The style names must have predated his manual and represent a heavily
northern Chinese bias, since he compiled the list while in the north. His
list contains styles like“Song Taizu Thirty-Two Positions Long Boxing
宋太祖三十二勢拳,”“Six Paces Boxing六步拳,”and“Monkey Boxing
猴拳.”By contrast, Zheng Ruoceng’s鄭若曾list of eleven styles is biased
toward southern martial arts and includes many different styles like“Xi
Family Boxing西家拳,”“Zhang Fei Divine Boxing張飛神拳,”“Southern
Boxing南拳,”and“Northern Boxing北拳.”Even these twenty-seven styles
are only an idiosyncratic selection, since more styles are mentioned in other
texts. Particularly given the weight that martial arts historians place on Qi
Jiguang’s discussion of martial arts, it is critical to keep in mind that his
survey of martial arts was neither comprehensive nor unbiased. His per-
spective, intentionally or not, was biased toward northern China.
At the same time, when we compare Qi and Zheng’s respective lists
of styles wefind a number of overlapping names. Zheng’s list also
has a“Monkey Boxing”as well as a“Zhao Family Boxing趙家拳,”
which encompasses a“Zhao Taizu Divine Boxing Thirty-Six Positions
趙太祖神拳三十六勢”within it. Since Zhao was the surname of the Song
imperial family, Song Taizu and Zhao Taizu are the same person, but the
styles have a different number of positions. There is no way to determine
whether these styles were the same or only used the same reference to a
historicalfigure. Similarly, there can be no comparison between the respec-
tive“Monkey Boxing”styles. Even were we to assemble a complete list
from the extant sources, we would still have only a sample of the many
styles practiced during the Ming Dynasty. Unfortunately, we have no way
of knowing the total number of styles, nor what their relationship was to
each other. The only thing that is clear is that military manuals in the Ming
took the time to name at least a few styles.
Some parts of these styles are included in some of the manuals or texts
on the martial arts. In some cases the author recorded a chant or song that
accompanied the respective positions. This was a mnemonic device for
remembering the order of positions, presumably in practicing a martial
arts form. Without direct instruction in the forms or the significance of the
names, the chants tell us very little. They would, however, have very
quickly distinguished those who had been instructed in the complete
knowledge of the style by a direct master-disciple transmission from
those who had not. Martial arts knowledge was esoteric knowledge and
was preserved as such. The skills and knowledge involved were both part
of a tradition, whether family or teacher-student, and valuable techniques
for self-protection, teaching, or other employment.
176 The Ming Dynasty