Chinese martial arts

• Kung Fu began early in China's Ming Dynasty(1368-1644 A.D.) as a system of gymnastic training primarily intended to benefit health.

• Because many exercises involved opponents tackling each other, it developed into a competitive martial art.

• The Manual of Nourishing the Life by Gymnastics, a book of uncertain date, probably around 1400, is the earliest of many Kung Fu textbooks.

• Kung Fu is one of a series of martial arts for individual combatants without weapons. It began over a thousand years ago in China and spread early on to Japan, where Karate and Ju-jitsu evolved.

• Judo is the most recent derivative of the tradition. Judo-'the gentle way' was developed by Jigoro Kano. He opened a judo academy in Tokyo in 1882, when he was only just 23. The term judo was already used for a method in ju-jitsu, which Jigoro learnt as a teenager.

• He worked out his new system, based on ju-jitsu, in the early 1880s, and it proved instantly successful when his academy opened. Four years later, graduates from his academy defeated ju-jitsu exponents in a public match.

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