I have translated another article from Hing Chao 趙式慶, the head of the Chinese Guoshu Headquarters in Hong Kong. It deals well with historical elements as well as the internal element in the Southern Arts, which many people usually consider to be "external" . This also appeared in the 2308th issue of Ming Bao weekly.
In order to understand how Southern Chinese Wushu was transmitted to Hong Kong, one has to understand the source and tributaries of historical development. This not only involves each school of boxing's development and transmission, but also concerns the culture and geography of Southern China, and various historical incidents. In order to undertand the principles of boxing, there is no way to divorce it from the social, historical and cultural layers.
Definition
What is called Southern Boxing, is a general name for the various schools and arts of southern China, and is not a reference to any particular school or set of techniques. From a geographical perspective, Southern boxing has Guangdong and Fujian as its center, but because wushu is a living culture, it also had a beneficial relationship with the surrounding provinces. Thus as a vessel for transmitting culture, Southern Boxing is a cross province and cross area phenomenon, whether one is looking at it from a fighting or historical perspective, we are hard pressed to restrict it to a particular province or area.
In recent years, wushu researchers have done a lot of study regarding the transmission and development of Southern Wushu in the post-imperial period. Their research has allowed us to understand the exchange between different schools, and the intimate relationship between the spread of schools and human migration. Especially from the middle to the late Qing, this was one of the high points of Chinese population movement and was also one of the high points in exchange for various schools.
From another perspective, China from ancient times has always had a strong sense of local identity and culture, from dialect to cuisine, theatre, even martial culture has always been like this. So if one were to define the object of analysis too broadly, it is quite easy to become muddled. Standing from a Hong Konger's perspective, the domestic martial arts scene has an direct relationship with Guangdong and Fujian, so when we consider the Southern boxing we will treat these two provinces as our main focus.
From the time of the Republic, Guangdong Wushu has the saying that there are five major families -Hung, Lau, Choy, Lee, Mok『洪,劉,蔡,李,莫』 and also encompasses Choy Lay Fut 蔡李佛, Fut Gar 佛家, Yong Chun 永春, Wing Chun 詠春 and Southern Mantis 南螳螂, Dragon Style 龍形, Bak Mei 白眉派 and Hap Gar 俠家. In contast to this Fujian has Taizu 太祖, Dazun達尊, Luohan 羅漢, Xingzhe 行者, (Yong Chun) White Crane 永春白鶴, Five Ancestors 五祖 and so on.
From an applications perspective, Guangdong and Fujian make a distinction between long and short distance. "Long" 『長』wushu includes Choy Lay Fut, Lee Family, Taizu long fist, etc. These show a definite northern influence. Alternately, there are a group that specialize in close distance boxing『 短』like Crane fist, Southern Mantis, Wing Chun, etc. These have a very strong local flavor. Whether it is in application or principle, this group has a high degree of commonality, their gongfa or training method is distinct from other regions, and to a great extent are most representative of Southern China wushu, and is worth deeper study. Their creation and development will be focus of this article.
Southern Boxing's Unique Social and Cultural Background
Looking at Southern boxing from the larger cultural background, it has a close relationship with the cirumstances along the southern China coastline. First the folk marital arts reflected the instability of society in those days, and the need for each village to "self govern" 『保甲』and have "communal training"『 團練』. Following the rapid economic development of Fujian and Guangdong from the middle of the Ming Dynasty, by the early Qing most of the usable arable land had been turned into farmland for cultivation. By the time of Yongzheng and Qianlong, the rise of certain large families led to numerous clashes over land in Fujian and Guangdong and also led many small farmers to be marginalized. Population pressures led to the rise of banditry, and also encouraged the formation of underground organizations. The first area to feel this pressure was the already dense area of Qiuling area 丘陵 in Chaozhou and Southern Fujian. In order to search for a better life, many people emigrated from the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou to Taiwan, and a portion of people gave up farming to conduct maritime trade. In the Ming Period, Koxinga's father Zheng Zhilung 鄭芝龍 is a good example of this.
When we understand the situation at the end of the Ming dynasty in Fujian and Guangdong it is not difficult to explain the sudden explosion in development; and the culture of the coastal areas is directly related to the movement of peoples, many coming from Fujian - Zhangzhou 漳州 and Quanzhou 泉州 to Guangdong, going from east to west. This period of history underlies the traditional Cantonese martial arts story of "The Burning of the Souther Shaolin Temple" 『火燒南少林』 / "The source is from Fujian" 『福建起源』.
