The cosmopolitan martial artist

Martial arts are like languages: there are thousands of them, but most are only known to a few people. Depending on the definition of martial arts, some would say that every society in the world has developed a martial art, with the exception of a few peaceful, insular societies.

I’ve practiced martial arts from China, Japan, Italy, Germany, Brazil, and the Netherlands. Most of the groups with whom I’ve practiced have been insulated within their own particular community, without much regard for the martial arts outside of it. Sure, everyone knows about the gendai budo – Judo, Aikido, Karate, Kendo, etc – plus a few other notables like Taekwondo and whatever the latest fad in martial arts is. But the actual crossover between these communities is quite small.

I subscribe to the idea that the ideal martial artist is a cosmopolitan martial artist. A cosmopolitan person is a citizen of the world, one who is free from local attachments and prejudices. In the same vein, a cosmopolitan martial artist is educated about and respectful of martial arts from across the world. Too many martial artists are ignorant of martial arts outside of their teacher’s immediate influences. A Shotokan Karate practitioner may know about other Karate Ryu, but that’s not really being a citizen of the world. That’s like knowing the different neighborhoods in your home town.

 

Martial linguists

Like languages, there are too many martial arts to be knowledgeable about them all. But there is a difference between the study of a language and the study of linguistics. The study of a language is important if you want to communicate. The study of linguistics is important if you want to understand communication itself. A professional linguist is expected to study several different languages over the course of a career, while understanding important linguistic trends across languages. This is because linguistics can only exist through comparison. Scholars had to become curious, study multiple languages and share ideas with one another. Progress comes from cross-pollination of ideas between curious people.

The ideal martial artist has an understanding of both the “language” of an individual martial art, as well as the “linguistics” of martial arts across the world. If you look at multiple martial arts in comparison, you can start to develop hypotheses about why martial arts are the way that they are, outside of the confines of a specific style. These comparisons tend to highlight the following:

-Discoveries/inventions that occur independently in multiple places/times
-Common characteristics, or possibly even universal truths
-Distinct categories of martial arts

For example, if we want to know why the rapier master Girard Thibault instructed his students to grip a rapier in a peculiar way, we can look at other martial arts. First, we know that Thibault studied swordsmanship in Spain, so we can compare Thibault to his Spanish predecessors. The Spanish masters didn’t use that grip, so Thibault didn’t inherit it from them. However, there are certain German rapier traditions which use a similar grip. Thibault was Dutch, so it’s not unlikely that he was influenced by German swordsmanship while living in the Netherlands. It’s possible that Thibault’s system attempted to reconcile principles from two competing schools. With that relationship in mind, we could turn to the German schools to investigate other questions that seem inconsistent with Thibault’s Spanish background.

Girard Thibault advocated for an unusual rapier grip. We can try to understand it by comparing to other systems of swordsmanship. Image from Academie de l'Espée by Girard Thibault, 1630.

Why does it matter that we have this information? The more we know about why martial arts are the way that they are, the better we can make informed decisions about what to do and when to do it. The system will also be that much easier to teach. Of course, it’s hard to predict the utility of knowledge. You’ll never know whether knowledge is practical until you use it. I believe that I will be a better student of martial arts because I study the intellectual side of martial arts. But that’s incidental. I study martial arts because I want to know more about them. If practicality was my main concern, then I would only learn what I knew would be useful. If I only cared about being able to fight, then I might be perfectly happy with ignorance. This topic goes back to my earlier entry about martial arts for their own sake.

 

The ignorant devotee

Let’s take a somewhat more committed example than language.

Imagine a man studying to be a Catholic priest. He has devoted years of his life to his religion, but he knows nothing about other religions. He doesn’t care enough about other religions to spend any time understanding them. Maybe he knows about a few different sects of Christianity, probably the ones most similar to his own Catholicism. If I knew a man like that, I would wonder how he knows that Catholicism is the right religion for him. How would he know if he had never learned about other religions? Most people enter into the religion of their parents, which is arbitrary and based on chance. Likewise, a beginning martial artist will usually choose his first martial art quite arbitrarily. If I met a martial artist who had devoted years of his life to one martial art without learning about the alternatives, I would wonder the same thing.
 

