“In the case of Tai Chi however, the major defining feature of hybridity, the sense of mixture and the equal status of the different cultures involving in the mixture, is absent.  In the eyes of its UK practitioners Tai Chi is not a combination or mixture of Chinese and English bodily/spiritual disciplines.  On the contrary, they consider their practices to be more authentic and original than their contemporary Chinese counterparts, since they see them as having a direct linkage to Tai Chi’s ancient lineage and continuing a tradition which they claim was lost in Communist China.  As we will see, in fact, they have added, deleted, adopted and distorted practices derived from their Chinese (or English) masters in a continuous process of translation based on an imagined construction of Chineseness.”

Gehao Zhang.  2010. “Invented Tradition and Translated Practices: The Career of Tai Chi in the West.” Doctoral Thesis, Loughborough University. P. 16

Introduction

Other commitments have taken me away from blogging over the last few weeks.  The Spring 2016 issue of Martial Arts Studies (now available for download) required attention, as did the draft of my paper for this year’s conference at the University of Cardiff in July.  I recently finished a first draft of what will be my keynote address, but it will still require work over the next week or so.

These commitments also distracted me from something else that I had been working on.  Recently I received a copy of Prof. Gehao Zheng’s dissertation “Invented Tradition and Translated Practices: The Career of Tai Chi in the West.” Given that the theme of our recent journal issue was “The Invention of Martial Arts,” I had been reading this with a great deal of interest.  Unfortunately I was not able to finish his manuscript before other commitments caught up with me, but it is something that I intend to return to once things settle down.

Gehao’s discussion of the cultural appropriation of Taijiquan in the West is significant.  And while many of these sorts of studies tend to focus on events in America I found his case-study of the British community quite interesting.  In short, this is the sort of dissertation that warrants a close reading.

Unfortunately that will have to wait for later.   This will be a much lighter essay as I attempt to ease back into my writing schedule.

In today’s post I would like to focus on a single passage from his introductory discussion which I have been mulling over for the last few weeks.  While it speaks directly to the process by which Taijiquan has been received in the West, it carries some basic insights applicable to discussions of all sorts of martial arts.  In fact, it is not hard to spot many of the same basic trends that he notes at work in the Wing Chun community (the area of the traditional arts with which I have the greatest familiarity).

Consider the following observation, “As we will see, in fact, they have added, deleted, adopted and distorted practices derived from their Chinese (or English) masters in a continuous process of translation based on an imagined construction of Chineseness.”  When thinking about the cultural appropriation or translation of the Asian martial arts I think there is a tendency to simplify, or see only a single aspect of this process.

Yet Gehao notes that a community’s preexisting beliefs about the nature of Chinese identity (as well as their own cultural identity) can actually result in a number of strategies of translation.  Here he quickly lists four possibilities.  Obviously his dissertation takes a more nuanced approach and introduces additional concepts.

Nevertheless, over the last few weeks I have decided that I like this simple formulation as it is both easy to remember and reminds us to look for an entire constellation of changes.  To quickly explore the utility of these four descriptive concepts, this post will consider some of the ways that Wing Chun, a traditional martial art hailing from Southern China, has been “translated” into an American commercial and cultural context.  As Gehao found in the case of Taijiquan, popular ideas about the nature of Chinese identity would have an important impact on the resulting reconstruction of Wing Chun in the West.

Added, Deleted, Adopted and Distorted

Before delving into this discussion a few caveats are in order.  As much as we might want to practice our art in a “perfect” and pristine state, we should admit that this is probably not possible.  We might also go further and ask why the idea of “purity of transmission” has gained such a hold on the popular discussion of the martial arts?  What set of values and desires does this rhetoric advance?  How are they different in the West than China?

In reality cultural translation is an unavoidable process whenever a given set of practices or identities crosses global and cultural borders.  There have even been substantial periods of “translation” within China itself as the martial arts went from being a mostly rural, occupationally focused, pursuit in the 19^th century to being promoted as a nationally focused urban, middle class hobby in the 20^th.

Given that none of us are Cantonese speaking tradesmen living in Foshan in the 1850s, our understanding and embodied experience of Wing Chun must be different from Leung Jan’s.  The notion that “identity moves” (to borrow a memorable turn of phrase from Adam Frank) is not an inherently bad thing.  While the process of cultural translation inevitably changes something about an identity or sets of practices as it seeks to make them legible in a very different context, we do not need to view the end product of this process as inherently illegitimate.  This is not to imply that one cannot find better or more unfortunate examples of such translations within the martial arts world.

How can we understand the sorts of transformations that we are likely to see?  As Western practitioners of these systems attempt to make sense of their arts they are forced to negotiate their own experience of these practices with an inevitably imperfect understanding of Chinese identity.  When the transmitted techniques do not conform to their culturally conditioned expectations, change is often the result.

First, “additions” might be made to a system.  These sometimes take the form of core Western cultural values being read onto an Asian art.  In other cases what is added is an inappropriate element of Asian culture or philosophy so that the practice better meets Western expectations about what an “Oriental” art should be.

On the opposite end of the spectrum certain practices or elements of identity might be “deleted” from a westernized version of an art.  Again, specific cultural elements that do not match Western expectations often receive this treatment.

The traditional Chinese martial arts were often rigidly located with regards to questions of social class and gender in ways that would make students in liberal western countries uncomfortable.  While their modern schools often go to great lengths to demonstrate how “traditional” they are, no one that I am aware of refuses to teach women, or prohibits physical contact between unrelated men and women in class even though that would have been a common taboo at the time that Wing Chun was first formulated.  What was once an important set of practices regarding the construction and maintenance of masculinity within a Chinese cultural context has simply been deleted with very little notice.

In addition to these first two responses, Western students might also strategically “adopt” certain practices and identities which fit their expectations about Asian culture.  While relatively few Western martial artists seem inclined to actually learn the native language of their arts (often a daunting challenge), many nevertheless make the mastery of foreign language names and labels something of a fetish.  Yet to Western students this vocabulary often carries connotations that are quite different from how the same terms might be perceived by a native speaker.  Paradoxically, attempts to achieve linguistic accuracy by avoiding the processes of “translation” can actually lead to even greater levels of cultural mystification.

Lastly there is the problem of “distortion.”  In my own experience there are a number of ways that distortion might arise.  The first is a simple misunderstanding.  The lack of cultural and linguistic expertise noted in the previous examples suggests that fighting against the tide of this distortion is the daily work of a dedicated martial arts student seeking a serious encounter with their chosen art.

Distortions are also likely to arise because of the very nature of cultural appropriation.  Once a practice has come to be socially accepted and commercially successful, consumers and students will naturally begin to hybridize the values of their chosen practice with the (often quite different) social discourses that surround them.  Consider how often we encounter advertising materials promoting the health benefits of Kung Fu within the commercially driven paradigm of western athleticism.  It is simply human nature to want all good things to fit together.

In truth the culture of Taekwondo that is practiced in strip malls across America is quite different from that which is seen in Korean military units.  And yet there is an almost universal tendency to accept one’s own vision of the art as uniquely legitimate.  This was one of the more interesting aspects of Gehao’s discussion which I hope to explore in future posts.

Ip Man Comes to America

Each of these four strategies have shaped the cultural translation of Wing Chun in the United States.  Perhaps the most notable changes have been the additions.

One of the great challenges that the Chinese martial arts faced in making themselves legible to Western consumers was the prior success of their Japanese cousins.  While Chinese practices tended to be treated somewhat dismissively as boxing, juggling or “sword dancing,” the Western reading public seems to have had a healthy (and remarkably nuanced) appreciation of the Japanese martial arts by the early years of the 20^th century.

This early familiarity (and in some cases practice) was amplified by the experience of WWII in which returning GI’s imported an interest in Judo, Karate and (to a much lesser extent) Kendo.  The sorts of Japanese hand combat systems that existed at this period shaped the public’s perfection of what a “traditional Asian martial art” should look like.

The American public quickly came to expect exotic uniforms and colored belts.  Classes were regimented and often reflected the military values of the individuals who brought them back to the US.  And the martial philosophy of Judo and Karate quickly came to be seen as generically “Asian” in nature.

All of this gave the Japanese a substantial “first mover” advantage in the Western marketplace.  In comparison the Chinese hand combat systems did not look like martial arts at all.  The relationship between Chinese teachers and students tended to be much less structured and idiosyncratic.  A formal class curriculum was the exception rather than the norm.  Most Chinese folk styles did not revolve around the idea of regular progression tests and colored belts.  And while the Japanese donned their white gi’s, their Chinese counterparts tended to work out in western style street clothes or t-shirts.  Somehow the Chinese martial arts managed to be both too exotic for comfort and yet not quite “Asian” enough.

Of course almost all of these Japanese “traditions” are of rather recent vintage, reflecting efforts made to modernize their martial arts and introduce them into the education system in the first half of the 20^th century.  But the end result was that traditional Kung Fu systems (like Wing Chun) did not always conform to consumers expectations about what a martial art should be.

Chinese Sifu’s (and later their first generation of Western students) were quick to accommodate their new students.  Uniforms were bought, tests for various sorts of colored belts were created, and instruction was standardized.  Thus much of the institutional and organizational infrastructure seen in any Western Wing Chun school today is an example of the ways in which “additions” are used to bring a preexisting set of practices in-line with our current expectations about what a “real” Asian martial arts should be.

The flip side of this process is the deletion.  As was mentioned above, most traditional Chinese arts were situated within local society in very specific ways.  Individual schools were often aligned with specific social, political, economic or even criminal factions.  There was a strong correlation between the practice of boxing and economic marginality.  Nor were women welcome in most traditional training environments.

The story of the cultural translation of these systems has in large part been the abandonment, and even conscious inversion, of each of these realities.  The sorts of neighborhood social structures that supported the martial arts during the Republic period simply do not exist in the West.  Further, the popularity of Daoist and Buddhist philosophy among counter-culture elements in the Western society led to a situation in which egalitarian readings of Asian society were privileged and assumed to be universal.  Gender and racial discrimination in training never carried the same weight on this side of the Pacific.

This example is a valuable reminder that not all changes are negative.  In fact, the judicious use of “deletions” is necessary if the traditional arts wish to survive in a global environment.  Reformers within the Chinese martial arts have understood this since at least the end of the Boxer Rebellion.  Yet the Confucian emphasis on “faithful transmission” of traditional practices and methods means that many of the same people who actively innovate within the martial arts must also work the hardest to maintain the air of “timeless immutability.”

A number of adoptions are also visible within the American Wing Chun community.  The rigid adherence to a set body of forms, training routines, creation myths and conceptual framework allows for the maintenance of truly transnational clan of practitioners.

Still, the preservation of certain forms or ideas can become yet another site of “Orientalization” within the martial arts.  Perhaps there is no more classic example of this than the many contortions that happen around the concept of “Qi” and “internal training.”  While these concepts do not play as central a role in Wing Chun as they do in Taijiquan, they remain a source of speculation.  In fact, certain of his Western-grand students seem to focus on these concepts more than Ip Man himself did.  A similar tendency is also seen in an emphasis on traditional Chinese medicine.  It is often forgotten that this was not particularly popular in Hong Kong during the 1960s-1970s, and certainly not to the same degree that it became on the mainland after the 1990s.

While the rise and fall of the popularity of TCM is a historically bounded (and frequently studied) phenomenon in China, Western consumers have essentialized it.  As such, students of a Chinese martial art may feel a strong pull towards the study of this other discipline. It can even become a lens through which seemingly unrelated martial arts are understood.

Lastly we come to the question of “distortion.”  Some of the ways that Chinese religion, more specifically Chan Buddhism and Daoism, are read into Wing Chun might fall into this category.  The style’s creation myth references the burning of the Shaolin temple, but this is a common motif shared by a number of social groups throughout southern Chinese society.  While some students of Wing Chun have been dedicated Buddhists it does not follow that the practice itself is a Buddhist art.  Likewise, many of the supposedly Daoist elements that students sometimes perceive are better understood as cases of generic Chinese culture.

An exaggerated emphasis on Buddhism and Daoism creates “distortion” in the cultural translation of Wing Chun on at least two levels.  Most immediately, it obscured other influences that are present and may reveal something either about the nature of the art or Ip Man’s thinking.  Ip Chun, the son of Ip Man, has noted on numerous occasions that his father was strongly influenced by his Confucian education, and that those looking for the deep philosophical roots of the art should start there.

His advice could easily be expanded upon.  A lack of interest in Confucian thought is one of the odd blind-spots of current students of Chinese martial studies.  This was the dominant social philosophy throughout the 19^th and early 20^th century, the same time period that many of these fighting systems were taking shape. Students of any number of southern Martial Arts systems might benefit form a closer study of this cultural milieu.

Yet on a deeper level, why must Wing Chun have a spiritual (or religious) philosophy?  Is a martial art only legitimate if it is dedicated to some sort of transcendent goals?  When Ip Man told a young Clausnitzer that it was his goal to teach Wing Chun as “a modern form of kung fu, i.e., as a style of boxing highly relevant to modern fighting conditions,” can we not take him at his word?

Once again, our expectations of what a “proper” martial art should be can powerfully shape the ways in which we experience, understand and transmit these systems.  Japanese ideals of the “martial way” and Republic era Chinese notions of the martial arts as vectors for nationalism and cultural essentialism continue to shape the popular understanding of Asian identity in powerful ways.  These, in turn, have impacted the way that Wing Chun has been culturally translated.

Conclusion

Ip Man’s photo is displayed prominently on the walls of martial arts schools across North America.  If he were to look out through the eyes of these icons, what would he see?  Would he recognize the Wing Chun being performed in his name?

I suspect that he would be very surprised with some aspects of the scene below.  He would recognize the colored belts, but would probably find them out of place.  The highly structured format of our classes would also seem alien to him.  He could not help but wonder why his picture so often hangs next to that of Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto.

Yet I doubt that he would be confused by the purposes of the changes that he saw.  After all, Ip Man guided his branch of Wing Chun through an important period of “cultural translation” as it went from being one kind of martial art in Republican Foshan, and became something notably different in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong.

Those with previous training in the system were surprised to see how differently Ip Man’s post-1950 classes were structured.  A curriculum had been added, traditional concepts were deleted, the local culture of youth fighting was “adopted” (or at least tolerated) and the practice of chi sao had been elevated and made a central aspect of daily training. Translation and change was the price of making Wing Chun legible to a new generation of Hong Kong students.

While Ip Man might at first be mystified by some of the details, he would understand the basic processes at work in our own era.  He knew that it would take work and flexibility to maintain Wing Chun as a modern fighting system.  Mostly, I suspect,  he would just be happy to have another generation of students to practice his chi sao on.

oOo

If you enjoyed this you might also want to read:  Why is Ip Man a Role Model?

oOo

Darth Nonymous (left) faces off against John Solomon (right). Solomon is using the Krayt’s Eye guard to counter a strong overhead blow. Source: TPLA, photo by RiaFrequency.

A Tricky Step

Darth Nihilus* was grinning as he stripped off his fencing helmet and strode over to the open section of floor where I, and one of his more senior students, had been working on Shii-cho, the first of the seven classical forms of lightsaber combat.  He had agreed to review my form after class, but wanted to get in a few rounds of sparring first.  His smile suggested that he was happy with his performance.

While the lightsaber is unique to the mythology of the Star Wars universe, any martial artist would be quick to recognize Shii-cho as a variant of the “taolu” or “kata” that are the backbone of so many traditional Asian martial arts.  The resemblance is more than coincidence.  Shii-cho itself was created as a simplification of a much more dynamic taolu for the long, double handed, jian sometimes seen in Wushu competitions.

This complex mashup of Star Wars and the traditional Chinese martial arts was evident in the details of our training space.  The Central Lightsaber Academy meets in the same gym where Darth Nihilus runs his regular kung fu classes.  The neutral browns and blues of the room betray its former life as a retail space, as does its slightly cavernous feel.  The faux wooden panels on the walls, originally designed to accommodate retail shelving, have been seamlessly repurposed for a more martial mission.

Now the walls are filled with training gear (including racks of weapons and no fewer than three wooden dummies), as well as an abundance of photographs.  Large images of Dan Inosanto, Bruce Lee and Ip Man share space with many smaller snapshots chronicling the history of the Central Martial Arts Academy in its various incarnations.  These icons look out over a training space that is well equipped, but also showing the wear of a sizable student body.  They come, Monday through Saturday, seeking instruction in wing chun, JKD and kali.  Many comment on the comfortable and welcoming feeling of the space.

What visitors might find more jarring are the subtle intrusions of a far-away galaxy into this otherwise familiar scene.  These are most visible on Saturday afternoons when over a dozen students can be seen wielding blue, green, purple and red lightsabers.  Nor would you fail to notice a soundtrack from one of the Star Wars movies being played on a loop in the background.

A closer look reveals that a number of students (led by Nihilus) have formulated their own versions of Jedi or Sith training robes for the class.  Others prefer vintage Star Wars t-shifts.  And a few (myself included) stick with the branded t-shifts that so many kung fu schools use as their basic uniform. Choices in clothing and replica lightsabers can suggest what a particular student seeks from the class.

After giving me the signal I begin the first of the seven classic forms.  Shii-cho’s movement pattern is simple.  The swordsmen advances along a straight line in the first section of the form, turns and moves back along the same territory in the second, then reverses direction one more time before starting the third and final chapter.  The movements begin almost as a typology of different angled cuts and thrusts with a number of complementary blocks and guards.  These are strung together in more complex combinations as the form progresses.

Darth Nihilus vocally notes his approval as I finish the first and second section of the form.  After the third he hesitates.  “Ok, that is a lot better than last week, and I think you are 90% of the way there.  Let’s go back and look at your footwork and blade movement in one section.”

My heart sank.  Of course I knew exactly what section he was referring to.  At one point chapter three features a complex combination of attacks as the student drives forward.  I had been practicing this all week.  It begins with a broad slash coming over the left shoulder, followed with a lateral, circular, sweep of the blade around the head and ends with a decisive downward “angle seven” cut.  In itself this combination of cuts is not particularly complicated.

Nor is the footwork.  The sequence starts with a left side full step.  This is followed by a right side crossing step (which shifts the hips to the right), a left side half step (absorbing one’s forward momentum and bringing the hips back square) and finally a right side full step as the blade cuts straight down along the center line.

The complication arises when you attempt to put it all together.  It is not simply a matter of coordinating the hands with the feet.  Properly executed this particular combination has its own cadence, different from anything else in the form.  Only a few students in the class have actually mastered it to Darth Nihilus’ satisfaction, and it is a source of frustration for the rest.  This situation persists despite the fact that a large percentage of students practice their forms daily.

As other students in the room noticed that we were about tackle the third chapter of Shii-cho all eyes shifted to our floor space.  After a few quick attempts at clarification and some enthusiastic advice from onlookers, Darth Nihilus ignited his own saber and took the floor, indicating to the senior student that he too should pay attention to what was about to be said.

“Ok, try to think of it like this.  As you go through the opening movements of section 3 you are basically moving the same way you did in chapter 2.  But when you reach this point, the rhythm changes.”  He paused right at the cusp of the first cut in the combination for dramatic emphasis.

“As I go forward from here it has got to be like I am following a musical beat.  That is what is going to coordinate my hands and feet.  And if you do not figure out how to do that here you are going to have trouble when you get to some of the more advanced forms, like Soresu.”

At this point Nihilus broke with Shii-cho (form one) and demonstrated a single segment from Soresu (form three).  It required him to execute a number steps and turns as he spun his lightsaber around him in a plum blossom pattern.  If section three of Shii-cho was puzzling, this was like watching a dance.  But that was exactly his point.

“Once I get to this position I can’t stop.  If you stop or hesitate you fall out of time and then you can’t do it.  You just feel the music and keep moving on the beat.  It’s the same thing with Shii-cho.” He then resumed his performance of the first form.

“Your feet are basically fine, but when I do it this time I want to you watch the tip of my saber.  Note how it never stops moving.  It maintains a steady and continuous motion.  So keep your motions smooth as you move through space.”

Which is easier said than done.  While the blade tip moves smoothly the rhythm of the steps is distinctly broken.  Searching for a name to characterize this segment almost all of the students at the CLA have taken to calling it the “stutter step.”  For many of us it will take a lot more practice and correction before we intuitively “feel this beat.”

Lion dancers at Historic Chinatown Gate, Chinese New Year, Hing Hay Park, Seattle, Washington. Source: Wikimedia.

The Music of the Martial Arts

Over the next week I tried to integrate Darth Nihilus’ coaching into my daily practice.  Yet even more interesting was how he conveyed this advice.

I have been doing field work with the Central Lightsaber Academy for about half a year.  Almost all of the students have, at some point, struggled with this specific sequence of movements.  Nihilus has demonstrated and coached individuals through the form countless times, but something about his technique in this section is not legible to the class.  They see what he does, but they do not know how to make sense of it.

The study of the Asian martial arts is full of these sorts of puzzles.  It’s the challenge of mastering a different system of movement that keeps many students coming back week after week.  Yet prior to that day I had never heard Darth Nihilus use music as a metaphor to explain the timing of movement in Shii-cho.

I suspect that he came up with this particular explanation as a result of our collective inability to make sense of what we were seeing on that particular day.  Yet his words were also tinged with an air of revelation, as though he were revealing a deep truth about the martial arts that he did not want to bring into a normal class.  These were frequented by beginners, most of whom had no prior experience in the martial arts.  As Nihilius noted, many of these sequences came from types of wushu training that some people might find intimidating.  Yet they were now part of our lightsaber method. While Darth Nihilus focuses his teaching on wing chun during the week, he has studied a number of other Chinese arts.  The depth of his experience in this realm has proved handy when it comes to thinking about the lightsaber.

Yet his ability to “feel” the rhythm of a sequence of movements probably comes from someplace else.  Before becoming a full time martial arts instructor he was a professional musician who spent decades performing and touring.  When not playing with lightsabers or wooden dummies he can be found with a guitar.

This explains his heightened musical sensibilities.  One is reminded of the ancient stories of Spartan hoplites that turned to dance as an aspect of their military training.

Still, if Darth Nihilius is capable of identifying an underlying rhythm that ties these movements together, why do they remain such a paradox to his students?  Is it simply that we are less martially experienced or musically inclined?  Or is there something else going on?  What role does culture play in making certain movement patterns legible, even when most outward signs of that culture have been subsumed into something else?

While considering these questions I had the good fortune to reread a 2010 article titled “Rhythm Skills Development in the Chinese Martial Arts” by Colin P. McGuire (International Journal of Sports and Society, Vol. 1).  This is a relatively short paper and I highly recommend readers (especially those interested in lion dance) take a look at it.

I like this piece for a couple of reasons.  First, it speaks directly to some of the issues that have come up in my current field work with regards to the process of skills development, albeit in a very different environment.  This portability speaks to the general utility of McGuire’s approach.

Secondly, I have noticed a recent uptick of papers exploring the nexus of ethnomusicology and martial arts studies.   McGuire credits the early work of Greg Downey (2002,“Listening to Capoeira: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and the Materiality of Music.” Ethnomusicology, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Autumn): 487-509) in opening a space for this conversation.  Obviously students of Capoeira will have a special interest in the musical aspect of their art, as will many who study the fighting systems of South East Asia.

Yet McGuire reminds us that the traditional Chinese martial arts were often performed to musical accompaniment.  Solo forms work is sometimes accompanied by drums, gongs and cymbals in southern Chinese traditional village festivals.   These same instruments can also be found in the company of lion dancers at the Lunar new year, weddings and store openings.

What role has music played in the development of the southern Chinese martial arts?  Is its presence simply a cultural marker, a nostalgic remembrance of an earlier time? Or, for the kung fu schools that sponsor lion dance teams, does the musical training of students have an impact on their combative abilities?  Is it manifest in either the performance of taolu routines or patterns of attack and defense in kickboxing?

With a background in musicology and extensive experience in the Chinese martial arts McGuire is well positioned to investigate these questions.  Drawing on the theoretical literature of his field he introduces his subject matter in a way that is easily accessible for an interdisciplinary audience.   His writing examines both instruction and performance within TCMA schools, and demonstrates the utility of his approach for other students of martial arts studies.

Particularly important is the brief discussion of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” (introduced in the Logic of Practice). Wacquant and others have sought to anchor their understanding of embodied martial practice within this theoretical framework.  Yet as McGuire notes, this strategy has some shortcomings when considering the TCMA.

While Bourdieu envisioned a deeply embedded, subconscious, group of behaviors, Chinese martial artists often short circuit this process via rigorous self-examination and an emphasis on conceptual analysis.  What might have been truly subconscious in Wacquant’s boxing gym is more often named and reified in a Chinese martial arts studio. Nor, as Bowman has argued, is it always clear that the average martial arts hobbyist really dedicates enough time and effort to fully “rewire” their habitus.

At the CLA I am sure that the “habitus” that most students embody is that of your typical office worker, sales person or college student.   While a number of students have gained a fair degree of competence in the use of the lightsaber, none seem to embody the habitus of a “Jedi” (whatever that would be).  One rather suspects that the average amateur martial artists, practicing a few hours a week, falls closer to this end of the spectrum than Wacquant’s highly dedicated boxers, some of whom harbored professional aspirations.

Nevertheless, McGuire concluded that the concept of the habitus is not without value in understanding skills acquisition within the Chinese martial arts.  While the central concepts of kung fu practice are often reified and examined, the same cannot be said of the sorts of rhythms and phrasing that make up traditional Chinese martial music.  The inhabitants of Toronto’s Chinatown have often grown-up with these musical tradition and may accept them on a subconscious level.

Musical understanding is also something that can be both experienced and transmitted through the body.  McGuire argues that the idea of habitus may have a great deal of utility in exploring the link between performance based practices such as lion or dragon dancing, and their subsequent connection to the traditional martial arts.

To more fully explore these ideas McGuire examines the various ways that rhythm manifests itself in the percussive music that accompanies a lion dance as well as the cadences of attack and defense that are seen in sanda (Chinese kickboxing). In both cases he focuses on the concept of “following” and “leading” as a way of theorizing how the internalization of rhythmic structures makes the actions of another individual legible.  In the case of lion dancing these two modes facilitate complex cooperation between the drummer, head and tail dancer, and the other musicians.  When applied to fighting the same basic pattern recognition skills allow one to anticipate and counter an opponent’s movements, thereby stifling their intentions.

Robert Downey Jr. and Eric Orem working on the wooden dummy.

Conclusion: Finding your Rhythm

The general outlines of this process seem pretty universal.  It is not hard to discover specific rhythms in the footwork, combinations and drills of western boxing.  McGuire notes that Japanese Kendo players have been observed to follow very complex rhythmic patterns in their onslaughts.   And one suspects that most American martial artists are now familiar with Bruce Lee’s idea of the broken rhythm.

Yet in actual application the details of any one of these examples tend to be culturally bounded.  In the technical section of his paper McGuire, following Boyu Zhang, notes that the concept of “the metre” (a constantly repeating cycle of strong and weak beats) which structures modern western songs simply does not apply to many types of traditional percussive Chinese music including those seen within lion dancing.  This is probably one of the reasons why most Westerners find this type of music bewildering when first exposed to it.  It does not seem to progress in the way that one expects a song should.

When describing the sorts of rhythm used in lion dancing McGuire instead turns to the idea of “phrases.” He defines these as sequences of distinct rhythms that are progressively linked together in significant or meaningful ways.  Note that this is quite different from the idea of a fundamentally repetitive metre.

It may be this distinction that underlies the class’ problem with the third chapter of Shii-cho.  While one might view lightsaber combat as an American or Western martial art, many of the individual forms that are practiced were borrowed, in whole or part, from other Asian fencing systems.  Shii-cho itself has its roots in wushu performance, an area where rhythmic ability is important.

The first and second sections of this form have their own rhythms, ones that seem more accessible to western students.  Yet when this structure breaks in the third chapter, students find it hard to grasp the sudden change in pulse and timing.  The perception of “entrainment” that McGuire describes in his paper fails, and students default to what they are more comfortable with.

Unfortunately this does not just disrupt the aesthetic quality of their movement.  It also short circuits the martial effectiveness of their attacks.  When a different rhythm is imposed on this sequence, the movements take on either a defensive or confused character.

Darth Nihilus sits at an interesting position vis a vis the cross-cultural communication of these movement patterns.  As a professional musician he probably has a greater sensitivity to “musical” nuances than many martial artists.  And given the depth of his experience in the Chinese martial arts, he has already been exposed to instances where culturally specific rhythmic patterns structure movement.

His experience in both of these areas has opened a pathway for cross-cultural translation in a realm that most martial artists never consciously consider.  A new generation of initiates is being introduced to the traditional Chinese rhythms of blade work through their instruction in the seven classic forms of Lightsaber combat.

Other scholars have noted that deep cultural knowledge of certain sorts of music, or even common childhood games, can be a critical factor in determining one’s ability to effectively acquire skills in a specific fighting system.  Thomas Green found that distinct rhythmic patterns conveyed in both popular music and urban street games form an important element in some African-American vernacular martial arts.  Without this specific cultural familiarity it can be very difficult to excel in arts like Jail House Rock or the 52 Hand Blocks (2014, “White Men Don’t Flow: Embodied Aesthetics of the Fifty-Two Hand Block” in Fighting Scholars, pp. 125-140.)  This would seem to further support McGuire’s contention that there is an element of habitus embedded within our recognition of these musical patterns that structures our experience of a fighting system on a deep level.

We should also be careful not to generalize too broadly, or to “essentialize” what might be regional patterns into markers of national identity.  One of my initial challenges when starting lightsaber training is that the sorts of timing and movement patterns used are reminiscent of the northern Chinese martial arts.  Much of this is quite different from Wing Chun, which developed in the Pearl River Delta region.  Yet even within a region (say, Southern China) there will be a wide degree of variation.

As I read McQuire’s essay I felt some slight pangs of “lion dance envy.”  These performance traditions are a critical part of Southern Chinese martial culture, but they are not something that I have any first-hand experience with.  Ip Man discouraged his students from becoming involved with lion dancing during the Hong Kong period for a variety of reasons.  As a result many of the modern Wing Chun lineages coming out of Hong Kong still have nothing to do with the practice.

This does not mean that our art is without culturally determined types of rhythm.  The mook yan jong makes a distinctive “clacking” sound when struck, and the elaborate patterns of strikes in each chapter of the wooden dummy form have their own tempo, timing and rhythm.  After a while the sound of the dummy literally becomes “music to the ears” of wing chun practitioners.  The unique nature of the dummy also ensures that there is a close connection between the martial effectiveness of one’s attacks and your ability to grasp and replicate these percussive patterns.

The cultural nature of these traditions renders them invisible to many of the individuals that draw upon them in their daily martial practice.  It may take conscious effort on our part to bring questions of rhythm and aesthetics to the fore and discover the ways in which they are linked the martial strategies of our systems.  Yet doing so will improve both our practical and academic understanding of these fighting arts.  That is why I will keep practicing my Shii-cho.  Sometimes the hyper-real functions as a doorway to the historical.

oOo

*Following standard ethnographic protocol, the names of both specific people and places discussed in this essay have been replaced with pseudonyms to protect the confidentially of those who have generously assisted me with this research.

oOo

Are you interested in Star Wars and the Martial Arts?  If so click here for some of my Rogue One predictions.

oOo

Darth Nihilus at the end of his sparring match.

Master Shi Tanxu. Source: Rick Loomis/LA Times.

Introduction

Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News.”  This is a semi-regular feature here at Kung Fu Tea in which we review media stories that mention or affect the traditional fighting arts.  In addition to discussing important events, this column also considers how the Asian hand combat systems are portrayed in the mainstream media.

While we try to summarize the major stories over the last month, there is always a chance that we have missed something.  If you are aware of an important news event relating to the TCMA, drop a link in the comments section below.  If you know of a developing story that should be covered in the future feel free to send me an email.

Its been a while since our last update so there is a lot to be covered in today’s post.  Let’s get to the news!

Good Samaritan and Taijiquan practitioner has helped the police apprehend 30 criminal in as many years. Source: SCMP

News from All Over

Our first story this week comes from the pages of the South China Morning Post.  Zhang Xiauwu, who teaches Taijiquan in Guangzhou, has been honored for his efforts in fighting crime.  He has apprehended 30 criminals in as many years, even receiving injuries in some of his encounters.  The press reports that he as been presented with an award by the Guangzhou Good Samaritan Foundation.  You can read more about his story here.  This discussion reminds me of an earlier time when the martial arts were much more a part of community management.

Serbs love the traditional Chinese martial arts. Source:

Over the last few weeks there have been a number of stories discussing the role of the TCMA in promoting a positive public image of China abroad.  I have selected a couple of the more informative examples to share here.  The first of these was distributed by CCTV’s English language network.  It profiles the rising number of students who are studying both Chinese language and martial arts at Confucius schools in Uzbekistan.  This particular story was significant at is explicitly tied the promotion of these programs to the “One Belt One Road” policy that China hopes will foster greater cooperation and economic ties in the region.

Another article, also from the English language Chinese press, profiled the growing interest in Chinese martial arts in Serbia.  This particular story looks closely at the growth of a single instructor’s school, and even includes romantic elements.  I thought that it was a particularly nice example of the genre.

Living the Dream at Shaolin. Source: Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine.

Th next couple of stories focus more on the role of the Chinese martial arts in travel and tourism, rather than just public diplomacy.  The first of these, published on the Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine webpage, is certainly worth taking a look at.  Its a brief account of the author’s extensive experience traveling and training in China, focusing on his recent experiences at a school located near the Shaolin Temple.  Click here to check it out.

The Longmen Grottoes. Source: republicherald.com

Of course not everyone is looking for such an intense engagement with the Chinese martial arts.  Often Western tourists are more interested in learning something about the Chinese martial arts, and framing these experiences within a broader exploration of traditional Chinese culture. The Republican Herald recently ran a short article profiling the efforts of Henan province to re-brand itself as a major destination for Western tourists who usually pass the over the area as they try to get to some of China’s better known tourist destinations.  This article looks at some of the attractions that the province is trying to highlight, including the Shaolin Temple.  It is actually a great reminder of some of the very important history that can be found in this region.

ONE Championship CEO Victor Cui doesn’t think that the UFC will be expanding into the Chinese market any time soon. Source: http://www.mmafighting.com

Rumors of an impending sale of the UFC have been flying around in recent days.  A number of these suggest that the possible buyer could be a Chinese group, raising questions both about a renewed plan to push the company’s presence in China, as well as its future business plans and management.   Forbes just ran an article stating that the management of the UFC recently circulated an internal memo to their employees to squash rumors that the company had already been sold.  They claimed that no such deal has been reached with any party.  But that fact has not stopped speculation that some sort of sale is imminent.

There is also a lot of speculation about why a Chinese tech firm might be interested in the UFC, or what all of this will mean for the future of MMA in Asia.   This article has a fascinating discussion of what some of the Chinese bidders might be looking for in a UFC deal.

ONE Championship CEO Victor Cui has also been in the news talking down the possibility that the sale of the UFC to Chinese investors might mean an expansion of UFC events in China.  Obviously he has a stake in this issue (being the competition), but it is still an interesting discussion of the business logic of MMA competition in Asia.

“For Chinese companies, why they’re investing in other properties is because they’re really excited about expanding outside of Asia,” Cui said. “That’s the goal. So they’re buying properties so they can expand out of Asia. They’re not buying anything to help their business in China. They don’t care about that. They already have China. They don’t need any help from foreign companies to dominate China.”

Swimsuit clad job applicants train with a “Shaolin Monk” as part of the application process to be a river rafting guide. Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

The Daily Mail recently ran a piece titled “Beauty and master: Bikini-clad sports graduates combat Shaolin monks to become rafting lifesavers in China.”  The title and cover photo of the article pretty much says it all….though I suspect that the word “monk” is being used rather loosely here.  The real story appears to be the ongoing fad of inflicting seemingly pointless martial arts training on Chinese females in the service industries as advertising stunts.  This is not the only example of this trend that I came across in the last month, but it does seem to be the most exploitative.

“Once hired, the sexy lifesavers will also work as personal companions to help solo tourists enjoy rafting.”

Monks at the Shaolin Temple harvesting wheat. Source: SCMP

Meanwhile, back in Dengfeng, the monks of the Shaolin Temple have been attempting to craft a slightly different public image.  The SCMP ran an article discussing how the monks harvest wheat off their agricultural lands to help support the temple.  I thought that this was an interesting image as we often forget that Buddhist Temples became important social and economic powers during the Ming dynasty through their acquisition of farmland and success in agriculture.  Oddly, these monks seemed capable of performing their duties without being accompanied by anyone in swimsuits.

Senior woman doing Tai Chi exercise to keep her joints flexible, isolated. Source: http://now.tufts.edu

The ancient Chinese martial art Taijiquan is a cheap, effective treatment for knee pain, says a new study by a Tufts professor.  The study found that Taijiquan practice with an experienced instructor was as effective as six weeks of intensive physical therapy at relieving osteoarthritis related knee pain in a set of patients, mostly over 60 years of age.  However, those assigned to the Taiji group showed greater quality of life scores and more improvements in terms of depression than the control sample which received more traditional physical therapy.  Taijiquan instruction is also less expensive and taught at a large number of locations.  I guess this is another reason for seniors to give Taijiquan a try.

Bruce Lee with his favorite on-screen weapon.

We only have a single Bruce Lee related item in this news update. Readers in Hong Kong may want to check out a new exhibit of his movie memorabilia, costumes, scripts and photographs at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.  It is titled “Bruce Lee: Kung Fu. Art. Life” and runs Monday, June 27^th through Friday, July 1^st.  You can find the details here.

The Final Master. Source: LA Times.

In our last news update we discussed the release of director Xu Haofeng’s new film “The Final Master.”  Every one of the reviews for this film that I have seen has been very positive and it appears to be succeeding with audiences and critics alike.  Recently the IE Examiner ran an interview with the director talking about his film and creative process.  Unsurprisingly he sites his prior training in Xingyi as central to how he approaches the martial arts on film.  The entire interview is worth reading, but I found his concluding statement about upcoming projects to be particularly exciting.  Fans of the Dadao take note!

“IE: What’s your next film about?

Xu: It’s about the last battle with cold weaponry during WWII in China. I will show the big saber techniques from China. During that period of time, China was very behind in modern weaponry. At the beginning of the war, there were barely any modern weapons warehouses in Northern China, so that the Chinese army had to use the big sabers to help fight the war. They had to do sneak attacks and tried to get into melees as fast as they could. You can see some photos with Chinese soldiers with grenades at their waists, but holding big sabers in their hands. I really want to present the huge amount of courage Chinese people had in such a bad situation.”

A close up of Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen in a cast photo for Rogue One. Source: Starwars.com

New information on “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” has been released, and we now have some understanding of the character that Donnie Yen will be playing.  It appears that he will be a blind “warrior monk” with a sensitivity to the Force.  But he is not a Jedi and we probably won’t be seeing him wield a lightsaber any time soon.  So I guess that makes him “spiritual…but not religious”?

All in all, the director’s original vision for the project seems to have remained intact: “As director Gareth Edwards puts it: “This idea that magical beings are going to come and save us is going away, and it’s up to normal, everyday people to take a stand to stop evil from dominating the world.”  I am also excited about the appearance of Jiang Wen in this film, who sadly is getting overlooked in all of the discussion of Donnie Yen.  I think the two of them might have a very interesting on-screen dynamic.

The fan reaction to these revelations have been mixed.  Most people seemed to be thrilled with the prospect of Donnie Yen bringing his martial arts ability to a Star Wars film in any capacity.  But a notable minority lament the fact that we won’t see him as a more classical Jedi or in the numbered films.

Lastly, anyone interested in Star Wars and the Chinese martial arts MUST check out the latest issue of Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine.  It contains a very extensive interview with Ray Park, the talented Wushu master who portrayed Darth Mall in the first of the prequels.  Unfortunately there does not appear to be an on-line version of the article so I have nothing to link to.  But in the interview he discusses how Star Wars inspired him to take up the martial arts as a youth, his later Wushu training, the process of creating and filming his now iconic character among other topics.  Its a great interview and well worth tracking down for anyone interested in the connections between the Chinese martial arts and popular culture.

Martial Arts Studies, Issue 2: The Invention of Martial Arts

Martial Arts Studies
There have been quite a few developments on the martial arts studies front over the last month.  Perhaps the biggest news is that the Spring Issue of the journal Martial Arts Studies is now out and freely available to anyone with an internet connection.  This is a themed issue looking at the “Invention of Martial Arts” in a variety settings and contexts.

Some of the subjects tackled in this issue include the evolution of the 52 Hand Block and other African American vernacular arts, a comparative study of Capoeira and Silat in public rituals in Brazil and Indonesia, a feminist analysis of social media discussions of female fighters in the UFC, the invention of an indigenous Mexican warrior tradition and martial art, communication in Akido, and my own article on the invention of lightsaber combat and the definition of the martial arts.   In addition to the articles, this issue also includes a number of important book, conference and documentary reviews.  Its great to see so much groundbreaking research in one place.  Head on over and check it out!

Second, the 2016 Martial Arts Studies at Cardiff University is now less than a month away.  Prof. Paul Bowman has released an updated program and list of speakers which looks pretty impressive.  Some of the confirmed presenters include Adam Frank (author of Taijiquan and the Search for the Little Old Chinese Man: Understanding Identity Through Martial Arts (Palgrave), Daniel Mroz (author of The Dancing Word (a book on the use of Chinese martial arts in actor training and performance creation, Brill), Benjamin Spatz (author of What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research (Routledge), Phillip Zarrilli (author of When the Body Becomes All Eyes: Paradigms, Pratices, and Discourses of Power in Kalarippayattu, a South Indian Martial Art (Oxford University Press) and myself (author of The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the South Asian Martial Arts (SUNY).  If you are going to be in the UK this July you will not want to miss this gathering.  Last years conference was a great success and this one looks to be even more important.

Now With Kung Fu Grip! How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts for America. By Jared Miracle. McFarland & Company (March 31, 2016)

Dr. Jared Miracle’s book Now with Kung Fu Grip! How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts for America (McFarland, 2016) has been released and appears to be shipping from amazon.com.  I have been looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this important history of the modern martial arts in America for over a year.  Of course Jared himself is good friend of Kung Fu Tea and guest contributor to this blog.  Here is the publisher’s statement on the project:

Why do so many Americans practice martial arts? How did kung fu get its own movie genre? What makes mixed martial arts so popular? This book answers these questions for the first time with historical research.

At the turn of the 20th century, the United States enjoyed a time of prosperity but feared that men were becoming soft. At the same time, the Japanese government sponsored research to develop the best fighting techniques for its new empire. Before World War II, American men boxed and Japanese men practiced judo and karate. Postwar Americans began adopting Chinese, Brazilian, Filipino and other fighting styles, in the process establishing a masculine subculture based on physical and social power.

The rise of Asian martial arts in America is a fascinating untold story of modern history, from the origin of karate uniforms to the first martial arts themed birthday party. The cast of characters includes circus strongmen, professional cage fighters, an award winning comic book artist, the inventors of judo, aikido and Cornflakes, and Count Juan Raphael Dante, a Chicago hairdresser and used car salesman with the “Deadliest Hands in the World.” Readers will never look at taekwondo class the same way again.

The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts by Benjamin Judkins and Jon Nielson. State University of New York Press.  The softcover edition is due out on July 1st, 2015

Jon Nielson and I are very happy to announce that the soft cover edition of our volume, The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts (SUNY Press, 2015) is now out.  Some people have already received their copies, but amazon has the release date as July 1st.  At $27 this edition of the book should be much more accessible to a broader readership.  If you were waiting to purchase a copy, this is your chance.

This book explores the social history of southern Chinese martial arts and their contemporary importance to local identity and narratives of resistance. Hong Kong’s Bruce Lee ushered the Chinese martial arts onto an international stage in the 1970s. Lee’s teacher, Ip Man, master of Wing Chun Kung Fu, has recently emerged as a highly visible symbol of southern Chinese identity and pride. Benjamin N. Judkins and Jon Nielson examine the emergence of Wing Chun to reveal how this body of social practices developed and why individuals continue to turn to the martial arts as they navigate the challenges of a rapidly evolving environment. After surveying the development of hand combat traditions in Guangdong Province from roughly the start of the nineteenth century until 1949, the authors turn to Wing Chun, noting its development, the changing social attitudes towards this practice over time, and its ultimate emergence as a global art form.

Palgrave has just released a new volume that will be of interest to a number of KFT readers.  It is titled Body and Senses in Martial Culture and was written by H. L. L. Loh.  I have not yet had a chance to review this book, but it sounds very helpful for students of martial arts studies.

This ethnographic study of a mixed martial arts gym in Thailand describes the everyday practices and lived experiences of martial art practitioners. Through the lived realities and everyday experiences of these fighters, this book seeks to examine why foreigners invest their time and money to train in martial arts in Thailand; the linkages between the embodiment of martial arts and masculinity; how foreign bodies consume martial arts and what they get out of it; the sensory reconfiguration required of a fighter; and the impact of transnational flows on bodily dispositions and knowledge. The author argues that being a successful fighter entails not only sensitized awareness and knowledge of one’s body, but also a reconfiguration of the senses.

Lionel Loh Han Loong is a graduate of the University of Singapore (NUS) with a degree and a masters in Social Sciences (Sociology). His areas of interests include the sociology of the body, social memory, gender and sexuality, sports, and martial arts. He is currently working as an educator and is interested in issues dealing with pedagogy.

I was recently informed that Alex Gillis is releasing and new and updated version of A Killing Art: The Untold History of Tae Kwon Do.  Readers may recall that I wrote a very positive review of this book a few years ago.  Gillis did an incredible job of tracking down sources and bringing the story of Taekwondo to life.  Its great to hear that an updated version of his book will be available to a new generation of readers.  Hopefully we will be able to convince him to visit KFT again to tell us a little more about his ongoing research.

The leaders of Tae Kwon Do, an Olympic sport and one of the world’s most popular martial arts, are fond of saying that their art is ancient and filled with old dynasties and superhuman feats. In fact, Tae Kwon Do is as full of lies as it is powerful techniques. Since its rough beginnings in the Korean military 60 years ago, the art empowered individuals and nations, but its leaders too often hid the painful truths that led to that empowerment — the gangsters, secret-service agents, and dictators who encouraged cheating, corruption, and murder. A Killing Art: The Untold History of Tae Kwon Do takes you into the cults, geisha houses, and crime syndicates that made Tae Kwon Do. It shows how, in the end, a few key leaders kept the art clean and turned it into an empowering art for tens of millions of people in more than 150 countries. A Killing Art is part history and part biography — and a wild ride to enlightenment.

The challenges of translation is a topic that comes up frequently in martial arts studies circles.  As such I thought that some readers might find the following volume particularly interesting.   The Pushing-Hands of Translation and its Theory: In memoriam Martha Cheung, 1953-2013 (Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies)

This book presents an East-West dialogue of leading translation scholars responding to and developing Martha Cheung’s “pushing-hands” method of translation studies. Pushing-hands was an idea Martha began exploring in the last four years of her life, and only had time to publish at article length in 2012. The concept of pushing-hands suggests a promising line of inquiry into the problem of conflict in translation. Pushing-hands opens a new vista for translation scholars to understand and explain how to develop an awareness of non-confrontational, alternative ways to handle translation problems or problems related to translation activities that are likely to give rise to tension and conflict. The book is a timely contribution to celebrate Martha’s work and also to move the conversation forward. Despite being somewhat tentative and experimental, it probes into how to enable and develop dynamic interaction between and reciprocal determinism of different hands involved in the process of translation.

A captured Chinese dadao being held by a Japanese soldier. Note the unique saw back blade. Source: Author’s Personal Collection.

Speaking of the challenges and rewards of translation, the Brennan Translation Blog has just released two new manuals.  Both are translations of important Republic era works on the use of the Dadao (big knife) in a military setting.  Given the resurgence in popularity that these blades are currently enjoying I suspect that quite a few readers will want to spend some time with these.

Possible Origins: A Cultural History of Chinese Martial Arts, Theater and Religion. By Scott Park Phillips.

Lastly, we received a late breaking announcement as this post was being prepared for publication.  Scott Phillips (the author of the blog Weakness With a Twist) has just released a monograph detailing his thoughts on the possible connections between Chinese theatrical, ritual and martial arts traditions.  Certain scholars have been connecting these areas in the academic literature, but Phillips aims to provide a much more focused discussion of how these theories might shape our understanding of the martial arts.  This is something that gets discussed a lot with regards to Wing Chun’s self-professed roots in Cantonese Opera.  It will be interesting to see how a similar discussion of the Northern arts plays out.

A New Book by Scott Park Phillips will be the first cultural history of Chinese martial arts. Every day, millions of people practice Chinese martial arts. Most of them would love to read a history that not only incorporates all the latest research, but also uses easily accessible language to connect history to the art they practice. Everyone wants to know where their martial art came from and how it was created—the real story.

Possible Origins provokes and answers questions like: What is a sworn brotherhood? How do talismans work? Why does Taijiquan have so much mime in it? Why does Baguazhang look like a guy riding around on roller skates? Was the Shaolin Monastery a theater school?

Up until now, histories of Chinese martial arts have been ignoring Chinese culture. Possible Origins: A Cultural History of Chinese Martial Arts,Theater, and Religion shows how the practice of martial arts has preserved religious and theatrical traditions hidden inside of martial skills. With 40 images and a straightforward account of the various historical and cultural factors involved, it is easily accessible to the non-specialist.

Kung Fu Tea on Facebook

A lot has happened on the Kung Fu Tea Facebook group over the last few weeks.  We discussed how bacteria do Taijiquan, the upcoming Bruce Lee biopic, and who would win in a sword fight, a samurai or a swashbuckler. Joining the Facebook group is also a great way of keeping up with everything that is happening here at Kung Fu Tea.

If its been a while since your last visit, head on over and see what you have been missing.

Do you feel that?  Olympic fervor is once again in the air.  As we prepare for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio there has been a distinct uptick of Olympic advertising on the TV.  Athletes whom we have not seen for four years are once again making regular appearances on the news.  Even some martial artists are getting in on the act.

My initial plan for today was to sit down and write a serious essay on functionalist discussions of history.  Or to put it in slightly different terms, why it is generally a bad idea to assume that social institutions were invented by a group of prophetic planners for the express purpose of filling the specific roles which we find them functioning in today.  Nowhere is this disjoint between investigations of “origins” and studies of “function” more evident than in discussions of the traditional Asian martial arts.

Then I read this.  I highly recommend that you take a moment to do so as well.  Prof. D. S. Farrer recently wrote a short piece for the Anthropology News titled “The Olympic Future of Mixed Martial Arts.” Better yet, his essay made the issue’s cover!

That editorial decision seems entirely appropriate to me.  Farrer appears to have been figuratively (and possibly literally) on fire when he wrote this piece.  Due mainly to wushu’s frustrated relationship with the Olympics (going all the way back to 1936 for anyone who is keeping track), I have read a lot of popular articles advocating for some fighting art’s inclusion in the Games.  Rarely, however, have I seen anyone make a case quite like this, or with such conviction

Farrer cogently argues that the Olympics are, perhaps inescapably, “warrior games.”  It is in their very DNA.  We see it in the early gatherings of ancient Greece, and in the rebirth of a modern set of games in which a thin veneer of “international cooperation” masked the role of this institution in supporting and upholding the spread of 19^th century notions of nationalism and imperialism.  Scholars such as Andrew Morris (Marrow of the Nation, 2004) remind us that states like China were eager to enter the Olympic system precisely because they understood the real world implications of these games.

In the global arena “perceptions” have a way of quickly hardening into “political facts.”  The modern Olympics have been seen not just as a celebration of what an individual athletic “body can do,” but as a test of what nations and states are capable of doing.  To successfully project power into this sphere is to suggest that one is also capable of dominating other, less symbolic, venues.

The government of the Republic of China realized that a successful Olympic appearance would impact the perceived legitimacy of their state both in the eyes of domestic and global audiences.  During a time of intense competition and actual imperialism within the geographic borders of China, this was a reality that could not be ignored.  It is no coincidence that the Chinese martial arts were first showcased on the global stage at the 1936 Olympics, as the world teetered on the brink of total war.

Farrer hits his stride when he turns his attention more directly to the mixed martial arts (MMA).  How often in Olympic discussions (cloaked as they usually are in the sentiments of saccharine consumerism) does one encounter arguments such as this:

“MMA, however, does not just create another world of bored/boring spectators, yet another banal, dead space for the outmoded parade of false national pride. We must learn to see beyond the fascist flag-waving society of the spectacle, where actual embodied human performance is supplanted by collective representations of the elite other, facilitating the fatted-up, nerdish spectators in becoming-brainwashed, hooked to their smart-phones and digital devices in their collective becoming-sheep. MMA creates a whole new world of savage cage fighters that the police force, law enforcement, and even highly trained military personnel struggle to contain. Also, MMA makes the practitioner aware of their heartbeat, breathing, vulnerability and mortality, and that of their partners in training. Cage fighting is only one, if the ultimate, outcome of MMA. Other outcomes include superb athleticism, health, fitness, self-confidence, fraternity, and fictive kinship as befits an Olympic sport.” (Farrer, 11)

That is strong stuff, yet Farrer is far from alone in arguing for the inclusion of another combat sport in the Olympic lineup.  In popular discussions both hope and anxiety over the fate of various Olympic combat sports seems to be reaching a boiling point.  These debates often center on commercial, social, cultural and even regional fault lines.  As such they suggest something about the state of both the Olympics and the modern martial arts.

Perhaps we should begin by considering some of the factors that draw various martial arts and combat sports like moths towards the flame of Olympic competition.  The games already feature a number of combat arts including (but not limited to) shooting, fencing, wrestling, boxing, judo, taekwondo and archery.  Others are eager to add themselves to the line-up.  Karate was recently successful in its bid for a birth in the 2020 games.  Wushu has been overlooked multiple times in the past and has focused on expanding its base of international support in an effort to broaden its appeal.

Source: http://www.ludosport.net

Recently I ran across voices in the lightsaber combat community talking up the possibility of their practice becoming an Olympic Sport.  Admittedly, this seems like a massive long shot and the entire conversation is comically premature.  This is a set of practices that is barely a decade old and, by any measure, is just getting to its feet.

It lacks an international federation or any plans for creating one.  Nor does it have a widely agreed upon consensus as to what a typical match should look like, how scoring is organized and what sorts of basic safety equipment is necessary.  Right now each organization and club handles these questions on an ad hoc basis.  Needless to say there is no funding infrastructure in place to organize the sort of elite level training and competition needed to sustain lightsaber combat as a theoretical Olympic sport.

If anyone were to ask my advice, I would suggest starting with some intramural collegiate level clubs and seeing where things might go from there.  Nor do I even want to imagine the legal calamity that could be unleashed by bringing Disney’s intellectual property (Star Wars) into contact with the IOC’s.  To quote Ghost Busters, another American classic, “Don’t cross the streams…it would be bad.”

The entire idea of Olympic lightsaber combat feels ludicrous from the outset.  So I was fascinated to note that this seems to have become a core talking point of Ludosport, perhaps the largest of the European lightsaber groups.  Their homepage subtly points out that they have developed a sport that upholds and advances the Olympic ideals. So many of Ludosport’s instructors have noted their Olympic aspirations in recent interviews that one suspects that this is part of a coordinated campaign to craft a certain type of public image.

All of this would seem to suggest something important about the place of the Olympics in the modern world.  While Farrer and others worry about the Game’s slide into cultural irrelevance, for many consumers they continue to function as a power symbol of legitimacy.  To be in the Olympics is to be a “real” sport.

Of course achieving Olympic status has other profound implications that go beyond “respectability politics.” These may include great benefits, but they also introduce some of the sources of anxiety that tend to haunt such conversations.

The first and most obvious set of considerations is financial.  While different states have their own funding and organizational models (China is very different from the US in its support of athletics), the possibility of Olympic glory generally leads to an infusion of cash into a sport.  Elite training facilities need to be constructed and manned.  State or corporate sponsorship becomes a possibility.  And all of this must be organized and overseen by a group of specialized administrators.  The Olympic Games employ a lot of people who are not athletes.

From an administrative perspective it is fairly obvious why it might be in your best interest to have a sport chosen for the Olympics.  This logic transcends state borders.  It is hoped that by opening new spots on the medal podium athletes in other countries will be enticed into competing in a given event.  One of nagging doubts that has plagued wushu’s adoption bid is whether enough countries outside of China and the old Soviet bloc are really capable of fielding (and financially supporting) the sorts of elite teams necessary to make the event a successful proposition.

The flip-side of this is that the failure of a sport to succeed in attracting audiences, sponsors, advertisers and funding might lead to its dismissal from the Olympics.  Low audience interest and other problems have led to multiple rounds of speculation that Taekwondo might one day find itself on the chopping block.  The reality of these worries were confirmed in shocking fashion when wrestling found itself temporarily without an Olympic birth before being reinstated (but no longer as a core sport).

As Farrer notes, wrestling is perhaps the world’s original combat sport.  It is one of the few events in the modern games that can trace its roots back to its old world predecessor.  Wrestling is also very popular with athletes around the globe.  Due to the nature of the contest a talented fighter can train and reach a high level expertise with relatively minimal infrastructure investment compared to other sports like Olympic diving or downhill skiing.  For a variety of reasons wrestling has a wide global appeal among athletes.

Unfortunately this love is not shared by television audiences.  One suspects that the same simplicity which makes the sport relatively easy to practice also gives it little in the way of dynamic visual appeal.  Important moments in a match may not be legible to individuals who are unfamiliar with the sport.  It often lacks the same dynamism as flashier track and field events.

Olympic Taekwondo. Source: nytimes.com

Nor is wrestling alone in this respect.  Taekwondo, while faster paced, has also proved to be a tough sell for general audiences.  Judo seems to get somewhat greater news coverage, yet it enjoys very little network broadcast time (at least in the United States).  As such it is at a disadvantage when it comes to bringing in sponsorships or advertising dollars.  I am not sure that the situation will prove to be much different for karate during the Tokyo games.

Karate, judo and taekwondo bring up another set of anxieties.  While lucrative, is Olympic competition ultimately good for a broader martial arts tradition?  Is this a venue within which an art can succeed, or will the very act of inclusion change it into something that it was not?

Consider the question of rules.  Any political scientist will tell you that it is the rules of the game that ultimately decide the winners and losers.  They determine the very nature and parameters of the contest.

This is critical in the current case as one of the fundamental traits of the traditional martial arts is their richness and variety.  Karate is not a singular tradition, it exists in many forms.  Not all organizations or lineages will have the same set of standards.  How then will the winning standards be chosen, and what is the fate of the losers?

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article outlining debates as to the rules that should govern competition within the new sport of karate, but it would be possible to write a similar article about many of the arts that we have discussed. The type of wushu that is being considered for Olympic competition by no means represents the totality of the Chinese martial arts.  Its gymnastics inflected floor routines are far removed from the actual reality of the traditional folk arts.

Yet these two set of practices, traditional kung fu and modern wushu, must both compete for the time and attention of a limited pool of talented young athletes.  Nor is it really possible to be committed to both disciplines at an elite level.  The popularity enjoyed by government sponsored wushu has not been great for the folk arts.  One must wonder whether wushu’s inclusion in future Olympics would further damage the richness that makes the Chinese martial arts so interesting.  Indeed, I have spoken with Chinese scholars studying the traditional martial arts who are worried about scenarios just like this.

Within any community large scale change always creates winners and loser.  The ascension to Olympic glory is no different.  Such questions require further consideration and study.

In some ways the mixed martial arts are well situated to deal with these challenges.  While wushu tends to have a more regional following, MMA has found a global, and still growing, audience.  Elite training camps can already be found in many countries.  The brutal nature of these fights, as well as their basic rules, ensures that they are visually dynamic.

As Farrer notes, this same violence seems to reflect the current phase of global capitalism.  Of course that same factor will make the IOC very wary of accepting the event, or Farrer’s larger arguments about their place in the “warrior games.”  As I mentioned earlier, theories of origin do not always work as explanations of current function or accepted meaning.

One of the most interesting aspects of Farrer’s essay was his concluding notion that MMA might end up functioning as an umbrella federation under which many sorts of Olympic martial arts competition (judo, TKD, silat, wushu, karate) might be ordered.  One doubts that the organizations behind judo, wrestling or taekwondo would appreciate this move.  Yet it does open interesting possibilities for the inclusion of a vastly expanded number of fighting styles (each imagined as a single “event,” rather than an entirely different sport) without taking up more than one of the 25 permanent Olympic slots.

Indeed, the nature of Olympic organization has meant that the combat sports have sometimes faced a “zero-sum” game.  In order for wushu or karate to be included something else has to be dropped (recall the case of wrestling).  Farrer’s suggestion might allow for a greater variety of styles to be showcased as well as increased flexibility in adopting new events. That alone might remove much of anxiety that seems to surround the discussion of Olympic combat sports.

Olympic Judo. Source: nytimes.com

There is one other source of “anxiety” that seems to accompany these contests which also deserves our attention.  Who exactly competes in the Olympics, individual athletes or nation states?  The answer would seem to be both, and anyone who doubts that might want to go back and revisit some of the Olympic coverage from the Cold War.  Still, combat sports are uniquely positioned to chip away some of the more overt elements of nationalism in the Games.

Ironically they can do this work precisely because so many martial arts are closely associated with nationalist identities.  Everyone knows that judo is a Japanese art and Taekwondo is a Korean style.  Wushu, as we are constantly reminded, is an aspect of Chinese culture.  And as Farrer has just illustrated, MMA is in many ways a uniquely American creation.

These acknowledgements of a practice’s point of origins should not come to be confused with other essentializing discourses about the “national character.”  Yet that is what we always do.  The Budo arts are thought to reveal the “essence” Japanese identity.  Hence one would expect that Japan should dominate the medal podium in every judo event.  Indeed, they do rather well.  Likewise TKD is sometimes seen as reflecting the “essence” of Korean culture.  And the Chinese Olympic Committee seeks to advance wushu in large part so that they can claim this same sense of legitimacy for their own “national arts.”

Yet victory in grappling, kicking or striking depends on a great many factors prior to one’s ethno-nationalist background.  What happens when the Japanese judo team suffers unexpected losses to athletes from other countries? What impact does a string of “foreign” victories in TKD have on the discourse surrounding that art?  And given the global popularity of MMA, if it were to ever become an Olympic sport, I doubt that the USA would monopolize the medal count.  There are just too many good athletes in too many different countries.  And that is a very good thing.  It demonstrates the fundamental vitality of the sport.

Yet the reality of losing in one’s “national art” to athletes from other states has caused a fair amount of anxiety in the home countries of some of these other sports.  Nothing puts the lie to myths in the martial arts quite as fast as actually testing them in the ring.

Ultimately that is also a good thing.  It serves to break down some of the ethno-nationalist mythologies surrounding the Asian martial arts that were so assiduously cultivated over the course of the 20^th century.  Hopefully the sort of “instant verification” that international sporting events provide make the creation of new myths more difficult, or at least less profitable.

The actual reality of what happens in an event suggests that it is the individual athletes, and not some abstraction like “the nation” or “flag,” that competes and fights.  If the Olympics ever are to become a true celebration of global peace, rather than simply a glorification of “national violence by other means,” such a perspective is necessary.

As Spinoza, Deleuze and Guattari, Spatz and Farrer have all noted, the real question we seek to explore is “what can a body do?”  In this riddle we find a celebration of our common potential and humanity.  Ironically it is often the combat sports, even practices as different as MMA and wushu, which are best positioned to answer that question.  While I remain to be convinced that martial traditions always benefit from the Olympics, the Olympic Games clearly need the martial arts and combat sports.  Maybe even one (far off) day…lightsaber combat.

oOo

 
If you enjoyed this discussion than you really owe it to yourself to go and read: “The Olympic Future of the Mixed Martial Arts” by D. S. Farrer

oOo

Ip Man practices Chi Sao With Moy Yat.

Introduction

It goes without saying that I should not be writing this post.  On Sunday I will be boarding my flight for the UK and the 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference at Cardiff University.  I am looking forward to this event, but there are all sorts of other last minute things I should be doing right now.

This will also be my last “live” post for the next couple of weeks.  There will be updates on the blog as I have arranged for some other articles to be posted in my absence.  I will also be working on a full conference report as soon as I get back home.

Today’s essay attempts to explore a few of the problems of translation and communication as they relate to the practice of the Chinese martial arts.  This is a huge topic.  Ideally such a discussion would involve an entire series of essays each looking at a different aspect of the problem.  Even a single topic, such as “the textual translation of early 20^th century manuals,” could generate enough puzzles to keep us busy for a long time.

Obviously that exercise will need to wait.  Today we will instead consider how the embodied practice of martial arts might aid the process of cultural translation even in cases where (for social or linguistic reasons) this might seem very difficult.  The Southern Chinese style wing chun will be called upon to illustrate some of these concepts and possibilities.

Specifically, I hope to explore how chi sao (or “sticking hands”) allows for extended communication through time in the absence of explicit discussion and translation.  While Ip Man was by no means the first wing chun teacher to employ this sensitivity drill, training exercise and combative game, he did make it the centerpiece of his teaching during the Hong Kong period of his career.  To an outside observer, familiar with the TCMA, chi sao would probably look vaguely familiar, and be recognized as similar to the training exercises seen in a number of other systems (such as Taijiquan’s push hands).

Yet for many students of wing chun, it defines their relationship with the art.  By practicing chi sao you become part of a larger conversation that transcends both temporal and geographic locations.  When a training partner throws a punch, or slaps one of yours away, their actions demand “What will you do?”  “How will you respond to violence?”  “What is your reaction to the unexpected?”

From one set of hands to another this conversation has been passed.  With each transmission it is enlarged.  For better or worse it has molded generations of Wing Chun students.  The pressing question “What will you do?” needs no spoken translation. Ip Man taught only in Cantonese, and the vast majority of his students were instructed in Hong Kong.  But now his central question can be experienced around the world.

The Problem with Translation

It is one thing for a message to be heard.  It is quite another for it to be understood.  Again, Chi Sao is a fascinating example of problem.  In Hong Kong the exercise was used as a primary element of classroom training in an environment in which extra-curricular (and totally unsanctioned) fights between young kung fu students were common.  American culture today frowns on that same level of youth violence and I don’t think that most Western students are subjected to anything like the rooftop challenge matches of post-war Hong Kong.

“Kickboxing night” at a local MMA school would probably be the closest easily accessible analog.  Yet it goes without saying that these cannot replicate the social and cultural milieu from which Hong Kong Wing Chun arose.  So how confident can we ever be in the quality of our translation?  Are we actually taking part in a communal conversation that Ip Man started?   Or are we lost in somatic drift, playing an embodied version of the telephone game in which we imagine whatever message best fulfills our orientalist fantasies?

A number of prior scholars have wrestled with the problem of translation in the performance, discussion and portrayal of the TCMA.  They collectively deserve the credit for inspiring my own questions on the subject.  In the current essay there is only time to touch on two or three examples from this literature.

Paul Bowman, in his upcoming volume Mythologies of Martial Arts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) expresses a fair degree of pessimism regarding our ability to achieve actual linguistic translations of key concepts within martial arts studies.  This, he warns, may skew our ability to openly discuss even the most basic ideas, such as the nature or definition of the “martial arts” themselves.

Bowman correctly notes that any attempt to generate a universal (and universalizing) definition of the term “martial art” is predicated on first solving an immense number of other much more specific translation problems.  How have various groups around the world socially and linguistically defined their “martial arts?”  What activities fall within those boundaries, and what fall outside of them?  How do all of these discussions compare cross culturally?  When Western scholars define “martial arts” in the abstract, are we capturing the essence of something that actually exists, or imposing a type of understanding that obscures the richness of human experience, rather than revealing it?

Indeed, if “translation issues” can have such a disruptive effect on our attempts to define key concepts (in a cross-national setting), what hope is there for a deeper conversation at even the best of times?

Bowman is not the only writer on the martial arts to be concerned with the challenges of translation and communication.  Fans of the recent Ip Man films may want to take a look at a book chapter titled “The Sino-Japanese War in Ip Man: From Miscommunication to Poetic Combat” by Paola Voci.  In this essay (originally published in Chinese and Japanese Films on the Second World War, Routledge 2014) Voci takes a close look at Ip Man’s various failures to communicate, both with the Chinese martial artists who are making their way to Foshan from the north and (more critically) the Japanese forces led by General Miura, in Wilson Ip’s 2008 biopic.  Readers may recall that the later villain had decided to train his troops by having them fight with impoverished and starving kung fu masters (who were paid in rice).

Particularly important to Voci’s argument is the character Li Zhao, first introduced as a police officer, and later as a Chinese translator (and hence collaborator) working for the Japanese military.  As the only character who understands both the Chinese and Japanese languages and communities, Li would seem to be in an ideal position to facilitate linguistic and social understanding.  Yet this was not to be.

According to Voci, in a militarized environment (and following the conventions of Chinese war films) such “open communication” is not possible, and usually not even desirable.  Instead Ip Man and the Japanese military officers find themselves in a world of “closed communication” where the lack of a common spoken language, differing cultural frameworks and vast power disparities make it impossible to have verbal conversation in which both parties meet as equals to lay out a dispute.  While it might appear that there are a number of conversations throughout the film, Voci concludes that these are basically monologues in which Ip Man, the Northern Chinese martial artists, or the Japanese military officers use those around them as props in what are really self-absorbed monologues.  It is this this specific pattern that Voci’s terms “closed communication.”

An actual exchange of ideas and arguments between the Ip Man and Miura regarding the value of Chinese culture does not become possible until the final scene of the movie, when the two meet for a physical confrontation.  And even then Sato, a pure soldier who cares nothing for the logic or rules of martial arts contests, does everything in his power to disrupt it.

While Li is a relatively minor character in Wilson Ip’s film, he looms large over Voci’s argument.  It is noted that at first his translations are faithful to intent of his Japanese employers.  Chinese audiences are thus able to identify him as a text book “collaborator,” similar to other figures in various war films.  Yet when he encounters Ip Man during his fight in the grain warehouse, the fidelity of his translations begins to slip.

Li begins to insert himself into the situation, actively mistranslating the statements of Ip Man in an attempt to smooth over a volatile situation.  After defeating the ten karate students Miura, suitably impressed, asks the unknown fighter his name and invites him to return.  Ip Man refuses to give his name (identifying himself only as a member of the wronged Chinese nation) and wants no part in the gladiatorial exercise.  But rather than faithfully relaying these responses Li instead provides an introduction and the promise to “think the offer over.”

These insertions of the translator into the communication process become more brazen as the film progresses.  Yet ultimately they backfire.  Rather than bringing the two sides into greater understanding, chaos ensues.  Voci asserts that by the end of the film members of the audience will be left contemplating the complete failure of verbal language in either defining or resolving any of the key ethical issues in the film.

Everyone will also be struck by the ease by which Ip Man and General Miura, (sharing a common physical language emerging out of their extensive training in the martial arts) address these same questions in a way that is highly legible for those in the audience.  Indeed, the message of their fight is too obvious for Sato to tolerate, and he attempts to shoot Ip Man from the sidelines.

I will admit to not having thought too much about Li and the significance of his translations before reading this chapter.  Like others I had certainly noted the “creative” nature of some of his words.  I suspect that if Li had accurately translated Ip Man’s first response to General Miura he would have been locked up or shot on the spot.  In either event the movie would have been over.  An element of miscommunication was needed to set up a confrontation in which the righteous forces of Confucianism could prevail over the militaristic Japanese, rather than dying in a pool of blood after a spectacular, but ultimately pointless, display of pugilism.

Li’s “in universe” motives are not hard to discern.  Nor, for that matter, is the belligerent nature of Ip Man’s responses given the murder of his friend.  Yet when we re-frame this discussion from one of “vengeance” to “communication,” there is yet another factor for viewers to consider.

While audiences may immediately identify Li as a collaborator, it is probably best that they not spend too much time thinking about patriotic status of the various kung fu masters who have come to fight for their bags of rice.  Or even Ip Man himself.  Recall that General Miura is using these fights to train his troops and prove the superiority of the karate.  By showing up to fight, whether you win or lose, whether you take the rice or not, one is providing “material support to the enemy.”  The logic of this reality is softened somewhat by treatment of the Chinese fighters (climaxing in the brutal murder of Master Liu), yet it is inescapable.

It is not just that the physical act of fighting allows for an escape from the problem of closed, uncommunicative, language.  The use of the martial arts, all performed under the watchful eye of the Japanese officers, communicates too much.  It reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese forces in a way that needs no translation.  Of course Ip Man refuses to give his name, or to come back.  For the story to proceed he must demonstrate to the audience that he is no collaborator.  And so Li, in the first of his many mistranslations, steps into the breach.

What is really interesting about Voci’s paper is the demonstration that this pattern, with its anxiety about translation and communication, is not confined to this specific film.  Rather it is seen in a number of war movies dealing with the Sino-Japanese conflict.   The question of the physical embodiment of communication (more commonly seen in the martial arts genera) is then used to complicate this well-worn conversation.

Ip Ching, the younger son of Ip Man, discussing Chi Sao techniques with a teenage student at the VTAA headquarters in Hong Kong.

From Representation to Practice

Wing chun has an interesting relationship with questions of communication.  I suspect that we have tended to overstate the “illiteracy” of the Chinese martial arts in general. And readers might recall that during the early 20^th century wing chun itself seems to have been comparatively more popular with bourgeois and professional individuals (earning itself the moniker “rich person kung fu”).   That may also have had an impact on the development and presentation of the art.

Regardless, the version of the art that I was taught is full of self-conscious verbal metaphors.  Where as other toalu or katas are often envisioned as complete or partial confrontations with imaginary opponents, the Wing Chun forms are different.  Siu Lim Tao, the first of the unarmed forms, is particularly unique in this regard.  Rather than a type of shadowboxing, it functions as a catalog of possible body movements relating to certain types of punches.

As my own Sifu pointed out on a number of occasions, properly speaking, it is not even a collection of “techniques”.  Each of the movements in the form can be applied singularly, or in combination, in a wide variety of combative situations.  The form itself functions as a “dictionary” of movements.  To study Siu Lim Tao is to come to understand the alphabet-chunks of movement further developed throughout the entire system.

These same verbal metaphors were then extended to the other forms.  As groups of movements aggregated into more complex combinations in Chum Kiu (the second unarmed form) one is “learning to form words.”  In Biu Jee (the third and final unarmed form) one begins to “string together sentences.”  The dummy and weapons teach one a greater variety of complex structures in the hopes of making original self-expression possible. Now you are writing your own books.

I am sure that Wing Chun students from other schools and lineages might take issue with this thumb-nail sketch of the system.  Yet the central purpose of this digression was to point out that the entire system was presented and explained to me through a series of verbal and language based metaphors.  Nor is my experience unique within the Chinese martial arts.  There must be some type of communicative logic behind all systems in which both instruction and combat happen through individuals “talking with their hands.”

But what do we have to say?  And are we all part of the same conversation?

Chi sao is sometimes criticized as being an unrealistic method of sparring or an inefficient platform for teaching self-defense skills.  And I suppose that there is a fair measure of truth in these criticisms.  It was never designed to be a method of sparring at all.  It is a sensitivity drill and combative game.  And when was the last time that you did chi sao while holding a rubber knife?  Again, there are probably better structures for drilling weapon defense skills.

Yet in light of our current exploration of translation and communication, such criticisms appear to be missing something crucial.  Yes there are “cooperative” aspects to game, and both parties must mutually agree upon certain standards beforehand.  But it is the presence of these predictable structures that allow for the systematic introduction, exploration and experimentation with more interesting unknowns.

This is where the communicative value of the exercise lays.  And it is where much of the actual insight of the wing chun system can be introduced and taught in a non-verbal, quasi-universal way.  What will you do when faced with this type of pressure?  What happens when you are attacked along this (unexpected) line?  How will you react to a series of punches that slip through your defensive structure?  Every individual, regardless of their ethnic or linguistic background, must encounter and decipher these questions through their own bodily experience.  As they learn an “alphabet of movement” they will struggle to formulate their own answers and follow-up questions.

The embodied nature of the exercise does not remove the possibility of misunderstanding and mistranslation.  Yet it does open the possibility of meaningful exchange and learning across linguistic, national and cultural barriers.  As Adam Frank has noted, this is why the Asian martial arts can exist so successfully as multi-lingual and multi-sited communities even though most outsiders see them only as symbols of ethno-nationalist identity.

Is my experience of chi sao identical to a given student in Hong Kong?  Do we share a single identical understanding of the art?

Probably not.  But that was never the point of the conversation.  As Frank noted in his ethnography of Taijiquan in Shanghai, the deeply rooted desire to experience an art just as an authentic native practitioner might (with all of the Orientalist baggage that comes along with such western desires) may well inhibit us from grasping the basics at all.

When Ip Man threw his first punch at a student he was not asking “What would I, your Sifu, do in this situation?”  That would not have been a real conversation.  It would simply be a monologue played out in violence.

Instead he was asking all of those who would come later “What would you do?”  My embodied experience and cultural understanding of chi sao may be different from those held by some of my kung fu brothers and sisters.  That is precisely what makes the conversation real and worth having.

 
oOo

If you enjoyed this essay you might also want to read: Cantonese Popular Culture and the Creation of Wing Chun’s “Opera Rebels.”

oOo

A view of downtown Cardiff from the top of the Norman Keep. Photo by Benjamin Judkins.

Introduction

Earlier this week I returned from a brief trip to Canada and the United Kingdom.  During this time I had the opportunity to deliver a keynote address at the 2^nd annual Martial Arts Studies conference held at Cardiff University.  This event, organized and hosted by the indefatigable Prof. Paul Bowman, was a great success and an important reminder of how far Martial Arts Studies has come in the last few years.

This post offers both a preliminary report on the conference as well as some of my own thoughts on specific talks and areas where progress has been the most evident.  Unfortunately I will not be able to offer a complete review of everything that happened at this gathering.  As a lone observer there was no way that I could make it to all of the 47 papers, 17 panels, 7 keynotes, 2 special sessions and many “after hours” get-togethers that were held over two and a half days.

As with any feast this rich, one must pick and choose (often with great regret) where to spend your precious hours.  My experience of this conference is not likely to be the same as anyone else.  What I did share in common with all of the conference attendees that I was able to talk to was a real enthusiasm for the event and the strong conviction that two and half days were just not enough time to take it all in.

In more practical terms these impressions suggests two things.  First, the fact that so many attendees wanted to see multiple panels happening at the same time strongly suggests that, as a field, we are starting to generate research questions that that appeal to readers from a wide variety of backgrounds.  While highly interdisciplinary in nature, certain clear lines of discussion are starting to come into focus.

Secondly, a conference organizer always wants to leave the attendees wishing for more.  It’s the only way that you can guarantee that everyone will want to be back next year.  As such two and a half days, while a bit frustrating, is probably the perfect length of time.

Lastly, all of the keynote presentations were recorded and I expect that they will be posted to the Martial Arts Studies Research Network’s youtube channel.  Unfortunately that has not yet happened, but when it does I will post the links.

A staircase inside the wall of Cardiff Castle. Photo by Benjamin Judkins.

The Whirlwind

The conference officially opened on Tuesday July 19^th with a welcome from Paul Bowman, followed by our first keynote address delivered by Prof. Philip Zarrilli.  Readers may recall that his volume When the Body Becomes All Eyes: Paradigms, Discourses and Practices of Power in Kalarippayattu, a South Indian Martial Art (Oxford UP, 1998) broke a lot of new ground.   It provided Western readers with the first in-depth study of kalarippayattu and can be considered one of the first entries in the current Martial Arts Studies literature.  Flipping through the bibliographies of an assortment of more recent publications is enough to demonstrate just how influential his work has been.

In this talk Zarrilli returned to topics raised in one of his first articles to further explore the intersection of martial arts, theatrical performance, meditation and somatic experience.  Much of his discussion was focused around a distinction between the realms of “outer” communication (with an audience) and inner cultivation of the senses, consciousness and experience.  Zarrilli was particularly interested in the question of how the practice of the martial arts forces us to engage with the fundamental forces and questions that govern life and death.  That in turn opens new possibilities for how one “learns to be sentient.”  But his talk also offered an important overview of the research and thoughts of a figure that has had a shaping effect on our growing field.

Following this opening address, the conference attendees gathered in another room for a social activity that can best be described as equal parts professional networking and speed dating.  By the end of the hour most of us had introduced ourselves to a fair number of our fellow attendees.  I am always struck by the diversity of individuals who are attracted to martial arts studies.  While most individuals at the conference seem to fit the “fighting scholars” mold, there were also a fair number of martial artists without formal academic backgrounds, scholars who do not practice the martial arts as well as visual artists, performers, publishers, and law enforcement officers.

The final event of the evening was a social gathering and dinner held at a local restaurant.  It was a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends as well as to view the entrants and winners of this year’s short film festival.  Congratulations to both Iveta Karpathyova and Philip Loy for their winning entries which you can see here!

The first full day of the conference began with some morning push-hands (and also a little chi sao) led by Adam D. Frank in the park outside of Bute Hall.  This was also a great way for conference participants (who were interested) to get to know each other on a slightly more “martial” level.  It was definitely an activity that I hope gets carried on in future years.

As the Wednesday morning Keynote I presented a paper titled “Liminoid Longings and Liminal Belonging: Hyper-reality, History and the Search for Meaning in the Modern Martial Arts.”  This talk explored some of my more recent ethnographic research with the lightsaber combat community.  Specifically, I asked what sorts of social work is done by the traditional martial arts in the West today, and how practitioners of hyper-real arts seek to build alternate frameworks to create meaning in their lives.   To better conceptualize this process I drew on Victor Turner’s ideas of the “liminal” and “liminod” in rites of passage, and concluded with a few suggestions as to how martial arts studies might make a contribution in improving our understanding of these concepts.

This was followed by the first round of panels in which attendees were forces to choose between 1) Capoeira Performance 2) Culture and Tradition 3) Problems and Definitions and 4) Performance.  My choice was made easier by the fact that I was assigned to chair the panel on “Culture and Tradition.”

Martin Ehlen presented a paper examining the re-importation of traditional Chinese teaching metaphors (five elements, rhymed couplets, etc…) into Ip Man lineage Wing Chun classes, a generation or two after the Grandmaster himself jettisoned these things in favor a more streamlined and modern presentation of his art.  Martin Minarik then discussed some of his own doctoral research looking at the wide variety of ways that Taekwondo is presented to the public in South Korea and the impact that it has on the development of norms and culture.

Following this panel Neil R. Hall offered a “Special Session” looking at what it takes to successfully (and ethically) promote a martial arts school in the UK today.  One suspects that most of his observations are actually universally valid.  While this talk seems to have been aimed primarily at the professional Sifus and Senseis in the room, I suspect that it was actually quite important for historians, social scientists and critical theorists to hear as well.  Discussions like this help to demonstrate the extent to which tomorrow’s “cultural discourses” and “historical facts” are shaped by the rather unforgiving market forces of today.

A view of the wall of Cardiff Castle. Photo by Benjamin Judkins.

Following lunch the conference attendees gathered in the Birt Acres Lecture Theater where Prof. Daniel Mroz (U. of Ottawa) spoke on “Taolu: Credibility and decipherability in the practice of Chinese martial movement.”  This talk began with a brief review of the many ways in which practitioners have sought to understand and explain forms practice.  Unfortunately Mroz concludes that after reviewing practical, narrative, theatrical and even geometric theories, the practice of Taolu remains a mystery. Nor is it one with any simple explanation.  Instead he focused on the components that lend meaning to forms practice, “credibility” and “decipherability.” This move opens new avenues for understanding how and when forms are likely to be “effective.”  Given the widespread practice of kata or taolu throughout the Asian martial arts, this paper seemed to speak to both the personal and research interest of many listeners in the room.

Following a short break the conference resumed with another set of panels.  This time the papers were grouped as follows: 1) Mindfulness 2) Gender 3) Grappling with History 4) Violence.  All of these panels looked great, but as you have probably already guessed, I ended up in “History.”  The papers in this panel focused on various attempts to reconstruct the Historic European Martial Arts (HEMA) as well as the more social scientific quest to understand the motivations of individuals engaged with such practices.

Eric Burkart led off with a paper that carefully outlined the limits and pitfalls of current HEMA research and practice.  He argued that it is necessary to decisively reject any claim to historical authenticity which is often explicitly (or implicitly) tied to attempts to revive the practice of now lost techniques from existing fight books.  Particularly interesting was his use of similar controversies in the field of musicology having to do with the attempts to revive the practice of medieval music during the 1980s and 1990s.

Qays Stetkevych then turned our attention to another set of ancient texts, this time detailing the life and legends of medieval Iceland.  Qays demonstrated that it may still be possible to reconstruct references to specific wrestling techniques described in these books with a high degree of accuracy.  Given the importance of wrestling to local culture, and its use as a mechanism for character development in period literature, these reconstructions can serve as an important source for socio-historical data.  Both of these papers were excellent and I look forward to following Eric and Qays’ future projects.

The day’s final keynote address, “Making Play Work: Competition, Spectacle and Intersubjectivity in Sparring and Sport Fighting,” was delivered by Prof. Janet O’Shea of UCLA.  I was particularly interested in this paper as it touched on some of the same themes that came up in my own research.

Briefly, O’Shea turned to her current ethnographic research to explore the differences in competitive pleasure and combative spectacle that are evident in sparring and competition in the world of modern combat sports.  Much of her talk ended up focusing on how an emphasis on the pleasurable aspects of sparring could compensate for the stark overemphasis on winning and losing that seems to consume spectator sports at this moment in history.  But luckily you don’t have to rely on my summary of her ideas, as you can hear her explain them herself at her recent Ted-X talk.  Check it out!

At the end of what had been an exhausting day most of the conference participants seemed to end up at a local restaurant named “The Slug and Lettuce.”  The food was good, the company was great, but I had to leave too soon in an attempt to recover from my jetlag.   Luckily I got some great martial arts history tips from Phillip Zarrilli first.

The next morning things started bright and early with another round of morning push-hands.  Prof. Adam Frank (whose work I have discussed many times on this blog) then delivered a keynote titled “Understanding Identity Through Martial Arts – Or Not.” In his address he thought back on his initial ethnographic research with the Wu style Taijiquan community in Shanghai and discussed how he hoped to use the martial arts as a lens for providing a multi-level examination of the ways in which identities are created, overlay and move.  He then raised a number of questions about each of these efforts.  While it is clear that the martial arts do reveal some aspects of identity, this is always a complex and multi-faceted issue.

Perhaps his most interesting comment actually came on Tuesday evening as he and I walked across the campus.  Thinking back to his own dissertation research he mentioned that at the time discussions of identity were omnipresent in the anthropology literature.  Today things are a little different.  Frank wondered aloud what his book would look like if it were re-written today, without the emphasis on identity.  What other questions could be addressed through his long-running engagement with this martial arts community?

These are interesting questions.  I didn’t have a lot to say on the subject, but I am going to take it as a hopeful sign that Frank is thinking about a big new project.  It was great to meet him and he is one of the authors in the Martial Arts Studies literature that I most look forward to seeing another book from in the future.

Architectural detail. Cardiff Castle. Photo by Benjamin Judkins.

The Thursday morning panels were 1) Myths and Assumptions 2) Motivations I 2) Film Aesthetics 3) Pedagogy.  I had initially looked forward to going to Myths and Assumptions, but because a change in room assignments I ended up in Pedagogy instead.  That was a wonderful accident as it also featured some very interesting papers.

The first was by Anna Seabourne and it looked at the question of oral transmission in the Japanese koryu bujutsu community.  The second, by Anu Vaittinen and George Jennings was titled “Sensuous Transformation: The Interconnections between Embodied Training and Multi-Media Resources in Wing Chun.”  They looked at the various ways that practitioners of the art have been turning to on-line resources to develop both their practice and core identities as Wing Chun students.  I hope to be able to coax both authors to make guest appearances on this blog later this year to explore some of their research as readers will find it very interesting.

This panel was followed by a Special Session presented by Tamiaho Herangi-Searancke titled “Maori Warrior Epistemology (Triangulation of Meaning; Body, Mind & Spirit).”  His talk focused on the various ways in which traditional forms of knowledge and identity are transmitted, and made to do social work, in the modern era.  Much of his presentation was experiential in nature, and needed to be seen and felt rather than described.   Hopefully it will be posted to the Martial Arts Studies Research Network youtube channel soon.

Following lunch it was my honor to introduce Dr. Daniel Jacquet who presented “Lost Embodied Knowledge: Experimenting with Historical European Martial Arts out of Books.”  Perhaps the very first thing to note about this paper was the Daniel delivered it while wearing a full suite of armor on what was probably the hottest day in the year in a building that does not appear to believe in air conditioning. (A few of my British colleagues explained that being too hot is generally not their biggest weather related concern).  It was an impressive display of physical endurance on a day that many conference attendees had decided to forego the normal academic attire and show up in t-shirts and shorts instead.  If you are interested in some of the other things that Daniel can do in armor be sure to check out his short film on the subject (also played at the conference film festival).

Like other papers at this conference, this one also took issue with the assertion that the sorts of recreations that one typically sees of medieval martial practices can qualify as either “authentic” practices or valid forms of scientific research.  Jacquet then discussed the various ways in which his research program at the Max Planck Institute has attempted to create a genuinely scientific experimental protocol for determining more and less likely reconstruction of techniques and abilities described in period fight books.

After that we broke for the final set of panel discussions.  These were 1) Invention 2) Motivations II 3) Historical Excavations 4) Teaching and 5) Cinema.  Once again, what would have been a difficult decision was made simpler by the fact that I had been asked to chair Historical Excavations.

Papers in this session were presented by Prof. Philip Davies (who was applying lessons from Intelligence Studies to the investigation of lineage accounts within the Dutch-Indonesian Diaspora), Alexander Hays (who chronicled popular press accounts of dueling and the decline of swordsmanship in the Early Modern England) and Gehao Zhang (all the way from Macau University of Science and technology) who conducted a media archeological examination of the Red Spears in Republic era China and the subsequent development of modern bayonet drill within the PLA.  All three papers were fascinating and Prof. Zhang presented some really wonderful photographs that I had not seen before.

The final Keynote of the program was then delivered by Ben Spatz whose recent publication, What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research (Routledge, 2015) was already being cited widely by presenters at the conference.  That is a stunning accomplishment given that his book has only been out for only a year.  If you have not yet read it I suggest getting a hold of a copy.

His talk, titled “Embodied Research: An Epistemic Context for Martial Arts Practice” attempted to contextualize the development of martial arts studies within the stream of broader trends in the academy.  He also argued that the martial arts themselves should be understood as the product of a dialectical relationship between training and practice.  He then challenged the field to follow the lead of Performance Studies and other related pursuits in conceiving of ways to create an ecologically aware and non-colonial model of both research and practice.  The details of what this would look like in practice remain to be worked out.

The final conference dinner was then held in Aberdare Hall.  Mike Molasky, who in addition to everything else is a talented piano performer, improvised a little pre-dinner entertainment.  It was a great venue to catch up with old and new friends, begin to process the events of the last few days and think about what comes next.

At five thirty the next morning I was out the door and headed to the train station to start the next leg of my journey.

The Norman Keep at Cardiff Castle. Photo by Benjamin Judkins.

Reflections

It is interesting to consider the similarities and differences between this year’s conference and our first effort hosted in 2015.  Overall 2016 appears to have attracted more papers and had a stronger registration.  Paul said that about 100 people registered for the conference, and we had roughly 50 presenters.  Individuals came from as far away as Southern China, New Zealand and North America.  Last year’s conference was marked by a sense of excitement, but that energy appeared even greater this year.

In general the quality of the papers struck me as being a little bit better and having a higher degree of professionalism.  I am not sure whether it was simply an artifact of the panels I ended up going to, but it seemed to me that there was less work on martial arts in film this year, and a larger number of historical and social scientific studies.  A number of presenters and keynotes also focused our attention on how the martial arts can be presented on stage, rather than simply on the screen.

There were also a much greater number of ethnographically focused papers.  By my count five of the seven keynotes were structured in large part around the presenter’s fieldwork.

This is not to imply that media studies vanished from the program.  As I flip through the schedule there are a good number of papers tackling these subjects (such as Wane Wong’s fascinating presentation “From the Martial to Art: Slow Aesthetics in Transnational Martial Art-house Cinema”).  But other methodological approaches and disciplines seemed to have greater representation this year.  There was also a larger contingent of scholars from Western Europe than last time.

Some things remained much the same as before.  The conference continued to benefit from the diverse practical and academic experience of its attendees.

Cardiff once again proved to be a wonderful host city.  I found that I was much more comfortable with the city during my second visit and could explore a little more freely than on my first visit.  This was facilitated by the more favorable post-Brexit exchange rate.

Unfortunately I had to return to North America at the end of the conference, but sometime soon I hope to be able to explore Wales more properly.  Given my interest in military history it is almost criminal that I have now visited that nation twice but have yet to explore its vast collection of medieval military architecture.

Perhaps the real irony is that one must travel so far to meet so many colleagues in the flesh.  I have been corresponding and working with individuals like Daniel Mroz and Adam Frank for years.  Both of these scholars are based in North America.  But this conference was my first opportunity to meet either of them.

As one would expect, the majority of scholars at this conference are from the UK and Western Europe.  But there were enough North Americans in attendance that one must wonder at what point it will be possible to host a similar event on this side of the pond.  I hope that the answer is soon.  Events like this are complex undertakings, but there seems to be no better way to build a sense of community and enthusiasm for a relatively new research area.  Those two things will be vital for promoting martial arts studies on this side of the pond as well.  In the mean time I am already starting to look forward to our next set of meetings in Cardiff in 2017.

oOo

Be sure to check out these other conference Report:

Angry Baby Gods and Lightsaber Duels: A Visit to the Martial Arts Studies Conference 2016 at the Tai Chi Notebook

Eight Reasons to Do Lightsaber Combat (Even if you don’t agree that its a real martial art) at Budo Inochi

Have you written (or found) another report from this conference?  If so shoot me a link or drop one in the comments.

oOo

A replica of a Ming era Dandao.

Introduction

Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News.”  This is a semi-regular feature here at Kung Fu Tea in which we review media stories that mention or affect the traditional fighting arts.  In addition to discussing important events, this column also considers how the Asian hand combat systems are portrayed in the mainstream media.

While we try to summarize the major stories over the last month, there is always a chance that we have missed something.  If you are aware of an important news event relating to the TCMA, drop a link in the comments section below.  If you know of a developing story that should be covered in the future feel free to send me an email.

Its been a while since our last update so there is a lot to be covered in today’s post.  Let’s get to the news!

Scott Rodell filming the recent Dandao special with Baltimore Knife and Sword. Source: http://steelandcotton.tumblr.com/

News from All Over

Regular readers will already be well aware of my interest in the material culture that surrounds the traditional Asian martial arts.  Blades are a particularly fascinating subject.  Beyond their central role in the practice of many of these combat systems, details surrounding the design and manufacture reveal a wealth of cultural, social and economic data about the groups that used them.  As such I was happy to run across the following post on the Nerdist.  It chronicles the efforts of Baltimore Knife and Sword to recreate (using a mix of modern, traditional and 19th century methods) a 400 year Chinese Dadao (essentially a very long two handed saber).

The short article describing the effort is fine.  The project was inspired as the 400th anniversary of Cheng Zongyou’s groundbreaking illustrated manual for the weapon.  He is a central figure in our knowledge of Ming era martial arts and anyone interested in learning more about his life should check out Meir Shahar’s discussion of his work in The Shaolin Temple.

But don’t just read the article.  Be sure to click the video link at the top of the page for an 18 minute overview of the production process.  Scott Rodell also makes a guest appearances in the program and even put the sword through its paces once it was completed.  This program does not attempt to be entirely historical in nature, but its still quite interesting.  For some additional production details be sure to check out Scott’s Tumblr page.

When I opened the CNN homepage this morning I found a long article titled “Enter the Mind of Bruce Lee.”  The work discussed Lee’s philosophical interests and the effects that they may have had on both his martial arts practice and life.  The article was heavily informed by popular publications by authors including John Little and Bruce Thomas.  Unfortunately the piece was basically uncritical in its admiration of Lee.  It dealt with neither the more serious academic work on Lee’s ongoing cultural significance, nor did it discuss the many instances of plagiarism and questionable borrowings in Lee’s various philosophical writings and college papers (see James Bishop for the gory details).  The end result was a detailed discussion outlining the sort views that Lee’s many fans hold today.

When I went back to find the link to include it in this post the original article was gone and this short photo essay was in its place.  I poked around on line and found a copy of the original story reposted here.  I don’t think that dedicated Bruce Lee scholars will find anything ground breaking in these pieces, but they are a timely reminder of Lee’s ongoing cultural significance and the way that he is discussed by his fans.

Shannon Lee, the daughter of Bruce Lee. Source: http://www.nbcnews.com

This was not the only Bruce Lee story to circulate in recent weeks.  NBC News recently ran a piece on Lee’s family (particularly his daughter Shannon) and their efforts to continue to carry on his legacy.  Of particular interest was Shannon’s discussion of a long-term project to produce a serious bio-pic of her father’s life and where previous efforts may have fallen short.

Unfortunately not all of the news on the Bruce Lee front is positive.  I recently ran across a short article discussing the closure of his fan club (as well as the auctioning of a sizable body of memorabilia) in Hong Kong.  Apparently this small organization has fallen victim to the ever increasing rents which have already pushed a great many traditional Kung Fu schools out of their buildings and neighborhoods.  This story is mostly interesting for what it suggests about what the changing economic and social landscape that the traditional martial arts in Hong Kong are currently facing.

Master Li You Fu. Source: the Epoch Times.

The Epoch Times, which publishes quite a few articles related to the traditional martial arts and qigong, has some good news for parents.  According to a recent study conducted in Hong Kong the practice of the traditional Chinese Martial Arts can reduce aggression in children.  The effect is strongest when students are introduced to both discussions on martial morality and physical training.  If you are forced to choose between the two the stats say you should opt for the latter.  Interestingly the study implied that movies (such as Ip Man) are being shown to children as part of their training in “martial morality.”  I am sure our readers in media studies will have something to say about that.

It seems that quite a few of our stories this week revolve around the topic of books.  In all of the discussions of “embodied practice” and “secret oral teachings” its easy to forget that Chinese publishers have been producing manuscripts of and about the martial arts for centuries.  The current Hong Kong book fair aims to revive some of this interest, particularly as it relates to Wuxia novels.  These adventure stories often follow the exploits of a lone swordsman or group of heroes as they travel the countryside, right wrongs, and model their unique variant of Confucian ethics.  For a quick look at the book fair and its relationship with this genera see here.

As authors like Hamm and Liu would be quick to remind us, Wuxia novels are rarely escapist fantasies.  Instead the works of Jin Yong and others typically employed the world of martial artists and adventures to comment on the social and political situations of their day.  Some of these works are quite political in nature.  “The Politics of a Martial Arts Book Fair in Hong Kong” takes up some of these themes in a more modern context.  Another article in the South China Morning Post is even more direct in drawing a line between the current political situation in the city and the resurgence of interest in the Wuxia genera.  Political discord tends to renew the popularity of this genera.

Readers more interested in classic manuals or military encyclopedias may find the next group of stories to be more interesting.   Earlier this month it was reported that UNESCO had added a particularly important manual held by the North Koreans to the World Regional Register for Asia-Pacific Heritage.  Anyone interested in checking out the contents of this volume can see its Wikipedia article.  Needless to say its interesting to compare a scholarly assessment of this material (which sees it as a Korean updating of older Chinese military sources) to the popular discussions related in some of the recent news accounts.  They have simply characterized the discussions of spears, swords and fighting from horseback found in these manuals as examples of early taekwondo.  And this is how myths get made.

Are you interested in taking a closer look at this text?  It turns out that you can also find a scanned copy in the collections of the BNF in Paris.  Enjoy! (Special thanks to Daniel Jacquet for bringing this copy to my attention).

Chinese children learn the martial arts.

Are you interested in a photo essay of Kung Fu practice in idyllic surroundings?  If so the next post has you covered.  The occasion is a short article on a program being run in Chongqing designed to expose school children to the traditional arts during their summer vacations.

African students studying at the Shaolin Temple.

Speaking of travel for martial arts instruction….the Chinese tabloids have circulated another round of stories on the ever popular topic of African students being trained at the Shaolin Temple.  These stories are now appearing with enough regularity that they deserve some serious thought and reflection about the messages that they convey to both Chinese and global audiences.  Luckily the photography in this latest example is decent.

CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO (Photo credit STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Our next article is more interesting as it brings a new (or at least less frequently discussed) wrinkle to the “Kung Fu Diplomacy” story.  One of the mechanisms by which China is attempting to expand its “soft power” abroad is through strengthening ties with its diaspora population.  The following article on the Foreign Policy blog outlines how its “birthright tourism” program has been modified in recent years to help with this goal.  Basically the Chinese government has agreed to subsidize, in whole or in part, the cost of ethnically Chinese children abroad flying to China to take part in various sorts of tours or programs designed to familiarize these youngsters with their “homeland.”  And yes, the traditional martial arts are definitely on the agenda (particularly if you take one of the tours of Henan Province.)  This article is worth checking out for anyone following the public diplomacy story.

We have one last story about Kung Fu tourism before moving on.  Do you see those two gentlemen standing next to Dwyane Wade and his wife in the above picture?  Do you know who they are?  No?  Well neither do the actual monks of the Shaolin temple…..It turns out you need to exercise caution when arranging your VIP tours and photo-ops.

Everything you know about the Ninja is probably wrong.   Given our frequent discussions of popular culture and the invention of tradition, such a statement probably won’t come as a big surprise to regular readers.  But as someone who spent much of the 1980s daydreaming about these figures, its always great to run across the occasional Ninja story.

Preparation for Lightsaber sparing in San Diego. Source: http://www.theverge.com

Given that so much of my current fieldwork involves lightaber combat I thought I would I pass one one last article on this topic as well.  The following piece discusses a group called the “Underground Lightsaber Fighters” in San Diego that I was previously unfamiliar with.  Apparently they host big get-togethers in Balboa Park that sound quite fun.  Two things stood out to me about this article.

First, its good to to see that a number of their members opt to use safety gear in the sparring.  But this should be mandatory.  If you are really going to square off with a stranger in park (at night) who is going to try and hit you in the head with a one inch heavy poly-carbonate blade you want a really solid mask.  Your dentist will thank you.

Secondly, I thought that it was fascinating how the guy who ran this group described the relationship between LSC and the traditional martial arts.  Check out the following quote:

“People with martial arts experience seem to have some advantage in the battles. But Murico said that even people who have trained in Kendo and Eskrima — both of which have inspired Star Wars’ combat styles — only have a limited advantage.

“I don’t care who you are,” Murico said. “How many lightsaber classes have you taken? … I’m a six-month veteran and that makes me a master. Nobody’s really that good because it’s so different, and it’s a toy, and it’s fun. It’s not what anyone is used to.””

On a technical level this seems like a series of dubious assumptions.  Every week I watch individuals without prior training walk into a martial arts school and try to spar more experienced lightsaber students and martial artists.  And I can tell you that in my experience formal training and years of practice make a big difference.  And yet, on some level individuals want these lightsabers to remain toys.  They want this to be about “having fun” rather than highly disciplined training.  They seem to be looking for something similar to a martial art….without actually being a martial art.  This way of talking about lightsaber combat it something that I have spent a lot of time thinking about.  It was actually the subject of my recent keynote address at the Martial Arts Studies conference in Cardiff and we will be taking a closer look at this subject on Friday.

Cardiff Castle. Photo by Benjamin Judkins

Martial Arts Studies

The last few weeks have been an exciting time for academic students of Martial Arts Studies.  Having just returned from the UK I can attest that the 2016 MAS conference (held at Cardiff University) was a great success.  More individuals attended the event than last year, the quality of the papers was excellent and there was even more energy and enthusiasm than in 2015.  These meetings are quickly becoming the high point of my scholarly year.  To read more about this event see my conference report here.  Most of the keynote addresses were recorded and should be released on the Martial Arts Studies Research Network YouTube page in the coming weeks.  We will also see copies of a number of these papers start to circulate.  Stay tuned for additional details.

While on the subject of conferences, don’t forget to register for the 5th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Sport Science’s Martial Arts Commission, October 6th to 8th 2016, held at the German Sport University of Cologne.  The theme of this year’s conference will be “Martial Arts and Society – On the Societal Relevance of Martial Arts, Combat Sports and Self-Defense.”  The organizers have told me that a number of sessions will also be held in English.  I will be discussing some of my Wing Chun research at this conference and the whole program looks excellent.

I am happy to announce that Paul Bowman’s new book, Mythologies of Martial Arts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), is now being printed and it available for preorder from Amazon.com.  I was fortunate enough to see an advance copy of this manuscript and am quite excited about the project.  Bowman’s text is both accessible and powerful, with every chapter offering a fresh take on topics as diverse as history, lineage, identity and even humor in the martial arts.  Here is the blurb from the publisher:

What do martial arts signify today? What do they mean for East-West cross cultural exchanges? How does the representation of martial arts in popular culture impact on the wide world? What is authentic practice? What does it all mean?

From Kung Fu to Jiujitu and from Bruce Lee to The Karate Kid, Mythologies of Martial Arts explores the key myths and ideologies in martial arts in contemporary popular culture. The book combines the author’s practical, professional and academic experience of martial arts to offer new insights into this complex, contradictory world. Inspired by the work of Roland Barthes in Mythologies, the book focusses on the signs, signifiers and practices of martial arts globally. Bringing together cultural studies, film studies, media studies, postcolonial studies with the emerging field of martial arts studies the book explores the broader significance of martial arts in global culture. Using an accessible yet theoretically sophisticated style the book is ideal for students, scholars and anyone interested in any type of martial art.

Kendo club at a Japanese Agricultural School during the 1920s. Note the rifles along the back wall. Source: wikimedia.

I noticed that over the last week Andrea Molle (Director of the Budo-lab at Chapman University) was kind enough to post copies of his articles and book chapters to Academia.edu.  I had not seen some of this material before and I thought that the following two examples may be of interest to readers.

Andrea Molle, George Jennings and David Brown. 2009. “Exploring Relationships Between Asian Martial Arts and Religion.” STADION. 35. Special Issue: Sports and Religion.  Pp. 47-66.

Andrea Molle. 2010. “Towards a Sociology of budo: Studying the Implicit and Religious Issues.” Implicit Religion. 13.1 pp. 85-104.

The Creation of Wing Chun by Judkins and Nielson.

Are you looking for some summer reading?  If so SUNY Press has you covered.  From now until August 31st you can get a 30% discount on everything in their catalog by using the code XSUM16 at checkout.  Obviously this is a great way to get a deal on the new paperback edition of The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts (regularly $26.95).

But that is not all.  SUNY has produced a number of books that are critical for students of martial arts studies.  These include Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge by D. S. Farrer and John Whalen-Bridge,  Green Peony and the Rise of the Chinese Martial Arts Novel by Margaret B. Wan, From Kung Fu to Hip Hop by M. T. Kato (a classic) and Lost T’ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch’ing Dynasty by Douglas Wile (another classic).  Browse their catalog and see what else you can find.

An assortment of Chinese teas. Source: Wikimedia.

Kung Fu Tea on Facebook

A lot has happened on the Kung Fu Tea Facebook group over the last month.  We discussed the benefits of Taijiquan, the upcoming Bruce Lee biopic, and the framing of female fighters on twitter. Joining the Facebook group is also a great way of keeping up with everything that is happening here at Kung Fu Tea.

If its been a while since your last visit, head on over and see what you have been missing.

The title slide of my keynote address at the July 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference.

***What follows is the text of my recent keynote address given at the 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference.  I am currently in the process of revising and expanding this paper for inclusion in an edited volume.  As such I debated whether I should post this initial draft, or wait until the additional quotes, footnotes and arguments have been added.  Further, changes are unfolding in my fieldwork site that may provide additional insights into some of the questions that I ask here.  Rather than waiting for all of these these new developments to come into focus, I have decide to make this initial draft of my paper available now.  The images included with this article are a sample of the slides that I presented with my keynote.***

“Liminoid Longings and Liminal Belonging: Hyper-reality, History and the Search for Meaning in the Modern Martial Arts” A keynote address delivered at the July 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference, Cardiff University, UK.

by Dr. Benjamin N. Judkins

Introduction

You can learn a lot about a martial arts class by the ways in which it begins and ends.  They all have their own small rituals and verbal incantations.  Consider the closing of a fairly typical class at the Central Lightsaber Academy.

Sweating, in a not sufficiently air-conditioned space, the fourteen of us gathered, saluted the instructor, deactivated our weapons and received a few parting words of advice on the drills we had run for the better part of an hour.  After which our leader, Darth Nihilus, said “Your basic combat applications are looking better, and next week we will be working on our choreography again.   Lastly, anyone wanting to spar should use the set of mats at the back of the gym.  And remember, this is all just for fun!”

This is, give or take a few details, how every class ends.  Unrelentingly upbeat and supportive, it is not the parting benediction that one might expect from a self-style “Dark Lord of the Sith.”

The students standing around me broke into groups as the class dispersed.  Four of them grab fencing masks and armored gloves so that they could get in a few last rounds of sparring before heading home.  Others exchanged contact information and planed times to get together to practice their choreography, or just hang out, during the week.  And one martial arts studies researcher stood in the middle of it wondering, “Why does someone as intense as Darth Nihilus repeatedly, multiple times a class, insist that this is all just for fun?”

Certainly the students who meet at the CLA have a lot of fun.  You can see it in the expressions on their faces, and the intensity of their engagement with the curriculum.  The atmosphere of the class is relaxed but focused.  There is not a lot of talking as letting your concentration slip might very well mean getting smacked in the head with a heavy polycarbonate blade emitting a cool blue, green or a more sinister red glow.  Weapons work always requires a high degree of mental discipline, even when the blades in question do not actually exist.

For an activity that is “just for fun,” the students of the CLA show a surprising degree of dedication.  Half of them practice daily (a few for up to an hour).  Everyone in the room has purchased their own stunt sabers, even though the school always has plenty of loaners.  Most of these are economical models, costing less than $100.  But some individuals have paid up to $500 for a replica weapon that is personally meaningful.

When asked about their reasons for coming they provide a wide variety of responses.  Perhaps the most common is a desire to find a fun way to get in shape and stay active.  For the self-described martial artists in the room the lightsaber is an irresistible thought experiment and a release from the stresses, constraints and “politics” of the traditional Asian martial arts.  And for about half of the students, the lightsaber class is an extension of their Star Wars fandom.  As one of my classmates, a self-styled Jedi Knight, memorably stated, the CLA “is where bad-ass nerds are made!”

Yet after a few weeks what almost everyone focuses on is the community.   As another member of class noted:

“When I heard about a lightsaber class I thought that it was so dorky that I was totally in.  I thought that we were just going to be goofing off and hitting each other with lightsabers.  I totally did not expect what it has come to be, which is a new group of friends unlike anything that I have encountered before.”

In her comments Darth Zannah goes on to describe the degree of personal empowerment and confidence that she discovered as she became a more competent duelist over the last several months.  Recently she even competed in an open tournament against a number of much more experienced swordsmen from a variety of backgrounds.

Darth Zannah’s sentiments seem to be widely shared and probably accounts for the Central Lightsaber Academy’s excellent student retention.  Between the fast paced classes, wide variety of activities and the general social dynamic, there can be no doubt that these students are objectively “having fun.”  Yet I found the frequency of Darth Nihilus’ refrain puzzling.

While I have always enjoyed my martial arts training, I suspect that “just for fun” is not a turn of phrase that most practitioners of the traditional arts would be willing to embrace.  What we do in the “real martial arts” is almost always couched in a rhetorical framework that at once justifies and apologizes for the resources spent on training.

Taekwondo builds “character” in American school children. Kendo teaches other children what it means to be Japanese.  Styles as diverse as MMA and Wing Chun claim to teach vitally important “real world self-defense skills.”  While many individuals enjoy martial arts training, very few would admit that we spend our means on a hobby that is “just for fun.”  We almost always shift our discussion into the realm of “investment” and “hard work.”

In this regard Darth Nihilus is no exception.  When not moonlighting as a Darth Lord of the Sith, he is a professional martial arts instructor.  The CLA is actually housed within a cavernous 2,500 square foot commercial space in an enclosed suburban shopping mall which, for most of the week, is the home of the “Central Martial Arts Academy.”  Nihilus, along with a business partner, offer classes in wing chun, kali and JKD.  The mall itself is located in a more affluent suburb of a medium sized rust-belt city.

The atmosphere in his other, more traditional, classes is notably different.  Social interactions are inflected by vertical hierarchies marked by an explicit system of colored sashes layered over the more traditional system of “senior students.” What had been a generally relaxed atmosphere is somewhat tenser, and that tension shows in the posture and body language of the students.  It reads in the way they automatically form hierarchically graded straight lines at the end of their classes.  This is something you never see in the CLA which manages, at best, lazy semi-circles.

The rhetoric of these traditional martial arts classes is grimmer, featuring frequent outburst like “really hit him!”; “Remember, he could have a knife!” and the warning “If you get lazy it won’t work on the street.”

Students do not come to these classes simply for fun.  Their motivations are those that we would generally expect in a martial arts school.  Some are interested primarily in self-defense, others are looking for a challenging route to self-improvement, and a few are drawn to the school’s successful kickboxing team.  No matter what goals brought them in, everyone in the Central Martial Arts Academy is engaged in “hard work” and expects to be held to a high standard.

The code switching that Darth Nihilus exhibits when the discussion shifts between these two realms is, at times, remarkable.  When talking about wing chun he is serious, adamant in his views, historically informed and visibly frustrated by the state of lineage politics within that art.  He speaks as a martial artist.  A tension enters his body language and facial expressions.

When the conversation turns to lightsaber combat he relaxes, adopts a remarkably ecumenical view of the world, is eager to explore a vast range of activities (from kata practice, to competitive tournaments to cosplay).  Here he favors horizontal forms of cooperation and association between a wide range of groups with very different sorts of goals.  It is all, as he frequently reminds us, “Just for fun.”

In strictly empirical terms, this sort of “fun” is essentially a part time job for Nihilus, occupying many hours a week.  The CLA also brings a notable number of new paying students to his classes who, in many cases, have never set foot in a gym or martial arts school before.  In the world of small, and often struggling, suburban martial arts schools, that is an economic reality that simply cannot be ignored.

In a recent article I looked at the history and basic characteristics of lightsaber combat and argued that while it is a hyper-real practice, meaning that it draws much of its inspiration from a set of fictional texts, universally acknowledged as such, it nevertheless fulfills all of the basic criteria of a martial art.  I further suggested that the invention of hyper-real martial arts might help us to better understand the processes by which all martial arts are created, as well as the varieties of social functions that they fulfill in modern societies.  That, in turn, might suggest some important hypotheses about who takes up different sorts of martial arts training, and what the future of these fighting systems might hold.

In this paper I suggest a possible framework for thinking about the varieties of the martial arts in the modern world and the motivations that fuel them.  Let us begin with two very basic questions.  What sort of martial art is lightsaber combat? Second, why would someone choose to practice it given the many other, better established, combat systems that already exist?

To address these puzzles we begin by examining a few additional details about the CLA.  Second, I turn to the work of the well-known American anthropologist Victor Turner for insights into the various ways that voluntary associations focused on transformative play might create meaning in the lives of their members.

Is Lightsaber Combat an American Martial Art?

What is lightsaber combat?  At the most basic level it is a collection of loosely associated combat and performances practices that began to coalesce in the wake of the release of the prequel Star Wars movies in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  As part of the marketing effort surrounding these films replica lightsabers with realistic metal hilts, motion driven sound and lighting effects and colored polycarbonate blades were released in 2002.  Other elements of Lucas’ media empire then began to develop an invented history for lightsaber training, selling it to a public eager for the “relics” of that far away galaxy.[i]

The creators of this new mythology had a surprisingly free hand as the actual Star Wars movies say very little about this iconic weapon.  Much of this invented history was organized around the idea that within the Jedi Order there had been “seven classic forms of lightsaber combat” which had evolved over a period of thousands of years.[ii]  As described each of these seven forms has a unique combat philosophy as well as specific strengths and weaknesses, essentially making them distinct fencing systems.

From the start a clear equation was made between the fictional fighting systems of the Jedi and their real world Asian counterparts.  Each form was given a vaguely Eastern sounding name (Form I is “Shii-cho”) and an Orientalist animal association (again, Shii-cho is “the Way of the Sarlacc”).  Popular notions of what a “proper” martial arts should be seem to have shaped much of what the seven forms became.

The first lightsaber group to gain national and international notoriety (if perhaps not the first to offer a public performance) was “NY Jedi”, founded in Manhattan in 2005 and still holding weekly classes.  They combine instruction in traditional martial arts techniques with a heavy emphasis on choreography and stage performance.  After their rise to prominence other groups quickly coalesced and began to articulate their own vision of what lightsaber combat should be.

Some focused on costuming, public performance and charity work.  Others opted to create something more akin to a bladed combat sport.  More recently, a number of groups have dedicated themselves to combining the mythology of the “seven forms of lightsaber combat” with historically based fighting traditions to create an authentic martial arts system.

The Central Lightsaber Academy falls into this latter category.  However, a number of members, led by Darth Nihilus himself, enjoy producing the occasional fan-film.  This sort of mixing of interests seems to be more common in the lightsaber community than in other areas of the martial arts where practitioners sometimes seek to draw strict boundaries (often based on competing definitions of legitimacy) between “practical” and “performance” based arts.

We know that lightsaber combat is a hyper-real martial art.  It is a fairly new, and also a market driven, creation.  What else is it?  Is it an American martial art?

In the current era many martial arts have come to be seen as indicators of national and regional identity.  In some places the practice of these systems has even become a mechanism for producing a certain sort of citizen, typically ones dedicated to the nation, embodying certain identities and capable of carrying out the state’s demands.

In Japan the Budo arts are seen as revealing the essence of Japanese identity and they have been closely associated with the state since the late Meiji period.  In China the Jingwu Association rose to prominence during the 1920s by promising to create a rationalized, modern, middle class martial art that would increase the physical and spiritual strength of the people, ensuring “national salvation.”  With some variation of emphasis this same mission was carried on by the later Guoshu and Wushu movements.  This interest in uncovering the “national essence” and “cultural heritage” of an art can even be seen in popular discussions of “Israeli” Krav Maga, “Korean” Taekwondo, “Thai” Kickboxing and “Brazilian” Capoeira.

The rise of the martial arts as a tool that both states and other social groups adopt to define their identity and promote their values is one of the most striking trends of the 20^th century.  This strongly ethno-nationalist turn has become a means by which the martial arts do social and political work.  They first labor in the production of mature and strong citizens, and then in the promotion of certain identities both at home and abroad.

What sort of “social work” does lightsaber combat do?  Is it an American martial art projecting American cultural values and identities within the global marketplace?  Or is it something else?

The Star Wars franchise has already attracted attention from critical theorists and academic students of cultural studies.[iii]  Many have looked at the project with some ambivalence.  They have seen in these films some of the most conservative and reactionary elements of American society.  One could certainly see the export of these films as a clear case of the global spread of American popular culture.

