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Chinese Martial Arts

China, the world’s largest country by population, is widely regarded as the home of martial arts and is the birthplace of numerous diverse styles.

Modern Chinese martial arts can trace their origins to a number of sources, including ancient military skills, the Buddhist martial arts that evolved out of the Shaolin temple, the Daoist martial arts that originate from the Wudang temple in Hubei province, and a number of other techniques used by bandits, militia, secret societies, invaders, and marauding pirates throughout China’s turbulent history.

According to legend, the Indian monk Bodhidharma (known as “Da Mo” in China) traveled from southern India to China in the 6th century CE carrying sutras (collections of dialogs and discourses). He then settled in the Shaolin temple in Song Shan, and introduced martial exercises and Zen Buddhism to China. However, there is evidence to suggest that the practice of martial arts in the country dates back to well before that time.

A longer history

Although Bodhidharma may well have been one of the first to record martial-art techniques-he also introduced techniques such as meditation to existing fighting systems-experts believe that Chinese martial arts gradually developed from ancient hunting skills and from one tribe’s need to defend itself from another. These fighting forms developed slowly over the years: punches and kicks were incorporated and, in time, so was the use of weapons.

The first evidence of martial-art practice in China comes in 2698 BCE during the reign of the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi, who developed the practice of jiao di (”horn-butting”) among his soldiers. In the 5th century BCE – some 1,000 years before Bodhidharma’s arrival in Song Shan – Confucius mentions martial arts in his texts; Daoist literature from the 4th century BCE contains principles applicable to martial arts; and there is evidence to suggest that physical exercises similar to taijiquan have been practiced in the region since at least 500 BCE. In contrast, the earliest textual evidence of Shaolin martial arts comes in 728 CE.

Putting soldiers to the test

The development of martial arts in China is indelibly linked to the military. The first military martial-arts tests were established in 702 CE. These challenged a soldier’s physical strength, horsemanship, and skills with a lance, spear, and bow and arrow. Such a premium was placed on them that regular soldiers were categorized according to their ability and courage in hand-to-hand combat and weapons skills, particularly their swordsmanship.

Various military generals have added their expertise to China’s martial-arts mix. Even Genghis Khan, the Mongol warrior whose armies had conquered much of South Asia- including all of China-by the 13th century, believed that bkyukl bokh was the best way to keep his troops ready for battle. Two styles of the art are still practiced today, one in Mongolia, the other in Inner Mongolia.

Boom in popularity

It was not until the Republican Period (1912-1949), a time when China was recovering from the fall of the Qing dynasty, the invasion by Japan, and the Chinese Civil War, that martial arts became more accessible to the general public. In a wave of national pride, the Chinese government classified all martial arts under the banner “guosho,” meaning “national art.” Martial artists were encouraged to teach, numerous training manuals were published, examinations in martial arts were created, and demonstration teams started to travel the world- the first martial-art demonstration in front of an international audience took place at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Online Fishing Dating Services are Booming These Days

We have seen many online fishing dating services booming on the Internet in the last few years. Many popular fishing dating web sites offer 100% free fishing dating services which help many online fishing singles to find love and romance without a fee. That’s wonderful, isn’t it? Some fishing dating services provide free membership for a limited time but some fishing dating sites offer free for a life time to the members. There are pay fishing dating services that were created long time ago and they charge members some fee a month. Big fishing dating services have the amount of joined members to two million and the number of members are going up. We can see how on line fishing singles and fishing personals like fishing dating services on the Net.

The main purpose of online fishing dating services is to provide single men and single women to know each other on Net. Some fishing dating services focus on specific area, such as Northern America, UK, Russia, Asia, or Europe regions, and there are fishing dating services are world-wide. Single men and single girls can meet thru the on line fishing dating sites for friendship, relationships, or marriage. On line fishing singles, in a moment, can see other fishing personal ads in front of computer. Registering a profile takes a few minutes at these fishing dating sites and we recommend that you upload your photo to increase your chance in getting more attention from other members.

The old saying said that one picture worth thousands words which is always true. When a member look at your photo, they will contact you right away if they are interested in your photo, without reading all the information you write on your profile. So, posting your profile with a picture or two photos increase your profile values. Usually, online fishing dating services have new members on the homepage, which have newest members with photos. Profiles without pictures are usually not displayed on the front page of these fishing dating web sites. Let us put it this way, when you search for a profile, you always look at profiles with pictures at these fishing online dating services. Statistics usually shows that profile with pictures are viewed much more than profile without pictures on these fishing on line dating services.

Selecting the best online fishing dating services that matches your dating style is not easy. Some members use their photos that they took 20 years ago to post on the on line fishing dating sites to attract on line fishing singles. So, you sometimes get surprised when you meet some specific members in person. So, before make decision to meet that specific person that you know on these fishing dating sites, make sure you ask for their latest photos. Some on line fishing single dating services generate thousands of marriages a year, you need to try to find a perfect member. There are single men and single women are waiting to meet you at these fishing personals dating sites.

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Understand Cricket Better With Cricket Stats

Cricket is one of the most popular games that has a huge fan following. This can be witnessed from the craze that gets created when some cricket tournament or some cricket match is about to begin. People go crazy trying to schedule things before hand so that they can be free when the match is on and nothing can stop them from enjoying the match and flowing with the emotions of the game, the cricketers and the huge number of fans sitting almost everywhere all across the globe. Cricket fans all across want to know the overall performance of their cricket idols and the statistics of the overall performance of their favorite teams. In fact, cricket is one of the most popular games that generate a huge number of statistics. Maintaining cricket stats is not an easy task. To maintain cricket stats, the statistics of each player or cricketer are recorded during a match and aggregated over a career.

On the professional level, cricket stats for Test cricket, one-day internationals, and first-class cricket are generally recorded separately. However, since Test matches are one of the forms of first-class cricket itself, a player’s first-class cricket stats will precisely include his Test match statistics. Again, these days’ cricket stats are also maintained for List A limited over matches. Leading Test nations play these matches which are normally limited over games played domestically at the national level. Since one-day internationals are a form of List A limited over matches, a player’s List A cricket stats will automatically include his ODI match statistics. In fact, by going through the accurate cricket stats of players, one can cite the ability and the capabilities of the player. Cricket fans lay a lot of importance on cricket stats because cricket stats help in understanding the real standing of the player in the international cricket front and one can easily quote the cricketer’s cricketing abilities.

When a cricket match is on, one can come across various sources from where they can come to know the score and the condition of the match. This has to be done only when one misses out on a cricket match due to some or the other reason. The sources can actually be anything. It can be a radio commentary, information on the internet or information through news channel, the cricket stats that are recorded from these sources are accurate and give out the exact information. A cricket match is a very serious thing for cricket fans. In addition, cricket stats help them to know the exact condition of the players and the teams that are playing a match. In fact, cricket stats can talk about varied elements related to the game of cricket. Cricket stats can be gathered from many sources; but for fans the best and the most appropriate sources are newspapers, magazines and online sites that are thoroughly dedicated to the game of cricket.

The advantage of looking up for cricket stats from these sources are that one can store these cricket stats record for as long as they want. They can cut out the cricket stats from newspapers; download the stats from online sites. Basically, these sources help in maintaining the records. Just like the game itself, cricket stats too have an important part to play and this is something that can be understood by dedicated cricket fans only.