A pair of Japanese Komuso or “Monks of Emptiness.” Original Source: Unknown.

Introduction

I am currently in the middle of writing a short introduction that I was asked to contribute to a forthcoming volume.  As such we will be revisiting a post from the archives which asks how secrecy, often criticized as the bane of the traditional martial arts, might actually be contributing to their flexibility and continued survival in the current era.  Yet before moving on I have a brief announcement.

It was recently brought to my attention that Kung Fu Tea was selected as one of the Top 30 Martial Arts Blogs by the travel site BookMartialArts.com.  After taking a look at the rest of their blogroll that appears to be something of an accomplishment.  There is a lot of good reading material on their list.  And it is always exciting to see evidence of the growing popular interest in martial arts studies.

Secrecy in an Era of Global Markets

It is hard to think of any topic that has more deeply marked the Chinese martial arts than secrecy. Countless students have been drawn to these systems by the search for mysterious techniques of revitalized health, self-actualization and combat prowess. Movies and novels have told stories of secret books, hidden temples and the rediscovery of long forgotten lore. Generations of reformers have railed against it, usually to little effect.

In practical terms the traditional Chinese martial arts are an embodied practice in which one generation instructs the next through physical forms, drills and sparring. Hand combat can only be “understood” to the extent that it can be felt and experienced.

Yet in the realm of media and popular culture these same systems are almost universally reimagined as the quest for hidden lore. These stories sometimes intersect with how the martial arts present themselves. Ancient secrets make for undeniably good advertising.

Students may compete with each other to discover the greatest number of their master’s “secrets.” Adam Frank has recently observed that having a body of private knowledge may advantage certain instructors.  Still, they cannot actually capitalize on this without revealing their “secrets.” Ergo the bilateral exchange of personal loyalty for information which is critical to the social structure of a number of martial arts communities.

Even those teacher who boldly claim that “there are no secrets” or that “everything will be taught, holding nothing back” often find that it is impossible to check the rising demand for secrecy coming from their students. Ancient bodies of esoteric lore are so much a part of the image of the Chinese martial arts that even in instances in which reformers attempt to create more open structures, there is still a certain amount of cultural inertia opening a space for claim of “secret discipleship” and the like. It is not hard to understand why this subject has gotten under the skin of reformers and modernizers within the martial arts world since at least the 1910s.

The more recent incarnations of these reformers might guess that the days of truly hidden lore are numbered. While claims about “lost lineages” within various styles continue to be published (and in truth there is a lot of martial culture that has remains stubbornly local in nature) hand combat students seem somewhat more jaded to such claims than they might have been in the past.  In the era of both the internet and sentiments like “pictures or it didn’t happen,” is it truly possible for the martial arts to remain hidden behind a mysterious and poorly understood past?

Many individuals suspect that the globalization of the Chinese martial arts will ultimately bring about the end of older ways of thinking about secrecy. After all, the exchange of drabs of information for personal loyalty that underpinned this system may be much less fruitful when one’s students are actually consumers on the other side of the planet, all of whom can easily take up other arts (from various styles of Kung Fu, to MMA to Yoga) if they feel that they are being exploited.

The basic reality of the Chinese martial arts is that they have always been, in large part, a form of commercial activity. Even in the “golden age” of 19th century clan feuds, martial arts instructors and mercenaries were hired from the outside and expected to be paid for their efforts in real money. In the current era, will open markets tolerate and continue to value secrecy?

Surprisingly, the answer seems to be a resounding “yes.” As Adam Frank pointed out in a recent paper, it is not at all clear that the globalization of certain arts (in the case of his research Taijiquan) will lead to a universal liberalization of the practice.

The opening of new markets and avenues of instruction has changed the personal calculus facing many individual instructors and their larger martial associations back in China. As always, it is difficult to monetize one’s mastery of the martial arts without being willing to teach the complete system to students who are able to pay for instruction. Yet the appearance of these new lucrative markets also gives organizations an incentive to tighten discipline and engage in internal competition over who has the “right” to teach the family’s secrets.  Thus it may be that the commercial success of these arts in the current era actually reinforces their more esoteric tendencies.

Daikokuji-Sasayama Komusō Shakuhachi. Photo by 松岡明芳. Source: Wikimedia.

A Second Critical Engagement with Gary Krug

Over the last few years I have repeatedly found myself thinking about the many roles that secrets play within the martial arts. This is much too large a topic for a single post. Yet when I was reviewing Gary J. Krug’s article “At the Feet of the Master: Three Stages in the Appropriation of Okinawan Karate into Anglo-American Culture” I found that he actually had a number of things to contribute to this conversation.

Readers will recall that in his paper Krug attempted to explain the complex process by which Karate came to be accepted as a normal (and unthreatening) part of American commercial life a few decades after the conclusion of a destructive war with Japan. Krug argued that Karate was too complex a cultural phenomenon to be adopted all at once, or without substantial transformation. Its “appropriation” by western society could only be completed once a substantial body of other more basic ideas which underpinned the practice of Karate (chief among them Traditional Chinese Medicine) came to be accepted in the West. Yet rather than engaging in a true discourse with the culturally bounded concepts that lay behind Okinawan karate, this process allowed the West to detach it from its original matrix and to claim it as an indigenous product.

Krug’s argument is not without its problems. As I argued last time, the strength of his paper lays in the fact that he is advancing a more general theory of how complex acts of cultural appropriation happen which has application far beyond the rather limited case of Karate. Yet his key independent variable is exogenous to his model (meaning that the most important factors in his theory are simply “assumed” rather than explained) and his treatment of certain ideas, like TCM, tends to be rather reductive.

After posting this critique Paul Bowman sent me a link to another article that also examined the origins of Karate, suggesting that it might be useful when thinking about Krug. “Constructing a Martial Tradition: Rethinking a Popular History of Karate-Dou” by Kevin S. Y. Tan (Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28:2 (May) 2004 pp 169-192) makes many contributions to this discussion and anyone studying Krug will also want to read his paper.

Tan’s critique of Karate’s treatment within popular culture picks up on many of the same themes that Krug touched on, yet its implications tend to be further reaching. Like Krug, much of Tan’s theoretical framework is also directly applicable to the very similar discussions that are often seen on the origins of influences within the various styles of the Chinese martial arts.

Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of Tan’s paper is his suggestion that both practicing students and historians of the martial arts become much more comfortable with three short words, “we don’t know.” He notes that both groups often seek to speak to the various national, social and cultural factors that influenced the development of martial arts traditions such as Karate. While Krug’s paper really focused on the post-1946 era, Tan instead attempted to assess what we can assert with certainty about the deeper history of this art going back to the 17th century. What he found was that very little could be documented with any degree of certainty.

Worse yet, the basic concepts that we often attempt to impose on these sorts of conversations (like what it means to assert that Karate is an “Okinawan” or a “Japanese” art) are in many ways deeply anachronistic. Some of these ideas are actually the product of multiple layers of complex and strategic mythmaking which unfolded slowly as Okinawa, China, Japan and America played out themes of dependency, colonization, national awakening and imperialism. Yes it is “correct” that say that Karate is an Okinawan art, yet that seemingly simple assertion obscures huge amounts of intricate social history that is critical for understanding how it (or any other traditional fighting system) actually emerged in the modern era.

Tan concludes:

“Although now commonly framed as a Japanese or Oriental martial tradition, karate was never a direct creation or invention of any one particular cultural form or political interest. Rephrasing a term coined by the historical anthropologist Sahlins (1985), the construction and subsequent reconstructions in light of changing historical and political climates may be described as a “structure of conjunctions,” where the “martial tradition of karate” is often a dynamic interplay between various cultural logics as they constantly encounter and reinterpret each other throughout history. The historical fate and future of karate-dou then is one that can never be apprehended through a rigid and linear understanding of the process of history making or any narrow claims to essentialized notions of culture. Therefore, only through the adoption of a multistranded and critical approach would one be able to appreciate the fullness of any seemingly empty hands.” (Tan p. 187)

It is interesting to note that Tan’s paper does not directly engage Krug, even though one possible reading of his conclusion would seem to problematize much of his predecessor’s argument. One cannot really fault Anglo-Americans for innovating in their practice of the art after arguing in painstaking detail that the entire idea of “traditional Japanese Karate” is basically a simulacra, a detailed representation of a past that never really happened that way. At the very least, it was understood in vastly different ways by the individuals who were actually engaged in its practice than how we tend to imagine their efforts today.

The one time that Tan does directly engage with Krug is in his discussion of the post-WWII evolution of the art. Tan notes that Krug perceives Karate as having been dissociated from its Okinawan and Japanese roots through the process of western cultural appropriation. While seeming to leave the door open for such a possibility in the future, Tan’s interpretation of the situation in the West is fairly different. Rather than Karate being “westernized,” he sees it as remaining primarily a projection of oriental and “Japanese” (rather than Okinawan) identity.

These empirical differences aside, on a more theoretical level Tan might be seen as problematizing some of the core concepts within Krug’s article. Krug appears to take the existence of something called “traditional Okinawan Karate” more or less for granted when its emergence was in fact a deeply complex process which drew on a variety of cultural influences (all which tended to identify with specific villages or geographic locations rather than “nationalities”.)

Likewise Tan’s exploration of Karate’s importation into Japan seems to undercut Krug’s assertion that the cultural similarities between these two places simplified the process and allowed for “cross-fertilization” rather than “appropriation” (as was necessary in the more alien West). In fact there was nothing simple about this short voyage and the end result as described by Tan actually bears a striking resemblance to exactly the sorts of “appropriation” and aggressive adaptation that Krug outlined.

Given these empirical discrepancies we might be tempted to simply dismiss Krug’s treatment of Karate’s nature and thus much of the basis of his argument. Perhaps his tendency towards reductionism extends beyond his cursory treatment of TCM. Perhaps it encompasses Karate itself, his central object of study?

A more generous reading of Krug’s article would suggest that we resist this temptation. In his opening sentences Krug defines Karate and as an “object of knowledge” and not a fixed body of techniques, practices or even identities. In his view what we now call Karate represents a complex dialogue of ever evolving concepts, philosophies, histories and calculations. In that sense he would seem to agree with Tan’s call for the rejection of “a rigid and linear understanding of the process of history making or any narrow claims to essentialized notions of culture.” Perhaps the biggest difference between the two authors is that Krug seems to place more emphasis on the unfolding conversation happening on the island of Okinawa itself while Tan’s more systemic approach takes all of the Pacific Rim as the relevant unit of analysis.

Krug might respond that the seeming crystallization of Karate that readers may detect in his article is more of a product of how it was being treated in Anglo-American culture in the 1950s and 1960s than his own understanding of his object of study. He notes that as American GI’s came into contact with the art it became a frozen moment in their imagination. What had initially been a single instant in an ongoing conversation about hand combat, local culture and colonization became a touchstone for how generations of Americans would imagine what it meant to be “Japanese.” In reality the conversation continued to evolve in schools across Okinawa and Japan…but not in the minds of this new generation of western students.

The similarities and differences between Tan’s argument and Krug’s theory of cultural appropriation make the two interesting debating partners. The papers share enough common ground that one can sustain a conversation between the authors. Tan provides a much more detailed and accurate picture of the early emergence of Karate, while Krug’s interests are restricted to its evolution within in western markets. While Tan is probably writing better social history, I have to admit that I find of number of the ideas that Krug raises to be fascinating and potentially helpful.

Another Komuso Buddhist Monk. Photo by Tarourashima. Source: Wikimedia.

Conclusion: Krug on Secrecy in the Martial Arts

From time to time it becomes necessary to explain why otherwise sober scholars would spend valuable resources studying a “pop” phenomenon such as Karate, or the Chinese martial arts. It is all too easy to argue, as both Tan and Krug (among many others) do, that these things have functioned primarily as a signifier of western beliefs about the nature of Asian identity. Yet that alone does not make them theoretically interesting.

Nor does it actually explain the success of the martial arts in the West. Many things, from “Willow Ware” porcelain to pictures of Chinese women with bound feet, have served as potent markers of the “Oriental Other” in the western imagination. Most of these signifiers have faded and been replaced over time. I suspect that more Americans probably associate the drinking of Tea with the United Kingdom today than they do with China. Yet this surely would not have been the case in the 18th or 19th century.

The martial arts have shown a remarkable degree of cultural resilience. First discussed in print and taught in the west from about 1900 onwards, these practices have gained both cultural value and market share over time. Theorists can even point to specific periods (one after 1945 and another in the 1970s) when the meaning of these practices shifted in dramatic ways, allowing them to grow in popularity.

Nor has this process been restricted to the West. While early 20th century modernizers predicted the imminent demise of the martial arts (especially in China), these movements have demonstrated a surprising ability to reinvent themselves in practically every generation. They have adapted both their techniques and institutional forms to match the unique market conditions that modernity and globalization have created.

While the martial arts maintain the public image of timeless and stoic tradition, holding up their hands against the onslaught of social change, they are in fact unmistakably modern practices. The economic and social conditions that even the most traditional hand combat schools depends upon for their daily survival (such as the existence of a monetized market economy) guarantee this.

This image of cultural continuity is one of the “goods” that modern consumers demand. Yet it is supplied by organizations and movements that are in a constant state of revival, reimagining both themselves and their relationship with the past. This is the basic pattern that both Krug and Tan see in the history of Karate. Nor is it all that different from what exists in the other martial arts.

How do they pull it off? How do the various hand combat schools create a deep sense of continuity with the past while at the same time appealing to the ever evolving demands of consumers?

At the beginning of this blog post I mentioned the role of globalization, cheap video and the internet in the evolution of the martial arts. All of this has conspired to put more information in the hands of martial arts students than they ever possessed in the past. The dominant discourse that surrounds many of the traditional arts has also conditioned these individuals to be on the lookout for all sorts of “secrets.” One simply has to visit any internet chatroom dedicated to the martial arts to find some exquisitely detailed debates on arcane lineages or hidden techniques.

All of this has sensitized certain individuals (particularly those interested in a more critical approach to martial arts history) to the frequent claims of the rediscovery of lost lineages, techniques, books or even entire arts. Other claims are more modest. We also see individuals attempting to really research their own forms in an effort to find new applications, better ways of dealing grappling than their instructors may have taught, or critical insights to empower a renewed emphasis on contact weapons training. It seems that no matter who you are, the discovery of new information is a critical aspect of the lived experience of the martial arts.

When considering the remarkable flexibility and survival of these fighting systems, Krug argued that we should view the seemingly impenetrable, always shifting, bamboo curtain that obscures so many aspects of the “real history” of the martial arts as a feature of this system rather than as a bug. It is this belief that there is always something more to be revealed, something just a little wiser, more deadly, or more culturally relevant, that keeps students coming back for more. More crassly, it is the seemingly unending faith that we have in the ancient masters that provides our modern teachers with the breathing room and the license that they need to keep these arts socially relevant and institutionally vital.

Krug found that the idea of secrecy itself was vital to Karate’s success in West, a civilization that claims to value transparency as a central value.

“The malleability of the cultural forms of martial arts was enhanced by a tradition of secrecy, which had long been a part of the martial arts….Thus Karate has a long history of inventing imaginary forms for itself to present to outsiders, and these imaginary forms often have been mistaken for the practice itself. This mistake continues into the present day. Having no well-defined public face, the art could be reformed and represented as a different set of practices with relative ease.” (Krug, pp. 397-398)

Tan’s social history of hand combat in Okinawa, and its encounter with Japan, provides a number of places where these same mechanisms can be observed. Yet when it comes to secrecy the Chinese martial arts are second to none. Is traditional Kung Fu really on its deathbed? Not as long as it can maintain the allure of its mysteries.  These show no signs of fading.

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If you enjoyed this you might also want to see: “Fighting Styles” or “Martial Brands”? An economic approach to understanding “lost lineages” in the Chinese Martial Arts.

