Interesting that Marco Polo was mentioned. What is not very well known is that Marco Polo was not only a highly skilled pasta maker but also quite well versed in hand to hand combat, more specific in the martial art of Stav......So here’s the short story on the long journey of Stav, from its origin in ancient Scandinavia to the Mongol ruled China where it eventually became the foundation not only for XYQ but basically all Chinese hand to hand combat arts. But first, Stav here refers to the letters of the runic “alphabet” which shapes lay the basis for the outwardly postures practice, also the sounds of the runic letters play an important role here, it’s all highly Shamanic. But Stav in Scandinavian can also mean a staff(remember this). Well, here’s the story - A long long time ago groups of people from Götaland a region in today’s Sweden migrated southward and settled among the wild Germanic tribes in today’s Germany. They disciplined those wild men by teaching them the sophisticated martial art of Stav that their ancestors had created. Over time those Germanic tribes men became well disciplined warriors that eventually conquered Rome and its empire, they where The Goths......So eventually many Italians/(Venetians) are of gothic descendant and some of them kept the tradition of Stav, Marco Polo was one of them. During his adventurous travels to the Far East his knowledge in Stav saved him during dangerous encounters with bandits and hooligans. During his stay at the court of the Mongols and being well treated there he wanted to teach them the art of Stav, but the Mongols seemed to be more interesting in the warm up exercise Marco taught to them which where another more rough, simple and playful martial art that had also been handed down from those ancient people that once had migrated from Götaland, that martial art was the wrestling art called Glima......Marco eventually came to visit the Shaolin temple where he saw the monks despite that they where doing daily exercises(that they said were brought from India) where critically out of shape, he immediately decided to teach them Stav. After a couple of months the monks had grown strong and full of vigor. He also taught them how to make pasta which of course also played a role for the strength the monks had gained in such a short span of time. Being moved by the monks determination to learn he also explained to the monks the full history of Stav and the meaning of the name......But somewhere along the road later monks at the Shaolin got the meaning of the name Stav wrong. Or perhaps was it when the highly skilled spear master who battle tired entered the temple perhaps misinterpreted things and believed the sophisticated hand to hand combat he encountered the monks possessed had been developed from staff combat.......Anyway, from here on the spear master after leaving the Shaolin temple and set out to teach the martial art he had learned from the monks taught his students it was all based on how the staff/spear was used in combat, and he also made up the story of Yue-Fei being among the originators of it(anyway who would believe the story that it all originated in some ancient “fairyland” called Götaland) He also convinced the monks at the temple to follow his suggestions on that extremely altered history........Well, that’s it in short, that’s the history of XYQ and most of the martial arts of China and East-Asia for that matter. As you see it’s far away from the story many want to believe, that it all originated with Sinanju that were taught to Yue-Fei and then so on, so on.........................Take it or leave it
.....There is of course also the possibility that Yue-Fei actually was an student of Marco Polo learning the art of noodle making and more................Another angle on how ancient Scandinavian(Swedish) martial arts came to China and flourish in the Middle Kingdom was by the means of the Kievan-Rus, or more exactly the “Ruser”. A people migrating from Götalands rival kingdom Svealand also called Roslagen there of their name Roser/Ruser...Yes you figured it out, the name of these people is to be found in the name of Russia...But all that is for another exciting martial arts history lesson