On Implementing Traditional Martial Arts Education in College PE Class

On Implementing Traditional Martial Arts Education in College PE
Class
TAN Zuojun
Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, P.R.China, 453003
[email protected]
Abstract: Martial arts is the primary means and method for the Chinese people in physical exercise in
thousands of years, as a sport, and more a national traditional culture. It can be said that it belongs to the
sport but higher than the sport at the same time. Demonstration on the necessity to implement traditional
cultural education in the martial art class in regular institutions of higher education, and complete and
systematical analysis on the deficiency in the current class are made in this paper: the implementation of
traditional martial art cultural education in the martial art class in regular institutions of higher education
can deepen the sport education reform of institutions of higher education, cultivate the cultural quality of
university students, promote the development of martial art, and also effectively find a good
combination of the three. We can well provide the students with the traditional martial art cultural
education, make the martial art education in regular institutions of higher education can not only
“strengthen the physique of students, promote the health of students”, but also realize the purpose of
inherit and carry forward traditional sport culture as long as we attach importance to the national style of
martial art in the martial art teaching, emphasize on the national spirit education and frequently hold
special lecture on traditional martial art culture.
Keywords: college, martial art class, tradition, martial art cultural, education
1 Introduction
Martial art is China’s unique traditional sport, as well as the primary means and method for the Chinese
people in physical exercise in thousands of years. In the traditional Chinese sport group, martial art is
well received by the public as a sport integrating bodybuilding, competition, amusement and
self-defense for its characteristics of improved system and high popularization rate. It is a sport
possessing the characteristics of national culture at the same time, and carries the great and profound
culture of Chinese nation, connects Chinese ancient, long and clear blood, shows the enterprising,
persistent and broad spirit of Chinese nation, and witnesses Chinese civilization. Higher education is the
last link in the whole education system, as well as the last stage in college sport education, the overall
knowledge structure and ability level of university students are high, how to utilize Chinese excellent
martial art culture to provide the university students with traditional culture education is a new subject
for the martial art education in the institutions of higher education in the new era.
2. Necessity to Implement Traditional Martial Art Cultural Education in the
Martial Art Class in Regular Institutions of Higher Education
2.1 The implementation of traditional martial art education is the important content to further
deepen the sport education reform in regular institutions of higher education
In August 2002, in accordance with “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
China and the State Council on Deepening Education Reform and Promoting Quality Education”, on the
basis of summarizing the course construction of sport class and teaching reform experience in
institutions of higher education, the Ministry of Education formally promulgated “Guideline for Sport
Course Teaching of National Regular Institutions of Higher Education”, and decided to implement in all
national regular institutions of higher education as of the new term in 2003. The Guideline focuses on
quality education, encircles the quality education objective of institutions of higher education in the new
era, and proposes new requirements on the objective, setting, structure, method and other course
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elements of sport course in the institutions of higher education. Under this new historical condition, the
martial art class in the institutions of higher education must conform to the main line of quality
education, follow the trend of college sport education reform subject to health education, cultural
education and lifelong education, etc., and establish a teaching mode that adapts to the modern social
development. However, at present, the course selection of marital art in the institutions of higher
education has many problems, and the general analysis is as follows.
First, the teaching objective is not improved.
Teaching objective is a guiding ideology to comprehensively manage teaching activity, as a general
requirement proposed in teaching field to achieve the teaching objective, the final ultimate expectation
on the trainees, and also the guiding principle for the educators and those being educated. The teaching
objective of martial art class is consistent with the teaching objective of other sport class; however, this
is not improved enough. Martial art is an excellent Chinese culture, the Chinese people should inherit
and carry forward, and therefore, the basic teaching objective to provide students with martial art
traditional cultural education in the martial art class should be increased.
Second, the teaching content fails to reflect the nature of martial art.
The teaching material adopted in the martial art class in the institutions of higher education is basically
single as primary long boxing, young boxing, primary knife, primary sword, 24-style Taijiquan, which
makes the teaching content monotonous and tedious. These series of skills and tricks mainly aim at
performance instead of the art of attack and defense, and cannot reflect the nature of martial art
technique first, performance second; practice first, amusement second, and cannot represent Chinese
martial art with rich contents, diversified forms and unique style. The teaching content focuses on
competitive martial art, the proportion of traditional martial art and bodybuilding martial art is too low,
especially the content of traditional martial art culture is almost not involved, which cannot show the
original appearance of Chinese culture, or carry the connotation and basic spirit of Chinese culture. Such
teaching content that “values technique and ignoring theory” is unfavorable for training the lifelong
sport concept of university students, as well as the popularization and development of martial art; and it
is also unfavorable for the cultural quality education of university students.
