A Chinese martial arts practitioner in northern China's Hebei province has written some 400 guide books in the past 30 years, offering instructions for both 'fist' and 'instrument' forms of the local martial arts styles.
Wang Changyou, a 53-year-old martial arts practitioner, lives in his birthplace of eastern Hebei's Cangzhou city, known as the "hometown of martial arts" in China. He began practicing martial arts at an early age and now is a member of the Chinese Martial Arts Association.
During his decades of practice, Wang discovered that the local martial arts were mostly taught through physical demonstrations and verbal instructions, but lacked formal guide books for reference.
"This is not a good thing for martial arts teaching," Wang said. "There is the chance that moves could be wrongly perceived by practitioners because of the accents of their teachers and the wrong moves will continue to be passed down from generation to generation."
Moreover, some local martial arts styles have had no pupils to inherit the craft in recent years, and Wang worries that some of the martial arts could dissappear someday. "There is an urgency to save them for future generations," he said.
Wang started a huge project in 1986: collecting, recording, and compiling skills and moves of various styles of Cangzhou-originated martial arts.
He used a brush pen to write down key points for each set of movements on rice paper, accompanied by elaborately drawn illustrations, and compiled the written materials into thread-bound books. He has now finished 400 guide books covering 12 representative styles of local martial arts.
"Cangzhou is rich in Chinese martial arts, which are parts of the spiritual and cultural treasures belonging to all Chinese," Wang said. "As a traditional practitioner, I am responsible for ensuring that Chinese martial arts are well preserved and passed down."
