An Exploration of the Information Processing Mode of Chinese Wushu’s Intrapersonal Communication ^†

Abstract

Based on the research methods of literature, text analysis and the theories of philosophy, communication and sports, this paper rationally discusses the information processing process of Chinese Wushu’s intrapersonal communication. It is believed that the individual body of the wushu practitioner has the general characteristics of the general information dissemination system and can actively reflect the wushu dissemination information provided by the external world. The intrapersonal communication of Chinese wushu is influenced by the distinct characteristics of individual wushu practitioners’ sociality and interactivity, which forces the individual wushu practitioners to reconstruct the significance of their own social practice of wushu communication and aggregate it into a new impetus to promote the healthy inheritance and development of Chinese wushu. In the age of digital media, the cognitive schema in the individual brain of wushu practitioners is exposed to the relevant dissemination information of wushu, which can show strong cognitive needs and have the ability to carry out in-depth cognition.

1. Introduction

As we know, human communication, as a comprehensive information media system, is composed of different types of concrete communication activities, and each type of human communication activity is a subsystem within the overall system of social communication. Therefore, intrapersonal communication refers to “an activity in which an individual receives external information and processes it inside the human body” [1]. If we regard a single wushu practitioner with active consciousness and independent subject as an individual system in the overall communication system of Chinese wushu, then wushu practitioners actively carry out the internal communication thinking practice of concrete information in Chinese wushu, such as symbol cognition, technical participation and cultural identity, which are the active communication activities of wushu information within the individual system of individual wushu practitioners.

2. Intrapersonal Communication Information Processing Structure of Chinese Wushu

The theory states that “Everything has an internal structure, both the material world and the spiritual world. Structure refers to the mutual relationship among the elements within the system, which is not completely in accordance with logic, and some can be shown as disorder” [2]. From the analysis of this theoretical connotation, it can be known that the reason why individual wushu practitioners can carry out various wushu information dissemination activities through the brain is mainly closely related to the physiological mechanism of the human body. Because, for the human body with the common characteristics of the information dissemination system, it “has both information receiving devices (sensory system) and information transmission devices (nervous system); both memory and processing devices (human brain) and output Devices (expressive organs such as vocalization and the muscles and nerves that control these organs)” [3] (p. 62). In addition, the individual wushu practitioners, with the help of the body’s sensory system and nervous system, receive the concrete wushu communication information provided by the communication subject in the external world (such as interpersonal, organizational and mass communication). Through the sensory analysis function of the cerebral cortex, the processing of wushu information (such as such as routine drills, skills show and Sanda attack and defense) in specific cortical representative areas is completed in the body, so as to achieve the expected state before the output of the corresponding wushu information in specific parts of the center. It shows the typical characteristics that the individual wushu practitioner is not only an independent and active organic whole but also maintains a universal connection with the natural and social external environment.

Because of this, if the broad audience is stimulated by the bloodline information related to the Chinese wushu theme (such as watching some martial arts film and television works, reading some classic wushu novels and preaching “have reached the state of supernatural transformation” kung fu skills, producing the inner resonance and empathy effect), wushu can not only inspire the majority of the audience to follow the interests of the country and the nation as the supreme but can also show the positive energy of family and national feelings of “strengthening the body with wushu, supporting justice, defending the home and country, and resisting foreign aggression” on the spiritual level. For example, the images of wushu heroes performed in kung fu film and television works in modern times have been endowed with a strong sense of home and nation and are actively spread. It can also encourage a broad audience to recognize the symbolic power of Chinese wushu (such as self-improvement, respect for virtue, and advocation for moderation and harmony) have been assimilated to the level of interpreting the eclectic spiritual connotation of building the Chinese nation’s “harmony in diversity”, as well as the sentiment and integrity traits respected by the personality of the national gentleman. For example, the four forms of boxing put forward the wushu practitioner’s requirements of “sitting like a bell, standing like a pine, walking like the wind, and lying like a bow”, and different schools of tai chi chuan convey the positive effectiveness of cultural diversity, such as “being strong but not hegemony”, “overcoming the firmness with softness”, and “sharing beauty with beauty”, which not only regulates the core qualities necessary for wushu practitioners’ physical cultivation (such as being a man, working, practicing boxing, preaching) but also expands the tension of identity of the true value of “pluralistic integration” revealed by Chinese wushu culture.

