Whether Chinese martial arts is orthodox in Shaolin, Wudang, or some other sect, in historical facts and legends, most of their protagonists are Han people, or to be precise, they are the ancient Chinese nation. And China has a vast territory. Do the 55 ethnic minorities have a place in the Chinese martial arts family? The answer is yes. Miao: Ancestor Chi You, with two horns

When you come into contact with Miao compatriots, you will often hear them mention "Meng Chi You", which is the famous Chi You in ancient Chinese history. They believed that Chi You was their ancestor.

Chi You fought with the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor was one of the ancestors of the Chinese nation, and Chi You was another nation different from the Chinese at that time. Chi You was defeated and died in the battle, so the ancestors of the Miao people later migrated from the Yellow River Basin to the south, and this led to important festivals such as stepping on Huashan Mountain.

丨Chi You Statue

People often ignore some details when talking about this period of history. These details are very interesting to see today. According to "Shiben", a very incomplete ancient history book, Chi You, who fought with the Yellow Emperor, was also a martial artist and inventor. He invented five weapons: Ge and Shu (pronounced shū, instruments and weapons with long handles and hooks). , halberd, chieftain's spear, barbarian spear. These five weapons should have been very lethal at the time, and they were later developed and became important war weapons in the cold weapon era. We should affirm that war and the use of various skills and weapons on the battlefield are fertile ground for the birth of martial arts. Therefore, Chi You's contribution to martial arts must not be considered small.

In the academic research of the Song Dynasty people, they also described Chi You as a master of jué. It is said that he has horns on his head, and he uses them to hit people when he fights with the Yellow Emperor. There is a similar story in the Song Dynasty, saying that Chi You had 72 brothers, and they all had bronze heads and iron foreheads. This kind of written description is consistent with the ancient portrait of Chi You. In the portrait, Chi You has the head of a human and the body of an animal. He holds a gun in one hand and a sword in the other. There are two horns on his head.

"Shiben" is probably a book from the Warring States Period, almost 1,500 years ago from the Song Dynasty. Regarding Chi You, there are both continuations and changes from the Warring States Period to the Song Dynasty. What has changed is that Chi You's image is richer but also more fantasy, and he is no longer a normal human being. However, Chi You's force value is also rising steadily, and he has become a superman.

Having talked about history, let’s talk about reality. Do the Miao people today still know martial arts?

If you ask this question to the master who plays the reed, his answer may be: "Yes, our reed dance is also our martial arts." In the Miao Village in the Nanpanjiang Valley of Qujing Master Here, I saw their Lusheng dance, which confirmed this answer. Some of the difficult moves in the Lusheng Dance are simply acrobatic performances. For example, there is an action when playing the Lusheng. The person has to lie on the ground and roll around, doing some strenuous movements, but at the same time, the tune of the Lusheng cannot be interrupted. In addition, when they pass the reed from one hand to the other, they will also perform various fancy movements, which seems to be quite difficult.

丨Miao Lusheng Dance

The Miao Lusheng is said to have 360 ??tunes and has a social function. Usually one person plays it and then the other plays it - not in harmony. There are various movements with rich meanings when blowing. When doing these movements, you need to show respect for your predecessors and be polite and courteous, but there are also moments to show off your skills. Since its development, the movements of Lusheng dance have become very complicated. A strong young man can play and dance for three to five minutes at most.

Some people may think that this kind of Miao dance is not considered martial arts because it has no "actual combat" function. Indeed, compared with the weapon confrontation and unarmed wrestling (wrestling) used on the battlefield in Chi You's time, these modern movements that integrate music, dance, and social functions are not martial arts. The problem is that since Chinese martial arts left the battlefield and related professions (such as police officers and bodyguards) and entered the public eye, and even became artistic, it has become more of a performance and ritual function, and its social and cultural functions are far greater than it. actual function. Of course, there are real swords and guns on the battlefield, but street performances and stage acrobatics are all visual and social products, which are really far from the actual combat ability that everyone is particularly concerned about today.

In this sense, the Lusheng dance in Miao villages can be regarded as a kind of martial art.

The martial arts component of Miao culture goes beyond the Lusheng. The martial spirit is revealed in many places. In their folk songs, there are very sad descriptions of the separation of men and women caused by war; in their funerals, they would circle around the house where the deceased was parked to show their inspection; when walking on the flower mountain, the tree flower pole link also has the function of calling the tribesmen to fight. origin. Yi people: The broadsword dance used to be about weapons

Weishan Yi people have a team that now gathers together to dance, dance and sing on festivals such as "February 8th" and the Torch Festival every year.

The knife they use for their broadsword dance is very similar to the knife used by Guan Yunchang in the TV series "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", but it is not that long, and the wooden handle is less than 2 meters.

丨Blade Dance of Yi Nationality

When dancing the broadsword dance, some villages (such as Xiaosanjia Village) that have inherited the broadsword dance use two identical broadswords to play against each other. It's quite dangerous, with two knives cutting each other, piercing upward, spinning around the body, slashing forward, blocking, etc.

There are a total of 80 sets of these movements, which are the only remaining inheritance. I talked to the people who are best at this dance, and they said that there used to be more than 80 sets, but now they can only do 80 sets. These 80 sets are called "Knife Techniques", and they are divided into many different categories, including "Large Knife", "Small Knife", "Plum Blossom Knife", etc.

According to legend, the sword was their weapon in the past. In a certain war, due to insufficient troops, a clever general used an empty city strategy and asked a limited number of soldiers to perform swordplay around a field. When they performed, they were so powerful that they rolled up clouds of loess and scared the enemy away.

The most surprising thing is that the old people said that they used to learn the sword dance in order to practice their movements. They tied radishes to their arms and sharpened the swords. Some of the movements when dancing the swords were like I will peel off the carrots on my body piece by piece.

