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Concept
Wudangquan
Summary
Wudangquan () is a class of Chinese martial arts. In contemporary China, Chinese martial arts styles are generally classified into two major groups: Wudang (Wutang), named after the Wudang Mountains; and Shaolin, named after the Shaolin Monastery. Whereas Shaolin includes many martial art styles, Wudangquan includes only a few arts that use the focused mind to control the body. This typically encompasses tai chi, xingyiquan and baguazhang, but must also include bajiquan and Wudang Sword. Although the name Wudang simply distinguishes the skills, theories and applications of the internal arts from those of the Shaolin styles, it misleadingly suggests these arts originated at the Wudang Mountains. The name Wudang comes from a popular Chinese legend that incorrectly purports the genesis of tai chi and Wudang Sword by an immortal, Taoist hermit named Zhang Sanfeng who lived in the monasteries of Wudang Mountain.
The term neijia and the distinction between internal and external martial arts first appears in Huang Zongxi's 1669 Epitaph for Wang Zhengnan.
Stanley Henning proposes that the Epitaphs identification of the internal martial arts with the Taoism indigenous to China and of the external martial arts with the foreign Buddhism of Shaolin—and the Manchu Qing dynasty to which Huang Zongxi was opposed—was an act of political defiance rather than one of technical classification.
In 1676 Huang Zongxi's son, Huang Baijia, who learned martial arts from Wang Zhengnan, compiled the earliest extant manual of internal martial arts, the Neijia quanfa.
In the late 1800s, Dong Haichuan began teaching baguazhang to a very select group of individuals. The highly-notable xingyiquan stylist Liu De Kuan was among those who learned this special art from Dong. Liu was a very friendly martial artist who had also learned tai chi from Yang Luchan. Liu's friendly nature and experience with the three "internal" martial arts created an easy forum for discussion and knowledge-sharing between practitioners of these arts.
Official source
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