Several terms for the Chinese martial arts became popular in China. Guoji (National Skill) has been used in the past, as have guoshu (National Art), zhongguoquan (China Fist), quanfa (the Way of the Fist), and quanshu (Fist Art). The term kung fu does not refer specifically to the martial arts. It is more a slang usage found in the United States and in some parts of southern China. Wushu (War Art) is perhaps the more proper term for Chinese martial arts. The term wushu has been officially adopted by the People’s Republic of China. The terms wushu and kung fu (in their reference to classical martial arts) are both generic terms encompassing all the different styles, weapons, routines and other aspects of the Chinese martial arts in general.

It must be noted that today there are hundreds of styles and sub-styles within the Chinese martial arts. The different styles often mold their techniques around a central theme, such as Taoist gods, animals, antics, etc. The styles of tanglang (Praying Mantis), baihe (White Crane) or yingzhao (Eagle Claw), for instance, model their techniques after the respective animal characteristics comprising their names.

In China today, the term wushu refers to a sport based on the movements of classical martial arts. It is the Western countries, Hong Kong and Taiwan that are keeping the traditional martial arts alive.

Over 2000 years ago, classical martial arts emerged to serve the needs of the war in China, and war was plentiful. The martial arts became a way of life for many, evolving into a highly structured institution.

Records of exercises known as “hit and thrust” were practiced as far back as the Shang dynasty (17th - 16th century B.C.), while the Western world birthed Stonehenge and the Trojan War. Individual and group exercises with weapons extended back as far as the Zhou dynasty (1066 - 256 B.C.), near the time Homer penned his Iliad and Odyssey. Bronze swords similar in shape and size to those seen today turned up in the “Spring and Autumn” as well as “Warring States” periods (722 - 211 B.C.), a time spanning the founding of Rome and the conquests of Alexander the Great.

The Qin dynasty (221 - 206 B.C.) saw a form of combat known as jiaoti introduced to the military as a major form of combat and athletic pursuit, while a combat form with bare hands called shoupo, and formal swordplay emerged during the Han and Jin periods (206 B.C. - 420 A.D.). 

In the Xui and Tang dynasties (581 - 907 A.D.), the sword was used as a theatrical prop when dancing. The upper classes began adopting the weapon as a symbolic emblem for the nobility. The poet Li Bai, for instance, excelled in the art of jianshu (the sword art) during the Tang period.
 
The Yuan dynasty (1279 - 1368 A.D.), arose as a result of Genghis Khan’s invasion from the north. The Khan unified scores of individual tribes which were routinely attacking the northern borders of China. He successfully pushed through the “Middle Kingdom’s” (China) defenses and set in motion the master plan for Chinese subjugation, later revived in a dynasty ruled by their close neighbors, the Manchus.
 
The Mongolian dynasty eventually faded near the early part of the 4th century with the ousting of its “foreign” (non-Han) rulers. A period of relative productivity and peace among the Chinese followed during the Ming dynasty. This was short lived. China was again overrun by “foreign” powers, this time from the northeastern borders.
 
The Manchurians pushed through China’s northern borders capturing the city of Beijing, which later became their capital. Here they constructed the walled-in city no Chinese could enter - the “Forbidden City.”
 
Much of the classical martial arts that the Western world has come to know is reminiscent of the styles and attitudes forged during the Manchurian rule. The Qing dynasty, the last great dynasty of China, produced scores of revolutionary sects formed to overthrow the government. Secret societies knitted themselves around classical martial artists. The most widespread grew in southern China. Canton, then known as the “City of Revolution,” became a focal point for this activity, partitioning it from any kind of potential affinity toward the Manchurian rule in the north.
 
Although the martial arts had been practiced by people of all levels of social classes, they were primarily practiced by the upper classes who had the time and money to pursue them. Slowly, however, the arts (or, at least, many styles comprising the arts), began losing their distinction as toys of the upper classes during this period. Political turmoil gave the lower classes the motivation they needed to organize for revolution. The year 1840 proved turbulent for China. The secret societies provided a continual thorn in the side of the existing government (still under Manchurian rule). The Bagua, Hong, White Feather and White Lotus sects represented only a few underground organizations centered around a martial art theme. Chief among the secret societies of this era was the Triad or Heaven, Earth and Man society, reputedly formed by the five Shaolin monks who survived the government-destroyed temple that was located in the Songshan mountains in Honan province. This partially preserved temple still exists today.
 
Though many secret societies were formed in China for political reasons, some were formed for a variety of other reasons. The Elder Brothers society, for example, based its organization upon a concept of friendship modeled after that of General Guan Ye and his two brothers (legendary figures in Chinese history). The Red Eyebrows came into existence around the beginning of the Christian era and were originally a body of rebels who painted their eyebrows red. The Boxers, who became highly visible during the anti-foreigner Boxer Rebellion around the turn of the century, practiced a strain of classical martial arts steeped in magic and witchcraft called Xiangong (The Power of the Gods). Though the Boxers gained a wide following during their war against foreign involvement in Chinese affairs, many participants in the revolution were convinced that the incantations they recited would render them impervious to their enemies’ bullets.
 
Religious sects felt the brunt of Qing dynasty’s wrath. In the 17th century, when the Manchus (a Mongolian race from Manchuria which conquered China in 1644) established their rule, the Chinese (specifically the Han people) were ordered to wear their hair in a pigtail as a sign of submission. Many scholars, artisans and martial arts masters turned their backs on this practice. To avoid wearing the pigtail, they withdrew from public life and entered monasteries such as Shaolin, where their heads were shaved. 
 
Adding to the growing internal strife, another threat loomed from outside as foreign powers moved to establish trade routes with China. The year 1840 marked the beginning of the Opium Wars, the first lasting a full two years, which ended with Great Britain forcibly opening China to foreign trade, granting territorial concessions and the rights of inland navigation, supporting missionary intervention and taking over the island of Hong Kong. Other foreign powers found China somewhat easier. The country was technologically backwards. 
 
Confucian cultural and political systems concentrated heavily upon education for the upper classes but viewed technology as gadgetry unworthy of the dignity of a scholar. The martial arts in some forms had developed into an accept-
able, quasi-scholarly pursuit as well as a method for personal defense. During this time the Chinese economy was collapsing, adding to the internal pressures. This culminated in the Taiping Rebellion of 1850.
 
The Taiping Rebellion was one of the more significant events in 19th century China. Social unrest brought into conflict the basic elements of traditional Chinese society: the Confucian way of life. Taiping “troupes” were schooled in the martial arts handed down from one family or another - or from the oral traditions surviving from the Shaolin temples. By 1864 the rebellion was squashed, however, with the enlisted help of the very foreign powers which caused much of the problem in the first place. Millions of people died during the battles that followed. Those members of the rebellion not killed in battle were marked for execution by the government. For many of these dissidents, the only alternative was to flee the country. 
 
Between 1848 and 1900 over 200,000 Chinese emigrated to America from Guangdong province. Some stayed in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the second largest community of Chinese outside Hong Kong and China today, while others joined the gold rush or worked their way east on the railroad. In San Francisco’s Chinatown the secret societies took root again. They became the infamous Tong Brothers. With these expatriate revolutionaries grew the first western vestiges of classical Chinese martial arts, forming a large part of the philosophical base of many of the secret societies.
 
During the mid-1800’s Chinese martial arts were cloaked in secrecy, as they had been in China. Outsiders knew nothing of them. Not until much later were they available for the non-Chinese. When the martial arts did come within grasping range of a non-Chinese, they were viewed as a mysterious, secretive, magical practice used strictly for fighting, because that was the image projected by the secret societies.