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Chinese Styles
According to numerous legends, martial arts seems to have
his origins in South East Asia or India. Siddartha Gautama
was a prince in northern India around 560 BCE. Being
a prince, he was never allowed to leave the palace grounds.
Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he looked outside
one  day
only to see many of his subjects suffering in poverty. Not
understanding why people had to suffer, he set out on a quest
to the forest to search for truth. He searched for 14 years,
virtually alone in the jungles of India. One day while sitting
under a bodhi tree he became enlightened and afterwards traveled
all over Asia in order to teach others this path towards enlightenment.
He became known as the Buddha.
One of his disciples, Bohdidarma, later traveled to China
to enlighten people there. With the amount of traveling and
different people he encountered he realized that his body
and those of his disciples were not strong enough to endure
their journey to bring enlightenment to others. He developed
repetitive exercises that would strengthen the body, which
he taught his disciples.
The Bohdidarma
These training methods were later adopted by the monasteries
of the Shaolin Temples in China, where the techniques were
refined by succeeding Shaolin masters to become the powerful
and graceful Shaolin Temple boxing. Over many years of refinement,
the Chinese developed the martial arts into Kempo and Shaolin
Kung-fu. Martial arts eventually moved to Okinawa through
traders from the Fukien Province of China , and was developed
into a martial art known as Okinawa-te. Okinawa-Te was not
the only form of martial arts being developed in Japan at
the time(judo, kendo, bo etc), however they all seem to have
originated from Zen Buddhism (the Japanese adaptation of Buddhism).
In the 8th century, what became today's Sumo, was an art which
had techniques attributed now to Judo and karate. Martial
Arts really blossomed around the time when the Buddhist priests
began to train to reach "illumination". Around the
7th or 8th century, these Buddhists brought back to Japan
techniques studied in China whilst there were staying at Sui
and Tang courts. Martial Arts was practiced for most part
by those in Zen Buddhist temples and remained secret for many
years
Tai Chi comes out of two important philosophical texts in
China, the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching. Tai Chi Chuan translates
as "Supreme Ultimate Force" in English. Tai Chi
(Supreme Ultimate) is connected with the concept of yin and
yang, or the notion of the nature of duality in all things.
What this means is that in every being there is a combination
of male/female/, light/dark/active/passive, etc. Chuan, or
force, is thought of as the way of harmonizing and achieving
the ultimate balance of yin and yang. 'Chi' literally means
"breath," as does the ancient Greek word which means
"spirit." The ultimate effect of this harmony, according
to Taoism and Tai Chi, is one's physical and spiritual well-being.
 Tai
Chi Chuan
Tai Chi can be thought of as meditation
in motion. It combines aspects of movement, breathing, and
contemplation in it's exercises. The exercises in Tai Chi,
or 'sets' consist of a sequence of movements in different
directions and stances, and combine both fast and slow movements.
While Tai Chi's roots are in Chinese martial arts, the focus
of Tai Chi would not be considered martial, but rather as
a meditative form of exercise for the body. One of the goals
of Tai Chi is to promote the circulation of 'chi' within the
body. 'Chi' is the energy in our bodies that gives us vitality
and gives our bodies and spirits strength. The meditative
aspect of Tai Chi helps foster a peaceful mind through focusing
on executing the forms with precision. As with most forms
of martial arts exercises, such as karate's kata, or Tae Kwon
do's forms, Tai Chi's exercises help develop balance, control,
a solid foundation, and a greater body mind awareness. Forms
also help develop memory and pattern recognition. Some Tai
Chi practitioners engage in a competitive form of Tai Chi
called "Push Hands". In this application the two
competitors engage hands and engage in a slow form of combat
where each person tries to sense their opponent's ' chi'
and are able to channel 'destructive' energy away from themselves,
and try to push their opponent off balance and disrupt their
'chi'. Tai chi emphasizes redirecting attacks (kicks and punches)
away from one's self in a direction which is no longer dangerous.Tracing
the history of Tai Chi is very difficult because it is hard
to distinguish fact from legend. With some certainty, however,
we can trace Tai Chi's roots to about 4000 years ago to the
practice of Yoga in ancient India. The martial art that traveled
to China evolved and became known as Shaolin Chuan, or Shaolin
boxing. In the 13th century, approximately 2700 years ago,
a Chinese monk named Chang Sang Feng developed what later
became known as Tai Chi. The different forms of Tai Chi are
associated with different families in China. The Chen family
developed the first tai chi style that all others were developed
from. A man named Yang studied the Chen style of Tai Chi and
later made modifications. His style became known as the Yang
style of Tai Chi, and is currently the most common form of
Tai Chi practiced today.
Kung
Fu
 The
current information that we have about Kung Fu indicates
that the Shaolin priesthood dates back to the arrival
of the Bohdidarma in China about 2400 years ago, to
540 A.D. Buddhism had just been introduced to China
and it's doctrine was beginning to spread amongst
the upper echelons of society and the nobility.
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