(Gempin in Japanese) was sent to the court of the Japanese emperor, os-
tensibly to teach pottery. It was also surmised that the monk fled to Japan
after arousing the ire of an official at the Chinese court. After a time, Chen
befriended a few samurai who lived in the area where he was staying. He
taught these three samurai “methods of catching a man.” Those methods
are also known as qinna (or ch’in na in the Wade-Giles method of roman-
ization). Qinna means “to grasp and seize,” and elements of the art of
grasping and seizing are a facet of many Chinese martial arts. The methods
Chen taught to these samurai were to later take on a life of their own and
were collectively christened Kito-ryû, a form of jûjutsu.
Other similarities are also to be seen in Okinawan kenpô in the prac-
tice of methods called kyûshoand tuite.Kyûsho is essentially the striking
of vital points, much in the same way as it is practiced as dianxue, better
known by the Cantonese name dim mak. Tuite is virtually the same art as
qinna. Qinna and dianxue are usually performed together. When applying
a joint lock, one also attacks pressure points, with the goal of weakening
an opponent’s ability to fight, controlling movement through limiting the
range of motion, and sapping the will to fight through inflicting pain in
sensitive areas. Kyûsho and tuite methods were popularized in the 1990s
through the efforts of men like Grand Masters Rick Moneymaker and Tom
Muncy of the Dragon Society International. Therefore, although an art
may utilize Japanese gi(uniforms) and Japanese terms, the history of the
method may well reveal a Chinese connection.
The role of Shaolin Boxing was reoriented when the Communists
came to power in 1949. The government of the People’s Republic under-
took many reforms. One area toward which reform was directed concerned
plans for improving the health of the citizens. Famine, plagues, and war
had sapped the vitality of many of the people who had survived from the
first Japanese incursion in the 1930s to the time when Chiang Kai Shek
(pinyin Jiang Jieshi) and thousands of others fled to Taiwan. A group of
martial artists and government officials came upon the idea of populariz-
ing the practice of taijiquan.
The goal was to create a healthy populace without encouraging so-
phisticated martial abilities. The relationships between the Triads, martial
arts, and antigovernment activity remained in the memory of the bureaucrats
as well. Mao Zedong’s first writings were replete with exhortations to em-
power the mind and make savage the body, but efforts were made to make
the practice of martial arts benefit the party in its quest for total domination
of the people. Later, the Red Guard took this to heart during the ten years
of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 through 1976, when the practice of
the ancient ways was forbidden as being antiquated and superstitious.
In order to accomplish the goals of a healthy populace and to create a42 Boxing, Chinese Shaolin Styles