3. The Dynamic and Interactive Process of Intrapersonal Communication of Chinese Wushu

From the point of view of materialist dialectics, the external environment (including natural and social) faced by individual wushu practitioners when conducting wushu training, such as the secluded scenery of pavilion gardens, fitness parks, wushu organizations, professional wushu halls, and various Schools and the birthplace of wushu are not only the input sources of the intrapersonal communication of Chinese wushu but are also the output targets of Chinese wushu. It is also a true reflection of the actual social practice activities of the wushu practitioners with the improvement in individual moral quality, the improvement in exercises and skills, and the formation of the boxing system. For example, the famous boxing masters in ancient agricultural society had the traditional customs of “ploughing the fields in busy time and making boxing at leisure”. This not only demonstrates the dialectical and unified wisdom of wushu practitioners to “respect the objective laws of the development of things and give play to the subjective initiative of human beings” [4] and create the initiative to serve their own sustainable development needs in accordance with the laws of the development of human society in the daily life of Chinese wushu, but it also observes that they entertain themselves physically and mentally through genealogical research on boxing techniques and pass them on to later generations of wushu practitioners who have “both moral and ability” and promote the effective promotion and inheritance of their own boxing theory and offensive and defensive techniques.

In addition, the intrapersonal communication of Chinese wushu is not a negative or passive reaction to the external environment but a positive reflection with subjective initiative. For example, when practicing kung fu, “wushu practitioners are often required to choose the weather, terrain, climate, season and direction, all of which are based on the understanding that man and nature are isomorphic and can be connected with nature” [5], which reflects the active pursuit of man and nature, as well as the awareness of learning from nature with a high degree of harmony between an individual’s body and mind. According to the different geographical environment in the vast territory of China, as well as the physical characteristics of wushu practitioners, the school of boxing presents distinguishing characteristics—that is, the southern school of wushu, due to the geographical restrictions, has shown close-knit and fierce punches, whereas the northern school of boxing takes advantage of the regional advantages to show a wide range of openness and combinations and long-range strikes. Wushu circles classify different schools of Chinese wushu according to different regions, such as the southern school and the northern school, the Yellow River Valley school, the Yangtze River Valley school, and the Pearl River Valley school. Of course, some wushu elites imitate the natural essence of birds, beasts, and other creatures (such as monkey boxing, mantis boxing, yumen boxing) and realize their absorption under the premise of being similar to their shapes and taking on their meanings. The essence of life and creatures helps the wushu type to leapfrog the vision and goals qualitatively. It can be seen that the internal communication of Chinese wushu is a social practice activity accompanied by the emergence of creative wushu civilization, and it is also an important supporting force that has promoted the orderly inheritance and innovation of Chinese civilization for more than 5000 years.

In addition, since wushu practitioners themselves are formed in social contact with others, they have distinct sociality and interactivity and reflect the sociality and interactivity of Chinese wushu communication among people, so the individual self-consciousness of wushu practitioners has an important influence on their behavior in wushu practice. Therefore, “self-consciousness is gradually formed and developed in the process of socialization, a person’s multi-faceted and multi-level understanding, experience and evaluation of oneself and the relationship between oneself and the surrounding environment, and it is the sum of all thoughts, emotions and attitudes about oneself” [6]. Wushu practitioners form excellent characters such as sincerity in treating people, sincerity in doing things, and loyalty to the country during their long-term boxing training, which is undoubtedly a positive response to controlling the pulse of the times and practicing physically in their own socialization process. Among them, the inheritors of wushu are guided by the concept of harmonious coexistence between man and nature and the wisdom of a community of shared destiny of “sharing beauty with beauty”. They have formed unswerving and refined martial arts skills and chase the realm of “keeping firmly in the mind”. The personality of a gentleman is not only the core quality that a wushu practitioner must possess as a descendant of boxing, but it is also a reflection of the self-active consciousness of inheriting the essence of boxing skills, cultivating the reserve force of boxing, and spreading the positive benefits of boxing to the people. It is also an interactive process of internal communication in which wushu practitioners take the initiative to adapt boxing to the needs of the benign development of society.

4. The Intrapersonal Communication Information Processing Schema of Chinese Wushu

In the omnimedia era, where everyone has a microphone, and in the face of Chinese wushu inheritance and the dissemination of massive amounts of information or concrete ritual scenes provided by different media and platforms, the cognitive archetype in the individual brain of the wushu practitioner (the basic human cognitive behavior mode) will enable one to quickly react to the wushu information or media communication rituals that one comes into contact with and initiate the basic model processing related to wushu (such as fitness, competition, industry, culture, education) to concrete wushu information. For example, individual wushu practitioners use media resources such as newspapers, books, television, the Internet, and new media, or through forms such as interpersonal communication, organizational communication, and mass communication, to acquire knowledge including the inheritance and dissemination of wushu, boxing training experience, and Chinese wushu to the public. They can share in-depth knowledge of the value of wushu, such as spiritual boosts, health benefits, and family and country sentiments. At this time, the wushu cognition model related to the wushu practitioners will be activated to judge such wushu information and present the corresponding attitudes and related responses that determine the individual wushu practitioners to the inheritance and development of Chinese wushu because “the function of the schema is to determine our response to new information by mobilizing and organizing the original knowledge and experience, supplementing the new elements, judging the nature of the new information and predicting its results when we encounter new information” [3] (p. 69). Therefore, when an individual wushu practitioner is exposed to new wushu information that is beneficial to the improvement of his wushu literacy or enters a new wushu field, the original wushu knowledge and experience accumulation of the wushu practitioner will guide the wushu practitioner to the new wushu. The information is accurately studied and judged, while strengthening the prediction and decision-making control functions of its own wushu cognitive model, it also promptly responds to the wushu information that is exposed to it.

However, because the nature of each wushu message is different from the individual wushu practitioners, the degree of importance and participation of individual wushu practitioners to the corresponding wushu messages are different. In other words, the degree of self-confidence of the individual wushu masters in the original wushu model determines the different ways that the individual wushu practitioners process the corresponding wushu information. That is to say, individual wushu practitioners can process wushu information in two different ways: detailed methods, careful thinking (core path), and simple and rough perfunctory methods (edge path). Among them, wushu practitioners use the “core path” to process wushu information to cause more profound changes in their own archetypes. In view of this, in the face of the current culture, self-confidence is the most basic, deepest, and most long-lasting force. In the global turmoil of the era of strong voices, we will inherit and develop the Chinese martial arts, which is a typical representative of China’s excellent traditional culture, and integrate it into “national fitness”, “healthy China”, “sports power”, and other social practices that promote health, build souls, and cultivate people’s morals. This will not only drive the transformation of the cognitive structure or the basic model of wushu in the individual wushu practitioners from abstract to concrete hierarchical transformation but will also produce different degrees of decision-making control effects on the information that the individual wushu learners are exposed to. That is, when an individual wushu practitioner is exposed to abstract information that is beneficial to the improvement of his own boxing skills and the transmission of Chinese wushu, has a strong cognitive desire, and has the ability to perform in-depth cognition, wushu individuals will pay close attention to such information with a rigorous study attitude and rigorous technical thinking, so as to play a positive role in enhancing the identity of Chinese wushu. On the contrary, wushu practitioners will process wushu information in a relatively simple and rough way and transfer it to the “marginal path” in the brain to dilute the processing, so it is difficult to make a profound change in the martial arts cognitive schema of individual wushu practitioners.

5. Conclusions

Therefore, as an individual systematic activity of Chinese wushu practitioners, the intrapersonal communication of Chinese wushu is the basis of all wushu transmission activities. The individual body of the wushu practitioner has the general characteristics of the general information dissemination system and can actively reflect the disseminated wushu information provided by the external world and form spiritual activities to create new wushu civilization achievements. The intrapersonal communication of Chinese wushu is influenced by the distinct characteristics of individual wushu practitioners’ sociality and interactivity, which forces the individual wushu practitioners to reconstruct the significance of their own social practice of wushu communication and aggregate it into a new impetus to promote the healthy inheritance and development of Chinese wushu. In the age of digital media, the cognitive schema in the individual brain of wushu practitioners is exposed to relevant dissemination information of wushu, in relation to which they can show strong cognitive needs and have the ability to carry out in-depth cognition. The information processing mode of Chinese wushu’s intrapersonal communication will help Chinese wushu meet people’s ever-growing needs for a better cultural life and demonstrate the power of universal wushu to benefit the people, uphold integrity, and innovate.