Another point worth our noting is that many of the Fujianese schools have a relatively long history, for example white crane, many of the surviving materials date from the Qing dynasty, and we can trace its history at least 200 years, and many experts feel that it had its origins in the early Qing. At the same time we can find mentions of the main schools of Fujian such as Taizu, Luohan, Xingzhe (Monkey Boxing) in Ming dynasty documents.
Fujianese Martial Arts during the time of the Ming
The original development of southern boxing remains an enigma: our understanding of martial arts before the Ming dynasty is extremely limited, and there almost no historical documents to speak of, let alone boxing manuals. However from the materials dating from the Ming dynasty we can see that southern martial arts had already developed to very mature stage. The question we need to pose is this: what was Southern boxing like before the Qing period and what relationship does it have to the boxing of the later era?
First, the famous anti Japanese Generals of the Ming Wanli period - Qijiguang 戚继光 and Yu Dayou 俞大猷 were once active in the southern coast of China. In order to better train their troops, General Qi took the essense of local martial arts and wrote it in his boxing manual 拳經解要篇 . The Boxing Classic 拳經 collects the most colourful aspects of local martial culture, performs a simple analysis and comparison of each school, and captures the content of Ming martial arts. Most of his troops came from the mountains of Zhejiang, and Zhejiang is connected to Fujian, so it is not unusual that the arts of his troops would be transmitted to Fujian. Furthermore, the resistance to Japanese pirates involved the whole of the China coast, so there are records of Qijiguang and Yu Dayou in both Guangdong and Fujian.
What is worth mentioning is the Boxing Classic mentions both Taizu and Monkey boxing. When discussing each school Qijiguang states:
From the ancient days to present times, Song Taizu (The first Song Emperor) has a 32 posture long fist, and has a six step boxing, monkey boxing and hua quan.
The famous martial arts researcher Professor Ma Mingta has concluded that the Taizu boxing only borrows the name of the Song Emperor, and does not have much relationship to the historical individual. Regardless of this, Taizu boxing is a classical school of the Ming Period, and from the Boxing Classic we know that it is a form of long fist. However the surviving Taizu quan is now a form of close distance fighting, so this is a problem worth pondering. Although Xingzhe (monkey boxing) is also mentioned in the Boxing Classic as Monkey boxing, without futher materials we do not know if there is any relationship between them. However as Fujian boxing has perserved these names, it is evidence to show that the Boxing Classic influenced the martial arts of this area.
Another point to notice is that the Boxing Classic, when discussing close distance fighting has a fundamental difference from contemporary southern wushu. Classical arts' close distance fighting has a saying "when hitting think about falling / throwing", and there are many instances where the elbow is used. This is similar to many traditional martial arts still extant, and is very close to Hebei Cangzhou Bajiquan. The Boxing Classic's 32 Posture flowing Luan (a kind of bird akin to a Phoenix) elbow is very good example:
The flowing Luan elbow moves in close to the body to attack, and has a rolling speed, the opponent finds it hard to brush aside and block: when returning the outer arm sweeps back, catching the stomach throws him down; who dares to struggle forward?
This passage directly describes how the traditional arts practiced close quarters fighting, when closing the distance with the opponent, the practitioner can use a rolling / quick technique to use the elbow to strike, making it difficult to block. In addition he can also use wrestling to throw the opponent down. This technique contains both striking and dropping, two forms of attack can be used making it difficult to predict.
This technique described in the boxing classic is still preserved in Southern martial arts, but only within the relatively wide horse stance schools of Hung Kar which contain both long and close range attacks and not within the specialized close combat schools. Conversely, the schools with a strong local flavour such as the Crane boxing (He Quan) or Wing Chun, they have their own way of issuing power and attacking, through raising the flexibility of the body's joints and co-ordination, so that they can issue the greatest amount of "soft" jin at the closest distance, and thorough some unique training such as Chi sao and wooden dummy, they raise their ability to fight at a close distance.
Southern Boxing's Revolution and Innovation
Wushu has some fundamental principles : using the strong to attack the weak, using long distance to attack the short distance, using speed to attack the slow, using movement to attack the stillness: it has been this way since antiquity. These relationships can be subsumed under "hardness and softness" 『 柔剛』. Apart from Chinese Wushu, these are applicable to the fighting systems of any country, so every martial artists tries to strengthen their body, train power and speed, and seek the opponent's weak points through various techniques and strategies. Apart from one on one fights, group fighting, or warfare are also like this. Only in China because of various historical and cultural reasons, created a principle of using the "soft to overcome the hard" 『以柔制剛』and imbued this in its martial arts. For example the northern schools of Taijiquan and Baguazhang completely overturned the principles and methods of a thousand years of martial arts.
