THE quintessential old kung fu master, with long white hair and moustache, is a stock character in films and novels. Like the grandmaster in “Kill Bill,” he is often a mysterious figure who appears as mentor to a hero who is confused or in danger.

To many, Chinese kung fu is a blend of the legendary, the lethal and the exotic. Needless to say, the gap between the imaginary and the real world of martial arts is wide.

Martial arts in many guises are part of the Chinese psyche. One form is practiced by elderly people in slow-motion tableaux in city parks. The more commercialized Shaolin kung fu, which is a highly institutionalized version, is practiced by monks in stylized performances of combat movements.

“Of course, movies have to be artistically exaggerated to look good, but they are different from real martial arts,” Wu Bin, vice president of Chinese Martial Arts Association in Beijing, tells Shanghai Daily. “Real martial arts are beautiful forms involving skills and strategies of fencing and defending.”

Over the years, master Wu has trained dozens of martial arts champions, served as a consultant to numerous kung fu movies and often led kung fu teams for overseas exchanges and competitions.

In the 1970s, he handpicked 8-year-old Jet Li from among 1,000 pupils to join the Beijing martial arts team. We all know where that led!

“It’s a matter of how much one is willing to spend on kung fu — which literally means ‘time and energy’ — in order to reach a high level of martial arts,” Wu says.

In this special report, Shanghai Daily interviews some of the masters and disciples of the art to explore its history and how it has become such an integral part of what it means to be Chinese.

“I’m no master, merely a disciple obsessed with martial arts,” says 107-year-old Zhang Liang, who has been practicing kung fu for nearly 100 years — the last 40 in the mountains of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

“To me, it is not about exerting your power, but about controlling and balancing it,” Zhang says. “Through that, I learn about my own body, the relation between my body and mind, and between me and the outside environment, and then everything in the universe becomes clear.”

His long white hair, grayed eyebrows and moustache give Zhang the appearance of a wizened cinema grandmaster. He speaks in a mix of modern and ancient Chinese, and peppers his comments with excerpts from ancient texts and martial arts training manuals.

“When you fight, you react as if your whole body were on fire,” Zhang says. “That is key to using kung fu as a combat skill, but you have to search for the meaning and the feeling yourself.”

He pauses and after a few minutes of silence adds, “What do you feel when your body is caught on fire? What do you do?”

It is a typical old teaching method, where masters challenge their disciples to strive to understand with their minds, but also to truly feel the power of kung fu through practice.

The famed martial arts master Bruce Li (1940-73) may have summed it up best in his oft-repeated quote “feel, don’t think.”

Born into an affluent family of scholars and royal court officials, Zhang started practicing martial arts when he was seven. His teacher was a master hired by his elder cousins, who believed kung fu would help strengthen their bodies and minds, preparing them to fight for a country on the verge of collapse.

Despite his advanced age, Zhang says he still follows some of the old traditions and rules, such as keeping skills within a family or a small circle of carefully selected disciples, practicing in the solitude of mountains, and keeping a low profile about himself and his kung fu. He has only two disciples, who each endured a trial period of three to five years learning the basics.

“It is not for show and only belongs to those who truly and persistently search for it,” Zhang says of martial arts enlightenment.

He agreed to talk with Shanghai Daily on condition that the interviews involved no photos or recording devices.

“I do not want to be known or found,” he explains. “Mencius could have well been a martial artist, but he didn’t talk about it. You can see it in his texts.”

Mencius, who lived from about 372 BC to 289 BC, was an ancient scholar, a household name like Confucius. In his texts, he answered the question “what is your specialty?” with the reply “I am good at cultivating grand and righteous qi.”

Qi is often interpreted as “positive energy” derived from people with good intentions, but Zhang says he also perceives it as the positive internal energy he acquires as a martial artist.

It is hard to prove whether Mencius or Confucius actually did practice martial arts, but in the ancient Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC), archery and charioting were two of the six fundamental skills required.

Over the years, many skills and movements used on the battlefield have been incorporated into kung fu schools. They became part of competitions that often served as sources of entertainment.

The royal court exam, the access channel for court officials, not only recruited intellectuals, but also selected martial arts specialists to become military officers.

Most martial arts skills were still confined within families or small cliques, and those who practiced them became officers, private bodyguards, performers and even robbers.

Zhang’s first master came from a family of private bodyguards, who protected goods and lives when people traveled across China.