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***It is my very great pleasure to present the following guest post by Maryam Aziz.  A doctoral student at the University of Michigan, I first had the opportunity to meet her at the 2015 Martial Arts Studies conference at the University of Cardiff where she was presenting some of her research.  Her topic is an important one that speaks to multiple conversations in history, cultural studies, sociology and anthropology.  As I have stated in other places, the martial arts studies literature needs more focused studies tracing developments within single communities, arts or even geographic locations. These provide us with both the data necessary to assess our theories as well as the empirical puzzles that will drive the development and newer and better one.  I look forward to hearing much more from her in the future.***

Our Fist is Black: Martial Arts, Black Arts, and Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s Urban North and West

Introduction

During the five years that I have been researching the history of African American martial atrial arts, I have noticed a curious academic pattern that appears in the scant scholarship on the topic. Generally present in Afro-Asian studies texts produced between 2001 and 2008, megastar Bruce Lee’s popularity is repeatedly used as the focal point for exploring the rise of martial arts practice in black communities, resulting in claims that African Americans’ fascination with martial arts began with the 1970s kung fu film craze (Cha-Jua 199). I argue such claims are ahistorical because the rise of the practice of East Asian martial arts in black communities can actually be traced to the post-WWII and Black Power Eras. Focusing on the latter in this paper, I use martial arts instructors in the urban West and North cities of Los Angeles and Newark to contend that martial arts schools served as critical sites for Black artistic production, resistance, and empowerment. By institutionalizing martial art spaces in Black urban geographies, instructors like Shaha Mfundishi Maasi provided Black Arts teachings that directly transformed community members’ lives. The oral histories and primary documents utilized here indicate that these instructors taught students self-defense skills as well as Black cultural knowledge. Thus, rather than continuing to focus on Lee, I propose we view Black participation in the martial arts through the lens of the Black Arts and Black Power Movements, thereby productively rethinking what counts as cultural production and how said production functions in social movements. Because the movements were distinct yet inseparable reflections of one another, Black martial arts instructors moved fluidly between both, and as their radical consciousnesses grew, they matched their philosophies and teachings to Black Power and Black Arts’ goals and ideologies.

Historical Framings

By the time Bruce Lee’s series Green Hornet hit television screens in 1966, martial arts were already being taught in black communities. In fact, if you drove a half-hour from the 20th Century Fox studios were the series was filmed in Los Angeles, you would have found yourself at a park near Manchester Avenue. There you would have spotted Grandmaster Steve Muhammad (then Steve Sanders), demonstrating a front kick for the youth who participated in his free karate classes. Also in the same year across the country in Newark, New Jersey, Shaha Mfundishi Maasi (born William Nichols), could be found teaching in his school the Hakeem Martial Arts Association. Both instructors cite that the period, a moment of “rising or broadening of consciousness,” strongly influenced their desires to teach and their pedagogies (Hinton 102). In the same year that Grandmaster Muhammad received his black belt and began his free classes, James Meredith was shot during his March on Fear from Memphis to Jackson. Kwame Touré and others continued the March on his behalf and at one of the rallies, Mukasa Dada, aka Willie Ricks, and Touré spoke vehemently of Black Power. Malcolm X’s death had already influenced many activists to shift their tactics. Many activists like Amiri Baraka were invested in both the arts and politics, unwilling to separate them as discrete forms of nationalism. A newly theorized Black Art emerged and burned as the coal that sparked the Black Arts Movement (BAM). In the poem “Black Art,” Baraka calls for art with power, art that produces change, and artists who are willing to write and affect that change it. Arguing that art arms people with the defenses necessary to combat an unjust system, Baraka believed that a true Black artist equipped his people to deal with individuals who were symbolic of a violent system. By figuratively bringing “fire…to whities ass” (Baraka 27-28), art could convince its audience that they could literally do so, being the offspring of warriors (Aziz 110). When Baraka speaks of warriorhood, he is making a tie between art and conflict and how a poet is both a groundworker and a warrior for Black Power, claiming that all activist-artists are inheritors of an Afro-centric warrior legacy. And though he never explicitly mentions martial arts, Baraka’s repeated usage of the term “warrior” suggests the intertwining of aesthetics, self-determination, and self-defense that martial arts practice creates. Martial artists are literally warrior-artists, aesthetically trained in combat arts meant to be defensive acts of defiance.

By 1969, a year after the publication of the crucial Black Fire anthology, Grandmaster Steve Muhammad had created a black martial arts community in Los Angeles along with seven other martial artists. They met to work out on Saturday mornings in South Central Los Angeles’ Van Ness Park and soon named themselves the Black Karate Federation (BKF). Muhammad and his cohort were influenced by older masters like William Short, who had begun training Los Angeles youth in the 1950s. Short owned the Kobayashi School of Karate on So. Western Ave in South Central. His own teachings paralleled those of his friend, Dr. Maulana Karenga, and in addition to martial arts, Short taught his students African American history (Muhammad 50).

Conscious Raising in Black Martial Artistry

The Black Karate Federation’s usage of martial arts allowed them to carve, with their closed fists and cocked limbs, both an unabashedly black identity and a black artistic consciousness. The Black Karate Federation derived many of their speedy kicks and hand strikes from Muhammad’s American Kenpo training, but they showed their identity through the logo that the founders conceived using cultural nationalist symbolism. The B.K.F logo blazed from the patch of students’ uniforms: a clenched, golden fist, its fingers facing away from the eye, covered by a red, black, and green banner, upon which a cobra calmly but dangerously hissed, all falling downward toward a scroll with the letters B.K.F written upon it (Muhammad 80-81). The patch went through other iterations, including one that wrote “Power to the People” over the cobra and another that was shaped like a globe with a black fist at the center. In all its usages, the fist’s meaning served two purposes. One, it represented the word “kenpo”‘s meaning, which is “Fist Law” according to Muhammad. Two, it stood as a symbol of “power and righteousness” (Muhammad 81). Inspired by the 1968 Olympic Games podium gesture by sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the BKF used the fist to demonstrate their desire “to fight injustice” and “to overcome racism” (Muhammad 82). The fist’s golden color signified its wealth and power (Muhammad 82). Its red, black, and green banner mirrored the Pan-African flag created by Marcus Garvey, serving as a “bold and powerful vision” for “all peoples of Africa, regardless of land and birth” (Muhammad 83). The cobra represented the swift movements of Muhammad and the BKF’s fighters but also carried a Pan-Africanist meaning for venomous snakes, i.e. cobras, are considered indigenous to many regions on the continent of Africa. The fist and Pan-African flag colors enjoyed increased usage among black radicals during the period that the BKF was started, placing their choices within a larger shift and conversation happening toward the middle and end of the 1960s. These symbols allowed the BKF to enter conversations about black cultural identity and empowerment through their artistic, stylistic choices. Hundreds of girls and boys would wear the insignia during the ensuing decade (Muhammad 64).

In addition to theorizing school representation and uniform, black martial arts instructors also explicitly tied their pedagogy to agendas being using by other contemporary activists. Shaha, or learned elder, Mfundishi Maasi was a cultural and martial theorist who would also teach hundreds of students during the 1960s and 1970s (Maasi 2013). Maasi taught them that life lies with the individual and stressed that “the art[s] can be utilized as an instrument for enlightenment” (Hinton 88). He imparted to his students the most valuable knowledge he gained through his own martial arts training, which was the knowledge of self (Hinton 87). It was clear to him early on that martial arts could take practitioners further than the “ability to beat somebody” (Hinton 91).

The particular style Maasi co-developed tied the search of the personal self to the search for the cultural self. Due to collaboration with Nganga Tolo-Naa, a Chicago martial artist who founded the All African Peoples Art and Cultural Center, the style became known as “kupigani ngumi,” a Kiswahili term signifying “the way of fighting with the fist” (Maasi 2013). The motive behind teaching kupigani ngumi was to provide an art that, though partly based in East Asian movements, integrated cultural reflections youth could identify with. Kupigani ngumi attempted to present art in a way that “our people who were in the midst of cultural struggle [at the time] could relate to” (Maasi 2013). He and Tolo-Naa chose Kiswahili principles, such as “kuzviata,” because they deeply engaged the young men and women in their classes (Maasi 2013). Kuzviata loosely translates to “reach out and touch yourself” and Maasi used it to teach students self-discipline (Maasi 2013). Using it in conjunction with kurimedza, which means “to enthrone with dignity,” Maasi created an educational atmosphere where students could see the cultural relevance of building both their fortitudes and characters (Maasi 2013). He found “these methods helped to bind the [students] in principle in a way that they would relate to each other not as…competitors but as [siblings] on the field of cultural battle” (Maasi 2013). Equipping the young artists with the tools to succeed on the front of cultural battle did not actually entail leading them into confrontation or physical conflict. It meant building up strong self and cultural images. Maasi’s students were his own guide toward self and cultural survival every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. They were his “young lions” or “Simba Wachanga” (Maasi 2013). They were his to lead past the contagious, quote “self-limiting thoughts, the sense of inferiority, and hopelessness, and the loss of heritage, dignity, and self-respect” (Maasi 2013).

Maasi’s teaching was a part of his role with Newark’s Black Community Defense and Development (BCD), a part of the coalition Committee for a Unified NewArk (CFUN) (Woodard 109-110). Maasi worked directly with Amiri Baraka, whose own transformation and shifting educational values influenced Maasi, as evident in his Pan-Africanist martial arts pedagogy.  As Baraka motivated ground workers through his call-to-action poetry, Maasi’s self-defense lessons allowed them to fight off racist attackers who sought to prevent them from advertising for meetings.

Conclusion

Both the personal and philosophical links between the Black Arts and Black Power movements and Black martial arts instructors forces us to expand our understanding of both movements to include martial artistry. Besides CFUN, there is evidence that other organizations such as the US, the East, the Republic of New Africa, and the Black Panther Party practiced martial arts for similar yet varying purposes. To talk about these arts as cultural formations will challenge us to look in new places for the evidence of the Black Arts Movements’ impacts. Furthermore, it will push Black art scholars to reconceptualization what they view as artistic production. In taking this challenge seriously, we can critically assess the ways in which scholars have reified traditional views of what qualifies as art through their chosen objects of analysis. Lastly, we can push the theoretical boundaries of who was a Black artist and who created Black art.

To conclude, I want to turn briefly to the moment when Bruce Lee’s legend was solidified if only to do the work of looking past him. What would happen if we paused the Blu-ray of Enter the Dragon at 24:58? We would find that Lee is no longer the object of the frame. Instead, the figures of Grandmaster Steve Muhammad and film star Jim Kelly replace him. Muhammad and an early version of the BKF patch are prominently displayed on screen as Kelly and Muhammad speak in the BKF’s “103rd Street School” (Muhammad 54). What would happen then if we relocate this moment in history and resituate Steve Muhammad and the BKF in the history of growing Black fervor for martial arts? What if we talked about Jim Kelly as a form of anti-colonial, anti-racist masculinity as he flips and defeats two racist cops? Would we stop using Bruce Lee as a mirror to imagine the masculinities of Black men who were present in their own struggle? Could we go a step further and interrogate why the scene is devoid of Black women’s presence, an illusion that incorrectly typecasts the BKF as male-only? All of these questions lead to the ultimate question: What does it mean to center narratives of Black martial arts pioneers when reliving and reviewing moments in American martial arts and cinematic history?

About the Author

Maryam Aziz is a doctoral student in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan. Her work constructs a social and cultural history of martial arts practice during 20th century social movements, specifically the Black Power Movement. She holds a 2nd degree Black Belt in Goju Ryu Karate from the New Jersey State Black Belt Association and conducts self-defense workshops for populations targeted for hate crimes.  Readers interested in finding out more about her research may contact her at: maryamka “at” umich.edu.

Works Cited

Aziz, Maryam. “Finding the Warrior.” The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal (2013): 109-12. Print.

Baraka, Amiri. “Black Art.” Black Fire: An Anthology of AfroAmerican Writing. Ed. Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal. Baltimore: Black Classic, 2007. 302-303. Print.

Cha-Jua, Sundiata. “Black Audiences, Blaxploitation and Kung Fu Films, and Challenges to White Celluloid Masculinity.” China Forever: The Shaw Brothers and Diasporic Cinema. Ed. Poshek Fu. Urbana: U of Illinois, 2008. 199-223. Print.

Enter the Dragon. Dir. Robert Clouse. Perf. Bruce Lee and Jim Kelly. Warner Bros, 1973. DVD

Hinton, William, and D’Arcy Rahming. Men of Steel Discipline: The Official Oral History of Black Pioneers in the Martial Arts. Chicago, IL: Modern Bu-jutsu, 1994. Print.

Maasi, Mfundishi. “Oral Historical Interview with Mfundishi Maasi.” Telephone interview. 28 Mar. 2013.

Muhammad, Steve, and Donnie Williams. BKF Kenpo: History and Advanced Strategic Principles. Burbank, CA: Unique Publications, 2002. Print.

Woodard, Komozi. A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics. Chapel Hill, NC: U of North Carolina, 1999. Print.

A Pallet of Wooden Dummies for sale at a Costco store in Japan. Source: goodall factory on Instagram.

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 (almost a month) since our last update so there is a lot to be covered in today’s post.  Let’s get to the news!

Ming era armor currently on display in Shanghai. Source: Shanghai Daily Post.

News from all Over

This week’s report starts with three items from the Shanghai Daily.  The first article details the opening of a new exhibit of ancient and traditional Chinese weapons at the Han Tianheng Art Museum in Shanghai.  Much of the article focuses on an interview with the individual who collected these artifacts and loaned them to the exhibit.  It certainly sounds as though there will be some important early pieces there and if anyone is in the area it would be great to see a report.  The exhibit is currently expected to run through February.

That article was followed up by another titled “The Finest Swords Becomes Legends.”  It focuses on the mythology surrounding some of the amazing bronze swords produced in ancient China.  Dedicated students of the history of China’s weapons will already be familiar with these accounts, but its always fascinating to see them working their way into the more general press.

Jiang Hanlong, Wing Chun Instructor. Shanghai Daily.

Next we turn to something a little more current.  As part of its Hangzhou Special series the Shanghai Daily also ran a profile of Jiang Hanlong, a cartoonist who, after being introduced to Wing Chun, went on to become an professional martial arts instructor and to open his own school.  A student of Lun Jia (who in turn studied with Ip Man), Jiang went on to open a school with a friend and Taijiquan practitioner hoping to help students find peace within the routines of a hectic modern life.  In addition to Wing Chun and Taijiquan they also offer courses in Chinese archery, meditation and traditional music.

A Pallet of Wing Chun dummies at a Costco store in Japan. Source: Apple Daily.

This next story is by far my favorite in the current news roundup.

How do  you know that Wing Chun is officially “big in Japan”?  There are reports (such as this one at inverse.com) that some Costco locations have begun to sell wooden dummies (mook yan jongs).  Photos on Instagram appear to back this up.  I have attempted to contact Costco’s corporate media people in Japan to find out more about this product but have yet to receive a reply.  All of the photos seem to show stand-alone (rather than wall mounted) units and feature the “Jeet Kune Do” style head.  One assumes  that the release of these dummies just prior to Ip Man 3 may not have been a coincidence.  Still, the packaging doesn’t make any direct reference to either Ip Man or Bruce Lee.  I don’t really need a new dummy at the moment, but I would still love to see these show up at my local Costco!  You can read the original Apple Daily story here.

Shi Yongxin (L), current abbot of the Shaolin Temple, presents a sculpture of Bodhidharma to Professor Charles Mattera of United Studios of Self Defense (USSD) from the United States.

One of the surprises to arise out of the last news cycle was this detailed article published by Bloomberg Business reviewing the current controversies and financial history of the Shaolin Temple.  Titled the “Rise and Fall of Shaolin’s CEO Monk” this is probably the best discussion of the current state of the Shaolin Temple that I have seen produced by anyone in the mainstream press.  Over the last few years Shaolin has appeared in more and more articles, but very few of them take the time to review the modern history of Shaolin in quite as much detail as you will find here.  Definitely a recommended read.

Yang Style Taiji Students In Shanghai, 2005.

The Chinese Martial Arts also made a recent appearance in the New York Times “Wellness” blog.  The topic of the conversation was Taijiquan and whether it had therapeutic value with regards to heart disease.  Spoiler alert….the answer is yes, for a couple of reasons.  You can read the full discussion here.  (No word on how practicing Taiji against Shanghai’s smoggy skyline might impact your health).

The character Jack Wong (based on Wong Jack Man) and co-star (along with Bruce Lee) of “A Challenge,” a webcomic by Jeremy Arambulo.  Source: NPR

As always Bruce Lee’s legacy continued to be discussed.  Anyone interested in either Lee’s fight with Wong Jack Man, or the portrayal of the martial arts in comic books more generally, will want to check out this interview on NPR (national public radio).  In it Jeremy Arambulo talks about growing up as an Asian-American, Bruce Lee and his current webcomic, “A Challenge.”  This work is loosely based on Lee’s well known confrontation with Wong Jack man and also provides some extended meditations on subjects that may be of interest to readers of Kung Fu Tea.  Or click here to go directly to the comic.

If you are in the Northwest you might instead want to check out a new walking tour of Bruce Lee’s Seattle which ties into the current exhibit on his life at the Wing Luke Museum.  It appears that they are trying to get some good social history into their program.

A few other pioneers of Kung Fu in North America have been in the news. I particularly liked this discussion of Grandmaster Pui Chan as it had some good biographical material about his life in southern China and his early teaching career in the USA.  The discussion is well worth checking out if you are interested in the more modern history of the Chinese martial arts.

