Kung fu master builds on legacy
With fluid, graceful movements, Zhang Xiaohang performs his morning stretches as dawn breaks.
At 5:30 every morning, a kung fu teacher walks to a patch of woods near his studio, to limber up and clear his mind.
Whether the dawn air is frigid, smoggy or stiflingly hot, Zhang Xiaohang sticks to his daily routine.
“You need to have a calm heart to practice,” Zhang said during a recent workout. “This composure is very important for practising traditional Chinese martial arts. If your heart isn’t at peace, you can’t keep doing this work.”
Beijing is a city where supercharged growth conspires to crowd out the past, but Zhang takes pride in being a throwback. He’s the heir of a form of kung fu that stretches back to the Ming dynasty of the 17th century. With a younger generation glued to smartphones and video games, his challenge is to keep his family’s legacy alive.
“In today’s society, there are many distractions,” he said while working out in the woods. “For example, you see other people living in large houses, driving nice cars, and you start to feel anxious. You think, ‘I need to go make money.’ You can’t practice martial arts with that kind of mentality.”
At Zhang’s studios, students learn techniques for self-defence and building physical strength. But he also emphasizes the lesser-known side of kung fu — mental fitness, or, as he puts it, “composure.” Kung fu, he said, involves both internal and external capacity, and without both, one cannot claim to know “Zhongguo wushu,” or Chinese martial arts.
Zhang’s traditional approach has won him a wide following. He has three studios in China, two affiliates in Brazil and one in California, he said, with nearly 3,000 students in total. Some of them are youngsters, whose parents hope that self-defence training will make them safer. Others are elders and middle-age Chinese, who take tai chi to improve their health.
Among kung fu purists in China, Zhang is controversial, partly because he has chosen to mass-market his art, with a website and videos. He also teaches his kung fu to “outsiders.”
Asked about the criticism, Zhang said he was willing to bear it: “The more people I can pass this on to, the more chance this art will endure.”
With his soft face and gentle smile, Zhang does not look like a formidable fighting machine. Nor does he look 41 years old. His body is so limber he can lean over and touch his palms to the floor. His movements are fluid and graceful, whether he is demonstrating a kick or pouring tea.
Early in his career, Zhang was a bodyguard for a businessman in Hong Kong, and got in several scrapes. “I was hurt many, many times,” he said. “But it was a time when I could put my kung fu into practice and see how effective it was.”
From 2010 to 2012, China was jolted by series of knife attacks at schools in various parts of the country. Twenty-five people died, and 115 others were wounded. Parents were alarmed. They asked school officials to step up security. Many enrolled their children in self-defence classes.
Sensing opportunity, Zhang developed kung fu training for kids. It is now a major part of his business, along with instructing students from overseas.