I suspect that these theorists, if they were to ever consider the question, would not hesitate to label lightsaber combat as a uniquely American martial art.  After all, it is hard to think of any film franchise that is more culturally American.  The opening chapter in the series was a mashup of a western and classic Hollywood swashbuckler reimagined in the universe of Flash Gordon, mixed with a hint of Kurosawa.  How could be it be anything else?

Without denying those basic facts, it is nevertheless fascinating to see how resistant the global lightsaber community has been to such labels.  Lightsaber combat has been culturally translated and localized with surprising ease.  Indeed, one of the most striking things about this movement has been its near universal popularity, from South East Asia to Europe and, of course, in the Americas.  How has this been possible?

Through a wide variety of books, DVD special features, documentaries and interviews the Star Wars mythos actively presents itself to audiences as culturally universal.  The creators of these products explain the on-going appeal of their story lines by invoking the structuralism of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung.  While these sorts of theories do not sit well with scholars today, they seem to have become an important element of how many of the more thoughtful Star Wars fans around the world understand their own engagement with the franchise.  The end result is to partially obscure the national and ideological origins of the story’s core value systems in favor of a more psychological and universal discourse.

The students of the CLA have also sought to construct lightsaber combat in ways that escape the ethno-nationalist pull that surrounds many other martial arts.  Again, these are not ideas that they are ignorant of.  Their classes take place in a space that prominently advertises training in “Chinese” Wing Chun and “Filipino” Kali.

Surrounding mall storefronts offer Taekwondo, Karate, Hung Gar and Olympic fencing (among other options).  Anyone coming to a lightsaber class must make a conscious choice to physically pass by a number of competing alternatives, most of which are culturally associated with a specific national or regional identity.  The question is why?

Some of the more experienced martial artists in the class have drawn explicit connections between the “culturally neutral” aspect of their practice (as they see it) and the possibility of pursuing more creative types of martial play and research. Multiple of them stated that Western, Chinese, Japanese and Filipino styles could be brought together and tested under the guise of lightsaber sparring in ways that would not normally be possible in a traditional instructional environment.

When discussing his lightsaber class Darth Nihilus, repeatedly noted the sense of freedom he enjoys in leaving behind the lineage politics that dominate the more traditional Chinese martial arts.  This has translated into a greater technical freedom to combine multiple approaches free from the sorts of social surveillance that would normally inhibit this type of hybridization.  It also manifests in an ability to engage in performance based activities like cos-play, choreography and hero-building.  Such activities were actually the origin of Darth Nihilus’ memorable name and in-universe identity.

It would seem that lightsaber combat is not seen as an “American martial art” precisely because those who adopt its practice are seeking a specific type of freedom.  This manifests in a self-conscious turning away from the constraints of historically grounded and ethno-nationalist martial arts.  Many individuals are drawn to an activity that is like the martial arts on a technical level, but one that does different sorts of work.  In lightsaber combat we see a rejection of constructed nationalist histories and a move towards a system of forward looking, and open ended, mythic play.

To better understand the details of the social “work” done within the traditional martial arts, as well as the means by which more recent hyper-real systems might seek to escape it, we will need a set of theoretical tools focused on the ways in which voluntary associations mediate the relationship between “creative play” and the process of personal transformation.  In his writings on the nature of liminality in the modern western world Victor Turner has provided one such framework.

Liminal History and Liminoid Mythology

Turner is particularly helpful in the present case as much of his research and writing touched on the question of how meaning is generated through ritual and drama.  In his ethnographic research he expanded on the ideas of Van Gennep to better understand the ways that symbols and rituals functioned during “rites of passage,” or those instances in which people leave one social status (a child, single individual or uneducated person) for another (a married, adult, university graduate).[iv]  Anthropologists had noted that through rites of passages such transitions could be made both socially legible and personally meaningful.

Following Van Gennep, this transition has often been described as a three part process.  Transformative ritual starts with a period of separation, in which the individual is removed from her normal community, a liminal period in which the previous identity is stripped away, leaving the initiate in Turner’s famous term “betwixt and between.”  Lastly, the transformed individual is reincorporated back into a society that will now support them in playing their newly constructed role.

Much of Turners writing and thinking focused on the middle (or liminal) stage.  What exactly happens when an individual enters a threshold state but has not yet passed beyond it?  How is social meaning created and social knowledge bestowed through ritual and symbolism?  According to Turner this often happened in very creative ways.

Through a rich combination of rituals, myths, rites of reversals and other modes of symbolic teaching, Turner found that individuals can engage in a period of cosmic play in which they themselves rearranged the symbolic building blocks of the social order, often in ways that seem chaotic or disordered.  In so doing they confront fundamental truths about the community that were not previously accessible.  By going through this process, initiates learned something both about their own identity and the nature of society.

While Turner’s work (like others in his generation) tended to focus on what were then referred to as “primitive societies,” both he and his students immediately recognized many parallels to these processes in their own, much more modern, lives.  Indeed, there may have been too many parallels for comfort.

Turner’s later critics would note that there was a certain strain of universalism and cultural essentialism in his work that may have led him (and Van Gennep) to project these basic patterns onto other non-Western cultures inappropriately.  Nor did Turner spend enough time exploring the “borderlands,” or those areas of society comprised of individuals who either refused to integrate through totalizing social processes, or who found creative ways to subvert this process and use similar structures to create counter-systemic identities.[v]

It is not difficult to find striking similarities between the ritual and initiatory processes described in classic ethnographic accounts of rites and passage and current practices in modern Western society.  The process associated with fraternity initiations on college campuses, religious baptisms in neighborhood churches, or joining a social order like the Masons, all exhibit something very much like the same three part structure of separation, liminality and reintegration.

Nor would we be the first to note that martial art training is full of rituals, both large and small.  They can be seen in the wearing of special clothing (the white karate gi symbolizing burial clothing) and the grueling public ordeals endured in some rank tests or tournaments.  All of this is explicitly designed to fulfill two functions.  First, to elevate an individual’s status within the community, transforming them from novice to expert.  Second, to create a sense of social meaning and fulfillment by passing on a specific set of physical practices or cultural philosophies which (we are constantly reminded) have their truest applications beyond the confines of the training hall.

Is it surprising that in the current era Western consumers have come to see the martial arts as vehicles of personal transformation?[vi]  In an increasingly secular society they appear to be taking on essential social and psychological roles that might previously have been fulfilled by other sorts of community rituals.[vii]

Nor are individuals the only ones to have taken note of the transformative powers and liminal potential of the martial arts.  States such as Japan, China and Korea, to name a few of the better known examples, determined during the 20^th century that martial practices could be adapted not just to improve civilian fitness and public health, but to create institutions through which individuals would be inducted into a new, specifically curated, vision of the nation and society.

Martial arts reformers, eager for government patronage, designed specific programs, and lobbied to have them included in school curriculums, to do just that.[viii]  The emergence of a close association between some Asian martial arts and ethno-nationalism was neither a coincidence, nor a reflection of the essential nature of these practices.  Both martial arts modernizers and government reformers worked hard to make this connection happen and then to promote their new creations on the international stage.

So, on one hand, individuals adopt these processes as a means of personal improvement, or just recreation.  On the other, powerful social and political forces have attempted to co-opt them as modern rites of passage, ones that could do the social work of producing certain kinds of citizens and favored identities.  Of course there is no necessary reason why these two goals must contradict each other.  Yet sometimes they might.

To grasp what this implies for our theoretical understanding of the nature of lightsaber combat, we must return to one of Victor Turner’s fundamental questions about ritual.  What, exactly, is transformed in a rite of passage?  Is it the initiate?  Or should we instead be focused on the community?

Turner argued that the intended subject of transformation in a classic rite of passage was actually the community.[ix]  While the individual was affected, the fundamental issue was actually how the group processed and this change.  Turner noted that his students were thus mistaken when they described their own initiatory experiences as “rites of passage.”  He cautioned in his 1974 essay that true examples could only be found in small scale societies characterized by primary social interactions.[x]

Given the obvious structural similarities, what exactly separates the two scenarios?  The fact that these rites were often compulsory in small scale communities betrays the fundamentally social nature of the exercise. These rituals were events through which society understood itself.  Even seemingly riotous rites of reversal and bacchanalia were, for Turner, examples of social work that demanded the participation of the entire community.

All of these activities are socially mandated and therefore a type of labor, no matter how much “fun” the participants might be having.  None of them fall into the category of “leisure” as we typically use the term in the modern West.  Turner argued that this slightly different category is really a byproduct of the commodification of labor that occurred during the period economic and social transformation that Karl Polanyi called the “Great Transformation.”

An individual who joins a modern church, fraternity or martial arts class is in a very different position.  These are activities that, within modern Western society, explicitly occupy our leisure time.  They cannot be compelled.  Individuals participate in these activities and rites because they themselves feel drawn to them.  This takes what was once social work and makes it a much more personal experience.

Nor are all of these experiences exactly the same.  Turner concluded that at least two distinct types of institutions structure modern voluntary activities.  The first category was still referred to as “liminal” as they most closely resemble the rituals of previous eras that they may have, in some cases, grown out of.  These include things like formal initiations into religious groups, seasonal celebrations or a traditional wedding ceremony.

Yet while they resembled older rites of passage, they are still voluntary.  Simply put, no one can force you to join the Rotary Club. As such, he noted that his continued use of the term “liminal” needed to understood as metaphorical.

Turner then identified another group of activities which were even less socially focused in nature, and more oriented to individual play, experimentation and self-expression.  These could still induce a process of personally meaningful transformation, but they were less likely to be focused on conforming one’s life to a hegemonic social pattern.  At times they could even take on an anti-systemic nature.  Turner termed this second group of practices, “liminoid.”

By Turner’s own admission, his exploration of these categories was partial and experimental in nature.  As a first cut he found that liminal practices tend to be community oriented.  They emerge out of larger social patterns and are comprised of symbols that are universally intelligible. They are fundamentally eufunctional, meaning that they reinforce widely held social, economic and political identities.  A baptism or religious wedding ceremony fit this pattern.

In contrast, liminoid activities tended to arise later in history and are more focused on individual attainment.  They are often distributed via economic markets and develop at the margins of society.  Thus they are fragmentary and experimental in nature.  Liminoid activities can rearrange symbols in highly idiosyncratic (even monstrous) ways, and have the potential to critique dominant social discourses.  Common examples include the creation of art and literature or the development of many sports and games.

These categories may help us begin to make sense of what is going on with Darth Nihilus’ two seemingly contradictory martial arts institutions.  They may also suggest something about the variety of social work that martial arts are called on to perform in the modern global system.  Lastly, a closer examination of how these ideas function in the realm of the martial arts might suggest some way to refine Turner’s original concepts.

From Liminal Work to Liminoid Play in the Martial Arts

It is not difficult to discern a liminal aspect within the Chinese martial art.  While students of martial arts studies tend to classify wushu as a voluntary activity, one suspects that many of the young children that fill the wushu based technical schools of Henan and Shandong province were not full consenting participants in the decision making process that sent them to these grueling boarding schools.  Instead their guardians made the decision that this was a better environment for their children as it would give them the technical and cultural foundation to become a certain sort of adult.  Specifically, one who could get a job with the police or military.

The martial arts have come to be an accepted aspect of childhood education in the West as well.  What do we hope that our children gain from these exercises?  To listen to the rhetoric surrounding these practices, confidence and compliance are the actual goals of our efforts.  Regardless of what is actually accomplished, these classes are often framed as a means to create certain sorts of adults, ones that will succeed within society’s dominate cultural and economic paradigms.

Many of these same more liminal tendencies are evident in adult martial arts classes as well.  As Jon Nielson and I reported in our book, The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts, Ip Man’s notable martial arts abilities were not the only thing that attracted teenage and young adult students to him in the early 1950s.  After all, in the aftermath of the 1949 liberation of the Mainland, Hong Kong was quite literally overrun with talented martial artists.  So what set him apart?

Ip Man had grown up as a member of the “new gentry” in Guangdong. As such he received a dual Confucian and Western education.  He had deep cultural knowledge of a past that young adults in the crown colony of Hong Kong felt isolated from.  He was an individual who had synthesized the lessons of two worlds and could model the value of an unapologetically Chinese identity in a modern, globally connected, metropolis. Many of his younger students idolized the Confucian glamor that he radiated.

Contemporary government sponsored wushu and the wing chun community that existed in Hong Kong during the 1950s and 1960s are very different types of institutions.  Yet both of them are engaged in the social work of producing certain sorts of citizens.  In the first case this takes on a more statist cast, while Ip Man’s project was more social and cultural in nature.  Yet in both instances, we see that martial arts training attempts to produce a certain sort of student, one accepting of important social values, through a process of physical transformation.

This is one of the reasons why the creation myths of the various Chinese martial arts are so interesting.  It would be a mistake to view them only as poorly recorded history.  Instead they function as a lens by which the community sees itself, defines core values, and finds its place in the social landscape.  Yim Wing Chun, Wong Fei Hung or the many monks of Shaolin are important because they point the way.  They illustrate a destination that the initiate has set out to achieve.

A traditional martial arts class is characterized by a type of liminal play.  We set aside our mundane professional identity when we enter the training space and submit ourselves to a new social hierarchy.   We reverse and rearrange many of the most basic cultural values that we brought with us as we suddenly find ourselves punching, throwing and choking our fellow initiates.  Yet all of this happens within limits and is subordinated to a single, unified, transformative vision.

All of this conforms to Turner’s expectations for a more traditional liminal experience in the modern world.  Creative play is possible, but only up to a point, and only in the service of certain goals.

I have spent a number of years observing Wing Chun classes.  And while you might hear individuals expressing admiration for Ng Moy and Yim Wing Chun, or in other cases doubting their existence, I have yet to hear anyone declaring their allegiance to the villains of that particular creation myth.  After all, the Manchu banner troops did succeed in burning the Shaolin Temple to the ground, which much say something about their martial prowess!

Yet that is exactly the sort of thing that happens multiple times a day at the Central Lightsaber Academy.  At first glance one might think the biggest difference between it and a traditional martial arts class is the non-reality of their chosen weapon.  It is easy to become fixated on the glowing, buzzing blades.  Much more important is the open ended and free-wheeling way in which symbol can be manipulated, reversed and hybridized in one environment, but not the other.

We have already noted that such extended play exists on the technical level.  Yet this ability to creatively rearrange symbols is not limited to the act of fencing.  Consider the fact that the CLA is led by a figure who has adopted the title Darth Nihilus (or Dark Lord of Hunger) as his public persona for interacting with the lightsaber combat community.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the Star Wars lore we should note that individuals who go by the title “Darth” are not the heroes of this story.  Instead they are the masters of a malignant political and metaphysical philosophy that is said to have been responsible for billions of deaths during their age old war against the Jedi.

The specific story-lines behind the various “Darths” are interesting to consider, though a full account would take us too far afield.  At the most basic level many of these Dark Lords have, through a process of corruption, become something less than human.  In many cases their loss of emotional empathy is mirrored by physical damage or decay.  The Sith do not call on the healing and life sustaining energy of the force.  Many have become monstrous human machine hybrids.

Sith characters are always sociopathic, and often psychotic.  That makes them an interesting foil for storytelling.  And when not teaching either wing chun or lightsaber classes, Darth Nihilus spends time on what might be called “hero building” (or in his case maybe “villain construction”).  This includes crafting back stories, engaging in cosplay and producing fan films in which his alter ego kills large numbers of Jedi knights (played by his students) along with the requisite innocent bystanders.

Not all of the CLA students follow this left handed path.  Others have invested considerable time and resources in the creation of more traditionally heroic Jedi persona.  A third group, turned off by the psychotic nature of the Sith and the overly disciplined lives of traditional Jedi have turned to creating “Grey Jedi” characters.  These are becoming quite popular as they allow students to mix and match symbols and histories in ways that fit their real world personalities.  Occasionally even characters from outside of the Star Wars universe are remixed into the world of lightsaber combat (a trend pioneered by the creators of NY Jedi).

Well over half of the students ignore these exercises all together.  They might instead focus on Star Wars trivia or collecting lightsabers.  Other students see themselves primarily as martial artists and arrive at class wearing wing chun or kali T-shirts.

This last contingent reminds us of an important, somewhat paradoxical, fact.  Not all of the members of the CLA identify themselves as Star Wars fans.  While pretty much everyone has seen the movies, a fair number of students have never attempted to explore the expanded universe of videogames, novels or television shows.

While some students may understand lightsaber combat as an aspect of their fandom, other participants see it primarily as a way to stay in shape with the help of a supportive community of likeminded friends.  While everyone views their practice as important and transformative, the goals that they seek are strikingly personal in nature.  There is no single symbolic pathway that all lightsaber students share.

Conclusion

Lightsaber combat presents us with a powerful example of Turner’s concept of the liminoid.  In comparison, the wing chun classes of the Central Martial Arts academy are vertically structured and designed to advance a very specific skillset. Its curriculum is meant to have a transformative impact on students, one that will see them replicate a eufunctional set of behaviors outside of the school.  That is the very definition of the liminal.

In contrast, the Central Lightsaber Academy exists to cooperatively fulfill individual desires for highly creative, fractured, idiosyncratic, and sometime monstrous, play.  Students are free to focus on sparring and practical lightsaber combat, or to skip that in favor of forms training and choreography.  They can engage in cosplay and hero building, trying on villainous or heroic alter egos.

The individuals in this community are not socioeconomically marginal compared to similar martial arts groups in the area.  Yet they actively choose to play at the social margins.  This cacophony of goals and purposes coexists both within the CLA and the broader lightsaber combat community as a whole.

We should be cautious about reifying these two categories, liminal and liminoid, as binary opposites.  Certain students of the anthropology of athletics have noted that Turner’s categories sometimes have trouble categorizing specific activities.  Sharon Rowe has argued that while an amateur basketball league at the local YMCA is liminoid in character, much as Turner expects, professional sports often exhibits a much more liminal nature, both in terms of their social function and the discourses that surround them.  She has questioned whether sports should ever be classified as liminoid.[xi]

Our current case suggests instead that the liminal and the liminoid may exist on a continuum.[xii]  While Darth Nihilus’ Wing Chun class appears to be liminal compared to the lighsaber group, the degree to which it is “upholding dominant social discourses” pales in comparison to the previously discussed wushu boarding schools in China.  They are literally indoctrinating and training thousands of children for future careers in a vast state security apparatus. Clearly we must consider matters of degree as well as kind when evaluating the nature of martial arts institutions.

Still, Turner’s basic distinction between the liminal and the liminoid is helpful to students of martial arts studies precisely because it suggests that totalizing statements about the role of these combat systems in modern society are bound to miss the mark.  Rather than being one thing, Turner suggests that there are different types of social work that we can expect to see within the martial arts.

The success of hyper-real arts, divorced from the myths of nationalism and focused on enjoyment, rather than the “hard work” of producing even more ideal citizens, should force us to think deeply about the future of the martial arts in the current era.  Lightsaber combat demonstrates a world in which the plural, fragmentary and horizontal can succeed despite the existence of the universal, disciplined and hierarchically organized.

It may be that Darth Nihilus’ frequent refrain that this is “all just for fun” is as much a warning for us as a reassurance to his students.  Accepting his statement might signal the disruption of our understanding of what the martial arts can be, as well as the basic desires that motivate their students.  But what else would we expect form a Dark Lord of the Sith?

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Are you interested in reading more about Light Saber Combat?  If so click here or here.

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[i] For a detailed discussion of this process see Judkins, Benjamin N. 2016. “The Seven Forms of Lightsaber Combat: Hyper-reality and the Invention of the Martial arts.” Martial Arts Studies 2, 6-22.

[ii] Reynolds, David West. 2002. “Fightsaber: Jedi Lightsaber Combat.” Star Wars Insider 62, 28-37.

[iii] Carl Silvio, Tony M. Vinci. 2007. Culture, Identities and Technology in the Star Wars Films: Essays on the Two Trilogies. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.; McDowell, John C. 2014. The Politics of Big Fantasy: The Ideologies of Star Wars, the Matrix and the Avengers. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.;  Lee, Peter W. 2016. A Galaxy Here and Now: Historical and Cultural Readings from Star Wars. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.; McDowell, John C. 2016. Identity Politics in George Lucas’ Star Wars. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.

[iv] Gennep, Arnold Van. 1960. Rites of Passage. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.  First Published 1909.

[v] See for instance Weber, Donald. 1995. “From Limen to Border: A Meditation on the Legacy of Victor Turner for American Cultural Studies.” American Quarterly. Vol. 47, No. 3 (Sep.), pp. 525-536.  A more far reaching critique of Turner’s relevance to historical discussions of the Western world (particularly as they apply to women’s narratives) has been offered by Caroline Walker Bynum. 1984. “Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols: A Critique of Victor Turner’s Theory of Liminality,” in Robert L. Moore and Frank Reynolds (eds). Anthropology and the Study of Religion. Chicago: Center for the Study of Religion. pp. 105-125.

[vi] Berg, Esther and Inken Prohl. 2014. “‘Become your Best’: On the Construction of Martial Arts as Means of Self-Actualization and Self-Improvement.” JOMEC 5, 19 pages.

[vii] Jennings, George. 2010. “‘It can be a religion if you want’: Wing Chun Kung Fu as a secular religion.” Ethnography Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 533-557.

[viii] Gainty, Denis. 2013. Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan.  Routledge. Chapter 4; Judkins, Benjamin and Jon Nielson. 2015. The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of Southern Chinese Martial Arts. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.148-154. Judkins, Benjamin. 2016. “Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (17): Chu Minyi – Physician, Politician and Taijiquan Addict.” Kung Fu Tea. https://chinesemartialstudies.com

[ix] This is amply illustrated by the fact that the third and final phase of the ritual transformation is always reintegration into the social whole.  Such transformations are rarely undertaken purely for the edification of the initiate.  For more on Turner’s theories of ritual see The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Nbembu Ritual (Cornell UP, 1967) and The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1969).

[x] Turner, Victor. 1974. “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology.” Rice Institute Pamphlet – Rice University Studies, 60, no. 3 Rice University: http://hdl.handle.net/1911/63159.

[xi] Rowe, Sharon.  2008. “Liminal Ritual or Liminoid Leisure.” in Graham St John (ed.) Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance. Berghahn Books  pp. 127-148

[xii] This same point has also been argued, in a different context, by Andrew Spiegel.  See 2011. “Categorical difference versus continuum: Rethinking Turner’s liminal-liminoid distinction.” Anthropology Southern Africa (Anthropology Southern Africa) 34, no. 1/2: 11-20.

Woodblock print of Chinese warrior holding a sword.

 

“When the Nanjing Martial Arts Institute was opened, I was in Hankou [in eastern Hubei], where I noticed in a newspaper that they were dividing their curriculum into two schools – Wudang and Shaolin – and appointing specialists for each of them. For “Wudang” to be isolated like this in the promotion of our martial arts is really not a good idea, and so I sent a letter to a friend in Nanjing who was working at the Institute, discussing in detail the pros and cons….

Certain styles were passed down from certain people, but so long ago that it cannot be verified, unlike schools of painting and literature, for which there is no confusion. The categorizing of the two branches as Wudang and Shaolin has been made on the basis of ignoring the records of other martial arts. But whether or not what is being spread these days can actually be classified as Wudang or Shaolin, how could these two branches be able to comprise all of Chinese martial arts, including those that were transmitted by itinerant performers, or martial artists who taught their skills to make a living? In order to cater to our national habit of venerating ancient people, we have arbitrarily dragged forth ancient figures known to everyone, even to women and children, and assigned them the roles of founders of our arts simply for the sake of advertising.”

 

Xiang Kairan. 1929. “My Experience of Practicing Taiji Boxing.” Translation by Paul Brennan, July, 2016.

Introduction

Recently Paul Brennan posted his new translation of a lengthy personal essay by Xiang Kairan titled “My Experience of Practicing Taiji Boxing.”  I highly recommend that you read it. Written in 1929 and finally published in 1940, this essay provides an invaluable record of the world of Republic era martial artists.  It is exactly the sort of document that makes the history of the Chinese martial arts such a fascinating subject.

Yet that is not what we will be discussing in this essay.  Instead I would like to turn our attention to the life and career of its author, Xiang Kairan (1890-1957).  Writing under the pen-name “Pingjiang Buxiaosheng” (which translates roughly to “an unworthy son of Pingjiang”), no less a source than the Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures has called him the “Father of [modern Chinese] martial arts fiction” (532).  The acclaimed author Jin Yong has cited him as an early influence, and since about 2010 there has been a growing awareness of his many contributions to the development of popular literature (particularly with regard to the refashioning of the idea of the “Rivers and Lakes”) by scholars in both China and the West.

Once again, this is not the only realm in which Xiang has made critical contributions.  My initial plan upon reading’s Paul’s new translation of his seminal essay was to write a post looking at the influence of the 1928 martial arts film “The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple” on modern martial arts cinema.  It would be hard to overstate the importance of this film in Republic era popular culture.

An immediate success it spawned no fewer than 18 sequels in a period of less than three years.  Collectively these movies created a new genre while launching a “Kung Fu craze” on the same scale of Jet Li’s later Shaolin Temple.  The sudden popularity of these stories was so great that in 1931 a government censorship board actually banned the production of new Wuxia films, effectively creating a niche in which Hong Kong film makers would eventually find great success.

The first, wildly popular, installment of this film series was based on Xiang’s 1923 novel   Stories of Marvelous Knights of the Rivers and Lakes.  Nor was that his only breakout novel.  In 1923 he also published Stories of Righteous Heroes, a collection of chapters exploring the life and world of Huo Yuanjia, the titular founder of the Jingwu or Pure Martial Society.

The success of this second novel propelled the rapidly expanding Jingwu Association further into the spotlight.  While Marvelous Knights was set in a timeless realm characterized by competing schools of wandering heroes and shamans wielding amazing magical powers, the stories of Heroes were markedly different.  They folded themselves seamlessly into a contemporary setting and introduced readers to the sorts of lineage disputes and rivalries that actually characterized the Chinese hand combat community.  This feeling of authenticity is so convincing that a number of readers have been tempted to accept his fictional novel as a historical record.   This other, more grounded, school of story-telling would go on to influence the development of the “Kung Fu” (as opposed to “Wuxia”) school of Hong Kong film making.

In short, through his innovations in how martial arts stories were told, both on the page and secondarily on screen, Xiang either created or popularized much of what we now take for granted as the public image of the Chinese martial arts.  His contributions to mediatized martial arts discourses in both the East and West easily deserve posts of their own.  But they too will need to wait for another day.

Less known is that fact that Xiang himself was both a talented and dedicated practitioner of the martial arts.   Throughout the course of his life he studied many styles including jujitsu, Japanese swordsmanship, the external schools of the traditional Chinese martial arts, and multiple styles of Taijiquan.  Xiang helped to establish, promote and organize multiple martial arts clubs and organizations. He discussed some of these efforts in various personal essays and newspaper articles.  At the time of his death he was even working on a longer volume on the history of the Chinese martial arts that, unfortunately, was never finished.

Xiang thus presents students of martial arts studies with a rare opportunity.  Within his body of writings we have an chance to see how the evolving practice of the martial arts in the Republic era directly influenced the sorts of publishing and media discourses that were growing up around them.  Far from these being totally disconnected spheres; at least some martial artists were helping to shape the larger discussions of these styles in the realm of popular entertainment.

It has been noted that recent attempts to reevaluate Xiang’s significance tend to focus on either the contributions that he made to the developments of modern Wuxia novels or his martial arts interest.  But there are yet more elements of his life that may deserve our close consideration.

In her recent doctoral dissertation, Fairy Tales for Adults: Imagination, Literary Autonomy, and Modern Chinese Martial Arts Fiction, 1895-1945 (2016, UCLA) Lujing Ma Eisenman has noted that it is almost impossible to fully grasp Xiang’s martial or literary activities without contextualizing them within the larger framework of his political (and occasionally military) activities.  Indeed, his discussion of the “Rivers and Lakes” of martial arts fiction as a “stateless realm” was deeply informed by the events of the Warlord era.  Such a realization may even change the way that we think about his involvement with the Guoshu movement and other martial arts activities.

In short there are literally dozens of posts that could be written about Xiang Kairan’s contributions to our modern understanding of the martial arts.  Yet he is rarely discussed outside of literary circles.  In the remainder of this post I will provide a brief biographical sketch of his literary, martial and political careers.  Hopefully this information will inspire and facilitate future research on an important, but often forgotten, modern Chinese martial artist.

Achieving Softness Society, group photography. 1925.

Life of Xiang Kairan

Xiang Kairan was born to a wealthy family in Pinjiang, Hunan Province in 1890.  Given his family’s social status he received a traditional Confucian education.  Later he was sent to the provincial capital where he studied at the “Hunan Industrial School.”  It seems likely that he was first introduced to the martial arts in childhood.

His childhood was also marked by signs of growing political activism.  Sometime around 1905 he was expelled from school for taking part in a student demonstration against the provincial government.  The radical dissident Chen Tianhua had killed himself while living in Japan in an effort to raise awareness for his causes and the provincial government attempted to refuse the revolutionary a “martyr’s funeral.”  This event also seems to have set the pattern for Xiang ending up on the losing side of what could become costly causes.

Due to his family’s wealth and social status this was not the end of Xiang’s education.  Like other members of the New Gentry he was sent to Japan to also receive a modern and international education.  It is unclear what he studies on his first trip to Japan.  Later he would publish a supposed expose of the lifestyles of elite Chinese students abroad.  Like much of his writing, this first novel collapses the narrative space between representations of reality and pure fiction.  Thus it’s a little difficult to read his accounts of this period as biography.

His growing interest in the martial arts during this period are another matter.  In a separate essay Xiang reports that while in Japan he was visited by a friend from back home in 1907.  This account likely refers to Wang Zhiquan.  Wang discussed the various boxing styles of Northern China sparking what would become Xiang’s long running fascination with the theory of Taijiquan.  Unfortunately Wang could not yet demonstrate the art.  Undeterred Xiang went on to study much of what was available locally.  It was during this period that his personal identity as a martial artist appears to have solidified.

His interest in the martial arts continued after his return to China.  In 1913 Xiang reports meeting Li Cunyi’s students Ye Yunbiao and Hao Haiping.  He states that they exposed him to Xingyi and Bagua, but could not satisfy his desire to learn more about Taijiquan.  It was during this time that Xiang helped to co-found the “National Skills Association” in Changsha.  To put this timeline in context it might be helpful to remember that Sun Lutang published his well-known manuals on Xingyi and Bagua in 1915 and 1916, but his major work on Taiji did not come out until 1921.

1916 saw Xiang set out on his next (more dangerous) political adventure.  Immediately after his home province withdrew from the Republic he joined Hunan’s military forces in an effort to personally repel Yuan Shikai’s monarchist troops.  Unfortunately Hunan’s forces were defeated leaving Xiang in a difficult position.  At this point he decided to return to Japan, this time to study law.

This second period of study, while productive, was also brief.  Sometime during 1917 Xiang returned to China and settled in Shanghai.  He would spend much of the next decade in this city.  His adopted home was the cultural hub of the country and it seems to have fed both Xiang’s desire to write as well as his legendary work ethic.  Many of his most famous novels, essays and articles were completed during this decade.

In 1923 Xiang published what were probably his two most important novels, Stories of Marvelous Knights of the Rivers and Lakes and Stories of Righteous Heroes.  The later helped to define and spread the myth of Huo Yunjia and pioneered a more modern and realistic way of discussing martial artists in fiction.  The earlier book was focused on Wuxia stories and magic.  It is often credited with bringing forth the modern literary notion of the “land of Rivers and Lakes.”   Both of these works have proved critical in shaping the way that the martial arts are positioned and used by the entertainment industry today.

This decade was fruitful in other ways as well.  In 1925 Chen Weiming moved to Shanghai and established the now famous “Achieving Softness Boxing Society.”  Xiang, who had spent the better part of two decades trying to learn about Taijiquan immediately became a student.  But as the old adage goes, when it rains it pours.

Wang Zhiqun, now a disciple of Wu Jianquan, and teacher within his Taijiquan lineage, moved to Shanghai a few months later.  After reuniting with his old student and friend Wang actually ended up moving in Xiang.  It seems that at this point Xiang focused most of his day to day Taiji study on Wang.  By May of 1925 he was finally able to begin to practice the Taiji solo set.

Two years later the demands of political activism again intervened, shaping both Xiang’s literary and martial destiny.  In 1927 he broke from his studies and ended his work on the serialized production of Marvelous Knights so that he could return to Hunan as a military secretary in the Army of Tang Shengzhi.

This is not the proper time to delve into the details of the Northern Expedition and the various Warlord conflicts that were consuming much of the country.  But it is interesting to note that it was during this period, immediately following his exit from Shanghai, that Xiang’s novels achieved their greatest popularity and cultural impact.

As Lujing Ma Eisenman has noted, his concept of the “Rivers and Lakes” as a society that existed in the absence of a state, and the sorts of conflicts that could grip and order such a space, resonated with readers who saw in his novels a discussion of China’s stateless nature during the Warlord era.  It was also not a coincidence that “The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple” whose screenplay was based on one of his most popular stories, also came out in 1928, touching off a new round of “Kung Fu fever.”

In his personal essays Xiang provides some interesting commentary on how the political machinations of the times impacted the world of real martial artists.  He noted for instance that after the government was moved to Nanjing, the city of Beijing fell into a deep economic depression.  It became impossible for many martial arts teachers to make a living.  And with the establishment of the new Guoshu system, many of them moved south, abandoning the old capital.

This pattern of out-migration, in conjunction with the new Guoshu Academy that was promoting the “Wudang arts,” meant that after 1928 Taijiquan became increasingly popular in both Nanjing and Shanghai.  Yet in the same year a mini-scandal erupted when the various exponents of this style did poorly in the first government sponsored martial arts examinations, losing many matches to the supposedly inferior “external styles.”  In fact, the essay that Xiang undertook in 1929 (and Paul Brennan recently translated) was explicitly apologetic in nature, attempting to both re-situate the art and examine what had gone wrong prior to this tournament.

Following the ultimate defeat of his military unit, Xiang took the opportunity to travel around much of Northern China for a year.  Later in 1930 he returned to Shanghai where he remained until 1932.  Yet given the economic success of his various writings his attention drifted to other interests.  Xiang decided to return to Hunan where he would dedicate himself to the promotion of the Guoshu system and the teaching of the traditional martial arts.

This would not be the quiet retirement that he had hoped for.  Following the 1938 invasion General Liao Lei invited Xiang to join his anti-Japanese troops.  He was subsequently stationed in Anhui province, where he would remain for the next nine years.

In 1946, with the resumption of the Chinese civil war, Xiang embarked on another major writing project.  This was titled An Unofficial History of Chinese Revolution.  In 1948 he was finally able to return to Hunan province and became a member of the Provincial Parliament under Governor Cheng Quian.  This was followed soon after by his surrender to Communist forces in the region.

The following year (1950) saw the publication of Chinese Revolution.  For various reasons the book did not sell well.  Given his numerous recent reversals of fortune Xiang was left destitute.  I have seen at least one account suggest that during the early 1950s he left his family and took up the life of a Buddhist monk.

Whatever his economic circumstances, Xiang’s interest in the martial arts continued unabated.  In 1955 he composed another personal essay (also translated by Paul Brennan) titled “On Studying Taiji’s Pushing Hands.”  Unfortunately this would not be published until his novels began to be reprinted in the 1980s.

Two years later, at the suggestion of a regional official, he began what would have been his final major work.  It was tentatively titled A History of Chinese Martial Arts.  It was never completed.  Like other martial artists, Xiang became a target of the anti-rightest campaigns that were launched that year.  He died of a brain hemorrhage with his major statement on his beloved art left unfinished.

A still from Burning of the Red Lotus Temple.  I guess we have found the cinematic origins of “Force Lightening!”

The need for an interdisciplinary approach to Chinese martial studies.

It is a tragedy that a figure who had seen so much of the modern history of the Chinese martial arts was not able to leave a complete record of his thoughts.  Still, we must be grateful for the many novels, stories and essays that he left behind.  Within these works we have an unique opportunity to observe not just the development the modern cultural discourses that surround the Chinese martial arts, but to see the ways in which these were shaped by both the realities of publishing markets and trends in the development of the arts themselves.

In many of his writings Xiang is concerned with the fate of old things in a new world.  How does transmission work?  How are Hunan’s folktales of the supernatural and strange to be passed on?  How can the intricate theories of Taijiquan be transmitted in an era that privileges market transactions over long-term human relationships?

His stories speak directly to these concerns.  In them we see the rare emergence of a mind that can value the past without romanticizing it.  We see an individual who realizes that both publishing and the martial arts must evolve and is willing to engage in a hard discussion of the values at stake.

Perhaps the most important realization to emerge from the recent wave of scholarship on Xiang is an appreciation for the complexity of the world of “River and Lakes” which he created in his fiction.  His readers found it to be entertaining not simply because of its escapist qualities, but rather because it so accurately reflected the stateless society that China became for much of the 1920s and 1930s.  Perhaps his greatest contribution was the argument that the martial arts, far from being the backward looking superstition that the May 4^th reformers feared, could provide the tools that society needed to formulate its own vision of Chinese modernity in the face of an ongoing crisis.

Yet as Lujing Ma Eisenman has noted, it is difficult to see how Xiang presented these ideas, or his audience read them, if we ignore the political and activist context from which these stories emerged.  Indeed, Xiang Kairan’s career is an excellent illustration of why Chinese martial studies must proceed as an interdisciplinary exercise.  It is impossible to understand the social function of the Chinese martial arts today if we ignore the media driven discourses that surround them.  Yet his career suggests that these discourses interacted with the changing nature of martial arts practice in complex way.  Lastly, all of this was shaped by the unfolding logic and trauma of the Warlord era.

If we examine only a single dimension of his legacy Xiang appears to be a curiosity, a historical footnote.  He is a forgotten commercial novelist, a wealthy “Kung Fu bum,” an unlucky military adventurer.  It is only when we put these images together that his true importance comes into focus.  Yes, the Chinese art would have continued to exist without him, but our popular (and subconscious) notions of them would be very different.

oOo

If you enjoyed this essay you might also want to read: Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (8): Gu Ruzhang-Northern Shaolin Master and Southward Bound Tiger.

 
oOo

Introduction

In a recent post we explored the life and career of Xiang Kairan (1890-1957), a seminal figure in the creation of the modern, media driven image, of the traditional Chinese martial arts.  Born to a wealthy family, and educated in both China and Japan, Xiang cemented his identity as a martial artist while a student living abroad.  In the West he is most frequently remembered as the author who inspired the screen play for the lost 1928 movie “The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple.”  This turned out to be a genre defining film that did much to establish the modern Wuxia story.

In China Xiang Kairan is most frequently remembered as a novelist.  Critics have called him the “father of Chinese martial arts fiction.”  He did much to reshape the world of “Rivers and Lakes” that later authors (such as Jin Yong) would fill with their own characters and stories.  Less frequently remembered is the fact that Xiang was also very politically active and became personally involved in some of the major military conflicts of the warlord era.  Indeed, it might be a mistake to ignore his more practical background when considering the nature of his writing.

In this “Research Note” I would like to take a closer look at some of Xiang’s writing that stem from yet another facet of his rich and varied career.  It is sometimes forgotten that this novelist and erstwhile adventurer was also a dedicated martial artist.  Xiang Kairan committed much of his free time to the study, teaching and promotion of China’s various hand combat systems.

As a young man he reports practicing various external styles, as well as Japanese swordsmanship and jujitsu (both facilitated by his overseas study).  Later in life it was Taijiquan that dominated his affections, and he studied with teachers from the Yang, Wu and Chen styles.  Xiang was also an institution builder.  He created and supported many societies dedicated to the promotion of the TCMA in Hunan, his home province.  He was also a staunch supporter of the new Guoshu program.

