For as long as I've been involved with Chinese martial arts there's been discussion about sport Wushu (which includes San Shou) becoming an Olympic sport. The Chinese government has supported this idea, and everyone fully expected it to be included at Beijing 2008. However, this failed to happen, despite BMX events being added! The reasons for this were many, and most of us could see the writing on the wall long before the announcement. China decided to ignore the IOC and host the Wushu Tournament Beijing 2008, despite this being against the rules for hosting an Olympics (but hey, it's China), and as a consequence there was a degree of denialism from some corners.
Talk then shifted towards a more orchestrated campaign for inclusion in 2020, and indeed it's been added to the shortlist. However, baseball and softball appear to be the front runners from that shortlist (for reasons that we'll come on to). So despite an announcement, later retracted, last year that Wushu would be included in 2016, we appear no closer to Wushu as an Olympic sport.
Why is this? If we look at the other sports on the shortlist, Climbing, Baseball, Karate, Roller Sports, Softball, Squash, and Wakeboarding, we may gain some clues. For starters Baseball and Softball have already been Olympic sports, so they've proven they can do it. The flip side of that argument is of course that they've already been cut as well. However, their popularity in the US and Japan means that they will bring in large amounts of sponsorship revenue, and whatever the Olympic ideals may state, staging a modern Olympics costs a staggering amount of money. If we look at the others, by and large they are widely practised, well organised and inclusive.
We have to face the reality that Wushu at the moment is a fringe sport. It's also a sport that's divided. Modern sport Taolu competition is an entirely separate discipline from San Shou to the point that in the UK now most of the San Shou competitors come from traditional Wushu (Kung Fu) schools rather than contemporary Wushu schools. Wushu Taolu is now so specialised that it's become very divorced from it's roots in traditional forms, especially with the move towards Nandu (physically challenging postures/movements), so promoting sport Wushu is now effectively promoting two different sports as one.
Lack of unity is another major issue. The secretive, divisive nature of Chinese martial arts has carried over into modern schools and organisations, and changing 200 years of tradition can be slow progress. While the BCCMA is making efforts towards greater cooperation to develop the sports, many UK schools operate outside of the BCCMA. I don't want to go into martial arts politics, and both sides have their story, but I do believe that unity and/or cooperation are needed to move the sport forwards.
However, in other countries the situation is far worse. Although the high profile of Cung Le in the MMA media has led people to believe that the US has a great San Shou scene, the reality is that it's a hugely politicised group, and many of the early pioneering schools such as Boston San Shou and New York San Da have simply given up in disgust and gone over to MMA. At the last World Championships, despite a population pushing a third of a billion and numerous contemporary Wushu schools and Chinese coaches, the US only produced 2 medal winners, one in San Shou and one in Taolu (who did win 3 medals).
Overshadowing all of this is of course the tensions between China and Taiwan. The Taiwanese Koushu format is probably as popular as San Shou in the West and appeals more to many traditional schools, in part because of it's fingerless gloves, lack of bodyshields and less restrictive clinch rules, and in part because it's not associated with Wushu Taolu. This rivalry hinders efforts to promote San Shou.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle though is the sheer disparity between the participants, and of course the relative control the PRC has over the sport. At the last world championships only 3 out of 40 gold medals were won by people not from Asian countries, and indeed only 2 of the top 12 medal winning nations were from outside Asia. China, Hong Kong and Macau between them won 24 golds. Compare this to Tae Kwon Do where in 2008 Mexico won 2 of the 8 Olympic gold medals, and 8 of the top 12 were from outside Asia. Until the sport has more successful competitors from around the world, it's unlikely the IOC will include it.
Of course, the big question is do we really want Wushu to be an Olympic sport?
Why shouldn't we want to become an Olympic Sport? It brings prestige, exposure and television! It does certainly bring prestige, but is it worth all the effort for bragging rights? Unless that prestige can be worked into something useful then it's not worth all that much. This brings us on to exposure and television. Exactly how much TKD and Judo actually gets televised on UK television? Not a lot, and not a lot of people watch it. Coupled with that, I was actually put off Judo for years BECAUSE of Olympic Judo on TV.
