Wudang Martial Arts
01 · Historical Records
The birthplace of Wudang martial arts is Wudang Mountain in Hubei; its founder was the Wudang Daoist Zhang Sanfeng of the late Yuan and early Ming periods.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Wudang martial arts have distinctive Daoist cultural characteristics and are a natural combination of martial skill and health-preserving methods, possessing both a profound traditional martial arts cultural foundation and exquisite scientific principles. Taijiquan stresses "first using the mind to direct the body" and afterwards "the body follows the mind"; Xingyiquan holds that "one uses intention rather than strength; when the intention arrives the breath arrives, and when the breath arrives the power arrives"; Bagua palm requires the turning circle of walking and pivoting to "transform so that the intention is complete". All of these express the Daoist fitness purpose of "encompassing the ultimate Dao" so as to attain "Where, after all, does the intent that thinks and pushes reside? It prolongs life and defies age, an everlasting spring", and conform to the concept of exercise that combines inner cultivation with outer training by uniting physical training with mental training. Wudang martial arts originally took Wudang Mountain as their cultural space. Historically, countless eminent recluses and ranks of professional ascetics lived on Wudang Mountain; through their cultivation and dissemination, the techniques of Wudang martial arts grew ever more refined and their reputation ever greater, until they finally spread throughout the Chinese land.
The twenty-three Taiji Five-Element grappling forms
Originally called the twenty-three grappling forms of Taiji's five elements, it follows the mutual generation and overcoming of the elements, valuing intent over force and deflection over resistance.
The three canonical texts
The system's theory and technique are gathered in Zhang Sanfeng's three classics, grounded in a holistic cosmology and the unity of heaven and humanity.
Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua as the core
Blending the Yijing and Daodejing into martial technique produced a system built on taiji, xingyi and bagua boxing, each with its own maxim on intent, energy and power.
Zhao Jianying and the Jianying academy
An eighteenth-generation Quanzhen Longmen disciple, Zhao Jianying taught martial arts in the anti-Japanese war effort and spent decades publishing on and promoting the taiji five-element boxing.
The limits of secret single transmission
Bound early on by the Taoist rule of secret single transmission, the art spread narrowly, and its ageing, scattered inheritors and thin scholarship limit its use.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Wudang martial arts take Wudang Mountain in Shiyan, Hubei, as their root dojo. Since the Yuan and Ming dynasties they have spread down the mountain together with the Daoists and gradually extended to Junzhou, Yunyang, Gucheng and Fangxian in northwestern Hubei, and been introduced into Henan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang; in modern times they were propagated further outward through institutions such as the Wudang Mountain Daoist Martial Arts Academy and the Jianying (Sword Hero) Martial Arts Academy.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Zhang Sanfeng ingeniously fused the essence of the Yijing (Book of Changes) and the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) with martial arts, creating Wudang martial arts, which have important value for health cultivation and fitness and take Taijiquan, Xingyiquan and Bagua palm as their main components. Wudang martial arts have a complete theoretical and technical system. They take the "holistic view of the universe" and the "oneness of heaven and humanity" as their aim, "great virtue bears all things" and "the Dao follows nature" as their principles, and "combination of movement and stillness" and "cultivation of both inside and outside" as their method, forming many distinctive boxing, exercises and sword arts — with both the theory of the exercises and the exercises themselves, and with both the operation of the forms and the essential points of their purport. All of this is concentrated in the three classics of Zhang Sanfeng: the General Treatise on Taijiquan, the Taijiquan Song and the Thirteen Forms of Taijiquan. However, with the development of modern society, some obstacles have also arisen in the transmission of Wudang martial arts. First, in its early days Wudang martial arts was constrained by the Daoist idea of "hidden, single transmission", and its reach was narrow; second, most of today's transmitters are already advanced in age and are scattered all over the country, which limits the excavation and utilisation of Wudang martial arts resources; third, theoretical research on Wudang martial arts is insufficient and its cultural significance awaits deeper exploration. In this situation it is necessary to formulate reasonable and practicable measures without delay to rescue, protect, collate and develop Wudang martial arts. Zhao Jianying (official archival record of the associated inheritor): Wudang Taiyi Five-Element Boxing (formerly named "the Twenty-Three Forms of Wudang Taiyi Five-Element Qinpu") is based on the principle that the five elements generate and overcome one another, takes nourishing the breath for health and fitness and subduing the enemy in self-defence as its aim, and values intention over force, prizing transforming power rather than meeting force head-on. It stresses freedom in movement and stillness, the interdependence of mind and breath, the discernment of position down to the fraction of an inch, and the subduing of an enemy through capture, holding and sealing. Zhao Jianying is an eighteenth-generation disciple of the Quanzhen Longmen sect of Wudang internal boxing; he began studying martial arts under a famous master in 1932, and had learnt from childhood many martial arts forms such as small-hong boxing, great-hong boxing, Yanqing boxing and the twelve-routine spring-leg style, laying a solid foundation. In 1941 Zhao Jianying took part in propaganda work to resist Japan and save the nation, and was once appointed martial arts instructor of the Fifth War Zone. Zhao Jianying devoted himself for many years to the collation, excavation and promotion of this boxing style, publishing more than one hundred thousand characters of material on Wudang Taiyi Five-Element Boxing, releasing three sets of instructional discs, setting up a website, and teaching more than a thousand disciples, with a following of over one hundred thousand, whose influence reaches both at home and abroad. Female, Han ethnicity, born in 1926, died in 2011, native of Danjiangkou, Hubei. Representative inheritor of Wudang martial arts, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the first national-level batch; chief martial arts coach of Wudang Mountain Daoism; director of the Jianying (Sword Hero) Martial Arts Academy at Wudang Mountain.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhao Jianying 01-0038
- Tanxianping
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。