Shuai Jiao [摔跤]

Shuai Jiao* [摔跤] is the traditional art of Chinese wrestling. As with most forms of wrestling, it's been around for a pretty long time. Some even says it dates back to more than 4000 years ago.
People seeing Shuai Jiao for the first time often remark that it looks a lot like Judo. It does share a lot of elements with Judo, and some theories even state that Shuai Jiao is the ancestor of Japanese Jujitsu, from which Judo evolved.

The main similarity is the use of a jacket and belt, which offer all kind of ways to grab. This being said, the Shuai Jiao jacket (or "jiao yi" 跤衣) has short sleeves, and is worn much closer to the body than the traditional judogi, which makes it harder to get a good grip on.
Shuai Jiao rules also forbid all chokes and joint locks, and you loose a point if you put a knee or a hand on the ground. This means there are no submissions and very few sacrifice throws in Shuai Jiao (as the first one to touch the ground loses the point).

Those rules make Shuai Jiao a very dynamic sport, and like all forms of wrestling it demands a lot out of an athlete.
Which is why Shuai Jiao has its own conditioning drills and tools. These tools include sand bags, bricks, kettlebells, ropes, poles... Every teacher has his favorite tools and favorite exercises.
But all those strange toys shouldn't make you forget the basics (jibengong [基本功]), which are drills that emulate the movement required to throw or trip an oponent. If you link them together, it almost looks like a form. The difference being that in most martial arts you learn the form first, then the application. With Shuai Jiao you learn both the drill and the application at the same time.

Even though Shuai Jiao has lost a lot of popularity in China over the years (people are turning to foreign arts like Taekwondo, or softer ones like Taiji), you can still see some of its traditions in China's modern olympic Judo. A lot of Judo coaches actually have a Shuai Jiao background, and thus incorporate Shuai Jiao drills in their Judo practice.

Youtube has a few good ressources on Shuai Jiao, my favorite one being Ashwix's videos of his teacher in Beijing, Li Baoru, and his students.

If you want to know more, you can also check out this series by another Beijing teacher, Wang Wenyong. It's very comprehensive, and contains a lot of different drills and techniques.

In case you read French you can also check out the website of Wang Zhihong, my Shuai Jiao teacher in Paris.

Finally, if you are looking for a Shuai Jiao school, here are the 3 signs that you've found a good teacher:

- he has all kind of weird implements that don't look like much but make you feel like your arms are going to drop off after 1 minute of using them.

- his drills make you so tired you want to die after 30 secondes.

- he won't shut up about Shuai Jiao's history and how Master Chang defeated Master Wang in 1923 in a fight that lasted three days.

(The last one is only applicable is your teacher is Chinese, or else has spent too much time in China.)

* The term simply means "wrestling", and if you want to refer to the Chinese version while in China, you would say "Chinese wrestling" [中国式摔跤] to avoid confusion with other forms of wrestling.