If you walk into any training hall these days and see a class doing Chinese martial arts, you are likely to find that all the students and the teacher will be wearing jogging pants and a t-shirt. This modern attire has taken over from the traditional martial arts clothing often worn in feudal China before the 1700s. Martial arts clothing in the modern style generally appeared during the 20th century, as the oriental martial arts travelled to the West. Often there will be some Chinese calligraphy on the t-shirt to denote which particular kung fu style the school practises, and perhaps baggy kung fu pants - rather than standard jogging bottoms - which allow for higher kicks without being restricted.
In the classical Chinese periods pre-1700, the martial art clothes worn by kung fu practitioners were made of silk or light cotton. These robes were long sleeved, and full-length, stretching down to below the knees, but split at both sides. These splits allowed the Chinese martial artists to carry out their techniques and training, such as deep horse stances, as well as high kicking. In some respects, the flowing movements of the clothing also helped to disguise certain strikes, by making the opponent think your fist is striking somewhere else, when actually what they are watching is simply the sleeve. Similar misdirection is used in Chinese martial weaponry, especially with the spears and double-ended spears, which have bright red tassles; these are designed to confuse the opponent as to where the actual sharp spear head is aiming - and rather gruesomely, also to soak up the victims' blood, so it doesn't run down the wooden shaft of the spear and make it a sticky hindrance!
Like in all aspects of fashion, the Chinese martial arts clothing of this classical era - as you can see depicted in movies such as Hero, starring Jet Li - fell out of fashion, and made way, during the Qing Dynasty, for the short black Manchu jacket, commonly associated with the late, great Bruce Lee. But even these so-called Mandarin kung fu uniforms are rarely used during martial arts practice in most schools these days.
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