Also fascinating is the recent feature titled “The Legend of the 52 Blocks” published by the Vice Sports blog.  Written by Benjamin Nadler this article provides a fairly comprehensive introduction to the history, legend and mystery of this predominantly African-American vernacular martial arts style.  Students of Martial Arts Studies may have been introduced to this unique style through the writings of the anthropologist Thomas Green.  I have it on good authority that Prof. Green is getting ready to publish more of his ethnographic research on the topic.  As such Nadler’s blog post may be a good way to get yourself up to speed for prior to its release.

A still from Ip Man 3. Source: The Hollywood Reporter.

Chinese Martial Arts Films

Ip Man 3 has now officially made its way into theaters and the reviews are starting to roll in.  I have yet to see  it, but the initial signals seem to be encouraging.  First off, the Hollywood Reporter has a quick list of five things to expect if you are planning on seeing the film.  The San Francisco Chronicle gave the film an overall decent review and thought that it was a fitting end to Ip Man’s martial arts saga.  And while a number of reviewers lampooned Mike Tyson’s appearance in the film, the Vancouver Weekly had some surprisingly positive things to say about his performance, starting with the fact that he basically stole every scene that he was in.  And what could we do to make the Ip Man franchise even bigger?  How about a little cross-promotion with Star Wars?  That was another trend that has been evident in a lot of the discussions of Donnie Yen’s recent work.

Kung Fu Panda 3. Grab destiny by the dumplings.

Possibly the only thing bigger than Donnie Yen right now is a Panda named Po.  All of the early discussion of this film has been great.  But what has really been turning heads among Hollywood insiders is the business mechanics behind this project.  As a joint production between an American studio and a set of our Chinese companies, this film is able to skirt a number of the regulations that are normally imposed on foreign films in China (limiting the amount of time that they can run and the total numbers of screens that they can show on, as well as the distribution of ticket sales).  Given the popularity of the franchise in China, its clear that this film is going to be very profitable.  Forbes dives into the number here, and The Street offers its own commentary on the Panda’s success.

Lastly, a Star Wars story has emerged for fans of the Chinese martial arts.  As I have discussed elsewhere, the internet has been clamoring for an Asian Jedi for some time now.  This is not an unreasonable request given the importance of Kung Fu mythology and Samurai films to the genesis of Star Wars.  Simply put, no katanaa, no lighsabers.  Well, it appears that Disney heard these prayers and responded by giving the fans a Storm Trooper.  And not just any white bucket wearing thug.  Nope, Kung Fu brought you the internet’s favorite Storm Trooper.  You can read more about him here.

Students at a Japanese Archery Club. Source: http://faculty.washington.edu/kendo/budo.html

Martial Arts Studies

There are a number of forthcoming books on martial arts studies that readers should be aware of.  Yet before we launch into these, Paul Bowman recently posted an article on Academia.edu asking the prior question of how we go about making martial arts history matter.  It is an interesting paper on an important subject.  Be sure to check it out.  And while you do, get your registrations in for the 2016 Martial Arts Studies conference to be held in July at the University of Cardiff.  Last years event was a great success, and the list of speakers and guests for this year’s event is even stronger.  Click here to find out who is coming and how to register.

In Search of Legitimacy by Lauren Miller Griffith (Berghahn Books, January 2016)

Lauren Miller Griffith’s volume In Search of Legitimacy: How Outsiders Become Part of the Afro-brazilian Capoeira Tradition (Berghahn Books (January 31, 2016) is about to be released.  I have been looking forward to reading this book for a while and am currently in the process of ordering a review copy for the journal Martial Arts Studies.  It certainly tackles a topic of central importance to students of many martial art traditions.  The publisher’s synopsis is as follows:

Every year, countless young adults from affluent, Western nations travel to Brazil to train in capoeira, the dance/martial art form that is one of the most visible strands of the Afro-Brazilian cultural tradition. In Search of Legitimacy explores why “first world” men and women leave behind their jobs, families, and friends to pursue a strenuous training regimen in a historically disparaged and marginalized practice. Using the concept of apprenticeship pilgrimage-studying with a local master at a historical point of origin-the author examines how non-Brazilian capoeiristas learn their art and claim legitimacy while navigating the complexities of wealth disparity, racial discrimination, and cultural appropriation.

Lauren Miller Griffith is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Hanover College who studies performance, tourism, and education in Latin America.

Later in the spring readers can expect another volume focusing on Capoeria.  Sara Delamont (Cardiff University), Neil Stephens (Cardiff University), Claudio Campos will be releasing Dreaming Brazil, Embodying Brazil: An Ethnography of Diaspora Capoeira through Routledge (May 15, 2016).

Capoeira, the Brazilian dance-fight-game, has spread across the world since the 1970s. It has become a popular leisure activity for many people, and a career for many Brazilians in countries as diverse as China and Spain, and as geographically distant from Brazil as New Zealand and Finland. This ethnographic research conducted on capoeira in the UK is not only an in-depth investigation of one martial art, but also provides rich data on masculinity, performativity, embodiment, globalization, rites of passage and tournaments of value, as well as an enhanced discussion of methods and methodology.

This April Lionel Loh Loong will be releasing The Body and Senses in Martial Culture by Lionel Loh Han Loong through Palgrave.  While still a few months out, this work will focus on the booming martial arts tourism industry in Thailand.

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.

Lastly, students of cultural and film studies may want to take a look at Manga and Anime Go to Hollywood by Northrop Davis (A professor of Media Arts at the University of South Carolina).  Various types of comics have had an important impact on film in recent years, and they are also important vectors by which media discourses on the martial arts are spread throughout society (consider the impact of a single title like Scott Pilgrim in promoting a specific image of the martial arts).  The publisher’s blurb is as follows:

The media industries in the United States and Japan are similar in much the same way different animal species are: while a horse and a kangaroo share maybe 95% of their DNA, they’re nonetheless very different animals-and so it is with manga and anime in Japanese and Hollywood animation, movies, and television. Though they share some key common elements, they developed mostly separately while still influencing each other significantly along the way. That confluence is now accelerating into new forms of hybridization that will drive much of future storytelling entertainment. Packed with original interviews with top creators in these fields and illuminating case studies, Manga and Anime Go to Hollywood helps to parse out these these shared and diverging genetic codes, revealing the cross-influences and independent traits of Japanese and American animation.

Readers looking for study material of a more “practical” nature may want to check out Scott Rodell’s latest project.  Dandaofa Xuan – Chinese Long Saber Techniques Anthology is a translation of a 400 year old manual describing techniques for a the long two handed saber called the dandao.  Apparently this was also the first Chinese martial arts manual to be published with accompanying illustrations.  As such it is an interesting bit of martial arts history.

An assortment of Chinese teas. Source: Wikimedia.

Kung Fu Tea on Facebook

As always there is a lot going on at the Kung Fu Tea Facebook group.  We discussed the logic of Taijiquan’s forms, African-American martial arts history and hand combat as intangible cultural heritage.   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.

Vintage Postcard. Yukio Tani demonstrating a flying armbar on William Bankier c.1906. Source: Wikimedia.

Introduction

The term “Yellow Peril” is something that I do not often see in the martial arts studies literature. Even in research projects tracking the global spread of the traditional fighting systems it is conspicuous by its absence. This has always seemed odd. When I started to more actively research this topic a few years ago I simply assumed that the early 20th century fantasies of depravity, violence and racial competition which shaped so much of that era’s popular culture would be central to most of the ongoing discussions.

Questions of race and identity are commonly discussed in the martial arts studies literature. Yet most of these seem to be rooted in firmly in the post-WWII environment in which the Chinese and Japanese communities were already well on their way to being re-imagined as “model minorities.” Alternatively, the disillusionment and cultural confusion following America’s defeat in the Vietnam War has been much discussed. Nor have we neglected Bruce Lee’s contributions to the global spread of the martial arts as first an emissary of community struggle, and later a symbol of a more personal quest for development.

All of this is important. Yet the Asian martial arts did not begin their global journey in 1973. Half a century earlier they were already established on American shores where they were seen as a threat to the dominance of Western martial arts and as a powerful political symbol of the changing balance of power in the Pacific. And by 1920 it was clear that this was no passing fad. Judo and jujitsu had managed to find a footing within the military, police and civilian communities.

This raises some important questions. The early 20th century saw very active nativist agitation against the Chinese and Japanese communities in the US. This resulted in new rounds of legislation that served to further marginalize and segregate these groups. The idea of a “Yellow Peril” was an active and motivating force among many labor activists in the Progressive Era who linked the appearance of relatively low wage Asian agricultural workers in California both to an erosion of wages and a threat to White American masculinity. In the wake of the failed Boxer Uprising in China (1899-1900), or the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), any mention of Asians and violence was more likely to bring up the specter of Fu Man Chu (or some other literary villain) than a boundary crossing hero like Bruce Lee.

The Asian martial arts made their first important inroads into Western popular culture at a time of considerable cultural anxiety. How were these trends connected? And how did the basic social scripts and patterns that were laid down in the early 20th century go on to shape and influence the larger process of cultural appropriation of these fighting systems in the 1970s and 1980s?

It is no coincidence that both of these time periods, the 1910s and the 1970s, share a number of key characteristics. Both were periods of rapid globalization measured in the growth of international trade and domestic economic dislocation. These eras were also characterized by the fear of global war in which Asia might play a more prominent role. And in both periods the public showed a great interest in the Asian fighting arts. Reconsidering the role of the “Yellow Peril” in this earlier period may reveal previously overlooked social patterns which survive into the later period as well.

An advertisement for the Yabe School of Jiu-Jitsu in the July 1905 edition of the Business and Bookkeeper Magazine. Note the not too subtle reference to Japan’s recent victory over Russia and its relevance to hand combat.

Jiu-Jitsuing Uncle Sam

Recently it was my good fortune to run into an article which nicely sets the stage for this sort of comparative exercise. Wendy Rouse published “Jiu-Jitsuing Uncle Sam: The Unmanly Art of Jiu-Jitsu and the Yellow Peril Threat in the Progressive Era United Stated” in the October 2015 issue of the Pacific Historical Review. Best known for her work on childhood and family life among early Chinese-American immigrants, in this piece she turns her considerable historical talents to a detailed examination of the media discussion surrounding the initial introduction of Japanese jiu-jitsu (using the spelling preferred at that time) and its complex, at times contradictory, relationship with economic, gendered, nationalist and social discourses in early 20th century America.

This article has much to recommend it and will be of interest to anyone who studies either the global spread of the Asian martial arts or the Asian-American experience in the progressive era. The author’s research is firmly grounded in a rich array of primary sources. These fall basically into two categories. On the one hand she has assembled an impressive database of newspaper and magazine articles, early jiu-jitsu manuals (published by both Japanese and Western authors), political statements and even advertisements for mail-order martial arts classes.

This material is often juxtaposed with more traditional historical sources (including letters and journals) recording the conversations and thought of political elites. Much of her investigation of upper-class opinion on the Japanese question and the value of jiu-jitsu focused on President Theodore Roosevelt’s effort to master the system, promote it within the USA and wrestle with its implications for his understanding of early 20th century racial/national hierarchies.

Her empirical discussion is also theoretically grounded. Rouse draws inspiration from two sources in particular, and they seem to have provided the framework upon which she organizes her understanding of the forces that shaped the progressive era’s appropriation of judo and jiu-jitsu.

The first of these is Elliott G. Gorn’s now classic study, The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America (Cornell UP, 2nd ed. 2010). Appearing in the late 1980s, this book made two major contributions to the discussion of the combat sports and fighting traditions. First it argued that these practices revealed important insights into a wide range of social, class, political and gender discourses. At the time this was still a novel insight.

Secondly, it used the development of boxing to argue that changes in any of these discourses could only be understood in relation to what was going on in the other. In short, the combat sports are interesting precisely because they provide a way to cut into a group of complex and mutually constitutive social forces. Rouse’s own contributions to the discussion do much to reinforce both of these prior conclusions.

Rouse also references Akihiko Hirose and Key Kei-ho Pih’s “Men who Strike and Men who Submit: Hegemonic and Marginalized masculinities in Mixed Martial Arts” (Men and Masculinities, 2010 no.2, 190-209). When looking at the debate between “striking” versus “grappling” strategies in the development of mixed martial arts these authors noted a strong correlation with stereotypic “western” and “eastern” theories of masculinity. They noted that culturally speaking more “western” modes of attack such as punching and kicking (reminiscent of boxing) tended to be favored over Orientalized and “feminized” practices such as jujitsu. However, the effectiveness of these techniques led to them being selectively appropriated in such a way that they were no longer a threat to the overall (western) cultural values of MMA. As will become clear Rouse sees basically the same pattern playing itself out between 1902 and the end of WWI. As such this article functions as her main interpretive lens.

Rouse’s article starts out with a brief yet comprehensive review of popular anxieties centering on increased Asian immigration and the threat of a “Yellow Peril” in America in the late 19th and early 20th century. After looking at the political and imperialist origins of this discourse she turns her attention to the ways in which it intersected with other powerful economic and social conflicts during the period. Labor organizations were on the front lines of this fight as they had the most to lose from falling wages. Antagonistic patterns that had developed with reference to Chinese communities during the 19th century were increasingly applied to Japanese immigrants (many of whom were actually coming from Hawaii) in the 20th.

These clashes led to new legislation marginalizing and attempting to segregate Japanese-American residents during the Roosevelt Presidency. This was a problem for the president who had a more complicated and nuanced view of the Japanese. While he (like practically all members of his generation) perceived the world as a series of racial hierarchies, Roosevelt was not in favor of the outright exclusion of the Japanese. This was likely because he both admired and was somewhat afraid of Japan’s growing military stature in Asia and wanted to avoid conflict with Japan so far was possible. Yet at the same time he was politically obligated to respond to the demands of progressive voices in the labor movement.

This sort of political calculus alone might be enough to explain the eventual banning of Japanese immigration to America. Yet in what ways can it help us to make sense of the growing popular interest in jiu-jitsu, which began to explode at almost the exact same moment in time?

Rouse argues that to understand this we must also look at the “crisis of masculinity” which was starting to grip popular discourse in the early 20th century. Many streams contributed to this rising tide of anxiety. It stemmed from the increasingly urban and sedentary nature of American life as the economy evolved, changing theories about the value of physical culture and even the growing women’s suffrage movement. Yet there were also unmistakable racial overtones to this discussion. Indeed, it is here that Western fears of a “Yellow Peril” began to play out differently for the Japanese than what had already been seen with the nation’s much larger Chinese population.

Japan had been a rising military power in Asia for decades, and the world had begun to take note. Many Western commentators had been surprised by the effectiveness of Japan’s modernized military during the Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion (where the performance of its forces could be compared directly to its allied Western counterparts). But that was nothing compared to the wave of awe that was unleased by Japan’s defeat of Russia during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), whose conclusion was negotiated by Roosevelt himself.

On the one hand this vastly improved Japan’s standing in the Western imagination. Compared to China it was seen as a strong, mature and modernizing force in the region. Its military victories on the field reinforced the virility of its national image. Yet this growing strength came with an undercurrent of anxiety as to what it all meant for America’s aspirations in the Pacific, as well as its own sense of masculinity.

The appearance of multiple jiu-jitsu teachers in the United States further complicated this question. Working class Americans were very much invested in both wrestling and boxing as not just popular sports but signs of their collective masculinity. When the initial contests between American and Japanese fighters failed to demonstrate the inherent superiority of the former, the national press began to sit up and take notice.

In an era when national, racial and gendered hierarchies were so tightly tied in the public imagination, Japan’s success on the battlefield, and the success of individual Japanese martial artists on the mat, seemed to reinforce each other in a powerful and potentially frightening way. As Rouse notes, all of this tied directly into the ongoing national conversation on the “Yellow Peril.”

Another advertisement for the Yabe school, this time emphasizing the art’s value to women. This add ran in Black Cat magazine during the year 1905.

Exoticizing, Feminizing and Appropriating Jiu-Jitsu

In the second half of her article Rouse lays out the three main strategies by which American society seems to have come to terms with the Japanese martial arts in the early 20th century. Interestingly, both the supporters and opponents of these fighting systems employed all three of these strategies, and at times even adopted the same basic symbols. Yet variations in emphasis led them to sharply different conclusions.

The first of these strategies was to emphasize the exotic and alien nature of the Japanese martial arts. Secondly, commentators attempted to question the cultural values that they represented (by way of comparison western boxing was often seen as upholding the social values most important to western notions of “manliness”). As such, the popular press was full of both subtle and overt efforts to “feminize” the image of jiu-jitsu. Lastly, when it became clear one simply could not dismiss this body of practice on technical grounds, efforts were made to appropriate or co-opt the martial arts in ways that did not challenge the perceived dominance of western models on masculinity.

Rouse’s discussion of the exoticizing impulse when dealing with jiu-jitsu is perhaps the best developed and most interesting aspect of her paper. Both supporters of the system and detractors pointed to its foreign and esoteric nature, yet they drew very different conclusions as to what this implied for the practices worth. Both early American and Japanese martial arts teachers in the west immediately latched onto the public’s appetite for oriental mystery and romance and saw this as the key to successfully marketing their wares.

