What would sport be without its major stars, whose contests instantly enthrall onlookers? – Lu Yan is a star of this kind. Today 43, she has practiced the Chinese martial art of Wushu all her life. The foundation for her success was laid during her early years. In 1972 great masters of Wushu selected the young girl, then in her second year at intermediate school, to train with them – as an exception, for only a few school pupils from more senior classes were normally admitted. Just a year later, Lu Yan was already travelling with a delegation of Chinese Wushu athletes to Mexico and the USA. She presented this expressive branch of martial art to the President of the USA at the White House, among others.
Discipline in all weathers
Back in China, the highly regarded Peking Wushu team took on the young sportswoman. Her training very soon extended to six hours per day. Sports halls were rare in the China of the 1970s and so the young talents were compelled to train in the open air. In Peking that meant perseverance and stamina, at 40°C in the summer and -10°C in winter. For ten years, Lu Yan triumphed in one contest after another. The recipe for surviving such a strain on the body? Strength and stubbornness, believes Lu Yan. “If I do something, I do it well, not allowing myself to be distracted by trivialities.”
Years of hard training and her own efforts made Lu Yan the well rounded martial artist that she is today.© luyanwushu.com
Depth and happiness through Wushu
After brief sojourns abroad, today Lu Yan again lives and works in Peking. Now as before, martial sport is her life. She cannot escape Wushu, she herself says. After her successful career as an athlete that brought her five national championships and over forty medals, therefore, she remains fixated on Wushu. She herself meanwhile trains up-and-coming stars in Asia and the rest of the world. Not infrequently, her pupils themselves are winning championships and world titles.
Lu Yan believes that Wushu can offer mental and physical strength. The different styles of Wushu make the sport accessible to people of all ages and degrees of physical ability. The goals are overall mobility, stamina, invigoration and strength of aesthetic expression. Anybody who starts at an early age, however, will achieve more later on. The optimal age for entry is eight or nine years. Those wishing to go far, moreover, will need to train for several hours daily. That still applies today. “Time is essential,” emphasizes Lu Yan. Anybody who can offer this is welcome to take a training course with the successful sportswoman. And she will convey to the student that “Wushu has depth and makes you happy”. She herself is the finest example of this.
Wushu – Tradition in the present
Lu Yan toured America with the Chinese Wushu Delegation in 1974.© luyanwushu.com
“Wushu” comes from the Chinese and means “Martial art”. The term covers almost all the forms of Chinese martial arts. Wushu aims to create harmony between body and spirit. Furthermore, Wushu develops the character; it is said to strengthen willpower, for instance, and stimulate motivation. Some martial arts require weapons such as a sword, a stick or a fan. Others imitate the movements of dragons, tigers and cranes.
Several hundred traditional and modern styles of martial art are known in China. Northern and southern style trends are known, as well as external and internal ones. In Northern China, long, flowing movements and rapid runs are normal. In the South, fighters tend to use short explosive movements. External styles set great store on dexterity, strength and speed, internal ones call for intense awareness of the body and foster meditative relaxation.
Wushu has a history going back over more than 3000 years and was first given clear structures through the influence of the Indian monk Damo, also known as Bodhidarma. Legend has it that Damo came to China in about 520 AD aiming to spread the teachings of Buddha. Later the founder of Japanese Zen Buddhism, he made Shaolin Monastery in Northern China his base. Apart from daily meditation, there Damo taught his pupils the science of health and also self-defense. The techniques of self-defense later developed into what is known as the Shaolin martial art, the five principles of which became the foundation of all Chinese martial arts: gradual increase of the load, peace and relaxation, taking food and alcohol in moderation, observance of rituals, as well as lifelong training.
Down the centuries, Wushu masters and disciples would at some times achieve the utmost respect and numerous titles, while at others, Wushu would be forbidden and only practiced in secret. Today this martial sport has for long been an important element of Chinese culture and is meanwhile also practiced in the West. Since 1990 the International Wushu Federation (IWUF) has guaranteed standardized forms of competition and world championships every other year. Only its efforts to achieve Olympic status have failed. Although the 2008 Olympic Games are being held in Peking, the Olympic Committee rejected Wushu as a category for competition.