China. Many scholars of China, both Chinese and foreign, have accepted
the myths andfictions of the martial arts without serious challenge.
Others have simply assumed that these physical practices were never
written about. However, a growing body of Chinese language scholarship
on martial arts has opened up afield that was hitherto quite obscure. One
of my goals here is to bring the fruits of this Chinese scholarship to the
attention of Western scholars.
Ignorance about martial arts is profound, particularly as practiced in
China. Unlike Japanese and Korean martial arts, Chinese martial arts has
only recently become well known in the West. The scholarly study of these
arts, with the exception of a few pioneering Chinese scholars of the early
twentieth century, really began in the 1980 s. We are thus confronted with
a most ancient and fundamental practice that is at the same time quite new
in the realm of history writing. Rather than start from the myths and try to
deconstruct them, this book starts at the beginning in the hope that history
itself will take care of the myths.
12 Introduction