Conclusion
Chinese martial arts is a living tradition with a very long history. As some-
thing alive it continues to change, in both meaning and practice, making
simple conclusions about what it is, was, or even should be, impossible. In
that respect it is no different from other Chinese practices, where centuries
or even millennia of tradition bear strongly on current practitioners. As
a physical practice, martial arts keeps the historian at arm’slengthbythe
limitations of the textual and archaeological sources. It is usually impossible
to prove the continuity of any skill performed over the centuries. At the same
time, the legitimacy of tradition, however understood, must compete with
the needs or desires to innovate and absorb new techniques. If martial arts
was a dead tradition this would not be difficult; the lines would be clear
between the past and the present. The struggle to balance out tradition,
innovation, and meaning is therefore a positive sign of vitality.
This vitality, however, is a great challenge for the researcher. Throughout
this book I have struggled to construct a narrative of martial arts in Chinese
cultureandsocietythatplacesspecific practices in a broader context.
The constraints of space and clarity (not to mention time) frequently forced
significant aspects of the history of the martial arts–most obviously religion,
theater, and literature–off to the side in favor of more general historical
themes. In order to argue for the consistent importance of martial arts, I have
spread my coverage more evenly over time at the expense of the availability
of sources. Far more can be written about martial arts in more recent periods
than in the distant past, but it seemed that apportioning coverage in direct
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