Xiang Kairan’s literary genius stemmed from the fact that he was a keen social observer.  In addition to studying the martial arts he closely observed the lives, struggles and conflicts of the individuals who promoted them.  Indeed, one might go so far as to say that he took a professional interest in the gossip, folklore and myths that surrounded these fighting systems.  His wuxia novels reflected in turn the rich supernatural folklore that was popular in Hunan’s boxing community, as well as the more grounded lineage politics, economic rivalries and personality clashes that defined mundane life.  This was the material that embroidered his most famous novels providing them with a sense of vitality that readers found intoxicating.

Yet Xiang Kairan does not appear to have been a fabulist.  This impression sometimes emerges, but it seems to be mostly the result of individuals attempting to read his explicitly fictional novels (including those that discussed actual historical figures such as Huo Yuanjia) as works of contemporary journalism.  Rather than being examples of biography, his more grounded novels have a relationship to the individuals that inspired them similar to Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926).  Indeed, the two authors were contemporaries.

A different picture of Xiang Kairan’s engagement with the martial arts emerges when we look at his personal essays on these subjects.  Paul Brennan has recently translated two of these (dating to the late 1920s and early 1950s) which are both worthy of careful study.

The immediate purpose of both of these essays is to comment on certain aspects of the training and practice of Taijiquan.  That was a subject of great personal interest for the author.  Further, the disappointing performance of some Taijiquan practitioners at the first Guoshu martial arts examination in 1928 (where the newly popularized style seemed incapable of defeating fighters from the supposedly “less sophisticated” external styles) provided Xian with a platform to explore problems with how the art was being taught and practiced.

As his literary critics were only too happy to note, Xiang Kairan’s prose are not tightly focused.  Instead he often circled his subjects and frequently finds himself exploring seemingly unconnected side streets.  A typical assessment of his flaws as an author is seen in the following review, “Buxiaosheng’s [Xiang’s pen-name] works are heavily influenced by Hunan folklore.  He writes realistically about gods and spirits, and his stories are well-plotted, making them worth reading.  But they are flawed by his lack of attention to structure, seeming to be writing with his fingers instead of his brain, the words pouring out in an often repetitive and at times incoherent torrent.”

At first glance his lengthy 1929 personal essay “My Experience of Taiji Boxing” would seem to confirm this critic’s judgement.  Yet after reading the piece through a few times I suspect that, while indirect in style, a single coherent argument does run through this piece.  In the wake of the rapid growth of interest in Taijiquan during the 1920s, and then its unexpected reversal of fortunes in 1928, Xiang Kairan seeks to offer a broadly based critique of some of the dominant trends that he has seen in the practice of the Chinese martial arts during the 1920s.

Many of his discussions are technical in nature and of the most interest to other Taijiquan players.  Some touch on social and cultural themes.  The new Guoshu system also comes in for critical analysis.  Yet in other passages Xiang Kairan turns his attention to the economic markets that have evolved to monetize the spread of the traditional martial arts.

Given my own prior research I find his observations on these two final topics to be especially interesting.  The overall impression that arises from a reading of Xiang is that we are dealing with an individual who possesses genuine antiquarian interests, yet knows his source materials well enough that he is deeply suspicious of attempts to venerate the past.  While his basic values are very different from many of the May 4^th reformers (who viciously criticized his martial arts novels), he nevertheless shares a certain faith in the tools of modernity.

Plum Flower Maiden Dancing from Pole to Pole. Circa 1880. Source: Wikimedia (though I believe that Stanley Henning was the first person to publish this image in his essay for Green and Svinth.)

Likewise, Xiang Kairan was no stranger to the economic marketplace.  He understood what readers wanted and grew wealthy through his ability to produce commercially successful novels.  One would suspect that at least some of his contemporary fame was based on the success of his publishers in advertising his work.

Xiang understood the power of markets and the necessity of advertising, yet he was suspicious of their impact on the traditional Chinese martial arts.  For someone who made a living by selling martial arts myths, he was disturbed by the easy with which martial arts instructors seemed concoct their own founding legends.  While he acknowledged the power of markets, he also foresaw their ability warp a message in transmission.

Transmission, it seems, was one of Xiang Kairan’s primary concerns.  How does one tell old stories in new ways?  How are the hand combat traditions of the imperial era to be understood and transmitted as today’s “national arts?” These are questions with no easy answers.

What follows are four excerpts selected from Paul Brennan’s translation of Xiang Kairan’s 1929 essay that deal with these issues.  The first of them speaks to the problem of transmission in an almost epistemological sense.  In the current era, how much authority can we allow to “appeals to authority” versus knowledge that has been developed by personal experience?  Decades later, Bruce Lee would transmit a certain portion of this debate to North America, yet its roots stretch back to the 1920s if not before.

The second passage examines the question of “fantastic transmission,” this time tying its growing popularity directly to the growing competition within the martial arts marketplace.  Again, one might think of this as a topic that Xiang would have some first-hand knowledge of giving the startling success of his supernaturally inflected works of fiction.

The third excerpt is the one that I find the most personally interesting.  In it Xian seeks to contrast the various ways in which the TCMA have been transmitted in northern and southern China.  His basic claim is that while transmission in the North has been deeply embedded in personal relationships, arts in the south are much more likely to be passed on through commercially mediated relationships in which students act as consumers rather than disciples.  This, he maintains, has had a critical impact on the recent development of the arts in these two regions.

While advanced as a rant, there is actually much merit to his basic observation.  As Jon Neilson and I argued in our book, The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts, the southern martial marketplace was much more developed than its northern counterpart, and it emerged at an earlier point in time.  While the relative benefit of one system versus the other is actually a highly subject question, Xian is correct in his assessment that market forces impacted the way that these arts were transmitted.

Obviously he was more familiar with Shanghai than Foshan or Hong Kong, but it is hard not to think of Ip Man’s career as we read of the real estate woes that beset the teachers of the Southern martial arts (forced to move from one rented location to another every few months), or the role of frequent challenge fights in determining one’s success in a marketplace that is both economically and physically competitive.  This account is useful precisely because it helps to situate prominent southern masters within a broader social context.

In the final quote Xiang Kairan again returns to the topic of mythmaking and market-based competition, this time within the newly established Guoshu movement.  He notes with some accuracy the inherent contradiction in claiming on the one hand to seek to unify a singular set of “national arts” while at the same time employing divisive, and entirely ahistorical, categories (in this case Shaolin vs. Wudang) to do so.

A typical economic market succeeds when competition allows for a range of goods and services to be offered to consumers at an efficient price.  Yet national culture does not necessarily benefit from fierce competition in the same way that other goods might.

Xiang implies that in this case value is maximized by sharing a certain set of identities and beliefs as widely as possible within a given community.  Such has always been the nature of the nation building project, and the Guoshu movement took this mission on as its own.  Hence its horror of the pervasive factionalization and regionalism of the traditional Chinese hand combat systems.  In this final excerpt Xiang notes that competition, and the need for advertising, might also promote this undesirable outcome through the mechanism of ongoing product-differentiation.

Xiang Kairan’s 1929 personal essay offers a remarkable window into the state of the Republic era martial arts, as well as the mindset and values of those reformers who sought to promote the new Guoshu system.  Far from being disturbed by the somewhat lateral style of his writing, students of social history should be grateful for his keen skills of social observation.  Like all great stories, his account of the Republic era martial arts contains a multitude of layers.

Xiang Kairan

Excerpts from Xiang Kairan, “My Experience of Taiji Boxing,” 1929.  Translation by Paul Brennan

Venerating the Ancient vs. Experience Based Practice in the TCMA

It is the habit of the people of our nation to delight in venerating our forefathers and sneering at our contemporaries. Because of this, although the martial arts world is replete with creative and talented people, what they have invented and developed we do not dare to accept. Instead we always put our trust in ancient people who have passed things down secretly within their families, or who have received instructions in a dream. To find this type of situation in books and records is not rare at all.

As for the boxing art that Zhang Sanfeng passed down, how could we know that he did not create it himself? Though there is insufficient evidence to support the idea, it is believed that he received his art in a dream from the “Dark Warrior” Emperor. People nowadays practice martial arts from dawn to dusk for years or even decades and still find it difficult to achieve the level they wish. Zhang Sanfeng received his art from a spirit in a dream, and then immediately used it to defeat bandits. Is there really such a difference of intelligence and ability between ancient and modern people? Zhang Sanfeng taught his art to Song Yuanqiao, Zhang Songxi, and seven others, but no detailed records of his techniques were passed down.

Within Huang Baijia’s Boxing Methods of the Internal School, there is the five-word secret: “focused, potent, expedient, sticky, precise”. There are also secrets within Secrets of the Shaolin Boxing Arts by a certain venerable monk [including another and somewhat similar five-word secret: 印、擒、側、緊、切 “sealing, grabbing, slanting, tensing, cutting”]. The most popular boxing art is now Taiji, but these five words have not been taught as part of it.

I think that boxing arts should use refined principles and tested techniques, and that the criteria should be that they do not violate the principles of physiology or mechanics. There is no need to make strained interpretations or trust the hyperbole of ancient people. Just because a tailor might bow to his statue of the Yellow Emperor or a carpenter has a shrine to his patron saint Lu Ban, there is no reason to think that actually means anything.

Fantastic Transmission, Lost Lineages and Economic Competition

There are so very many styles of our boxing arts. Throughout the whole nation, there are dozens within a single province, even within a single county. This being the case in the boxing arts world, there ought to be a great many talented people, and who are thus producing a lot of ability in others. I have carefully studied the results and have to come to know that in this spreading of all sorts of boxing arts, it is by no means a sure thing that they are being taught by competent people. Many are simply relying on the fame of their teacher.

Within the last two or three decades, they have disseminated dozens of boxing arts. Even though they proclaim their art has been passed down from some ancient figure, such as Yue Fei or Damo, there are also some who claim it to be from Sun Wukong or the Maitreya Buddha. All their techniques are in fact more similar than they are unique, and within any solo set, there are only a few techniques that conform to boxing principles and have practical function. Why would these teachers go to so much trouble to create such a variety of postures? Simply to solicit customers!

Working class patrons of a stall selling sequentially illustrated martial arts novels. This 1948 AP photo illustrates the importance of heroic martial arts tales in southern China, even for individuals with limited literacy.

Northern vs. Southern Boxing

“To learn a boxing art in the north, you do obeisance to a teacher and study with him for an indefinite period. Those who are devoted may engage a teacher to live in their home or they might leave home to live in the teacher’s house. To put in three to five years of continuous training is quite common.

In the south, it is often more limited. You can either engage a teacher to live in your home or you can learn from a teacher who has reserved a warehouse space to teach students, holding the space for thirty or forty days, fifty days at the most. Once the time has expired, the students all disperse, and if you wish to continue training, another space has to be reserved.

The students enter the space on the first day, disperse on the last day, and in the meantime they have to train hard day and night with the goal of being able to apply the art once they leave the building. After going through two or three of these warehouse sessions, if you are still not able to defeat ruffians, then your teacher will fall into disrepute.

In the case of Taiji Boxing, it is really not possible to calculate how many days it will take to get results. For other boxing arts with highly refined principles and very detailed techniques, it is just as difficult for foundation and function to be completed within the space of a hundred days.

It is always the case that among practitioners of boxing arts, many of them are crude individuals who would not understand this point. If after two or three sessions of warehouse training, they are still unable to defeat opponents, they do not find the fault in the teacher’s skill level not being high enough, and instead assume the teacher is holding back some of the transmission.

When teachers expect their students to get results according to a schedule, the genuine art gets put aside in favor of a few select techniques, then it gets distorted into the superficial movements of itinerant performers, until a solo set becomes created that is steeped in the common superstitious traditions of ancient people.

When the postures are simple and easy to practice, people with decent intelligence can learn it in just over a week. After a mere half month of instruction, they leave the warehouse with what they have gained and are surprised by their ability to beat up ruffians, the teacher’s fame consequently rises, and they continue to practice for a number of days. But people who tire of old things and always want new things will not continue to practice after about a year unless changes are made to the set.”

The Nexus of Lineage Myths and Advertising within Guoshu

“When the Nanjing Martial Arts Institute was opened, I was in Hankou [in eastern Hubei], where I noticed in a newspaper that they were dividing their curriculum into two schools – Wudang and Shaolin – and appointing specialists for each of them. For “Wudang” to be isolated like this in the promotion of our martial arts is really not a good idea, and so I sent a letter to a friend in Nanjing who was working at the Institute, discussing in detail the pros and cons.

While I have nothing against division of skills, for divisions create competition, and competition produces progress, this is not true in the case of martial arts. Whichever of our nation’s martial arts, too few records have been passed down, the arts have been passed through too many hands over time, and students are hardly ever able to understand the literature.

Certain styles were passed down from certain people, but so long ago that it cannot be verified, unlike schools of painting and literature, for which there is no confusion. The categorizing of the two branches as Wudang and Shaolin has been made on the basis of ignoring the records of other martial arts. But whether or not what is being spread these days can actually be classified as Wudang or Shaolin, how could these two branches be able to comprise all of Chinese martial arts, including those that were transmitted by itinerant performers, or martial artists who taught their skills to make a living. In order to cater to our national habit of venerating ancient people, we have arbitrarily dragged forth ancient figures known to everyone, even to women and children, and assigned them the roles of founders of our arts simply for the sake of advertizing.

In the south there is a Qi Family Boxing, said to be passed down from the “Sage Equal to Heaven” [Qi Tian Dasheng – one of the names for Sun Wukong, the mythical Monkey King]. There is also a Maitreya Boxing, said to be passed down by the Maitreya Buddha [which would presumably have involved another tutorial in a dream]. These are far more ridiculous claims than that of Shaolin being passed down from Damo.

When people have received their knowledge through actual instruction, and are not using it as a means for making a living through either performing or teaching, their great respect for their art is not unreasonable. What is reproachable is when people contentiously pledge their lives to their “tradition”, for by this means, all the schools and styles become jealous of each other and hate each other. After a thousand centuries, there is no telling how much trouble would be caused by such behavior, or how many lives would have been ruined.

Such people have a limited knowledge, as well as a mentality of taking advantage of their forefathers in order to advertise themselves, a flaunting that cannot be admonished enough. And we can only blame gentlemen such as Zhang [Zhijiang] and Li [Jinglin] for having the ambition of promoting martial arts without also thinking of doing away with the vice of schools factionalizing.

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If you enjoyed this post you might also want to read: Spreading the Gospel of Kung Fu: Print Media and the Popularization of Wing Chun (Part 2 of 3)

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Vintage photography, circa 1860-1900. Photographer unknown.

Introduction

 
Some of the most popular posts at Kung Fu Tea have examined vintage images of traditional martial artists.  These are also among my favorites to research.  Yet it seems that I have neglected this subject with all of the other projects that have come up this summer.  Hopefully this post will go some distance towards rectifying that oversight.

The internet is both a blessing and curse to those doing research.  It allows us to regularly discover new treasures.  Yet such finds are often presented in a decontextualized way that makes interpreting them challenging.

This post adds two new vintage images to our discussion.  Unfortunately both are “orphaned,” meaning that I have yet to locate the exact place and date of their creation.  Nor do they share a single medium.  Nevertheless, these images are thematically linked in ways that suggest an interesting moment in the evolution of Western views of Chinese boxing.

Two Images, One Theme

Our first image is a late 19^th century albumen print showing four martial artists.  I have not been able to locate any information about the photographer who produced it.  The dress and hair styles of the athletes suggest that it cannot have been taken later than 1911.  The fact that this is almost certainly an albumen photo (note the sepia tones and the ease with which the corner of the thin photographic paper bent off its backing) suggest a date prior to 1900, at the latest.  Thus this photograph dates to somewhere from 1860 to 1900.

Perhaps, if we allow ourselves to indulge in a little speculation, it might be possible to shave a few decades of this interval.  The fact that this was shot in a photography studio against a backdrop suggests the need for a longer exposure time. Consider also the subject matter and composition of this image.

The mirrored symmetry in the shot is remarkable.  Three of the individuals are shirtless, revealing highly muscled bodies.  The two boxers in white stand at ease, meanwhile the inner pair appear to be wrestling.

At first it appears that the theme of the photograph might be something like “physical strength through struggle.”  No one would doubt the athletic ability of these individuals.

This point is further emphasized by the heavy stone weights (commonly used by wrestlers, boxers and soldiers) that define the physical space on which the camera focuses. Given the faded nature of the photo it is hard to make out any details of the ball in the foreground, but I suspect that upon closer inspection we would discover that it is carved from stone as well.

But brute strength is not the only idea that this shot is meant to evoke.  While the inner pair is involved in combat, the boxers on the outside stand at ease.  The photographer also chose a painted backdrop meant to evoke the bucolic Chinese countryside of rivers, mountains and quaint cottages.  Given the importance of Willow Ware in creating the romanticized early 19^th century Western mental image of Chinese life, such an artistic choice is unlikely to have been unintentional.

The symbolic nature of the composition is further confirmed by two seemingly out of place artifacts in the foreground.  Here the viewer finds a tea pot and cup.  Of course China was famous for its tea exports.  Interestingly both tea and China serving ware were among the few export items that could be found in pretty much any middle class house in the West.  They were both ubiquitous and evocative of material comfort and success.  China provided the indispensable goods that for many people symbolized a “civilized” life.

At first glance we might assume that the intended subject of this image is the traditional martial arts.  Yet upon further meditation I suspect that this is not really the case.  Instead the photographer has taken China writ large as his subject.  It is in the juxtaposition of the heavy training weights and the delicate teapots, or the violent wrestlers and the peaceful countryside, that the true intent of the image appears.

What at first appeared to be a simple symmetry is really a sort of visual dialectic.  This is not so much “China” as any visitor would visually see it on the street.  Rather, the composition of the various elements suggests that this may have been an attempt to communicate the nature of China as the photographer had experienced it.  Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say as the viewer wished to understand it.  In its mix and juxtaposition of symbols the image resembles the still life paintings of a previous era.

Given the wonderfully evocative nature of this photograph it’s a shame that I have not been able to figure out who produced it.  Yet rest assured, the search continues.

While thinking about my frustration in researching the first image, I was reminded of another piece of hand combat related art that has also been on my mind.  A few years ago I first encountered an engraving by the French artist Felix Elie Regamey titled “La Preparation Aux Examens Militaires, A Canton.”

It’s a great image, and at the time I had very much wanted to add it to my collection.  Yet as I researched it I quickly discovered that compared to his better known Japanese subjects, Regamey’s Chinese works do not seem to have received very much attention.  In fact, it is hard to know exactly when this piece of art was first done (engravings, by their very nature, lend themselves to reproduction and subsequent republication throughout an artist’s career.)

Later in his life Regamey adopted a more relaxed style which, to my untrained eye, looks as though it may have been influenced by Japanese or Chinese brush paintings and wood block prints.  He does seem to have produced other Chinese subjects in the more structured and formal style seen above between roughly the middle of the 1860s and the middle of the 1880s.  It seems likely that this particular study also dates to the same basic time period.

Again, the dominant theme of the image is physical strength.  Here we see two martial artists preparing for the military service exam by lifting the sorts of heavy stone weights used in the testing of candidates.  Around them are the other implements used in the exam.

On the left wall we see a rack of the heavy knives, or halberds, that one was expected to wield.  On the other side of the image hangs archery equipment, perhaps the most critical aspect of the exam.  All that is missing is a horse, as candidates were also expected to know how to ride.  The two martial artists are at the same time highly muscled yet relaxed.

Once again, it is impossible to miss the unique mirrored symmetry of this scene.  The only item that is out of place is the stone block that is currently being used.  The natural result of this composition is to focus the viewer’s attention on the only singular item in the image, the religious altar placed in the center of the composition.  Here we see the expected lamps, incense and offering table.  Yet as the eye expands outward we quickly encounter something else, calligraphy.

By this the viewer learns that these exam candidates are not mere day laborers or common soldiers.  Rather they are educated individuals, masters of both the body and the mind.  Of course basic literacy skills were necessary to complete the military exam, yet one did not have to be a trained scholar to do well.

The important thing in this case is not how accurately this image captured the actual level of literacy possessed by the average examination candidate.  More critical is what it communicated to its Western viewers about the nature of Chinese life and society.

A dialectic logic again emerges from the composition.  The overriding impression is of a balance between physical strength and cultural attainment.  The “mysterious orient” is shown as existing in that liminal joining of the body and the mind.  Of course such suggestions would have resonated with the romantic turn in late 19^th century European thought.

Yet in some respects this engraving is more complicated than the photograph.  Boxing and wrestling were popular 19^th century pastimes in both the East and West.  Athletics never really needed any justification for a Western consumer.  A fast paced wrestling match was a good in and of itself.  The virtue bestowed by success in such a realm was self-evident to all.

In contrast, the individuals in the second image are not really “athletes.”  They are aspiring military officers.  And Western viewers surely would have noted that they were training with the bow well into the age of the rifle and revolver.  While a generally positive image, and one that noted the physical strength and dedication of the Chinese people (e.g., it is an image of daily physical training, and not the exam itself), this picture also would have underlined China’s militarily backwardness.

If the audience is meant to approach this piece from a more “romantic” perspective, an emphasis on physical effort rather than mass produced industrial goods is not necessarily a bad thing.  Yet while the overall aesthetic of the first photograph is rather “modern,” (wrestling was just as popular in 1900 as it had been in 1800) there can be no doubt that the second image plays into widespread notions of the “timeless and inscrutable orient.”

Chinese Boxers before the “Sick Man of Asia”

A number of Chinese and Western commentators in the early 20th century went out of their way to paint Chinese individuals as physically weak, often unhealthy, individuals.  Many of China’s economic, social and political struggles were laid unfairly at the feet of its citizens.  This tendency reached its zenith in the early 20^th century when long running debates about the effects of opium use and a string of military defeats coalesced in a (mostly domestic) debate as to whether, and why, China was the “Sick Man of East Asia.”

I have discussed these developments in other posts. One should not underestimate how important these debates were in shaping the TCMA in the modern era.  After the humiliating setback suffered during the Boxer Rebellion (when the martial arts were very nearly driven out of the social discourse), these discussions opened a space in which martial artists could claim to advance the national good through a return to traditional values.

The impact of these discussions can still be felt today.  The mythology of the Jingwu Association, as well as Bruce Lee’s films, ensures that these images (and insecurities) live on.

What interests me about both of these images is that they predate this entire social discourse.  I suspect (admittedly with insufficient evidence) that both the engraving and the photo date to roughly the early 1880s.  But even if that estimate is off by a decade in either direction, they are clearly a product of the period of China’s “Self-Strengthening Movement.”

The enthusiasm and self-confidence in these images is palpable.  They neither doubt the physical capabilities of the Chinese people, nor do they seek to turn away from core cultural values in the quest for athletic excellence (as recommended by the May 4^th reformers).  Nor are they shy about communicating this self-confidence to the world.

In terms of geo-political events, the 1880s came a generation after China’s defeats by the British in the South, and 15 years before its diplomatically devastating loss to the Japanese.  While China clashed with France in the middle of the 1880s, it managed to win a number of battles and avoided the same sense of military humiliation.  The production of such images even suggests some sort of market for visions of a stable and strengthening China in the West.  Meanwhile, the Self-Strengthening Movement was giving rise to diverse efforts, some of which contributed to the rise of modern Taijiquan as well as other martial arts. Yet all of this would be abandoned following the national defeats suffered in 1895 and 1900.

Eventually the fierce public debate over China’s status as the “Sick Man of East Asia” would subside, and a growing sense of cultural confidence would again characterize the traditional martial arts.  Still, images from an earlier era force us to ask how the evolution of these fighting systems would have unfolded in the absence of the Sino-Japanese War and the waves of revolution, political chaos and cultural self-doubt that followed in its wake.  Both images offer us a glimpse into this realm of alternate possibilities.

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If you enjoyed this discussion you might also want to read: Two Encounters with Bruce Lee: Finding Reality in the Life of the Little Dragon

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Nima King, in his Hong Kong Wing Chun school.  Source: South China Morning Post

Introduction

Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News.”  This is a semi-regular feature here at Kung Fu Tea in which we review media stories that mention or affect the traditional fighting arts.  In addition to discussing important events, this column also considers how the Asian hand combat systems are portrayed in the mainstream media.

While we try to summarize the major stories over the last month, there is always a chance that we have missed something.  If you are aware of an important news event relating to the TCMA, drop a link in the comments section below.  If you know of a developing story that should be covered in the future feel free to send me an email.

Its been a while since our last update so there is a lot to be covered in today’s post.  Let’s get to the news!

  Nima King.  Source: South China Morning Post.

News From All Over

Our first story this week comes from the (digital) pages of the South China Morning Post.  The paper recently ran a profile (complete with a 15 minutes video) of Sifu Nima King, (Chu Shong Tin lineage) who runs the Mindful Wing Chun School in Hong Kong.  As one might guess from the name of his studio, mindfulness is a big part of King’s approach to the martial arts.  It is the subject that dominates much of the video and article.  But he also has an interesting narrative about the various ways that Wing Chun helped him as an “angry youth” which also plays into popular perceptions of the TCMA.

I think that we will be having at least one academic event looking at the topic of mindfulness in the martial arts in the upcoming year, so this seems to be one area where the traditional arts are well situated to grow.  Overall its a nice profile and worth checking out.  And I always enjoy getting a glimpse into another school.  This one has some very nice dummies on the back wall.

Ip Man demonstrating the wooden dummy form. Photograph was taken in 1967 by Tang Sang and is currently the property of Ip Ching.

“Clean Footage Of Wing Chun Grandmaster IP Man Has Emerged.”  So proclaims the title of another news story which is currently making its way around a number of e-zine and blogs.  Many Wing Chun students will already be familiar with this footage, taken during the Master’s final weeks.  If its not something that you have seen before, this is mandatory viewing for all Wing Chun students.  But what is really interesting to me is that Ip Man now has enough public recognition that there can be a certain level of public discussion of these sorts of artifacts.  Thanks should be directed to Donnie Yen (who will be making his own appearance later in this post).

A scene from the Wushu Master Challenge Event. Source:macaudailytimes.com

Hong Kong often makes the news, but we hear less about Macau.  This week is the exception.  The Macau Daily Times ran an article covering the recent Wushu Master Challenge event.  The gathering was designed to promote awareness of, and training in, the traditional martial arts.  It brought together a large number of practitioners from both Southern China and the global community.  Of course the obligatory Sanda matches pitting Chinese and Western fighters against each other were also held.

There is a certain body of academic theory criticizing movie plots in which Caucasian fighters (Chuck Norris, Van Damme….) confront and defeat an “Eastern” opponent to prove their mastery/appropriation of the arts (Chong).  What is always surprising to me is that something so structurally similar to these situations get enacted with such regularity and vigor in real life.  I suspect that this is an interesting example of mutually reinforcing but different cultural narratives (nationalism vs. the quest for self-cultivation) creating a predictable pattern.   Or maybe everyone just wants to live out there own version of Blood Sport?

Our second news item from Macau was reported by the Shanghai Daily.  It ran a feature on the recent One Championship MMA event and discussed the growing body of local and regional talent featured in these fights.

A fresco on a cave wall in Dunhunag. Source: en.people.cn

The next item will appeal to readers who are more interested in medieval social history.  The recent Rio Olympics inspired some Chinese scholars to release a number of images of ancient sports as preserved on the walls of the famous Dunhunag caves.  Obviously most of this art work is Buddhist in nature.  It is what the area is most famous for.  But in this case the emphasis was on some lesser known vignettes showing swimming, wrestling, horseback riding, gymnastic feats and other martial arts.  Some of these paintings have an abstract or surrealist quality to them.  Plus, if you have never read about the Dunhunag Caves before, this is a great excuse to check some of this material out.

A Young Bruce Lee in Oakland. Source: Charlie Russo.

Readers may recall my recent discussion of Charlie Russo’s new (and highly recommended) study of the history of the Bay Area Chinese Martial Arts community, Striking Distance: Bruce Lee and the Dawn of the Martial Arts in America.  It looks like he recently had the opportunity to do a radio interview in which he discussed some of the various ways in which Lee’s legacy has lived on after his death.  Unfortunately I have not been able to find a full audio copy of this piece, but you can see parts of the transcript here.

Does Bruce Lee have a long lost sister?  Source: CCTV

The Daily Mail has been wondering whether Bruce Lee might have had a long lost sister.  In fact, ever since CCTV ran footage of an incredible nunchuck demonstration lots of people have been asking the same question.  Unfortunately the news releases which I have seen on this have very little additional information.  But the footage of the demonstration is well worth watching.  Now, if someone can just send her a yellow tracksuit….

Donnie Yen takes the stage as a blind, Force sensitive, warrior (though probably not a Jedi) in Rogue One.

I have now had an opportunity to discuss Donnie Yen’s upcoming role in Rogue One in a few places.  The recent release of a new theatrical trailer for the film (due out in December) now has lots of people in China talking as well.  And apparently they don’t all like what they are seeing.  By way of background I should begin by noting that unlike other American movie franchises, Star Wars has always struggled in China.  The reasons are obvious.  Inter-generational nostalgia is a big part of the franchise’s success in North America, but it was never released in China during the 1970s and 1980s.  Nor did the Force Awakens do much to win over Chinese audiences.

Disney has been looking for a way to more effectively introduce these stories to new viewers, and to that end the upcoming film will feature not one but two well known Chinese actors.  Unfortunately a skeptical public is reading these efforts as yet another example of Hollywood’s penchant for tokenism rather than crafting stories actually designed to appeal to Chinese audiences.  It looks this may be another bumpy box office ride for Star Wars in China.

The Ultrasabers display at the 2012 Phoenix Comicon. Ultrasabers is one of the largest manufactures of stunt sabers intended for use is lightsaber combat.

While we are on the subject of Star Wars, I should also mention that I recently did an interview discussing lightsaber combat as a martial art over at Inverse.  I would not say that this is my best interview (and the final product could have used some additional editing), but some readers may find it to be a helpful introduction to the topic.

Martial Arts Studies by Paul Bowman (2015)

Martial Arts Studies

Summer is generally a slow time for academic news as everyone in on break and working on their new research.  But there have been some recent developments on the Martial Arts Studies front.  First off, a new book has been announced that will be of interest to students of New World martial arts traditions.  Michael J. Ryan’s volume, Venezuelan Stick Fighting: The Civilizing Process, is due to be released by Lexington Books in December.  This volume will also feature a forward by Thomas A. Green.  The publisher’s note on the project is as follows:

Ryan examines the modern and historical role of the secretive tradition of stick fighting within rural Venezuela. Despite profound political and economic changes from the early twentieth century to the modern day, traditional values, practices, and imaginaries associated with older forms of masculinity and sociality are still valued. Stick, knife, and machete fighting are understood as key means of instilling the values of fortitude and cunning in younger generations. Recommended for scholars of anthropology, social science, gender studies, and Latin American studies.

Striking Beauty by Barry Allen

I have mentioned the book Striking Beauty by the Philosopher Barry Allen a few times on this blog.  Michael Wert has just published a review of this volume.  While generally critical of Allen’s treatment of the martial arts, it is well worth reading.  One of Wert’s central points is that Allen’s repeated gaffs regarding martial arts history are not simply side-notes.  Rather they have critical implications for the substance of his philosophical arguments.  This line of reasoning is actually quite similar to the argument that Stanley Henning advanced in a number of his writings.  A warped understanding of martial arts history leads to all sorts of other problems precisely because these institutions and practices have always been more central to society than we generally care to admit.

Paul Bowman and Meaghan Morris having a frank exchange of ideas. Source: http://martialartsstudies.blogspot.com/2015/06/conference-2015-and-2016.html

Over the last few weeks I have noticed slides and papers from the 2016 Martial Arts Studies at the University of Cardiff begin to appear on Academia.edu.  George Jennings and Anu Vaittinen have kindly uploaded the very detailed slides from their presentation on the use of multimedia resources by Wing Chun students.  Hopefully this is a subject that we will be hearing more about in the next few months.  Neil Hall has uploaded his paper (presented in a special session) titled a “Convenient Myth.”  Its abstract is as follows:

This paper looks at how the martial artist’s need to make a living (or on a smaller scale a class teacher’s need to make the class viable) has a determining effect on the things martial artist teachers convey about martial arts. Drawing on real and easy to grasp examples from present-day martial arts schools, including his own, the author explains the financial imperative to engage with potential customers who have no martial arts experience, and whose purchasing choices are shaped by myth and media representation. He shows how quickly and easily the need to play popular perceptions comes to shape not only the marketing of the teacher’s class, club or school, but also the  perceptions that the teacher – and their students – continue to convey about martial arts, and how the multiplication of this type of effort itself helps to shape popular perceptions – and often myths – about martial arts

Lastly, William Acevedo has posted an essay on his blog titled “An Overview of Chinese Martial Arts in the Olympics.”  This is the most detailed discussion of this topic that I have seen, and I am sure that many Kung Fu Tea readers will find it quite interesting.  Its a timely discussion of an important event.

SUNY Press Book Sale, Only One Week Left!

SUNY is currently running a 30% off sale on everything on their webpage. That is great news for you as they have long been one of the premier publishers of innovative studies of the martial arts. I have attached a couple of cover images above just to give you a quick sense of the range of work that they have published over the years.

For the next two weeks its all 30% off, making this a great time to pick up some summer reading or to fill that gap in your library.

Now With Kung Fu Grip! How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts for America. By Jared Miracle. McFarland & Company (March 31, 2016)

Jared Miracle. 2016. Now with Kung Fu Grip! How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts for America. Jefferson, North Carolina:McFarland & Company. 185 pages. $29.95

Introduction

Now with Kung Fu Grip is the scholarly yet accessible one volume history of the Asian fighting arts in America that current students of martial arts studies and popular culture need.  Drawing on years of both archival and field research Jared Miracle begins by asking how the traditional martial arts first arrive in America, who practiced them, and what it actually means to assert the fundamentally Asian nature of these practices in an era when one can easily buy a star spangled red, white and blue karate gi.

To answer these questions Dr. Miracle takes us on a historical tour of the various ways in which notions of masculinity and nationalism have contributed to the almost continual reinvention of these fighting systems in modern China, Japan and the United States.  While readers may be surprised to learn that the “Asia” which they enact in their nightly taekwondo or kung fu classes is an almost entirely mythological construct (rather than a historically and geographically real place), they are also likely to take away from this book a better understanding of why they fight.  Academic readers who are not yet familiar with the growing field of Martial Arts Studies will be confronted with a parsimonious yet powerful illustration of the central role of the martial arts and combat sports in the development of Western popular culture.

Stanley Henning’s greatest contribution to the field of history was to demonstrate that an improper understanding of the traditional Chinese fighting systems was dangerous not in that it led to a faulty understanding of the martial arts, but rather because it could potentially skew our mental image of all Chinese society.  Far from being a topic of only secondary interest, he showed that the martial arts were deeply implicated in both the daily and political life of the empire and Republic.  They simply cannot be ignored.

Drawing on a rich vein of archival and ethnographic evidence, Miracle has, in his first book, advanced a very similar argument about the role of hand combat practice in modern American life.  We ignore these subjects at our peril.  This volume deserves a spot of the shelf of any serious student of martial arts studies of 20^th century popular culture.

Jean Claude Van Damme demonstrates a flying sidekick in Bloodsport. While the quality of this film won’t seem any better after reading Now With Kung Fu Grip!, why it was made (and achieved such popularity with fans) will make a lot more sense.

Digging Deeper

Yet what sort of historical and cultural analysis has Dr. Miracle given us?  Does it skew towards a popular or scholarly audience?  Is it suitable for use in university courses?  Lastly, how does this book interface with the existing Martial Arts Studies literature?

Drawing on the Thomas Kuhn’s sociological analysis of the sciences, we might be tempted to assert that the projects one encounters in Martial Arts Studies fall into one of two basic categories.  First we have “grand theories” that attempt to establish a broad theoretical framework or world view.  Some of these works may even attempt to establish a new paradigm for subsequent scholars to follow by promoting novel methodological approaches or by drawing on newly available bodies of empirical evidence.

Establishing a new and unique theoretical framework is tricky business.  And a paradigm shift within a field’s thinking may only evident in retrospect.  Unsurprisingly most researchers dedicate their time to more manageable, medium sized, research questions.  The hope here is that our understanding will advance more quickly through a series of modest, easily replicable, steps.  This is how the process of “normal science” unfolds.

It is not hard to find examples of these two approaches within the field of Martial Arts Studies.  Paul Bowman’s 2015 volume Martial Arts Studies: Disrupting Disciplinary Boundaries (Rowman & Littlefield) is, by its own admission, an attempt to introduce a broadly interdisciplinary audience (composed of historians, anthropologists, film studies students and social scientists) to a new set of questions and theoretical tools drawn from critical studies.  The aim of his project seems to be to establish a new paradigm for the study of these fighting systems.

Meir Shahar’s groundbreaking work on the Shaolin Temple, in contrast, focuses only on a tightly focused set of historical questions.  What were the historical Shaolin fighting arts, how did they evolve, and how did Buddhist monks (bound by their monastic vows to a path of pacifism) negotiate their involvement with the violent world of armies, bandits and martial artists?  While a bracing read, Shahar did not attempt to fundamentally alter the historical and theoretical frameworks by which scholars have made sense of China’s past.  His goal was to work within these structures, using them to contextualize and support his own findings.  His is a textbook example of what can be accomplished through the process of “normal science.”

I have noticed that within the realm of Martial Arts Studies the size of an author’s epistemological goals often vary with the scope of the historical questions that they seek to tackle.  I am not aware of any logical necessity why this must be the case.  Yet it seems that projects attempting to explain more of the world are likely to push paradigmatic boundaries to a greater extent than tightly focused studies.

Readers will find Dr. Miracle’s book to be engaging precisely because attempts to do both of these things well.  Such a goal is nothing if not ambitious.  From the outset he theorizes that shifts in masculine identity can best explain the initial adoption and subsequent evolution of the Asian martial arts in America.

Interestingly, this pattern is not restricted to the United States.  When considering the development and promotion of these fighting systems in both Japan and China he again sees a “crisis of masculinity” at work in each case.  Other critical forces, such as the manipulation of nationalist imagery by the state, or periods of rapid economic change and dislocation, tend to be examined through the lens of masculinity rather than being treated as truly independent variables.

Miracle’s book is actually somewhat deceptive in this regard.  He has gone to lengths to avoid excessive theoretical jargon and obscure abstract arguments.  Indeed, for a book that is based in large part on the author’s doctoral dissertation, I am quite happy to report that this volume reads nothing like a typical dissertation.   Care has been taken to make the text accessible to both undergraduates (more on that later) and a wide cross-over audience.

Yet it would be a mistake to assume that the work is purely empirical or somehow theoretically naive.  Instead a very strong chain of causal assumptions (focused on evolving views of gender and masculinity) connects each of these chapters and guides the various case studies that Dr. Miracle presents.

This brings us to the second impulse that seems to motivate this book.  In the second half of the volume the author increasingly steps away from broad historical discussions and instead focuses on the lives of key martial arts pioneers.  These case studies, while they reinforce the book’s core theoretical arguments, are among the most engaging and best written aspects of this work.

Honest question, what could be more masculine that Donn F. Draeger and Sean Connery together on the set of You only Live Twice.

Donn Draeger, Robert Smith and John Blumming, three of the early pioneers of Martial Arts Studies are singled out for detailed treatment.  But the shorter discussions of some the “myth-makers,” including more colorful figures like Masuatsu Oyama and Count Dante, are just as interesting.  Dr. Miracle’s archival skills are best showcased in these more focused discussions and they reinforce and add credibility to the preceding social history.  Indeed, one is left wondering what more sustained case studies of these individuals (with the possible addition of other figures like Wally Jay or Bruce Lee) would have turned up.

This combined approach of fast paced social history and detailed biographical studies allows Dr. Miracle to cover a surprisingly amount of ground in a short book.  With its relaxed prose, and at only about 170 pages of text, enthusiastic readers could easily finish this volume in a single weekend.  His argument is parsimonious and focused.  While developments in China and Japan are given decent treatments, most of the text is reserved for a longitudinal study of the fighting arts in America ranging from the rise of “muscular Christianity” and boxing in the 19^th century to the most recent “crisis of masculinity” and the growth of MMA in the current era.

