101

Da

nce Styles

Into Dance!

In a park in Shanghai I saw men and women,

all much older than myself. They were in

small or large groups and some were alone.

They were doing their daily exercises.

Two groups of kindergarten children were

doing much the same to some lovely music.

Wushu

Their stillness was astonishing. The

balance and the physical ingenuity

shown by the older people and the

children was utterly remarkable. A

Chinese student, who is a friend of

my daughter, gently explained: “This

is not tai chi, it is traditional wushu.”

Back home in Yorkshire I looked

for tai chi or wushu courses but

could not find anything close to

my home. Books and videos were

not much help in getting started.

Then entirely by accident I

found, in Leeds of all places, the

well-established College of Chinese

Physical Culture. I saw a class in

progress, in a university gym, and it

was like being in a Chinese temple

courtyard. Most of the students were

of university age. They were showing

respect to their teachers, to fellow

students and to their training system

by bowing. Bowing was a part of

every exercise, both before and after.

There was little noise, no aggression

and what seemed no great physical

effort. No flexing of big muscles. In

fact, none of the students looked

muscular. But they did look lithe

and relaxed and they were all agile.

I saw movements that reminded

me of Chinese martial arts films;

movements I had seen at the Bejing

Opera, the Chinese State Circus

and in the work of an increasing

number of Western contemporary

dance companies. Some students

were holding silk scarves, others had

blunt wooden swords, others had

large fans and some were making

gentle contact with long sticks.

They were twisting and twirling

whatever they were holding and

gradually my inexperienced eye saw

definite patterns emerging. I could

recognise some of the animal stances

they were making: riding horse,

praying mantis, leopard, dragon and

duck. The students were graceful and serene,

supremely confident and oblivious of my staring.

Their control was astonishing. When they came

together for class breathing exercises there was

a sound like a mighty wind or a strong tide.

“This is Daoist dancing,” explained Alex Boyd,

Wushu is an all-embracing term used to describe the many

different styles of tai chi, internal and external kung fu,

martial arts and yoga practised in China. The martial arts

film star Jet Li was China’s national wushu champion many

times. Kevin Berry explains more about it

Students rehearsing for the Royal Albert Hall Dancefest.

Dancing Times September 2007

All photographs courtesy of the College of Chinese Physical Culture.

Dance Styles WuShu Sept.indd 101 16/8/07 08:57:14

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Into Dance!deputy principal

at the College of

Chinese Physical

Culture. “They are

using the stances,

postures and

movements of our

system. It’s a way in

which two people

can make contact

and the movement

between them is

improvised. One

person might lead

and the other

follows. Nothing is

fixed. What they

do will depend

where their

energy takes them.

There is no music, except when we have special

performances, and no rhythm as such. It can

involve moving each other off balance as well.

“When I performed in London with Wai-Yii

(a female college teacher), the Head Daoist, Abbot,

from China was watching. He described our

dancing as Heaven and Earth being connected

together. Wai-Yii being Yin and me being Yang”

Yin and Yang are the two sides of Daoism on

the sea horse Daoist symbol. Yin is internal energy

and Yang is external. When performers dance

the Yin physical arts they are usually connected

all the way through. In the more dynamic Yang

physical arts, performers move away from

each other and then come back together. In

Yin physical arts a performer will wear a blue

shirt and move like water. In Yang arts he or

she will wear yellow and move like the wind.

Daoist philosophy seeks to get a person’s

body and the mind in harmony with the

natural universe. Wushu movements help

in this. Everyone has their own qi energy.

Qi, pronounced chi, is the body’s internal

energy and is replenished from food and the

earth. The physical body is seen as a window into

that body’s internal qi energy. Wushu exercises

help make the body as good a conductor of

energy as possible, so that the body is relaxed

and supple and a person’s qi can flow easily

through many different channels in the body.

What about the martial content? Isn’t that

a little aggressive, a touch Bruce Lee? “Some

movements are certainly derived from a warrior

tradition,“ admitted Boyd. “But our focus is about

developing energy. We have to make the body

very much like water and able to flow. Not hard

and strong in the Western way but flexible

and able to flow. Any competitive or aggressive

thoughts or tensions in the body will impede

the flow of qi. We can relax under pressure”.