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Martial arts aren’t just about being able to hit someone until they stop moving. They are about understanding the way that people fight, and the way that people improve themselves. By learning one system, a martial artist can find one answer. But there are many other answers to the same questions, and there is no way to understand the total range of answers from within the confines of a particular system. Martial artists need to understand martial arts in general terms. They need to know how their own art relates to others – what aspects are commonplace, and what makes it unique? They need to understand what concepts and principles are discovered independently across time and space, and how similar ideas can take on variations in different cultures. That is what it means to be a citizen of the world.

Chinese for martial artists: Understanding names

Note: This article contains many Chinese characters. If your computer can’t read Chinese characters, you will probably see empty squares or question marks instead. If you want to see the Chinese characters but can’t, refer to Wikipedia’s guide to installing East Asian language support.

In the world of martial arts, China is incredibly influential. Unfortunately, few martial artists have taken the time to learn anything about the Chinese language. A surprising number of misconceptions are due to simple ignorance of the language. I believe that every martial artist should be a cosmopolitan martial artist, knowledgeable about a wide range of arts from across the world. With that in mind, I’ve put together this primer on Chinese for martial artists. A little bit of knowledge about the Chinese language will go a long way to set a foundation for learning more about Chinese martial arts.

 Names matter. It’s very hard to learn about a subject without a name you can assign attributes to. Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion over the names of Chinese martial arts. This is very bad, because when naming systems are inconsistent, it can disrupt the way your mind stores information. Suppose I read a book about Xingyi. In my mind, I file that information under the “Xingyi” column. Then I see a video about Hsing-I, and I file that information under the “Hsing-I” column. But Xingyi and Hsing-I are exactly the same art, just written differently. If I didn’t understand that fact, I might even waste my time trying to find differences between Xingyi and Hsing-I.

With that in mind, there are three things that you need to know in order to understand the names of Chinese martial arts.
 

1. The Western world doesn’t know how to romanize Chinese

Chinese uses a non-Roman writing system. There is no alphabet, so any attempt to represent Chinese sounds with our alphabet is necessarily an approximation. For example, the characters 功夫 could be romanized as gong fu, kung fu, gung foo, and so on.

To avoid confusion, the Chinese government has adopted a standard Mandarin romanization system called Hanyu Pinyin, or “Pinyin” for short. Pinyin is a good system that is used almost universally by modern students of Mandarin, and is ubiquitous in mainland China.

However, the Western world doesn’t seem to realize that there is a standard system. Westerners continue to use older romanization systems such as the Wade-Giles system, and that’s when they use any system at all. That’s why Chinese names are so inconsistently written in the West; the writers don’t adhere to the standards.

 

2. Some martial arts use Mandarin, others use Cantonese

Dialects of China. Mandarin is in the overwhelming majority, while Cantonese is usually considered to be the 3rd or 4th most common.

Chinese is famously comprised of many dialects. Mandarin is the official dialect of China and by far the most useful. Both systems that I mentioned above – Hanyu Pinyin and Wade-Giles – are meant for Mandarin.

Cantonese is also important for martial artists. Cantonese is spoken primarily in southern China, especially Hong Kong and Macau. Most of us know about Cantonese because it is over-represented in the West, although it may only be the 3rd or 4th most commonly spoken dialect in China.

Because Cantonese is not the national language of any country, there is no standard way of romanizing it. Two common romanization systems are Yale and Jyutping, but there are several other systems in common use.

Cantonese is commonly used for southern Chinese martial arts such as Wing Chun and Hung Gar. However, any teacher is free to teach in whatever dialect he likes. It’s not uncommon to see the same martial art under a completely different name depending on the origins of the teacher.

3. Chinese characters can be simplified or traditional

Chinese characters are the clearest way to express a Chinese name. If you can read Chinese characters, it’s best not to translate or romanize them at all. But even then, there’s a problem. In the 1950s, the Chinese government simplified the writing system in an effort to increase public literacy. Since then, there have been two sets of Chinese characters: Simplified and traditional.

Mainland China and Singapore use simplified characters, while traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and many Chinese communities overseas. Both sets of characters are useful, depending on where you live or what you study.

Case Study: Tai Chi or Taiji?

