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An oldest known historyOf the oriental martial arts. There was a priest of the beliefs in Buddha, who went on a roundtrip for South-Eastern Asia, to spread and teach the Buddhist religion. When he reached China, he sattled in the temple of Honan, a place where the priests of tao were living. There he started to teach the priests about the new religion, but, because the priests were not strong enough to resist the long hours of meditation necessary to the higher developement of spirit, Bodidharma- this was the name of the Buddhist priest- or, better known by the name Pu Ti Ta Mo for the chinese, and Daruma for the japanese and koreean - had developed a series of 18 exercises meant to strengthen the priests. Those 18 exercises still are the most basic elements of Kung-Fu, or Wu-Shu. Bodidharma later also reached the island of okinawa, japan, and koreea. Later, the motions and exercises became techniques, and as time went by, styles immitating the motion of animals and thousands of techniques were developed. The most important and publicly known styles are WingChun, TaiChi Chuan, NanChuan, and Chang Chuan. those aren't just styles after all, but different schools of the same art. They all have elements in common, but they also have different specific elements, techniques or philosophies that make each of them unique. The legend says, that chinese people never really called this art ?kung-fu?, as occidental society has faultly learnt that this art is named. The expression KUNG-FU means that someone is master in a certain art or a certain thing, so in ancient China a very good painter would have also been receiving the title of KUNG-FU, in spite of his zero knowledge about martial arts.
Nowadays, there are several thousands of styles and schools, all of which have or at least claim to have something of the original 18 exercises.
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