to throw him down from the hall by“throwing his neck”(摔胡).^22 This is a
reminder that the martial arts always maintained both a performance and
a practical function. More people enjoyed watching martial arts perform-
ances than practiced martial arts as serious competitors, but given the
prevalence of martial arts training in the early Han dynasty among both
elite and commoner, this was a question of degree of training and practice
rather than capability. It nevertheless took an extraordinary martial artist
with great bravery to attack and subdue an armed man.
Several other kinds of martial arts were also regularly demonstrated
in the Hundred Events and other public performances. These arts, partic-
ularly those involving weapons, were practical military skills that trans-
ferred well into the realm of sport or entertainment. The separate arts of
using each different weapon were variously grouped together, reflecting
different ideas of the martial arts themselves. Similarly, unarmedfighting
skills were differentiated. Boxing, which also included kicking and all
manner of unarmed striking, was clearly separated from wrestling. There
were the“Five Weapons”五兵: sword, spear, long sword, (ji) halberd, and
staff^23 (though another text defines the Five Weapons as bow and crossbow,
halberd, shield, sword and long sword, and armor).^24 Archery remained of
paramount importance both in war and competition, as well as tripod lifting
and the other pure strength exercises.
The level of distinction among the martial arts in the Han dynasty is
remarkable, if for no other reason than it demonstrates an acute conscious-
ness of separate skills with similar purposes. We have no mention of an
individual who was capable in all of these martial arts, though it is likely that
some professionalfighters trained in several weapons as well as unarmed
fighting. Soldiers, a category that encompassed most of the adult male
population in the former Han dynasty, learned a set of martial arts so that
they could serve in the army.
Boxing was practiced under an evolving set of names, as I discussed in the
introduction. Various mentions of practitioners in theHanshu(History of
the Former Han) attest to its widespread practice as a form offighting and
competitive display. It also began to be written about, with theHanshu
listing a book,“Boxing手搏(shoubo)”in six chapters, in its bibliography
section. This work is no longer extant, but it is the oldest known book on
boxing. Boxing also entered the language with the expression“attacking
naked blades empty handed空手入白刀” or“attacking naked blades
emptyfisted空拳入白刀.”What may have initially been a description of
the combination of skill and courage of an extraordinary boxer, or
unarmedfighter (see Jin Midi introduced earlier), became an expression
68 The Qin and Han Dynasties