If curling and synchronized swimming qualify as Olympic sports,
then wushu, Chinese martial arts that are lethal, disciplined,
poetic, historic and deeply rooted in culture, should be adopted as
well. The International Wushu Federation recently held a program
for overseas instructors in Shanghai, hoping that their lobbying
efforts will help win the ancient sport a place in the Olympics.
Wushu, as the ancient Chinese martial arts are known, first emerged
as primitive forms of self-defense. After thousands of years of
refinement, wushu, in its various forms and disciplines, is
practiced the world over by people of all ages.
The most significant indication of its global stature was its
recognition in February by the International Olympic Committee. The
next step, being undertaken by the International Wushu Federation,
is to make wushu an Olympic sport -- ideally, in time for the 2008
Beijing Olympics.
Of
wushu's 31 categories, eight are being proposed for the Olympics --
four for men and four for women, says Li Yapei, an aide to the
president of the IWF.
The enormous popularity and growing enthusiasm for wushu worldwide
is almost certain to assure its adoption as an Olympic event, Li
adds.
In
China and overseas, foreigners participate in wushu competitions,
like Gololobov Mikhail. At a recent kungfu training course, his
brown hair and blue eyes seem a tad out-of-place -- like seeing a
bushman in a loin cloth at an IT convention. But his broadsword
play was masterly, and erased any doubt that the fellow had
stumbled into the wrong building.
"Wushu is beautiful," says Mikhail, a member of National Wushu
Federation of Russia. "I enjoy the movements and the way it makes
my body feel."
And he isn't alone. About 81 overseas wushu coaches and students
gathered in Shanghai earlier this month for the International Wushu
Coach Training Course.
The object of the course was to introduce wushu coaches to a set of
five new "taolu" (routines) which will be adopted in all
international wushu competitions later this year, in preparation
for next year's 7th Wushu World Championships in Macau.
Ng
Siu Ching, 33, gold medallist at the 1999 Fifth Wushu World
Championships, says that kungfu movies "have helped to popularize
the sport abroad."
Leopoldo Castro Cruz, a 44-year-old lawyer and wushu coach from
Mexico, who also attended the training course, believes the
Olympics will benefit from wushu -- and vice versa. "Once wushu
enters the Olympics, it will certainly become more popular -- at
least as popular as taekwondo," he predicts, referring to the
Korean martial art that primarily uses kicks.
Many foreign wushu students say language is a major stumbling block
to learning wushu. Markus Heilmann, a member of the German national
wushu team, says the best Chinese wushu teachers usually don't
speak English. "Competent teachers who can speak English are
extremely rare," he says, "and Chinese is a difficult language for
Europeans to learn."
Ng, from Hong Kong, agrees. "Using more English would definitely
help it (wushu) global accepted faster," she says.
The limited amount of information on wushu available overseas is
another obstacle.
Kristaps Simanis, from Latvia, says that when he was learning
wushu, he only had three videotapes of Chinese wushu tournaments.
"All I could do was to imitate the movements on the tapes. If I did
them incorrectly, I didn't know," he says.
The culture of wushu -- which, of course, is rooted in Chinese
culture -- poses yet another problem.
"In China, your wushu teacher is your master -- 'shifu' -- and
commands the respect that all teachers receive in China. The master
passes on the techniques and skills and the spirit of wushu and the
way of life," says Heilmann, 29. "It's completely different from a
Western teacher-student relationship. We think students are equal
to the teacher because it's the students who are paying, and that
gives us a right to decide how -- and what -- we learn. All we want
to learn are the skills and the movements. Yet without a profound
understanding of the spirit of wushu, you can't possibly learn real
martial art."
Due to the arduousness process of learning wushu there is a high
attrition rate. Hundreds of people begin wushu training in Latvia
every year, but only a few remain after one or two years. "Most
give up because they can't endure the training," says Simanis.
The 26-year-old kungfu fan also calls for better regulations in the
wushu world. "There is a ranking system in taekwondo, where one's
class is identified by his waistband. But wushu doesn't have a
similar system. If someone claims he is a master in Latvia, people
will probably believe him, even if he's not," he points out.
"There's just no way of knowing."
Yet foreign wushu practitioners maintain that the difficulties are
not insurmountable. As Hailmann says: "Once wushu enters the
Olympics, it will become more influential in the world. More people
will understand wushu, which will spur its rapid development
worldwide."
(eastday.com August 26,
2002)