Third, the teaching process is monotonous and tedious.
The purpose of teaching process is to make the teacher guide students to understand the objective world,
and train the students into qualified talents. Everybody knows that the teaching process of martial art
class has followed the single mode of: explanation, demonstration, exercise, correction and
improvement for many years, the study of martial art routines is basically to obtain skill through
imitation, in this one-way teaching mode in which “teacher teaches and students learn”, the students
have no choice but to depend on the teacher to passively accept knowledge with extremely little free
space, they totally listen to the teacher on what to learn and how to learn without independent thinking
space. The students have to abide by the strict direction and routine in the regulated series of skills and
tricks in the teaching, the students have to exercise according to the regulated skill and movement,
otherwise, they will be considered as wrong, such teaching does not respect the individualized
development of students. Therefore, such teaching process is the root to cause passive learning and
suppress the creativity of students, and is unfavorable for the students to learn how to learn.
Fourth, the teaching evaluation is not complete or scientific enough.
Teaching evaluation is related to the feedback circulation of teaching fact, and also reflects whether the
teaching system is complete or not. Without teaching evaluation, the completion of teaching task cannot
be guaranteed. The completion situation of teaching objective, the teaching effectiveness and whether
the teaching method is proper can be known only through teaching evaluation. The evaluation on
students’ technique in martial art class of institutions of higher education only focuses on the exercise of
the learned routines, and the theoretical examination adopts traditional closed-book method. Due to the
competitive teaching content, the teaching evaluation also imitates the evaluation method of competition,
attaches importance to the evaluation on the technique of students, instead of the teaching formation
evaluation and class evaluation. The martial art teaching evaluation is not complete or scientific enough,
and fails to form a set of standard and complete evaluation system, or merge in modern sport education
concept, especially fails to involve creative spirit and creative thinking, and such teaching evaluation is
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unfavorable for promoting quality education in the institutions of higher education.
2.2 The implementation of traditional martial art cultural education is the need of developing
martial art
Over thousands of years of development, Chinese martial art has merged ancient Chinese philosophy,
infiltrated the theory of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, contained Chinese classical aesthetics,
literature, ethics, traditional Chinese medicine, art, religion and other cultural contents; and it is rooted
in China traditional culture, and benefited from the essence of Chinese culture. Due to the influence of
domestic conditions and various social factors in Chinese and Western cultures, the development of
Chinese traditional martial art sinks into an awkward position, for Chinese martial art is particular about
the thinking form of “apprehending through mentality”, which should be grasped in the intuitive
apprehension, and cannot be verbally expressed, as a result, the martial art establishes a sensing theory
instead of intellectuality, which cannot describe the specific rule for phenomenon, and makes the
traditional martial art difficult to establish a complete theoretical system, and makes the traditional
martial art fail to be widely recognized in the world. The competitive martial art derived from traditional
martial art is widely popularized and promoted in the world; however, it loses the original appearance of
Chinese traditional martial art culture, and cannot totally represent Chinese martial art. Li Chongshen
had said: the puzzle on the intrinsic spirit of modern martial art is deeper and deeper, and loss of
traditional culture and temptation of gold medal strategy have made it lose the inner spirit effect.
In view of the aforesaid content, the fundamental solution to the development of traditional martial art
and competitive martial art is the perfection of marital art theoretical system. It has been a long time
since the martial art class was opened in the institutions of higher education, we are fully able to provide
students with systematical martial art theory education, especially the traditional martial art cultural
education, which can not only correctly guide them to learn the technique, but also can create conditions
to popularize and develop martial art to a deeper level (from the degree of traditional culture). At present,
the study on martial art theory is only limited to a small number of martial arts experts and scholars,
which has a large limitation, while the mass base (university students that have systematically learned
martial art theory) can not only promote the popularization of martial art, but also can open new way for
the development of martial art theory.
2.3 The implementation of traditional cultural education in the martial art class in regular
institutions of higher education is the need of cultural quality education for the university students
At the turn of the century, the Party Central Committee and the State Council convened the third
education working meeting since the opening-up and reform, and promulgated Decision of the Party
Central Committee on Deepening Education Reform and Promoting Quality Education. It is clearly
defined in the Decision that: “the higher education shall attach importance to cultivate the innovation
ability, practice ability and innovation spirit of university students, and generally improve the cultural
quality and scientific spirit of university students.” “The higher education shall conduct patriotism,
collectivism, and socialism education, Chinese excellent cultural tradition and revolution tradition
education in a targeted manner...” Therefore, the traditional cultural education on university students is
the need of improving the cultural quality of university students. As our complete culture ideology
(martial art cultural system), on the capacity of culture, martial art almost contains various components
and elements of Chinese traditional culture and infiltrates the essence of Chinese traditional culture. It
implies a number of philosophies and ideas, and merges the theory of Tai Chi, Yin and Yang, five
elements, human and nature integration, etc. in ancient philosophy and dialectics, as well as
Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and the marks of all Chinese excellent traditional cultures can be
found in martial art. It is not exaggerated to say that martial art is the typical representative of excellent
Chinese traditional culture. Traditional college martial art class attaches too much importance to the
technique teaching and seldom involves traditional martial art cultural education, which is unfavorable
for the cultural quality education of university students, and also unfavorable for higher education
reform and social development.
