Vovinam Lộc (1912 – 1960) in 1938, with the intent of providing practitioners with an efficient method of self-defense after a short period of study. Nguyễn believed martial arts would contribute to freeing Vietnam, which had been ruled by France since 1859, from outside domination. Vovinam, which Nguyễn synthesized from Chinese styles of kung fu, his own knowledge of traditional Vietnamese martial arts, and elements of Japanese and Korean systems, was thus created partially as a response to the French occupation, meant to promote a sense of national identity for the Vietnamese people. Vovinam thus has anticolonial origins. After being invited
Chinese martial arts the words 功 (gōng) meaning "work", "achievement", or "merit", and 夫 (fū) which is a particle or nominal suffix with diverse meanings. "" literally means "martial art". It is formed from the two words : (), meaning "martial" or "military" and or 术 (), which translates into "art", "discipline", "skill" or "method". The term "wushu" has also become the name for the modern sport of "wushu", an exhibition and full-contact sport of bare-handed and weapons forms (Chinese: ), adapted and judged to a set of aesthetic criteria for points developed since 1949 in the People's Republic of China. "Quanfa" ()