Yae Kichi Yabe, a jiu-jitsu instructor trained in the Tenjin Shinyo-ryu, set up shop in Rochester NY in 1904 and promptly began to advertise heavily in a number of national publications. In addition to promoting his school these advertisements attempted to sell books and correspondence lessons which could introduce one to the art of jiu-jitsu. While a number of different advertisements were produced, each of them promised to reveal fighting techniques which up to a single generation ago had been kept secret within Japan and were only now being taught to foreigners for the first time. Alluding to the recent victory over Russia, Yabe claimed that it was this secret knowledge (previously confined to a handful of Samurai families) which had been the key to his nation’s fighting prowess and their relatively few causalities.

Opponents of the new system also latched onto the exotic nature of jiu-jitsu, yet they drew sharply different conclusions. Rather than a contest of strength and endurance the Asian martial arts seemed to be based on skills that drew heavily on cunning and deception. In fact, it was not even clear that one could think of jiu-jitsu as an athletic sport at all. While a system of self-defense, it did not appear suitable for the sort of moral instruction of the nation’s youth that boxing and wrestling had offered. Of course a number of Western fighters loudly disagreed with the often heard assertion that these systems would allow a well-trained small individual (presumably one who was Asian or female) to beat a larger person (presumably a white male). Not only did this go against the basic logic of weight-classes in Western combat sports, but it seemed a direct challenge to racial and gender hierarchies at a time when upholding these systems was seen an as explicit goal of American physical culture.

Rouse’s discussion of the feminization of jiu-jitsu, while interesting, is less well developed. In this case almost all of her examples explore the ways in which critics attempted to discredit the art by feminizing it. Writers in the boxing press criticized jiu-jitsu as a proper fighting art after hearing reports of it being taught to female college students at Vassar. That example was fascinating as it actually brought together the trifecta of racial, class and gender anxiety in an explosion of animosity directed squarely at jiu-jitsu. Reading through a few such examples it is not hard to understand why the growing popularity of the art in some quarters might be seen as a threat to the masculinity of working-class boxing fans.

Unfortunately this discussion was not as detailed as the one that came before, and it left out what may have been one of the most interesting elements of the story. Both supporters of jiu-jitsu as well as its opponents seemed to collude in the feminization of the art. Yabe’s advertisements are once again quite instructive. Some of his pitches focused explicitly on female insecurity and the value of martial arts training as a means of self-defense for women. In other cases it was emphasized how a proper knowledge of jiu-jitsu would allow “boys” to overcome “men.” And his advertisements emphasized the small size and frame of the Japanese soldier who had humiliated their hulking Russian enemies.

Nor was Yabe alone in this effort. Inazo Nitobe discussed at some length the place of women in the Bushido philosophy and their sometimes extensive training in traditional hand combat skills. His widely read 1904 volume, Bushido: The Soul of the Samurai, actually places this discussion of women directly following his chapter on the sword as the “soul of the samurai.” Kano Jigoro included women in the Judo system from its foundation. Further, the suffragette’s also brought quite a bit of attention to jiu-jitsu. It seems then that women of Vassar were in good company.

The feminization of the Japanese arts was not just a slur.  It was a very effective advertising strategy which was actively pursued by their supporters. Following the lead of Dominic LaRochelle it may also be useful to ask to what degree these newly produced American manuals were following the lead of their Japanese language counterparts.  If so, the use of feminine imagery within the Japanese martial arts may be more complex than this discussion suggests.

A google N-gram chart showing spikes in the popularity of terms “jiu-jitsu” and “judo” in published English language documents during the first two decades of the 20th century. The blue line notes when Roosevelt began to publicly practice the art. The green lines demarcate the start and end of the Russo-Japanese War, and the Red Lines Mark WWI. Note the increase in usage of these terms around the start of both conflicts.

As above, but this graph looks at instances of the use of jiu-jitsu and judo in works of English language fiction. Note that in both cases we see a bump in fictional references after a corresponding rise in non-fiction uses. Neither term appears with any frequency in the google database of scanned publications prior to 1900, and both remain in circulation after 1920.

Lastly Rouse looks at the various ways in which jiu-jitsu was appropriated by the western hand combat establishment. This is a somewhat complex topic and probably could have been a paper of its own. While a growing number of individuals in the West were aware of jiu-jitsu, it seems that Roosevelt’s patronage of the art (starting in 1902) helped to spark a much wider (and more lively) national discussion of the topic. This was further elevated by Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and the perceived role of jiu-jitsu in its victory.

While jiu-jitsu became something of a fixture in popular fiction from that point onward, its popularity as a fighting system seems to have ebbed over the next five years. Yet it did not disappear. Its basic effectiveness led to a number of important western wrestling and boxing teachers adopting elements of it in their own teaching systems. Further, the specter of the First World War looming on the horizon led militaries in both North America and Europe to begin to look for more effective means of hand combat training. Jiu-jitsu excelled in this role. It also found a ready audience (willing to pay for instruction) among law enforcement officers who actually had to put hands on criminals on a regular basis.

By the end of the First World War jiu-jitsu had left a very notable mark on Western fighting culture. Yet, as Rouse points out, it was not usually adopted whole cloth. Nor were many individuals advocating the adoption of the Japanese value system that lay behind the art (of course the actual age and authenticity of Bushido is a separate question and one that goes well beyond the scope of this discussion). Instead, elements of jiu-jitsu were culturally appropriated in ways that augmented, rather than undermined, what remained an essentially Western understanding of violence.

Another classic Yabe School add. This one was seen in number of publications and it gave a clear overview of the schools aims and pitch. Source: Recreation, July 1905.

Conclusion

The conclusion of this article may seem anti-climatic. Yet one must wonder how it could be otherwise. As Krug has pointed, the cultural appropriation of the Asian fighting arts has been a long and slow process because certain types of deep knowledge and values are not shared across cultures. Thus when former boxing instructors begin to teach karate or jiu-jitsu, the structural content of their lessons will always have a lot to do with boxing. Or to put it in slightly more theoretical terms, one cannot change your “habitus” as quickly as you can change your “style.”

In that sense I am not sure that what Rouse describes is so much a defeat of the existential threat that jiu-jitsu posed to the West as it was the first step on a much longer adventure. Seeds that were planted in the 1910s began to sprout and grow in the 1930s-1940s. Those trees, in turn, did not begin to really bear fruit until the 1960s and 1970s. And at each step along the way new material was added to the process.

As I stated at the start of this discussion, I quite liked this article and would not hesitate to assign it to students. It provides an important overview of an era of the globalization of the Asian martial arts that does not receive enough attention.

Still, I suspect that to get the full benefit of Rouse’s effort we need to continue to connect the dots. We must ask ourselves how the lineages, social discourses and media images that attached themselves to the martial arts in the 1910s continued to shape the nascent understanding that each succeeding generation brought to their own encounter with these hand combat systems.

One cannot help but notice that the three part pattern of Orientalization, feminization and appropriation which Rouse uncovered in the early 20th century bears an uncanny resemblance to process by which the Chinese martial arts entered the public consciousness in the 1960s-1970s. Indeed, when one looks at Yabe’s advertisements for his various books and courses, with all of their promises of esoteric knowledge and commercialized self-confidence, we are seeing a template that would reemerge time and again to sell very similar visions throughout the next 70 years of American history.

On a more theoretical level, an awareness of the central role of Japan’s victory over Russia in shaping how the idea of the “Yellow Peril” was experienced in the early 20th century, and the impact that this had on the spread of jiu-jitsu in both practice terms and its discussion in the popular media, may affect how we think of events in the 1970s. It could be that the upsurge of interest in the martial arts and images of Asian violence that arose in the wake of the defeat in Vietnam was not an isolate event, but a script that had its own historical antecedents lurking in the background.

The work of a theorists like Sylvia Shin Huey Chong (The Oriental Obscene: Violence and Racial Fantasies in the Vietnam Era, Duke UP 2011) may apply to discussions of the globalization of the Asian martial arts more broadly than we generally think.  While her argument directly addresses a number of films of the post-Vietnam environment, the many striking similarities to social discussions that were happening in the post-1905 era suggest that her theory might have something to say on our understanding of these events as well. Likewise a better understanding of the early 20th century movement of the Japanese arts should improve our theorizing of events in later decades. The lasting value in Rouse’s work is to show us that many of these seemingly obscure pathways have been traveled before.  In fact, we have been on them for longer than we can remember.

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If you enjoyed this post you may want to read: Through a Lens Darkly (20): Ip Man Confronts the “Indian” Police Officer

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Introduction

I am happy to announce that a special guest has agreed to drop by Kung Fu Tea for a visit.  Andrea Molle is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and a Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Society at Chapman University.  He is also the director of Budo-lab, a new research center dedicated to advancing the fields of hoplology and martial arts studies (MAS).  His center is the first in the US (which I am aware of) to be dedicated exclusively to the interdisciplinary investigation of martial arts systems and other forms of combative behavior.  Prof. Molle has generously agreed to discuss his own research and the goals of this new center below.  But readers should feel free to submit some of your own questions in the comments section if you would like to delve a little deeper into the topics that we touch on here.

Kung Fu Tea (KFT): First off, welcome ot Kung Fu Tea. Can you begin by telling us a little bit about yourself? What is your academic background, and how did you end up at Chapman University?

Andrea Molle (AM): Sure, I was born and grew up in Italy 40 years ago. My undergraduate studies are in Political Science and I have a PhD in sociology with an emphasis in the Social Anthropology of Religion and Research Methods. My Phd thesis mainly dealt with Japanese New Religious Movements (NRM) and their expansion in Christian countries.

In 2006 I was appointed Fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science and spent two years in Nagoya (at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture) researching into the perceived and constructed spirituality of Gendai Budo – post WWII martial arts. I particularly focused on Aikido, which I started practicing in 1991, and Kenjutsu that I experienced for the first time in Japan being humbled to be admitted to the mainline Yagyu Shinkage Ryu lineage in Nagoya.

(KFT): When did you first start training in the martial arts?

(AM): I started with judo when I was a little kid, and transitioned to Aikido around the age of 16 along with Kendo. I’ve been practicing Aikido in the Buikukai lineage ever since. Our lineage is part of the Aikikai and was created by the late Kobayashi Hirokazu, a student of the Founder Ueshiba Morihei and before that of Takuma Hisa (Daito Ryu Aikijutsu).

Within Gendai Budo, besides Aikido (which I currently teach at Chapman) I also practice Atarashi Naginata and Jukendo (Bayonet fighting). I also have a fairly decent level of experience with Koryu mainly in Yagyu Shinkage Ryu and Meifu Shinkage Ryu Shurikenjutsu. Over the years I’ve had the pleasure to practice Shorinji Kempo and Taiji for brief period of times but I wouldn’t dare to say that I have an extensive knowledge of these styles.

(KFT): When did you first become interested in martial arts studies as an academic and professional project?

(AM): I would say right before applying to become a JSPS fellow. The project I wrote for the application, my research on the spirituality of Budo, was enormously influenced by this newly discovered interest. Being part of the MA milieu, as a practitioner, I’ve probably always experienced it but never really noticed how pervasive it was. Then, conducting my research in graduate school, I started to notice how often new members or postulants in these NRM were also involved in a recurrent set of activities including very specific martial arts: typically aikido and kendo.

(KFT): What prior research projects did you work on in Japan?

(AM): As I mentioned before I conducted almost 2 years of fieldwork as a “fighting scholar” where I was researching and practicing at the same time. My focus was principally into the way spirituality in the martial arts was constructed and diffused across practitioners networks of both native (Japanese nationals) and non-native subjects (non-Japanese nationals, typically Americans and Europeans).

Among the other topics I explored the main ways MA functioned as gateway to eastern spiritual traditions (more or less legitimately) as well as a complete surrogate to any established spiritual experience. It is of course more complicated than that but I would argue the former is more common in the case of Kendo and the latter in the Aikido milieu.

Military Accomplishments of Japan, slide 2. Photo by Tamamura. Source: Author’s Personal Collection.

(KFT): I notice that some of the literature on your webpage lists “hoplology” and “martial arts studies” together as related fields. In your usage, what is hoplology, and how does it relate to martial arts studies?

(AM): Hoplology is the study of combative behavior, technologies, and performance and by its own definition includes the martial arts as codified systems evolved in different civilizations and societies (it is quite a universal) to deal with violence, particularly from a warrior class/state perspective. I consider martial arts studies to be a subfield of hoplology that investigate a very particular nexus of combative behavior and society. I believe that hoplology, with its non-normative or moralistic approach to violence, could also give a broad and innovative contribution to the study of violence.

(KFT): Can you tell us a little bit about the BUDO-Lab at Chapman University? How did this project come about and what are some of its long terms goals?

(AM): BUDO-lab is an interdisciplinary research cluster within our college of arts, humanities, and social science. We are a group of social scientists, historians, language experts and scholars in the fields of cultural and critical studies. Currently, we have several research projects in the works and our main long-term goal is to establish a permanent research center at Chapman University. We would love to see it growing as a point of reference for all academics and independent researchers in the field. Our University, and particularly the College, is very supportive.

(KFT): I noticed that we have a couple of things in common. To begin with, we are both political scientists! Which is interesting as it seems that most of the academic work on the martial arts has previously been done by cultural and film studies students, anthropologists and historians. What tools or approaches does political science (or the social sciences more generally) bring to the table that might be useful for the future development of martial arts studies?

(AM): You are spot on! Many of the contributions to the field are coming more from the humanities. I for one did my first works as an anthropologist and the more I looked into that, the more I realized that it was yet one more field the social sciences were missing. Don’t get me wrong, these are all interesting works but I believe as social scientists we can bring about change in terms of methodological rigor, especially in terms of quantitative/comparative research which is still basically missing from the literature.

Additionally, with a socio-scientific framework we may be able to better interface with scholars in both the natural and physical sciences who are also researching the martial arts. As political scientists we are also well positioned to examine the role that governments play in relation to organized violence and social control.

(KFT): Paul Bowman (among others) has argued that martial arts studies is best understood as an interdisciplinary research area. Do you agree with that assessment? And if so, what does good interdisciplinary work look like within MAS?

(AM): Absolutely. Paul is 100% right. Let me tell you that I don’t think “interdisciplinary” means to create yet one more discipline nor destroy disciplinary boundaries. I like Paul’s suggestion of disrupting it instead.

I would say that good interdisciplinary work requires two things both within MAS but also in any other field. These are the capacity to engage in a dialogue with and understand disciplines other that yours and a firm and solid grounding in your own discipline(s). The metaphor of martial arts practice is very useful here for we all understand the limitations of our arts and expand out horizons but you can’t pretend to be an expert of too many styles at once!

(KFT): In addition to being political scientists we both share an interest in religion’s role in the modern world. What sorts of lessons might martial arts studies learn from religious studies? How does this background influence your own work?

(AM): My background influences my work mainly with respect of both its substantive and methodological aspects. On the methodological side I attempt to combine interpretative methods of data gathering such as ethnography with more structured ways to analyze it such as statistical and computational tools. I wouldn’t call it a mixed-method approach, because I have my doubts about that, but rather a deliberate triangulation. On the substantive side my focus on religion has been guiding me in the direction of researching religious and ritualized violence, legitimacy and costly behavior. If you think about it, studying religion prepares us to comfortably approach topics such as violence and death.

(KFT): Can you tell us a little bit about the projects that BUDO-lab is pursuing now (specifically, but not limited to, the current effort to make a database of martial arts schools)?

(AM): Our main project at this time is to try and map MA practice and interest in the US as thoroughly as possible. We started our 1st phase a month ago. Our study will collect openly available anonymous data on the geographical distribution of Martial Arts Schools in the United States. Data will be used to explore how the practice of martial arts connects to fear and actual existential threats. Our hypotheses is that the density of martial arts schools is positively correlated with the perception of existential threats, such as violent crimes and worsening living conditions, but negatively correlated with the reality of it.

(KFT): It seems to me that in some important respects the development of martial arts studies in the United States lags behind what we see in Europe (e.g., Germany and the UK) or Asia (China, Japan and Korea). In your opinion, why is this? What sorts of things need to happen to bolster the strength of martial arts studies in this academic environment?

(AM): The US is still very entrenched in an old way of understanding disciplinarity. Our entire reward system and research practice are not yet wired for interdisciplinarity despite the cheap propaganda of being fully open to it. At the end of the day we have our departments offering redundant programs and classes (this is particularly true in the case of research methods) and evaluating their faculty exclusively on the basis of publications in discipline-oriented journals or conferences. We need more synergies and cross pollination before thinking about additional development. I am actually happy MAS hasn’t been fully developed yet because I don’t think we should aim to replicate the existing method but instead look at what has been done in Europe. I hope BUDO-lab will start the revolution!

