From "Skill" to "Memory": Cultural Production of Physical Skills in Traditional Wushu-Based on the Investigation of Fuxi Bagua Quan

Adopting the methods of literature review and field work, the study takes Fuxi Bagua Quan as the object to explore its physical skills and cultural origins, from the perspectives of body, rite and memory. It holds that the single skills of "Choosing Slow and Abandoning Fast" shows a selective construction of "physical memory", while the pair skills of "Taochui" shows a ritualized physical exercise. The essence of the cultural production of physical skills in traditional Wushu is the preservation and transmission of "physical memory" in the body of the practitioners, i.e., the memory into the brain, into the body and into the heart on the physical level. And, the inheritance of "skill" is just the transmission of "memory".