64 Systemizing Martial Practice
today’s Jiangsu. Like Cheng Zong you, he was of literati background, and under
his other name, Wu Qiao, he is known to us as author of the Poetic Conversations
Around the Fireplace (Weilu shihua).^20 As a young man, Wu studied spear fighting
with other gentry friends, one of whom, Lu Shiyi (1611–1672), was to become a
renowned Confucian thinker. Their instructor was the itinerant martial artist
Shi Dian (hao: Jingyan) (ca. 1572–1635).^21
Wu practiced the spear throughout his adult life. In 1678 he summarized
his studies in an anthology titled Arm Exercises (Shoubi lu), which includes seven
different spear manuals. One of these, titled Spear Method from the Dreaming-of-
Foliage Hall (Menglü tang qiangfa), is attributed to the Shaolin monk Hong-
zhuan, whom Cheng Zongyou mentioned as his staff teacher. Even as he
incorporated Hongzhuan’s manual into his anthology, Wu was highly critical
of the Shaolin method it represented. “Shaolin [monks] do not understand
spear fighting at all,” he exclaimed. “In fact, they employ their staff techniques
for the spear.”^22 In other words, because they overemphasize staff training,
Shaolin monks fail to take advantage of the spear’s unique features, as Wu fur-
ther explains:
The Shaolin staff method has divine origins, and it has enjoyed fame
from ancient times to the present. I myself have been quite involved in
it. Indeed, it is as high as the mountains and as deep as the seas. It can
truly be called a “supreme technique.”... Still as a weapon the spear is
entirely different from the staff. The ancient proverb says: “The spear is
the lord of all weapons, the staff is an attendant in its estate.” Indeed,
this is so.... The Shaolin monks have never been aware of this. They
treat the spear and the staff as if they were similar weapons.^23Whereas Wu Shu disapproved of the monks’ disregard for weapons other
than the staff, another military expert, Yu Dayou, was critical of their staff
method itself. Yu is known to us as a successful general who served as re-
gional commander on five of China’s frontiers. He was born into a military
family in Jinjiang, Fujian, and his brilliant military career was due in large
measure to his contribution to the suppression of piracy along China’s south-
eastern coast.^24 Yu distinguished himself not only as a strategist but also as
an accomplished martial artist. He specialized in a staff method called “Jing-
chu Long Sword” ( Jingchu chang jian), and he compiled a manual of staff
fighting, titled Sword Classic (Jian jing), which won praise from contemporary
military experts.^25
Intrigued by Shaolin’s renown, Yu traveled there around 1560 to observe
the monastic fighting technique, but he was, according to his account, deeply
disappointed. The monastic art had declined so much, he claimed, that he
ended up teaching the monks his own martial techniques. In the following ac-
count of his visit to the monastery, Yu uses the word “sword” (jian) for the staff,
as he does in the title of his staff manual:^26