How did people in ancient China exercise?

In ancient times, most people did not pay much attention to muscle building, but more to health preservation. Practitioners who pursue strength are divided into two categories, one that pursues muscular strength and the other that pursues musculoskeletal strength.

Ancient Confucianism and Taoism made the vast majority of people more inclined to health and fitness, rather than exercise in the modern sense. There are many ways to maintain health and fitness in ancient times.

Hachidan-nishiki, tuna, meditation, etc., although there is also horseback riding, archery, sumo, and kemari.

However, the vast majority of people's health prefers "stillness" rather than "movement".

In the traditional Chinese way of training for strength, there are not many people who purely pursue muscle strength, and they are considered inferior. This is because China has a special skill that other countries do not have – Chinese martial arts.

There is a martial arts proverb: It is better to practice the tendons to be one inch long, and not to practice the flesh to be three points thick. If you don't practice boxing, you will be empty when you get old.

Although there are also muscle training such as stone locks and stone arms, most of the training is related to internal strength, and it is mainly based on internal strength.

Since the current handdown, it can also be seen that the predecessors of the past can also see that there are no fierce men with knotted muscles and knots, big shoulders and round waists, but most of them are ordinary or even thin-looking figures.

And the way they practice martial arts, then they have their own strengths and a hundred flowers.

Like Han Muxia. Cai Longyun, Ye Man.

Including our army general Xu Shiyou.

None of them are people who are exclusively looking for pure muscle strength, but they can easily defeat the so-called "Hercules". In their eyes, systematic and complex martial arts are the best way to exercise.

<>, we all know that "poor literature and rich martial arts", which means that if you want to learn martial arts and exercise, you must have rich living conditions, because only good conditions can allow you to get enough food after consuming a lot of physical strength. In ancient China, agriculture has always been the mainstay, and it is already good to be able to eat well, and how many people can insist on exercising and practicing martial arts? And we also know that in ancient times, they only ate two meals a day and had to do a lot of farm work, so they had little time to exercise.

In ancient times, there were many ways to exercise. For example, they often lift stone locks, similar to the dumbbells we have now. And the ancients also ran and swam long distances.

These programs are all exercises that can exercise people. The most important thing is that the ancient people practiced martial arts, and both sides often exercised themselves by learning martial arts.

In ancient times, people exercised their bodies by practicing martial arts, or through some movements, such as the Five Birds Opera.

I think that in ancient times, if people wanted to keep fit, they generally went to the army to join the army, and they also did some farm work and so on.

1. The fitness methods of ancient people were mainly Confucian six arts.

2. The six arts of poetry, calligraphy, etiquette, music, and Confucianism advocated and taught by Confucius were originally an elite education method for the upper nobles of the Zhou Dynasty to educate their descendants and cultivate the military skills of the aristocracy, and were monopolized by the nobles of the Zhou Dynasty and learned in the government. Archery and imperial art are actually the military combat skills of the Zhou Dynasty, and the children of the nobles of the Zhou Dynasty must master the standing skills, so the nobles of the Zhou Dynasty want to fitness, and the first choice is archery and imperial art, and at the same time, they also have to participate in the collective hunting activities organized by the Zhou royal family every year.

3. In fact, learning etiquette is also a kind of fitness in disguise, Zhou Dynasty etiquette is very about scattering and studying rituals, and it is necessary to practice over and over again to master various ritual and music standard movements, and every action can not be wrong, and the effect is similar to the modern broadcast gymnastics.

You shouldn't be able to practice this.

Ancient poet Lu You: Long howl.

As a prolific poet with a record of writing, Lu You, who was born in the Song Dynasty, wrote more than 20,000 poems in his lifetime. The reason why Lu You can write so many poems is that he is very talented, and more importantly, he has lived quite a long time. According to historical records, he lived to be 85 years old, making him the longest-lived poet of the Song Dynasty.

