Chapter 3: China

Question 1

This secretive behavior pattern has made extremely _____ the task of the historian studying Chinese weaponless martial arts.

Answer 1

difficult

Question 2

In the field of weaponless combat, _____ undoubtedly was the catalyst in producing the techniques that have eventually come to be called _____.

Answer 2

China

karate

Question 3

While the major Chinese precursor of karate is _____ __ in Mandarin Chinese, it is more popularly known as _____ __ (pronounced “_____-___”).

Answer 3

ch’uan fa
kung fu
gung-foo

Question 4

Although we call ch’uan fa a Chinese art, it is _____ that it is wholly a product of Chinese genius.

Answer 4

doubtful

Question 5

The most reliable sources for our knowledge of Bodhidharma are generally considered to be _______________ in A.D. 654, and the _______________, by Priest Tao-yuan, written in 1004.

Answer 5

Biographies of the High Priests

Records of the Transmission of the Lamp

Question 6

The earliest ch’uan fa schools were so _____ that it was considered a capital offense to display the techniques to the _____.

Answer 6

secretive

uninitiated

Question 7

The earliest written source concerning Bodhidharma is found in a work entitled _____, by Yang Hsuan Chih in 547.

Answer 7

Records of the Lo-yang Temple

Question 8

Modern scholarship has been either _____ to accept any single version of Bodhidharma’s existence, or it asserts that all accounts of the Indian monk are _____.

Answer 8

reluctant

legendary

Question 9

Eminent Buddhist-historians such as Suzuki, Ch’en, and Heinrich feel that Bodhidharma was an actual _____ despite the many admitted sprinklings and spicings of _____ that have been added to his biography.

Answer 9

person

myth

Question 10

Bodhidharma was the third child of King _____ in southern India, was a member of the _____, or warrior caste.

Answer 10

Sugandha

Kshatriya

Question 11

Bodhidharma is said to have received his religious training from the _____ master _____, who was responsible for changing the young disciple’s name from _____.

Answer 11

Dhyana
Prajnatara
Bodhitara

Question 12

By the time of his middle age, he was considered to be very wise in the ways of _____, or _____ practices.

Answer 12

Dhyana

Zen

Question 13

According to one account, Bodhidharma set sail for _____ possibly because of a _____ wish from his old master. According to another account, the decision was made by Bodhidharma alone, because he was _____ by the decline of Buddhism in the areas outside of India proper.

Answer 13

China
death
saddened

Question 14

According to one account Bodhidharma first arrived in China during the Sung dynasty (____-____), but the traditional date of Bodhidharma’s entry into China has been ____.

Answer 14

420
479
520

Question 15

After the famous but historically questionable debate between Bodhidharma and Emperor _____, Bodhidharma’s life is centered around the _____ Temple and Monastery located in _____ Province.

Answer 15

Wu
Shaolin
Honan

Question 16

Tradition states that upon seeing the _____ condition of the monks of this temple, Bodhidharma instructed them in physical exercises to condition their _____ as well as their _____.

Answer 16

emaciated
bodies
minds

Question 17

In several works dealing with ch’uan fa and karate, reference is made to the close tie between Bodhidharma’s Shaolin exercises and the above-named fighting arts. The factual basis for these hypotheses is the physical _____ Bodhidharma introduced to the Shaolin monks, called _____ _____ _____, or in English, “_____ _____ ___ ___ _____.”

Answer 17

drills
Shihpa Lohan Shou
Eighteen Hands of the Lohan

Question 18

At the _____ time Lohan is used to designate all _____ _____ of the historic Buddha, but more generally the term refers to those five hundred arhats who are supposed to reappear on earth as _____.

Answer 18

present
famous disciples
Buddhas

Question 19

The precise meaning of Lohan in Bodhidharma’s time, however, is lost, and we are forced to rely on the educated assumption that they were some form of temple _____ of _____ origin.

Answer 19

guardians

Hindu

Question 20

Tradition designates Bodhidharma as the _____ of the term “Lohan” in _____.

Answer 20

initiator

Chinese

Question 21

For our purposes, however, the main significance of the Shihpa Lohan Shou, via Bodhidharma, is that it is reputed to be the basis for the famous Shaolin _____ ___.

Answer 21

ch’uan fa

Question 22

Why would a Zen patriarch conceive a form of ch’uan fa that, at least in its present stage of evolution, is a brutally effective weapon of combat? The answer, most probably, is that Bodhidharma never_____ his Shihpa Lohan Shou to be a _____ martial art.

Answer 22

intended

violent

Question 23

The term traditionally applied to Bodhidharma—”wall-gazing Brahmin”—is a _____. As a member of the Kshatriya, he was exposed to ____ existing forms of weaponless _____ from boyhood.

Answer 23

misnomer
all
fighting

Question 24

The development of the Shaolin style of unarmed self-defense, has a varied history, depending on the source. The most plausible version indicates that after Bodhidharma left the monastery, many of the other _____ of the Shaolin set out to _____ his teachings.

Answer 24

monks

disseminate

Question 25

_____ Yuan Shang-jen is credited with increasing Bodhidharma’s original eighteen hand-and-foot positions to ____.

Answer 25

Ch’ueh

72

Question 26

After Ch’ueh had spent some time popularizing his expanded version of the Shaolin ch’uan fa, he traveled to Shensi Province where he met with another martial arts master named _____. These two men are said to have enlarged the seventy-two strokes to ____.

Answer 26

Li-shao

170

Question 27

it was Ch’ueh Yuan who was responsible for the _____ and _____ of the Shaolin ch’uan fa.

Answer 27

rise

fame

Question 28

Most ch’uan fa forms practiced in the twentieth century are _____ of the 170 (var. 173) hand-and-foot positions of Ch’ueh Yuan, and though they have undergone a steady _____ they can still be traced ultimately to Bodhidharma’s embryonic eighteen positions.

Answer 28

descendants

evolution

Question 29

There is every possibility that some type of weaponless combat developed in China long _____ the advent of Bodhidharma.

Answer 29

before

Question 30

The _____ Rebellion was an unorganized mass revolt against _____ controls in China.

Answer 30

Boxer

foreign

Question 31

Hatred of Western domination reached a breaking point in _____ when the Boxers staged their famous rebellion. The Boxers were involved in a type of chuan fa activity.

Answer 31

1900

Question 32

Most of the actual combat during the Boxer rebellion was conducted with _____. The empty-handed or true ch’uan fa styles seem to have been employed primarily for _____ purposes.

Answer 32

weapons

propaganda

Question 33

Throughout history, China probably had the most _____ forms of martial arts.

Answer 33

secretive

Question 34

The most prominent term used for Chinese martial arts today is _____. This term means “_____ _____ ______,” and is used to describe over four hundred schools and styles.

Answer 34

wushu

art of war

Question 35

Before the 1980s, _____ _____ was more commonly used in the West to describe these same arts, and being a _____ word, is still prevalent where southern Chinese predominate.

Answer 35

kung fu

Cantonese

Question 36

In every true art form, whether aesthetic or practical, some part of the artist’s technique is kept secret. This was especially true of the Chinese martial arts until the decade of the _____.

Answer 36

1960s

Question 37

Far from training in Chinese organizations exclusively, the Chinese martial arts are “out of the closet” so to speak and readily available to ______ and _____ who wish to study and train.

Answer 37

any

all