Republic Polytechnic Wushu

Wushu is not just about performing & looking aesthetically pleasing to the audience. It is definitely way more than that. Totally no experience required, give yourself a chance to try something different. Head on down to booth 10 at Republic Polytechnic’s CCA Fiesta 2018 to find out more from our members! See you there!!

There are certain misconceptions about wushu. Modern wushu is separated into two components: Taolu or forms and Sanda or free fighting. However, modern wushu is taken from traditional wushu or traditional Chinese martial arts. So how do you define both?

Traditional wushu comprises of the original styles of Chinese martial arts that were developed throughout Chinese history. They consist of various empty handed and weapon forms. Traditional wushu has a lot of cultural significance in China. People learn it nowadays either to keep the culture alive or to simply keep themselves fit & healthy. In modern wushu, there are competition forms and traditional forms. Therefore, traditional wushu is used in modern wushu as a label for those forms which do not fall under the competition forms.

The competition styles that are part of modern wushu are Chang quan or Long fist, Nan quan or Southern fist and lastly Taijiquan or Grand ultimate fist. Despite being competition styles, the movements of each routine are taken from various traditional styles. The movements in Chang quan are taken from traditional Northern styles such as Cha quan, Hua quan & Hong quan. Similar to Chang quan, the movements of Nan quan are also taken from the traditional styles such as Hung Gar, Choy Gar, Lei Gar, Lau Gar, Mok Gar & Choy Li Fut, just to name a few. Modern Taijiquan itself is also adapted from the traditional styles of Chen, Yang, Wu, Sun, Hao. Hence, competition styles actually comprises the essence of the Northern & Southern styles and also Taijiquan styles.

Traditional wushu comprises of training methods that are unique and not practiced widely in modern wushu. Examples of these training methods are for example in traditional Taijiquan, a method known as Pushing hands or Tuishou is used to teach practitioners how to relax and go with the flow of the opponent. Another training method would be the wooden dummy or Muk Yan Jong used in Wing Chun which comprises of the 108 movement form that allows the practitioner to practice different techniques. However, in modern wushu, training basically involves physical training and practicing the routines constantly in order to develop muscle memory.

In conclusion, the forms in modern wushu are meant to look nice and to promote wushu to a younger generation. It takes time to learn traditional wushu and therefore, not many young people do it nowadays. It is definitely a dying art and needs to be revived to keep the Chinese culture alive.

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Chinese Sword/剑

A chinese sword, or commonly known as "jian" among wushu practitioners. A "jian" is one of the 18 weapons in wushu, and "jian" is also being called "gentlemen of weapons". The elegance of the weapon and the gracefulness of the moves granted that name. However, there are a lot of misunderstanding and lack of information of this iconic weapon of wushu.

Design:
Almost every culture in the world has the same design, a double sided blade with a sword guard at the bottom. However, what made a “jian” special is that the design has changed throughout different dynasty. The most common seen “jian” right now derived from the ming and qing dynasty. Long and slender blade, a rather small sword guard and often comes with engraving or totem on the grip. This design focused heavily on thrusting and slicing moves, rather than a smash or crushing moves from a German Long sword or a one-hander or even a Japanese Katana. This design is deal to the lack of usage in the military, which was heavily being replaced by fire arms first developed in ming dynasty and sabers (or called dao) , both of which requires lesser training time and less steep learning curves than a “jian”. It was then widely being used by commoners and the rich. As a commoner don’t wear heavy armours and rely on the swiftness of their footwork to avoid strikes, the design of “jian” has been redesigned from a hard back, short blade to a longer and slender blade to accommodate the demand.
There are some variants to the regular “jian”, some would have an even longer blade and hard back, making it into a two-handed “jian”, there are also a variant where the spikes/穗 of the “jian” is a lot longer, making it into a whip that deals with less lethal strikes, there is a variant of a dual wielded, one “jian” is longer and one “jian” is shorter. The design of the “jian” can varies depends on the styles that the practitioners trained in, some even customize their “jian” in order to fit their body structure.

Moves:
As we will focus on the “jian” that can be commonly seen now, which was derived from ming and qing dynasty, the moves are also commonly seen from the routines performed by multiple wushu practitioners. Since the blade is longer, slender and lighter, it cannot be used to smash through armoured enemies or hard object. However, practitioners utilize fully on the light weight and slim blade to thrust and stab through the gap between the armour plating. Yet, the difficulty of executing such moves is so high, most people won’t be using a “jian” on the battlefield. It is then being used by commoners, the rich, mercenaries or some other government officials. These groups of people face people that rarely wear any armour, which makes their opponent extremely fast compared to an armoured opponent, light weight blade fit into the demand like the last piece of puzzle. Slice, slash and thrust then becomes the common moves to be used against fast but less protected opponent. Slice and slash are often done by the tip of the blade, in order to create cleaner by wide cuts, thrust make it easier for the practitioner to engage opponent in a closer range, which slashing and slicing proves to be a hazard.

Since the opponent is faster, the practitioners also have to be fast. It is because of such, the footwork in a “jian” routine is extremely fast and cover distance in order to pressurize the opponent. There are also rarely static stances and most stances are a pre-emptive motion to launch a follow up attacks or footwork. As seen in the video, distance coverage is a very important element of a “jian” routine. At the same time, kicks are also widely used in a “jian” routine, as a way to engage opponent when your blade is at a disadvantage position that may leave you open to strikes. There are several sayings from a “jian” practitioners that your sword never leaves your hand, depends on the styles, there are ways of engaging opponent when your blade is not available. Some styles has palm strikes, some has finger jabs, and in this instance, you have kicks.

Conclusion:
“Jian” being called the gentlemen of weapons, but its fatality cannot be unseen. The footwork and the combination of alternation striking patterns has made “jian” a popular weapon among wushu practitioners, and also one of the hardest weapon to learn.

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第二套國際武術競賽 劍術 (Jianshu - Second Set of Compulsory Routines for International Wushu Competition)

Yesterday marks the end of Wu De Cup/武德杯 2017 traditional wushu competition. Many of RP wushu members aligned and competed, they've achieve great results and net RP wushu with 2 gold medals and 4 silver medals.

Congratulations to the RP wushu members for their achievement and most certainly, celebrate their hard work.