(KFT): What stands out to you as a good example of martial arts studies scholarship that other researchers may want to consider and emulate? Or maybe to put things slightly differently, what should I be reading, especially if I would like to learn a little more about the state of scholarship on the Japanese arts?

(AM): You should take a look at the works of Alexander Bennett. Alex has PhDs in both the fields of Anthropology and Japanese history. His last book on the development of Kendo (Kendo: Culture of the Sword. UC Press, 2015) should be on the reading list of any classes that deals with Japanese Budo as well as Japanese Politics in the Meiji up to the contemporary era.

I would also recommend following the Archives of Budo Journal and the works of the Japanese Academy of Budo. Another good resource is the anthology Fighting Scholars: Habitus and Ethnographies of Martial Arts and Combat Sports (Anthem, 2014). And of course I’d suggest some of my works you can find on our webpage.

(KFT): Thanks for the suggestions. And thank you for taking the time to discuss your research with us. We look forward to hearing more about BUDO-lab’s progress in the future.

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If you enjoyed this interview you might also want to read: Roundtable Discussion on the State of Martial Studies with Paul Bowman and Ben Judkins, Part I-II.

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Feb. 1, 1963: Dragon, manipulated by 40 men, takes part in Chinese New Year parade for the Year of the Rabbit in New Chinatown.

Introduction

The Spring Festival (or “Chinese New Year”) is now upon us. The most important holiday of the Chinese social calendar, this time of year is also significant for students of martial arts studies. It is a busy time for Lion, Qilin and Dragon Dance associations, as well as the martial arts schools and community groups that sponsor them. Indeed, it is a time of the year when martial skills and values are on public display. They can be seen in the various sorts of street processions that have long been part of life in Chinese communities as well as in smaller martial arts and dance exhibitions celebrating the season.

In some cases the sheer number of individuals and groups taking part in these displays also leads to social tension and the memory of past community conflict. Stories of never quite forgotten fights seem to be most commonly associated with Lion Dance companies in large urban centers like Hong Kong or New York. Still, as the discussion in today’s post makes clear, such tensions play an important part in a wide range of traditional rituals designed to celebrate the lunar New Year.

Why this should be is something of a paradox. The Spring Festival is widely seen as a time from setting aside community conflicts and getting a fresh start. Such values are not only verbally taught, they are reinforced through ritual means. Why then do martial values play such a prominent role in these displays? And what does this suggest both about the nature of community life and the role of the martial arts in the selective suppression or expression of conflict?

To help us delve into these questions we will be taking a look at a paper titled “Dragon Dance in Tu Village: Social Cohesion and Symbolic Warfare” by Tu Chuna-fei, Thomas Green, Zheng Guo-hua and Feng Qiang. This article was published in the Ido Movement for Culture. Journal of Martial Arts Anthropology, 2013, Vol. 13 Issue 1.

The authors of this article begin by noting that while many martial arts, rituals and practices from the past have been preserved as part of the quest to safeguard China’s “intangible cultural heritage,” the actual activities themselves have almost always been divorced from the social context that gave rise to their creation. Further, these diverse practices have been re-imagined as “traditional” sports. Obviously this is a conceptual category that did not exist when such activities were being practiced by their original communities, and it further deemphasizes the original social context of such practices.

In an attempt to recover the lost social context of one Spring Festival celebration the authors of this paper conducted a number of interviews with individuals in the Tu Village area who were old enough to remember the original festival processions for which the town developed a regional reputation. Each of these individuals had been associated in some way with the local power structure (organized through the clan associations) in the area prior to the Communist takeover in 1949.

It was during the post-1950 era that the practice of the Tu Village Dragon Dance (like so many other traditional arts) first lapsed. Thus the reconstruction of the organization of this festival allows these scholars to tell us something about the execution and social function of a Dragon Dance. Their investigation also reveals details about the local power structure that might otherwise have been forgotten.

Lastly, this article also helps us to understand how traditional “martial values” can erase certain conflicts within a community while still acknowledging, or even exacerbating, others. After considering this case we can begin to make our own arguments as to why martial displays have been such an important part of festival displays.

Dragon dance at a public festival in San Francisco. 1965. Source: UPI press photo.

The Tu Village Dragon Dance

Durkheim famously argued that the sacred is, at heart, social. The rituals of traditional Chinese society, in which cycles of sacrifice unite families, lineages, clans, villages and even regions seems almost designed to illustrate his point. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Tu Village Dragon Dance.

In the 1930s and 1940s Tu Village (Nanchang County, Jiangxi Province) was a primarily agricultural rice producing area (the local economy has since diversified). The village itself was part of a regional economic network of other farming hamlets. In some cases it was on friendly terms with these settlements. Yet it engaged in fierce competition with its close neighbor, Deng Village, with which it shared a common water source. Obviously water is a critical element of rice farming and resource driven conflict between villages was a common feature of this era. Nor were such tensions always kept at bay. The historical record is littered with examples of similar tensions that suddenly escalated into real aggression.

This was not the only potential source of potential conflict in the region. Tu Village itself was structured as a typical “single surname” settlement. Yet upon closer inspection things were actually much more complicated. As one of the larger settlements in the region, it was also somewhat similar to a “temple village.” A large temple, complete with its own extensive landholdings and tenant/guardian families, was located within the village boundaries.

In actual fact there were three major surname groups within the village. These were Tu, Bao and Li. Both the Tu and Bao families maintained their own ancestral clan temples. Yet village residents, pointing to “ancient traditions,” noted that important ancestors of both the Tu and Bao families had intermarried. The situation with the Li group was similar, if a bit later. Thus the three surnames constituted a single “extended family” which was administered on a day to day basis by a group of clan elders, representing the more senior families in the village.

To better understand how a unifying identity within Tu Village was created (as well as how their conflict with the neighboring Deng Village was reinforced) it is necessary to turn to the local communal celebration rituals of the Spring Festival. Prof. Green and the other authors of the article discuss this in some detail. For our purposes we will simply touch on a few of the most relevant factors.

One of the larger and more prosperous local towns, the celebrations of Tu Village were remembered as being especially spirited and notable. The town even managed to draw in additional outside visitors eager to take in the celebration.

The heart of the event was a multi-day Dragon Dance procession which visited, in turn, the local temples (both of the gods and clans), the homes of notable residents, outlaying settlements with which Tu Village was on friendly terms, and lastly, the shared lake near Deng Village. This last stop represented the boundary of Tu’s economic and political influence. There the procession took on a more menacing character.

One of the reasons why festivals are of interest to students of Chinese martial studies is that such processions are often led by local martial arts schools or their various community associations. Avron Boretz has noted that there are very good ritual reasons that unmarried young men, who have little social status in a traditional Chinese community, are called upon to embody martial values in these celebrations. Further, this opportunity for community involvement under the guise of an alternate value structure can be an important engine for self-creation among marginal males. Boretz has also noted, somewhat ironically, that on the whole this usually tends to reinforce, rather than fundamentally challenge, the core values of the community. Thus individuals who might otherwise become alienated are tasked with reinforcing social order.

In the major case of his ethnographic research Boretz was looking at the martial and religious performances of relatively small temple associations embedded within larger, modern, urban communities. While the basic principles that he articulated are evident in this case as well, the details of the festival’s organization are quite different.

Put simply, the Tu Village Dragon Dance was an immense affair. Rather than being something that a single voluntary association might host, it required the active participation of practically the entire adult male population of the village.

The procession itself included a number of features.  The most important was a large wicker and paper dragon-lantern comprised on nine articulated sections and an ornate head. This was carried by a rotating group of middle aged, married, dancers drawn from each of the three surname households.

Next there were three palanquins that held the images of the gods normally housed in the village temple. The Dragon Dance was actually performed as a “sacrifice” to the gods who followed it along the route. These statutes were born by young unmarried (and relatively low status) men drawn from each of the three families.

In addition there were larger groups of male reserve dancers who could switch out when members of either group became exhausted. Readers should recall that the festival was a multi-day affair. There would also have been musicians, organizers and even a team of gunners who were responsible for firing the antique cannon that led the procession and announced its arrival the various stops.

Green points out that women, older men and children were also involved in the procession. In functional terms they were more than simply the audience. It was they who witnessed and bore testament to each element of the carefully scripted social drama which the procession played out.

The administration and management of the festival was also a complicated undertaking. It monopolized the attention of the town’s elite residents, albeit in a slightly different way. The festival itself was funded through the rents of the local temple’s generous land holdings. As such, actually financing the event was rarely an issue. The clan elders oversaw and managed all of the financial aspects of the performance. Green et. al. noted that the local elite were so highly involved in this particular event that it took on the trappings of an “official” event.

Nevertheless, the elders did not run the performance of the festival. The actual hosting duties associated with the festivals, as well as certain aesthetic and administrative decisions regarding how the festival would look in a given year, rotated between all of the heads of households for each of the three surnames found in the village.

Following the town’s creation myth, the senior lineage of the Tu family was the first to host the festival. The next year they were followed by the ranking representatives of the Bao and then finally Li groups. After that the task was returned to the second most senior household within the Tu clan before moving on to the other two groups. In this way every household in the village would eventually get an opportunity to act as the Dragon Dance’s host.

Not surprisingly, much prestige was associated with the responsibility to hosting the festival. While the procession itself was payed for by the Temple’s rents, families competed with one another to provide additional gifts, food, or some additional detail of performance to make their turn especially memorable.

There are some interesting dynamics at play in this organizational system. On the one hand the rotating responsibilities for hosting the festival serve to reinforce both the town mythos and clan based power structure. It is no surprise that the Communist party was so eager to do away with such practices.

Yet at the same time this rotation provided a ritualized basis for extending a fair amount of prestige to every household in the village. Further, it allowed newly ascendant families to show off their wealth, effectively converting it to social status, in a way that was socially acceptable to the village as a whole, rather than destabilizing to it.

Green and the other authors of this article repeatedly emphasized the role of gift-giving in this celebration. The Dragon Dance itself was meant to be seen as a gift. On one level it was a gift that was given by the villagers to the local gods who rode in the procession. The dragon was danced in front to the village’s ancestral halls for the benefit of the ancestors. It visited friendly local hamlets as a gift for Tu’s political allies in the region. And of course the Dragon visited the homes and streets of village residents.

A key element of the celebration was the widespread tradition of inviting in-laws to Tu village to also enjoy the display. This village celebration was seen as a gift that every family should extend to their in-laws. In explaining this aspect of the tradition Green et. al. note that the main handicraft industry of the region (the making of rice noodles) was relatively labor intensive. As a result it was common for families to call on their networks of in-laws to pitch in during busy times. Thus the gift giving embodied in the Tu Dragon Dance reinforced economic networks of vital importance that transcended the normal social barriers of household, clan or village.

Still, the story of the Tu Village Dragon Dance is not without a dark side. The creation of any social community is only possible by explicitly defining who lies beyond its boundaries. To whom do these networks of reciprocity not apply? Or following the economic logic of agricultural life, with whom do we compete for resources?

The procession of the dragon through its traditional route can be thought of as a ritualized pilgrimage tracing out and reinforcing the boundaries of the community. It is no mistake that the climactic moment of the final day of the event occurs when the group moves to the local lake (the main water source needed for agriculture) and performs their dance within sight of Deng Village.

This is no gift. Rather it is a taunt and an assertion of “ownership” over a shared resource that Tu village did not totally control. In this gesture the authors of the article see an example of “symbolic warfare.” To them this element of the display is just as critical to understanding its social function as the unifying aspects that came before. They note:

“Victor Turner characterizes ritual as a “social drama” which consists of three stages: a movement from structure to anti-structure and ultimately a return to structure. At the beginning of the ritual, participants are arranged in strict accordance with their social positions in everyday life so that the ritual conforms to the values and norms of the “structure”. During the peak of the ritual, the social positions of participants gradually disappear; distinctions between them are temporarily eliminated, and they become a community. At the peak of the festival (Lantern Night), “we” (Tu Villagers) confront our traditional enemies (Deng Villagers) via the Dragon Dance. Because the confrontation is merely symbolic, after the festival, participants’ social positions and original roles in everyday life are resumed with peace and order undisturbed. (Green et al. p. 8).”

A Dragon Dance performed by the Ben Kiam Athletic Association in Manila, Philippines, sometime during the 1950s. Copyright Tambuli Media.

Why ‘Wu’ is the Transformative Element

This is a strong note on which to end their paper. And Victor Turner’s framework of “social drama” can do much to help us understand exactly what is at stake in the Tu Village Dragon Dance. Yet to actually answer the question that opened this article (why are specifically martial values central to these sorts of celebrations), we will need to push a little deeper.

First, it may be useful to think about the degree to which the Dragon Dance is best understood as an act of “symbolic warfare.” It is easy to see how the display could be taken as a threat. It gathers together the entire fighting age male population of the village. The dancers announce that they would like to get the attention of the residents of Deng village by repeatedly firing a piece of field artillery in their general direction. Finally, this explicitly martial display happens in front of a natural resource that Tu Village would very much like to monopolize. But in the majority of years it seems that the aggressive impulses behind this display were channeled into the dance itself and actual violence was avoided.

We can certainly analyze this event in purely symbolic terms if we would like. Yet before doing so it may be useful to delve just a little deeper into the history of such displays. In point of fact, they did not always remain as non-violent as one might like. Armed conflict and militarized feuding between clans and villages was a very real part of life throughout southern China during the Qing and Republic periods. While such conflicts were present in all of China’s regions, period commentators were clear that they were particularly serious in the south. Further, actual historical accounts confirm that simmering conflicts occasionally escalated to the point of violence following a dance performance or martial arts display by one group in territory that another also claimed.  The provocations involved in this ritual may be more serious than a casual reader might suspect. Nor can we ignore the importance of environmental variables. Behavior that might be ignored in good years would be much more dangerous in periods of drought or regional conflict.

This general pattern is by no means confined to the Dragon Dances of Jianxi Province. It appears to be a common feature of all sorts of processions. Lion and Qilin dancing also attempt to consolidate a community while defining its boundaries.

Historically speaking, outbreaks of violence between Lion Dance troops have been common in places as diverse as Hong Kong and New York City. Even in periods in which actual violence was uncommon, observers (including Anita Slovenz) noted that groups reacted to the meeting of competing performance groups on the street with great anxiety. Entire ritual codes were created to enable two lions to pass each other without incident (or instead to provoke one if the parties so wished). In the cases that Slovenz studied, these conflicts were basically a reflection of more fundamental economic and political struggles on the part of the social organizations who sponsored the various martial arts schools and dance associations in New York.

Thus the situation which we see in Tu Village is not simply an artifact of its geographic setting. Rather, what Green et. al. describe is a specific expression of a much more general pattern. Historically speaking, the possibility of violence was real. This must have colored the attitude with which the various dancers approached their task.

It might also be worth asking whether at the end of this festival the participants returned to their “normal place” in the social order, and life simply went on as before. In a sense we must disagree with this. One of the fundamental purposes of the Dragon Dance was to allow the host family to gain (or possibly lose) social status. Likewise the diplomatic and gift-giving elements of the Dragon Dance were designed to build and extend economic networks that were previously weaker or small. One gives a gift with the expectation of incurring a social obligation. Even low status unmarried dancers might compete for an opportunity to help carry the statues of the gods because, while physically exhausting, this increased his family’s reputation within the community.

In short, while the cosmology of the Dragon Dance might emphasize a return to a stable and unchanging social order, many individuals took part in the ritual precisely because they saw in it the possibility of better luck and increased social standing in the upcoming year. To understand the role of explicitly “military” (wu) social values in mediating this dialectic we must return briefly to the work of Victor Turner.

Turner noted that when functioning as a “social drama” ritual consisted of three stages. First a symbolic structure was established. Secondly, there was a movement away from structure toward anti-structure, a radical state where all social distinctions broke down. He referred to this phase as “communitas.” This then was followed by a reintegration back into the “normal” social structure.

It is easy to see how the Tu Village Dragon Dance reinforces the area’s existing social structure. It is payed for and supported by village elites using rents collected from the poorest elements of society. The rotating system of determining the host is designed to reinforce the village’s creation mythos and clan based power structure. Even the roles that dancers could perform were predicated on their marital and social status. Needless to say, no women were allowed to participate in what was explicitly a patriarchal affair. So the initial social structure and the return to that same state are evident in the ritual’s fundamental organization. But where do we see an anti-structure arising? Is there a true moment of communitas within this ritual?

The authors sensibly suggest that this state is invoked at the moment that the dancers enter their “confrontation” with Deng Village. Yet from an outside perspective, this aspect of the performance would seem just as structured as any other. Why might it be experienced differently by the dancers themselves?

