in martial arts, there can be a process of a sensual-social

323
道場,the Japanese term for a training space of martial arts. It translates literally as “the place
of the way.” In Mandarin, the same characters would be read as daochang.
324
Donohue, 1987, p. 193.
325
Bourdieu, 1987, p. 131.
119
construction of identity. The students are presented with a certain framework of understanding,

and they internalize it through constant repetition of the practice.

An Examination of Training Methods

Moving past these theoretical aspects to consider the actual practices and teachings of

traditional Chinese martial arts, we find many different interpretations about training practices,

but they often can be reduced to two main approaches towards how someone can develop skill in

martial arts. One follows the idea that forms are designed to train the larger movements of the

skeletal muscular system (focusing on punching, kicking, jumping and so forth). Forms in these

styles are often done in very low and extended stances, with the goal of improving leg strength,

endurance and flexibility. Fighting techniques are trained separately from the primary form, in

supplemental drills and exercises. The other school of thought views martial arts ability as a

result of integrated movement with conscious control. In this, exceptional physical abilities are

not a prerequisite for skill in fighting. The emphasis is on practicing only those movements you

will us in a real martial encounter, where the form follows the dictates of strategy and

technique.326

Many of the teachers discussed here, such as Sun Lutang, Yang Chengfu, Fu Zhensong,

Wang Jiwu and Li Ziming (李子鳴 1903-1993)327 focus on the latter approach and emphasized

326
This was an explanation provided by the translator as an introduction to the teachings. Sun,
1924, p. 2.
327
As with Wang Jiwu, Li Ziming was not a teacher who worked at the Guoshuguan, but he was
a very famous martial artist who was trained during the Republican period, and we can map out a
link to Fu Zhensong, who taught Bagua Zhang there. Li Ziming studied under Liang Zhenpu, (梁
振蒲 1863–1932), who was a student of Dong Haichuan (董海川 1797-1882), who is described
by most people as the inventor of the style. Fu Zhensong studied with Ma Gui (马贵 1851–1941)
120
the importance of skill, sensitivity and technique over the development of exceptional strength or

speed. In this following section, I examine the theories interpreted by the teachers of the three

systems of Xingyi Quan, Bagua Zhang, and Taiji Quan, to determine how they understood the

self-cultivation aspects of their training, and why they were combined together under the

Wudang division of training at the Zhongyang Guoshuguan. While these three styles alone are

not definitive of the entire field of martial arts training, they do provide a starting point for more

extensive work comparing other systems of training, which could be explored in further research.

To understand this form of training, it is worth considering a concept put forward by

Wang Jiwu (王繼武 1891-1991),328 a renowned Xingyi Quan master likened to Sun Lutang,

which is yong yi bu yong li (用意不用力 Use the mind [or intent] and not brute strength).329

Brute force was meant as strength inappropriate to the situation, a clumsy application of force

that lacked the mind/body unity. This form of strength was seen as houtian (后天, post-natal, or

the power one develops after birth), as opposed to the xiantian (先天 pre-natal, or the power that

and Cheng Tinghua (程廷华 1848-1900). Ma Gui studied under Yin Fu (尹福 1840-1909), and
both Cheng Tinghua and Yin Fu studied under Dong Haichuan, and thus were “gong fu brothers”
of Liang Zhenpu. While there are obvious differenes in the quantao and the liangong from each
teacher, they all teach the same fundamental principles of training which define Bagua Zhang.
328
Wang Jiwu taught and practiced the Dai shi Xingyi quan (戴式形意拳 Dai style Xingyi Quan,
originally called Liuhe xinyiquan 六合心意拳). In addition to fighting skills and neigong, he also
studied Chinese medicine, bone setting, and traumatology. Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. 23. His
concepts are relevant to the discussion here as he was trained during the Republican era, and
throughout a lifetime of practice and learning, he was celebrated for his consistency to the
traditional methods of training. His longevity, living 100 years, was credited to his training. The
connection of his training methods to the Guoshuguan was through Bu Xuekuan, who taught the
same system of Xingyi Quan. Wang Jiwu studied under Wang Fuyuan 王副元, student of Liu
Qilan 劉奇蘭, who trained with Bu Xuekuan’s teacher, Che Yizhai 車毅齋 under the master Li
Nengran (李能然 1807-1888, also known as Li Luoneng 李洛能). Another student of Li
Nengran was Guo Yunshen (郭云深 1829-1898), who taught Sun Lutang. Through this, Wang
Jiwu, Bu Xuekuan and Sun Lutang could be considered cousins of the same lineage of martial
arts practice.
329
Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. 65.
121
is inherent in living beings), where the concept of great skill required an understanding of the

principles of nature and the pre-existing forces of the body.330 The goal that these teachers tried

to achieve was a state of relaxed awareness in which the whole body is supple, elastic, and alive.

The way to achieve this state is to use the mental to direct the physical, where external skills

employ an integrated movement that is derived from an internal cultivation, and not just the

development of strength or speed.

A common theme in the distinction between these two main approaches is their

separation into “External” and “Internal” retrospectively, often going a step further to associate

Shaolin styles with External, and Wudang with Internal, as demonstrated in the original format of

the Zhongyang Guoshuguan. The earliest instance of this distinction connects with themes of

Ming loyalty, Buddhist foreignness, and Daoist “Chineseness,” in the 1669 epitaph for Wang

Zhengnan (1617-1669) written by Huang Zongxi (黄宗羲 1610-1695)331 and the account of

Wang’s martial arts by his son Huang Baijia (黃百家 1643-1709). Pointed out in Peter Lorge’s

research, this epitaph currently appears to serve as the first articulation of an internal school of

martial arts in contradistinction to an external school of martial arts.

“Wang Zhengnan was a master of two skills: one was pugilism and the other
archery. From ancient times great archers have been many, but when it comes to
pugilism, truly Master Wang was the foremost.

The external school of pugilism reached its highest development with Shaolin.
Zhang Sanfeng, having mastered Shaolin, reversed its principles, and this is called
the Internal School of martial arts. Acquiring even a smattering of this art is
sufficient to overcome Shaolin.”332

330
Sun, 1924, p. 47 and Li, 1993, p. 7.
331
Huang Zongzi was the name of a Chinese naturalist, political theorist, philosopher, and
soldier during the latter part of the Ming dynasty into the early part the Qing.
332
Lorge, 2012, p. 193.
122
 No author before this time presented or created this kind of dichotomy between

respective martial arts practices. Taken in isolation, it would be difficult to determine if Huang

was finally putting brush to paper either to describe a centuries-old distinction in styles or was

creating a fictitious historical background for a new paradigm. When considering this quote

within the context it was written, an important aspect of this claim would have been that Shaolin

and Buddhism offered a shorthand for foreigners and Manchus to an anti- or non-Buddhist Ming

loyalist. Chinese power was internal and concealed, but superior. Therefore, a fundamental

aspect of the origins to the term “internal martial arts” was part of a Chinese discourse about

identity and political loyalties.333 The Qing dynasty literature on the martial arts was inflected

from its very beginning by the politics of the change from Chinese (Ming) to Manchu (Qing) rule.

Regardless of political elements underlying the original use of the terms, Bagua Zhang,

Taiji Quan and Xingyi Quan would eventually come to be referred to together as the neijia (内家

the internal family), due in some ways to their combination together under the “internal” training

curriculum at the Zhongyang Guoshuguan as well as in its associated publications by authors

such as Tang Hao (唐豪 1887–1959). In its later use, the term took on the meaning where it

referred to the internal concepts surrounding the transformations of qi (气).334

Breaking down the distinctions of each of the three styles of the neijia, we see many

shared principles and beliefs, just with a different emphasis for the style of movement associated

333
Lorge, 2012, p. 195.
334
Qi is believed to exist within the body as different manifestations such as xue (血 blood), jing
(精 essence), jinye (津液 bodily fluids), zangfuqi (脏腑气 visceral qi), yuanqi (元气 original qi),
zongqi (gathering qi), and daqi (大气 great qi). Weiqi (卫气 protective qi) warms the body and
secures its external boundaries while yingqi (营气 nutritious qi) nourishes skin, muscles, bones,
sinews and the zangfu (脏腑 visceral systems of function). A complete analysis of the role of qi
in Chinese Medicine is beyond the scope of our study here, but it is to be understood as the
foundation of traditional Chinese medical practices. Scheid, 2002, p. 48.
123
with each style. The forms in Bagua Zhang are predominantly circular, and one form is divided

into eight sections, where each section is attributed to a specific gua (卦 trigram, of the eight

trigrams 八卦 used in the Yijing 易经 Classic of Changes). The movement is characterized as

flowing changes, taking inspiration from the yijing where they train in a way where the

practitioner has to understand how to read situations in how they are positioned in relation to

their opponent, and change fluidly in response. The training of Bagua blends movement and

stillness, firmness and softness, internal energy and external energy.335 There are five key

features to the training; understanding the footwork, how to integrate the movements of the body,

differences between soft force and hard force, the different planes you can strike in, whether it be

vertical or horizontal, and how the practice is beneficial for health.336

In Taiji Quan, there was an emphasis on how one’s internal essence, qi, and shen (神

spirit)337 should fill the entire body as one trained the solo forms.338 The most common link

across different styles of Taiji is what is known as the shisan shi (十三式 the Thirteen

Techniques). This is a combination of the eight basic martial principles, also described as the

eight methods of manifesting energy, and the five stepping methods.

1. Peng (棚 ward off or upward, expansive internal power)

2. Lu (捋 roll back backward or absorbing, yielding power)
3. Ji (挤 press forward or straight ahead, forward power)
4. An (按 push downward, or downward-moving power)
5. Cai (采 pull down or combining the energies of lu and an, moving in the same
direction)
6. Lie (列 split or combining the yang energies of peng and ji moving in opposite
directions from an originating point)

335
Li, 1993, p. 2.
336
Lin, 2010, p. 75.
337
Shen also translates as god, the divine, or spiritual, but essentially it is a term that focuses on
the realm of the divine.
338
Sun, 1924, p. 71.
124
 7. Zhou (肘 elbow or focusing energy in the elbow)
8. Kao (靠 shoulder or focusing energy in the shoulder)

These eight methods of using force are then combined with the five stepping methods,

qianjin (前进 advance in), houtui (后退 retreat back), zuogu (左顾 look left), youpan (右盼 look

right) and zhongding (中定 central stability). The fundamental the movements of Taiji Quan are

combinations and variations of these thirteen techniques.339 While these concepts discuss more

about the application of force and footwork, many styles of Taiji can be quite martial in

application, containing evasive footwork, over-the-back throws, qinna (擒拿 joint-locking

techniques), head-butting techniques, and techniques designed to counter wrestling take-

downs.340

Xingyi Quan focuses on form and intent, and the training in this style is structured around

the fundamental concept of wuxing (五行 Five Phase theory).341 The yi (意 intent) of Xingyi

Quan (形意拳) draws on the idea of yi ling qi (意令气 meaning that intent guides the qi). The

wuxing theory is used as an interpretive framework for reacting and responding to attacks.