“Tai Chi” is perhaps the best example of romanization problems. Let’s take a look at how this is supposed to be written:

Hanyu Pinyin: Taijiquan
Wade-Giles: T’ai Chi Ch’üan

The name “Tai Chi” seems to be a bastardization of the Wade-Giles form. In other words, someone saw the Wade-Giles version but didn’t understand the apostrophes or the umlaut. As a result, in the West you can see all kinds of variations: Taijiquan, Tai Chi Chuan, T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Taiji Chuan, T’aichi Quan, etc. Of course, if you speak Chinese, you just know it as 太极拳.

Some writers try to get around romanization by translating the name into English. This might work for simple names, like White Crane or Northern Praying Mantis, but Taijiquan does not translate well. “Taiji” is an ancient and complex metaphysical concept. “Quan” literally means “fist,” and signifies that it is a method of fighting. Some English translations of Taijiquan include: “Supreme Ultimate Boxing,” “Fist of the Great Ultimate,” “Supreme Pole fist,” etc. These are essentially meaningless translations, so the name is best left untranslated.

If you can’t translate the name and Chinese characters aren’t an option, then you had better pick a romanization system and stick with it.

 

Bring on the names

What follows is a table of names for a variety of Chinese martial arts. Each name is written in English, romanized in Mandarin and Cantonese, and both simplified and traditional characters. It is meant as an extended list of examples, not anything like an exhaustive list of Chinese martial arts. Names are sorted alphabetically by their common names, which are frequently inaccurate. When there are multiple entries in succession in a single cell, that means that there are multiple valid options.

If you’d like to know more about the information in this table, please refer to the FAQ at the bottom of the page.

