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Wushu faces long road to gain Olympic Games inclusion
By Yang Xinwei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-01 10:10
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When foreigners speak about wushu, mentioned more often than not will be Bruce Lee, probably the most famous martial artist who ever lived.
When Chinese speak of the same sport, they most likely picture a group of elderly people performing taijiquan (taichi in English) in parks as they blend yoga and meditation in a moving form.
As taekwondo is to South Korea and judo to Japan, wushu is a traditional Chinese martial art and nowadays has become more of full-contact sport based on traditional Chinese martial arts.
As is the case with many other combat sports, wushu includes a number of fighting styles that have developed over the centuries. In its early days, it allowed one to seriously injury or kill an opponent in seconds. But today, wushu is practiced in China, and the rest of the world as a way of building up one's body and maintaing fitness.
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Wushu has too many different styles, including Bagua, Drunken Boxing, Eagle Claw, Five Animals, Hsing I, Hung Gar, Lau Gar, Monkey, Bak Mei Pai, Praying Mantis, Fujian White Crane, Wing Chun and taijiquan. In fact, the sport could have its own Olympics!
Also, the exhibition and full-contact sports of bare-handed and weapons forms (taolu in Chinese), which are judged by a set of aesthetic criteria, are still too hard even for most Chinese to understand, let alone non-Chinese.
Maybe time the time will come when wushu joins the Olympic family. The world got a little taste of wushu at the 1936 Olympics, when it was demonstrated by a team of Chinese performers.
Today, instead of focusing on fighting, physical health and education have become the primary focus of the sport.
It followed in the footsteps of taekwondo and judo by spreading west when the International Wushu Federation was established in 1990.
Though millions of people practice wushu nowadays, only several thousand are doing it competitively.
It is one of the most difficult sports to become accomplished in, but one of the most popular martial arts in the world.
Jet Li, who is second to Bruce Lee in terms of martial arts fame, believes it will be at least 10 to 20 years before wushu can become an Olympic sport.
Li, a former Chinese wushu national champion and now an international kungfu film star and producer, hopes the taichi push hands competition will become an official Olympic medal sport as early as the 2020 Olympic Games.
Taichi push hands is an event in which two practitioners make arm or/and body contact in some form and then attempt to push, pull or otherwise unbalance each other.
Why taichi push hands?
Wushu is like a Han banquet. Not many people know how many courses in total. Taichi's simple philosophy and the concept of physical fitness are the common dreams of mankind, Li says.
"I hope we strongly promote taichi push hands in the next three to five years, make it a global sport in five to 10 years and send it to the Olympic family in 10 to 20 years," Li said in Beijing last week.
His dream is to see competitors, both Chinese and foreign, wear traditional Chinese apparel and practice Chinese taichi at the Olympics. Who wins is not important.
Films have made Chinese wushu more and more popular around the world, but it is still not on par with taekwondo and judo. Fast economic growth stimulated the South Korean and Japanese governments to successfully push their traditional sports to the world.
Now it's China's turn in economics and in sports. It's wushu's turn as it embodies health, peace and simplicity, which can easily be accepted by people of different cultures.
It won't be long before more Chinese families are willing to send their children to wushu classes instead of taekwondo lessons.
The author is China Daily's chief sports commentator, who has been following China's sports over the past 26 years. He can be reached at yangxinwei@chinadaily.com.cn.