The dancers danced while blowing. Which minority dance is this in China?

China Wushu, whether it is the orthodoxy of Shaolin or Wudang, or some other schools, in historical facts and legends, their protagonists are mostly the Han nationality, or rather the ancient Chinese nation. While China is a vast country, do 55 ethnic minorities have a place in China Wushu family? The answer is yes.

Miao nationality: The ancestor Chiyou, with two horns, came into contact with Miao compatriots. You will often hear them mention "Meng Chiyou", which is a famous human-god in the ancient history of China. They think Chiyou is their ancestor.

Chiyou fought against the Yellow Emperor, who was one of the ancestors of the Chinese nation, and Chiyou was a different nation at that time. Chiyou was defeated and died, so later Miao ancestors moved south from the Yellow River basin, resulting in important festivals such as stepping on Huashan Mountain.

Statue of Chiyou

When people talk about this history, they often ignore some details. These details are interesting today. According to the extremely incomplete ancient history book Shi Ben, Chi You, who fought against the Yellow Emperor, was also a martial artist and inventor. He invented five kinds of weapons: Ge, Guan, Ji, Chief Spear and Yi Spear. These five weapons should be very lethal at that time, and later they were carried forward and became important war weapons in the era of cold weapons. We should affirm that war and the use of various skills and weapons on the battlefield are fertile ground for the birth of Wushu. Therefore, Chiyou's contribution to Wushu is definitely not small.

In the academic research of Song people, Chiyou was also described as a master of wrestling. It is said that he has horns on his head, and he used them to reach people when he was fighting the Yellow Emperor. There was a similar story in the Song Dynasty, saying that Chiyou had 72 brothers, all of whom had bronze heads and iron foreheads. This kind of writing description is consistent with the ancient portrait of Chiyou, in which human Chiyou has a beast on his head, a sword in one hand and two horns on his head.

Shiben is probably a book of the Warring States Period, which is about 1500 years from the Song Dynasty. From the Warring States Period to the Song Dynasty, there were both continuity and changes in the view of Chiyou. What has changed is that Chiyou's image is richer but more mysterious, and he is no longer a normal human being. But Chiyou's force value is also rising, and he has become a superman.

Say history, say reality. Can Miao people still have martial arts today?

If you throw this question to the master who plays Lusheng, his answer may be: "Yes, our Lusheng dance is also our martial arts." I saw their Lusheng dance in Miao village where Qujing lived in Nanpanjiang River valley, which confirmed this answer. Some difficult movements of Lusheng dance are simply acrobatic performances. For example, when playing Lusheng, people have to lie on the ground and roll around, doing some violent movements, and the tune of Lusheng can't be broken. In addition, when they pass the Lusheng from one hand to the other, there will be various fancy movements, and the difficulty seems to be not small.

Miao Lusheng Dance

Lusheng of Miao nationality is said to have 360 tones and has social functions. Usually one person plays after another-there is no ensemble. There are all kinds of meaningful actions when playing. When doing these actions, you need to show respect to your predecessors. You are polite and restrained, but sometimes you show off your skills. Up to now, the movements of Lusheng dance have been very complicated. A strong young man can dance for three to five minutes at most when playing.

Some people may think that this Miao dance is not a martial art because it has no "actual combat" function. Indeed, compared with the weapons confrontation and unarmed wrestling (wrestling) used in the battlefield in the Chiyou era, these modern movements which combine music, dance and social functions are not martial arts. The problem is that since China Wushu left the battlefield and related professions (such as catching fast and escorting) and entered the public's field of vision, even after artistic performance, it is more of a performance and ritual function, and its social and cultural functions are far greater than the actual functions. Of course, the battlefield is a real knife and a real gun, but street performers and juggling on the stage are visual and social products, which are really far from the actual combat ability that everyone pays special attention to today. In this sense, Lusheng dance in Miao villages can be regarded as a martial art.

The composition of Wushu in Miao culture is not limited to Lusheng. Many places have shown the spirit of martial arts. In their folk songs, there is a very sad paragraph describing what will happen to men and women brought about by the war; At their funeral, they will walk around the house where the deceased is parked to show their patrol; When stepping on Huashan Mountain, the link of the tree flower pole has the origin of fighting.

Yi people: sword dance used to be a weapon. The Yi people in Weishan have a team. Every year, on festivals like February 8th and Torch Festival, they get together to play sword, dance and sing.

The knives used in their broadsword dance are very similar to those used by Guan Yunchang in the TV series Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but they are not that long, and the wooden handle is less than 2 meters.

Yi broadsword dance

When dancing broadsword, some villages (such as Xiaosan Village) that have been inherited from broadsword dance fight with two identical broadsword, which is quite dangerous. There are two knives to cut, pierce upward, turn around, split straight forward, block and so on.

There are 80 sets of these movements, which are the only inheritance at present. I talked to people who are best at this kind of dance, and they said that there used to be more than 80 kinds of dances, but now they can only dance 80 kinds. These 80 sets are called "knife methods" and are divided into many different categories such as "broadsword", "knife" and "plum blossom knife".

According to legend, broadsword was once their weapon. In a certain war, due to the shortage of troops, the clever general made an empty plan to let a limited number of soldiers play with knives around a field. When fighting, the momentum was deafening, rolling up the loess and scaring off the enemy.

