WUSHU

wǔ shù(武术) is directly translated as martial art, wushu is a sport form of chinese martial arts, emphasizing both aspects of forms exhibition (taolu; 套路) and contact sparring (sanda/sanshou/leitai; 散打) pity that modern wushu forms emphasizes performance and disregard much of its martial aspects. Nevertheless, wushu is a very popular form of sport, highly promoted by the Chinese government and was pushed to be one of a major exhibition and sport event in the Olympic and mainly in the 2008 Beijing Olympic. Despite this, it was not accepted and resulted in the Beijing 2008 Wushu Tournament being held during the Olympic.





Through the years, countless of extraordinary wushu athletes has emerged, mastering this fast, graceful, highly-demanding sport and taking it into varying levels.
Some of most notable wushu athletes of the past and present includes:

Zhao Changjun
Zhang Cheng Zhong
Yang Shi Wen
Jet Li - turned actor
Wu Jing


Wushu has become highly popular across the world, practiced by people of various race, men and women, young and old. There is just no limit of where one can take wushu, international levels are highly competitive, bringing athletes together, people from all over the world and minds alike, striving to achieve one common goal, to practice the art of wushu.


I will include here, wushu beginning from its basics - movements, stretchings, forms, starting from basics and make a progress towards improvements and upskilling as the postings updates.

There are numerous sites that offers online instructions in descriptive step-by-step of wushu methods in forms of writing, pictures, diagrams, videos, flash and others. I will try to incorporate as many here......taking references from reputable sources and select the best to be compiled and viewed here

Wushu Basics

The key to good wushu is basics. Mastering basic movements and skills will enhance one's level further and further. Everything comes with practice and a constant one, along with progress. Smart training compared to hard training is important, although training hard is important, it is much more important to train hard while being smart. That means, train what really needs to be trained. To improve a jump kick, you can jump kick as much as you can until you get the technique right, but it is much better to train and improve step-by-step; improve your stretching, basic kicks and jumps. combining each one of these techniques will improve any techniques and movements.

Stances
Stance is fundamental in any martial arts (and even dance). Not only it emphasise performance but also direct movements to flow from one to another, composing attacks, feints, avoding/ dodging, power and creating solid and grounded movements in martial art. The most widely used and fundamental stances includes:



Horse Stance
Bow-arrow stance
Cat stance (also known as empty stance)
Flat stance (also known as low stance)
Rest Stance
One leg stance

Horse Stance
1. Open and turn both toes outwards
2. Turn heels outwards
3. Turn toes outwards again
4. Turn heels outwards once again
5. Align each feet to 45 degress outwards
6. Sink into stance, bending on the knee
7. Back straight
8. Backside tucked in
9. Head facing forward, eyes look forward
10. Hand can be by the sides as fists, or extended straight outwards in front with the index and thumb pointing upwards
11. Weight is distributed eaqually on both legs
12. Focus on energy and chi from the dan tien (solar plexus) to the leg and feet. Arms and hands

Bow-Arrow Stance
1. shift to the right or left from the horse stance
2. as if going for a lunge, but keep back leg straight and in somewhat a 45 degree angle, sinking into the stance
3. Body faced forward, shoulders aligned to the front
4. Weight should be more on the front leg and less on the back. Leaning and sinking on the front leg

Cat-stance
1. From bow-arrow stance, shift the back foot to support all the weight distribution on the back leg
2. Lean backward as if sitting while weight is supported by the back leg
3. Front leg is pulled in, towards the back leg and toe pointed and touching the ground
4. All weight should be on the back leg
5. This is to avoid sweeps to the front leg

Low Stance
1. Spread leg and feet apart
2. lean towards the right or left stretching the opposite leg to the side
3. Keep body straight and upward as possible
4. There should be more weight on the leg that is leaned into

Rest Stance
1. Stand with leg and feet aligned
2. Twist body to the left without shifting position of leg and feet
3. As the leg crosses each other, bend on the knees as is squatting - but this will cross your legs, left on top and as it crosses over the right on the bottom
4. This is a rest stance as you will be 'kneeling' on one knee on the floor
5. Hands can be either by the side as fists or a straight punch or any other hand positions


One Leg Stance
1. Stand on one leg
2. All weight on the one leg



Increase time of remaining in the horse, bow-arrow and cat stance, slowly getting lower and longer. The shaolin monks have gone through extreme trainings which requires them to hold within a horse stance for two hours.



These stances are fundamentals, used in empty handed forms, weapon forms, Tai Chi Quan forms, Bagua Chang forms and widely used in other martial arts.


References:

Wikipedia, (2009.Wushu(sport) Retrieved from. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wushu_(sport)

ChinaDaily, (2009). Wushu to be held during Beijing Olympic. Retrieved from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-08/05/content_6906212.htm