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	Bagua Zhang	Baji Quan	Black Tiger
English	Eight Trigram Palm	Eight Extremes Fist	Black Tiger Fist
Mandarin (Pinyin)	bā guà zhǎng	bā jí quán	hēi hǔ quán
Mandarin (Wade-Giles)	pa1 kua4 chang3	pa1 chi2 ch’üan2	hei1 hu3 ch’üan2
Cantonese (Yale)	baat3 gwa3 jeung2	baat3 gik6 kyun4	haak1 fu2 kyun4 hak1 fu2 kyun4
Cantonese (Jyutping)	baat3 gwaa3 zoeng2	baat3 gik6 kyun4	haak1 fu2 kyun4 hak1 fu2 kyun4
Traditional Characters	八卦掌	八極拳	黑虎拳
Simplified Characters	See traditional	八极拳	See traditional
	Choy Li Fut	Drunken Boxing	Eagle Claw
English	No translation	Drunken Fist	Eagle Claw Fist
Mandarin (Pinyin)	cài lǐ fó	zuì quán	yīng zhuǎ quán yīng zhǎ quán
Mandarin (Wade-Giles)	ts’ai4 li3 fo2	tsui4 ch’üan2	ying1 chua3 ch’üan2 ying1 chao3 ch’üan2
Cantonese (Yale)	choi3 lei5 bat6 choi3 lei5 fat1 choi3 lei5 fat6	jeui3 kyun4	ying1 jaau2 kyun4 ying1 jaau2 kyun4
Cantonese (Jyutping)	coi3 lei5 bat6 coi3 lei5 fat1 coi3 lei5 fat6	zeoi3 kyun4	jing1 zaau2 kyun4 jing1 zaau2 kyun4
Traditional Characters	蔡李彿	醉拳	鷹爪拳
Simplified Characters	蔡李佛	See traditional	鹰爪拳
	Hung Gar	Jeet Kune Do	Liu He Ba Fa
English	Hung Family Fist	Way of the Intercepting Fist	Six Harmonies, Eight Methods
Mandarin (Pinyin)	hóng jiā quán	jié quán dào	liù hé bā fǎ
Mandarin (Wade-Giles)	hung2 chia1 ch’üan2	chieh2 ch’üan2 tao4	liu4 he2 pa1 fa3
Cantonese (Yale)	hung4 ga1 kyun4 hung4 gu1 kyun4	jit6 kyun4 dou3 jit6 kyun4 dou6	luk6 gap3 baat3 faat3 luk6 hap6 baat3 faat3
Cantonese (Jyutping)	hung4 gaa1 kyun4 hung4 gu1 kyun4	zit6 kyun4 dou3 zit6 kyun4 dou6	luk6 gap3 baat3 faat3 luk6 hap6 baat3 faat3
Traditional Characters	洪家拳	截拳道	六合八法
Simplified Characters	See traditional	See traditional	See traditional
	Long Fist	Monkey Boxing	Plum Blossom Fist
English	Long Fist	Monkey Fist	Plum Blossom Fist
Mandarin (Pinyin)	cháng quán	hóu quán	méi huā quán
Mandarin (Wade-Giles)	ch’ang2 ch’üan2	hou2 ch’üan2	mei2 hua1 ch’üan2
Cantonese (Yale)	cheung4 kyun4 jeung2 kyun4	hau4 kyun4	mui4 fa1 kyun4
Cantonese (Jyutping)	coeng4 kyun4 zoeng2 kyun4	hau4 kyun4	mi4 faa1 kyun4
Traditional Characters	長拳	猴拳	梅花拳
Simplified Characters	长拳	See traditional	See traditional
	Praying Mantis	Shaolin Boxing	Shuai Jiao
English	Praying Mantis Fist	Shaolin Fist	Wrestling
Mandarin (Pinyin)	táng láng quán	shào lín quán	shuāi jiāo
Mandarin (Wade-Giles)	tang2 lang2 ch’üan2	shao4 lin2 ch’üan2	shuai1 chiao1
Cantonese (Yale)	tong4 long4 kyun4 tong4 leung4 kyun4	siu2 lam4 kyun4 siu3 lam4 kyun4	seui1 gaau1 seut1 gaau1
Cantonese (Jyutping)	tong4 long4 kyun4 tong4 loeng4 kyun4	siu2 lam4 kyun4 siu3 lam4 kyun4	seoi1 gaau1 seot1 gaau1
Traditional Characters	螳螂拳 螳蜋拳	少林拳	摔跤
Simplified Characters	See traditional	See traditional	See traditional
	Southern Fist	Tai Chi	Tiger Claw
English	Southern Fist	Taiji Fist	Tiger Claw Fist
Mandarin (Pinyin)	nán quán	tài jí quán	hǔ zhuǎ quán hǔ zhǎo quán
Mandarin (Wade-Giles)	nan2 ch’üan2	t’ai4 chi2 ch’üan2	hu3 chua3 ch’üan2 hu3 chao3 ch’üan2
Cantonese (Yale)	naam4 kyun4	taai3 gik6 kyun4	fu2 jaau2 kyun4 fu2 jaau2 kyun4
Cantonese (Jyutping)	naam4 kyun4	taai3 gik6 kyun4	fu2 zaau2 kyun4 fu2 zaau2 kyun4
Traditional Characters	南拳	太極拳	虎爪拳
Simplified Characters	See traditional	太极拳	See traditional
	White Crane	White Eyebrow	Wing Chun
English	White Crane Fist	White Eyebrow Fist	Singing Spring Fist Eternal Spring Fist
Mandarin (Pinyin)	bái hè quán	bái méi quán	yǒng chūn quán
Mandarin (Wade-Giles)	pai2 he4 ch’üan2	pai2 mei2 ch’üan2	yung3 ch’un1 ch’üan2
Cantonese (Yale)	baak6 hok6 kyun4	baak6 mei4 kyun4	wing6 cheun1 kyun4 wing5 cheun1 kyun4
Cantonese (Jyutping)	baak6 hok6 kyun4	baak6 mei4 kyun4	wing6 ceon1 kyun4 wing5 ceon1 kyun4
Traditional Characters	白鶴拳	白眉拳	詠春拳 永春拳
Simplified Characters	白鹤拳	See traditional	咏春拳 永春拳
	Xingyi	Xin Yi	Yi Quan
English	Form-Intent Fist Form-Will Fist	Intention Fist	Intention Fist
Mandarin (Pinyin)	xíng yì quán	xīn yì quán	yì quán
Mandarin (Wade-Giles)	hsing2 i4 ch’üan2	hsin1 i4 ch’üan2	i4 ch’üan2
Cantonese (Yale)	ying4 yi3 kyun4	sam1 yi3 kyun4	yi3 kyun4
Cantonese (Jyutping)	jing4 ji3 kyun4	sam1 ji3 kyun4	ji3 kyun4
Traditional Characters	形意拳	心意拳	意拳
Simplified Characters	See traditional	See traditional	See traditional

Frequently Asked Questions

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What do all of those numbers and lines mean?

