Love Fighting Hate Violence: An Anti-Violence Program for Martial Arts and...
***I am excited to introduce the following guest post by Alex Channon and Christopher Matthews. Readers may recall that in my 2017 MAS Conference Keynote I called on the field to dedicate more...
View ArticleBruce Lee, Ip Man and The Anxiety of Influence
The Master Said: “I transmit, I do not create. I trust and love the ancients…” -Confucius, The Analects 7.1 I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up...
View ArticleNew Books, Conference and Visiting Professorship: A Martial Arts Studies Update
It's been a while! [Paul Bowman and I were recently chatting about important developments in the Martial Arts Studies community and we decided that it would be good to share some of this information...
View ArticlePushing and Pulling: Scouts and the Spread of the Asian Martial Arts
Structure and Agency Contrary to popular opinion, nature does not love parsimony. This frequently repeated opinion is more an aesthetic judgement on the part of some scholars rather than an empirical...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (51): Early Kendo in California
Of Boy Scouts and Kendo A recent post focused on the role of the global scouting movement in promoting the spread of the Asian martial arts during the first half of the 20th century. In that essay I...
View ArticleFraming, Strategic Misperception and Change in the Traditional Chinese...
We take the “concrete and palpable” presence of a thing to attest to the reality of that which we have made it to signify; our fantasies find confirmation in the materiality of things that are...
View ArticleResearch Notes: No Girls Allowed
Men fighting men to determine worth (i.e., masculinity) excludes women as completely as the female experience of childbirth excludes men….The female boxer violates this stereotype and cannot be...
View ArticleSophia Delza vs. The Black Belt Ethos: Post-Materialism in the Chinese...
T’ai Chi Ch’uan is not a by-product, as it were, of any other art-dance form; it is not derived from ancient Chinese commemorative dance [ritual], folk, or classical Chinese theatre dance [opera],...
View ArticleChinese Martial Arts in the News: April 9th, 2018: Taijiquan, MMA and the...
Introduction Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News!” Lots has been happening in the Chinese martial arts community, so its time to see what people have been saying. For new readers, this is a...
View ArticleRegional Histories, Localization and the Chinese Martial Arts
Regulating Kung Fu in Canton The brave new world of electronic databases and digital humanities is certainly opening many doors to new and exciting types of research. Increasingly scholars can sit...
View ArticleLives of Chinese Martial Artists (21): Zhang Zhijiang, Father of the Guoshu...
Introduction Its hard to think of a single individual who had a greater impact on the development of the Chinese martial arts during the all important years of the Republic than Zhang Zhijiang...
View ArticleEverybody is a Theorist (Especially on YouTube)
Something Old, Something New Everyone has a favorite TV show, film genre or martial art. So here is a quick experiment that you can carry out from the comfort of your own smart phone. Head on...
View ArticleBartitsu in the American Context
Introduction It is hard to think of a recent martial arts studies title that has been more successful in capturing the general public’s attention than Wendy Rouse’s (2017) Her Own Hero:The...
View ArticleTelling the Story of China’s Martial Arts: Julius Eigner, Foreign Journalists...
Introduction I first became aware of an article titled “The Ancient Art of Chinese Boxing” by Julius Eigner through a reference in the work of Stanley Henning. I seem to recall that he was not...
View ArticleChinese Martial Arts in the News: April 30th 2018: Karate, Choy Li Fut and...
Introduction Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News!” Lots has been happening in the Chinese martial arts community, so its time to see what people have been saying. For new readers, this is a...
View ArticleMay the 4th Be With You: Rhythm in the Chinese Martial Arts and Lightsaber...
***It is May the 4th, everyone's favorite Star Wars themed, merchandise based, holiday! As regular readers know I occasionally write about the Lightsaber Combat Community. Here is an essay touching...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (52): Taijiquan in Communist China and the United...
The First of Five Photos by Horst Faas to accompany story on the practice of Tai Chi Chuan. An older Chinese man practices the calisthenics called Tai Chi Chuan, sometimes called shadowboxing by...
View ArticleInfluence at Home and Abroad: Martial Arts at China’s Central Army Officer...
The Center and the Periphery What is this “a case of?” That is the basic empirical question that underlays countless discussions in the social sciences. It is difficult to know what something...
View ArticleExplaining “Openness” and “Closure” in Kung Fu, Lightsaber Combat and Modern...
An Eternal Debate Some of the most persistent, and for students of Martial Arts Studies most significant, issues revolve around the choices individuals are forced to make. I was introduced to Wing...
View ArticleChinese Martial Arts in the News: May 21st, 2018: Kung Fu, Travel and a...
Introduction Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News!” Lots has been happening in the Chinese martial arts community, so its time to see what people have been saying. For new readers, this...
View Article