The most surprising thing is that the old people said that they used to learn broadsword dance to practice their movements. They tied radishes to their arms and sharpened their broadswords. When waving broadswords, some of them will cut off radishes one by one.

According to my observation, there is indeed this movement. In martial arts, this is a protective action. However, it is prudent to play with a knife to protect yourself. If you can't protect yourself well, you will cut yourself. Therefore, practicing with radish is undoubtedly a very solid training.

Dehong Jingpo Knife Dance

It is particularly worth mentioning that the broadsword dance was performed in the courtyard of Yi people's homes or in front of Kannonji. The venue is limited and there are many people. Therefore, the technical difficulty in playing broadsword is not how to chop people accurately, but how to avoid chopping people accurately. This is just the opposite of fencing on the battlefield, but the reason is the same. It's all about precise training of the body, dodging and prancing, and it's all about technology and experience.

There are actually quite a few dances like broadsword dance. Wenshan Zhuang people have a weapon dance, which is said to have been left by Nong, the military leader of Zhuang people in Song Dynasty. They have many kinds of weapons, the most special one I remember is the fork. The fork is made of wood. Combined with their movements, they seem to be the bane of spears and broadswords.

Having said that, I can't help thinking, if the Yi broadsword dance and Zhuang dance are on the same stage, who is better-this question reminds me of the classic topic of netizens: Who can play better with Jet Li?

Dai people: Those who can't play Dai boxing well can't dance well. In peacock dance minority Wushu, the Dai boxing can not be ignored. You must have heard of Muay Thai. Personally, I think it's quite violent. Dai and Thai cultures and ethnic groups are of the same origin, but they are quite different in martial arts.

Wearing boxing is much gentler, and laymen may think it is similar to those martial arts schools near Shaolin Temple in Songshan Mountain. They have unarmed boxing routines, knives and sticks. As a layman, I can't understand them, but I think they are very powerful and not fooling around.

According to an inheritor of Xiangjiaogu in Xishuangbanna, when he was a child (1980s and 1990s), he liked martial arts and learned it from an elder, who must have learned it from an older elder. This kind of inheritance is self-contained, which may have little to do with the kung fu craze after the 1980 s and 1990 s. In his view, the basis of playing elephant foot drums is wearing fists. Dai can't punch well, nor can he play the elephant foot drum well. Peacock dance may be a part of Dai Wushu. Peacock dance is divided into unarmed peacock dance and shelf peacock dance. In the past, men could jump, but women couldn't.

Peacock dance, Dai Yi

Peacock dance can intuitively feel his skills by changing his hand movements. Peacock dance, a shelf, is slightly different, and his movements are big, but actually he has footwork and movements. I guess he needs to have a certain boxing foundation, just like an elephant foot drum. Peacock dance imitates the peacock's movements, which is also very martial. In fact, a large part of ancient martial arts is related to the imitation of nature. This truth is not abstract, but it can explain the cultural phenomenon of dance and martial arts.

Those who read history must have heard of Hua Tuo. This doctor of traditional Chinese medicine is also an expert in Wulin. It is said that he imitated animals and made up a "Five-Animal Play". This action can be martial arts, and it can also be understood as today's broadcast gymnastics. In ancient times, people thought that absorbing the essence of animals could be used by people, so taking zoology was a shortcut.

This road of Wushu's birth was later continued and became an important legacy of China Wushu. There are all kinds of kungfu named after small animals, such as mantis boxing. It is said that someone lost in the contest, accidentally saw mantis fighting and realized the boxing method. There are many others, such as snake fist, eagle claw skill, frog skill ... The reason why we want to defeat the enemy by imitating animals is because human beings want to learn from nature.

What is the relationship between martial arts and dance?

There is an anti-Japanese TV series about a group of Japanese trapped in a city. The last way for several Beijing Opera martial arts actors to resist is to sharpen props on the stage and use their flexibility to kill many enemies. This plot is very reasonable. The close relationship between dance and martial arts is also evident.

Dance and Wushu

Don't mess with dancers. Although their cheating is often useless, it may come in handy at some point (see Wang's performance in some movies). "Announce the name? There is a saying in Shuo Wen Jie Zi: "Martial arts, dancing and conquering movements are also inspiring. "Shi Ming is a very old book, which can be traced back to the Eastern Han Dynasty. Its interpretation of martial arts also represents the views of that era and even previous years. On the one hand, our understanding of Wushu is a myth, on the other hand, it is far away.

In fact, Wushu is not only related to dance and war, but also closely related to our daily life. There is a fable in Zhuangzi. Someone wanted to kill an old tortoise as a sacrifice to God, but the old tortoise reluctantly said, I would rather live than live normally. God is too far away, martial arts heroes are too far away and martial arts stars are too far away. Let's turn martial arts into words related to life, just like radio exercises (some places are adapted from national dance movements). Although there is no gas field, it is "kung fu" over time.

In fact, there is a very abstract philosophical truth in China Wushu, that is, there is no way to win, and there is kung fu everywhere. When it comes to the attitude towards martial arts, we have to mention that although there are all kinds of exaggerated descriptions about martial arts in China culture, China people do not advocate martial arts in their bones, but value literature over martial arts. It is believed that the problem cannot be solved by force alone, but must be based on culture and politics. Behind the prosperity of China Wushu culture is not violence and conquest, but peaceful and gentle artistic pursuit.