They tell you the tone of each syllable. Both Mandarin and Cantonese are tonal, which means that the tone of a syllable affects its meaning. Mandarin has four tones – or five, if you count “neutral.” Cantonese essentially has six tones, but it’s a little more complicated. In Pinyin, tones are expressed with little lines above certain vowels. In the other romanization systems above, tones are expressed with numbers.

If you’re only interesting in reading small amounts of Chinese in the West, tones may not matter to you. Most of the time, Chinese is not romanized with tones.
 

What does Quan/Ch’üan mean?

The word Quán (拳) is the most common suffix in Chinese martial arts names. It literally means “fist,” but it’s often translated as “boxing.” In reality, it means something like “way of fighting” or “martial art.” So to fully translate the name of White Crane(bái hè quán), you would actually end up with “White Crane Martial Art.” This translation is redundant, although it’s more accurate than “White Crane Fist” or “White Crane Boxing.”

I don’t think that we should translate the word Quán. “Fist” is a literal translation, but doesn’t really make sense. “Boxing” is antiquated and inaccurate, chosen by translators who were under the false assumption that Chinese martial arts are analogous to Western boxing. If you want to preserve this part of the name, just say it in Chinese instead of English.
 

Are there other ways to romanize Chinese? Why did you pick these four romanization systems?

Of course, there are all sorts of romanization systems, but I picked the four that seemed most widespread. For Mandarin, this is an easy decision: Pinyin is standard in China, while Wade-Giles still clings on in the West. Cantonese isn’t nearly so standardized, but Yale and Jyutping are both relatively well-known systems.
 

What about dialects other than Mandarin or Cantonese?

There are many dialects of Chinese other than Mandarin and Cantonese, some of which are more widely spoken than Cantonese. But Mandarin is by far the most common, and Cantonese is disproportionately well-represented among martial artists in the Western world. Most names of Chinese martial arts that you can encounter in the West can be traced to one of these two dialects.
 

How do I find the equivalent pronunciation in Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese?

First, copy the traditional Chinese characters for the name you are interested in. Then paste the characters into an appropriate online dictionary. It’s important that you find a dictionary that is dedicated to that particular language, not an all-in-one dictionary like Google Translate. You’re not just looking for the English equivalent, you’re looking for how it is romanized.

Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese all have multiple writing systems, so you may be required to use a specific search field for Chinese characters. Each of the following terms refers to Chinese characters:

Japanese: Kanji
Korean: Hanja
Vietnamese: Hán tự

 

Why did you choose these particular martial arts?

Chinese martial arts can be grouped together or divided infinitely. I’ve seen “exhaustive” lists and came away no better for it. With that in mind, I couldn’t include them all.

I tried to include as many well-known arts as possible, but without too much redundancy. For example, I added Praying Mantis, but not Southern Praying Mantis, Seven Star Praying Mantis or Plum Blossom Praying Mantis. For the purposes of understanding names, I don’t think it’s necessary to include the latter three.

That said, it’s not hard to add more to the list. If there’s a name that you’re curious about, drop me a line in the comments section.
 

What about martial arts with variations of the names posted above? (e.g. Bagua Quan vs. Bagua Zhang)

This is common. In some cases, it’s the same martial art(or similar) under a different name, but there is no general rule. It may be helpful to know that Chinese martial arts tend to reuse a lot of the same words over and over. A lot of the time, the following words show up as suffixes:

English	Sect Faction	Family	Gate	Method
Mandarin (Pinyin)	pài	jiā	mén	fǎ
Mandarin (Wade-Giles)	p’ai4	ch’ia1	men2	fa3
Cantonese (Yale)	paai1 paai3	ga1 gu1	men4	faat3
Cantonese (Jyutping)	paai1 paai3	gaa1 gu1	men4	faat3
Traditional Characters	派	家	门	法
Simplified Characters	See traditional	See traditional	門	See traditional

 

Why didn’t you include Wushu/Gongfu/Guoshu/Quan Fa/etc?

