Hello. I'm new to this forum . Anyway, I'm doing a project for school about memory and teaching, and I was wondering how the teaching of martial arts changed through time. Does anyone know this or have an speculations? I mean, I don't think EVERYONE learned martial arts in the past, and probably one factor was that they didn't have time, or they couldn't find a teacher. Now a days, if you want to go learn a martial arts, you can just go find a school nearby and join easily.

So yeah, did they have books? How did they use them if they did? Who could access them?
Did they really have "proverbs" like they portray in some martial arts movies? How were they "used" and "taught"?
What was the relationship between the teacher and pupil?
How do forms/katas work, as in how were they translated into application?
Did they have any indirect ways of teaching? Like perhaps other arts like calligraphy, or philosophy or something?

That's all the questions I can think of now. Oh and comparing them with how martial arts are taught today. What are the differences and stuff?

Thanks a bunch everyone.

My father learned Chinese martial art during the very early Republic era (like from 1915 to 1922). He lived in a village outside of Wenzhou city. He learned martial art as a child of 5 or 6 from an old master lived in the village. The reason he learned because their village usually had fights with some of the nearby villages for water, land, or other reasons. These fights, sometimes, involved hundreds people. At one point (probably around 1930’s or 1940’s), my father’s village had a major fight with the other village, and there were 10-20 people killed and about 30-50 people injured. I learned about that because my father happened to be the presiding judge for this case and thus offended both his villagers as well as the enemy villagers! Therefore, almost all the village children (boys, that is) would need to learn martial art in order to protect themselves as well as contribute to the fights.

I am not sure how this old master came to be in my father’s village. The old master was retired for sure and had possibly been around the Jianghu (江湖) in his youth. He taught fighting skills, Nei gong/Qi gong (內功/氣功), and Qing gong (輕功) to my father.

They would use poem style of chanting to help memorizing certain tricks of the martial art. There are/were also drawings to show how certain styled martial art positions as well as certain Qi gong or Nei gong’s passage ways in the human Jing-Mai (經脈).

For Jing-Mai, please see: http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...p;variant=zh-tw (in Chinese).

For Qing gong (輕功), there were a few training methods. One of them was to fill water in a large earthen water jar (about one man tall with wide edge rim) and have the student walking on top of the water jar along the rim edge without tipping the jar over. After a while, starting to take the water out, and try again. As time went on, the water would be taken out more and more until there would be no water in the jar. The idea is that if the student could keep a good balance on top of the rim edge without having the water inside of the jar, he/she are graduated from this particular training.

The other way for Qing gong training was to tie thin sheets o metal on legs. Digging a deep hole in the ground (a few feet or so deep) and start trying to jump out. I think the knees should not be bent or something. Again, the sheet metal would be added once the student got used to the weight. The students supposed to use Nei Gong to help lighten the body in such actions.

My dad stopped learning martial art around 12 years old because he saw his master (at 95 years old) got sick and could not control his qi’s movements in his body, so the master took about 3 days to die (painfully as well). Afterwards, my father reasoned to himself, “If my master with his whole life of practicing would die like this, how could I avoid such fate learning the same Nei Gong/Qi gong?” My father decided his master did not know the proper and traditional Chinese upper level of Nei gong/Qi gong, and he should not continue that path unless he found the right master. He did continue a certain breathing exercise (吐納) as well as my mom, learned through a different way. My father was quite healthy and energetic in a sort for a fat guy in a very high stressed job until he started the High Protein diet, and that destroyed his health. He got skinny, but he also got shaky as well, and he passed away when he was only 72 years old (I thought he could have lived to 84 or 85 seeing his energy at 65 years old.) My mom, however, is now 84 years old and is still very well (she still climbs to the rooftops or trees, sometimes)!

For Tu-Na breathing exercise (吐納), please see: http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...p;variant=zh-tw (in Chinese) or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Yin (in English).

The Chinese martial art training methods I mentioned above were also used by other schools in the late Qing dynasty and early Republic era. I read mentions of them in various books and articles from interviews or reports of the real kungfu masters as well as writings from people who knew them (including curious young men as well as newspaper reporters). Some of these interviews I have read were from martial art magazines long time ago in Taiwan.

Some masters lived in small villages or in cities very quietly. Some masters had martial art schools like today's and people could join. Some masters would get any student as long as you got money. Some masters would only get students who are good martial art material and who have good personalities. Some masters only teach their own childfern (or just sons and daughters-in-law). The famous movie star in Hong Kong, Tan Daoliang (譚道良) is supposed to be the descendent of the Northern Tan Legs (北派譚腿). His martial art was from his family and his ancestors, and he also learned Taekwondo. He now teaches Kungfu in U.S. In one of his interviews, he showed in person how he did his “壁虎功” (Gecko kungfu). He was able to climb up two side by side straight walls (without any hand or foot holds) with only the strengths from his legs and only his legs -- I saw that on TV when he was doing it, and there was no wires at all! He was also able to kick 7 times in the air (Bruce Lee could only achieve 3 times), but Tan was defeated by Bruce Lee when Tan challenged Bruce Lee.

http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...p;variant=zh-tw (in Chinese) or http://baike.baidu.com/view/992202.htm (in Chinese).

