Searching for the Essence of kung-fu
Since two or three centuries ago till now, wishing to master Kung-fu quite well has been a main objective for thousands of Kung-fu players in various Dynasties either consciously or not.
The consciousness and unconsciousness have been sent up by lots people due to the battles in courts and interest conflicts in ancient time. They were forced to fight for their lives and profits both in war and in peaceful time. In order to survive, they needed to possess some good marticial arts abilities in having Kung-fu. Their objective was the same to eliminate their enemies, and preserve their survival, livings and health. That was the reason why they had to pursue a good mastery of Kung -fu as well even unconsciously.
The so-called consciousness refers to the fact that those who had been indulging themselves in swaying spears, playing sticks and fighting in boxing and kicking. Through all these years, they had looked for tutors and tried very hard every single day, just in a hope to master Kung-fu. There have been several reasons behind one's Kung-fu practice. The first is to protect his homeland, second, to master a skill to make a better living and, the third, to be an influential person. The point is that mastering arms in the past had been so important like controlling great military power in recent years.
After the historical periods of Ming Dynasty and the Qing, the number of people wishing to establish their own schools of Kung-fu had been increasing dramatically. In the Chinese Kung-fu circle, there had been thus gradually forming a lot of various Quan schools. The emergence of different schools had presented something important for the most of the Kung-fu players to do with their hard-working in order to master Kung-fu devoted to improving their skills. It is also a representation of the group power, comity of sects and transferring links in the society then. Meanwhile, after Ming and Qing, the development and prosperity of society had helped abundant integration of the geographical culture and the anthropological one. Thus, the emergence of Quan
schools had gained recognition from the society.
Since Chinese Kung-fu has been developed continuiously till now for ages, there lies more than a thousand Quan schools. However, the principal disciples of Chinese Kung-fu have got a common objective, to search for its essence. For thousands of years, a lot of Kung-fu martial art masters and Kung-fu disciples have been boasting that their Kung-fu each must be certainly the best, the most genuine or the most original. This fact shows how agitated those Kung-fu players want to search for the essence of Kung-fu.
From its formation to its development on, Chinese traditional Kung-fu has got a history of thousands of years, within that long period, countless grand old men had concluded and accumulated many precious practical experiences by struggling under different circumstances. Those ancestors had gradually got to understand the possible strength and forces human beings possess in motion, acting or combating even if they were standing still; attacking and defending themselves with the understanding of the human body science. They had also got enough knowledge of self-defending consciousness with high level intelligence as well as the integral Kung-fu culture, tactics, strategies and ideas including some shaped scientific Kung-fu commonness of tremendous value, namely, the objective truth of men's Kung-fu practices. In other words, by adopting modem vocabulary, it is the alleged essence of Kung-fu.
From this issue and later on, the magazine of Chinese Traditional Kung-fu will insert the process of how the traditional Kung-fu principal disciples and masters searching for the essence of Kung-fu together with their descriptions and presentations. We expect any or all the Chinese principal disciples and enthusiasts to get to know the commonness of Chinese traditional Kung-fu and Kung-fu in reality. Through the column of Da Yi Jia (one big family, the coherence between different schools of Chinese Kung-fu), we will do it. By this platform, all of us will help each other to reach a better understanding, and at target to improve it hand in hand, to carry forward and develop the quintessence of the Chinese nation.
(Researching the essence of Chinese Kung-fu issued by all the Kung-fu principal disciples and enthusiasts over the world is appreciated.)