These are generic Chinese terms and not the names of specific martial arts.
 

Why isn’t there an English translation for X?

It’s not useful to translate every name. For example, Shaolin is just the name of a temple. It doesn’t clarify the issue any further by explaining what Shao and Lin mean. Choy Li Fut is another example of an art which is almost impossible to translate. The first two characters are family surnames, while the last character refers to Buddha. It has been said that Choy Li Fut was a synthesis of three preexisting systems, and that each character refers to one of its predecessors. The name is therefore meaningful in Chinese, but gibberish if translated literally.

Some names contain references to complex philosophical concepts, like Taiji or Bagua. Bagua can be translated literally(Eight Trigrams), but that doesn’t express the meaning behind the concept. Taiji is even more complex, and it’s pointless to translate it.

 

Where do you get your translations?

I use the dictionaries at mdbg.net and nciku.com, although some translations are my own.
 
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post in the comments section below.

Zweihander syndrome

In martial arts, we have to deal with a lot of foreign languages. As such, there is a lot of confusion about what foreign terms actually mean. There is a common problem which I like to call “Zweihander syndrome.” Zweihander syndrome is a phenomenon where people take a generic word from a foreign language and turn it into a specific term.

The modern idea of a zweihander is quite specific. But in reality, the term refers to any two-handed sword.

The namesake for this phenomenon is the zweihander, a type of German great sword with a distinctive appearance which was famously used by the Landsknecht. It is known for having a smaller, secondary handguard in front of the ricasso, and for sometimes having a flammard blade. But the word “zweihander” doesn’t mean any of that. It just means “two-hander” in German. When the word zweihander was imported into English, it turned from a generic term into a specific term.

 

This is more common than you might think. Here are a few common examples of Zweihander syndrome:

 

Gong fu(kung fu)

English meaning: “Chinese martial arts”

Mandarin meaning: “Martial art” or a certain skill/achievement

In everyday use, gong fu is a generic term for any martial art, Chinese or otherwise. Technically, gong fu refers to skill, so even a non-martial artists can “have” gong fu if they’re good at what they do.

 

Kenjutsu

English meaning: “Japanese swordsmanship”

Japanese meaning: “Swordsmanship”

Many people mistakenly believe that “kenjutsu” is a specific style of swordsmanship. There are actually countless kenjutsu schools, many of which have almost no relation to one another. The only thing that this word tells us is that the school of swordsmanship is Japanese. This applies to almost any arts whose names end in “-jutsu.”

 

Jian

English meaning: “Chinese straight sword”

Mandarin meaning: “Sword” or “straight sword”

Mandarin is unlike English in that it divides all swords into two categories: “Jian” and “dao.” The latter refers to a curved swords and other blades, and it literally means “knife.” So because both of these are words for sword, a better translation might be “straight sword.”

 

Destreza

English meaning: “Spanish swordsmanship”

Spanish meaning: “Skill” or “art”

A number of masters of the Spanish school of swordsmanship referred to their system as “La Verdadera Destreza,” meaning “The True Art” or “The True Skill.” Nowadays, Western martial artists use the word “Destreza” as shorthand to refer to the Spanish school.

Systema

English meaning: Refers to a specific Russian martial art

Russian meaning: “System”

Just like “Destreza,” this was a purely descriptive term that became specific when it was imported into English.

 

These words can even be imported into multiple languages. For example, the martial art Kenpo/Kempo is a transliteration of the Chinese word quanfa, meaning “fist method” or possibly “fist law.” In Chinese, this is a generic title for martial arts. In Japanese, this means “Chinese martial arts” in general, and in English, it refers to a specific Japanese martial art. Each  time the word was imported into a new language, the name became more specific.

There are examples of zweihander syndrome in nearly every language. The English language imports foreign words all the time. When we use those foreign words, they take on an added level of specificity because we know that they refer to a certain country. So a two-handed sword becomes a German two-handed sword, and swordsmanship becomes Japanese swordsmanship. This may be specific enough For those of us who are unfamiliar with the nuances of martial arts. But understanding names is the first step toward understanding those nuances.