Liu Suibin, a representative of the Qingchengpai, a school of traditional Chinese martial arts, demonstrates his style. Ma Yuan / for China Daily

The standardization has worked well on earning international acceptance but has also sparked disputes in Chinese wushu circles.

"Diversity is the unique character of Chinese martial arts, but it's also a headache," said Wu Bin, the former technical committee director of the International Wushu Federation who trained kung fu star Jet Li in the 1980s.

"Different schools all claimed wushu originated from their tradition, and debates on which style represents the most authentic Chinese martial arts or which one is the strongest never end," Wu said.

Wu said representatives of some schools excluded out of the 23 categories even urged students to boycott the system.

Meanwhile, some leaders of other schools didn't accept the training methods in the system, saying that standardized stunts in textbooks failed to reflect the deep tradition and cultural roots of wushu.

Zhou Jinsheng, master of kunlunpai, which is a longstanding school that originated around the Kunlun Mountains, said the gestures and motions in the system are too simple to embody wushu.

"The categories granted by the system are only a drop in the bucket of Wushu and couldn't represent the massive amount of sects that originated from the grassroots," Zhou said on Tuesday during the Tianshan Mountain Cultural Week.

The Tianshan event, which was held in the Ili Kazak autonomous prefecture of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, invited representatives from 11 wushu schools to share experiences while displaying characteristic skills and uniforms.

However, the event received negative reviews from the public, as the local county governor admitted it was held to promote local tourism, and Wushu fans claimed it was more like a cosplay show.

Still, pundits said such activities should be welcomed as they focus media attention on wushu's development.

"I think it has a positive impact as it helped to gain more exposure," said Kang Gewu, secretary-general of the Chinese martial arts research institute.

"With more and more people paying attention to Chinese wushu, we could better promote the current duanwei system and find something in common among different styles."

Gao Bo contributed to the story.

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