Personally I feel that the whole approach is backwards. Tae Kwon Do was accepted as an Olympic sport because of it's burgeoning popularity, it didn't gain popularity because of the Olympics. There may have been a small shift in the relative numbers of people doing ITF and WTF, but TKD has been popular for a long time. To me it seems to make more sense to develop and promote the sport for it's own sake, and then worry about the Olympics when we're in a better position to do so.
So, while the positives may not be so positive after all, what about the negatives? As the saying goes, if you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change, he changes you. Judo and Tae Kwon Do have both experienced major changes to their rules and their essential character since becoming Olympic sports. Judo has seen substantially shorter match times, and in the latest round of changes a ban on leg grabs and bodylocks. While there have been many changes to Judo rules through history, they've typically been to do with safety and fairness. The motivations for these changes seem to be to make the matches more exciting and less like wrestling, at the expense of both the traditional art and it's martial character.
Tae Kwon Do has seen an increase in scoring for head kicks (why do you need such an increase in a full contact competition? If I kick someone full force in the head I'm pretty sure I've won the fight, no need for points). This has the effect of turning matches into a "who can jump up and kick the other guy in the head first?" competition. This again diminishes the martial character of the art. Indeed, modern Olympian TKD fighters say that they spend no time at all on the art, the self defence work, the punching drills etc, it's just what it takes to win an Olympic match.
Therefore the price of being an Olympic sport seems to be doing whatever it takes to remain one. What would this mean for Wushu? Herein lies the other big problem, Wushu is very similar to existing Olympic sports. Taolu is closely related to gymnastic floor routines (by design) and if you fused amateur boxing, TKD and Judo, you'd get something that looks a lot like San Shou. It's very easy to see Taolu competitions going down the XMA/tricking route, which is after all a logical progression from Nandu. For San Shou, who can say? Banning leg kicks? Banning kick grabs because they look scrappy and discourage kicking? Even more restrictive clinching rules? It's a Pandora's box that we shouldn't be in a rush to open. Many, many Judoka and Tae Kwon Do practitioners feel that the Olympics have been bad for their arts.
The prestige of being an Olympic sport seems therefore to come at the expense of your involvement in the martial arts as a wider community, and increased specialisation. This comes against the background of a martial arts scene where functional and pragmatic are the new buzzwords. At a time when martial arts a getting back to their combative routes, and people are competing in ever more realistic formats, do we want to go down the route of becoming a specialised combat sport? As Joe Rogan (UFC commentator) says about his time training for the 2000 US Olympic TKD team "I'd become really good at something that wasn't useful".
Another question to consider is whether or not IWF amateur San Shou competition is the logical endpoint for San Shou? Should we be looking to elevate an amateur sport or should we be looking to develop a professional one? Certainly ISKA managed to run successful pro San Shou matches in the US with TV coverage (which is where Cung Le gained such a high profile). Should we develop a pro format similar to the Chinese pro leagues and their King of San Da tournament? Do away with the bodyshields and headguards, allow knees and loosen up the clinch rules? This would also allow people to cross compete in K1 events, allowing them to test themselves outside of a currently limited talent pool (and potentially earn more money and sponsorship). It would also perhaps create an environment where San Shou and Koushu people could come together to fight under the new ruleset. The Koushu groups have already taken steps in this direction, attempting to launch a pro league that was essentially MMA with time restrictions on the ground. This is perhaps the most pertinent question though. Does San Shou's future ultimately lie in Shootboxing and MMA? Either as a shootboxing format for MMA standup with the addition of a ground fighting style, or as an integrated MMA system with ground grappling added to the syllabus? This is the direction several of the larger US schools have taken, and indeed US San Shou's golden boy Cung Le has fought for Strkeforce and UFC. In many ways it seems a logical progression.
I don't have the answers, but these are the questions that need to be considered. I love San Shou as an amateur sport, but I feel that serious consideration should be given to what the next level from that should be. The Olympics, while exciting could well turn out to be a poisoned chalice.
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