However, Lu You was easily infected by diseases when he was a child, and his body was very weak. When he took the imperial examination as a teenager, he was so ill that he had to stop doing the examination papers early. So how did Lu You live under such a weak physique for so long?

In middle age, Lu You joined the army as a military advisor, and then began to exercise and learn martial arts. After two years of training, Lu You has been able to shoot a flying eagle with a bow and arrow, and he can even kill a tiger.

In his later years, Lu You began a fitness exercise called Changxiao or Shouting Chang Chang. Quite popular in ancient times, the long howl was not a roar or a scream, but a graceful, serious, skillful approach to health. When the ancients howled, they stretched their bodies and breathed deeply and rhythmically.

Howling can help increase the ability necessary to sustain life, relax the body, and keep a person in a good mood. For Lu You, Changxiao helped him stay away from illness and medicine. When asked about the secret of longevity, Lu said:

After reading so many medical books and taking so many medicines, I found that Changxiao is the most effective way for me. “

Su Dongpo: Long-distance running, five kilometers a day.

The great Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo (Su Shi) preferred long-distance running, believing that only through regular physical activity could one have a strong body and quickly adapt to the changing seasons.

In a letter to his friend Cheng Zhengfu, Su Dongpo talked about his exercise habit of running five kilometers a day. He slows down when he has trouble breathing, and accelerates when he breathes evenly. Su Dongpo will run until he is hot and sweaty, blood circulation, and limbs stretched.

We can see that when Su Dongpo was running, he attached importance to "qi", which represents "energy" or "the essence of life", and Su Dongpo liked qigong very much.

A deep breathing system in which he runs in the morning and sits in contemplation at night, the flow of qi in his body. In his letter to his friend Zhang Andao, Su Dongpo said that after contemplating for almost 20 days, he felt that his body was getting stronger and stronger, and he could go from the first floor to the five-chain Qiao Building without resting, and he believed that by exercising in this way, he could live forever.

Huyanzan: Cold shower.

Ancient scholars were so fond of exercising, and military strategists were no exception There were two direct families in the Northern Song Dynasty, one of which was the Hu family. According to historical records, the children from the direct line of Huyanzan had children stand in the snow during the snowy winter and trained them by pouring cold water on their bodies.

In the early Tang Dynasty, in November, there was a festival called "pouring cold water" on the world, and a group of sturdy men who were almost naked sang and danced in the streets, while the crowd poured cold water on them. This festival of devotion to God is believed to be helpful in body building.

During the Song Dynasty, Huyanzan revived this tradition by removing the singing and dancing parts and keeping the cold water part as a way to exercise people's bodies.

Nowadays, people are paying more and more attention to physical fitness, so gyms are also popular. But in ancient times, there were no gyms, so how did they get fit? In fact, in ancient times, fitness was not as convenient as we are now, and many women couldn't go out, so they could only do embroidery at home, and men were better, and they worked outside was also a way of fitness, although it was forced to make a living.

Although the fitness of ancient people was not as diverse as that of us now, they also had several fitness methods.

The first is polo, but polo is a sport that can only be done by large families. Polo, as the name suggests, is riding a horse and playing a ball on grass on horseback. This sport is not only a way for ancient people to exercise, but also a way for them to communicate with each other, they can meet more wealthy people by playing polo, they can also meet friends through this sport, and even some people use this to find their other half.

There are also those who practice martial arts, they often dance with knives and guns, which is also very exercised, so the bodies of those who practice martial arts are also very good, and those who only know how to read all day long seem to be weaker than Wenwen.

And in ancient times, there was also the equivalent of our current aerobics, they are called medical exercises, which are researched by some doctors who need to enhance the physical fitness of the people, and some people find it very useful by doing this medical exercise to fitness, which can not only make the mood happy, but also increase their physical fitness. Moreover, the soldiers on the ancient army were exercising every day, because wars were still relatively common in ancient times, so they would run tomorrow, ride horses, and so on. Although the ancients had many limitations in fitness, they also began to realize that the body was the capital of the revolution, and as long as the body was well, everything began to go smoothly.