That's interesting, as in that it was actually a "necessity" to villagers. I really had no idea. I wonder, if learning martial arts back then in a village was like going to school. I mean, would it be training every day for a good majority of the day when they were not helping out with chores around the house.

Do you know if many martial arts schools now a days still use similar methods as the water jar training, or the jumping out of the hole thing?

I think it was necessary for any villages that had blood enemies (another village that had blood debts with them for many generations due to water rights or land problems). Wenzhou had a lot of pirates and mountain bandits, so being able to defend one's own home was very necessary.

My cousin's (表哥 the only one who went to Taiwan with my grandfather) home was like a fortress complete with a private army (or 30 or so men) and guns.
According to my father, when my cousin went to school, he went in a car with bodyguards holding box guns (匣子槍, 盒子炮, 20 響, Broomhandle Mauser / Mauser C96) standing at the car steps outside of the car doors like 1930's American mafias or gangsters. Please see: http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...p;variant=zh-tw (in Chinese) or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser_C96 (in English). My cousin was probably also trained in martial art as well. He carried my grandfather escaped CCP's bamboo curtain through Southern China's mountain areas in the early 1950's. He later became a low level police man in Taipei as well as a prison guard for the very stubborn criminal elements (like leaders of the street gangs) in Taipei. He was very tough and sometimes acted as my father's or our family's bodyguard in dangerous (or he considered dangerous) situations.

According to my father, it was like that with many rich people's children and family members when they went out for shopping or schoolings in my hometown area in the early Republic era, and I heard it was also the same in many other parts of China at that time. The famous Taiwanese author, 倚君, used to live very close to my father's home village, and she probably had the same treatment because her father was one of the local warlords. Anyway, if you have watched Jet Li's movie "Once Upon a Time in China III", I think, the situation where all those groups of people fighting to be the best lion dancer group was exactly the situation between several close by villages. They would fight for anything for honor. A lot of times, who was right and who was wrong was no longer the issue (because no one could really remember those issues totally, very similar to Irish or Scottish clan conflicts), any little things could be used for reasons to have a good fight!

In addition, people in the Northern or Northwestern planes or in the Chinese Northeastern provinces were also fairly martial. There were a lot of robbers on horse backs (馬賊), and they could be very fast and deadly as well. The famous Northeastern Warlord of early Republic era, Zhang Zuolin 張作霖, started off as a leader of the robbers on the horse backs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Zuolin (in English) or http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BC%A0%E4%BD%9C%E9%9C%96 (in Chinese).

Not every village children would need to learn martial art, of course. Some was just trained in the basics just in case. Some would be too busy for the farm work to be bothered to train and to keep training. There would be a group of dedicated fighters in every village responsible for such fights. They would be the key persons who would be in training every day like going to school. People who had no talents in fighting or who were too valuable to be risked in fighting (like my father who was very good in studying and must be kept in school to fight in another ways, like passing the Imperial Exam and becoming a government official, etc.) would not need to continue their trainings after the basic ones. These other not-trained villagers would be depended on to pick up works where the martial artists of the villages did not have time to do. When there were enemies attacking the villages, the martial artists would be the first ones to defend the other villagers. The enemies could be the villagers from another villages, pirates, bandits, horse robbers, or Japanese (or Chinese) soldiers. Many of the underground soldiers during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945 (or the earlier fights in both the January 28 Incident 一二八事變 or the Mukden Incident 九一八事變) were young men (or women) who had been trained in martial art like my father and the village fighters, and they fought, sometimes, in traditional Chinese martial art weapons, including bamboo sticks (and not guns), against the Japanese guns and cannons. Some used their bare hands with very minimal trainings. I heard from my parents because they had both seen those people and they were both in the fore front of the war around Zhejiang province area (btw, my mom was 14 years old at 1937 and in the underground army as a nurse, and my father was about 22 years old in Shanghai during the january 28 Incident as a young Chinese University student and then 27 years old and a young judge of Chinese Nationalist government for about 3-5 years in Zhejiang and Fujian mountain areas playing hide and seek with the Japanese soldiers in order to take care of the local villagers' legal needs).

