Another key element that attracts people to kung-fu is its undeniable beauty. Kung-fu combines power, grace, and agility. Some kung-fu styles emphasize the dance-like and acrobatic qualities of kung-fu. For the performance-oriented student, kung-fu can be a majestic and flamboyant means of self-expression. Forms competitions can provide a platform for displaying one’s abilities and a springboard for recognition.
Each morning at sunrise, hundreds of people gather in China’s parks to begin the day with healthy exercise.
I have tried to reveal that kung-fu has not just one purpose. We see how it can improve our health, that it can be treated as an art form and studied for its beauty, or studied for its original intent, martial art. Kung-fu can develop one’s strength and flexibility, and nourish qualities such as patience, discipline, and confidence.
Like everything that lives, kung-fu is ceaselessly changing. It has proven valuable and resilient enough to endure the sweeping changes of centuries, and to arrive here in the present like an ancient treasure forever being rediscovered.
Traditional Kung-fu: the Complete Exercise
The number and variety of exercise activities available to us today is staggering. You can choose from among baseball, football, soccer, track and field, water sports, winter sports, aerobics, weight training, and cross training to name a few. Why would we ever need kung-fu as an exercise?
Kung-fu training addresses the needs of the inside as well as the outside.
In my opinion, it’s difficult to find any sport or activity that can top kung-fu as an overall form of exercise. For all traditional kung-fu practitioners, even those whose main purpose is self-defense, daily martial arts practice can prevent illness, create a better life, and reach for longevity. In other words, martial arts is a form of exercise that is wholesome, unique, and complete.
What makes kung-fu such great exercise? In reality, exercise doesn’t adequately describe the overall quality of kung-fu. In Chinese, the term yun dong is used to define this activity. Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionaries typically translate yun dong as exercise, sports, recreation, or athletics. However, these English words somehow translate only dong, not yun.
A better translation for dong is movement, action, and mobility. Motions like waving the arms, kicking the legs, twisting the body, and shaking the head are all visible, whether executed alone or with a team, or with a ball, a stick, or a racquet. All are dong.
I agree that all these types of exercise are valuable and good for the health, but yun is missing. In China yun and dong are never separated. Yun means “internal,” including breath, circulation, mind control, and focus.
Internal and external must be balanced and the exercise must be complete, if we are to really benefit ourselves and others.
Generally, dong deals more with muscle, tendon, bone, and skeletal structure. Yun is more associated with the organs, nervous system, brain, and feeling. A young tennis player, for example, would usually play with lots of dong, relying mostly on external strength. Overdoing dong can potentially lead to health problems because the yun is neglected. Internal and external must be balanced and the exercise must be complete, if we are to really benefit ourselves and others. Good exercise should always be safe, and we should enjoy a sweet aftertaste that lasts several hours, several days, or even weeks.
When we are young, we can enjoy lots of external movement. When we get older, we become less active and can’t as easily enjoy large movements, speed, high impact, and quick twisting of the muscles. Unfortunately, this is exactly the time our bodies really begin to need good exercise to maintain youthful energy and health. Most of the exercise systems available in our society can’t satisfy this need.
I don’t agree with so-called low impact, low-key approach where the contents of the exercise are the same but the dosage less. We need a better prescription to exercise the body inside and out. The kung-fu way is the better way.
There are approximately 250 kung-fu styles-northern, southern, external, internal, long-range, short-range-and numerous weapons. They all have something in common.
Please don’t mistakenly believe mainland China’s government-sanctioned wushu (lit., “martial art”) is traditional Chinese kung-fu. Modern wushu has more in common with Western exercise than traditional Chinese kung-fu. From Western exercise, wushu practitioners learn to keep moving (running, jumping, and tumbling) and to discard internal training. They skip the yun. Some call it Chinese ballet. Can we call it Chinese aerobics? For kung-fu to be a complete exercise, it must be practiced correctly in the kung-fu way.
Our everyday common sense tells us that no movement equals no exercise, and therefore no health benefits should result. I think everyone, even those who’ve never done any kung-fu, can try a simple, scientific experiment. Pick one posture and hold it for awhile. I believe that before three minutes is up your body will experience the same symptoms as if you were exercising. After five minutes, your body’s responses will be quite strong. I doubt that untrained people can last for a full ten minutes, even a boxer, football player, or bodybuilder. Judged by kung-fu training requirements, ten minutes is really a very short period of time.
Sifu Liu Yun Chiao, the author’s last teacher, holds the baguazhang “bear posture.”
If you have access to the equipment and resources to conduct research on this type of stationary exercise, you will see that it actually provides the same results: the pulse rate increases, respiration increases, and more oxygen is pumped into the blood. An easier way to measure the results is by our own sweat.
Moving exercise, dong, is somehow like an investment. An expenditure of energy is required to move the body. When we are young, we have more than enough to invest and can enjoy any returns, no matter how small. As we age, we no longer can afford to invest so freely. Our reserve is much smaller and the risk much greater.
On the other hand, yun exercise yields a very high return for a much smaller investment. The prime attraction of dong exercise is recreational. Health benefits are a side effect. Dong looks outward; Yun looks inward, focusing our attention on our own body (inside and out) and spirit, thus directly providing benefits to our health. Yun doesn’t provide any distractions to divert our attention away from the prime business at hand—rejuvenation of our body, organs, and spirit.
Yun and dong do not conflict. Instead, when practiced together, they are powerful partners, creating a rich yield of health, fitness, mental clarity, focus, and energy for all of us.
The Simple Fact of Yin and young
Almost every martial artist knows something about the Chinese theory of yin and yang Some practitioners try to apply the principles of this theory to improve their technique. Though a useful idea, the theory of yin and yang has been overemphasized and misunderstood in the martial arts. Many people treat yin and yang like an unfathomable truth, an idea that cannot be fully grasped. This respectful attitude, however, does not help to make the concept any more accessible or useful in learning martial arts. The fact is that yin and yang are not beyond our grasp: they are an integral part of daily life and a practical way of explaining an essential aspect of existence.
To clear up the clouds that obscure this concept, we have to go back to ancient China where the theory of yin and yang was formulated. The legacy of ancient China is in part a coming to terms with nature, defining the relationships that govern the universe. Some cultures organize their concept of the universe with man as the center of phenomena. Thus, nature is something that must be conquered and made to conform to human reason.
Yin and yang represent. the continual process of change and flux in nature.
Chinese philosophy