Learning movements attributed to each of the phases, students are taught that actions flow in a

sequence, and that you open yourself to injury when to do not act in accordance with this

sequence. Although this concept is introduced through a series of attacks and defences that

339
Sun, 1924, p. 50.
340
Sun, 1924, p. 4.
341
Wuxing is often translated as five elements, but this can lead to a misinterpretation of their
meaning. They are not used to refer to the actual substance of wood, water, earth, fire and metal,
rather they are symbolic of the natural processes these elements represent, and are used in
Chinese medicine to describe various physiological occurrences within the body. The wuxing
were linked to both physiological processes in the natural world and to functions of specific
internal organs within the human body. The relationships between various internal organs were
explained through the dynamics of creation and destruction between these different phases of yin
and yang.
125
correlate in a pattern designed according to the creative and destructive cycles of the wuxing,342

there is an immediate correlation between the movements and the use of the concept of wuxing in

traditional Chinese medicine and how it exists within the transformations that occur within the

body as well as in nature.

The fighting aspects of Xingyi Quan are characterized by aggressive, seemingly linear

movements and explosive power. Coordinated movements are used to generate bursts of power

intended to overwhelm the opponent, simultaneously attacking and defending. Within Xingyi

training, there are three essential stages of development.

1. Mingjing (明精 obvious energy) – Changes jing (精 essences) to qi

2. Anjing (暗精 hidden energy) – Changes qi to shen
3. Huajing (化精 changing energy) – Returns shen to xu (虚 in this instance refers
to the void, or the original state)

The process of these three stages is that the first stage of mingjing is understood as the

obvious elements of training. This is learning the basics of attacking and defending,

strengthening the body, improving coordination, and learning the basic choreography of the

forms. It is sometimes described as a process that strengthens the bones, as it builds the

framework to a martial artist’s practice. Following the rules of training and being consistent, it is

believed that a student can pass this stage of basic training in about three years, although length

of time varies with each practitioner depending on his abilities, consistency, and any previous

training.

342
In the wuxing, there is a destructive cycle through the phases where metal chops wood, wood
holds the earth, earth contains the water, water extinguishes fire and fire melts metal. There is
also the creative cycle of how wood feeds the fire, fire enriches the earth, earth collects the
metals, metals enrich the water, and water gives life to wood. In Xingyi Quan, the attack
associated with earth (hengquan 横拳 crossing fist) is the defence for the attack associated with
water (zuanquan 鑽拳 drilling fist), while the defence that overcomes earth is the one associated
with wood (bengquan 崩拳 crushing fist).
126
 In the second stage, anjing, the student is taught more about body alignments and the

timing of different movements. All the movements are softened, made smoother and more

refined. Often a teacher will make the student relearn forms with a different emphasis in each

move, changing the dynamic of the form. The general sense is that if the student practices the

forms repeatedly to learn how to express their true intent, he will learn how to change

spontaneously with the circumstances. As with the first level, it depends on the student, but this

level of training is assumed to take about six years to fully master. The attainment of skill in

Xingyi Quan requires repetition of the same exercises thousands of times. While it is important to

understand the theoretical aspects, there is a strong emphasis on how the constant repetitions of

the training are the only way a student can cultivate true skill.343 Anjing is described as a level of

training that affects the tendons, focusing on the connections between all the moving pieces, and

something deeper than just the muscular movements.

Huajing is understood as the level of complete mastery for the system of training. The

transition to this stage from anjing is supposed to be natural, where all the movements become

highly refined after so many years of applied practice. All the rough edges are polished, and the

student has learned all the different ways in which they can apply this explosive power. It is

described as changing the marrow, where the internal essence has evolved, and there is a

cultivation at the deepest level of the body.344

Within the performance of the forms themselves in Bagua Zhang, Xingyi Quan and Taiji

Quan, there is often the same starting point, where the practitioner begins at a very simply

standing posture called wuiji (无极 nothingness). Wuji is seen as the natural state occurring

343
Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. x.
344
The notes on the three levels as described here have been combined from various sources,
namely Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. 38, and Sun, 1915, p. 47.
127
before the beginning of martial arts practice. “The mind is without thought; the intent is without

motion; the eyes are without focus; the hands and feet are still; the body makes no movement;

yin and yang (隐 and 陽) 345 are not yet divided, the clear and the turbid have not yet separated;

the qi is united and undifferentiated. Man is born between heaven and earth, and possesses the

natures of both yin and yang. His original qi is united and undifferentiated.”346 The one qi

generated from the emptiness is the pre-natal qi. This qi is seen as the vital aspect as it is

believed to contain the root of life, the source of creation, and the basis of life and death. It this

way, it is treated as the foundation of the internal martial arts.