According to my observation, this action does exist. In martial arts, it is a body-protecting action. But when using a knife to protect oneself, it is very important to be measured. If you can't protect yourself well, you will cut yourself. So practicing by peeling carrots is undoubtedly a very solid training.

丨Dehong Jingpo Sword Dance

It is particularly worth mentioning that the sword dance is performed in the yards of Yi people or in front of the Guanyin Temple. The venue is very limited and the number of people is small. a lot of. Therefore, the technical difficulty of using a machete is not how to accurately cut people, but how to accurately avoid cutting people. This is exactly the opposite of swordsmanship on the battlefield, but the principles are the same. They are both precise training of the body, both dodging and maneuvering, and they are all skills and experience.

There are actually many dances like the Broadsword Dance. The Zhuang people in Wenshan have a weapon dance, which is said to have been left behind by a Zhuang military leader named Nong Zhigao from the Song Dynasty. They have many kinds of weapons, the most special one in my mind is the fork. The forks are made of wood and, combined with their movement, appear to be the nemesis of spears and machetes.

Having said this, I can’t help but wonder, if the Yi people’s broadsword dance and the Zhuang people’s wooden cross dance are on the same stage, which one is more powerful? This question reminds me of a classic topic among netizens: who is more powerful, Donnie Yen or Jet Li? Can you fight? Dai: People who are not good at Dai boxing cannot dance peacock dance

Among the ethnic minority martial arts, Dai boxing cannot be ignored. You must have heard of Muay Thai, but I personally think it is quite violent. Dai and Thai cultures and nationalities have the same origin, but they are quite different in martial arts.

Dai boxing is much gentler. To an outsider, it may be similar to the boxing and kicking skills trained in the martial arts schools near the Songshan Shaolin Temple. They have bare-handed boxing routines, knives, and sticks. As a layman, I can't understand them, but I think they are very powerful and not just a fool's errand.

According to an Xishuangbanna elephant foot drum inheritor, he liked martial arts when he was a child (in the 1980s and 1990s) and learned martial arts from an elder, and his elder must have learned from an older elder. This inheritance is its own system and may have little to do with the Kung Fu craze after the 1980s and 1990s. In his opinion, the foundation of playing elephant kick drum is Dai boxing. If you can't play well with Dai boxing, you won't be able to play elephant kick drum well. The martial arts of the Dai people may also include peacock dance. Peacock dance is divided into free-hand peacock dance and stand-up peacock dance. In the past, only men danced, and women were not allowed to dance.

丨Dai Peacock Dance

Freehand peacock dance can be transformed from hand movements, and you can intuitively feel its skill. The peacock dance is slightly different, with wide open and close movements, but it actually has the same footwork and movements. I guess it also requires a certain foundation of Dai boxing like the elephant kick drum. Peacock dance imitates the movements of a peacock, which is also very martial arts spirit. In fact, a large part of ancient martial arts is related to the imitation of nature. This principle is not abstract, but it can well explain cultural phenomena such as dance and martial arts.

If you read history, you must have heard of Hua Tuo. This Chinese medicine doctor is also a master of martial arts. It is said that he imitated animals and made up the "Five Animal Show". This kind of action can be martial arts, or it can be understood as today's broadcast gymnastics. In ancient times, people believed that absorbing the essence of animals could be used by humans, so learning from animals was a shortcut.

The routine from which martial arts was born was later continued and became an important legacy of Chinese martial arts. There are various Kung Fu named after small animals, such as Mantis Boxing, which is said to be a boxing technique learned by someone who failed in a martial arts competition and accidentally saw a praying mantis fighting. There are many others, such as Snake Fist, Eagle Claw Kung Fu, Toad Kung Fu... The principle of defeating enemies by imitating animals is that human beings should learn from all things and learn from nature. Accumulation over time is kung fu

What is the relationship between martial arts and dance?

There is an anti-Japanese TV series about a group of Chinese people trapped in a city by the Japanese army. The final way of resistance of several Peking Opera martial arts actors was to sharpen the prop knives on the stage and use them to their full potential. The advantage of his flexible body has killed many enemies. The plot makes sense. The close relationship between dance and martial arts can also be seen from this.

丨Dance and Martial Arts

Don’t mess with those who can dance. Although their one-leg kicks are often useless, they might come in handy at some point (see Wang Baoqiang’s shown in some movies). There is this sentence in "Shi Ming? Shi Yu": "Wu means dance, and the movement of conquest is like the encouragement of objects." "Shi Ming" is a very old book, written in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and its explanation of martial arts and dance is also It represents the views of that era and even previous eras. Our understanding of martial arts is both mythical and remote.

In fact, martial arts is not only related to dance and war, but also closely related to our daily life. There is a fable in the book "Zhuangzi". Someone wanted to kill an old turtle and offer it to the gods, but the old turtle was very reluctant and said, "I would rather live an ordinary life." Gods are too far away, martial arts heroes are too far away, and martial arts stars are too far away. Let us turn martial arts into a vocabulary related to life, just like Guangbo Cao (some places are adapted from folk dance movements), which can be practiced every day , although there is no halo, but it is "kung fu" accumulated over time.

In fact, there is a very abstract philosophical principle in Chinese martial arts, that is, there is no move to win, and there is Kung Fu everywhere. When it comes to the attitude towards martial arts, we must mention that although there are various exaggerated descriptions of martial arts in Chinese culture, the Chinese people do not advocate martial arts in their bones, but emphasize culture over martial arts. It is believed that problems cannot be solved by force alone, but must be based on culture and politics. Behind the prosperity of Chinese martial arts culture is not violence and conquest, but the peaceful and soft artistic pursuit