In the south, Qing Dynasty era styles also developed this kind of "soft overcoming the hard" style of internal martial arts. Of them the most representative is the well know Yong Chun White Crane style which is usually abbreviated to white crane.
The emergence of White Crane was revolutionary. From antiquity, martial artists understood that fighting was a balance between hard and soft, neither hard nor soft were absolute principles but were relative. Against a smaller and weaker opponent, I have the advantages of hardness and range, but against a stronger opponent, I am the weaker and shorter one. Against different opponents warriors would unceasingly try to use their advantages to overcome their opponents through an understanding of strength, timing and distance. Bajiquan has the saying "seven parts hardness, three parts hardness" 『七柔三剛』 and the Southern Hung Kuen tries to agressively promote "hardness and softness in equal measure".
What was different was that the internal arts took a theory of opposites and changed it into an absolute relationship, placing the softness at the forefront. Softness, close range, and stillness became their core principles, the relationship between hardness and softness was driven by softness. As for the relationship between harndess and softness, White Crane advocated "8 parts harness 24 parts softness" 『八剛二十四柔』 with softness in the driver's seat and subduing hardness.
This revolutionary change was hard for traditional martial artists to accept. The origin myth of White Crane contains the following story:
Lady Seven was in the temple... and saw a large white crane netling in the rafters, it raised its head and spread its wings, bringing its feet to dance and moving its wings, it stretched it neck out looking for food, pulled in its neck to take a resting breath, raising its head againg gave a loud cry, its posture was refined and elegant, and she sighed in admiration, taking her makeup box she threw it at the crane, the crane swiftly dodged it, and using a sideways movement attacked her, she thrown back by the movement of its wing, the crane shook its wings and lifted off into the sky. Lady Seven was greatly inspired by this and thus included the movements where the crane shook its wings, threw out its wing, moved diagonally, hackled its feathers, rotated its neck, made a great cry, into Shaolin Kungfu. Through many years of practice and experimentation, created a new form of boxing - "Crane Boxing" - what the world knows as White Crane Boxing.
Tseng Si from Yong Chun was following his master Yan Qiyan (also known as Yan Shangguan, who was well known for his prowess with the staff) and touring various lands, making friends through the martial arts, they heard of Lady Seven's name and went to pay their respects at the temple where she taught. It so happened that it was thundering and raining, and the master and disciple, took shelter under the temple gate. The Lady, seeing the situation asked them to enter, and asked them where they were from. As they were from Yong Chun, and their profession was teaching the staff, saw that this was a coincidence of fate, for they were of the same Shaolin lineage, asked them stay awhile as her guests.
Tseng Si and Lady Seven discussed the martial arts and the staff, he knew in his heart that her boxing far surpassed his ability with the staff. However his master had a bad temper and thought very highly of himself, he thought that even if Lady Seven's abilities were excellent, she was still a woman and would not be able to defend against his ferocity and power. He asked Lady Seven to demonstrate her technique, to which Lady Seven warmly agreed, lifting one hand and stood with two feet at equal distance, in a waiting stance. Qiyan used a left handed single whip grappling technique to attack, Lady Seven turned her body, defused the incoming attack and entered with her index finger. Qiyan fell to the ground and at this point he admitted total defeat. He said to Tseng Si, "I have only learned some rough and basic hard techniques, and have not been able to reach a refined and mysterious level, you should ask with all your heart to learn from her, and pleaded with Lady Seven to accept Tseng Si as a disciple and teach him the most refined and exquite kung fu. Lady Seven, seeing that Tseng Si was honest and dependable and had a heroic air about him, accepted him as her disciple,
- recorded in the "Simplified History of the Development of the Fujian Yong Chun White Crane" by Li Gang
This story besides recording the orign of White Crane boxing through a legend, also records a turning point in Fujian kungfu. After Fang Qilang (Lady Seven), the face of Fujian wushu underwent a change: elegant, refined, distinguished White Crane for the next three hundred years led the development of the marital arts of Fujian and the neighbouring areas. Its wings extended east to Taiwan and the Ryukyus and west to Guangdong and Hong Kong.
White Crane and Wing Chun, Yong Chun
For many years, the martial world has always disputed the origins of Wing Chun and Yong Chun, without any definitive answer until this day. Actually from the level of technique Yong Chun White Crane and Wing Chun have many similarities in structure and techniques, and there should be no dispute that they stem from the same stream. As folk arts are dependent mainly on oral transmission, there are not many surviving records, and most of them are late Qing or Republican hand written copies and it is difficult to determine the time of origin of each school. However, culture is interactive and has many sources, so there is no need to argue for an absolute timeframe.