I suspect that the brevity of Dr. Miracle’s text was a matter of necessity rather than choice.  Longer books cost more to produce and thus return lower profit margins to publishers.  The shrinking size of the average academic book has more to do with increased market constraints than a new found love of brevity within the ivory tower.

In all honesty, the broad scope and limited page count of this book seems to pose some problems for Dr. Miracle’s argument.  At multiple points in the text one gets the impression that a well-developed argument may have been omitted in favor of quick explanation.  In these places the book’s already fast pace seems to accelerate to a gallop.

This tendency was particularly evident in the discussion of the evolution of the Chinese and Japanese martial arts.  The total absence of Jingwu Association, China’s first “national martial art brand” and perhaps the single most important player in the development of the modern Chinese martial arts, is indicative of this problem.  At one point Dr. Miracle asserts that in China the creation of the modern martial arts was a “top down” project imposed by the state on an uninterested population.  He contrasts this with the clearly “bottom up” process seen in Japan where individual martial artists were busy lobbying the state for official support of their various project.

I must admit that this characterization strikes me as flawed.  Many aspects of the Guoshu project look like a continuation and appropriation of the work that the Jingwu Association had already begun more than a decade earlier.  Of course there is every possibility that Dr. Miracle’s reading of this case is correct.  Yet this is a point of great enough importance that it needs to be spelled out in some detail, not simply asserted before moving on.

This same brevity has also affected the way that gender is discussed throughout the book.  Dr. Miracle’s focus on masculinity is understandable as the majority of martial artists today are men.  This was true in the past as well.  While 19^th century Chinese martial arts fiction is full of stories of valiant female-knights errant, in actual fact few women were involved in martial arts training.

Yet “few” is not the same as “none.”  No less a figure than Wong Fei-hung instituted special classes for training women in Hung Gar.   And later the Jingwu Association would go to surprising lengths to advance the training of female martial artists in China. Indeed, encouraging female participation within the martial arts became an important public marker of the modernization efforts within China.

In Japan Kano Jigoro envisioned a place for women in Judo.  Meanwhile the suffragettes created a space for themselves within the world of martial arts training.  Some of the first individuals to publicly teach Taijiquan in both America and the UK were women.  While boxing is always imagined as an exclusively male affair (even by Joyce Carol Oates), one does not have to delve too far into the literature produced by feminist scholars to find the often forgotten history of female fighters.

Miracle’s theoretical focus on masculinity, combined with the text’s relatively limited page count, effectively erases much of the female experience from the discussion of the modern martial arts.  In the book’s concluding discussion of MMA, the participation of an increasing number of female fighters is repeatedly acknowledged.  Yet once again their motivations are glossed over and their experiences remain unexplored.  This seems like a lost opportunity to really examine how the construction of various gender ideals effected the development of the martial arts over time.

It is probably not a coincidence that female martial artists appeared in so many of the newsreels from the 1920s and 1930s in which the martial arts were publicly demonstrated in small towns across the English speaking world. How are we to understand this aspect of the development of the modern martial arts?  Even if female martial artists only account for 20-30% percent of the student base of most current martial arts schools (an admittedly hypothetical figure, but one that reflects my own limited experience), one wonder’s how many already struggling schools would simply go under without their patronage.

Other aspects of his argument also seem somewhat constrained.  Overall there is less engagement with the growing body of literature generated by martial arts studies scholars than one might expect.  Miracle’s specific arguments are all well sourced and supported.  Indeed, students of martial arts studies are likely to build their personal libraries as they work their way through Dr. Miracle’s footnotes.

The influence of certain researchers, including Thomas Green, Stanley Henning and G. J. Krug can be felt throughout the text.  Yet the works of other important scholars, including Paul Bowman, D. S. Farrer and Andrew Morris are conspicuous by their absence. Given that Miracle’s book is just as much a theoretical as an empirical project, it would have been interesting to see him more explicitly address, critique and build on some of these other (often related) conversations.

What does karate have to do with the all American blue jean? Read Now with Kung Fu Grip! to find out. I just realized that this is the first image of Chuck Norris that I have ever posted on KFT. My apologies for the oversight.

Conclusion: A Necessary Book at the Right Time

Of course every coin has two sides.  While a slim volume on an important subject will, by its very nature, leave you wanting more, it is also important to consider what you get.  The same lack of jargon and involved nuance that may disappoint a dedicated historian will likely delight undergraduate readers.  This volume, theoretically grounded yet accessible, would be an ideal candidate for a variety of university level martial arts studies seminars.  Between its reasonable price and engaging prose I would not hesitate to use this book, either in whole or in part, in any class examining the modern martial arts.

Instructors may want to take special note of Miracle’s concluding chapter.  It is not hard to imagine a week’s worth of discussions emerging from just these pages. In addition to a comprehensive summery of the historical arguments advanced in the rest of the book, it goes on to tackle topics of relevance both now and in the future.

The first is a frank acknowledgement of the rising tide of ultra-right wing sentiments around the world and its often unfortunate relationship with the traditional fighting systems.  Miracle briefly explores how the rise of the Japanese far right might once again shape the Budo arts.  He even notes that we may already be seeing this process in action.

Also important is his discussion of the current drive by the United Nations, and the various member countries, to recognize martial arts as aspects of humanity’s “Intangible Cultural Heritage.” Miracle notes the ways in which these labels can (and have been) politicized in the past.  Nor is it obvious that such designations will always succeed in ensuring the preservation of an art.  In some cases they might actually hasten their demise. However, Miracle also outlines a number of strategies that might be employed to maximize the potential usefulness of this process while minimizing the threat of harm.  These are both critical issues facing the traditional martial arts within a global context, and it was refreshing to see them dealt with in a forthright (if brief) discussion.

Jared Miracle also makes a number of more theoretical contributions to the field of Martial Arts Studies.  His extensive use of Krug’s framework for understanding the West’s appropriation of the Asian martial arts in the post-war period is particularly noteworthy.  Given Krug’s status as a foundational thinker within Martial Arts Studies, I felt that it was very helpful to see what an extended, empirically detailed, engagement with his framework actually looked like.  In some ways Miracle can be thought of as providing further confirmation of (or at least failing to falsify) Krug’s basic theory.

Miracle’s focus on the changing nature of masculinity, while not without certain drawbacks, does provide a real sense of coherence to what might otherwise have become a sprawling historical narrative.  After finishing this book, and considering both Miracle’s historical arguments and biographical vignettes, I felt that I better understood my own somewhat complex relationship with the martial arts.

As regular readers of Kung Fu Tea may have noted, my “academic side” loves the richness that the Asian martial arts exhibit when considered as “textures of knowledge.”  Yet the part of me that is more concerned with what goes on within the practice hall manages to maintain a studied indifference to many of these questions, much preferring a “rational” approach to the subject of fighting.  Dr. Miracle’s volume has become personally meaningful as it allowed me to better understand the origins of these two competing aspects of my practice and how it is that they may have come together at this moment in history.

In conclusion, Dr. Miracle has given us a concise history of the appropriation of the Asian martial arts in America that asks, and answers, the critical questions.  How did these fighting systems get here, who practices them, and in what sense are the strip mall dojos that dot the landscape actually practicing “Asian” martial arts?  This book is mandatory and quite enjoyable reading for anyone interested in martial arts history.

Dr. Jared Miracle conducting research in Mongolia. Source: from the collection of Jared Miracle.

About the Author:

Dr. Jared Miracle is a social anthropologist who specializes in video games and education. He has a PhD (Texas A&M), he’s won tons of awards, and he wrote a book called Now With Kung Fu Grip!: How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts for America and has even given lectures on Pokemon. In short, he knows what he’s talking about. He has also been a regular guest contributor here at Kung Fu Tea.   Be sure to check out his essay “It’s My Way or the Wu Wei – A note of Advice for Novice Field Researchers.”

“The Sturdy Citizen” – TY Wong performing Shaolin animal forms within his Kin Mon Physical Culture Studio in San Francisco’s Chinatown. TY was a local tong enforcer who had taught kung fu in San Francisco’s Chinatown for three decades. He likely spoke for many other practitioners in Chinatown at the time when he deemed young Bruce Lee to be merely “a dissident with bad manners.” (Photo courtesy of Gilman Wong)

By Charles Russo, author of Striking Distance: Bruce Lee and the Dawn of Martial Arts in America (University of Nebraska Press, 2016).

So it Begins

At some point in late 1961, James Lee stormed out of the Kin Mon Physical Culture Studio in San Francisco’s Chinatown, effectively breaking off his tutelage under Sil Lum master TY Wong.  Kin Mon, – or as the translation goes: “the Sturdy Citizen’s Club” – was located in a basement studio space on Waverly Place, directly across from the Hop Sing Tong, where TY was a longstanding member.  James Lee had been studying at Kin Mon for a few years at that point, and had established himself as one of TY’s most notable students. Recently, they had collaborated on a book showcasing TY’s system, titled, Chinese Karate Kung-Fu:  Original ‘Sil Lum’ System for Health & Self Defense.  The two shared the byline, and the book has the historical significance of being one of the first (if not the very first) English language martial arts book by a Chinese master.

However, James Lee eventually ascended the steps out of Kin Mon in anger, concluding his time there on bitter terms. He encountered recently-enrolled student Leo Fong at the street level entrance, and let him know he was leaving: “I’m finished with this place. You wanna come with me to train back in Oakland?”

A perennially eclectic martial artist whose skills were anchored around an early education in American boxing, Fong also defected from Kin Mon on the spot with James. Years later, Fong laughs the whole misunderstanding off as trivial: “Jimmy fell out with TY Wong over just $10. They got real upset with each other over that. Can you imagine?”

While seemingly just another martial arts feud predicated on mundane matters of ego or just poor communication, James Lee’s split with TY Wong would have a significant impact on the emerging popularity of the martial arts in America and the kung fu craze of the coming decade, most notably with its effects on the long-term trajectory of Bruce Lee’s career.

You’re not likely, however, to find TY Wong’s name within any biographical accounts of Bruce Lee. Despite Bruce’s maxim of discarding “what is useless,” fans are probably far more familiar with a peripheral figure like Ruby Chow (his landlord and boss at a menial job) than a pioneering martial arts master like TY Wong, who dismissed young Bruce as little more than “a dissident with bad manners.” In fact, few Bruce Lee fans realize that the TY Wong/James Lee feud exists within the pages of Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense; the only book that Bruce Lee published in his lifetime.

The fallout between TY and James also gives key context to understanding the persisting tensions that led to Bruce’s legendary showdown with Wong Jack Man, an incident that would greatly influence Lee’s long term martial arts worldview. There is a lot to be learned from this obscure but notable history within the trailblazing martial arts culture of the San Francisco Bay Area during the early 1960s.

A young Bruce Lee in Oakland circa 1965, just prior to his role on the Green Hornet. Although Bruce was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, he was often at odds with members of the neighborhood’s martial arts culture. Bruce instead found a more like minded crowd across the Bay, in the city of Oakland. (Photo courtesy of Barney Scollan)

Enter the Dragon

Here’s an interesting question to consider: why did Bruce Lee relocate from Seattle to Oakland in the summer of 1964?

After all, things were going well for Bruce at that point in Seattle: he had a dedicated following of martial arts students and had finally found an actual location for his school. He was a popular student at the University of Washington, had just begun dating the woman he would eventually marry, and had defeated a rival martial artist in a challenge. During the summer of 1963, Bruce had traveled home to Hong Kong and greatly impressed his father with all that he had accomplished in Seattle. So why leave behind his business, his girlfriend and his education for a new situation in Oakland?

The immediate answer is James Lee. An Oakland native who was well-known for his younger exploits as a street fighter, James was already enacting the sort of martial arts future that Bruce was envisioning. He was publishing books, creating his own custom martial arts equipment, and conducting a modern training environment at his school. James was also putting a nuanced emphasis on body building, and perhaps most importantly, transforming his street experience into a gritty and realistic understanding of the true nature of fighting. Furthermore, James Lee had a unique network of experienced martial arts innovators within his orbit: Wally Jay, Ralph Castro, Al Novak, Leo Fong, and Ed Parker. As James Lee’s son Greglon characterized the appeal of this: “Bruce was smart. When he’s in his twenties he’s hanging out with guys in their forties, so he can gain their experience.”

James Lee’s fallout with TY Wong was a catalyst for Bruce Lee’s return to the San Francisco Bay Area. Upon meeting in 1962, Bruce Lee discovered that James was already enacting the sort of modern martial arts future that he was envisioning. Despite their difference in age, the two found themselves on a similar wavelength and quickly began collaborating. Bruce’s time with James in Oakland would have a significant impact on his career trajectory. (Photo courtesy of Greglon Lee)

Upon being introduced, Bruce and James had quickly found themselves upon a similar martial arts wavelength. And for a moment, James Lee considered moving his family up to Seattle to continue his collaborations with Bruce (they had already published Chinese Gung Fu… together in 1963). This idea was discarded for one main reason – the Bay Area had the most robust martial arts culture in America (with the possible exception of Hawaii, which James and most of his colleagues had ties to). In this sense, Oakland was a more logical place for their collaborations because it put Bruce close to the action. As kenpo master Al Tracy explained it: “The real significant early development of the martial arts in the United States was heavily based in the Bay Area. Many of the most important people came out of the Bay Area, not just for the Chinese but for so much of the martial arts.”

So by the summer of 1964, Bruce was operating out of Oakland, which was significant not just for his particular whereabouts, but for his commitment to his vision for the martial arts. Bruce was chasing something down. He could have easily stayed and thrived in his Seattle niche. Instead, the next step forward in his evolution was to be found in Oakland.

Amid their shared wavelength, Bruce and James at some point connected on their disdain for traditional approaches to the martial arts, and by extension – traditional masters.

Lau Bun (left) and TY Wong were enforcers for the Hop Sing Tong in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and oversaw the neighborhood’s martial arts culture for more than a quarter century. Having largely predated the modern era of martial arts media, their pioneering careers often go unnoticed. (Lau Bun photo courtesy of UC Berkeley, TY Wong courtesy of Gilman Wong)

Kung Fu in the Bay Area

To properly grasp the early martial arts culture of San Francisco’s Chinatown, it is necessary to understand the careers of the two practitioners that it was anchored around –  Lau Bun and TY Wong.  Both men were enforcers for the Hop Sing Tong, having been recruited for their martial abilities many years earlier upon arriving to town.  Their duties involved a wide range of hands-on enforcement around the neighborhood, which included curbing excessive drunken behavior around the local nightclub, the collection of gambling debts, training of Tong muscle, and mediating disputes within the neighborhood as a means of avoiding law enforcement.  Their schools emerged out of these roles, beginning with Lau Bun’s Hung Sing in the late 1930s (though originally known as Wah Kuen) and then TY’s Kin Mon a few years later in the early 1940s. Both practiced medicine, played music, and operated Lion Dance teams that were heavily involved in neighborhood festivals and holidays.

Lau Bun maintained a rigid order to the martial arts culture in Chinatown, never allowing it to devolve into the sort of daily fight culture that was happening among the Hong Kong youth upon the city rooftops throughout the 1950s. Even when Lau Bun’s relationship with other local martial arts teachers grew tense at times, order was still maintained.

The reality of Hong Kong’s challenge culture and the tenacious reputation of its Wing Chun practitioners had preceded Bruce Lee to San Francisco. During the summer of 1959, 18 year-old Bruce had a little-known incident in Hung Sung and was promptly thrown out by Lau Bun, sowing the seeds for future tensions within the neighborhood. (It is rumored that Bruce had a similarly confrontational incident with TY Wong in this period, which is certainly plausible considering the nature of his other interactions.) In the autumn of 1959, Bruce Lee left San Francisco for Seattle already on poor terms with the martial arts culture within the city of his birth.

Lau Bun (top center) with senior students in his Hung Sing School of Choy Li Fut in San Francisco’s Chinatown, one of the oldest martial arts schools in America. During the summer of 1959, 18-year-old Bruce Lee had a little-known run-in with Lau Bun and his senior students. (Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley)

It is important to point out that James Lee and TY Wong may have fallen out over more than just $10. Indeed, there is a compelling alternate theory to why James stormed out of Kin Mon in ‘61. In this version, James is practicing forms down in the studio when he notices TY Wong’s young son practicing a much more refined and meaningful version of the very same form. James, as the story goes, then realized he had been sold a water-down version of system, and promptly abandoned his enrollment. Although this version conflicts with the accounts of Leo Fong and the sons of both men, James himself would profess this version of events years later, writing in the intro to his 1972 Wing Chun Kung-Fu book: “I realized later that the whole repertoire was just a time-killing tactic to collect a monthly fee. In disgust, I quit practicing this particular sil lum style.” However, that was hardly the first insult to be put into print after his departure from Kin Mon, but was rather merely a postscript to an exchange of published put-downs a decade earlier.

Three of the earliest English language books on Kung Fu by Chinese authors published in North America.

In 1962, TY Wong responded to James Lee’s defection by publishing Kung-Fu: Original ‘Sil Lum’ System, which ran in similar instructional fashion to the first book. However, TY concluded this volume with an overt put-down of James Lee, ridiculing his Iron Palm abilities by running a picture of his eight-year-old son in the same breaking pose as James, under the headline: “See, I Can Break ‘Em Too!” TY distanced himself from what James had previously put forward on the topic by subsequently characterizing it all as gimmickry, and stating “Do not waste your time practicing this art.” James was well-known for his breaking skills, and his lively demonstrations were highly popular at local gatherings. TY’s vividly illustrated rejection of James’s abilities added a new layer of tension to their fallout.

In 1962, TY Wong published an image of his 8 year-old son breaking bricks beneath a patronizing headline. It was meant to parody the Iron Palm abilities of James Lee that were featured in the their first book (right).

Not long after, James Lee forges a new (and what will be a highly significant) partnership with young Bruce Lee, who begins regularly making the trip from Seattle to Oakland in support of a book project with James. The results of their collaboration –  Chinese Gung Fu: the Philosophical Art of Self-Defense – would itself become a highly significant volume of martial arts literature. Ironically though, it was fairly innocuous in tone. As Tommy Gong recently pointed out in Bruce Lee: The Evolution of a Martial Artist, the content within Chinese Gung Fu “illustrated a more basic, generalized approach and primer to the theories of gung fu, including much of the classical approach Bruce later criticized. While Bruce showed a glimmer of his eventual unconventional approach to the martial arts, he expressed himself in this book from a traditional approach.”

On the other hand, Bruce and James added to an already tense relationship with Chinatown by devoting a section of the book to “Difference in Gung Fu Styles.” Here, Bruce distinguishes between what he sees as “superior systems” (namely, his own) versus “half-cultivated systems” (that of TY Wong and other “more traditional” masters). The sequence that follows has James Lee wearing his old Kin Mon uniform and being dismantled by Bruce in a photo-by-photo dismissal of specific techniques featured in T.Y.’s previous book.

By early 1964, Chinese Gung Fu… was on sale within San Francisco’s Chinatown, and the insults weren’t lost on local practitioners. Over time however, as Bruce’s fame became a global phenomenon, this highly local subtext fell into obscurity, as did the notion of Bruce Lee being simply “a dissident with bad manners, ” an identity that would firmly take shape after his book was published.

In a later section of Chinese Gung Fu, Bruce and James give “examples of a slower system against the more effective Gung Fu technique.” This shows Bruce dismantling James as he attempts specific techniques from TY Wong’s first book.

Critiquing the Classical Mess
Moving into 1964, Bruce Lee doubled down on his unabashed criticisms of what he saw as “inferior” practitioners and systems. His demonstrations took a pointed tone, and increasingly came off as heavy-handed lectures featuring stinging rebukes towards “dry land swimming” and the “classical mess.”

Although his performance at Ed Parker’s inaugural Long Beach Tournament in August is often painted in glossy terms, Bruce had actually delivered a scathing lecture disparaging existing practices, even ridiculing common techniques such as the horse stance, before an international audience of martial arts masters and their students. “He just got up there and started trashing people,” explains Barney Scollan, an eighteen-year-old competitor that day.

A few weeks later at the Sun Sing Theater in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Bruce went as far as to disparage the likes of Lau Bun and TY Wong – in their own neighborhood – by declaring “these old tigers have no teeth.”  It was no small insult coming from a young out-of-town kid towards two heavily-involved and well-respected member of the community.

The sum total of all these events and tensions -from the published insults to the $10 argument– were likely to eventually culminate in a confrontation. That day arrived in late autumn when Wong Jack Man piled into a brown Pontiac Tempest with five other people to travel across the Bay Bridge to Oakland, and….as the saying almost goes – the rest is urban mythology.

Hong Kong starlet Diana Chang Chung-wen (“the Mandarin Marilyn Monroe”) photographed with Bruce Lee in late summer of 1964 during a promotional tour of the U.S. west coast in support of her latest film. This brought them to the Sun Sing Theater, in the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown where Bruce’s martial arts demonstration (and critical lecture) nearly resulted in an on-stage brawl in front of a riotous audience. Weeks later, Bruce would face down Wong Jack Man in a legendary behind-closed-doors high noon showdown, based largely on comments he made from the stage of the Sun Sing Theater, as well as long list of incidents with other members Chinatown’s martial arts community. (Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley)

About the Author:

Charles Russo is a journalist in San Francisco. He is the author of Striking Distance: Bruce Lee and the Dawn of Martial Arts in America (University of Nebraska Press, 2016). For more photographs and materials related to the book, see the Striking Distance Instagram account (@striking_distance) or the Facebook page.  Russo has previously been a guest author here at Kung Fu Tea.  If you are wondering whether to read his book check out this review.

In honor of the upcoming National Bonsai Show (held in Rochester NY on September 10-11) I decided to re-post some pictures from my old Bonsai teacher’s blog. If you are anywhere in the area you won’t want to miss this collection of world class Bonsai.

Introduction: A Secret Book

We have all seen the movie.  We have all had this dream.  A mysterious Kung Fu manual, purporting to relate the secrets of past masters, falls into your possession.  What will you find within its pages?

It must contain the keys to excellence in combat.  That is the basis of any good Kung Fu drama.  It should no doubt share profound ethical lessons, occasionally drawing on Buddhist or Daoist images.  Such a book would probably contain knowledge that could be used to heal as well as harm.  That is a well-established aspect of the modern mental image of the Asian martial arts.  It might even hint mysteriously at the role of Qi energy in the combative arts.

Now take a look at your bookshelf.  The one with all of the martial arts primers, manuals and magazines that you probably haven’t look at in years.  Do you see it?  Yup, it is right there in front of you.

Its title is the Bubishi: A Classical Manual of Combat.   While it is one of the most commonly owned martial arts manuals (my local Barnes and Nobles even keeps copies on hand), it also appears to be one of the less frequently read and discussed examples of the genera.  This is especially true within Chinese martial arts circles.

I have always found the general silence surrounding this book to be somewhat mysterious.  After all, so many of our debates on the evolution of the modern Chinese martial arts revolve around events that took place in the second half of the 19^th century.  And while a number of late 19^th and early 20^th century manuals from Northern China have been translated and widely distributed (e.g., the Taiji Classics), how many translations of Southern China’s rich manuscript literature of “Cotton Boxing” and “Bronze Man” manuals do you currently have on that same book shelf?  None?  Well you are not alone.

Ever since the first modern Japanese translations of this book were released in the middle of the 1930s, the Bubishi has been overwhelmingly seen as the key to understanding Karate’s Okinawan pre-history.  Partick McCarthy’s English language efforts hit all of the same notes.  The book has even been marketed as “the Bible of Karate.”

It is thus understandable that students of Chinese martial studies might neglect this text.  Yet once you crack its open the pages, what one quickly discovers is a small library of textual fragments dealing with White Crane and Monk Fist boxing, traditional Chinese medicine, combat tactics and martial ethics.  Much, though not all, of this literature refers to places and traditions that will be familiar to students of the southern Chinese martial arts. While questions of dating and provenance bedevil attempts to easily relate these texts to modern Karate practice, even a quick look at the various illustrations that accompany the text suggests that Chinese martial artists are likely to find it very interesting.

Southern China has a long history of producing martial arts manuals.  Unfortunately they have not generated the same degree of interest among historians and practitioners as northern works such as the Taiji Classics.  Many of these manuals currently reside in the cabinets of private collectors and in the special collections departments of university libraries.

In their general format, many bear more than a passing resemblance to the Bubishi.  Ip Man owned one such collection containing both a boxing and medical manual that he inherited from his teacher.  Visitor’s to his small museum in Foshan can see these hand copied manuscripts on public display.  But like so much of Southern China’s martial literature, there has yet to be a serious scholarly effort to translate, describe and classify these works.

For students of Karate the Bubishi is interesting because it is unique within the art’s historical landscape.  Things are a little different for the Chinese martial studies community.  We should be asking ourselves how we can get more out of this text precisely because it is not totally unique.  Rather it is the most easily accessible example of a genre of manuscripts that, while not all that rare, have yet to elicit the sustained scholarly attention that they deserve.

In an attempt to rectify this situation, the current essay will proceed with a brief review of Tuttle’s 2016 edition of Patrick McCarthy’s translation of the Bubishi.  We will then attempt to answer three questions.

First, what does it suggest about the nature of the Southern Chinese martial arts at the time of its compilation?  Secondly, how has it impacted the practice of the martial arts, both at the time of its first appearance in the 1930s as well as in subsequent decades?  Lastly, what does both the Bubishi and Tuttle’s most recent edition suggest about the social work done by discussions of “tradition” within the modern martial arts landscape?

Widely owned, rarely read and encased within intricate webs of overlapping Orientalist fantasies, the Bubishi remains something of a mystery.  Basic questions about the date, authorship and composition of these texts remain unsolved.  Yet this manuscript tradition may yet yield up treasures worth the hunt for students of martial arts studies.

A Japanese Maple in Spring. Source: Valavanis Bonsai Blog.

Bubishi: The Classic Manual of Combat

First a word of clarification may be in order.  The term “Bubishi” is the Japanese transliteration of the Chinese term Wubei Zhi.  This title was given to a massive encyclopedia of Chinese military technology, strategy and practice edited by the Ming era officer Mao Yuanyi.  The Okinawan Bubishi, translated by Patrick McCarthy is also an edited collection of texts.  It shares the same title, possibly in homage to its much more comprehensive namesake.  But there is little other resemblance between these books.

Most likely brought to Okinawa sometime during the 19^th (or early 20^th) century, the Bubishi appears to have been a manuscript tradition in which a number of separate, often unrelated, articles were compiled, copied and passed on.  These remained in an unbound state until the 20^th century.  As such the order (and exact number) of articles varies between textual lineages, but there is enough overlap to suggest the existence of an identifiable tradition.  This collection was initially passed on without either a formal title or the sort of preface that often accompanied Chinese martial arts manuals.

This is both an unfortunate and critical fact to bear in mind.  It is unfortunate in that the prefaces of such manuals are rich sources of data that describe the social world that a text sought to situate itself within.  It is important in that this textual tradition makes no self-conscious claims to editorship, individual authorship, title or even date.  It seems unlikely that the term “Bubishi” came to be applied to these texts until later in the 20^th century, possibly the 1930s, according to the detailed introductory article by Andreas Quast.

While Quast traces the suggestions of a textual tradition existing in Okinawa back to the 1880s at the latest, it is worth remembering that the oldest extent hand copied Bubishi manuscripts date to 1930.  This is only a few years prior to the first translations of the text appearing for sale in Japan in the middle of the 1930s.  To paraphrase Paul Bowman, we are once again confronted with a book that is treated as ancient yet, upon closer inspection, turns out to not even be all that old.

Still, a possible origin in the last two decades of the 19^th century is suggestive as it would make these texts roughly contemporaneous to the Taiji Classics, another edited collection which was beginning to enter into circulation at the same time.  Further, these years are a critical period for those of us wishing to better understand the evolution of the modern Chinese martial arts.

While the text of the Bubishi is relatively brief and stable in size, the length of the various modern editions of it that are now in circulation seem to grow with age.  Tuttle’s current offering comes in at 319 pages, up from the comparatively svelte 255 pages of the 2008 edition.  The additional material includes new introductory prefaces and essays by McCarthy, Jesse Enkamp, Cezar Borkowshi, Evan Pantazi, Jose Swift and Andreas Quast.  Readers can rest assured that the 19^th century original’s lack of any type of descriptive front matter has been more than compensated for with a deluge of modern prefaces and glowing testimonials.

Some of the newer material included in the 2016 volume was interesting.  McCarthy’s essay “No Time like the Past” provided a series of reflections on his involvement with the Bubishi over the decades.  Anyone looking to test Krug’s thesis on the stages of the Western appropriation of Okinawan Karate could do worse than starting with this autobiographical essay.  Swift’s contribution was shorter but also valuable.

By far the single most important addition in the new volume is Andreas Quast’s concluding essay, “The Creation and the Creator.”  It alone will more than compensate readers for the price of the book.

Quast’s paper proceeds in two parts.  In the first section he carefully details what is known about the textual history of every manuscript (confirmed or hypothesized) relating to the Bubishi.  This sort of work requires a painstaking eye to for detail, but it is critical to actually establishing the dates of both the earliest existing manuscripts, as well as the probable origins of the Bubishi.  The absence of this sort of discussion was a real problem in earlier editions of the book.

As previously noted, Quast found that the oldest hand copied manuscripts still in existence date only to the 1930s.  This is of some concern as it is the same decade in which Karate began to be popularized on the Japanese mainland and the first translations of the Bubishi were published.  While Quast finds evidence of older manuscripts dating back to the 1880s, these items were physically destroyed in the Battle of Okinawa, or due to the various earthquakes and fires that periodically afflict the region.

While we can be confident that a “Bubishi-like tradition” existed in Okinawa during the late 19^th and early 20^th century, it is actually impossible to say exactly what it contained on the basis of the sources that currently exist.  This fact will become of greater importance as Quast reaches the conclusion of his essay.  It is also interesting that Quast’s textual criticism, while not resolving all of the outstanding questions, tends to cast doubt on those theories that see a very early date (such as the 18^th century) for the text’s transmission to Okinawa.

Quast sees a few basic possibilities when he turns his attention to the matter of origins.  To begin with, he notes that the Bubishi is much more likely a collection of texts rather than a single authored work.  Given that not all of the articles within this volume date to the same era, reference the same geographic regions, or even discuss the same subjects, this should be obvious to all readers.  But it is probably worth stating anyway.

A Viewing Stone. Source: Valavanis Bonsai Blog.

Quast also quickly dismisses the possibility that a single family or small group of private individuals might have assembled a collection such as this on Okinawa.  That seemed a bit premature to me as we know that martial clans and individuals in China did assemble textual collections not unlike the Bubishi.  Again, Wing Chun students can see (if not read) something similar at the Ip Man Tong in Foshan.

Instead Quast favors one of two possibilities.  The first is that a book of this degree of “sophistication” was acquired by an Okinawan official and maintained, in multiple official copies, by the government.  This would yield a relatively earlier date.  Alternatively, Quast notes that such a collection could have been assembled by the sorts of martial artists, rebels and revolutionaries that occasionally fled from China to Okinawa in the late 19^th or early 20^th century.  Once in Okinawa the various texts which are now referred to as the “Bubishi” may have been adopted as they seemed to capture the same flavor of national resistance and community mythmaking that many Okinawans were then invested in.

This would suggest both a later date of entry and a more tangential relationship with Karate’s early development.  However, to my ear it also seems to fit the time period of many of the more interesting articles included in the Bubishi.  Certain ideas such as the “Sick Man of Asia”, or the trauma of the Boxer Rebellion, that strongly mark later martial manuals are notably absent from this document.  As such I suspect that it probably predates 1900.

Yet for some of the later articles, it may not be by more than a decade or two.  Of course there could be a range of dates here.  Some of the Monk fist material (including the list of movements in the various training forms) seems a bit older.  A few 18^th century training manuals contain similar lists of names.  In contrast, the pairs of “winning/losing techniques” (complete with illustration) bear an uncanny resemblance to the printed version of very similar material that the British writer L.C.P. found and described in a local marketplace in Guangzhou during the 1870s.

Other material, such as the history of White Crane Boxing, appears to be from an even more recent period when creation myths of the “weak” and “feminine” overcoming the hard and foreign became culturally important and increasingly reified.  Douglas Wile, in his own treatment of the origins of the Taiji Classics, found that such themes were particularly popular in the 1880s as the self-strengthening movement encouraged martial artists to search their own stories and cultural histories for the key to resisting foreign imperialism.   Some of the texts within the Bubishi resonate with his findings.

Confirmation of these dates would require additional research.  That would probably take the form of detailed comparisons with previously unpublished versions of similar texts from Chinese collections.  Yet a cursory reading suggests that in addition to a variety of authors, subjects and styles, the articles within the Bubishi may also reflect that sorts trends and concerns seen within the Chinese martial arts literature during different points in the 19^th century.  That further suggests a Chinese textual tradition that was later imported to Okinawa.

Quast’s final point turns on what is missing from the Bubishi.  A number of similar texts in China include discussions of armed combat.  Hudiedao, sabers, poles, spears and shields were all commonly carried by militia members and became the focus of southern Chinese martial arts training.   Yet any discussion of armed training is conspicuous by its absence from existing Bubishi texts.  Nor is there any hint of militia organization or community defense.  These texts are all self-consciously oriented towards civilian personal-defense, health and leisure.  Such a vision of the proper social role of the martial arts is also suggestive of a very late 19^th or 20^th century date.

At this point Quast reminds readers that the oldest existing examples of this textual tradition date only to the period that Karate was coming under intense pressure to conform to Japanese social expectations about what a “proper, ancient and authentic” system of unarmed martial arts should be.  It was within this specific environment that the Bubishi first came forth.

We generally think of the Bubishi as a text representing the tradition from which Karate first emerged.  It is the origin, the creator.  It is what is “authentic and legitimate.”  Our modern forms of practice are “the creation.”  In a word, they are derivative.

These are the terms that many of the modern introductions and prefaces included in the 2016 Tuttle edition explicitly encourages readers to think within.  The Bubishi holds the key to “forgotten” combat applications.  It is a font of ethical martial wisdom as well as esoteric knowledge.  It can lead to a sense of renewal for students who practice has become stale.  Within its pages we can commune with the minds of the “founders.”

Reading these praises it is clear that the Bubishi has come to be much more than a book.  It is an artifact whose very physical existence legitimates one’s martial practice.  There is nothing particularly unique about this.  Kennedy and Guo noted that the Chinese martial manuscript tradition existed in large part to convey legitimacy rather than simply knowledge.   Yet as the essays and prefaces of this volume make clear, such functions have carried over into the age of digital reproduction with surprising efficacy.

Clearly a degree of caution may be called for.  Martial arts studies notes that all martial practices, to a large extent, are invented traditions.  Applying this general principle to the Bubishi, Quast suggests that there might be a more obvious explanation for the lack of weaponry, as well as the general tightness of fit between Karate’s early philosophy and what in seen in the Bubishi.

In his view it is entirely possible (even likely) that the original manuscript tradition contained additional material that was simply edited out of both hand copied and later printed versions of these texts because it did not meet Japanese expectations of what Karate should be.  This is an intriguing possibility.  Given the small number of actual manuscript lineages, and the dearth of truly older copies, it would be hard to falsify this hypothesis.

We must be careful not to rely too heavily on arguments from silence.  After all, while many Chinese manuscript traditions discuss weapons, not all do.  There are some solely dedicated to boxing.

Yet Quast raises critical questions.  Manuscripts do not simply propagate themselves.  They are copied (or not) by individuals for specific reasons at a given point in history.  Thus they are just as much the products of existing social discourses as they are “artifacts” from an unsullied past.

Perhaps we should accept that it may not be possible to use the Bubishi to decipher Karate’s deep origins.  Nor is it likely to reveal much about the state of the Chinese martial arts in the 1780s.  But ultimately those questions may not matter.  More pressing is what it demonstrates about Chinese boxing in the late 19^th century, or the struggles of Karate to become accepted on the Japanese mainland in the 1920s.  Or maybe this volume should inspire us to ask an even more introspective set of questions.

A shohin pine. Proof that good things sometimes come in small packages. Source: Valavanis Bonsai Blog.

Conclusion: Tradition as Innovation

Why does this text sit (often unread) on our own bookshelf?  What does its popularity indicate about the needs and desires that motivate modern western martial artists?  How does our mental image of Asian history shape our experience of physical practice?  How are historical and cultural artifacts assembled to create the markers of legitimacy?

Obviously “legitimacy” is the critical ingredient in any discussion of the social meaning of the Bubishi.  Yet what kind of legitimacy do modern practitioners actually want?

A close reading of the book’s abundant prefaces and introductory essays yields some interesting results.  By in large these authors are not really concerned with issues of “purity” or proving the “authenticity” of their transmission.  All of that seems to be taken for granted.

Rather they are looking for something else.  They turn to the Bubishi because they seek “permission.”  They are looking for permission to conduct their own research into the self-defense applications of the kata (as well as for an argument that such material should, at one point in time, have been common knowledge).  They desire a justification to delve into the esoteric aspect of the martial arts, whether understood in a medical or historical sense.  Multiple individuals seem to be looking for permission to begin to include a larger dose of grappling in their daily training.

The section of “winning and losing techniques” (Article 29) is particularly interesting in this regard.  As Harry Cook notes in his preface, 39% of the “winning techniques” involve boxing, 29% are throws or escapes, 17% include locks and submissions and only 4% are kicks.

In an era when MMA and BJJ are ascendant, the “wisdom of the masters” would seem to be on the side of modernizing one’s practice.  And, in strictly historical terms, this is a pretty accurate vision of the vast variety of techniques that can be found in the Southern Chinese martial arts.  Yet Karate is, by design, not the same as its Fujianese cousins.  That small fact seems to be lost in many of these discussions.

This suggests something critical about the nature of historical debates.  History and legitimacy are resources to be employed not just in the preservation of an art.  They are equally important resources in the quest for innovation and reform.  They are the means by which a social consensus is constructed behind new movements and schools.  Arguments about “tradition” in the martial arts have never really been about what was done in the past.  Rather, they are about what we should do in the future.

It is this conversation that we see repeatedly throughout both the modern and older sections of McCarthy’s publication.  Southern Chinese martial artists began to develop the folk histories of their own schools in the 19^th century at precisely the moment when everything began to change beyond the point of recognition.  Likewise, Karate’s reformers and popularizers rediscovered the value of these Chinese texts as their art was once again reformed to fit the rhythms of modern Japanese life.  In our own era a deeper study of the past has become a license to explore various pathways to revitalize arts facing competition from grapplers on the one side and qigong masters on the other.

Perhaps the Bubishi has a great secret to reveal to us after all.  The principle of continual change is the oldest and most important tradition to be found within the martial arts.  Both the contents and evolution of this textual tradition make that fact abundantly clear.

oOo

If you enjoyed this discussion you might also want to read: Butterfly Swords and Boxing: Exploring a Lost Southern Chinese Martial Arts Training Manual.

oOo

By George Jennings (Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK) and Anu Vaittinen (Newcastle University, UK)

Reference to conference presentation:

Jennings, G. & Vaittinen, A. (2016). Mediated transformation: Interconnections between embodied training and multimedia resources in Wing Chun. Paper presented at the 2^nd International Martial Arts Studies Conference, Cardiff University, UK, 19 July 2016.