After taking this moment at wuji to bring oneself to stillness, the next step before the

beginning of motion is taiji (太极 supreme ultimate) which entails a slight opening of the feet,

and shifting of the body. At the time just before the beginning of motion, the whole body is

empty, but full with qi. “Being the spirit of everything, a human being can influence and reflect

everything. Being inside, the mind acts on everything around it, and objects, being outside, have

their principle in the mind. The mind acts inside and every object forms outside. Both of these

sides are connected by qi.”347 There exists the foundation but it is hidden. Taiji is contained

within the wuji, and follows it as the unity of wuji is divided into yin and yang. “First, seek to

find an ultimate state in which you are centered and empty of conscious intention. When qi is

concealed within, there is “virtue” (inherent power). When qi manifests externally, there is

345
The first known mention of yin-yang in a philosophical context is made in the Xici where is
states, “One yin, one yang, that is the dao” (一隐一陽之喂道). Song, 2004, p. 47. They were
dual forces that have remained central to the concept of Chinese cosmology since classical times.
Acting as a polarity in the transformations of qi, their continual interaction is believed to exist
within all things, including the constitution and functioning of the human body. Croizier, 1968, p.
17.
346
Sun, 1915, p. 69.
347
Sun, 1915, p. 70.
128
“method” (manifest power). When the internal and external qi combine in a unified flow, one

may take his proper place between heaven and earth, embracing the yin and the yang. Therefore,

the internal power of the martial arts forms the basis for life.”348

The moment dividing these two states, is the division of wuji into the polarities of yin and

yang which act together to form the polarizations found within the transformations of qi. In this,

yin and yang are referred to as the liangyi (两儀). The changes of yin and yang produce the

theory of the boxing skill, namely, extending and contracting, going up and down, advancing and

retreating, side-to-side and to and fro represent the infinite changes of yin and yang. Extending,

rising and advancing are yang in nature, while contracting, descending and retreating are yin.

Within this, the body is to be kept vertically straight to help keep the qi in balance, and the

student is asked pay attention to yin while looking at yang, and pay attention to yang while

looking at yin.349

Teachers of Xingyi Quan begin their forms with standing postures that begin at wuji, with

the feet together and the mind clear, moving to taiji where the feet are opened, the body shifted

and the mind prepared for the movement of the form, and then the opening move is always

piquan (劈拳 splitting fist) to arrive at santishi (三体式 Trinity posture), which is the most

commonly depicted posture in all the classic photos of Xingyi instructors. Wuji produces one qi,

and taiji is the division of one qi to produce yin and yang. Through their continual

transformations, yin and yang give shape to the trinity of heaven, earth, and the human being.

From this trinity, the ten thousand things are created. In the physical posture itself, it is said to

348
Sun, 1915, p. 73.
349
Sun, 1915, p. 74.
129
corresponded to the head, hands and feet.350 All movements characteristic of Xingyi begin from

the santi position.

Across these systems, breathing and meditative practices intended for focusing the mind

and improving health were an important component of training. These practices, called qigong

(气功, which can be translated as breathing exercises) or neigong (内功 internal training) are a

fairly typical component of most systems of Chinese martial arts,351 but these practices are not

derived from the fighting techniques of these arts. Wang Guangxi (王广西)352 asserts that the

term qigong came into use only by the end of the Qing dynasty, and that the practices associated

with this term were based not on combative movements, but on medical practices known as

yangsheng which can be traced as far back as texts written in the Warring States period of

Chinese history. Yangsheng outdated the systems of martial arts that were practiced in the

Republican era of China, and while martial arts may have drawn upon the concepts and practices

of these medical techniques, yangsheng does not show any indications that they drew upon

fighting techniques.

Yangsheng was a systematic form of body cultivation that used a combination of mental

awareness, controlled breathing, and slow movements to engage the person, develop health, and

open ways to mental and spiritual development. Texts on yangsheng included information on

350
Sun, 1915, p. 76.
351
Within a contemporary North American context, many schools of martial arts lack these
components of qigong training and focus purely on self-defence training. In China, there is a
much more casual acceptance of the principles behind them. For people learning about them for
the first time, the terms about to be discussed here like qi, yin and yang, and the five phases can
seem very exotic in nature, but in many ways they are simply part of the traditional Chinese
worldview. They are not limited to Daoism, as they are discussed at length by Confucian and
Buddhist thinkers as well. Kennedy and Guo, 2005, p. 86.
352
Wang Guangxi was the author of a book published in Taiwan in 2002 on the history of
Chinese martial arts.
130
massage techniques, gymnastic exercises, dietary information, medicinal drugs, various

prohibitions and simple advice for everyday life, such as the regulation of sleep, hygiene,

activities and so forth. 353

Although they are largely influenced by the Daoist pursuit of longevity, yangsheng has

had many contributors to its development who came from Confucian or Buddhist traditions, and

those who simply saw it as something within the domain of medical study and not something

exclusive to Daoism. These practices were intended to absorb or guide qi to maintain the health

of the body. Qi, which was understood as the vital essence at work in the animation of nature and

the life of the body, is difficult to explain clearly. It should not be imagined as only an element or

something as straightforward as energy or breath. It is better understood as a configuration of

things, or a process for the transformation for energy.354 The goal of the yangsheng practices was

to keep the body healthy and vigorous for as long as possible by maintaining balance between

the organs and the transformations of the energies, fluids and nutrients within body, harmonizing

their proper functions to prevent illness.

