Sharing skills with the public

The tradition did not come to an end until the early 1980s when Liu Lihang (1901-2002), a grandmaster of the Chunyang Sect kung fu, decided to break with the past and began sharing his martial skills and regimens and Taoist medical wisdom, including Wudang tai chi, Chunyang quan, Chunyang sword and Wu Xing Zhuang, first to lay Taoists and later to the general public.

This undated photo captures a rare moment when Liu Lihang (1901-2002), a grandmaster of the Chunyang Sect of kung fu, was practicing a stance of Chunyang quan. The Chunyang Sect is a branch of the Wudang Taoist martial arts, originating in Wudang Mountain in Central China’s Hubei province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Among Liu’s handful of disciples, kung fu master Yue wu is the first one to get the Wu Xing Zhuang training methods published in 2008 on Chinese kung fu magazines. In recent years, Yue has also uploaded video tutorials about the basic form of Wu Xing Zhuang on social media and video streaming platforms.

People today may find variations of the Wu Xing Zhuang exercises. Besides the most popular Wudang Chunyang Wu Xing Zhuang, there are Taiyi Wu Xing Zhuang from the Taoist Taiyi Sect, Ziwu Wu Xing Zhuang from the Taoist Ziwu Sect, Yexing Wu Xing Zhuang from the Yexing kung fu school, Xingyi Wu Xing Zhuang from the Xing Yi Quan kung fu school, and Meihua Wu Xing Zhuang from the Meihua Quan kung fu school. But they all claim to have Taoist roots and respect wu xing, the principle of the five elements, in their practices.