Shuai Chiao - oldest fighting style of China?

[SiMai]

My Sifu keeps every issue of KungFu magazine he ever owns and he dug up the Jan/Feb 2006 issue to lend me. The cover story was on Shuai Chiao which I have never heard of until I read this article.

I know there are endless discussions and debates on which style begets which style and so on. Has any one heard of this style or practices this style?


Humbly yours,
KungFu newbie

 

[exile]

My Sifu keeps every issue of KungFu magazine he ever owns and he dug up the Jan/Feb 2006 issue to lend me. The cover story was on Shuai Chiao which I have never heard of until I read this article.

I know there are endless discussions and debates on which style begets which style and so on. Has any one heard of this style or practices this style?


Humbly yours,
KungFu newbie

Greetings, SiMai, welcome to MT—you might want to post to the Meet & Greet forum and tell people about yourself.

As far as the question posed in your thread title—I'm just wonder how anyone could reliably document the claim that this or that particular style was the oldest. There are hundreds of fighting styles in the CMAs, and they may well have been called something else at an earlier time... and even in China, you aren't necessarily going to find enough documentation for MA styles at ancient time horizons, especially because of the secrecy surrounding the practice of combat skills in China even into recent times... I just don't see how the question could be answered in a way that would satisfy even an easygoing skeptic!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Shuai Chiao (摔跤; Shuaijiao) - Chinese Wrestling
http://www.answers.com/topic/shuai-jiao

Shuaijiao is one of the oldest recorded CMAs in existance. However that does not mean it came before any other style or that there are not other styles or styles before Shuaijiao that are no longer in existance. However it is considered the oldest CMA in existance today and one of the oldest MA in the world.

But when you are talking CMA styles the names change occasionally shuai jiao was allegedly first called Jiao li (角&#21147 and is traced via legend back to 2,697 BCE. But I believe it was documented during the Zhou Dynasty (between the twelfth and third century BCE). Also I doubt it is exaclty the same to day as it was 2200 to 2300 years ago.

Basically it is old.

 

[Steel Tiger]

Shuai jiao is a form of wrestling that makes it old. Wrestling is present in almost every older culture in the world. Wrestling as a practise has grown with humanity.

Because of this, Shaui jiao may well be the oldest "art" to come out of China.

 

[pstarr]

It is probably the oldest martial art, per se. I think the oldest name might be "go-ti" which involved wearing helmets with bull's horns mounted on them and trying to gore each other as well as grapple. Now, that'd give some extra color to MMA bouts...! :boxing: