During the period of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, sports were fully revived, and folk games and sports activities such as guiding, cuju, throwing pots and acrobatics began to prevail. However, the number and difficulty of sports events in the Eastern Han Dynasty surpassed those in the Western Han Dynasty.
① Guidance and Wuqinxi
During the Qin and Han dynasties, with the progress of medicine, the application of induction in health preservation also made new progress. Many people in Laozi school and alchemists actively take guidance as a method of health preservation. Such as Li and others' "guiding qi and nourishing nature"; Jiao Shen's "worship of Song Dynasty and Qiao Daoshu". Many alchemists mentioned in the biographies of alchemy in the later Han Dynasty are health experts who are good at this field.
During the Western Han Dynasty, there was also an introduction named after animal posture. Six names were recorded in Huainanzi Spiritual Cultivation, which was called "Six Birds Play" by later generations. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Hua Tuo created a set of "Wuqinxi" on the basis of summarizing the theories and practices of predecessors. Unfortunately, Hua Tuo's Wu Qin Xi has long been lost, and today's Wu Qin Xi was compiled by later generations.
(2) Sports activities in hundred plays.
Hundred operas are also called "corner operas" and "corner operas". Its contents are varied, such as acrobatics, magic, singing and dancing, wrestling and so on. After the mid-Western Han Dynasty, Baixi was very popular. Among the rich contents of hundred operas, many belong to sports activities, such as climbing rope, climbing pole, lifting tripod and narrowing. There are also seven dances, bending dance, Bayu dance and so on. It is a combination of gymnastics, martial arts and dance. The delicate image can be seen in many cultural relics in Qin and Han Dynasties. There is a picture of Jiao Di on the mural of the tomb of the late Eastern Han Dynasty at No.2 Dahuting, Mi County, Henan Province. Later, Japanese sumo was very similar to this angle. The wooden grate unearthed in Fenghuang Mountain, jiangling county, Hubei Province, is painted with colorful corner paintings on the upper arc.
In the Qin and Han Dynasties, in addition to the above sports, there were many historical records of hand-fighting, fencing, shooting, throwing pots, bowing and some folk festivals and sports activities, such as walking, watching lanterns and dancing dragons, dragon boat racing and climbing mountains.
Qin and Han Dynasties played a connecting role in the history of sports development in China, and various sports activities were well inherited and developed during this period.