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Talking about China, you may think of Kung Fu – the mysterious attraction. Thus when planning your cultural China Tours, other than Beijing Tours and Xi’an Tours, Henan and Hubei will also be wonderful destinations.

Shaolin kung fu was an age-old traditional martial art passed down among the monks of Buddhist Shaolin Temple in Henan Province. Shaolin Temple now enjoyed a high reputation home and abroad as a sacred place of Chinese kung fu, and meantime become a hot tourist attraction as well.

It’s hard to say when and how Shaolin kung fu took its place, only some legends recorded in unauthentic books said that the initiators of the kung fu might be some outlaws who fled from crimes and came to the temple lying low, and passed on their kung fu to the monks. There was a popular story about “18 monks rescued Tang price”, describing Li Shimin (later became the founder of Tang Dynasty), was once chased by enemy troops after a defeated battle. At the very critical moment, 18 monks rushed out of nowhere and came to his rescue. After Li acceded to the throne, he issued a citation to the monks and granted to build a spectacular new Shaolin Temple. The event took place some 14 hundred years ago, and people believed the real history of Shaolin would dated back much earlier. Since then, many powerful kung fu masters in following dynasties came here and passed on their original and exclusive skills to Shaolin monks. Gradually Shaolin kung fu collected and gathered the essence of Chinese traditional martial arts and reached its peak.

Besides Shaolin, there was also another glorious name in Chinese martial arts history – “Wudang kung fu”. The name Wudang was after the Taoist Wudang Mountain in Hubei Province, and with a highly-prestigious Taoist Zhang Sanfeng in early Ming Dynasty as its initiator dated back 600 years ago. Zhang learned his basic kung fu skills in Shaolin, and afterward created a faction of his own by his ingenious invention blending Shaolin and Taoist kung fu together. Other legend said Zhang once met a celestial in dream who instructed him the super martial skills, so Zhang also became the inventor of Tai Ji, the shadow boxing. But there also appeared numerous kung fu factions over thousands of years. Some martial masters who made some innovations of special skills could create their own factions and made them as the “domineer” for a time. This kind of domineer masters appeared all too often, and they left behind multitude of confidential feats, mysterious books and interesting stories, too many to mention.

Tai Ji, also the shadow boxing, was known popularly as a special kind of health care exercise that won more and more appeal among mid-aged and old people. As in that mentioned above, Tai Ji was invented by a Taoist Zhang, so the boxing was designed based on “soft subdue strong”, a theory brought forward by Laozi, the founder ancestor of Taoism in the Spring & Autumn Period (770-476 BC). Tai Ji, differed from modern calisthenics, featured a slow and soft movement. When playing it, people would loosen their mind, harmonize their movement of arms and legs and do deep breathing. Most of mid-aged and old people could improve their health if they played Tai Ji regularly and perseveringly. They felt their joints more healthy. As a matter of fact, Tai Ji was a brilliant treasure of traditional health care heritage.

If you are interested in such historical and mysterious heritage, please book your China Flights and come to see Kung Fu.