Chinese martial arts can keep fit
1 min readFive-animal Exercise (Wuqin Xi), Yi Jin Jing , Eight-trigram Boxing and other activities are created by ancient Chinese people for health preservation.
The five animals here refer to tiger, deer, bear, ape and bird. Fiveanimal Exercise is a set of movements arranged by imitating the actions of the five animals to build up physical strength. It can cure diseases and exercise the body as a form of gymnastics. Yi Jin Jing is influenced by religion, Chinese traditional medicine and Yin and Yang concepts.
It develops into twelve motions, which imitate basic labor actions such as pestling rice, transportation and so on. It is featured by its unity of hardness and softness, dynamics and statics as well as mind and force. Eight-trigram Boxing is favored by people due to its beautiful movements as well as its functions in curing illness.
The form has only eight individual movements which are simple and easy to learn. Each is related to human organs. It is more than only body movements; it is a comprehensive body fitness exercise including conscious and rhythmic breathing.