Qi has been described by Manfred Porkert through different manifestations, wherein it is

understood as both an “energetic configuration” and a “configuration of energy.”355 It is the

process of transformation in things, while simultaneously being the substance of the thing in

which transformations occur. There are various descriptions and patterns to this, but it is not

within the scope of this thesis to do justice to the complexity of the term and the various ways it

353
Despeux, 1989, p. 229.
354
Paul Unschuld translated the term as the “(finest matter) influences,” “emanations,” or
“vapours,” so qi is not seen as something totally without form, but the debate over the exact use
of the term will distract us from the discussion at hand. Unschuld, 1985, p. 208.
355
In Porkert’s 1974 monograph, The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine: Systems of
Correspondence, he discusses at length the different understandings of qi and its application in
Chinese medicine.
131
is used. Just to have a concept of qi to carry us through this discussion, at its most basic level the

use of qi within yangsheng is a focus on the role of energy and breath within the transformation

of the body, where the goal is to harmonize the different manifestations of qi within the body to

nourish growth and longevity. When harmony is maintained, the transformations of the body can

be beneficial, expansive and strong; or if harmony is lost, the transformations can become

negative, turbid and ailing.

Yangsheng techniques were used to replenish the vital forces of the body. They were seen

as a therapeutic practice, one that could be applied to many ailments, but predominately those

based on locomotive and digestive afflictions. The goal of therapy was to prevent the stagnations

in the body that could lead to illness.356 Within this system of belief, the gymnastic exercises

were able to harmonize qi because movement was seen as a method to “eliminate internal

obstructions and improve blood circulation.”357 This occurred through a network of energy

channels, or jingluo (经络 meridians), where the proper flow of qi through these meridians was

important to the nourishment and health of the organs, and harmonizing the fluids that were

exchanged between them. We see a link to this concept of health being made when the training

in traditional martial arts were described in a way that the “movement can help open and

stimulate the meridians, exercise the joints, increase the circulation, aid digestion, open the

stomach, increase the peristalsis of the intestines, increase the absorption of nutrients, increase

the resistance to disease, breakdown and elimination of wastes and increase the overall health of

the body.”358

356
Despeux, 1989, p. 242.
357
Engelhardt, 1989, p. 274.
358
This was the original description given by Wang Jiwu on some of the health benefits of
training a qigong set he taught within his Xingyi Quan system. Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. 123.
132
 The branch of yangsheng that created the strongest link to the martial practices was the

gymnastic exercises that fit into the category of daoyin (導引 roughly translated as “guiding and

pulling”). Daoyin consists of a series of movements and stretches designed to harmonize the

essences of the body, and first appears in medical illustrations found at Mawangdui.359 Although

daoyin could be considered on its own, it is a category of the practices of yangsheng.360 It is this

premise of movement being relevant to health and the harmonization of qi within the body that

was taken up in different schools of martial arts.

As for these concepts within the physical training of martial arts, many teachers described

styles like Bagua Zhang as a form of moving qigong. While there are qigong practices that are

performed while standing still or even sitting down, Bagua Zhang practices these concepts in

walking exercises. During the training, teachings are given such as “When moving, you must

bring your qi to your dantian (丹田).361 Relax your chest so that your qi may sink to your dantian.

359
The Mawangdui tomb was an archaeological site in Changsha, China that dates back to the
Western Han dynasty, 206 BCE – 9 CE. It contained the Marquis of Dai, his wife, and a male
believed to be their son. Current estimations believe the burial of the tomb was around 166-168
BCE
360
We find this evidence of daoyin gymnastics being listed as a subset of yangsheng exercises in
ancient Daoist texts such as the Yangsheng yaoji (養生要集 Compendium of Essentials on
Nourishing life) and the Yangxing yanming lu (養行延命錄 Record on Nourishing Inner Nature
and Extending life), Despeux, 1989, p. 242.
361
The dantian represents one of the more complex topics in Chinese medicine. The most basic
assumption is that dantian is an area inside the lower abdomen where the qi is believed to
accumulate. The point coincides with the physical center of gravity, and it is the focal point for
many Asian schools of martial arts and internal energy cultivation. Sun, 1924, p. 53. It is a very
important area in regards to Daoist conceptions of the body, relating to the transformations seen
in the earlier description of the three stages to Xingyi Quan training relating to jing, qi, and shen
to return to xu, which is known in Daoism as neidan (内丹 inner alchemy). The dantian are
three loci in the human body that play a major role in breathing and meditation. Located in the
regions of the abdomen, heart, and brain, but devoid of material counterparts, they establish a
tripartite division of inner space that corresponds to other threefold motives in the Daoist
pantheon and cosmology. The lower Cinnabar Field is the dantian proper and is the seat of
essence jing. Different sources place somewhere between 1.3 and 3.6 cun (寸 a unit of
133
Your breathing must be natural. … Use your mind to lead your movements, and coordinate your

upper-body movements with your lower-body movements. Coordinate this with your breath. The

mind and qi should be coordinated with your power.362 A proverb of these martial artists was to