This is where the historical reality of community violence becomes critical to our story. Much like Anita Slovenz’s Lion Dancers in the 1980s, no matter how peaceful things have been lately, it would be hard to discount the possibility of actual violence erupting again at some point in the unknown future. This would be especially true when engaged in what all parties agreed was an intentionally provocative set of acts.

The looming shadow of conflict is the key. While ritual may reinforce the nuances of social order, actual community violence is rather indiscriminate in the instant that it strikes. In that moment, when the entire male population of Tu Village lines up on the border of Deng Village and fires off their cannon, they are stepping away from the normal social conditions that define one’s fate in life. As a group they are moving into a different realm. It is a realm where any two men may be called upon to fight side by side, and any one of them may fall to injury. In this case it is the visceral possibility of violence that makes communitas real.

It is also the key to understanding the transformative power of these rites. Indeed, in Chinese culture role of Wen (or “civil values”) has traditionally been to judge and decide. Yet Wu (or “military values”) have always been seen as the means by which change is actually brought about.

In his critical examination of Republic era wuxia (swordman) novel Petrius Liu noted that often these stories centered on a conflict of values between the hierarchically organized principal of “all under heaven” (which was embodied in the Confucian social and political structure) and the idea of “between people.” The later idea was a more horizontal mode of social organization (characteristic of the literary realm of “Rivers and Lakes”) based on the idea of radical brotherhood and social values.

Such stories argue that by enacting these martial heroic values, justice can be restored in the community and change can come about. Returning to the structure of the Dragon Dance, those who provide “heroic” amounts of food and alcohol for the dancers will be remembered in the future. A successful host will go down in popular lore. And in a moment of conflict with the hated Deng Village a landlord and tenant may find themselves finally reconciled through a common purpose.

The changes that are brought about are real, and each is facilitated by an appeal to classical martial values. And when, at the end of the ritual, all of the individuals are reintegrated back into the social structure, local society itself changes. It is allowed to adapt to new social facts, but to do so in a way that reinforces the promise of a deeper, more fundamental, stability.

Why then are martial values central to these celebrations? Annual rites must always balance the competing demands of change and stability. Victor Turner gave us powerful models for understanding how this process can be negotiated within the pattern of community ritual. By embodying a separate set of norms and identities (those associated with the experience of communitas) martial values act as the engines of change within Chinese society. The importance of martial arts studies as a discipline goes well beyond the study of individual combat systems. At its best it can allow us to understand where society has been and where its values might take it next.

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If you enjoyed this you might also want to read: Lion Dancing, Youth Violence and the Need for Theory in Chinese Martial Studies

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Lee Fung, “Director of Chinese Lion Dance.” January 23rd, 1941. Source: Vintage newspaper photo. Author’s personal collection.

Introduction

Happy Lunar New Year!  In honor of the holiday I decided to publish a couple of posts that focused on the important role that the traditional martial arts, and martial values more generally, have played in the celebration of this holiday.  On Friday we looked at a reconstruction of a specific Dragon Dance festival in Tu village and asked what that could teach us about the place of martial values in building up social capital and shared identity within a community.  This topic is an important one as it helps to explain what benefits martial arts groups might bring to communities outside of the realm of pure defense.  You can read more about this topic here.

In today’s post we will focus on how martial displays in “Chinese New Year” festivals helped to spread the image of the Asian martial arts in North America during the 1940s and 1950s.  These decades are particularly important as many accounts of the global emergence of the Chinese martial arts do not begin until the late 1960s.  While it is certainly true that there was an explosion of popular interest in these fighting forms during the 1960s-1970s, it is not the case that no one was doing (or publicly exhibiting) Kung Fu in earlier periods.

While still relatively rare, the Spring Festival was one of the few times of the year in which martial values and practices were put on public display.  And because various Chinatown businesses and restaurants promoted Lion and Dragon Dancing, as well as the occasional boxing demonstration, as a way of attracting tourists to their neighborhood, these displays were more widely observed and reported on by the press than one might suspect.  In some important ways these events are the pre-history which shaped and conditioned the later explosion of interest in the Chinese martial arts.  Thus it may be fruitful to critically examine a few images of Lion Dance teams and martial artists that were produced and distributed in this period.  In this case we are interested in both the images themselves as well as how they framed these practices within the boundaries of mid 20th century consumer culture.

Who was Lee Fung?

That is not a rhetorical question.  If you have any information on this individual I would really like to learn more about him.

I have been looking for information about Lee Fung (so far with little luck) since I had the good fortune to acquire a somewhat faded photograph of him.  The picture was taken for a newspaper article and it came out of a press archive.  The nice thing about old press photos is that they often carry descriptive notes on the back.  This usually includes the name of the photographer, the subject, the date that it was used, the newspaper that ran the image and its caption (if any).  If you are particularly lucky it is sometimes possible to even find the original article that ran with an image.

This is what makes newspaper photos so valuable.  Like other forms of ephemera they capture a moment in time.  Yet the nature of the commercial and journalistic projects tie these images to important themes in popular culture while providing some additional clues about their subjects.

Verso of the Lee Fung Picture. Source: Author’s personal collection.

Unfortunately one does not always get so lucky.  In this case the back of the photo included a date indicating that the article ran four days before the Lunar New Year in 1941 (which was the year of the snake).  It also had the name of the subject and the picture’s caption.  Unfortunately the name of the newspaper was missing and I have not been able to locate the article that it accompanied.  Nor have I been able to find any additional information about Mr. Fung.

The photo itself is interesting and I quite like the detailed images on Fung’s shin guards and his old school shoes.  Yet what period readers would have noticed first was the large Dadao that he held in both hands.  The sword has a small guard (similar in size and type to those that were popular on the Vietnamese version of this weapon) and a pronounced sweep to the blade.

While the Dadao is not commonly encountered in Lion Dance performances today (at least not in any of the ones I have seen), it would have been an immediately recognizable and meaningful weapon to readers in 1941.  At the time the country was embroiled in WWII and discussions of the situation in China were commonly encountered on the front page of newspapers of the era.  A large number of articles had reported the existence of “Big Sword” troops within the Chinese army and their success in facing down the Japanese (armed with their own near-mythical swords) in close quarters combat.

Indeed, the Dadao had become an image of China’s anti-imperialist resistance in the face of Japanese aggression.  This discussion in the press helped to modify the common belief that the Chinese lacked the strength (either individually or collectively) to resist occupation. It was also one of the first images of the more modern (Republic era) Chinese martial arts to really find a firm place in the Western imagination.

The sight of a Chinese-American martial artist wielding a Dadao during the Spring Festival probably registered with American audiences on a number of levels that are not as obvious to us today.  To take up this weapon in 1941 was to make a political and cultural statement about the complex relationship between America, China, Japan and the Chinese-American community.

A vintage postcard showing Lion Dancers in Los Angeles. This particular card was used as an advertisement to attract visitors to Chinatown’s various markets and restaurants. While the photo has a copyright date of 1952 the picture could have been taken years earlier. Note the similarities in dress and costume to Lee Fung in the early 1940s. Source: Vintage Postcard. Author’s personal collection.

The next photo comes from a widely distributed vintage postcard.  It was part of a very popular series of images of L.A.’s Chinatown produced by the S. I. Co.  We know from the postmarks and inscriptions on some of these cards that they were in fact being sold within Chinatown’s various shops to the tourists who visited the district in the early 1950s.

While this postcard bears a copyright date of 1952, it seems likely that the photograph of the Lion Dance team is somewhat older, possibly dating back to the 1940s.  Note for instance the similarities in dress and foot-ware to Lee Fung’s more detailed photograph above.  One almost wonders whether he might be hiding somewhere in this group shot.  And while the Dadao is missing from this later image, the paired American and Republic of China flags (only a few years after the mainland fell to the Communists in 1949) would have invoked a similar set of political and psychological reactions in the viewer.

This is not to say that martial weaponry is missing from the photograph.  In this case the Lions themselves seem to blend into the background while the various pole arms wielded by the troupe are brought to the fore.  Again, the display of Chinese culture in this image is closely tied to the articulation of martial values.

All of this is given a strongly “Orientalist” gloss when we turn the card over.  It appears that all of the postcards in this series carried an identical secondary message, meant to advertise the allures of the city’s Chinatown to potential tourists.  In that sense these postcards are actually similar to Victorian “trade cards” which businesses of that era used for advertisement.   Here we read:

In a setting of Old China, with shrines, lily pools, and courts, the Chinese have gathered art treasures of the Orient.  Here is offered silks, antiques, jewelry, and thousands of beautiful souvenirs.  The delicacies prepared in the fine Chinese restaurants are fit for a Mandarin, and delight the palate as well as the eye.

Thus the complex political subtexts of the actual image vanish in a hazy vision of “old Cathay.”  Two themes dominate this short paragraph.  The first is the promise of all types of consumption.  The other is a powerful sense of nostalgia for China as the exotic “other.”  After all, by the 1950s China had been free of “Imperial courts” for some time. This card rectified that situation by provided a vision of China as a living antique rather than a rapidly modernizing nation.

When one turns the card back around a new message seems to emerge.  It is not simply the food and silks of China that are now available for Western consumption.  It is also cultural traditions and martial values.  All of this is being offered to the intrepid traveler who would set aside a day for patronizing the stores and businesses of Chinatown.  While a national political and diplomatic debate raged as to “who lost China,” American consumers were discovering a new realm of nostalgia and imagination.  It was more stable and immediate than the complex reality of events on the global stage.  In this vision one could experience the “essence” of Chinese culture through the consumption of its goods, values and practices.  All of this could be done without leaving home.

Conclusion

When did the Chinese martial arts finally make their presence felt in the Western marketplace?  Mass public awareness of these systems would have to wait for the dawning of the 1970s.  Yet the global journey of these systems began well before that.  Concepts, identities and institutions from these earlier eras had an important shaping effect on events to come.

We cannot really understand some of the details of the later Kung Fu Craze without first coming to grips with the slow accumulation of ideas and symbols that preceded it.  As the photographs in this post suggest, the martial values associated with the Spring Festival, and the way that they were marketed to mid 20th century tourists, helped to reinforce a specific cultural discourse that would later carry the Chinese martial arts to practically every corner of western popular culture.

Another photo auctioned on ebay. This one showed a Lion and Kung Fu performer in Honolulu in 1957. Source: ebay.

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If you enjoyed this post you might also want to see: Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (6): Ng Chung So – Looking Beyond the “Three Heroes of Wing Chun”

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Muay Thai Kickboxing match. Source: Wikimedia.

Conference Report:  Martial Arts Studies – Gender Issues in Theory and Practice
Brighton University (UK), 5^th February 2016

Introduction

On February 5th Brighton University sponsored the first in a series of specialized conferences and meetings funded by the Martial Arts Studies Research Network (MASRN). The title of the event was “Martial Arts Studies – Gender Issues in Theory and Practice.”  It was hosted by Alex Channon and Christopher Matthews, two recognized scholars in the area, and was attended by about 30 participants and observers.  By all accounts the event was lively with multiple papers sparking substantive discussions.   In short, I wish I could have been there.

Luckily for us, a number of individuals who attended the event have written conference reports, sharing some of the insights and conversations that these papers sparked.  Below I have reblogged Paul Bowman’s account which does a great job of introducing each of the presenters, reviewing the substance of their work, and telling us something of how the audience reacted to their presentation.

If, as you read through his report, you encounter a paper you might want to know more about, be sure to also check out this blog post on the event written by Kai Morgan.  She brings her own perspective and some additional details to the discussion.  Lastly, readers will also want to be aware of Luke White’s discussion of the event at his own blog “Kung Fu with Braudel.” His concluding thoughts on how these same questions may relate to martial arts studies are particularly important, and we will briefly return to them below.

A number of themes ran throughout this conference.  Obviously gender was the central organizing concern, but multiple papers looked more specifically at the possibility that the martial arts might be used as agents of positive social transformation.  From my perspective perhaps the most interesting finding to emerge from the conference was that researchers remain split on whether this actually happens in practice.  Dr. Jump’s ethnographic study of boxing and its impact on violent behavior and attitudes raised important (and troubling) questions about the social impact of youth involvement in combat sports in certain settings.

I look forward to reading her finished paper when its available.  Her findings are reminiscent of some of the connections between youth delinquency and the traditional martial arts which emerged in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s that I noted in my own study of the period.  It seems that this is an area that might benefit from some additional comparative case studies.

By all accounts this first event in the MASRN series was a success.  It engaged a dedicated group of scholars and facilitated conversations that will continue for some time.  It has also generated deeper questions about the nature of violence, identity, consent and social transformation that may contribute to a wide range of research projects within martial arts studies.

Female martial artists (including Chen Laoshi) from the Jingwu Association.  In the 1920s this group sought to use the martial arts to reform traditional Chinese views on gender and pursue “national salvation.”

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Martial Arts Studies – Gender Issues in Theory and Practice
by Paul Bowman

Friday February 5^th 2016 saw the first of our AHRC funded Martial Arts Studies Research Network events, at the Eastbourne campus of the University of Brighton. The organisers from the hosting university were Drs Alex Channon and Christopher Matthews. Professor John Sugden opened the event, entertaining the 30 or so people present with tales of his early research into boxing communities in the US, back when there was virtually nothing academic written about combat sports of any kind. I then gave a brief introduction to the research network and the emerging field of martial arts studies, before the conference proper began.

Chris Matthews gave the first paper, beginning from and overview of the history of various forms of exclusion in sports (the most glaring example being of course the fact that for a very long time sports have overwhelmingly been made for and played by men). However, there have recently been some significant social shifts, exemplified by the huge numbers of women in sports. Focusing next on his ethnographic research into boxing, Matthews introduced the idea of undoing the presumed essential link between boxing and men, arguing that a more nuanced understanding of exclusion is needed in order to have a clearer picture of the forces and relations of exclusion that currently operate in such environments. His own fieldwork in boxing gyms revealed a range of attitudes towards openness and closedness to non-hegemonic masculinities in these gyms, around different attitudes to women and gay men, as well as different attitudes to the question of trying to attract more women or more types of men into the gyms. The talk was too wide ranging to permit easy summary – however, the accompanying Prezi presentation is available here. And rather than reaching a firm conclusion, Matthews handed over to a local Eastbourne boxing coach who actively seeks to ‘practice inclusivity’.

The coach was Paul Senior, from Eastbourne Boxing Club, who gave a very interesting presentation on his outreach work, and the unique position that boxing seems to have as an activity that can appeal to and engage socially excluded children and teenagers. Unlike other forms of teacher or indeed adult generally, the boxing coach is often highly respected by the children and teenagers, and accordingly such figures can become the first real site of intervention into precarious and marginalised lives and social situations. To conclude the talk overall, Chris Matthews came back in with questions about how those who seek to ‘practice inclusivity’ might still inadvertently contribute to new forms of exclusion; after which a very lively discussion followed.

Professor Kath Woodward presented next, with a talk on gender and what’s changed in the discourses around women’s boxing since its first inclusion in the 2012 Olympics. Her animating question was that of how social change takes place, and her contention was that what happened around women’s boxing in 2012 illustrates the ways that boxing and martial arts can actually generate discursive change. Social and cultural change happens marginally and incrementally, she argued. But, at the same time, there can be events that essentially change the landscape in an instant. Referring to Foucauldian theory, Woodward suggested that the commentary around women’s boxing at that time demonstrated a dramatic transformation: beforehand, a lot of discourse had been sexist, focusing on the question of the risks to women’s bodies vis-à-vis child-bearing, their looks and their supposed fragility. But during the contests, this all evaporated and was replaced by commentary that demonstrated how seriously it was being taken. This, she suggested, evinced a cultural change in the way people think – a minor revolution that could contribute to the chipping away at patriarchal ideas about gender.

Anna Kavoura and Catherine Phipps presented their research into creating supporting environments for LGBT people in martial arts clubs. Phipps presented introductory and context-setting data on LGBT inclusion in and exclusion from sport generally. She defined key terms and discussed a range of different studies and surveys before proposing that, in her opinion, of all of the groups included in the term ‘LGBT+’, those who suffer the most exclusion are ‘trans’ people.

Anna Kavoura posed the question of why anyone would want to create supportive and inclusive environments in martial arts anyway. Legality was her first answer; followed by a discussion of the extent to which discriminative attitudes have negative effects and the extent to which prejudice can actually endanger is its victims’ health. Kavoura too proposed that the most excluded and overlooked group are the many kinds trans people – people who, as she reported one trans discussant said to her, are often terrified of leaving the house to go to the supermarket, never mind even thinking about participating in sports.

An interesting discussion about our encounters and relationships with various forms of prejudice as they occur in martial arts classes followed, which continued on in various ways throughout the day. But the next session was made up of group discussions of questions around engaging girls and women in martial arts clubs of all kinds. People suggested that role modelling seemed vital; Kavoura recounted a tale of how she had actively sought out new female training partners in order to broaden the pool of people she could spar with in class; others discussed the importance of having women in leadership positions; creating trusting environments; listening; questioning tradition; and trying to educate prejudiced people rather than simply confronting them directly or antagonistically; challenging preconceptions about motivations; and even renaming and de-gendering some of the different terms that are routinely used (‘women’s pressups’, for instance, was given as an example several times).