Dancing in China developed from the need

to keep fit and from martial exercises, or

keeping fit for war. A traditional story tells

of a great flood. The people suffered from the damp

and cold and they were numb and stiff. A dance was

created to help them recover and gain their health.

There are stories of warriors dancing with swords

and shields and then in peaceful times dancing with

feathers and their shields.

The College of Chinese Physical Culture

teaches a form of wushu called Weihai Lishi

Quanfa. It is a Daoist whole body breathing

system. It was conceived and developed by the

Li family who lived in the town, now the city, of

Weihai in north east China. They used traditional

movements and many of the movements go

Websites

www.lishiarts.orgwww.ccpc.ac.ukwww.journey-film.co.ukwww.seahorsearts.co.ukgoogle “‘lee’ or ‘li’ family” to find other organisations teaching the system and to find out more of the life of Chee Soo.Books and videos are helpful but Chee Soo described the Lishi arts as “a doing art”.

Famous Names in WushuJet Li – China’s national wushu champion and star of many films including Hero and the Once Upon A Time In China series.

Dancing Times September 2007

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Into Dance!back more than 2000 years. There are

two main movement sequences. The

Flying Hand has 185 set movements.

The Square Yard Form has 140. Both

series, or variations of them, can be

found in other wushu systems.

Chan Kam Lee brought the Lishi

system to England in the 1930s. Desmond

Murray, who is the principal of the

college, takes up the story: “Chan Kam

Lee was a dealer of precious stones,

from Weihai. He was the last of the Li

family and he was unmarried. He often

travelled to London on business and he

started a class teaching the Lishi arts

in Holborn in 1933. He wanted to pass

on all he knew about the Lishi system.

“Kam Lee was sitting on a bench

in Hyde Park when he met Chee Soo, a

14- year-old Barnardo’s orphan who had

become a bell-boy in a hotel. Chee Soo

had been playing with a ball and the ball

rolled towards Kam Lee. Two Chinese

people meeting in London was highly

unusual in the 1930s so they talked.

Kam Lee sort of adopted Chee Soo

and taught him the Lishi arts. When

Kam Lee died in a shipwreck in 1954

Chee Soo took over the teaching. Chee

Soo taught the system for many, many

years and I was one of his students.”

Murray, who is known with great

respect as Laoba (the Chinese for old

man), took the Lishi system back to

China, in 2003, to demonstrate for China’s

top wushu officials. They were deeply

impressed and they awarded the Lishi

system a recognised place within Chinese wushu.

Now the College of Chinese Physical

Culture has regular Lishi classes in France,

Germany and the US as well as all over the

UK. The Lishi system has been used to train

professional actors and many prominent

dancers use parts of it in their work.

College of CPC students have performed

at the Royal Albert Hall for Sport England, for

the Central Council for Physical Recreation’s

Movement and Dance Festival and during Big

Dance Week in London and around the country.

Next year’s contribution to Big Dance will be a

world- record breaking, mass participation event

connecting sunset in London with sunrise in

Bejing. There is a 42-minute time difference.

Lishi classes have students as young as

five and there are some who are well past

their 80th birthday. My 60th birthday is

fast becoming a distant memory but I am

far fitter and healthier than I was when I

was 16 and my wife is very impressed with

my new found physical grace. n

VocabularyDaoism - a Chinese philosophy. Daoists focus on developing

their qi energy to improve their lives, to experience a little bit

of heaven on earth.

Qi – the natural energy of the body. The body has internal qi,

which nourishes the organs and external qi, which protects the

body. Experienced practitioners move their qi with their mind;

the inexperienced move their qi with their body.

Yang and Yin – the two sides of Daoism like the two sides of a

coin. Yang is masculine energy and Yin is feminine. Yang is of the

heavens and yin is of the earth. Yang and Yin often merge.

Dancing Times September 2007

Above, A movement from the Square Yard Form.

Dance Styles WuShu Sept.indd 103 17/8/07 13:49:23