“exercise flesh, tendons, and bones externally, and cultivate qi internally.” These experts

emphasized their belief, that by integrating qigong principles, the martial arts could be improved

to become even more profound.363 The benefits as they understood them, was that “this

marvelous boxing method, when practised properly according to the essentials, can develop the

practitioner’s physical health to restore the essence, tonify the brain, dispel illness, prolong life

and maintain optimum vitality.”364

The original practitioners of yangsheng and daoyin did not perform them with the goal of

strengthening their bodies for any combative purposes. In her studies on Daoism, Livia Kohn

discussed how the Daoist adepts used the strengthening of muscles and loosening of joints as a

means to build an awareness of internal energies, and this awareness allowed them to learn how

to enter states of absorption and deeper meditation, which related to higher levels of self-

realization. Daoists saw qi as the vital power of the cosmos at work in nature, in society, and in

measurement, approximately an inch) below or behind the navel. It is the location of the first
stage of the neidan process lianjing huaqi (练精化气 refining essence into energy [sometimes
translated as pneuma in this context]). This area is the meeting point of two meridians that run
along the spine and ventral axis, dumai (督脈 control channel) and renmai (任脈 function
channel). Circulating the essence along these two channels generates the inner elixir. The middle
Cinnabar Field is at the center of the chest according to some authors, or between the heart and
the navel according to others. In the second stage of the neidan process lianqi huashen (练气化
神 “refining energy into spirit”), the elixir is moved from the lower to the middle dantian and is
nourished there. The upper Field is located in the region of the brain and is the seat of shen.
Moving the inner elixir to the upper Field marks the third and last stage of the neidan process
lianshen huanxu (练身换虚“refining spirit and reverting to Emptiness). See Pregadio, 2008, p.
302.
362
Lin, 2010, p. 79.
363
Li, 1993, p. 1.
364
Quotation of Li Ziming, in Li, 1993, p. xii.
134
the human body, and that by learning to harmonize the qi of the body and to be in harmony with

the qi of the environment in which this body existed, they could be able to understand the

underlying workings of society, nature, and ultimately all things within the macrocosm, or the

universe in which we live.365

Within Daoism, there was the idea of how the practice of ritualized physical movements

was only a preliminary stage that was intended to be surpassed. The daoyin gymnastics were

intended to facilitate and cultivate the flow of qi, and as such they were secondary to the actual

manipulation of qi itself.366 There was a progressive goal of learning the metaphysical patterns of

the body so that one could refine the jing (精 seminal essence, or life bringing essence) of the

body into qi with the combination of daoyin and meditative practice. This transformation

continued with the refinement of qi into the spiritual aspect of shen.

Demonstrating the influence of these concepts from yangsheng and daoyin, Yang

Chengfu’s text from 1934 on Taijiquan had an interesting perspective of how the physical

practice of martial arts might be able to influence the body on such a level. In the introduction to

his book Taijiquan Tiyong Quanshu (太极拳体用全书 Essence and Applications of Taijiquan),

Yang Chengfu stated that “Taijiquan is based on the taiji and bagua of the Book of Changes; and

the ideas of li [里 principle], qi [气 energy], and xiang [象 image] help to give shape to these

concepts.”367 From the commentary of the Xici (系辞 attached verbalizations) to the Zhouyi (周

易 Book of Changes, also known as Yijing) xiang could also be understood as “a sensory (that is,

visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory) presentation of a perceptual, imaginative or recollected

365
Kohn, 2007, p. 108.
366
Holcombe, 1993, p. 15.
367
Yang, 1934, p. 11.
135
experience.”368 This experiential element of xiang linked with a notion of li that refers to inherent

principles of things, or their structural patterns.369 As Roger Ames writes, “One investigates li in

order to uncover patterns which relate to things, and to discover resonances between things that

make correlations and categorization possible.”370 Within the context of Yang Chengfu’s

discussions on training Taiji Quan, it may be helpful to think of xiang as learning through

emulations of a teacher’s form, and through this experience of the xiang of taiji, you can learn of

the li that exists within that form, and work to ensure that qi is in harmony with this li. In other

words, you work to ensure the energies of the body are in harmony with the patterns which

adhere to their proper functioning. This process was expected to occur through diligent training

and the practice of awareness, as the student gradually learns more of the internal principles of

Chinese martial arts.371

In Xingyi Quan, many of these yangsheng concepts were mentioned by Wang Fuyuan,

Wang Jiwu’s teacher and a contemporary of Bu Xuekuan. Summarizing the emphasis in training

for his system, he described it as “the five phases, yin and yang, inside and outside, intent, qi,

power, hard and soft, form and spirit, technique, internal power, false and real, the original yang

368
Hall and Ames, 1995, p. 216.
369
An interpretation of li worth consideration here was described by Zhu Xi (朱熹 1130-1200),
the famous Song dynasty neo-Confucian; “Li (pattern) is a natural and inescapable law of affairs
and things... the meaning of ‘natural and inescapable’ is that [human] affairs, and [natural] things,
are made just exactly to fit into place. The meaning of ‘law’ is that the fitting into place occurs
without the slightest excess or deficiency.” Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine strove
to understand these patterns and principles because it was believed that excess or deficiency
within the different natures of qi in the body, whether caused by external pathogens or internal
imbalance, would create illness. These imbalances were believed to occur along the rubric of the
eight principles, which were the oppositions between yin and yang, cold and heat, internal and
external, excess and depletion. The goal of the practitioners was to maintain balance, or harmony,
within the state of qi in the body. Croizier, 1968, p. 17, and Scheid, 2002, p. 51.
370
Hall and Ames, 1995, p. 216.
371
Yang, 1934, p. 13.
136
qi, all united into one.”372 In the way of these styles of martial arts, the forms are seen in the

structure of their movements, but its “formless” elements are seen as the real source of power.