The criminologist Deborah Jump from Manchester Metropolitan University presented next, discussing her research into the narrative accounts of young men’s experience of violence, desistance from criminality and the place of boxing in these realms. Her research question was one of what impact boxing has on young men’s understanding of violence; and she had undertaken ethnographic studies using psychotherapeutic techniques rather than direct questioning. That is to say, her primary style of data gathering took the form of asking the question ‘tell me the story of how you got into boxing’. In interpreting the narratives, Jump found some regularly recurring themes: the denial of vulnerability, the attempt to compensate for a lack of social capital; the effort to try to embody masculinity, and specifically as a way to overcome vulnerability or lack of social capital. Jump discussed Wacquant’s notion of body capital and the received folk wisdom that the bigger you are, the more masculine you are.

Because in her findings the reasons given for taking up boxing always involved the effort to prevent repeat victimisation, Jump proposed that boxing is widely seen by its working class youth practitioners as a resource to command fear. Violence, in this regard, is seen as a resource. She then turned to the high incidence of the word ‘respect’ in so many young boxers’ narratives. Turning to Kant for a definition of ‘respect’, Jump observed that for Kant ‘respect’ refers to ‘being worthy of consideration’, and she tied this back to her findings and arguments about young men turning to boxing in order to gain some cultural prestige. Along with other terms that frequently recur (references to ‘respect’ and ‘disrespect’ as reasons for violence, and injunctions like ‘don’t be a pussy’, and so on), Jump proposed that the recurrence of these ‘street’ terms in the boxing gym demonstrated a problematic continuity of violent narratives. Specifically, given that there so often seemed to be a strong relationship between taking up boxing and the experience of prior domestic abuse, Jump proposed that it is problematic that the terms of street habitus are in effect reinforced in the boxing gym. Maintaining respect and avoiding shame is, she reiterated, a primary motivation for violence on the street – and this entire system of values and its logic is replicated in the gym. So, she concluded, boxing is perhaps good for primary desistance from crime (time spent training is time off the streets), but it doesn’t actually cause its young male practitioners to change their self-concept or their personal narrative.

Jump’s paper provoked lively debate, and set the scene nicely for the final paper: Alex Channon and Chris Matthews’ ongoing work into how to combat domestic abuse. Their project is called ‘love fighting, hate violence’ and their key question is that of how to decouple fighting and violence. Following on from Deborah Jump’s challenge to the idea that boxing can work against violence, Channon and Matthews proposed that fighting does not equal violence and that the mutual consent of sparring partners shows that there is no necessary violation and no necessary violence in martial arts training. From this position, they are currently seeking to explore how to leverage this moral distinction to good effect, and more generally how to do something as academics and researchers that will have an impact outside of academia. On this note, they turned the question over to the audience, and asked us all to assess their ideas and offer suggestions.

Several concerns were raised, such as the risk that this project either implicitly or explicitly risks falling into the trap of following normal gender assumptions, and also the idea that martial arts training does not involve violence was challenged. But in the end a series of suggestions was forthcoming too: educational workshops were proposed, film making, offering different narratives, etc. As Channon put it towards the end of this final session, their overarching aim is to try to initiate cultural shifts, or at least to generate discourse around these issues. This was an appropriate point to conclude, not least because it seems clear that this first martial arts studies research network event has already stimulated the thinking of those present, and undoubtedly begun to generate discourse. Indeed, this first martial arts research network event seem likely to be remembered as the start of numerous new endeavours, relationships and projects.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Alex Channon and Chris Matthews for their hard work in organising this event, and to all of the speakers and other participants, many of whom travelled significant distances to attend. I am now looking forward to the second network event, on contemporary debates in martial arts cinema, at Birmingham City University on 1^st April 2016.

Triva Pino (Left). The 2006 US Armed Forced Female Boxing Champion. Source: Wikimedia.

Conclusion: Gender in Martial Arts Studies

Finally, I would like to bring up one additional point.  In his own assessment of the meeting Luke White offered some additional thoughts on how these same concerns about gender, identity and inclusion might be playing themselves out in the conference halls and classrooms of martial arts studies as an academic discipline.  I encourage everyone read his report (which can be found here) but his concluding remarks are indispensable:

I also then found myself wondering about Martial Arts Studies itself as a gendered space. As part of our explorations in the day, we thought in some detail about the ways that women, or those from the LGBT+ community, are often excluded by aspects of the environment and ritualised behaviour of gyms and dojos. But what about our academic Martial Arts Studies events? How welcome do they feel there, and how deeply has that been considered by us? Though the event at Eastbourne – with a fantastic mix of people attending – felt very inclusive, my feelings about the conference in Cardiff last Summer were rather different. I spoke to a number of women attendees afterwards who pretty much all told me that they had found it a rather uncomfortably “male” space. And indeed, it struck me strongly that there was a certain machismo that surrounded a lot of the socialisation that took place around the conference. Often the first question asked was not (unlike most academic conferences!) what your paper is about or some such thing, but about whether you practiced a martial art, and if so what style. The effect of such a question can, perhaps, be a little like the aggressive questioning that Bruce Lee is subjected to by a white martial artist on the boat on the way to a martial arts contest: “What’s your style?” In the film, it wasn’t just a polite inquiry, it was also a challenge. In the conference, the question was clearly less intrusive, but I wondered how non-practitioners may have experienced this kind of question. Did it imply less of a right to be there? Some of the papers, too, seemed to include hints about “martial credentials” that came close at points to masculine “posturing”. One speaker (I shan’t name him), after an explicit denial of homophobia, followed this up, as evidence, with what was meant to be a joke but ultimately amounted to a homophobic comment. Were some of the gendered cultures of the training hall entering into the spaces of academic debate, too? It’s often small, banal, everyday, overlooked performances that inscribe gender on a space – often much more subtle than directly homophobic or sexist comments, often far more everyday than the spectacular examples of subproletarian boxing gyms discussed at Friday’s event, and often far more inscribed into the “normal” behaviour of “upright” citizens – and it seems to me that in order to safeguard not only the spaces in which we do martial arts, but also the academic spaces where we discuss them in this fledgeling discipline, we need a vigilance not so much on the “other” but on ourselves.

Obviously these are important concerns, and they deserve careful consideration.  The meaning of the question “What is your style?” at a martial arts studies conference seems particularly interesting, as does the place of personal experience in academic research.  Certainly much more can be said on these questions than can be inserted at the end of a conference report.  However, readers may wish to follow this discussion as it has unfolds at the Martial Arts Studies blog.

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If you liked this conference report you might also want to read: “The Gender of Martial Arts Studies“

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Source: https://sports.vice.com

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 (almost a month) since our last update so there is a lot to be covered in today’s post.  Let’s get to the news!

A modern interpretation of Southern Lion Dancing in Hong Kong. Source: CNN

Chinese Martial Arts in The News

Our first order of business is to wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year!  Over the last week I discussed the holiday from a historical and theoretical perspective here and here.  Needless to say the Spring Festival celebrations have dominated recent news cycles.  Lion Dances and martial arts demonstrations have traditionally been a part of these celebrations in both the East and West.  The news has been full of accounts of these events as they have unfolded in practically every major city.  There are have literally been too many articles to list here.

However, the following feature by CNN stood out to me while I was reviewing this coverage.  Titled “Chinese Lion Dancing Meets Cirque du Soleil” it profiles a large Lion Dance company in Hong Kong that is renowned for its innovative, heart stopping performances which do not hesitate to make use of modern visual effects technology.  The goal of the troupe is to reach a “more modern” audience.  Not unexpectedly their approach has raised protests among more traditional Lion Dance practitioners.  Yet as I was listening to the interview I was struck with how much this discussion reminded me of the technical innovation and “culture of the spectacular” that became part of Cantonese Opera performance in the Republic Period.  Be sure to play the short video that goes along with the article as its well worth watching.

A group of African disciples study the traditional arts at Shaolin.

Two of the stories in today’s news round-up touch on the topic of “Kung Fu Diplomancy” and the various ways in both state and private actors have attempted to use the martial arts to shape the public’s perception of China’s “national brand.”  The first of these follows a large Chinese Wushu Tournament in Nigeria.  Over three hundred athletes (from the governmental, military, police and private sectors) participated in the “Chinese Ambassador’s Championship.”  At stake were the requisite trophies and scholarships for the top performers to visit China for additional martial arts training.

The individuals who discussed the tournament did not shy away from acknowledging its roots in China’s public diplomacy strategy.

“Also speaking, the Culture Counsellor in the Embassy of China, Mr. Yan Xaingdong said the Wushu championship was set up to encourage a sustainable relationship between China and Nigeria through sports.”

Wu Tang and the Three Levels of a Martial Artist. Source: Vice

One of the most interesting stories over the last few weeks appeared on the Vice blog.  In “Wu Tang and the Three Levels of a Martial Artist” Nick Wong interviews and discusses the career of his  uncle, Kurt Wong, a Wudang Master.  This slightly longer piece speaks to a number of issues regarding the place of the Chinese martial arts in popular culture.  Different mediums, including music and videogames are freely invoked by the author.  But what I was most struck by was the complex role of history in his explanation of Wudang Kung Fu.  Notice that he combines lineage, political and biographical history in his explanation of what the Chinese martial arts are, and how they are experienced by the individual practitioner.   Also fascinating is how he turns to RZA of the Wu Tang clan to further translate and situate the Chinese martial arts for a young contemporary audience.

Cui Eyes Expansion in China. Source: Straits Times.

The Straits Times published a piece profiling the aspirations and tribulations of the One Championship fight promotion company as it attempts to expand the market for MMA in China. While the Cui outlined an ambitious agenda for the next twelve months, the article itself didn’t pull its punches in noting the difficulties that various MMA leagues have experienced in attempting to do business in China.  One Championship in particular was only able to host about 20% of these events that they had originally announced for 2015 and their reputation suffered a further setback after a fighter died while cutting weight before a match.  Still, Cui says that his company has learned from the setbacks and is ready to move on in both China and the rest of the Asian market.

“Cui will not rest until more households are hooked on MMA. He said: “This is the only sport that can say it is truly Asian. Why obsess over sports in other continents? Let’s show the world how much talent we have in Asia.”

A Wing Chun school shooting a video for the relatively new Martial Tribes social media platform. Source: South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post ran an article profiling a new social media platform (Martial Tribes) designed and launched by a Hong Kong Entrepreneur in 2015.  The platform seeks to become an alternative to Facebook for martial artists.  It has already attracted 100,000 members and is shooting for up to a million by the end of the year.  In addition to allowing users to build profiles, send messages and post content, it specializes in tools that allow teachers to share and monetize their knowledge.  There cannot be any doubt that social media has disrupted the ways in which martial arts knowledge is shared, taught and discussed.  This platform seems determined to harness these innovations in the creation of a new sort of marketplace matching students and potential instructors.  It will be interesting to watch this story and see what impact, if any, platforms like this have on the business of teaching the martial arts.

Taijiquan may be part of a balanced workout routine. Source: LA Times.

Are you looking to add a little balance to your workout?  How about an effective exercise for improving your balance, flexibility and state of mental serenity?   If so the following article in the LA Times suggests that you take a second look at that local Taijiquan class.  In addition to the widely discussed physical health benefits of Taiji as a low impact work out, there may also be psychological factors to consider.

“This practice is good for the mind as well, notes Dr. Michael Irwin, professor at UCLA’s department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences. In reference to a 2011 study in which tai chi was credited for helping to reverse depression in elderly patients, he says that “Tai chi, as a mind-body intervention, targeted stress response pathways as well as inflammation which can contribute to depression.”

Of course the article concludes with a reminder to consult your physician before starting a new exercise regime.  And if I had to guess your doctor would probably also appreciate if you practiced your forms while firmly planted on the ground.  That would also decrease the risk of falling for senior citizens.

Embracing Chinese Philosophy is the Key to learning the TCMA. Source: The Courier Mail

A paper in Australia recently ran a short profile of a Sifu Henry Sue, a Mantis Kung Fu instructor, in Brisbane.  It is brief and does not really delve all that much into the connections between Kung Fu and philosophy as promised by the title. But Sue’s personal story of turning to the martial arts after a history of racial abuse and bullying is an interesting one. Sue is said to currently own and run the oldest Kung Fu academy in Australia and now has students around the world.  You can read more here.

A still from the sequel to Couching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Sword of Destiny.  Source: SCMP.com

Chinese Martial Arts in the Entertainment Industry

During the last few weeks two major stories have dominated the discussion of the Chinese martial arts in the movies.  The first of these focuses on the progress of the eagerly awaited sequel to Couching Tiger Hidden Dragon titled The Sword of Destiny.  This much anticipated film features a new director and will be released 15 years to the day after its formidable predecessor.  The cast will feature both new and returning faces, but in interviews with the press it is clear that everyone feels a high degree of pressure to live up to the artistic excellence of their predecessor.

The article in the SCMP discussing the project plays up the significance of the wuxia elements of the story (both in its literary roots and as a genera of movie making) and asks what impact a repeat success of this type of film might have on Hollywood. Might it open a wider space for Chinese films in Western theaters beyond the Hong Kong style Kung Fu genera? The article also questions whether Harvey Weinstein’s decision to release the film on Netflix at the same time as theaters (which has resulted in multiple chains refusing to show the film) might hurt its economic prospects and diminish its viability in the marketplace.  After all, there has been a stigma that follows “direct to DVD” films.  Still, the ways in which audiences consume media are rapidly changing, so we will have to wait to see how this plays out.

The reviews are in, and pretty much everyone loves Kung Fu Panda 3.  My three year old nephew gave it an especially strong review, though like many of the toddlers in the audience he was confused as to why the theater decided to lead with the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies trailer.  Letters were written to the theater management and I hear that they expressed just the proper amount of abject begging for forgiveness.

Pretty much every major paper and television station has now run something on this movie, suggesting the degree of market saturation it is likely to enjoy.  I thought that this review in the Canyon News nicely summed up the juxtaposition of Eastern and Western family values that the film played on.  Meanwhile the South China Morning Post took a closer look at the business side of the project and what it portends for future trans-pacific partnerships.

Sheen Yun and the spiritual side of the martial arts. Source: The Epoch Times

Lately the Chinese martial arts, often in conjunction with music and dance, have been making an increased number of appearances on the theatrical stage.  I just ran across an article profiling a Shen Yun dance performance which spoke to this, as well as the ways in which private actors in civil society (in this case religious ones) can also draw on the cultural capital of the traditional martial arts to present their own image of China and Chinese values on the global stage.  Kung Fu diplomacy, it seems, is not a game played only by the state.  It is an area contested by a wide variety of private and civil actors.

In the case of the current article, all of this came to a head when Tsveta Manilova, a Bulgarian model and photographer, was interviewed about her reaction to a recent performance of Shen Yun.  Here are the money quotes:

Of all the story-based dances in the program, one taught Ms. Manilova something about China that she didn’t know: that the spiritual discipline Falun Gong, whose adherents practice peaceful meditation, is persecuted in China today.

She took the dance “Hope for the Future,” personally. In the dance, people of faith are attacked by Chinese Communist Party police.

“It was quite upsetting,” Ms. Manilova said. “I am from a communist country, too,” she said.

Ms. Manilova is originally from Bulgaria where communists reigned 50 years and also forbade spirituality.

She knew that China was originally a deeply spiritual place, with Buddhism in their ancient past. Even martial arts has a spiritual basis, she says.

It’s not just about “warfare, it’s something spiritual. It’s something that connects them to their religion and nature—all the living creatures in our world,” she said.

“People should have the right, if not to everything else, they should have the right to have their religion,” she said.

Readers interested in a quick rundown on the relationship between the Falon Gong movement and the Shen Yun performance troupe may want to check out this wikipedia article.  Of course the Epoch Times, based out of New York City, was also founded by a group of Falon Gong practitioners.  Or, if your prefer a more secular approach to martial arts and dance, you might want to check out this article on the Jackie Chan’s Longyou Kung Fu Company’s recent trip to Chicago.

A presentation at “Martial Arts Studies: Gender Issues in Theory and Practice” held on Feb. 5th Brighton University.

Martial Arts Studies

The last month has seen a number of developments in the growing interdisciplinary field of martial arts studies.

On February 5th the Martial Arts Studies Research Network presented the first in a series of smaller, issue specific, conferences.  This gathering was titled “Martial Arts Studies: Gender Issues in Theory and Practice.”  Hosted at Brighton University it brought together about 30 scholars who shared their research on a wide range of issues relating to gender in various aspects of the martial arts and the possibility that these fighting systems might become vehicles for social transformation.  Apparently a number of the presentations generated very lively discussions by the participants.  Hopefully we will be seeing some of these papers in print soon.

