二鬼摔跤 two ghosts wrestling
I first saw the "wrestling of the two ghosts" dance a long time ago performed by a student of Master Yuan Zumou. I was deeply impressed: a single man simultaneously impersonating two wrestlers, one dressed in black and the other in white, seemed to be a reference to Yin Yang, to the eternal contrast and harmony, to the internal struggle or to put it in Chinese 自己摔自己 wrestling against oneself.
In more than thirty years I have never managed to learn the wrestling of the two ghosts, there was always something more important: the technique, the combat, the self-defense... but now that I am old it is the thing I would most like to learn from the Master. What gives great value to Chinese martial arts is history, culture and beauty.
It is only for this beauty that I have continued to practice for so many years.
The performance of 二鬼摔跤 Two Ghosts Wrestling was very popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and is still handed down today, especially in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei. In Taoist circles it is known as 二仙摔跤 Two Immortals Wrestling. But it is in Gansu in the county of 清水 Qing Shui that, under the name of 木人摔跤 Wooden Dummy Wrestling, what appears to be the oldest version is handed down. Qing Shui Wooden Dummy Wrestling seems to date back to Liu Bang, the first Han emperor, who used straw men tied behind their backs in his cavalry during his campaigns against the Xiong Nu.
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