The structure of the physical movements must use the power from within, or the structure and

the form is useless. Qili (气力 the power of qi) is the root of the training. “If you want sufficient

power, the qi must be full, therefore qi is the root of strength.”373

The influence of these concepts of yangsheng and the microcosmic aspects of the body

were the primary basis of the transformative potential of martial arts practice. As teachers began

to publish martial arts texts in the Republican era, they promoted and emphasised the value of

concepts relating to Daoist and yangsheng principles as something integral to martial arts. Yet

there remains a separation between the elements of the training that were designed for fighting

and those that were designed for cultivation and transformation of the self. Although the

practices of martial arts and those of yangsheng did connect in some interesting ways, the lines

between the two were blurred and rearranged during the Republican era in a way that led

ordinary people to see a much closer relationship between the two fields than what had actually

existed previously.

Considering the fighting aspect of martial arts training, the available texts in the Daoist

canon and manuals of gymnastics and breathing do not mention the ability of the practices to

enhance military skills. They focus on health and spiritual liberation. The most important

element of study for the gymnastic practices was the areas where qi enters and leaves the body,

and where it tends to stagnate.374 The original texts on these teachings do not refer to the

development of fantastic striking ability or defensive skills that were intended for combat. The

372
Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. 88.
373
Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p. 53.
374
Despeux, 1989, p. 255.
137
primary intent of the daoyin movements within the yangsheng practices focus on this idea of

eliminating blockages and coagulations of the energies of the body to permit a smooth

circulation of the fluids and essences of the body.

These concepts were used by teachers such as those involved with the Jingwu

Association and Guoshuguan, yet the intellectual movements of the Republican era made it

challenging to balance the degree to which these types of concepts could be integrated into

training. Anything too esoteric risked being accused of being a part of the “feudal superstitions”

which modernists wanted see removed from society. Many of these concepts remained guarded

in manuals that were originally only shown to inner door students, while the promotion of the

practice in public speeches and the articles such as those written for the New Youth journal

employed the rhetoric of modernity movements discussed earlier in this thesis.

Considering the necessity to avoid “feudal superstitions,” aspects of yangsheng such as

daoyin were not necessarily trapped in purely esoteric spheres. There was some evidence in

ancient history that indicated it might not have always been treated as a practice reserved only

for spiritual pursuit. In an article on the daoyin gymnastics, Livia Kohn points out that

Mawangdui, where archaeologists found documents on daoyin and other medical texts, was the

tomb of an aristocrat and not that of a monk or spiritual leader. This meant that it was an activity

that could have also been undertaken by the upper classes who remained actively involved in

society, who most likely used it with the intent of alleviating diseases and physical discomforts.

It is possible then that it was not only intended for some form of spiritual cultivation, but also as

a technical approach to the maintenance of the body, simply to provide a greater enjoyment of

138
daily luxuries and faster recovery from large banquets and communal events that involved wine

as an important part of ritualized social interactions.375

When determining if there is scientific truth to the benefits of martial arts practice, it is

worth considering a scientific experiment conducted on the effects of Taiji Quan on physical and

mental health of college students, even if it might have been a bit late for the “scientization”

movements of the 1920s and 30s. In 2004, the American Journal of Chinese Medicine featured

the results of a three-month experiment where students were assigned to do one hour sessions of

Taiji, three times a week, and the multidimensional physical and mental health scores were

assessed using the SF-36v2 health survey questionnaire before and after the experiment.376 Each

practice session included 10 minutes of breathing and stretching following by 50 minutes of Taiji

Quan form practice.

The results of this study indicated that the practice of Taiji Quan was beneficial in

improving the physical and mental health of college students. In particular, the mental health

dimension was particularly sensitive to change in this group. Vitality (defined as a sense of

energy and freedom from fatigue), mental/emotional role function (defined as limitations in

usual home or work activities because of emotional problems), and general emotional health all

improved.377 The researchers found that Taiji Quan was a unique form of exercise, combining

mind and body through a series of low impact movements. It was helpful in mediating emotional

and psychological stresses that accompany the life experiences of graduate and undergraduate

students, and the study showed that the practice Taiji had the potential to help maintain a healthy

375
Kohn, 2007, p. 111.
376
The questionnaire covered physical function, bodily pain, general health, social function,
emotional function, vitality, and perceptions of mental health. Wang et. al, 2004, p. 453.
377
Wang et. al, 2004, p. 457.
139
body as well as an alert mind, and demonstrated that it could increase people’s ability to

concentrate better on routine tasks and make decisions more effectively.378

The development of skill in traditional Chinese martial arts, particularly when they made

references to an internal form of power related to qi, was understood as a slow and gradual

process, requiring long periods of training. When training with traditional teachers, students had

to practice diligently, morning and night, and engage in practice with others frequently so that

they could understand themselves and others.379 Students were encouraged not to learn too much

at one time, they were only shown what they were able to understanding, and this understanding

only came from practice. They would be taught only a few movements at a time, and were only

gradually introduced to the theoretical aspects. Often, the case is that only when a student is able

to properly perform the moves they have learned that they are taught more.380

The physical component would be the most obvious, but the mental, spiritual and

energetic evolutions came to be seen as the essential elements of cultivation that could allow a

student to attain a true mastery of the practice. Teachers believed that these principles could only

be understood over a long period of dedicated practice. Firsthand experience was prioritized and

transmitted knowledge only seen as secondary. To truly understand the terms used by the

