By Staff Reporter David C. Humphrey & Producer Wang Ke

Wushu is a modern day form of ancient Chinese martial arts also known as “guoshu” and “gongfu”. It is the famous sport of Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The term itself means martial arts.

The practice of modern Wushu is separated into two major disciplines: taolu and sanshou. According to Chinese Wushu Association, Wushu taolu is “a set of connecting stylized movements choreographed according to certain laws, embodying the philosophical connotation of attack and defense.” Wushu sanshou discipline represents “fighting movements between two people for both attack-defense exercises.”

China has many great parks to practice martial arts. Houhai Park is one of those commons and it is situated just next to the Beijing Sports School. The facility is surrounded by Houhai and Beihai Parks. Each morning the athletes at the school are required to run the peremeter of Houhai Lake at 6:00 AM.

The school itself has served for decades to develop world class athletes. It has produced 29 world champions from sports like martial arts, taekwondo, and table tennis. In fact Zhang Yining, the defending gold medalist in table tennis attended the school.

Today the Chinese National Wushu Team gave visitors from the media circles a performance in the taolu discipline.