We would like to thank Benjamin Judkins for his generous offer for us to write a summary of our conference paper for the excellent Kung Fu Tea blog, which is very timely, considering the relationships that our study has with such open-access, digital martial arts media for practitioners and scholars alike. Readers are very welcome to contact us directly if they have any questions, suggestions or other comments:

George Jennings        gbjennings@cardiffmet.ac.uk

Anu Vaittinen             anu.vaittinen@newcastle.ac.uk

Introduction

In their recent research on the history of Wing Chun Kung Fu, Ben Judkins and Jon Nielsen have  demonstrated that this martial art has been taught, learned, practised and understood in a myriad of ways, which have diversified since its humble beginnings in South East China. Today’s varied interpretations of Wing Chun are particularly evident in the Ip Man branch of the genealogical tree, where in a matter of two or three generations, there often appears to be very different fighting systems in terms of weight distribution, technique shapes, form sequences, omissions and additions of certain blocks and punching variations, and also foci in terms of the attention given to the empty hand forms, wooden dummy, weapons, theory, conditioning, fitness and, of course, how they are put together into self-defence and even sporting combat applications. Scholars in media and cultural studies have so far focused on the legendary exploits of Ip Man in the recent Hong Kong films (see, for example, here and here).  Yet to date, no research has detailed how forms of media like films/movies, documentaries, YouTube videos, images and blogs might shape (and be shaped by) the actual “hands-on”, solo and interactive physical training of the art of Wing Chun Kung Fu.

That is somewhat peculiar considering the global popularity of this Chinese martial art across cultures, generations, ethnicities and socioeconomic levels. This gap in the literature is precisely what we wish to address in this invited contribution to the Chinese Martial Arts Studies discussion. It is with this complex variety in mind that we begin to address the ways in which Wing Chun is currently learned from a sociological, phenomenological and pedagogical perspective. The small body of research on the training aspects of the art has touched upon topics such as body awareness (McFarlane, in his brief outline), how the unique methods employed in Wing Chun might hone fighting skills and whether they may even make the practitioner a better person (Scott Buckler’s taxonomy thesis).

Elsewhere, more sociologically-oriented ethnographic studies have discovered a core narrative and ethos of secular religion in a particular association, as well as ideas of the diversity of a cultivated martial habitus or scheme of dispositions. These publications provide a basis for the unification of an embodied, “carnal” sensitivity on Wing Chun with a contemporary sociological and educational vantage point. The fusion of all of these types of research may allow us to draw upon the recent studies on important topics including body lineage, digital technology and narrative from researchers in the field of martial arts studies.

Interestingly, this relative dearth of research on how participants’ corporeal practices intersect with digital, primarily visual media, as well as the active use of new media technologies, extends beyond Wing Chun and the martial arts, into studies of physical culture, media and visual culture more generally. Outside the context of formal physical education, what has received particularly limited attention is the perspective of the practitioners, and the role multi-mediated materials, new information economy and technologies play in their development of corporeal, and sensory know-how of combat sports. This lacuna is particularly intriguing, considering the ‘ocular-centrism’ of Western society, and way in which a range of sports (including martial arts) are transmitted to our living rooms, onto our PCs and smart phones at increasing intensity. Images play an increasing important role in our lives, experiences and concerns. Generally, sports media research has tended to focus on media texts, media institutions and audiences.  The research on new media technologies, on the other hand, has explored sports video games along with examinations of online platforms such as Wikipedia, as a vehicle for communication among sports fans.

For a more in depth-discussion of some of the existing field of research, see:

http://amodern.net/article/mixed-martial-arts/

In this project we seek to explore another avenue which, within the existing literature, remains relatively unexplored. The aim of our study is to offer fellow researchers, practitioners and instructors some insights into learning and teaching in Wing Chun using multimedia resources to support both teachers and students. We do this through two case studies of specific Wing Chun pedagogical approaches and social environments: 1) a series of private classes with individuals in different locations (private, public and commercial) in Mexico City, taught in English and Spanish; 2) an informal, small school run in the Northeast of England that is composed of more experienced practitioners. Our specific objective is to facilitate discussion on contemporary issues in Wing Chun under the working research question: In what ways can today’s practitioners use modern digital (and online) technology to support their learning before, during and after lessons and training sessions? Although restricted to one style of Kung Fu, this study might interest other martial arts scholars examining the links between media and embodied practice in a variety of styles and systems. It offers insight into how digital multimedia – accessed anywhere and anytime – can add to the multisensorial learning of the martial arts. This post is exploratory in nature, and raises far more questions than could be hoped to answer.

A publicity photo for a Wing Chun themed app titled “Kung Fu Grand Master.”

Methodological medley

Our collaboration is an unusual one, as we had never met until uniting at the second Martial Arts Studies Conference at Cardiff University in 2016. Both of us are associate researchers at the Health Advancement Research Team (HART) at the University of Lincoln, interested in entirely different topics: Thermoception and thermoregulation (see here). We are from England and Finland respectively, and were at the same time researching the Chinese art of Wing Chun in Mexico and England. This is another example of the increasingly international nature of martial arts studies: a new multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary field with international researchers who travel to other countries to study and discover fighting systems developed from a range of cultures and civilisations, and who engage with a plethora of languages and native technical terms, and later teach and research in various global contexts.

This study – still very early in its development – is an opportunistic offshoot from our phenomenological work with Jacquelyn Allen Collinson and Helen Owton.  It is more methodological than theoretical in nature. We began our first article together with an important reflexive note on our own positioning, which combined to provide a more rounded approach to studying Wing Chun than would have been possible alone. Reflexivity is now common practice to outline new qualitative studies of martial arts due to the fact that the researchers are often practitioners themselves. Confessional, reflexive and auto-ethnographical work has been shared by authors such as: Channon, introducing his martial arts and fighting experience prior to studying mixed-sex martial arts; Delamont and Stephen’s early reflections on their joint fieldwork in a Capoeira school as a complete observer and immersed participant respectively, and Martinez’s autoethnography of her pursuit of Karate in a male-dominated dojo. Our own work follows this important representational turn, with George’s vignettes on the embodied nature of interviewing, and how physical training can lead to spontaneous and flexible interviews, along with other forms of data collection.

In her recent work, Anu has examined the importance of reflexivity in relation to gender, and the embodied labour of the researcher in participatory fieldwork (Forthcoming, 2016). This paper illustrates the advantages and challenges of insider research, but equally interrogates the gendered positionality which the research embodies concurrently with their insider status, and its impact on the research process and data.

Despite being the same age (32) and both having academic background in the sociology of sport and physical culture, our different training experiences have shaped the way we learn, practise and teach Wing Chun. George has tended to focus on non-sporting martial arts after brief periods in Taekwondo, Judo and Kendo. He has practised Wing Chun since 1999, first as a student, later as an assistant instructor, and most recently as a nomadic “ronin” instructor and independent researcher in Scotland and Mexico. He retains a research interest in Wing Chun pedagogy and training methodology, but has since switched his academic attention to the new martial arts of Mexico, such as Xilam whilst teaching Wing Chun privately and in a small group at the Universidad YMCA, where students, staff and the general publish were welcome.  George’s small group of Wing Chun novices were not well versed in chi sau (the sensitivity game also known as sticking hands), so he opted to look at the role of theory and specific Wing Chun fitness and conditioning exercises to provide them with a firm foundation for more technical aspects of the art. The students were aged 14-72 (two female, three male), and mainly learned through private tuition or in pairs. George tried to maintain a very tactile approach, and did not rely on videos or images during training. However, some students requested recordings of him performing the first form before the Christmas holidays.  This event sparked his interest in the relationships between seemingly timeless digital media and the phenomenological issues of training in more specific space.

Although she has been involved in a range of competitive and recreational sports since an early age, Anu was a relative latecomer to martial arts and combat sports. After arriving in the United Kingdom from Finland in 2005, she had the opportunity to try kickboxing in her early 20s, and subsequently got involved in Mixed Martial Arts and Wing Chun. She trains with a small, informal group of practitioners led by her Sifu in the Northeast of England. This involvement shaped her research interests.  Her doctoral dissertation examined ways of embodied knowing in mixed martial arts through an ethnographic study which utilised a phenomenologically-guided, interdisciplinary analytical frame.

In her previous work on mixed martial arts, Anu found that practitioners actively utilised multimedia (in particular visual) materials to accompany physical training and as part of the learning process.  They also documented their own practice through new media technologies including smart phones. This sparked questions as to whether practitioners of more traditional martial arts (such as Wing Chun) utilized technology in similar ways.

Anu suffered a severe knee injury in 2014 during the course of her MMA training when she tore her anterior cruciate ligament.  Following her recovery from surgery her involvement in Wing Chun training intensified, although she is still a relative novice. The small, but committed group of practitioners she trains with focus on the Wing Chun forms, accompanying technical and conditioning drills as well as Chi Sau. However, their training is not completely restricted to traditional Wing Chun.  Her Sifu’s very eclectic background in a range of combat sports and martial arts ensures that the group’s training also incorporates elements from Western boxing, Bruce Lee’s Jun Fan, kickboxing and grappling. There are usually three to five participants (aged 33-65; one female, the rest male) attending training sessions.  Some only attend once a week whereas the three core members of the group, including Anu, gather to train more frequently.  She also participates in private tuition in addition to the group classes.

In summary, we are working together to examine novel approaches to Wing Chun pedagogy. Our different personal, professional and martial arts biographies, dispositions and intuition have led us to delve into material on different topics. This is of course due to our position in our respective groups, and their stages of development (beginning and established). The novelty in this article is in the use of digital technology between instructors, students and other Wing Chun devotees, who all form the global Wing Chun community. We both used the same methods and forms of analysis, and shared our data via email, and later via Facebook and the Messenger mobile phone application to verify our analysis and core argument. Our open-ended research design moved from what began as a phenomenological consideration of time, space, the senses and the body through autophenomenology (Allen Collinson) to a methodological bricolage including field notes and observations, one-on-one focused interviews, email interviews and dialogue, online media analysis and autobiographical reflections which came together at different stages of the six-month study.

We followed Newcastle University’s official guidelines for conducting qualitative research through informed consent. All names have been changed to protect the practitioners’ identities, although the original media that we and the practitioners have used remain overt for the readers’ visual reference and for better clarity in the description of movements and concepts that can easily be mistaken with the written word. Furthermore, we remain in contact with our participants as future collaborators, who are informed of the study from the beginning to the dissemination process.

Discussion: Using multimedia before, during and after classes and training sessions

The discussion of the qualitative data that we have gathered has been divided into three parts by adopting a temporal or ideal typical approach to understanding both official Wing Chun classes and seminars alongside informal training between Kung Fu brethren and solitary home training. The first section deals with the use of media before training sessions, and even before some of the participants became involved in the formal study of Wing Chun. The second part briefly explores how Wing Chun media might be used as a training and teaching aid at the same time that the practitioner is working on specific skills and exercises. The last part provides an insight into how online information can solidify into embodied knowledge directly (or shortly) after the training session or class in question as a means of analysis and circumspection.

A diagram from the Black Flag Wing Chun system discovered online that George found helpful.

Before training

The Ip Man films noted in the literature review are well known in both English and Mexican society. George was pleasantly surprised when a university student, Raul, knocked on the door of the studio he used as a kwoon:

Thanks to the Ip Man trilogy and related films, many people recognize the characteristic movements in Wing Chun. I was finishing the second and third section of Siu Lim Tao when a young student appeared in the doorway.

“Is that Wing Chun?” He asked in a confident manner, as if he knew the answer already.

“Yes, that’s right – it’s Wing Chun.” I replied.

“I thought so. I recognize that movement from Ip Man!” He remarked, as he demonstrated the quintessential chain punch.

Mario, my devoted student in his 70s, turned round and smiled with great joy at the mention of Ip Man. He was normally austere and distant with visitors, but not on this occasion.

This recognition of the triple punch combination led Raul to join the class, and combine it with his Japanese martial arts training. George found it imperative to install a solid understanding of Wing Chun theory in a “scientific” way, especially for the sport science students at the university, who were studying topics such as biomechanics and anatomy. Having explored numerous websites and old books, he found Google Images to be an invaluable resource to help him explain the founding principles of Wing Chun, as seen in one diagram:

I was instantly attracted to a coloured diagram depicting five different lines within three zones (heaven, man and earth). It drew me to an article by the leader of the mysterious Black Flag Wing Chun lineage. Some people claim this is the original style, while others refute this branch as a recent invention and marketing gimmick. Regardless of these often politically motivated debates, the diagram could serve Wing Chun practitioners from all schools and styles. It would help them understand the correct position of techniques and the six gates according to the three Dantiens. Pak Sau, for example, is not a centerline technique; instead, it works within the inner shoulderline, just outside the head.

Personally, George has used videos of hard training sessions with accompanying music to motivate him to train alone, and has sought out rare Wing Chun conditioning drills for the hands, forearms and problematic areas in order to offset potential postural difficulties. Regardless of style, association or “body lineage”, there were useful multimedia resources from veteran Sifus, relatively unknown instructors and even intermediate students sharing fitness tips.

Different multi-mediated materials also provided an initial entry point to members of the English training group, helping to spark their interest in Wing Chun.  This led to exploration of further resources and the search for a place to practice. Senior students like Jack (who is in is mid-forties) initially sought out information through a range of sources which inspired him before he took up training in Wing Chun:

 

“So before I started training in Wing Chun, I had an awareness I suppose from popular films and television. So it would have been Bruce Lee films and generally representation of Kung Fu on television, Jackie Chan, but also magazines like Martial Arts Illustrated and so on, which I would read — Because before I had only seen what he had done in his films, so pretty superficial until I learnt a bit more by reading magazine articles, so people who know knew more about him and about his past and I thought well if you went down that path then maybe it’s worth at least having a look at ” (Jack, May 2016).

Older students also described seeking out a range of material in their interviews. Yet such information was not as widely available or as easily accessible prior to the Internet. Our Sifu recalled the challenges of seeking out resources on Wing Chun (and Kung Fu more generally) in the ‘old days’ and when written sources such books and magazines were harder to get a hold of. For the younger members of the group, including myself and fellow student Alex (35), the online sources provided the primary material utilized in our search for information about the art.  Yet in neither case was this the sole source of information.  Rather, our interest in Wing Chun was preceded by participation in other arts [for Alex, Tae Kwon Do and Aikido; for myself, kickboxing, Thai boxing and MMA].

In terms of the use of these materials, prior to actual physical training sessions, practitioners tended to seek out online materials – primarily YouTube videos – on different technical drills and chi sau.  They were employed as aide-memoires which helped them to review elements of Wing Chun that they would be practicing during the upcoming session. New media technologies such as smartphones facilitated access to these materials.  Alex (35), for example, often watched videos on his mobile phone prior to sessions and when he had free time during his job as a taxi driver:

“I generally watch videos on You Tube on a daily basics usually while waiting for jobs, or when waiting to start a class, etc.” (Alex, March 2016).

Anu also utilised these online visual materials in a similar fashion.  She sought out drills and techniques which she had found challenging during the previous session. The videos offered useful visual reference points that intersected with the corporeal reference points acquired through experience during the group and one-to-one sessions.

During movement

Pre-designed diagrams and figures are an obvious resource when teaching Wing Chun theory, and some podcasts, videos and images can also be used to teach students. Meanwhile, videos and photographs can be an effective way to help students realize their mistakes, as George found when he learned the art in England, in the days before smart phones.

The deployment of such technology can be helpful in avoiding confusion, often overwhelming to beginners, over the various ways to execute techniques and forms. During an interview, one of George’s students, Saul, actually suggested using his cell phone to record the technique:

“I was going to suggest that in the last five minutes of class that perhaps I could record with my cell phone some of the things that I could do at home. They’re not always easy to remember. I’m at home, and I go like, “Was it like this that I was supposed to practise? Do I go like this, or like this?” So, if I could record some of the techniques to bring home, I could record them on my cell phone and it would be easier to remember.”

Although smart phones were employed by Anu, Alex and Jack to study videos prior to sessions, none of them had utilised this technology to record their own training during practice. However, an observational field-note and the subsequent reflection illustrate how connections to multi-mediated materials were regularly made with the bodily and sensuous training sessions:

The online videos available on YouTube are sometimes referred to during practice in relation to different aspects and discussions of efficiency and form, and during last evenings’ training session our Sifu mentioned particular videos that illustrated the form, and the drills that are utilised to practice the different elements of attack and defence particularly well. Within our small group, these references made during practice provide guidance in searching information and videos online, within the wealth of information that is now available and accessible, simply with a click of a button. (Field notes, May 2016)

Senior student Jack reflected on the idea of recording videos of his own practice and the possibility of it being useful for learning, along with limitations for the use of such materials for himself and also from the instructors’ perspective:

“But it would feel quite strange to see it from the outside, when you have experienced it internally from your own perspective, but to see it externally would be quite interesting and say for instance from the instructors’ perspective.  Obviously without the experience you don’t have the tactility that is central there, so you wouldn’t have all the information that you could actually access practicing it for real.  But it’s, VR and things like video playback, that could be…”

A screengrab from the arm conditioning video found on YouTube discussed below.

After practice

Video material is by far the most used form of media by most practitioners we have encountered, especially the younger participants. Whereas some older practitioners complained about the decline in the quality and quantity of martial arts print media, youngsters took to the use of video quite naturally. Mariana (14) videoed George demonstrating the first form, but eventually ran out of memory on her phone due to other videos she had recorded in the week.  George recalled:

 I felt strange being filmed – I imaged other Wing Chun practitioners scrutinizing my positions and even a piece of rare archive footage from my students to come in future decades. Setting aside these thoughts, I tried to perform the form without thinking, until I realised that I was slanting slightly in order to face Valentina’s camera phone.

“We could also film the form from the side”, I suggested, moving my body to the profile view in order to emphasize this. “It would be good in order to see the elbow line.” I said, demonstrating the movement from the profile view. This was another thought that popped into my head during the form: That the vast majority of Siu Lim Tao videos show the form from the front, but never from the side, which can lead to confusions concerning the fixed elbow position, the elbow line and posture in general.

It was exciting to realize that some newcomers to Wing Chun were actively creating new forms of media that could go online, or could be reserved for personal reflection and “old-fashioned” note taking. Regarding the so-called “old school” approach, George came across a challenging exercise for the neck, shoulders and arms that utilised Wing Chun hand positions:

Searching various YouTube videos, I came across an arm exercise demonstration by a seasoned Sifu in my own lineage who claimed it was an “old school exercise” from “thirty years ago.” He told the viewers to hold each position for thirty seconds, and individual movements one hundred times, “or as many times as you can. Basically, do this exercise until you can’t do it anymore.”

This Sifu was a practitioner somewhere between his mid-fifties and mid-sixties, but seemed to be in excellent physical condition. I felt honoured to be able to receive this one-man drill from a veteran practitioner and was surprised that I had never performed it in seven years within the exact same body lineage to which he belongs.

George first trained this exercise at home, and later prescribed it to students after several weeks of supervised repetition, before adding his own “twist” to the exercise through the use of two further – and rather awkward – hand positions (fak sau and ding sau).

Likewise in the second group of practitioners, both participants and the instructor would also review online materials following training sessions, primarily during leisure time and address questions raised during the subsequent gatherings:

“It’s probably normally during leisure time, rather than immediately afterwards, because I probably use the opportunity at that time to ask the questions or I’ll try and recall one for the next session and ask my questions then. Also, I’ll discuss the things I’ve seen so if there’s been a variance or differences between what I perceive on the video or lack of understanding of what’s actually going on, then I will ask my instructor.” (Jack)

Due to the explosion in the volume of videos and other online materials, filtering the information was important:

 

“I mean, I suppose one of the key things is to filter the information that is out there, that is very much about narrowing it down a bit. But not exclusively, but narrowing down perhaps an initial search to for example, to the lineage holders, so Ip Chun and Ip Ching, so you know you’re kind of getting the same sort of forms that I currently practice anyway. But also having maybe a look at some people who have different takes on it, you know to get at something that is not too narrow to get some wider exposure.”

The way in which the students and the Sifu used these materials was pragmatic and directly related to their own practices and experiences. In addition to online materials Anu often enjoyed studying books, particularly the scientific approach to the structure of Wing Chun by Sifu Shaun Radcliffe which also includes diagrammatic representations of the art, similar to those that George had explored online.

Multimedia resources can be accessed from mobile phones, tablets, computers and can even be saved through cloud technology in ways that do not occupy physical space.  Nevertheless, from the perspective of embodied training this complex consumption of media can best be broken down into three times: before, during and after physical practice. There remains a lot of work to be done in terms of how other forms of digital and online multimedia are being used, and can be used, in a pragmatic and safe manner.  We touch on these issues in our tentative conclusion.

A single moment from Ip Man’s teaching career immortalized on YouTube.

Concluding comments: A call for further research and reflection

This small-scale study remains in its infancy.  Yet we hope that it makes a small contribution to the pedagogical and social scientific work on Wing Chun, traditionalist Chinese martial arts and martial arts and combat sports in general. Other researchers and exponents of the art may wish to explore how the constantly expanding and flexible body of digital media offered on YouTube, Vimeo, private and open Facebook groups, specialist (and often commercial) websites, and blogs such as this one, can combine to influence learners and teachers of Wing Chun. Likewise, researchers could (and perhaps should) examine how practitioners themselves are shaping the knowledge of the art – and how this knowledge is transmitted – to new generations of Wing Chun learners and potential students in years to come.

Due to the almost infinite and “immortal” nature of digital information, it will be interesting to chart the development of this knowledge.  What can be inspiring for some is frustrating and confusing for others unable to discern skill levels, quality of technique and nuances of lineage. Issues of credibility, authenticity and authority may intrigue scholars as training exercises, history, technical explanations and “secret” applications move from tightly-knit groups and federations to Wing Chun practitioners anywhere in the world at any time, at the click of the button. This is just as Spencer mentions in the aptly titled “From Many Masters to Many Students,” which ties together ideas of transnational identities, real and imagined movements in the martial arts, such as in the case of Capoeira in Canada.

We join calls from martial arts scholars such as Paul Bowman to disrupt seemingly established disciplinary boundaries in order to join forces to explore this challenging and stimulating topic from a range of disciplinary perspectives, and with their correlating methodologies and theoretical frameworks. Our own approach was limited to a more sociological standpoint that overrode our previous inclination towards phenomenology.  It may yet provide room for other investigations looking at the historical development of martial arts instructional media, the ethical issues accompanying them, the cultural sensitivities when dealing with the politics and traditions of knowledge and its possession, and issues of regulation and legal control of potentially damaging material that could lead to bad or unhealthy practice. Phenomenology may afford purchase on investigations which explore the role of the senses within pedagogic and enskillment practices involved in embodied transmission of Wing Chun knowledge. An example of such avenue in another combat sports context is a chapter examining the role of the sense in pedagogies of MMA coaches by Anu, in a forthcoming book on the senses in physical culture.

Pedagogy in its broadest sense, like our backgrounds in sport and exercise sciences, is interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary. Martial arts studies can work closely with these similarly disrupted disciplines to explore complex themes such as the one we have selected here. And so we finish this short article with a question that remains to be fully explored: How can we understand the connections between multimedia and embodied knowledge in Wing Chun and other TCMA from a multisensorial, timeless and global approach?

About the Authors

George Jennings is a lecturer in sport sociology/physical culture at the Cardiff School of Sport, Cardiff Metropolitan University. His current work examines the relationships between martial arts, health and society. Previously, George has conducted ethnographic and case studies of Wing Chun and Taijiquan, as well as an examination of the newly crated martial arts in Mexico, such as Xilam.

Anu Vaittinen is a qualitative sociologist and a health researcher based at the Institute of Health & Society at Newcastle University, interested in sociological phenomenology and development of socially situated, sensuous embodied ways of knowing within physical cultures and health. Anu is a recreational MMA and Wing Chun practitioner and novice triathlete.

A late Qing military official and his personal guards. Norther China. Source: Vintage Russian Postcard, Personal Collection.

Wushu Comes to America

Today’s post has two goals.  The more important of these is an announcement.  But first I hope to draw you into a discussion on my next book project.

With the daily news of territorial tensions in the South China Sea, or squabbles over trade policy, it is easy to lose sight of how much Chinese-American relations have improved over the last three decades.  In 1970 our countries were physically, economically and socially isolated in ways that readers born after the end of the Cold War will have a difficult time imagining.

These preceding decades of isolation are what made the slowly building wave of bilateral cultural exchanges between 1971 and 1974 so exciting.  Often referred to by historians as the era of “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” (so named because of the initial exchange of Ping-Pong teams in 1971 and 1972), these instances of cultural exchange helped to lay the groundwork for the future thaw in the US-Chinese relationship.  They did so by building institutions that could support future cooperation, as well as creating a level of domestic political demand for a new policy direction.

After decades of isolation the Chinese state was particularly interested in promoting a new public image in the West.  They wanted to demonstrate the accomplishments of their “New Society.”  To do this they would prove to American audiences that China was a thoroughly modern society with vastly improved standards of living, healthcare and education.

The New (post-1949) China would also be shown to be a remarkably stable society, free of crime and disorder.  As a country they were capable of drawing the best from their culture’s past, yet had no time for counter-revolutionary “traditions.”  And despite rumors to the contrary, theirs was not a militaristic society.  They meant their neighbors no harm and looked forward to a period of increasing cooperation on both economic and political issues.  These were the core messages that Chinese diplomats wished the Western public to absorb.

And so the Chinese government (building on the prior success of the Ping Pong teams) staged a series of martial arts demonstrations.  On a fine day towards the end of June in 1974 such luminaries as Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon gathered on the White House Lawn for a display of fighting prowess, embodied most memorably in the form of a diminutive, 11 year old, Jet Li.

Yet these events were not for the exclusive entertainment of the elite.  The American public was invited to a series of much larger, and more dynamic, wushu performances staged in theaters on the East and West coasts.  The lucky cities hosting performances included Honolulu, San Francisco, Washington DC (where the main exhibition was actually held at the John F. Kennedy Center), and a Fourth of July bash staged in New York City.  A number of less formal demonstrations were also held during the troupe’s month long tour of the US.  All of these performances included ballet-like displays of individual Wushu forms, energetic demonstrations of self-defense skills, and dazzling exhibitions of China’s many exotic weapons.

Each of these performances was also intended to educate the American public about the “New China.”  The Chinese government was acutely aware of the Kung Fu fever that Bruce Lee had unleashed only 10 months earlier with the release of “Enter the Dragon.”  In their various interviews they went to great lengths to differentiate modern, socialist, Wushu (which was “good”) from feudal, superstitious and violent Kung Fu practices that were “bad,” no matter how popular they might be.

In a remarkable example of official double-speak, recorded by an intrepid reporter from Black Belt Magazine, an official from the Wushu team insisted that their practice was a vital element of China’s cultural heritage that was at least 3,000 years old.  Hence it was important to share this art with the world.

Yet he also reassured the reporter that all signs of China’s traditional feudal culture had been thoroughly expunged from modern Wushu by a benevolent and wise government.  When asked directly what could possibly be left of a “cultural tradition” once the past has been systematically removed, the answer came in a jumble of Maoist slogans.  Rarely has the invented nature of the Chinese martial arts ever been discussed in more direct or triumphant terms.

Still, the question must be asked.  Why Wushu?  How exactly does a display of lightning fast sword work demonstrate a country’s “modern nature” and “peaceful intentions” upon the global stage?

The Chinese delegation was well aware that the nature of their martial presentation might be misconstrued, especially in America’s much more rough-and-tumble hand combat landscape.  Their officials argued at length why sparring, or any type of fighting within the martial arts, was counterproductive and unnecessary.  It should be noted that the powers that govern Wushu would later change their minds on this point, but in 1974 their insistence on the non-combative nature of the true Chinese martial arts was emphatic.  There are even suggestions (made within the pages of Black Belt) that the Chinese delegation succeeded in limiting the photography of events and restricted press access in an attempt to control the sorts of images that the tour might generate in the American media, lest the public get the “wrong idea” about the Chinese martial arts.

These efforts may have paid off in unexpected, and not entirely satisfactory, ways.  While the tour did an admirable job of furthering the divide between “traditional” kung fu and “modern” wushu within the Western martial arts world, it seems to have created little interest among the American people as a whole.  Indeed, compared to the earlier chapters of “Ping Pong diplomacy” it received only light coverage in the press.

Local papers reported that the event venues of all of the shows were packed, but often it was the urban Chinese-American community (rather than newly suburbanized population) that was coming to see the exclusively East and West coast shows.  A few papers carried images of Kissinger or Nixon meeting members of the delegation in Washington (usually the children).  But the sort of visually dramatic images of flashing spears and slashing swords that we have subsequently come to associate with Wushu were notably absent.  The editorial pages of Black Belt felt that the entire affair ended up being a wasted opportunity.  Indeed, the magazine did not even bother to report on the Beijing Wushu Team’s later performance in New York City or its historic meeting with a sitting president in Washington DC.

Heavy handed messaging may not have been the only challenge that the tour faced.  Simply put, the forces of history seem to have been arrayed against this event.   In the spring and early summer of 1974 Americans were spending a lot of time discussing the Nixon White House, but it was not the President’s diplomatic schedule that was making headlines.

Instead the public was following the rapidly escalating Watergate scandal.  On May 9^th the Senate had opened historic, highly publicized, hearings.  On July 27^th it brought three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon.  While the June-July1974 Wushu tour is occasionally mentioned by those interested in the history of the Chinese martial arts, and Jet Li (now a celebrity on both sides of the Pacific) has discussed his experiences in subsequent interviews, perhaps we can forgive a distracted public for letting this event slip down the memory hole.   What should have been a historic moment is now merely a footnote.

The political messaging surrounding the tour was in direct opposition to the growing popular discourse on the Chinese martial arts which arose in the wake of Bruce Lee.  And while some reporters (including those who wrote for the New York Times) were notably relieved to discover a more refined, less violent, vision of the TCMA, questions remained as to how Wushu related to China’s ancient (and by all accounts disavowed) traditions.  In any case, this instance of public diplomacy seems fated to have been swallowed by the shadows of the final weeks of the Nixon presidency.

Still, the 1974 visit of the Beijing Wushu Team raises important questions.  Under what circumstances can “soft power,” and other forms of cultural influence, make a positive contribution to a country’s image?  Can government institutions play an effective role in promoting their popular culture abroad, or is this the sort of thing that is better left to “civil society” with its better knowledge about local market conditions?  Lastly, why has so much of the history of the Chinese martial arts in America been forgotten, both by the general public but also within the martial arts community?  What role do strategic decisions about memory and forgetting play in the construction of the Western image of the Asian fighting arts?

Jet Li greets President Richard Nixon on the front lawn of the White House. Source: Nixon Presidential Library.

The Announcement

I am happy to announce that on September 1^st I accepted an appointment as a Visiting Scholar in the East Asia Program at Cornell University.  This is a dynamic community that I look forward to getting to know over the coming semesters.  With their support I am beginning a new book project provisionally titled, “Kung Fu Diplomacy: Soft Power, Martial Arts and the Development of China’s Global Brand.”

In this work I aim to delve more deeply into some of the issues introduced above.  China’s traditional culture has become an important “soft power” resource in recent decades as that state seeks to expand its economic and political influence throughout the international system, while at the same time reassuring global citizens that its intentions are purely peaceful.   To this end the Chinese government has developed a sophisticated infrastructure of offices and organizations dedicated to promoting its cultural and public diplomacy efforts.  In addition to fine arts and language study, the spread of traditional hand combat systems has become an increasingly important element of efforts to maintain a carefully curated image on the global stage.

Yet what sort of image is the Chinese government hoping to project?  As this research project will show, at various points in the 20^th and 21^st century the TCMA have been called upon to support very different visions of the “New China.”   Nor has China’s various governments had a totally free hand in this realm.  Independent educators, reformers, fighters and entertainers have played critical roles in the promotion of the Chinese martial arts at home and abroad.

Sometimes these efforts have been a boon to the state’s efforts.  At other times their visions have clashed.  This work seeks to understand what role the martial arts have played in the construction of China’s “national brand”, as well as the possibilities and limits of both public diplomacy and soft power in the current global environment.

By its very nature this volume will be interdisciplinary.  Diplomatic studies draw heavily on the fields of political science and history, as well as the lived experience of practitioners in the field.  Students of international relations will find within this volume a detailed longitudinal case study that will advance the state of the rapidly expanding literature on public diplomacy and soft power.  It will also shed light on the evolution of China’s diplomatic strategies throughout the 20^th century.  While most existing studies of public diplomacy and soft power focus on the United State, this effort examines the challenges and opportunities facing non-Western powers.

Students of martial arts studies will also find much of interest within the pages of this proposed volume.  Many discussions of the popularization of the TCMA in the West seem to begin with Bruce Lee and end with the failure of Wushu to appear in an official capacity at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.  In contrast this volume will seek to paint a more complete picture of the engagement between these fighting systems and Western culture dating back to the first years of the 1900s.

Rather than examining only the moments when the Chinese martial arts gained traction with the Western public, this study will delve into a number of less remembered, or totally forgotten, episodes.  Only by rediscovering instances of failed engagement can we gain both a better understanding of the history of these fighting systems, as well as insight into the specific social work that they have accomplished at various moments in history.   This process will also underscore the radically historically contingent nature of the modern Chinese martial arts, and suggest some of the other ways that they could have (or may yet) develop.

Former American Secretary of State (and the man who engineered Nixon’s “Opening to China” as National Security Advisor) Henry Kissinger visits the Shaolin Temple.  It seems that Kung Fu Diplomacy lives on.

Conclusion

Regular readers of Kung Fu Tea will already be well aware of my interest in the political aspects of martial arts studies.  Indeed, the changing political situation in Southern China ended up being a critical variable in my social history of Wing Chun (co-authored with Jon Nielson).

As a scholar of international relations I find the frequent appearance of the Asian Martial Arts in the realm of diplomacy particularly fascinating.  I am greatly pleased that Cornell’s East Asia Program also saw some potential within this research project.  I have even been surprised to discover that a number of its members are fellow martial artists!

As I delve more deeply into this new project, readers can expect to see these and related topics reflected in my blogging.  The sorts of materials that I am reading on a daily basis will have an impact on what I write.  For me blogging has always been a byproduct of reading.

And there is so much to read!  In a single afternoon of going through English language newspapers published in Shanghai in the 1920s I found more news stories than I could research and write about in a month.  To the best of my knowledge none of this material had ever been explored in either the academic (or popular) English language literature on the TCMA.  Much of it will be useful in building a more detailed understanding of how Western engagement with the TCMA evolved over the course of the last century.

Once again, I would like to thank the East Asia Program, as well as Prof. T.J. Hinrichs (my faculty sponsor at Cornell) for providing me with access to such rich collections and a dynamic scholarly community.  While book proposals, like military strategies, rarely emerge unscathed from their first contact with “the enemy,” this new project should be of value to anyone wishing for a fuller account of the history of the Chinese martial arts, or the ways in which their spread has influenced China’s image (and soft power) on the global stage.

oOo

If you enjoyed this post you might also want to read:  What is a lineage? Rethinking our (Dangerous) Relationship with History

 
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Xing Xi practices at the Zen Kung Fu Center in Beijing. Source: Reuters.

Introduction

Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News.”  This is a semi-regular feature here at Kung Fu Tea in which we review media stories that mention or affect the traditional fighting arts.  In addition to discussing important events, this column also considers how the Asian hand combat systems are portrayed in the mainstream media.

While we try to summarize the major stories over the last month, there is always a chance that we have missed something.  If you are aware of an important news event relating to the TCMA, drop a link in the comments section below.  If you know of a developing story that should be covered in the future feel free to send me an email.

Its been a while since our last update so there is a lot to be covered in today’s post.  Let’s get to the news!

Master Li, a practitioner of “Body Shrinking” kung fu. Source: Reuters.

Stories From all Over
The traditional Chinese martial arts are dying!  At least in China.  Regular readers will have heard the claim before.  And over the last couple of weeks some articles in high profile outlets have once again taken up the call.  The first of these is a Reuters piece that was picked up by a number of sources.  I encountered it in the Japanese Times.  It is titled “Master of obscure ‘body-shrinking’ form of kung fu looks to bend the trend on martial art,” but overall the piece does not strike a hopeful tone.  It does, however, offer up some memorable quotes.

“As soon as I’m gone, this thing will be gone completely. There won’t be anyone else practicing it. This is a really, really great regret, it’s really a loss,” Li said.

“We’ve carried it on, we’ve promoted it abroad, but while the flowers have blossomed within the wall, the fragrance is only smelt outside,” he said, using an expression to mean it is only appreciated abroad.”…….

Xing Xi, a Shaolin kung fu master who spent 10 years studying before opening his own martial arts academy on the outskirts of Beijing, felt young people lack the commitment of previous generations.

“There are many, many young people who have potential with kung fu,” he said. “But what we need more are those who can settle in, so it goes from a hobby to being so deeply into it that kung fu becomes a part of our body and part of our life.”

As usual the prime offenders seem to be China’s young people.  It is also interesting to compare this story with the recent (August 22^nd) NY Times Article titled “Exit the Dragon: Kung Fu, Once Central to Hong Kong Life, is Waning.”  It dealt specifically with the situation in Southern China.  Finally, those who would like to see Master Li in action should be sure to check out his interview on Quartz.

Source: ABC Nightline.

ABC’s Nightline painted a more positive vision of the traditional Chinese combat methods in a recently aired segment.  The shows producers visited a village in Guizho where the martial arts continue to be quite popular with local residents and young people.  This segment is definitely worth watching.  It is well shot and the landscape is beautiful.  On a more critical level it is a fantastic example of the sorts of Orientalizing and self-Orientalizing discourses that seem to dominate our discussions of the Chinese martial arts.  But overall there is nice material here.  I was particularly interested in the account of the last tiger killed in the region during the 1940s.  Apparently he attacked a villager who was walking along the road with a pole.  Sadly both combatants died of their wounds, but the memory of the event lives on.

Expats in Shanghai are showing more interest in local Kung Fu classes. Source: globaltimes.com

A number of the preceding articles noted continued Western interest as a potential bright spot in the preservation of the Chinese martial arts.  That same theme was taken up in a recent article in the Global Times.

“Classes for traditional Chinese martial arts have mushroomed in Shanghai in recent years. What is eye-catching is the number of Westerners studying in these classes and some of them have traveled from far across the globe to learn the genuine Chinese forms of kung fu and tai chi. The Global Times talked to six expats in Shanghai about their enthusiasm and drive to study here.”

The piece profiles six different students who have taken up the practice of various arts.  As such it brings a greater depth of perspective to these questions than you generally find in a piece like this.

Shannon Lee, the daughter of Bruce Lee. Source: LA Weekly.

For those interested in events closer to home, the LA Weekly recently published a long-form article titled “How Bruce Lee’s Daughter is sharing his philosophies with the Digital Generation.”  This one will take a little bit longer to work through, but it will be worth it for Bruce Lee fans, or scholars interested in multimedia discussions of the Chinese martial arts.  I learned a couple of new things as I read this piece.  One of them was that Shannon now has a podcast dedicated to her father’s philosophical side.

“BLE’s latest venture is the Bruce Lee podcast, which in each episode uses Bruce’s sayings as a jumping-off point for conversation between Shannon and Sharon. Shannon’s favorite: “The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the beginning.” For 50 minutes, they dig deep, espousing anti-guru, self-help techniques for a better mind. Just five weeks into production, and with little promotion, the show’s already been downloaded more than 224,000 times.

“In today’s Kardashian and Trump moment, to go, ‘I think the global millennials will appreciate a long-form conversation about philosophy’ was counterintuitive,” Sharon says.”

Indeed, with a new crop of Bruce Lee related projects on the horizon I think we can expect to see another uptick of interest in his ideas among young people.

Lion Dancers in Seattle, 2007. Source: Wikimedia. Photo by Joe Mabel.

Next, we have two items that fall under the general heading of “Kung Fu Diplomacy.”  The first is another reminder of the role that the martial arts play in China’s cultural diplomacy strategy in Africa.  Five Wushu Athletes, after winning a competition, are headed to China for a month and a half.  There they will be concentrating on Lion Dancing.

Secondly, the Boreno Post ran a short piece on the sociological and political value of the martial arts in Malaysia.  While ostensibly about a recent three day event that had brought martial artists from a number of countries to the region, the article itself focused on the role of the martial arts in creating cross-cutting bonds of identity that helped to knit together what is an otherwise very diverse country.  The piece could be read as a statement on the role of the traditional fighting arts in civil society and social capital creation.