As for the documents currently extant from Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China and Okinawa, the comparatively early schools in Fujian and Guangdong are Fut Gar (Luohan) and White Crane. As for what is known as the bible of Okinawan Karate, the 武備志 which was spread from Fujian to the Ryukyus, show that both schools had a fully formed system prior to 1850, through ancesteral records and through the records of past grandmasters, we can speculate that it was created by 1800 or even in the mid 1700s.
As for Wing Chun and Yong Chun, the materials that we have are severely limited, most hand copied manuals date from the Republican era. What is undisputable is that from the perspective of boxing, both schools stem from White Crane, even though the boxing sets are different, many single movements and core principles are basically the same. At the same one should note their weapons systems are quite different from White Crane. For example, the Six and half staff 六點半棍 of Wing Chun and Yong Chun is a classic of Cantonese martial arts. Thus White Crane and the two schools of Wing Chun and Yong Chun in Canton have come together and have separated, although there are similarities in principles, there are differences in their performance and weapons and boxing sets. These complicated and entangled cultural relationships are what make the martial arts research so interesting.
Finally regarless of the historical relationships, both Wing Chun and Yong Chun claim to originate in Fujian. This is what Yong Chun Grandmaster Deng Yi states regarding the tradition origin of his school, as well as Wing Chun's story about the burning of the Shaolin Temple. Thus objectively we can state that these two are most similar to Fujian's White Crane.
The Last Lineage Holder Emigrates to Hong Kong
The vicissitudes of the politics of early twentieth century China and Hong Kong's status as a colony of the British Crown, let a large wave people to take refuge in Hong Kong. These included a large number of Guoshu masters and local martial artists. The Cultural revolution from 1960s to the 1970s led to a suppression of traditional Chinese martial culture, and forced many traditional martial artists to leave off training for a long time. Although there are signs of a gradual recovery since the 1980s, once traditional culture has been broken, it is impossible to ask it start up again, especially the intangiable heritage that is transmitted person to person.
During the Republican Era, due to the efforts of a number of educators who dearly loved local sports, China tried to fashion a sports education system that was founded on local sport as a basis, combining our excellent local body culture with modern sports. What is regrettable is that this important experiment for the country, the people and culture was eventually abandoned.
Conversely, Hong Kong has retained a lot of Chinese traditional folk culture, including Chinese Kung Fu. The principles of Guoshu have put down roots in Hong Kong, especially in the period from 1940s to the 1960s. In addition many lineage holders (especialy in the Southern arts) in the traditional arts emigrated to Hong Kong from the nineteenth century to the 1960s. These include Hung Kar's Wong Fei Hung 黃飛鴻, Lam Sai Wing 林世榮, Lam Zoe 林祖; Yong Chun's Deng Yik 鄧奕, Wing Chun's Yuen Kei San 阮奇山, Yip Man, etc. this made Hong Kong into Chinese martial art's melting pot.
Coming to the beginning of the 20th Century traditional culture has divorced itself from contemporary life, and traditional martial arts is now facing a life or death situation. Nowadays many southern styles are very rare in mainland China, and most importantly the last lineage holders are now all in Hong Kong.
The ancient Chinese Art of White Crane, once influenced the whole of Southern China, and streched to Taiwan and the Ryukyus. Now the Japanese Karate Federation openly acknowledges White Crane as the origin of the "Chinese Hand" 唐手 or Karate in its original kanji. However in its land of origin it is close to extinction, and conversely in Hong Kong there are still two lineage holders, one who is in his twilight years - Mr. Li Gong 李剛.
Yong Chun Boxing is the main representative of Guangdong Province's close range fighting styles, especially its Six and half staff is one of the Southern boxing's most classical weapons. However Guangdong no longer has a true representative of Yong Chun. Many schools face the same situation as White Crane and Yong Chun. They have reached the brink of the death of their culture.
The Local (Hong Kong) Conservation Environment.
Hong Kong at the current time, has fewer and fewer lineage holders, and interest in training martial arts continues to decline, and Kungfu culture has been marginalized. And the authorities interest in preserving the intellectual assets and burden is low. As for the icon Bruce Lee, his museum does not have the support of the Government and it has been impossible to go ahead with establishing it, let alone commemorating some forgotten Grandmasters and schools.
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