Wushu Taolu (Competition Forms)
武術套路The forms half of modern competitive wushu. There is no fighting: the routine is judged on execution, jump difficulty and accuracy of landing.
Quick Facts
ChinaCharacter & Origin
Training
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Wushu Taolu (Competition Forms)
Wushu taolu is the competitive form half of modern wushu — the half in which no fighting takes place. It has no founder: the routines were standardised by state commissions of the People's Republic of China after 1949, which selected movements from traditional styles and assembled them into unified competition syllabuses. The International Wushu Federation (IWUF) was founded in 1990 at the Asian Games in Beijing, and the first World Wushu Championships were held there the very next year. Competition falls into two groups. The northern one proceeds from changquan, long fist, and is built on reach, leaping and speed; the southern nanquan works from firmer stances, with shorter trajectories and with vocal accompaniment. Beside them stands taijiquan with its slow tempo. Weapons have their own events: daoshu (sabre), jianshu (straight sword), gunshu (staff) and qiangshu (spear), to which nandao, nangun and taijijian were added in 1999. Judging differs from traditional practice in what it measures. Marks are given for execution of movement, for overall impression, and separately for the so-called nandu, the difficulty elements — jumps with turns of 360, 540 or 720 degrees, where the stability of the landing is also assessed. A routine has a set time and a precisely bounded area. It is exactly this composition that makes wushu taolu contested. Critics see in it gymnastics derived from a martial art; defenders see a discipline that preserves the technical vocabulary of the styles. This page states both, because the disagreement is about purpose, not about facts.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.