Re: Doing Taijiquan on a bike 1972, China Cultural Revolution
Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 9:39 am
Graham: it would have been quite late in the cultural revolution to be honest, since my teacher was born pretty much right in the middle of it.
The point is that Chinese martial arts were alive and well in China during the 1970's.
We can say that in the cultural revolution when the four old things were repressed that it is likely that a lot of martial artists were stigmatized and some were even imprisoned (such as Wu Kungcho for instance), but ten years is not long enough to destroy traditional culture and by the mid 1970s Gong fu was alive and well in China. It should also be noted that Mao Zidong was a huge fan of Taijiquan. He thought it should be the national exercise so taiji was very important even during the cultural revolution.
The point is that Chinese martial arts were alive and well in China during the 1970's.
We can say that in the cultural revolution when the four old things were repressed that it is likely that a lot of martial artists were stigmatized and some were even imprisoned (such as Wu Kungcho for instance), but ten years is not long enough to destroy traditional culture and by the mid 1970s Gong fu was alive and well in China. It should also be noted that Mao Zidong was a huge fan of Taijiquan. He thought it should be the national exercise so taiji was very important even during the cultural revolution.