Training manuals for martial arts were popularly published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It was a time when China was engaged in endless domestic and foreign wars, amid a perception that the Chinese were the “sick men of East Asian.” Like Zhang and his cousins, many people believed that martial arts were the answer to making China strong.

‘National skills’

“When I was young, there was a trend to learn martial arts, not only through family tutors but also in schools,” Zhang says. “Teachers mainly taught basic kung fu movements.”

Former Premier Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) was among the young students who became interested in martial arts. Photos show him with a kung fu master in front of a martial arts training school, where he practiced before studying abroad.

In 1928, the Central Guoshu Academy was established in Nanjing. With government support, kung fu was popularized under the name guoshu
(国术), which literally means “national skills.”

Thousands of non-governmental martial arts organizations and schools were also established, such as the Shanghai Jing Wu Athletic Association, founded in 1910 by Huo Yuanjia (1868-1910), a household name in the heroic battles against foreign invaders. The association is operating today in Shanghai.

Masters like Huo, seeking to strengthen China, popularized guoshu by holding public lectures and classes, publishing training manuals and coaching army recruits. For the first time, martial arts entered the mainstream of public life.

Wong Kar-wai’s recent movie “The Grandmaster,” which traced the life of Bruce Lee’s master, is set in that period. The movie’s kung fu fighting scenes, carrying the distinctive cinematographic signature of Wong, were critically acclaimed by ordinary people fascinated by kung fu.

“Real fights are quick and close, and not enjoyable to watch for those who don’t practice the art,” says Wu. “After all, we have long passed the cold weapon period when kung fu was necessary as a combat skill. In the era of firearms, it has developed more into a competitive sport, and it is now part of our precious cultural heritage and a great way to keep healthy.”

After the founding of the New China in 1949, kung fu was not promoted or popularized outside of competitive sports. Many masters adopted a low profile, and skills were lost.

Since the 1960s and 70s, the art form has regained popularity, especially among the young. Friendly competitions were started again in the 1980s, when many foreign teams visited the country for exchanges.

“Martial arts, in all countries, is a combination of the various movements of four basics: kicking with the legs, beating with the hands, throwing an opponent to the ground and grasping an opponent to take control,” says Chen Minghui, former head coach of the Qianwei Athletic Association in Shanghai, which trains all civilian and military police.

“When you fight, it is a matter of assessing your rival, spotting where he is weak and using your skills to attack the weak spots, within the rules,” Chen says.

In 1984, Chen was the only Chinese athlete who won a competition against a visiting Thai team, one of the first public international competitions held after “cultural revolution” (1966-76).

To offset the elbow strength of the Thai kick-boxing style, Chen strategically used the skill of throwing to land his opponent on the ground seven times in the match. Chen later published one of the first books on modern combat skills.

In recent years, martial arts have become popular again for Chinese of all ages. Schools around the country are including martial arts as part of their physical education curriculum. Students are taught not only physical skills, but also the culture and manners underlying them.

In China, that broader school is known as wushu (武术), or “ways of martial arts.” The word wu goes beyond merely combat or military references.

“When applying wu to your life, that is called ‘little wu,’ and when you apply the skills and strategies on a grander scale like a battlefield, then it is called ‘great wu’,” Wu says.

He cites an old Chinese saying that explains the meaning by breaking it down into two parts — stop and dagger-axe.

“Wu means stopping the dagger-axe, stopping the fight, and that is the first lesson,” he says.

Martial arts

The world may know it best as kung fu, but here in China, the practice is more commonly called wushu, which literally means “martial arts and techniques.” The domestic term embraces both the philosophy as well as the skills of the art.

Thousands of different kung fu styles have been developed all over the country. Martial artists in the 1920s tried to catalogue them into two main categories — external and internal.

External kung fu concentrates on improving muscular and cardiovascular fitness, similar to what one achieves in gyms, but with some special training methods.

The highly institutionalized Shaolin performances fall into this genre. Martial arts movies often show strictly trained Shaolin monks holding hot metal sand in bare hands, running with a basket of water in each hand or maintaining a stationary pose for hours.

Internal kung fu is more about the mastery of yi and qi, with yi referring to “consciousness” and qi referring to “energy.” This form of kung fu relates to developing mindset and thought.

There are only three big schools in this genre – tai chi, baguazhang (“eight diagrams palm”) and Xin Yi Liu He (“heart consciousness in six harmonies style”), or its variation Xing Yi (“shape consciousness style”).

Many practitioners start by learning external kung fu and then gradually graduating to internal styles, which are said to benefit health and help one achieve longevity.