Martial arts and water sports

Martial arts are 武术 wǔshù, “the art of combat”. The character 武 combines 止, “to stop”, and 戈, the halberd, and the Zuozhuan draws a fine lesson from it: 止戈为武, true strength is the strength that stops weapons. But be careful: in ancient inscriptions, 止 depicts a foot ⟶ 武 would rather be “marching halberd in hand”. The moral reading is prettier. I am not sure it is the right one. This page follows Team sports and athletics.

The word 功夫 gōngfu at first has nothing martial about it: it is the time and effort you put into something. People still say 下功夫 xià gōngfu, “to put work into it”, and 功夫不负有心人, effort never betrays those who persevere. The meaning “Chinese boxing” took hold through Hong Kong, and it was Bruce Lee, 李小龙 Lǐ Xiǎolóng, “the little dragon”, who made it known all over the world in the 1970s. Jackie Chan, for his part, is called 成龙 Chéng Lóng, “to become a dragon”, like the children whose parents dream out loud. In competition, however, China speaks of 武术, and free combat is called 散打 sǎndǎ.

Two great families are traditionally contrasted: the “external” schools of the 少林寺 Shàolín Sì monastery, in Henan (sentence 8), and the Taoist “internal” schools of Mount 武当山 Wǔdāng Shān. 太极拳 tàijíquán, “the boxing of the supreme ultimate”, is placed on the Wudang side: legend attributes it to the Taoist hermit Zhang Sanfeng. Historians lean rather towards the Chen family, in the village of Chenjiagou, in the 17th century. The pensioners who practise it every morning in the parks could not care less (sentence 2). UNESCO added it to the list of intangible cultural heritage in 2020.

Many styles bear the name of an animal or an image. 螳螂拳 tánglángquán imitates the praying mantis, 八卦掌 bāguàzhǎng circles around the eight trigrams of the Book of Changes, and 醉拳 zuìquán, “the boxing of the drunken man”, owes much of its fame to Jackie Chan’s 1978 film. The oldest is probably 五禽戏 wǔqínxì, “the play of the five animals” (tiger, deer, bear, monkey and bird), attributed to the physician Hua Tuo, under the Han. It is a health exercise more than a fighting art.

Training has its proverbs. 冬练三九，夏练三伏: you train in the coldest days of winter and the hottest days of summer. 拳不离手，曲不离口: the boxer never lets go of his fist, the singer never stops singing. And everything begins with 马步 mǎbù, the horse stance, which beginners hold until they can no longer feel their thighs (sentence 10). Before and after a fight, you salute with the 抱拳礼 bàoquánlǐ, the right fist covered by the left palm; the gesture itself is on the page Gestures and postures.

The Chinese swashbuckling novel is called 武侠小说 wǔxiá xiǎoshuō. The 侠 is the knight-errant, who rights wrongs outside any law. His world is the 江湖, literally “the rivers and the lakes”. Jin Yong, 金庸 Jīn Yōng, wrote some fifteen of them, which almost every Chinese person has read or seen on television (sentence 20). In them, people run across rooftops thanks to 轻功 qīnggōng, “the art of lightness”, and immobilise an opponent by touching a vital point, 点穴 diǎnxué. I have yet to see anyone do it.

To swim is 游泳 yóuyǒng. If the Shuowen is to be believed, 泳 first meant swimming under water, and 永 is only there for the sound. The front crawl is a 自由泳 zìyóuyǒng, “a free swim”, and backstroke a 仰泳 yǎngyǒng, “a swim facing the sky”. Swallowing water while swimming is 呛水 qiàng shuǐ, “to choke on water”, which is more accurate. Note also 划水 huá shuǐ, “to paddle the water”: at the office, it means pretending to work by waving your arms about.

China has its aquatic legends. In 1966, Mao Zedong swims in the Yangtze at Wuhan, in front of the cameras (sentence 23); the official figures of the time make you wonder a little. Today, the Chinese divers form the 跳水梦之队, “the diving dream team” (sentence 16). And in Water Margin, the best swimmer of the hundred and eight heroes, Zhang Shun, is nicknamed 浪里白条 làng lǐ bái tiáo, “the white fish of the waves”. The dragon boats of the Dragon Boat Festival are on the page Festivals.

The sea has given some fine images. Surfing is 冲浪 chōnglàng, “charging into the waves”. 乘风破浪 chéng fēng pò làng, “riding the wind and breaking the waves”, comes from a general of the 5th century who, as a child, already dreamed of “riding the long wind over ten thousand li of waves”. The 弄潮儿 nòngcháo'ér, “the one who plays with the tide”, once swam in the tidal bore of the Qiantang, at Hangzhou; today it is the pioneer who dares. And study, says the proverb, is a boat going upstream (sentence 24).

Confucius, finally: 知者乐水，仁者乐山, “the prudent man loves water, the perfect man the mountains” (sentence 25, see the Chapter 6 of the Analects of Confucius). Beware of the character 乐: the traditional reading here is yào, “to love”, and not lè, “to rejoice”. Our page of the Analects gives lè, as many Chinese do today, and both can be defended. Swimmers will therefore be prudent. That’s something, at least.

Click on any character on the page: its stroke order appears stroke by stroke, with the arrow showing the direction of the line.