THE HISTORY OF SWANDA KARATE

Lou She Swan learn Duae Da - Soft Style Double Man Together Fighting

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, before the Ming, before the Tang, during the perilous times accompanying the fall of the First Empire, when the Men of Han lost the mandate of Heaven, a Taoist physician practiced a series of exercises based on the movements of various animals and elements.
Every morning the doctor would rise with the sun and practice his exercises in seclusion and silence in a wooded area near his home. Before long, this daily routine became common knowledge, and people would gather from miles ar'ound, wait for the doctor to exercise, copy his movements, and follow his advice. The therapeutic soundness of the daily exercise soon had great numbers of people seeking the doctor, and his fame and wealth grew to huge proportions. Then, it was they of the doctor to serve his patients, and it was customary for the patients to pay him as long as they were in good health. Illness meant that the doctor was doing a bad job, and patients ceased their payments.

As the doctor's teachings became more popular, word spread of the therapeutic value and defense possibilities. Rumors of its mystical powers began reaching Imperial ears. One day a messenger arrived at a practice session and summoned the doctor to appear before the Imperial court to display his talents. It is said that he amazed the Imperial family with his graceful movements, alternating between soft, slow and hard, fast motion. After a lengthy explanation of his unique exercise, the doctor was commanded to teach the Imperial family all that he knew, and he became an instructor and advisor to the Imperial Court.

With the passing of time, all of the doctor's patients and students, nobles and commoners alike, began experiencing noticeable self-defense results from their daily practice, and the commoners began to resist Imperial authority. The Empire was beginning to crumble, and the Imperial court did not think it was advantageous to have its subjects trained in this manner, and the doctor was ordered to stop teaching anyone except the Imperial family. Although the penalty for disobeying an Imperial edict was immediate death, the doctor refused to obey that edict, and sunrise the following- day found him still practicing his art with his students. Consequently, the doctor was executed, his followers disbanded, and rewards placed on the heads of his senior stutents.

The name of the doctor was Hua-T'o. These events took place in China during the third century A.D. Hua-T'o's exercises became later reknowned as the Shi-Pa-Lo-Ban-Sho, the Eighteen Lo-Han Postures, which the warrior monks of the Shaolin Temple made famous as the basis for Shaolin boxing. For the next 1700 years, Hua-T'o's teachings were secretly passed on from family to family, father to son, master to student. The necessity for secrecy during these years was fixed in the minds of those students. Open public practice had cost Hua-T'o and other masters their lives. Thus, the path laid out by the master for the student was 8 secretive and often confusing methods of study and practice. The renaissance of martial arts worldwide has just recently made open public practice possible.