I am not sure of the modern martial art schools doing those water jar trainings or jumping out of deep holes. I think the water jar trainings could still be possible because that would train a person's balance and agility. However, jumping out of deep holes like that, I don't know. I would feel stupid if I am the one doing it. Besides, it would need the corresponding nei gong to go with it. Otherwise, you might not be able to do it. I think these qi gong masters might be hard to find nowadays. The current so-call qi gong masters are, at most, at the level like my father's old master, and that means that they would not be any good in the true martial art world in the traditional Chinese sense. Ok, I think I need to clarify my words. Their qi gong would be the kind that is considered as the low-level qi gong and not the high-level qi gong. Such qi gong looks great and seems powerful, but they could actually hurt one's health or body at the end or if one is not careful -- one could 走火入魔 (qi could go into the wrong places and cause the person to go crazy or have stroke) very easily. Therefore, my father's old master could not control his qi when he got old and sick and died painfully and horribly even when he was at the highest level of his style of qi/nei gong -- he practiced it for at least 85+ years!!!

For the really high-level style of qi gong, such worry would be minimum and one would not look like one has any martial art training but is still very powerful. The nephew of the Royal Concubine, Zhen Fei 珍妃 and Jin Fei 瑾妃, of Guangxu 光緒 Emperor of Qing dynasty, Tanglusun 唐魯孫 (his pen name), had written about a famous female Chinese martial artist he had met in one of the banquets. Tanlusun was a young man at the time, and he went to a birthday banquet of one of the famous martial art master of the Northern Chinese martial art world for his grandfather (his father was either sick or died by that time, so he was the adult of the family even though he was very young still). He sat among some of the honored guests because of his close connection to the Qing royal family (and the quite powerful Jin Fei, who had became the 2nd highest person in the Forbidden City right after the ex-Emperor Pu Yi). Someone at the same table with him who knows these martial artists told him secretly of who was who in the martial art world of the time. The guy pointed out this old lady who was short and skinny as the famous martial artist who was well respected and totally a person to be avoided (as in not to offend) by many of the attending martial artists in the Northern martial art world! Tanglusun was not able to believe it because this old lady not only ate the food greedily, but also took the left over (Ok, I think it was really not left over, but ...) deep fried meatballs and put them all in her big jacket (OK, I have no clue how older generations of Chinese could hide so many stuff in their traditional clothing?) shamelessly and told every one on the table that her little grandchildren had rarely had chances to eat meat!!! Did any of those famous leaders of the Northern and some Southern Chinese martial art masters (some of whom were younger and a lot bigger in sizes than her) who sat at the same table with her dare to stop her? No, not even one little peep! All of the people sitting at the same table were nodding their heads and said, "Go right ahead!" And no one dared even to laugh at her or show any expression of thinking of laughing at her rude behaviors. On the same note, I heard the current, or a few years ago, famous Taiji master in Taiwan is a woman who is fat!!! Many young and stronger looking men came to challenge her and got totally defeated!!! I hope I didn't give her some trouble by saying this here (don't tell her I said this here if you want to go to Taiwan to challenge her in a fight.) I was told thus by a Taiji champion from mainland China a few years ago.

http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...p;variant=zh-tw (in Chinese about Tanglusun 唐魯孫) or http://www.08books.com/book/2254051/ (in Chinese) or http://www.dangdang.com/product/8939/8939072.shtml (in Chinese).

Anyway, I would love to learn nei gong, but I know such high-level nei gong masters are hard to find, so ... I would consider nei gong from the high level Wudang 武當 or E-mei 峨嵋 martial art schools as the high-level, but not every one in those schools would know the high-level nei gong either! Regarding Shaolin, I heard, from martial artists themselves, that Shaolin's kungfu is more about the outer gongs and not inner gongs. It's not that they don't have something of a high-level nei/qi gong (they probably do have some), but it would be rare to find the master from Shaolin who practice that and is willing to teach you. Btw, anyone who would teach you for a very large sum of money means that he is not the one!!! The good masters would pick their students carefully, and the good students would pick their masters as carefully.

Thanks, this is very good information. I'll be back with more questions later as my project progresses. I hope you'll can answer my later questions cause you give very detailed answers.

Gong Fu has changed so much since now China has contemporary wushu. A　ｌｏｔ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅ　Ｍａｓｔｅｒｓ, don't teach their skills openly anyway.

Yes, I agree that things seem to have changed. Contemporary wushu is just a sport and for exercise. I do not see the combative application or even philosophical application. Though a lot of Masters don't teach their skills openly, I was hoping that there would be some students of some of these masters, or someone with some sort of experience regarding more traditional Chinese martial arts to enlighten us as to how they trained. As in, you see a lot of these "crazy" things in the movies. Now I know they are just movies and all, but perhaps there's a very small element of truth in it? Their training is hard (in real life) I am sure, and the harshness of their training is exaggerated in films. So I was wondering what kind of things did they do? Do they really practice their horse stances while eating? If not, then what? So yeah, that kind of thing. I guess even if I couldn't get someone who has had first hand experience, perhaps some people could give their own hypothesis as to how they trained in the past.