Aggression in specialized Wushu Taolu training among university students and its transfer to everyday life contexts: a qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to explore how a contextual aggressive state is experienced, elicited, and regulated in Wushu Taolu, a routine-based discipline within Chinese martial arts (Wushu), among university students, and how participants perceived its possible transfer to everyday life. Rather than examining whether Wushu Taolu training increases or decreases aggression, the study focused on the specific form and meaning of this state within the training context and on participants' perceptions of whether its associated effects extended into everyday life.

METHOD: A qualitative design was adopted. Eighteen university students majoring in Wushu Taolu at a college of physical education were recruited through purposive sampling. Data were collected through three focus group interviews and three individual interviews. The interview data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis with the support of NVivo 15.

RESULTS

Participants understood the phenomenon examined in Wushu Taolu training not as real hostility or violent impulse, but as a contextual aggressive state grounded in the offensive and defensive meanings of movement and embodied through gaze, force production, vocalization, rhythm, and overall bearing. This state was elicited through mental imagery and body-based cues. Participants distinguished between "aggressive experience" and "aggressive desire." The former was regarded as a legitimate training state, whereas the latter involved an actual intention to attack or harm others and required regulation through coaches, peers, self-awareness, and martial ethics. Regarding transfer, participants generally did not perceive direct behavioral transfer into everyday life, but some reported possible associated effects such as residual arousal, faster reactions, and identity-related or stylistic influences.

CONCLUSION

The contextual aggressive state identified in Wushu Taolu training should be understood as a temporary, instrumental, and bounded training state rather than as a stable aggressive trait. University Wushu education should guide students to understand the training meaning of this state, regulate its boundaries, and prevent it from developing into an actual desire or intention to attack or harm others or into inappropriate behavior.