In Chinese martial arts, the educational aspect is shown in the ‘Mou Dak’ (武德, mand. wude), which can be translated as virtues, morals and ethics, or the code of the warrior or fighter. In the context of knowing the meaning of ‘Bu Do’ (武道), as the way of the peaceful warrior to stop the fight, the concept of ‘Mou Dak’ (武德) can be understood as the core of Chinese martial arts. According to this, it is precisely from the combination of the two meanings that the deeper meaning emerges: via the process of learning to fight, to perfect one’s personality through the cultivation of virtues and thus to strive for non-fighting, that is, to avoid fighting through the training of morals and ethics.

The emergence of Mou Dak dates back to the influence of complex martial systems of Daoism and Buddhism and thus the formation of the two most influential schools of martial arts, the inner school of Wudang (武當派, ‘wudangpai’) and the outer school of Shaolin (少林派, ‘shaolinpai’; canton. ‘siulampai’). But also in the Daoist-Confucian tradition-rich martial arts families in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and the secret societies in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) which fought the secret resistance struggle against the foreign ruling regime of the Manshuren, different fighter/warrior codes developed. Through the increasing exchange of knowledge, the subsumption and systematization of the various styles, the transmission of martial arts from father to son or from teacher to only a few students in the small-family martial arts schools developed into mass instruction of thousands of students in martial arts academies. This development inevitably led to the mixing of the different virtues, with which an intersection of basic virtues emerged:

Compassion, righteousness, morality, wisdom, respect, loyalty, humility, perseverance, courage and naturalness.