Please head over to Ben Judkins' blog and read his piece "Judo and the Chinese Martial Arts: the View from 1928." In it he points out that the discourse around the history of Chinese martial arts was largely established by the 1930s and has not changed much (at least until Ben, and I, and a few others, started studying it). People often claim to be having a conversation about history when in fact they are arguing about the right way to practice today.
Ben's piece is centered around this free translation by Brennan: BOXING ARTS FUNDAMENTALS – ILLUSTRATED HANDBOOK FOR TANTUI, from May, 1917. It is a fantastic document, but could use some contextualization. Rather than write my own piece, I'm just going to add some comments below.
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