A “Kung Fu” nun demonstrates a pole form at a Tibetan Temple in Nepal.

Nepal’s famous “Kung Fu Nuns” are once again on the move, distributing aid and promoting gender equality in the Himalayan region.  This time they rode mountain bikes 2,485 miles from Katmandu (the capital of Nepal) to Leh (in India) in an effort to draw public attention to the problem of human trafficking in this remote region.  Apparently this situation has worsened following the devastating earthquake that affected much of Nepal and created large numbers of orphans.

The Chinese Martial Arts on the Big and Small Screen

The last few weeks have seen some good news for fans of the Kung Fu film genre.  Perhaps the biggest story has been the release of the first trailer for “Birth of the Dragon,” director George Nolfi’s upcoming Bruce Lee biopic.  A quick viewing of the trailer suggests one or two minor historical liberties may have been taken with Lee’s life.  As expected the film will focus on the famous, but not well understood, fight in Oakland between Wong Jack Man and Bruce Lee.  Only in this version of events Wong Jack Man appears to be a full on monk sent directly from the Shaolin temple to check up on what Bruce was teaching in his classes.  Luckily, if the clips are to be believed, he was mostly teaching a lot of Chi Sao.  As an Wing Chun guy, those scenes warmed my heart.

Issues of historical accuracy aside, the trailer looked pretty good.  It will be interesting to see how Hollywood approaches something more like a traditional Kung Fu film.  And they do seem to have created a very “cool” vision of Lee.  I do not believe that this film has a US launch date yet, but I may have to put it on my list.  Readers who want to dig a little deeper should see the interview with George Nolfi on deadline.com.

Bruce Lee Fighting Wong Jack Man (as a Shaolin Monk) in “The Birth of the Dragon.”

There has also been some Bruce Lee related news on the small screen.  Justin Lin has been working to bring a series called “Warrior” to life.  Following the story of a Chinese martial artist in the old West, the show was inspired by hand written notes found in the Lee archive.  It was stated that these were likely part of the material that helped to inspire the original (and highly influential) Kung Fu tv series.  We have just learned that Cinemax has ordered a pilot for the series.

Wing Chun Journey to the Heart, by Lee Moy Shan. Source: Youtube.

Our final news item will be of interest to Wing Chun students.  Lee Moy Shan (Douglas Lee), has recently released a set of 22 short lectures (ranging in length from 5 minutes to half an hour) developing his “Wing Chun Journey to the Heart” project. Based on the fighting and tactical idioms of the art, this is an ethical theory of Wing Chun meant to illustrate how the principles of the art can be applied in a variety of life situations.  Its totally free to watch on Youtube and the discussion itself is in no way limited to a single lineage.  Pull up a chair and get ready to stay a while.

A choreographed lightsaber duel in California. Source: The Coast News.

Lightsaber Combat
I was looking at my list of recent posts and realized that it has been a while since I wrote anything about my lightsaber combat research.  I have one or two ideas on the back burner, but in the mean time, here are a few news items.  First off, I was recently interviewed by a reporter from Inverse who wanted to know whether lightsaber combat could be a martial art.  Check out my response here.

Next up is an article from The Coast News titled “The Force is Strong With Lightsaber Groups Around the Country.”  Despite the title it focuses on only a couple of more local groups.  Still its nice as it illustrates some of the diversity of interests and activities that can be found in the broader Lightsaber combat community.

A photo of a recent Ludosport seminar run in San Francisco.

Finally, Ludosport, a major Lightsaber combat franchise that has proved popular across Europe, is getting ready to open their first US school in San Francisco.  Classes will start on October 15.  Check out their Facebook page to learn more.

Martial Arts Studies

As usual, there is a lot going on in the world of Martial Arts Studies.  First off, the 5th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Sport Science’s Martial Arts Commission will meet October 6th to 8th 2016 at the German Sport University in Cologne.  The title of this years conference is “Martial Arts and Society – On the Societal Relevance of Martial Arts, Combat Sports and Self-Defense. ” This gathering will feature an English language day and two English language Keynotes.  One will be delivered by Paul Bowman, and the other by myself.  I am not sure what Paul will be speaking on, but my paper is titled “Creating Wing Chun: Towards a Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts.”  In it I discuss some of the challenges that arise from engaging in martial arts studies from the perspective of social history, as well as the approach that Jon Nielson and I employed in our recent study of the development of the fighting systems of the Pearl River Delta region.

There is exciting news from the Martial Arts Studies book series, edited by Paul Bowman and published by Rowman & Littlefield.  The first work in the series, by Chris Goto-Jones, is now shipping.  It is The Virtual Ninja Manifesto: Fighting Games, Martial Arts and Gamic Orientalism (2016).  Here is the publisher’s statement on the project:

Navigating between society’s moral panics about the influence of violent videogames and philosophical texts about self-cultivation in the martial arts, The Virtual Ninja Manifesto asks whether the figure of the ‘virtual ninja’ can emerge as an aspirational figure in the twenty-first century.

Engaging with the literature around embodied cognition, Zen philosophy and techno-Orientalism it argues that virtual martial arts can be reconstructed as vehicles for moral cultivation and self-transformation. It argues that the kind of training required to master videogames approximates the kind of training described in Zen literature on the martial arts. Arguing that shift from the actual dōjō to a digital dōjō represents only a change in the technological means of practice, it offers a new manifesto for gamers to signify their gaming practice. Moving beyond perennial debates about the role of violence in videogames and the manipulation of moral choices in gamic environments it explores the possibility that games promote and assess spiritual development.

Also, Paul Bowman’s Mythologies of Martial Arts (2016) is now available for pre-order and should be shipping at the start of December.

What do martial arts signify today? What do they mean for East-West cross cultural exchanges? How does the representation of martial arts in popular culture impact on the wide world? What is authentic practice? What does it all mean?

From Kung Fu to Jiujitsu and from Bruce Lee to The Karate Kid, Mythologies of Martial Arts explores the key myths and ideologies in martial arts in contemporary popular culture. The book combines the author’s practical, professional and academic experience of martial arts to offer new insights into this complex, contradictory world. Inspired by the work of Roland Barthes in Mythologies, the book focuses on the signs, signifiers and practices of martial arts globally. Bringing together cultural studies, film studies, media studies, postcolonial studies with the emerging field of martial arts studies the book explores the broader significance of martial arts in global culture. Using an accessible yet theoretically sophisticated style the book is ideal for students, scholars and anyone interested in any type of martial art.

I have already read chapters from both books (by way of full disclosure, I am on the editorial board of this book series) and am certain they will make a smash.  The Virtual Ninja Manifesto is unlike anything I have read before.  Anyone interested in either video-games or multimedia engagement with the martial arts will want to pick it up.  Paul’s book, probably his most accessible for non-theorists, offers short essays that speak to a number of important issues in the practice and discussion of the martial arts.

My friend Scott Phillips has just released the paperback edition of his recent study Possible Origins: A Cultural History of Chinese Martial Arts, Theater and Religion.  I just got my copy of this work and have started to work my way through it.  Given the frequent association of Wing Chun with the Cantonese Opera I am interested in a more broadly based discussion of the intersection of the martial arts, ritual and performing arts.  Scott is primarily interested in events in Northern China and frames the discussion with his own study of Daoist and martial practice, as well as dance.

Review: Alexander C. Bennett.  2015. Kendo: Culture of the Sword. UC Press.  Reviewed by Michael Wert, Marquette University, in the Summer 2016 issue of The Journal of Japanese Studies.

I just ran across Michael Wert’s recent review of Kendo: Culture of the Sword.  This discussion might be of interest to a wide group of scholars, even those not working on Kendo or the Japanese martial arts.  In it Wert raises important questions about why discussions of the Asian martial arts (even academic ones) often stumble when attempting to explore the question of origins.  Wert sums up the situation by arguing that you can have an academic history, or you can have a story about origins, but you cannot have both.  The forces that motivate the quest for the latter are generally anathema to the former.  Further, students of martial arts studies who are also practitioners seem to have trouble escaping the tendency to fall back on “object language” and emic accounts.  It would be interesting to see some discussion of the points that he suggests from a variety of perspectives.

Kung Fu Tea on Facebook

A lot has happened on the Kung Fu Tea Facebook group over the last month.  We discussed Ming vs Qing era armor, how to make martial arts history matter , and Wing Chun’s upcoming appearance on “Blind Spot.” Joining the Facebook group is also a great way of keeping up with everything that is happening here at Kung Fu Tea.

If its been a while since your last visit, head on over and see what you have been missing.

Becoming Ip Man, in all the Wrong Ways

On a Saturday morning in 2011 I found myself running an “open session” for my Sifu’s Wing Chun school.  The weekday classes were always structured affairs in which learners worked their way through an extensive curriculum centered on one of the various forms in the Wing Chun system.  Monday through Thursday students were separated into individual classes for Siu Lim Tao, Chum Kiu, Biu Jee, the dummy, pole and swords.  There was also a separate introductory class in which beginners were taught basic skills before being advanced to Siu Lim Tao.

Friday nights and Saturday mornings, however, were different.  Sifu would take the day off and one of his senior students opened the school for anyone who wanted to train.  Most students were interested in working on their Chi Sao or “sticky hands.”  But in other cases people would work on skills that had been introduced during the week, perfect their forms or train on the schools dummies.

That was where I found Danny*.  In his mid-twenties he was a relatively new and enthusiastic student.  Danny had only recently been advanced from the beginner to the Siu Lim Tao class.  But he was a quick learner and spent a lot of time on social media.

Given the order in which Sifu introduced class material, Danny had never been formally introduced to the dummy form.  That would come a couple of years down the road.  But he had been shown some basic drills that could be done on the dummy to help him improve his basic skills and conditioning.

Enthusiastic as ever Danny was eager to move beyond this material.  So he went on Youtube and, in the course of a single week, taught himself the entire dummy form.  When he arrived at the school on Saturday he was eager to show me what he had been working on.

Danny admitted that the entire exercise turned out to be more complicated than he had expected.  A talented dancer, he was no stranger to the reconstructing other people’s movement techniques from video.  I must admit that this is something that does not come easily to me.  It is much easier for me to understand a sequence of movements from the way that they feel, rather than how they might look to a theoretical third party observer.  To each his own.

The first issue that Danny discovered was that there are a million versions of the dummy form on Youtube, and most of them seemed to have little in common.  He had no way of knowing which was the most appropriate model for our school (Sifu had yet to start posting his own videos).  Nor, in his estimation, were all of the performers equally skilled.  But if you do not already know the form, how can you tell who is actually doing it “correctly?”

Danny decided to cut the Gordian knot with an argument by authority.  He had not heard of a lot of the lineages and teachers that he saw on Youtube, but he did know that he was studying “Ip Man” Wing Chun.  A couple of quick searches revealed the 1972 recording of Ip Man performing the dummy form in his own home in Hong Kong.  Realizing that he just found a fount of “authenticity” Danny drank deeply.

What he proceeded to demonstrate for me was, in a word, terrifying.  It was an absolutely uncanny reproduction of the now iconic Ip Man film.  Every movement, gesture and pause was flawlessly reproduced.  And yet what was performed was most definitely not our dummy form.  It was at best a shadow of it, a type of Kung Fu mime.  Movements that can contain power did not, his angles of approach were all just a bit off (which is a problem when you are punching a block of solid wood), and his form lacked the cadence one typically sees (I suspect because the video he worked from had no sound).  Yet before my eyes a young and healthy student was transformed into a frail Cantonese gentleman.

The entire thing was an exercise in self-transformation, just not any of the ones that the dummy form is usually concerned with.  I asked Danny if he knew how Ip Man had died, and he did not.  What followed was an explanation of the fact that the recordings he had seen were of an old sick man in the final stages of throat cancer.  Some of what Danny had been practicing was indeed dummy material.  Yet a surprising amount of it was simply the imitation of a single specific moment in time.

One suspects that if we had a recording of Ip Man’s dummy form during the 1930s he would have approached it somewhat differently.  And it still would have been “authentic” Wing Chun.  Yet which recording would a modern student find more useful?

Simply jumping into the world of Youtube instruction thus presents two problems.  First, we must locate the appropriate model.  Next we need to determine what is actually significant, and what is secondary, in that performance.

Danny’s solution to the fist problem was actually clever.  Indeed, our schools version of the dummy form is virtually identical to what he saw in the video.  But without a firm grasp of the basic techniques and philosophy of Wing Chun, he was not able to separate out the core purpose of the dummy form from all of the secondary considerations that emerged at one specific moment in 1972.

An image of the Ancient Jedi Master Bodo Baas appears to Kam Solusar as the keeper of a Holocron. Source: wookieepedia

The Jedi’s Holocron

I had not thought about Danny or that incident back in my Sifu’s school for years.  Yet for the last couple of days it has been on my mind.  Recently George Jennings and Anu Vaittinen visited Kung Fu Tea and shared some of their research on the growing presence of the multi-media resources within the Wing Chun community.  While other scholars have tackled the issue from the film and media studies perspective, they were more interested in pedagogical questions.  How does the omnipresent smartphone, with instant access to a huge database of video, change the way in which Wing Chun is taught or learned?

Of course this situation is in no way restricted to Wing Chun.  All of the more popular styles seem to be inundated with on-line instructors and students offering a wealth of free advice.  The combat sports (Boxing, Wrestling, Kickboxing, MMA) have been using film as part of training and fight preparation since literally the invention of the moving picture.  From that perspective, the TCMA are relative latecomers to a crowded media landscape.

It was my ongoing ethnographic fieldwork with the Central Lightsaber Academy that first forced me to confront these issues in my personal training.  While I have mostly managed to avoid the social-media scene surrounding Wing Chun, Darth Nihilius (also a Wing Chun Sifu), is very engaged with these technologies of communication.  He has brought this same enthusiasm to his lightsaber combat class.  In order to help students practice various techniques at home he posts frequent video updates to his Facebook groups and Youtube channel.

Lots of material is inevitably pulled into these discussions from other places as well.  Much of that comes from the Terra Prime Lightsaber Academy, run by another individual with an extensive background in the Chinese martial arts. This group functions, at least in part, as a sort of “virtual lightsaber school.”

It has assembled a training and advancement program and put out a huge number of videos on a mind-boggling number of topics.  Students who do not have the benefit of direct classroom instruction can go through this material on their own, post videos of their progress, and get detailed criticism and feedback from a select group of more experienced practitioners within the TPLA.

Within the TPLA community you will find some lightsaber students associated with traditional schools (much like Darth Nihilius’ CLA), and others who gather only in the digital realm as “learners in exile.”  Needless to say, this type of hybrid teaching structure is only possible because of relatively recent advances in communications technology.  Yet even the students within more traditional schools are encouraged to keep video diaries of their own training, as well as to consult the extensive library of teaching resources that can be found on-line.

One finds these sorts of hybrid and networked teaching structures in other places as well.  Aspects of the Taijiquan community, which combines both traditional schools as well as large numbers of semi-detached and solo-practitioners, comes immediately to mind.  Yet when we begin to look at these practices through the lens of the lightsaber community, it all begins to look like a case of life imitating art.

One of the many iconic images to be found in the Star Wars extended universe is the “holocron.” Shaped as either a cube or pyramidal box, and made up of a complex arrangement of crystals and circuitry, this supposedly ancient technology allowed Jedi and Sith masters to store vast amounts of information for future generations.  Explicitly designed as a pedagogical tools, a holocron possessed an artificial intelligence that could access and display recordings from many fields of knowledge, including lightsaber combat.  And while they were not “alive,” these devices were said to have been able to detect both the motivations and skills of their users.  This allowed them to withhold information until such a time as it might provide real insight.

More than once I have found myself holding a lightsaber in one hand, and my phone in the other, as I attempted to work my way through a new training exercise. (Unfortunately we have yet to perfect the holographic display, which would greatly simplify things).  At those moments I sometimes think how close we have come to being able to realize the essential promise of a holocron.  Twenty minutes later, when I find myself still working on the same basic sequence, I am more likely to reflect on the pedagogical distance between a Youtube video and the assembled wisdom of the Jedi sages.

Such has been the case over the last few days.  I was recently assigned to begin learning a new form (or “dulon”) in my lightsaber class.  Due to upcoming travel over the next few weeks Darth Nihilius mentioned that I should look at the various videos that have been produced on this particular form and keep working on my own.

This has worked fine for learning the basic sequence of techniques in the dulon.  Yet as any martial artist can tell you, there is more to learning a form than just mastering the gross motor movements.  Those only put you in a place where the real work of perfecting intent, energy, and the fine details of technique can begin.

Nor is this material of secondary importance.  Very often conceptual arguments are encoded in the rhythm and energy of a form.  This is where one might also find a dulon’s more elusive “internal aspect.”  Unfortunately “energy” and “intent,” qualities that can be easily felt and experienced, do not always come through on video.

This is not to say that they never come through.  The more depth of knowledge you have in these areas, the more you will be able to decode in another martial artists performance.  Yet there are always secondary considerations that cloud the picture.  And the very fact that you are attempting to learn a dulon from a video clip in the first place suggests that you may not be totally qualified to critique and deconstruct its performance.

On the small black holocron that currently sits on my desk, I have four different recordings of the dulon that I am currently working.  They were recorded by two different instructors (both trusted sources) over the last couple of years.  While the basic sequence of techniques in each of these recordings is the same, when examined carefully the fine details between them are sometimes strikingly different.

In one form the movements are clear and distinct, punctuated by brief pauses in which a stance is held.  When one watches the blade tip it looks as though most of the movements and cuts are basically linear in their travel.

In the next recording the instructor appears to be working on presenting a smooth flow of movement.  The sword tip never rests, so much so that certain techniques that were distinct in the first recording seem to be totally swallowed in the second.  Further, some movements that had previously been linear now take on a looping quality in which economy of motion is traded for momentum.

The third recording goes even further down this same pathway.  Now the swordsman’s body seems to be allowed to arch and sway in compensation for specific techniques.  This form also covers the least ground and the footwork is, in places, restricted.

The final recording is different still.  Its movements are sharp and linear.  This quality of movement has been tied to a feeling of aggression not seen in the first three.  Upon closer inspection it seems to be the result of more power being issued through each of the strikes and a slightly faster tempo of footwork covering more ground.

Danny worked from only a single recording of Ip Man.  As such he had no subtle variations to fixate upon.  Without an exterior frame of reference (or a strong grounding in the basics of the style) each small detail in the form looked as valid and central to the performance of the set as the next.

My current situation is slightly different as I can directly observe the same individuals performing the same form in slightly different ways.  My background as a martial artist leads me to suspect that both environmental and personal factors are at play.  In one case the room was too short and the footwork at the end of the dulon had to be altered to accommodate the environment.  But did a feeling of being “cramped” alter other aspects of the performance as well?

Nor do martial artists always approach a form with the same goals.  At certain times their objective might be to give a clear performance for the audience.  In another practice session they may be trying to flow smoothly between actions.  Later they might practice the form for power development.

How then do we locate the essence of a form in this plethora of representation?  A holocron that presents information selectively, and possesses a sense of its own authority, might be able to help.  A smartphone, on the other hand, leaves us to our own devices.

Instruction at a TPLA Workshop held on April 30th, 2016. Source: The TPLA Facebook Group.

Martial Arts, Lakatos and the Scientific Research Program

Perhaps we can begin to think more critically about this problem by abstracting away from the realm of the martial arts.  One of my favorite books in graduate school was Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave’s co-edited volume Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge.  This was derived from the proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science held in London in 1965.  At these meetings a number of philosophers responded to Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  Lakatos attempted to bridge the gap between Popper and Kuhn by advancing his own notion that science was based not so much on discrete, easily falsified theories (Popper’s position), but on more holistic “research programs.”

In retrospect it seems like an odd book to find in a survey course on the Theories of International Relations.  And the debates over the epistemology of knowledge have moved on from where they were in the middle of the 1960s.  Still, I often find myself thinking back to ideas I first encountered in this collection, even when I am working with a lightsaber or wooden dummy.

There are many ways to conceptualize the martial arts.  Some students seem to regard them as a collection of discrete techniques to be mastered.  Other individuals look to them as vehicles of philosophical understanding, a “way of life.”  In my academic work I tend to view them as social organizations.  Indeed, the martial arts really only exist when there is (at least potentially) a master and an apprentice.

Another possibility is to think of them as something similar to scientific theories, each of which is upheld and expanded by a dedicated community of researchers.  More specifically, many martial arts seem to be based around particular theories of violence. They contain certain core assumptions about how the human body works, and responds in different situations.

These are then hedged about with smaller secondary theories regarding what sorts of attacks one is most likely to encounter (Wing Chun often defaults to multiple attacker scenarios), and what sorts of structures will most likely to be effective (ones that control the “center line”).  Beyond that, there are a number of commonly shared minor hypothesis (punching wall bags and hanging heavy bags helps to build “good structure”), that get tested in schools around the globe on a nightly basis.

But what if our theory is wrong?  The seemingly utilitarian logic of science (championed by Popper) would call on us to discard our theories when we first encounter evidence that contradicts them.  Thus when Bruce Lee’s fight with Wong Jack Man was not as successful as he hoped, he moved farther away from his traditional Wing Chun training.

There is a great deal of wisdom in knowing when to move.  Still, one must be cautious when employing such an approach.  The basic problem with falsification based models of learning is that there is always a mismatch between our theories of reality, and the way that reality actually functions.

Simply put, the world is an exceedingly complex place.  Even a single topic, like community violence, is maddeningly complicated.  The human mind is simply incapable for fully perceiving, let alone computing, all of the facts necessary to deal with “reality.” As a result we create theories.  They are essentially simplified visions of reality that focuses on only the key points that are necessary for us to solve our problem.

J. Z. Smith has argued that theories, like maps, guide us through unknown territory. Yet no map is perfectly accurate. That would require a document drawn in one-to-one scale.  Such a thing would literally blanket and hide the territory that it was meant to reveal.  What makes a map truly useful is not what is included, but that which is left behind.  The more you omit, the easier it is to carry the map in your pocket or read it on a crowded subway car.  A map that is too large or cumbersome to read is, by definition, not useful.

Like maps, theories are simplifications of reality.  What this means is that in a strict sense every theory is born falsified.  That is the original sin of disciplined academic thought, particularly in the social sciences.  How one moves forward from that point has been the subject of debate.1  Yet on some level we hold on to our theories because they are useful to us.  100% descriptive accuracy has never been a possibility, nor is it really the point of the exercise.

Whether the Wing Chun structure will perfectly defend against specialists in every known type of violence (it will not), is not a relevant question.  Instead we need to ask, “Will this be useful to me in a number of situations against the sorts of attackers that I personally am likely to encounter?” Again, there are many reasons why someone might train in the martial arts that have nothing to do with self-defense.  But my hope is that this line of thought will help us to think more carefully about framing relevant questions.

Lakatos had quite a bit to say on what happens next.  Because all theories of violence (or anything else) will depart from reality on some level, the only thing that can actually falsify one approach is the creation of a “better” theory.  Failure to explain all observed facts is never enough.

What constitutes a “better” theory?  According to Lakatos we should only accept the second theory if it could accomplish three tasks:

1) It must do all the intellectual work that the first theory did.

2) It must account for the specific failure of that theory.

3) It must go on to explain a range of new and novel facts that are both important and unrelated to specific events of 1 and 2.

Admittedly that is a pretty high bar.  But when it is achieved we tend to see sweeping “paradigm shifts” in our understanding of a topic, much as Kuhn predicted. Unfortunately this insight alone did not solve Lakatos’ epistemological problems.  Nor will it resolve the dilemma posed in the first half of this essay.

To put the matter simply, we must still be able to define and identify our theories before we can collectively test them.  Nor is that process always easy in either the sciences (“Sure Dr. Jone’s work talks about the density of star formation, but is it really central to our theory of dark matter?”) or in the martial arts (“Yes, everyone says the Red Boat martial artists flipped their butterfly swords into reverse grips when training in confined spaces, but is that relevant to Wing Chun’s core understanding of bladed combat?”).

Lakatos observed that the work of actual scientists rarely conformed to the simplistic models of a single theory and set of hypotheses envisioned by most philosophers.   In real life we see lots of research teams working on many different projects, not all of which share the same basic assumptions.  So how do we locate the “real” theory of quantum gravity?  Or for that matter the real “Shii-cho” in lightsaber combat?

To solve the dilemma Lakatos observed that theoretical discussions are never unitary.  Instead we see at least two elements within a theory.  He called them a “positive” and “negative” heuristic.  But it might be simpler to think of them as a hard inner core of axiomatic insights, and a flexible outer belt of protective hypothesis and minor theories that can be derived from them.

When an important assumption was challenged a new set of hypotheses might be added to the protective belt to protect it.  If astronomers notice that the stars in a galaxy rotate faster than they expect given the observable mass of its cosmic structures, rather than throwing out our theory of gravity and starting from scratch, we might instead save Newton by postulating the existence of some sort of “dark matter” that does not interact with light or electromagnetic forces.  In fact, that is exactly what scientists have done, and the results have been fairly fruitful if not entirely satisfying.

Likewise, when I watch four unique performances of the same lightsaber Dulon, or I see two of my Wing Chun brothers play the same dummy set in slightly different ways, I do not assume that every small detail is equally valid and that somehow one performance has invalidated the others.  Instead there may be secondary considerations for what I have seen.  One student may be trying to develop energy in his dummy set, while the other is working on relaxation and flow.

This is the advantage of having multiple views of related events.  Through a process of elimination one might be able to work back towards the central core of the form.  Yet our view of the world is always incomplete.  We will never have a complete play list of all of the valid ways in which the form could be played, and so any inductively derived understanding of the theory behind the form must always remain incomplete.

Robert Downey Jr. and Eric Orem working on the wooden dummy.

Conclusion: When the student is ready….

Having access to a skilled teacher is helpful on any number of levels.  Yet in this particular case they are able to speak to what Lakatos’ might call a martial art’s “central conceptual core” and the “protective belt” of training strategies and individual innovations.  They can relate to a student their specific theory of violence.  It may or may not be an accurate representation of reality, but it is certainly easier to encounter these ideas through conversation than by attempting to inductively derive everything from videos on a smartphone.

Most importantly of all, a teacher is able to withhold information in a way that Google and Youtube are not.  They should know when to step in to instruct, but also when to step back and tell the student to continue to drill the basics.  There is something almost seductive about the sheer amount of video that is now available on many fighting systems.  Yet the pure weight of this unsorted, ungraded and often very opinionated information that can also be stifling.

Once a common core of knowledge and insight has been built up through dedicated practice, much that was a mystery (“Should my blade tip cut in a direct line, or loop back and swing forward?”) naturally falls into place.  Having a vast sea of martial knowledge at our finger tips must be counted as an asset.  Yet perhaps the more valuable one is having a teacher that can inspire us to put the phone down, return to the basics, and solve some of these problems for ourselves.

It is important not to overstate this case.  The advent of virtually free video has been a major boon for the martial arts.  My fieldwork in the lightsaber community has introduced me to its undeniable pedagogical value, from the quick distribution of class notes and “homework assignments,” to the creation of movement archives with real depth.  Nor do I think that teachers within the traditional arts should be too quick to dismiss these tools as mere distractions.

Nevertheless, they do have limitations.  Most recordings capture only a single performance, crystallizing a specific moment in time.  Yet from these we seek generalizable understandings.

The results of imitating such sources too closely are often unfortunate.  Lakatos’ understanding of scientific inquiry helps us to understand why this method so frequently fails.  The inductive study of discrete events simply does not give us a reliable way to separate out the central defining aspects of a martial theory from the epiphenomenal aspects of a given recording. Creating ever more technically advanced recordings of a discrete sequence of performances, such as we see with some efforts to document the Asian martial arts for their cultural heritage value, does not resolve these more basic philosophical problems.

Ultimately multimedia resources work better when accessed in conjunction with other types of instruction.  Note, for instance, that the TPLA does not simply post their videos on-line and tell the Learners in Exile to have at it.  These students are instead encouraged to post their own progress reports, receive specific points of feedback, and be proactively engaged in a rich conceptual discussion.

Perhaps asking whether it is possible to learn Kung Fu from a video is actually the wrong question.  The much more relevant one would seem to be why in an age of abundant expertise, declining training costs and virtually free electronic communication, do so many individuals want to try?  That is fundamentally a sociological rather than a technical or philosophical issue.  Yet those who wish to preserve and pass on these fighting systems must grapple with its answers.

*As always when discussing fieldwork, names and identifying features have been changed to protect the innocent.

1. “Kuhn as does Popper rejects the idea that science grows by accumulation of eternal truths. But while according to Popper science is ‘revolution in permanence’, and criticism the heart of the scientific enterprise, according to Kuhn revolution is exceptional and, indeed, extra-scientific, and criticism is, in ‘normal’ times, anathema… The clash between Popper and Kuhn is not about a mere technical point in epistemology. It concerns our central intellectual values, and has implications not only for theoretical physics but also for the underdeveloped social sciences and even for moral and political philosophy. If even in science there is no other way of judging a theory but by assessing the number, faith and vocal energy of its supporters, then this must be even more so in the social sciences: truth lies in power. Thus Kuhn’s position would vindicate, no doubt, unintentionally, the basic political credo of contemporary religious maniacs (“student revolutionaries”).”   *Imre Lakatos (1974), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge.

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If you enjoyed this post be sure to also check out:  Costly Signals, Credible Threats and the Problem of Reality in the Chinese Martial Arts

oOo

Weapons seized by the NYPD and photographed for a 1922 report on violence in Chinatown. Source: NYPD Public Records/Vice.com.

The Yin and the Yang of the Hudiedao

 
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to participate in a day-long seminar on the Wing Chun swords taught by Sifu John Crescione. This was a great experience that provided many students with an introduction to this iconic weapon. Such events, by necessity, tend to be packed with information, activity and new faces. It is always a challenge to select a single high-point. Yet I think that for some of the students such a moment might have come just before we broke for lunch.

One of the themes that Sifu Crescione emphasized was the importance of knowing your weapon. At this point in time there doesn’t seem to be any single standard pattern for the construction of the double swords used within Wing Chun, let alone across all of the southern Chinese martial arts. While these weapons all have enough points of resemblance to be identifiable, elements such as blade length, shape and handling characteristics vary immensely. Some swords are optimized for chopping and slashing while others seem to be better suited to stabbing. The form used within Wing Chun contains a wide range of techniques, but it is up to the practitioner to select the most appropriate ones for any given situation and set of blades.

Nor does this concern apply only to recently produced weapons. As I noted in my previous history of the butterfly swords, a huge amount of variation can be seen in the size and shapes of swords that were produced in 19th and early 20th century in Southern China. To demonstrate this Sifu Crescione had brought a set of late Qing era blades to the seminar. I also brought a pair of knives from my collection which date to approximately the same era. Both sets of knives were longer (and heavier) than most modern examples and possessed distinct tips.

It was fascinating to watch the other students crowd around, eager to get a glimpse, and then handle, these antique blades. Such relics are not frequently encountered by students today. There was a feeling of reverence in the room. The Butterfly Swords have taken on a near legendary status within the practice of our art. Instruction in this weapon is often reserved for only the most advanced students.

The knives have become a symbol of martial attainment. Mastery of these blades is seen as the culmination of years of dedicated practice. This may help to explain why so many organizations have included these swords in their school’s logo.

Nor am I immune to the romance of the blade. After some discussion with the publisher it was decided that the butterfly swords should grace the cover of our book on the history of Wing Chun and Southern Chinese Martial Arts. I must admit that I was elated when I received the news.

Still, it is not clear that any of the meanings that modern martial artists attribute to these weapons have much intrinsic value. Many of these students might be surprised, if not a bit scandalized, to see how these same weapons were perceived at various points in the past.

Far from being the epitome of martial excellence, in the 1840s the hudiedao were a standard issue weapon stocked for use by the quickly trained (and poorly equipped) militia companies of the Pearl River Delta. These weapons were produced by the tens of thousands and issued to troops who tended to carry them as side-arms (their main weapons being the musket, spear or pole). While never issued to the “official” Green Standard Army troops, local gentry seem to have appreciated the fact that these blades could be made cheaply and new recruits (more used to village boxing than formal military drill) could be trained in their use.

Ships crews and private security guards were also issued these weapons for the same basic reasons. That probably helps to explain their association with pirates, traveling opera companies and other elements of southern China’s rich nautical lore. During the 1840s and 1850s these short, guarded, double swords seem to have carried a different, more plebeian, set of symbolic associations.

Nor was southern China the only place where the public encountered such swords. For better or worse butterfly swords also appeared in publications, museum displays and public demonstration in the West throughout the 19th century. Once again, they carried with them a set of connotations quite distinct from those admired by modern Kung Fu students.

Rather than being a marker of self-discipline and martial excellence, these swords were most often associated with the periodic breakouts of violence that rocked both the East and West Coast Chinatowns. Whereas British military observers in the 1840s had found the Chinese use of these swords to be paradoxical and quaint, American audiences viewed them as symbols of everything that was untrustworthy and dangerous about the nation’s steadily growing Chinese population. In many ways the spread of the image of the butterfly sword went hand in hand with the spread of the Yellow Panic and the news coverage that supported it.

Butterfly Swords in the Roaring 1920s

This point was driven home for me as I read some of the publicity releases for a new book titled Tong Wars: The Untold Story of Vice, Money and Murder in New York’s Chinatown by Scott D. Seligman (Penguin 2016). Given this volume’s discussion of community violence in the Chinese diaspora community during the 19th and early 20th centuries it has earned a spot on my “to read” pile. Even more interesting were some of the publicity photos that were distributed to the press and other media outlets.

Perhaps the most exciting of these can be seen at the top of this post. Taken from the archives of the New York City Police Department this image was apparently included in a 1922 report detailing the ongoing problem of violence in Chinatown. It shows a large group of weapons (and other contraband material) that had been captured by police.

Some of this material is what one would expect to see being carried by any well-outfitted gangster during the 1920s. I counted 16 revolvers in this picture and at least one automatic handgun in addition to holsters and ammunition. Yet more traditional weapons were also well represented. Within the haul there were two (quite nice) sets of butterfly swords as well as other daggers. These particular Tong members also seem to have had an affinity for brass knuckles, having accumulated at least five sets.

I have yet to read Seligman’s book, so I can’t say if his narrative contains a more detailed backstory for this particular photograph. But I did notice the following quote in a publicity interview that he did for Vice.

“Vice: How did the violence evolve from meat cleavers to pistols to bombs?

Segliman: It was a slow process, but it escalated as weapons got more sophisticated and capable of taking out more people at a time. In the late 1800s, they were mostly using cleavers and knives; by 1900, Chinatown saw a large influx of revolvers. Explosives were only used once or twice later in the game—about 1912—and they fortunately did more damage to property than to people.” (Read More Here)

What struck me about this quote was the sense of nostalgia for a previous period of violence. Needless to say, we hear a lot of this in traditional martial arts circles.

On a purely philosophical level I am not sure that being beaten to death or stabbed is preferable to being shot. Nor, historically speaking does there seem to have been a golden, pre-gun, era in modern Chinese violence. As I pointed out in a previous post looking at violence in the San Francisco Chinese community of the 1870s, the police seem to have been confiscating firearms from that neighborhood’s criminals at about the same rate as they were being taken off the streets in the rest of the city. [Link] While it is undoubtedly true that violence in NY escalated after 1900, I doubt that the primary factors behind that were exclusively technological in nature.

The other thing that struck me about the 1922 photograph was how similar it was to other images that police and government officials had been producing across the country for at least 50 years. Indeed, given the qualitative change in violence, what is surprising is that the weapons look so similar.

Chinese Highbinders and Weapons in San Francisco. Harper’s Weekly, Feb. 13th, 1886.

Readers might recall that in 1886 Harper’s Weekly ran a lengthy piece profiling the “Highbinders” of the Bay Area. This included engravings showing the various types of arms that had been confiscated from these groups including knives, handguns and butterfly swords. The author of the piece went on to include a chilling description of their use:

“The weapons of the Highbinder are all brought from China, with the exception of the hatchet and the pistol. The illustration shows a collection of Chinese knives and swords taken from criminals, and now in the possession of the San Francisco police. The murderous weapon is what is called the double sword. Two swords, each about two feet long, are worn in a single scabbard. A Chinese draws these, one in each hand, and chops his way through a crowd of enemies. Only one side is sharpened, but the blade, like that of all the Chinese knives, is ground to a razor edge. An effective weapon at close quarters is the two-edged knife, usually worn in a leather sheath. The handle is of brass, generally richly ornamented, while the blade is of the finest steel. Most of the assassinations in Chinatown have been committed with this weapon, one blow being sufficient to ensure a mortal wound. The cleaver used by the Highbinders is smaller and lighter than the ordinary butcher’s cleaver. The iron club, about a foot and a half long, is enclosed in a sheath, and worn at the side like a sword. Another weapon is a curious sword with a large guard for the hand. The hatchet is usually of American make, but ground as sharp as a razor.”

(Feb 13, 1886. Harper’s Weekly. P. 103).

While never the deadliest weapon in the Tong arsenal, the American press certainly seems to have considered the Butterfly Sword to be the most distinctive. Some accounts seem to have gone beyond the purely tactical value of this weapon and to have associated it with obscure, esoteric and threatening aspects of the Chinese American Experience. Of course the Tongs themselves often stood in for all of these qualities in late 19th century “Yellow Peril” literature.

The San Francisco Call, 1898.

Consider the cover of an 1898 edition of the The San Francisco Call. The paper ran an expose on the initiations conducted by the area’s Chinese secret societies. The main illustration showed a number of tong members, butterfly swords in hand, swearing to destroy the Qing and restore the Ming.

Another evidence photo, produced around 1900 and included in a government report, also shows a typical assortment of weapons carried by Chinese criminals and Tong members. Among the various knives (one of which is clearly Japanese) we also find a pair of bar maces, a revolver and set of hudiedao. It appears to be almost identical in size and shape to the examples that the New York police department would confiscate one generation latter.

Chinese Highbinder weapons collected by H. H. North, U. S. Commission of Immigration, forwarded to Bureau of Immigration, Washington D. C., about 1900.
Courtesy the digital collection of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkley.

An Evolving Symbol of Chinese Identity in the West

The 1922 NYPD photograph is interesting precisely because it suggests that while levels of violence may have escalated and fallen off in rhythmic patterns, firearms and more traditional weapons continued to co-existing for a surprising length of time. The number of handguns in the community escalated but butterfly swords did not disappear. And if this photo is a representative sample, knuckledusters seem to have grown in popularity. That would be a good sign that someone was still expecting hand-to-hand encounters.

The one thing that is absent from any of these photos or discussions, however, is the martial arts. While elements of the American public were certainly aware of these swords, they were not imagined as the training tools of skilled practitioners of martial arts, or even as an element of Chinese cultural heritage. Of course this was exactly how Samurai swords came to be seen in the first few decades of the 20th century. Instead these weapons were imagined as the cutting edge of a violent and subversive force in American life.

I suspect that the popular discourse linking obscure Chinese fighting methods to criminal groups was a powerful force in impeding the transnational transmission of these arts in the first half of the 20th century. It was not until Chinese-Americans came to be reimagined as a “model minority” in the post WWII era that immigration policies would be relaxed and the stage set for Bruce Lee to unleash a Kung Fu Fever in the 1970s.

The hudiedao are a fascinating topic of study precisely because they have seen it all. First associated in the western mind with humble militia troops and later with criminal groups, for many people butterfly swords represented the backwards and dangerous elements of Chinese society. In the current era this same object has been reinterpreted as a relic of a “more civilized” time in which persistent effort led to martial mastery and self-transformation. It is hard to say that one of these visions is more intrinsically “true” than the others, but this unfolding discourse may hold important keys to the meaning and spread of the Chinese martial arts in the West.  As a result we must be careful not to inappropriately project our reading of these symbols onto the past.

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If you enjoyed this you might also want to read:  Tools of the Trade: The Use of Firearms and Traditional Weapons among the Tongs of San Francisco, 1877-1878.

oOo