History of shuai jiao

Shuai jiao (摔跤 or 摔角, shuāijiāo) is traditional Chinese wrestling. Over the centuries the same family of practices went by different names: jiaoli (角力), jiaodi (角抵, also read juédǐ), xiangpu (相扑) and finally shuaijiao ^{1 2}. The figures quoted for its age (four, five, even six thousand years) rest on legend rather than on records, and they differ from one source to the next ^{3 4 5}.

Legend and earliest evidence

Chiyou and the horned fighters

The most frequently quoted origin story is a legend. The Shuyi ji (述异记) by Ren Fang (任昉), a writer of the Liang dynasty, says that Chiyou (蚩尤), the mythical opponent of the Yellow Emperor, had horns on his head and "butted people with his horns"; in the Jizhou region there was a game called "Chiyou's game" (蚩尤戏), in which people faced off in pairs wearing ox horns ⁶. It is a tradition recorded many centuries after the events it describes: it explains the name jiaodi ("butting with horns"), but it does not prove a prehistoric origin ².

Zhou: jiaoli as military training

The first mention in a classical text is in the Yueling chapter of the Liji (礼记): in the first month of winter the Son of Heaven orders his generals to practise military arts, archery, chariot driving and jiaoli ^{1 7}. According to the Hanshu, after the Spring and Autumn period these trials of strength also became entertainment, used "to show off to one another" ⁷.

Qin and Han: jiaodi

Under the Qin the prevailing term became jiaodi. The Shiji records the Second Emperor at Ganquan Palace watching jiaodi and actors' performances ^{1 6}. Archaeology supports this picture: a painted wooden comb from Qin tomb no. 70 at Fenghuangshan (Jingzhou, Hubei) shows a wrestling scene ^{8 9}; it depicts three men, one of them in the position of a referee ¹⁰.

Under Emperor Wu of Han, in the spring of the third Yuanfeng year (108 BC), jiaodi shows were staged and people came "from three hundred li away" to watch ¹. In this period jiaodi merged with baixi (百戏), the great court spectacle that combined acrobatics, music and combat ⁷. A silk painting from the Han tomb at Jinqueshan (Linyi, Shandong) shows two wrestlers and an onlooker interpreted as a judge ⁶.

From medieval court xiangpu to the Ming

The term xiangpu appears between the Three Kingdoms and the Jin, but the sources disagree on the date: CCTV and CGTN place it under the Jin ^{6 2}, Wang Xiaodong and Su Xueliang in the Three Kingdoms period ⁷.

Under the Tang, wrestling was widespread at court and in the army; the Left and Right Shence armies performed for the emperor, and the court had its own troupe of wrestlers, the xiangpu peng (相扑朋) ⁷. Under the Song, xiangpu was the fixed item at the ninth toast of imperial banquets, performed by court wrestlers called neidengzi (内等子) ⁷. Outside the palace there were real contests, where the prize went to whoever remained unbeaten, and exhibition bouts in the entertainment quarters; wrestlers fought bare-chested, in short trousers ⁶. Professional women wrestlers are also recorded in the capital Lin'an ¹⁰. The Song period produced the Jiaoli ji (角力记) by an author known only as Diaoluzi (调露子), a short treatise on the history of wrestling listed in the bibliography of the official Song history ¹¹.

The Liao, Jin and Yuan adopted wrestling into court ceremonial; the Yuan, for whom wrestling, riding and archery were the "three manly skills", set up a dedicated office, the Yongxiao shu (勇校署) ⁷. According to Wang and Su, this is when jacketed wrestling, common among the northern peoples, became the dominant form ⁷. Assessments of the Ming differ: Wang and Su describe a period of decline ⁷, while other sources note that the name shuaijiao spread precisely after the Ming ^{2 6}.

The Qing: buku and the Shanpu Ying

For the Manchus, wrestling, called buku (布库), was a core skill. Two styles coexisted at court: the Manchu one, with short jackets and boots, in which throwing the opponent to the ground was enough and the prize was wine; and the Mongolian one, bare-chested, in which the opponent's shoulders and head had to touch the ground and the prize was mutton ^{12 13}.

Guards specialised in wrestling already existed under Shunzhi ¹⁴. The institution proper, the shanpu ying (善扑营, Shànpū Yíng), "corps of skilled wrestlers", was created after 1669: on the sixteenth day of the fifth month of the eighth Kangxi year, the young emperor had the powerful regent Aobai (鳌拜) pinned down and tied up by a group of young guards trained in wrestling ^{14 15}. The episode is recorded in Qing sources, but it has also become a heavily romanticised founding story: Tianqiao tradition, for instance, regards it as the seed of its own school ¹⁶.

