What is the Wushu game, meaning, rules, scoring, weapons, origin, history

Wushu is a Chinese martial art that featured as a sport at the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia, find out its origins and history, styles, weapons used, points, scoring system, game rules and meaning

The sport features various forms of Chinese martial arts and it is often referred to as kung fu among its followers.

What is the Wushu game, meaning, rules, scoring, weapons, origin and history

28TH GOLD! 🥇

Agatha Wong secured the 28th gold medal for the Philippines after reigning in the women's taijiquan and taijijian event of wushu during the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia on Friday.

This is her fifth time to win a gold medal in the biennial meet. pic.twitter.com/u3QKPzMPpR

— The Philippine Star (@PhilippineStar) May 12, 2023

The SEA Games at Phnom Penh featured 22 different wushu events ranging from artistic displays to fighting-style bouts.

Wushu meaning and origins

Wushu literally means “martial technique” and is written as 武术 in Chinese. The origins of Wushu dates back thousands of years during the Qin Dynasty. The modern-day International Wushu Federation was first formed in 1990. The federation was set up to govern the various types of martial art under the name “wushu”. Following its inception, the first World Championships took place in Beijing in 1991. Ever since then, the federation has hosted the Wushu World Championships every two years. Wushu first featured in the SEA Games in 1991, and has featured in every edition aside from 1995 and 1999.

Wushu styles

Presently, there are two main disciplines of wushu – taolu, which features choreographed routines, and sanda, which features full-contact combat. Taolu is further divided into different categories which are based on different stances, movements, routines, and the weapons used. These include the bare-handed taijiquan and taijijian, which is simply tai chi practiced with a Chinese straight sword. Meanwhile, sanda features combat-styles featuring wushu and kung fu techniques, and consists of different divisions based on weight categories like other Asian martial arts. In general, it is the fighting form of wushu.

List of Wushu sports events at 2023 SEA Games and weapons used

There were about 22 Wushu events in Phnom Penh at the 2023 SEA Games. 14 of these events are taolu events while the rest eight are sanda events. Furthermore, the eight sanda events consist of three women’s weight categories and five men’s weight categories. Given below is the list of the taolu events:

• Men’s and women’s changquan
• Men’s and women’s duilian (dual event, featuring teams instead of individuals)
• Men’s and women’s nanquan
• Men’s and women’s daoshu + gunshu
• Men’s and women’s jianshu + qiangshu
• Men’s and women’s taijiquan + taijijian
• Men’s and women’s nandao + nangun

Competitors compete in the changquan, nanquan, and taijiquan events bare-handed, while they use weapons in all the other events. Given below is a list of different taolu events with their associated weapons:

Wushu SEA Games points and scoring system

Officials judge the Taolu events on the basis of a difficulty and execution score. Meanwhile, the sanda events are judged through a direct head-to-head combat.

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