In Europe, Bruce Lee’s movies also started a fashion of learning kung fu. People there were only one step behind America. Unfortunately, from 1960 to 1980, there were very few traditional Chinese martial artists immigrating to Europe. The few traditional masters there dominated the entire market. Later, in the early 1980s, many European martial artists went to mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to train for short periods of time to learn kung fu. Unfortunately, after years of training, they realized that it was very difficult to comprehend the deep essence of an art simply by studying a few months here and there. The situation was especially difficult for martial artists who went to mainland China at that time. At the beginning of the 1990s, China significantly changed its training from gymnastic wushu to more traditional styles. The worst outcome was that after many years of effort to bring wushu into the Olympic games, China failed in its bid to host the summer games. China has since paid less attention to the development of wushu. Even the young generation in China now treats wushu as an old fashioned pursuit and pays more attention to Western material satisfaction and political reform. The spirit of training has been reduced significantly.
In America, since 1985, Mr. Jeffery A. Bolt and many other Chinese martial arts practitioners, such as Nick Gracenin, Pat Rice, Sam Masich, and more have tried to unify the Chinese martial arts community, hoping to bring together the great martial artists from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Indo-China through tournaments and friendship demonstrations. Their ultimate goal is that these masters would become friends and finally promote Chinese martial arts to a higher quality. After ten years of effort, the organization, the United States of America Wushu-Kung Fu Federation (USAWKF) was established. Although there are still many opposing forces and obstacles to this unification, I believe that the future is bright, and I can foresee the continued success of this enterprise in the future.
Northern Styles and Southern Styles
Chinese martial arts can be categorized into northern styles and southern styles. The geographic line making this distinction is the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang, which means Long River (Figure 1-3). The Yangtze River runs across southern China from the west to the east.
Figure 1-3. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers in China
Generally speaking, the northern region of the Yangtze River is bordered by large fields, highlands, and desert. For this reason, horse riding was common, like Texas in the United States. People in the north are more open-minded compared to those of the south. The common foods are wheat, soybeans, barley, and sorghum that can be grown in the dry highlands.
In the southern region, there are more plains, mountains, and rivers. Rain is common in the south. Population density is much higher than that in the north. The common food is rice. Other than horses, the most common means of transportation is by boat. There is a common saying: “southern boats and northern horses”. This implies that the southern people use boats for travel and communication, while the northern people use horses.
Because of a long history of development shaped by these distinctions, the northern Chinese are generally taller than southern Chinese. It is believed that this is from the difference in diet. Moreover, northern Chinese are used to living in a wide-open environment. After thousands of years of martial arts development, northern people perfected long-range fighting, and therefore they preferred to use their legs more. This is not the case in southern China, which is more crowded and where the people, generally speaking, are shorter than those of the north. Moreover, because boats are so common, many martial techniques were actually developed to fight on boats. Since a fighter must be steady on a boat, the techniques developed emphasized hands with a firm root. High kicks were limited.
From these factors, we can conclude:
1 Northern Chinese are generally taller, and therefore prefer long- or middle-range fighting, while southern Chinese are shorter, so middle- and short-range fighting are emphasized.
2 Northern styles emphasize more kicking techniques for long-range fighting, while southern stylists specialize in more hand techniques and a limited number of low kicks. This is why it is commonly said in Chinese martial arts society: “southern fist and northern leg”.
3 Southern stylists focus on training a firm root, while northern stylists like to move and jump around. Moreover, northern martial stylists have more expertise in horse riding and martial techniques from horseback, while southern martial styles specialize more in fighting on boats and on the ground.
4 Because southern styles generally emphasize more hand techniques, grabbing techniques such as qin na were developed.
Many styles were created near the Yellow River, which carried within them the characteristics of both northern and southern styles. For example, the Shaolin Temple is located in Henan Province, just to the south of the Yellow River. The Shaolin Temple has trained both northern and southern styles for most of its history. In fact, there were a few branches of the Shaolin Temple in existence at different locations throughout its history. These include the Quan Zhou Shaolin Temple in Fujian established during the Chinese year of Tang Qian Fu (A.D. 874-878), and five others established by the head monk Fuyu during the first year of the Chinese Huang Qing of Yuan dynasty, A.D. 1312. These five were located at Jixian of Hebei, He Lin of Wai Meng, Changan of Shanxi, Taiyuan of Shanxi, and Lo Yang of Henan. Among these branches, two were located in the south of China.2
Internal Styles and External Styles
Before we go into the differences between internal and external styles, you should first recognize one important point: all Chinese styles, both internal and external, come from the same root. If a style does not share this root, then it is not a Chinese martial style. This root is the Chinese culture. Throughout the world, various civilizations have created many different arts, each one of them based on that civilization’s cultural background. Therefore, it does not matter which style you are discussing; as long as it was created in China, it must contain the essence of Chinese art, the spirit of traditional Chinese virtues, and the knowledge of traditional fighting techniques that have been passed down for thousands of years.
Martial artists of old looked at their experiences and realized that in a fight there are three factors which generally decide victory: speed, power, and techniques. Among these, speed is the most important. This is because if you are fast, you can get to the opponent’s vital areas more easily and get out again before he can get to you. Even if your power is weak and you know only a limited number of techniques, you still have a good chance of inflicting a serious injury on the opponent. The reason for this is because there are many vital areas, such as the eyes, groin, and throat, where you do not need too much power to make an attack effective.
If you already have speed, then what you need is power. Even if you have good speed and techniques, if you don’t have power, your attacks and defense will not be as effective as possible. You may have met people with great muscular strength but no martial arts training; yet they were able to defeat skilled martial artists whose power was weak. Finally, once you have good speed and power, if you can develop good techniques and a sound strategy, then there will be no doubt that victory will be yours. Therefore, in Chinese martial arts, increasing speed, improving power, and studying the techniques are the most important subjects. In fact, speed and power training are considered the foundation of effectiveness in all Chinese martial arts styles.
It does not matter what techniques a style creates; they all must follow certain basic principles and rules. For example, all offensive and defensive techniques must effectively protect vital areas such as the eyes, throat, and groin. Whenever you attack, you must be able to access your opponent’s vital areas, without exposing your own.
The same applies to speed and power training. Although each style has tried