According to the Qing history portal, the establishment comprised 200 wrestlers, 50 archers and 50 riders, under supervising ministers and six wing commanders split between a left and a right wing; every year, in the tenth month, a review was held at Yingtai ¹⁴. The wrestlers, called puhu (扑户), were selected from the Eight Banners through competition, served as palace guards, performed at banquets and handled training ¹⁵; they were divided into three grades with matching pay ⁶. Zhaolian's (昭梿) Xiaoting xulu (啸亭续录) records that they fought wrestlers from the vassal principalities, that winners received tea and silk, and that the Qianlong Emperor was especially fond of these matches ¹⁷. A large painting by Giuseppe Castiglione (郎世宁) and court painters, held by the Palace Museum, shows Qianlong watching wrestling at a banquet beyond the Great Wall ¹⁸.

When the dynasty fell (1911-1912) the corps was disbanded. Many former puhu were left without income and began teaching or performing in the streets ^{19 16}.

The Republican era

From Tianqiao to the schools

In Beijing the first-grade puhu Wan Yongshun (宛永顺) opened a school at Hongmiao, bringing palace wrestling to ordinary people; in the 1920s the wrestling rings of Bao Shanlin and Shen Youshan in the Tianqiao (天桥) district were among the most popular shows. Tianqiao wrestling, which mixed bouts with comic patter, became known as "martial crosstalk" (武相声) ^{16 19}.

Ma Liang and the "New Wushu"

General Ma Liang (马良) developed from 1911 the Zhonghua xin wushu (中华新武术) programme, which covered boxing, wrestling, spear and sword; in 1917 it was adopted in military and police academies ²⁰. In his system wrestling appeared under the name 率角 ⁷.

The Guoshu Institute and the national examinations

The Central Guoshu Institute (中央国术馆, Zhōngyāng Guóshù Guǎn) was founded in Nanjing in 1928 ²¹. It adopted the name shuaijiao (摔角) and made wrestling a core subject of teaching, examinations and competition ⁷. The national examinations, meant to be annual, were held only twice, in October 1928 and October 1933; in 1928 the paired bouts included wrestling, by single elimination, with no weight or age classes, won by taking two of three rounds ²¹. Wrestling was also on the programme of the National Games of 1933 in Nanjing and 1935 in Shanghai ^{22 23}. The Institute was dissolved in 1948 for lack of funds ²¹. Despite this promotion, shuai jiao remained above all a northern art ⁷.

The People's Republic: from state sport to comeback

In November 1953 Tianjin hosted the national meet of ethnic-form sports, later counted as the first Traditional Games of Ethnic Minorities; wrestling was among the competitive events and Mongolian wrestling among the demonstrations ²⁴. In 1956 grading standards for athletes were issued and the first national championship of the discipline was held in Beijing, with 96 athletes; in 1957 the rulebook was published ¹⁰. In the 1950s the name was changed to zhongguoshi shuaijiao (中国式摔跤, "Chinese-style wrestling") to distinguish it from the Olympic styles ⁷. The modern sport was built mainly on Beijing and Tianjin techniques, integrating those of other ethnic groups ²⁵.

Shuai jiao was an official event at the first National Games (Beijing, 1959) ^{26 27}. It was banned at the start of the Cultural Revolution ⁷. After the 7th National Games in 1993 it was dropped from the programme because it was not an Olympic sport; the provinces disbanded their professional teams and many coaches moved to Olympic wrestling and judo ^{3 28}. It survived in the Ethnic Minorities Games, the Peasants' Games and the National Sports Meeting (全国体育大会) ³. In 2008 "Tianqiao wrestling" was added to the national intangible cultural heritage list ²⁹. In 2021, after 28 years, shuai jiao returned to the National Games (14th edition) as a mass-participation event, not as a professional discipline ²⁷.

Regional styles

Tianjin, Beijing, Baoding and Jinan were known as the "four wrestling cities" ^{28 31}. The origins of Shanxi naoyang are disputed: one view dates it to the second Hongwu year (1369), while a traditional story links it to a veteran of Yue Fei's army ³³. The national intangible heritage list also includes Shenyang Beishi wrestling and Uyghur, Yi and Korean wrestling ²⁹.

An open question: Han or Mongol roots?

Chinese Wikipedia calls the idea that Chinese wrestling was introduced by the Mongols a misconception ³⁰. The Bokhin Ayin blog, quoting the Beijing master Li Baoru, argues instead that modern jacketed shuai jiao descends from Mongolian bökh by way of Manchu buku ³⁶. Wang and Su take a middle position: under the Qing, Han jiaodi and xiangpu, Mongolian wrestling and Manchu wrestling merged ⁷.

International spread

After 1949 Chang Dongsheng took the Baoding style to Taiwan, where he taught at the Central Police College, and in 1982 he presented it in the United States ^{37 30}. In France, Yuan Zumou, who moved there in 1985, created the Paris Mayor's Cup in 1992 ³⁸. The Italian Shuai Jiao Union was founded in 2005 and belongs to the European Shuai Jiao Union (ESJU), whose honorary president is Chang's grandson Chang Dawei (常达伟) ^{39 40 37}. In August 2019 the World Shuai Jiao Federation was founded in Langfang: with 26 founding organisations according to the US federation, with representatives of about 33 countries according to a Dutch report ^{41 42}. Current rules and results are covered on another page.