The History of Wu-Tan Martial Art Promotion Center
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Ever
since the national government relocated in Taiwan and strove for economic
development, a nationwide awareness of gymnastics has taken roots and the
chinese martial art has therefore made its way to one of the widely-received
national legacies. Still, under the influence of over 300-year-rule of
Manchurians and Ching Dynasty when an official position was only achieved
through stereotyped writing testing, and the rule of which was a mixture
of conciliation and oppression, coupled with the warlordsˇ¦ claiming controls
over the north afterwards, the civil war and the ensuing fight with the
Japanese army, our martial art was progressively losing steam. Only very
few of the gurus who possessed the art and the ethics of the legacy came
with the national government to Taiwan, while street acrobatics was prevalent.
With all these, the impression of our chinese martial art went awry. It
was therefore interpreted as street smarts.
Master
Liu Yun-Chyau has since his youth respected Mr. Li Shu-Wen as the mentor
of Ba-Chi boxing, for over a decade. Then, he followed the footsteps of
a retired Ching Dynasty officer Mia Tajakaka on Ba-Gua (the eight divine
diagrams), of a Master Ting on Mantis boxing and of General Chang Hsiang-Wu
on Shadow boxing and fencing. With a pool of wisdom and expertise on the
chinese martial art and in view of a general misunderstanding of this national
legacy, Master Liu has put ˇ§Wu-Tanˇ¨ magazine into print to serve the
purpose of promoting our gymnastics tradition and smoothing the learning
climate of martial arts. The first edition of this magazine was issued
in June of 1971. It was a monthly. The mission statements of the magazine
were:
(A) To resuscitate
the Chinese culture and promote national legacies.
(B) To stimulate
the ethics and chinese martial art.
(C) To collect
age-old written materials related to chinese martial art and document them
into teaching materials.
The magazine had received good recognition for two
years and had to put a halt on publication on the score of financing difficulty.
To
realize the promotion of the chinese
martial art in a practical manner, in July of 1971 he established
a training class, a precursor to Wu-Tan Martial Art Promotion Center. In
the early stage, the training classes were classified into the basic, the
medial and the high levels. Many coaches and disciples of the field originated
from these training classes. Nowadays, many of them are giving instructions
at the Association of Chinese Martial Art in colleges and universities.
Such a practice has strengthened the school's association, and the art
of the chinese martial art takes roots in our aspiring young generations.Under
the supervision of Master Liu Yuen-Chiao, Wu-Tan Martial Art Promotion
Center has constantly hammered at training new talents. As of today, disciples
and coaches are all over the world striving to promote this national legacy.
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| In 1982, at the solicitation
of coaches Wong Jing-Chung, Yeh Jing-Yi and Tseng Chi-Shiang, Master Liu
made a comeback. A photo taken beside the San-Hsia stream after the production
of a promotional documentary for the Ministry of Foreign Policy. |
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| In 1983, Master Liu gave instructions
in person to students, from left to right: Wong Jing-Chung, Oyanagi Kazu,
Yeh Chi-Li, Lu Chian-Kuei. |
C urrently,
coaches of Wu-Tan Martial Art Promotion Center give instructions in universities
such as National Normal University, Fong-Chia University, Chang-Hwa Normal
University, Cheng-Kong University, Kaohsiung Medical College, Kaohsiung
Normal University, Chung-Hsing University, Taipei Normal College, Taipei
Commerce College, Dong-Nan Industrial College, Chung-Hwa Industrial College,
Fu-Shing Senior High School and United Industrial College, etc. Their footsteps
used to be found in Fu-Jen University, Dan-Jiang University and Taiwan
University as well. Overseas branchs are located at eight locations in
the U.S., Canada, Venezuela, Western Germany, Japan and Malaysia. Disciples
are all over the world.
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| Photo taken with Oyanagi Kazu
of Japan Branch in Taiwan in 1983.ˇC |
Promoting
the chinese martial arts had
been Master Liu's lifetime mission. He constantly motivated and supervised
his caucus to embark on the documentation of the history of our martial
art , and the compilation and publication of teaching materials. Additionally,
extensive training provided for schools in winter and summer vacations
were on a regular basis in a bid to promote and glorify our chinese
martial art.
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| Photo taken in an extensive
training in 1988 |
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| Photo taken while giving instructions
in an extensive training in 1988 |
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