Daoism evolved from ancient shamanic practices and has adopted some Buddhist views to this day. Nowdays some divide Daoism into Philosophical and Spiritual.
Philosophical Daoism:
Yin and Yang theory
Five element theory
Changes according to the Bague diagram
Spiritual Daoism:
Devinations
Talismans
Healing
The Daoists have the knowing that every thing has its own rhythm. In the spring the tree blooms, then the fruits grow, the fruits ripen and fall off, the leaves fall off, the tree prepares for winter and hibernates till spring.
That was no different with Wudang and its skills. For some periods Wudang flourished like for example in the Ming 明朝 Dynasty (1368-1644), again other periods suffered losses and waited for spring.
In the last 50 years, many things had happened in China. Notably the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) struck a huge blow to ancient traditions.
With Mao leading, they were banishing the "four old", which were: old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. One can only imagine what was happening at that time with the temples and people of the old traditional world.
Following the ending of the Cultural Revolution, the surviving monks and nuns of Wudang, began to revive old knowledge and skills. They searched for people who still had knowledge of Wudang martial arts, meditation techniques, QiGong, ... to establish yet again the platform for transmitting the knowledge.
In the pre-revolution times, these skills were transmitted secretly to specific consecrated persons. Due to the imminent destruction of this valuable knowledge, they later decided to pass on their knowledge to anyone who wanted and cherished it.
XUANWU DADI 真 武大帝; A great, true warrior
The God XuanWu, is the protector of the Wudang Mountains.
He attain his immortality at Wudang mountains. A serpent wrapping itself around a turtle represents two demons,that XuanWu conquered and made them protectors of Wudang.
