Chinese calligraphy art and the martial arts or kung fu fighting have very close relations, though seemingly the art of Chinese calligraphy is a quiet form of art and the eastern martial arts are dynamic. In this short article, let’s try to find out some common ground for both Chinese calligraphy art and the martial arts.

As we know, the Chinese calligraphy symbols are a kind of ideograph, meaning the characters themselves are a type of abstract art. Knowing this, let’s discover how the eastern martial arts are represented in the Chinese calligraphy characters. In Chinese, martial arts are called “武术”, literally meaning the art of force or fighting. The main character in this term is “武”. If we break up this character into parts, we’ll find something very interesting about its etymology. It is made up of the characters 戈 and 止. The character 戈 means spear. The character 止 means “to stop”; thus, "武" is sometimes believed to denote “to stop a weapon” or “to stop violence”(止戈为武) . This definition is mentioned in the Chinese history book Spring and Autumn Annals, written in 481 BC and the 1985 film No Retreat, No Surrender. But, due to it also containing the meaning “foot” in Oracle script, according to the Japanese dictionary Kanjigen (汉字源), another point is that the character 武 may therefore have originally referred to “a man on foot with a spear”.

Another factor relating to both Chinese calligraphy art and martial arts is (Qi, or Chi). The literal translation of "qi" is "breath", "air", or "gas". And it is frequently translated as "life energy", "life force", or "energy flow". Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine, martial arts, Chinese calligraphy and painting. When doing kung fu or martial arts, it is not one’s physical strength that works most but the inner strength or Qi. That’s why some eastern martial arts styles look soft and slow but actually very forceful, such as Tai Chi, Qi Gong / Chi Gong, karate. Qi / Chi is also the life force of the art of Chinese calligraphy. It is said a strong person may not write a good hand but one who looks physically weak may because he makes good use of his inner strength Qi. It is Qi / Chi that goes through a person’s body and manages the moves in martial arts. Similarly, when practicing Chinese calligraphy art, it is not only the fingers are wielding force but quite contrarily it is the calligrapher’s Qi / Chi from inside that goes through the shoulders, arms, hands, fingers and the soft brush tip down to the thin piece of rice paper. The force created by Qi is so powerful that when looking at the back of an unmounted Chinese calligraphy art work of a master calligrapher, we can always find the characters are popping out.

Furthermore, Chinese calligraphy symbols and martial arts styles both observe very strict rules and laws. A beginner learning Chinese calligraphy art must be patient enough to learn how to hold and use the brushes and keep practicing the basic strokes and structures of Chinese symbols over and over again. Likewise a beginner of eastern martial Arts must spend long time to practice and repeat the basic moves of squatting, standing, hands moving, etc. Additionally, independent Chinese calligraphy characters must have their strong structure with proper arrangement of different strokes and a whole piece of Chinese calligraphy art must exhibit an aesthetic layout with a natural and flowing format. In the same manner, eastern martial arts moves are not irregular; they can mimic some animals and some moves in martial arts are like Chinese characters. All moves in a certain set of martial arts should flow naturally and form into a natural whole. There is a story saying that the accomplished ancient Chinese calligrapher Zhang Xu in the Tang Dynasty was enormously inspired from often watching the sword dance performance by a great female sword dancer Gongsun Daniang to develop his own style of calligraphy in cursive script.

Finally, we should know that both Chinese calligraphy art and the martial arts are ultimately ways of training and cultivating one’s mind in addition to body building. Dynamism and quiescence are constantly interlinking with each other in both art forms and practice. That’s the drive of life and why many Chinese calligraphers and martial arts masters live long.