Modern Chinese speakers usually refer to“wushu”武術,literally“mar-
tial arts”or“martial techniques”when discussing the martial arts as a
whole. The termfirst appeared in the early sixth century in theWen Xuan
文選.(TheWen Xuan,orAnthology of Literature, was compiled by Xiao
Tong ( 501 – 31 ), the Crown Prince of the Liang dynasty, and became a basic
reader for Chinese literature from the Sui dynasty until the end of the
Qing dynasty.) A slightly earlier term“wuyi”武藝, also literally“martial
arts,”was also generally used from the early third century, though it has
not continued into Modern Chinese (the“yi”of“wuyi”is the same“art”
used in the Confucian“Six Arts”). The emergence of these two terms, wuyi
and wushu, may indicate the development of a new mental category of
activities that had not been separated out before. The Confucian Six Arts
encompassed the set of skills necessary for a gentleman, most of which had
martial applications–indicating that a gentleman was supposed to be able
to lead in peace and war. Most recently, the Chinese government has
established wushu as the international term for its competitive sports version
of Chinese martial arts.
The earliest term, however, was“Jiji”技繫,“boxing,”which is attested
in the works of the philosopher Xunzi ( 313 – 238 bce).^7 Many different
words were used to refer to Chinese martial arts and the individual skills
that comprise it over China’s long history. We cannot, therefore, insist
upon a single term for martial arts during all of Chinese history, though
wushu comes quite close; this is even more true when we move into the
realm of English, or other foreign languages.“Kungfu”in all its spellings
now seems to be the English term for Chinese martial arts, however
constituted. I have chosen not to use kungfu in that way in this book,
however, because its use in English is so recent.
Chinese usage has clearly changed in the last decades of the twentieth
century, if not somewhat earlier. InAmerican Shaolin, Matthew Polly tells
of a Shaolin martial artist who states:“Everyone knows thatlaowaiare no
good at kungfu.”^8 Polly clarified this for me:“So when Coach Yan said to
me,‘The Laowai are no good at kungfu,’[h]e meant‘gong fu.’White boys
weren’t good at the deeper aspects, the Ch’an of it. Or thefighting of it.
And I remember this distinctly because there was a challenge match on
the line. And in such a context, the term‘gong fu’would always be used
instead of‘wushu.’So while wushu may be the category,‘gong fu’is
something special.”^9
Another term that has become prominent recently, and is subject to
considerable confusion, is“qigong”氣功. Although a recent study found
the earliest use of this term in 1934 , current practitioners usually described
10 Introduction