The three types of disciplines described above, basic exercises, matwork acrobatics and hand-prop martial routines, are all basic to the training in traditional Chinese Opera.
One must first master all the physical training, all the routines and stunts, before one can embark on the learning of the dramas themselves. This is because every single motion in Chinese Opera, whether major, like martial sequences or tumbling acrobatics, or minor, like the lifting of a hand or the flicking of a foot, all have their prescribed and very specific styles and ways of execution, and cannot be properly performed without the strictest and minutest training.
The famous actors of previous generations all learned the myriad routines from a very young age ceaselessly practiced them throughout their adult life. In the education of present-day drama academies, courses are prescribed in systematized and standardized curricula and the student graduates only after testing and evaluation. What they learn in the academies is largely basic disciplines, and particularly these three fundamental disciplines. As to the art of the drama, very little can be learned in eight short years. The students must further advance their knowledge of them in institutions of higher learning, which have Chinese Opera departments. Or they may join performing companies, and learn as they participate in actual performances. This way they learn of the art of drama in its different facets and, within long years of perseverance, will gradually walk the path of success.
