martialarts

Check out this insane performance at the World Wushu Championships. It might look like one woman is summarily beating the other to a pulp, but it’s actually all part of an intricately choreographed martial arts performance that blends dance and fighting into a beautiful and fantastic spectacle.

Wushu is a type of performance sport derived from traditional Chinese martial arts. Dual events are called duilian, and the pair spars with or without weapons using pre-choreographed moves. Probably the most famous practitioner is Jet Li, who won the National Wushu Champion of China title five times as a member of the Beijing Wushu Team.

In this video from the 10th annual event held back in 2009 in Toronto, the two women of Team China dual it out with spectacular moves and speed like something out of a shonen anime. Just look at that stick go – one wrong move and she’d have her eye out. And they even have the ferocious shouts to match, so make sure you have your volume turned up for the full effect.

▼ Watch and marvel.

▼ Here are the two women, Jing Gao (yellow) and Haiyun (Ningxia) Liu (red), before they became a blur of motion impossible to screencap.

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▼ And here’s another video of the women’s duilian event at the 11th world championships in 2011.

▼ These action shot photos were taken this year at the 12th world championships.

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The 13th World Wushu Championships should be held in 2015, although there is no news on the dates or location as of yet. We can’t wait to see what incredible routines will be on display when the time comes.

Source: YouTube, International Wushu Federation