126 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation
where. However, on several occasions I suffered illness and was obliged
to return. Thereafter I dedicated myself to the practice of the martial
arts. I wandered all over the Yangtze and Huai river basins, the coastal
regions, and the South. I encountered numerous people. I cannot even
count all the formidable adversaries I fought. Luckily I was never
defeated. Now I have retired to my native home. As I think of things
past, I still feel that my disquiet has not dissipated, for which reason I
deeply conceal myself.
Since my friends all wished for me to disseminate this teaching, I
could not possibly keep it a secret to myself. Therefore, using what I had
obtained by daily practice, I copiously annotated the Hand Combat
Classic. Moreover I illustrated each position with a drawing.... By
merely casting a glance the reader can understand it, making it most
suitable for practice.
However, the subtlety of the method’s application depends entirely
on “internal strength” (neili). It cannot be exhausted by words. Like an
old hunchback who catches cicadas,^34 like archer Yang Youji who shot
lice.^35 When one’s resolution is not distracted, when his spirit is concen-
trated, he will begin to acquire the agility of “mind conceiving, hands
responding” (dexin yingshou). At this point there is sure to be no straining
of muscles nor exposure of bones. Would not this be almost like tracing
Master [Zhang] Kongzhao’s authentic transmission to its source?
I have respectfully prefaced the manual’s origins; the time: Qian-
long’s reign’s forty-ninth, jiachen year (1784), auspicious mid-tenth
month. Cao Huandou, style: Zaidong.^36Cao Huandou’s preface reveals the multifarious roles the martial arts have
played in his life. His initial interest was due to the violent atmosphere in his
native village, where the weak were bullied and humiliated, but he also prac-
ticed for medical reasons (he had suffered repeatedly from illness) and as a
form of self-cultivation. In addition, Cao aspired in his martial practice for
what could be described as artistic perfection. He does not hide his contempt
for crude techniques that rely on force only and involve “straining muscles and
exposing bones.” These are far inferior to his own sophisticated fighting sys-
tem, which resembles a “beautiful woman plucking flowers... a literatus laying
down his brush.” Finally, religious overtones are not lacking either. Zhang
Kongzhao receives his teachings from a “mysterious person” (yiren), and Cao
Huandou is instructed in the art of the Shaolin Close-Range Fist by divine
epiphany—venerable teachers appear in his dream, following which “his body
grows suppler and his hands become livelier, as his mind grasps the subtlety of
qi-training (lianqi).”
Cao Huandou authored his preface to Hand Combat Classic in 1784. Four
decades later, in 1828, a prominent Manchu official named Lin Qing (1791–
1846) visited the Shaolin Temple. By then, bare-handed techniques had com-