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3. Approach and Implementation Scheme for Traditional Martial Art Cultural
Education
3.1 Attach importance to national spirit education in martial art class teaching
Chinese martial art is extensive and profound with long history, in the thousands of years of
development; it has attached great importance to etiquette and morality. As the saying goes “learning
etiquette before learning technique, developing moral education before martial art” indicates the essence
of ancient Chinese martial art education. This is also the weak link in our martial art education. In
ancient Chinese martial art circle, there were so many patriotic heroes, they feared of no power, ready
with drawn swords at the sight of injustice; most of them had the spirit of respecting for teachers,
faithful and enterprising, these lofty moralities are what we need today, and the education on these
traditional national spirits must be implemented thoroughly in the martial art class teaching. For
example, in the teaching of clenched-fist salute, we should demonstrate the movement to the students,
specify the movement requirement and specification, and then explain the traditional national
connotation contained in the movement. According to the teaching requirement, at the beginning and
ending of class and in the exercise, examination of martial art technique, the “clenched-fist salute” of
teacher and students can make them strongly feel the pure affection between the teacher and students,
inherit the morality of “honoring the teacher and respect his teaching”, and carry forward the traditional
virtue of “respecting for the teacher and loving the students”, make the students experience that the
Chinese nation is a state of ceremony, and a nation thinking “virtue” as supreme, and governing with
“virtue”.
3.2 Cultivate the students’ national style of “inner and outer integration, unity of form and spirit”
in the martial art technique education
Martial art is not only particular about standard form, but also requires mental communication, inner and
outer integration, “inner and outer, form and spirit” is an interrelated and unified integration. In the
martial art education, the students often have such a question: why our movement (even very simple
movement) is not so “handsome” as the teacher. Besides the martial art technique level of the teacher is
higher than the students, a more important reason is that the requirement on spirit, energy is insufficient,
and we only attach importance to “form” instead of “spirit”. The teaching of martial art should focus on
both standard form and spirit, inner and outer integration, “form” and “outer” can give an intuitive
expression, however, “spirit” and “inner” should be experienced by the practitioner, therefore, we cannot
make every practitioner succeed in regulating breath and qi, as long as they concentrate and think over
every movement in the routines, apprehend the whole routines in their minds, use their ideas to guide
the practice, they will well combine “inner” and “outer”, experience the unity of opposites of dynamic
and static, fast and slow, rigid and flexible, virtual and substantial, light and weight, etc. in the martial
art routines, and make the students really feel the charm of martial art. In short, the spirit and energy
must be implemented thoroughly in the teaching of martial art class, so as to reflect the unique
exercising method and movement form with national style.
3.3 Hold special lecture on traditional martial art culture
The incomplete martial art teaching content objective, competitive teaching content, single teaching
evaluation result in the teaching mode of “focusing on technique and ignoring theory”, which played a
good role in strengthening the physique of students and promoting the health of students in certain
historical period, promoted the development of college sport education, and created good conditions for
the popularization of martial art in the institutions of higher education. However, with the social
development and further deepening of higher education reform and requirement on the development of
martial art, the traditional teaching mode of martial art class has not adapted to the current requirement,
and the teaching mode of “attaching importance to both technique and theory” must be established. The
basic theory of martial art should be lectured to the students in the teaching, and special lectures on
martial art traditional culture of different levels should be held according to different classes, such as
martial art and ancient philosophy; martial art and Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism cultures; martial
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art and classic aesthetics; martial art and traditional Chinese medicine, etc., and make the students
accept traditional culture edification.
4. Conclusion
Under the new historical conditions, the implementation of traditional martial art cultural education in
the martial art class in the institutions of higher education is a feasible and effective approach for us to
inherit and carry forward national traditional culture. We should attach importance to national spirit
education and show the characteristics of national style in the technique teaching of martial art
education; and we should hold traditional martial art culture lectures in theoretical teaching, implement
the teaching mode of “technique and theory”, and finally strengthen the sense of national pride and
patriotism of students.
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