teachers, a student was supposed to apply a great deal of effort in the actual training, building on

what they understood of the teachings with their own experience. Wang Jiwu felt that “true

knowledge is only trained through practical experience. If one leaves practical experience, all

that is left is empty talk.”381

378
Wang et. al, 2004, p. 454.
379
Sun, 1924, p. 71.
380
Sun, 1915, p. 99.
381
Cartmell and Miller, 1994, p.45.
140
 An important element to the conception of qi within training was that there was the effort

to connect with the subtle layer of things, and as such, all “actions” can only occur in the most

subtle of forms. The true essence of qigong cannot be manifested in parlor tricks or actions

driven by financial goals or simply building a reputation for oneself. As qi is so often described

as an essence of transformations, we could think of the qi of the world as a fluid entity. In this

concept, we cannot take something like water and manipulate it directly, we would be left

soaking wet. According to the teachers of these traditional arts, what can be done is to fix your

intent and focus, and place it like rock that can guide the flow of qi. The qi will accommodate to

the concentration of will and intent. In this capacity where shifu are presenting students with a

process through which they can learn to guide qi, what they perceived as the fundamental

principle of all life, we find the basis of how they saw a potential for transformation within the

study of martial arts.

141
 Conclusion

The transition from the imperial age into the Republican era marked a dramatic change at

all levels of society in China. As new concepts entered the public domain through the various

publications and associations that were formed during this time, people began to see themselves

and their country in a way that was radically different from the generations before them. With

the collapse of the imperial order, past hierarchies and social structures were subject to

reorganization, and fields of practice had to negotiate their relation with society during these

political and social reforms in order for them to retain a degree of cultural legitimacy. These

negotiations were both conscious and unconscious, as they took place within the essays and call

for changes from movements such as the Tiyu Movement, the New Culture Movement, and even

the New Life Movement.

Perceptions of the body are an important element of how power exists within social

formations. In modernity the processes of the politicization of the body in the context of society

can reinforce the sovereignty of ruling powers.382 Physical education plays a role in determining

how people perceive their body, and how they think of themselves in relation to their body. How

a person thinks the human body should be trained, exercised, disciplined, developed and

educated in effect becomes how he as an individual should be trained, exercised, disciplined,

developed and educated.383 Within this, body becomes a tool of inquiry and a vector of

knowledge. This education on the body impacts not only the understanding of the body within a

medical context, but also within a social and political handling of the representations of the body.

382
Harvey and Sparks, 1991, p. 165.
383
Cassidy, 1965, p. 11.
142
 The supply side of sports and physical education were subject to new social conditions

and relations of power in Republican China, and those with sovereignty over the efforts of nation

building stood at the highest point. Through the promotion of specific institutions, its regulation

of nationally oriented curricula, and its authorization of who was and was not recognized as a

formal instructor at the national levels, the state subsumed different fields of practice to specific

forms of power relations. As an institute promoted by the state, or at least a political party that

wanted to become the state, the Guoshuguan was subject to these dynamics.

The deliberate effort to reposition the traditional martial arts of China is found first and

foremost in how the associations such as the Jingwu Association and the Zhongyang

Guoshuguan created new opportunities to learn martial arts, as they allowed students to train

with multiple teachers within a more structured, analytical format. This allowed not only the

students, but also the teachers to compare their training regimens and incorporate new ideas.

These efforts used the rhetoric of modernity movements, developed the aspects drawn from

yangsheng cultivation, and incorporated scientific terms and aspects of westernization needed to

make it attractive to modernists and the younger generations of students who would carry the

practices forward.

The diversity within Chinese martial arts today demonstrates that these teachers were

never able to standardize teaching materials, or create a lasting, centralized examination system.

What they did accomplish, however, in their efforts to preserve this field of practice, was to

make the practice more freely available, improve research and collaborations between teachers,

and repositioning Chinese martial arts as not just a fighting practice, but a recreational activity

that could be enjoyed by people around the world to this day.

143
 Distancing martial arts from being merely a fighting art had positive results throughout

the Republican era as the practices were moved towards the level of popular acceptance that we

see in the world today. An early sign of their success can be found in a publication related to the

Jingwu Association known as the Jingwu Zazhi (精武杂志 Pure Martial Magazine), featured a

preface by Sun Yat-sen in 1920, where he identified martial arts as an important contribution of

the Chinese people to world peace.384

The objective of this thesis was to bring awareness to the broad range of issues that

confronted the field of Chinese martial arts during the transition from the imperial age into

Republican China. Certainly there were many topics raised within this thesis that were not fully

explored, and those areas could create opportunities for future research. The hope was to provide

a better perspective on how martial arts have evolved by putting them into the context of the

social changes that occurred at the time, and point out that the aspects of self-cultivation

commonly associated with the martial arts were only became common knowledge after the

efforts to reposition the field of martial arts during the Republican era.

With the popularity of martial arts today, it is important to develop a clearer

understanding of the history of its development. As with any field of practice, martial arts

evolves and changes with time in a continual process of repositioning. Should anyone want to

seriously engage the practice of martial arts, it is important to have a sense of not only how

complicated the history of these practices can be, but also how complicated history itself can be.

It is not just a process of understanding fixed points regarding important events, but also the

lived experience of the people who endure these social transitions, who struggle to find a place

for themselves within a rapidly changing world.

384
Morris, 2004, p. 198.
144
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