Fundamental to the Daoist, specifically that of the text Zhuangzi, approach to living life is allowing life/qi to flow naturally without any obstructions. Ongoing, absolute, restrictive, threat based, emotionally laden psychosocial judgments, thinking and beliefs give rise to chronic stress and its intertwined emotions. Chronic stress and its intertwined emotions significantly interfere with and impede this natural flow resulting in physical and psychological damage to one’s overall health and well-being. Body based practices such as Daoist meditative techniques, Taijiquan, and Qigong reestablish this natural flow.

Following its reform and opening-up, the local government of Wudang Mountains in Shiyan City, Hubei Province, has nurtured the local economy with tourism centered around Taoism’s sacred sites and natural landscapes. Entering the 2000s, Wudang martial arts began to receive attention as a competitive sport, and since 2010, the local government has positioned it as a key tourism resource, promoting the branding of the Wudang region. The purpose of this study is to explore how Wudang martial arts have been branded as a tourist attraction, comparable to the globally recognized Shaolin martial arts, particularly after 2010, and to elucidate the factors behind this development. The specific points of focus in this study are as follows:

1. The Wudang region is known as the birthplace of Quanzhen Taoism and is a sacred site for Taoism, but religious superstitious elements have limited state support. However, Wudang martial arts are widely recognized as “Taoist martial arts” and classified as one of the 129 recognized martial arts and positioned as a sport. This backdrop explores the potential to expand the region’s brand value and influence in the sports martial arts world through Wudang martial arts.

2. After focusing on martial arts in 2012, the shift was influenced by the lack of sufficient development in Wudang martial arts in the region by 2012 and the reinforcement of political propaganda following a reassessment of cultural policies after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1990. Patriotic propaganda through religious tourism was limited due to differences between Communist Party policies and religious philosophies, but the shift to martial arts strengthened the political propaganda function. The change in the tourism theme did not affect the goal of local economic development.

3. The local government of the Wudang region has intentionally constructed a scenario through the tourism industry with no academic basis: “Shaolin in the north, Wudang in the south,” This aims to challenge the “Wudang No Fist Theory” and improve the stance on the “Tai Chi origin theory.”

Such efforts by the local government may represent an example of the “invented tradition” concept suggested by Hobsbawm, potentially transforming a martial art that might not have substantially existed into a national martial art in modern China. This phenomenon, termed “invented martial arts,” indicates that the local government has reconstructed cultural values through local tourism and formed a new identity, as intended.