In the mean time we are fortunate that a number of attendees have written up their own reports on the conference.  Perhaps the most comprehensive of these was recorded by Paul Bowman, and I would encourage you check it out.  It gives a great overview of how this part of the conversation is currently evolving.  Also very helpful is the report at the Budo-Inochi blog which provides a lot of detail and its own perspective on the event.

While shorter readers will also want to take a look at Luke White’s discussion of the event.  Of particular importance is his concluding discussion where he asks why academically focused martial arts studies events can be uncomfortable spaces and whether the casual sexism of the martial arts training hall is being allowed to infiltrate academic gatherings on the subject.  Of particular importance is what role an author’s personal experience in the martial arts should play in their academic discussion of the subject.  Both Paul Bowman and Alex Channon have discussed (and responded to) these concerns in a blog post titled “The Gender of Martial Arts Studies.”

An Evening of HEMA at Brock University.

On February 4th Brock University (Ontario, Canada) treated their faculty and students of Medieval and Renaissance Studies to an evening of 15th century Italian martial arts.

Brennan Faucher and Alex Unruh from the Niagara School of Arms presented some of the techniques and styles that they practice, which are based on the teachings of the Medieval Italian knight and fencing master, Fiore dei Liberi.

“Fiore’s system allows for an easy transition from one system to another,” said Faucher. “If you study how the human body works, you will be better able to use all the weapons.”

Fiore’s treatise on martial arts, The Flower of Battle, was written in 1410 and includes pictorial demonstrations of different moves for a variety of combat styles. Fiore starts with a basic grappling system, and then moves on to duels with a dagger, long-sword, spear and pole-axe. He also includes instructions for fighting with or without armour and fighting on horseback or on foot. Fiore’s system is called “Armizare”.

This sounds like a fantastic event.  The one thing that really caught my attention though was the way it was discussed by the organizer of the lecture series.  He went to lengths to explain that normally they discussed “academic” topics, but for a change of pace they had decided to look at something “outside of the box.”  This raises some interesting questions about the place of this sort of historical exploration and reconstruction in our understanding of Renaissance Studies.  Can the martial arts contribute to an academic discussion in this area, or do they sit entirely outside of the realm of “serious” conversation?

Consensual Violence by Jill D. Weinberg

Students of martial arts studies have some upcoming books to look forward to.  The first of these (California University Press) has an announced release date June 7th, 2016.  Written by Jill D. Weinberg it is titled Consensual Violence: Sex, Sports, and the Politics of Injury.  Interestingly it seems to speak directly to some of the issues raised by Alex Channon’s paper at the recent conference on gender and violence in martial arts studies.  Here is the publishers statement on the text:

In this novel approach to understanding consent, Jill D. Weinberg features two case studies where groups engage in seemingly violent acts: competitive mixed martial arts and sexual sadomasochism. These activities are similar in that consenting to injury is central to the activity, and participants of both activities have to engage in a form of social decriminalization, leveraging the legal authority imbued in the language of consent as a way to render their activities legally and socially tolerable. Yet, these activities are treated differently under criminal battery law.

Using interviews with participants and ethnographic observation, Weinberg argues that where law authorizes a person’s consent to an activity, consent is not meaningfully regulated or constructed by the participants themselves. In contrast, where law prohibits a person’s consent to an activity, participants actively construct and regulate consent. This difference demonstrates that law can make consent less consensual.

Synthesizing criminal law and ethnography, Consensual Violence is a fascinating account of how consent gets created and carried out among participants and lays the groundwork for a sociology of consent and a more sociological understanding of processes of decriminalization.

Jill D. Weinberg is Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at DePaul University and a scholar at the American Bar Foundation.

The Amazons by Adrienne Mayor.

Students of gender and martial arts studies will also want to check out the recently re-released volume Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor (Princeton UP).

Amazons–fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world–were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons.

But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real? In this deeply researched, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated book, National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have never been seen before. This is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China.

Mayor tells how amazing new archaeological discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons prove that women warriors were not merely figments of the Greek imagination. Combining classical myth and art, nomad traditions, and scientific archaeology, she reveals intimate, surprising details and original insights about the lives and legends of the women known as Amazons. Provocatively arguing that a timeless search for a balance between the sexes explains the allure of the Amazons, Mayor reminds us that there were as many Amazon love stories as there were war stories. The Greeks were not the only people enchanted by Amazons–Mayor shows that warlike women of nomadic cultures inspired exciting tales in ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Central Asia, and China.

Driven by a detective’s curiosity, Mayor unearths long-buried evidence and sifts fact from fiction to show how flesh-and-blood women of the Eurasian steppes were mythologized as Amazons, the equals of men. The result is likely to become a classic.

Adrienne Mayor is a research scholar in Classics and the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Program at Stanford.
I should also note that this book has been a highly awarded.

Zach Woznicki, right, and Karn Charoenkul, center, lock arms while Justin Sanchez, left, and Ian Cabeira battle in the background during an open practice held by Chapman’s Martial Arts Club .
Source: FOSTER SNELL, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Lastly there have been a couple of articles looking at the practice of the martial arts at various universities and colleges.  Following our recent interview with Andrea Molle regarding the Budo-lab research center I was happy to find this piece profiling the Chapman University Martial Arts Club.  The article discusses the innovative relationship between the particle and theoretical engagement with the martial arts at Chapman.  Both the interview here at Kung Fu Tea and this follow-up article are well worth checking out for anyone interested in the place of the martial arts on the modern university campus.

A Taijiquan class at Wellesley College.

This piece, titled “Achieve Balance with the Martial Arts,” outlines a more traditional presentation of the Chinese martial arts as part of the physical education curriculum at Wellesley College.  Its a nice piece and it looks like the students have access to quality Hung Gar and Taijiquan training.

Chinese tea utensil. Source: Wikimedia.

Kung Fu Tea on Facebook

As always there is a lot going on at the Kung Fu Tea Facebook group.  We discussed the mythology of swords, what blogs your should be reading and the various martial aspects of the New Years celebration.   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.

Master Chen Zhonghua and Daniel Mroz playing Tui Shou, Daqingshan, Shandong, China, 2007. Photo by Scot Jorgensen.

Introduction

Welcome to the second entry in our series of guest posts titled “Doing Research.”  If you missed the first essay by D. S. Farrer (which provides a global overview of the subject) be sure to click here.

Compared to other fields of scholarly inquiry, Martial Arts Studies has a distinctly democratic flavor.  Many individuals are introduced to these systems while students at a college or university and are interested in seeing a more intellectually rigorous treatment of their interests.  And certain practitioners want to go beyond reading studies produced by other writers and undertake research based on their own time in the training hall.   The emphasis on ethnographic description, oral and local history, as well as the methodological focus on community based collaborative research within Martial Arts Studies (itself a radically interdisciplinary area), makes participation in such efforts both relatively accessible and highly valuable.

Or maybe you are a student about to embark on your first ethnographic research project.  With the growing popularity of this field of study we are increasingly seeing classes in Martial Arts Studies offered at the undergraduate and graduate level.  Some of these courses include a “research component” in which students are encouraged to go out and join a class or school in the local martial arts community and then to reflect on their experience.

What ever their source, a new generation of novice researchers is likely looking at the challenges that lay ahead and asking themselves, what comes next?  To help smooth these first forays into the world of ethnography, a number of researchers (most of whom have taught these sorts of classes in the past or have conducted extensive field research) have agreed to contribute to a series of short posts on this topic.  Each of these will attempt to pass on a single piece of advice, insight, or research strategy that the author wishes that they might have had when first setting out to begin their fieldwork.

With that in mind, the following essay is designed to help students in the very first stages of their research project.  How should one go about choosing a teacher or school for research purposes?  And how should you approach the uncomfortable and awkward experiences that arise whenever you begin a new activity?  In particular, what are the dangers of maintaining an “intellectual distance” from your subject of study?  Prof. Mroz has some great advice for new ethnographers, but in truth much of what he has to say applies equally well to anyone beginning a new martial arts style.

Daniel Mroz playing Choy Li Fut’s Muy Fa Do “Plum Flower Sabre” form. Photo by Laura Astwood.

Three Ideas for Fieldwork – Daniel Mroz

Ben asked me what suggestions I might offer to students preparing for fieldwork that requires participation in some kind of studio class, be it martial arts, dance, theatre or music. Having re-read Prof. Farrer’s essay, I’m not sure there’s too much else to say! My proposal is to take what might be described as an existential approach to Ben’s request.

The late Liu Ming (Charles Belyea, 1947-2015), an insightful Daoist and Buddhist initiate about whom my friend Scott Park Phillips has written , offered his meditation students a fruitful description of the qualities of a student-teacher relationship. I propose that Ming’s three ideas might offer helpful parameters for students about to engage in fieldwork that requires the practice of martial arts. While Ming’s propositions are about teaching and learning, rather then about teaching, learning and reporting, reflecting on my own experience I think they cover some essential requirements in a novel and pithy fashion.

1. Affinity

For your study, seek out a teacher with whom you feel a fundamental affinity. My experience is that affinity with a teacher is more important than one’s appreciation for a particular martial art or curriculum. Beyond auditing a sample class as an observer it is not usually easy to acquire much experience of the teacher.  So auditing a first class is vital to seeing if one detects the potential for affinity.

The detection of this potential is both pragmatic and intuitive. When I went to watch a Siu Lum Hung Sing Choy Li Fut Kung Fu class in Montréal in September of 1993 I noted that the teacher, Sui Meing Wong, was very exacting but also patient and impersonal. To students balanced on one leg executing a low sweep followed by a knee strike then a snap kick he said simply ‘don’t fall over; lean slightly forward.’ He made no comment on their abilities or lack thereof, only on their application. I noticed that while there was hard body-to-body contact, the attack/defense combinations and the Da Sam Sing / Guk Sam Sing forearm and shin conditioning were also being done carefully, incrementally and with close supervision from the teacher. I responded well to this quiet, tacitly supportive but overtly exacting atmosphere. Sui Meing Wong became not only my first principal martial arts teacher but also a kind of older brother. He expected perfect attendance and constant practice from me but was always supportive and available if I needed help. Usually, as I was a starving actor and a graduate student, help meant food; he bought me lunch three to six days a week for 13 years. When I first went into his studio, I had no idea what Choy Li Fut was. My theatre teacher had suggested I study martial arts; a room-mate who was a Tae Kwon Do black belt had told me that Chinese martial arts had the most complex movements; another friend had told me that Monkey Style Kung Fu was cool – David Lee Roth, the singer for Van Halen did Monkey Style! All of that benevolent if sophomoric nonsense went out of my head when I actually saw Sui Meing teaching. ‘I can learn from this person’ I realized and I signed up.

This anecdote likely tells you more about me than it does about how to judge your own affinity with a particular instructor. It will be up to you to determine what your own affinities are. Can you learn and do fieldwork in a situation where you have little or no affinity with the teacher? Of course you can. However, choosing the engagements and commitments you make in terms of affinity, especially early on in your studies will give you an optimal position from which to branch out into more difficult research.

Master Jason Tsou and Daniel Mroz playing Jianshu after Master Tsou’s 2013 workshop in Ottawa, Canada. Photo by Rob Dominique.

2. Danger

In tandem with affinity, a sense of danger should accompany a fruitful relationship with a teacher. The academic and general culture in which I live and work never uses the term ‘danger’ with any positive connotation. Institutional preoccupation with liability and societal preoccupation with comfort have made ‘danger’ a challenging term to use when discussing teaching and learning.

I’m using it in two ways here: in the abstract one’s relationship with a teacher should be based on the risk that if one follows that teacher one will be changed in unpredictable ways. However, I also mean actual physical danger, the presence of which is often an amazing catalyzer for change!

While what I practice daily is from the vast curriculum of the Chinese martial arts and qigong, I’ve also cross-trained with individuals who interested me and in styles that appealed to me. The best of these experiences were great because of the danger involved.

A few years ago I visited London, England to meet Japanese sword expert John Maki Evans.  John is a very quiet, polite and thorough person and I remain compelled by his intelligence, insight and restraint . I also had the oddest of experiences with him. While he was showing me some very rudimentary actions with a Japanese wooden sword or bokken, I was quite convinced, terrified even, that he could use his blunt piece of wood to cut me in half! I’ve fenced with Chinese wooden swords or mu jian for a long time and I’ve worked with other teachers who insist on using ‘sharps’ or actual edged metal weapons during partner practice, all without undue dread. Every time I think back my studies with John I realize that I was definitely in the right place, because of the acute sense of danger I felt and how it led me not only to experience John’s rare fruition in the practice of Japanese sword but also to consider my own trained habits and preferences from a new perspective.

Daniel Mroz playing Choy Li Fut’s Ke Lung Ma or “Dragon Riding Stance” in Brussels, Belgium in the 1990s. Photo by Satyanarayanan Nair.

3. Compliance

The last idea is perhaps just as unpopular as ‘danger’! In order to get anything out of a relationship with a teacher, one must put their instructions into practice. This sounds innocuous, but the injunction is ‘compliance’ not just ‘practice’. ‘Practice’ may be just too neutral and lacking in the sort of obsessive taking-on that seems to have characterized the behavior of martial artists who have achieved impressive fruitions. In both academic thought and contemporary liberal ideology it is considered positive to relativize different approaches to any given subject, including methods of training. Further we can now watch excellent and diverse examples of martial arts on the Internet and read all kinds of books, articles and blog reports about these practices. I do this myself all the time but much as I love my ‘information-seeking-and-hoarding’ habit, relativizing one’s practice while it is happening can remove one from one’s own direct experience and sabotage one’s ability to learn.

In 2005 I moved from Montréal to Ottawa. I thought it might be interesting to try a completely different martial art from Choy Li Fut and I chose to take Brazilian Jiu Jitsu; Renzo Gracie has a branch school in Ottawa and it was offering the amazing introductory offer of ten private, hour-long lessons for $200.00! Much as I eventually loved learning to wrestle on the ground, my lack of compliance made it a very daunting experience. I thought of myself as a very trained and coordinated person. I had excellent endurance and flexibility. Rather than accepting immediately that this was a new experience for which I was not particularly qualified, I distinctly recall lying crushed beneath my instructor, unable to orient my body to produce force or leverage while actually thinking about how good I was at martial arts when I was standing up! I also considered how while meditating I could slow down to an amazing one breath per minute even though at that moment I was starting to ‘gas’ and pant for air! Of course I was ‘compliant’ in learning the different movements suggested to me by my teacher, but it took longer than I ever imagined to convince myself to ‘play Jiu Jitsu while playing Jiu Jitsu.’

I write all this with a smile but in my experience the easy part of compliance is performing the modestly unpleasant task the instructor may have set. The difficult part is remaining in that experience when it reveals one’s inexperience, incompetence and reactivity.

To conclude, I hope that readers will consider how Affinity, Danger and Compliance can be functional principles in a student-teacher relationship.  If cultivated, they can allow the student to become a researcher who will wind up with something of depth and quality to report.

oOo

If you enjoyed this most you might also want to read: Will Universities Save the Traditional Asian Martial Arts?

oOo

Mount Tobisu Dawn Moon, from the 100 Aspects of the Moon by Yoshitoshi (1839 – 1892).

Introduction

Opportunities come in many forms, even in the guise of a sore throat. Since I have been feeling a bit under the weather I decided to use the next few days to catch up on my reading. While it is annoying to be away from the gym, any student can attest that there is never enough time to get through all of the books and articles that are out there. I have never been one to let a virus go to waste.

Still, tackling new literature is never as straight forward as one might think. The social sciences and humanities are an inherently social undertaking, meaning that every argument stands on the shoulders of those that came before. My study is always the most meaningful when I approach a new work as the next step in an ongoing research program.

The act of reading is also very context specific. You do not have to be a black turtleneck wearing post-modernist to realize that what you are likely to get out of a document depends in large part on what you have read before. What theories, facts, alternative cases and biases will you bring to this new text?

As a student of martial arts studies this is a something that I am often reminded of. It quickly becomes apparent that most authors write only on a single topic (Taijiquan, Southern China, Filipino Kali, etc). Serious works of sustained comparative analysis, or even shorter comparative case studies, are pretty rare.

There are some good reasons for this. The depth of personal, linguistic and social experience needed to address these subjects tends to nudge scholars more towards an “area studies” approach. A given author can only be expected to be an “expert” in so many languages, national histories or hand combat systems. In truth any one of these research tools could be the study of a lifetime.

Rich descriptive detail is good, yet granular emphasis comes at a cost. Too narrow a research focus will do a disservice even to those who are only interested in a single case. In our literature this is most obvious when dealing with historical or social scientific text that want to explain the development or nature of a given martial arts style.

Recently I received a copy of Alexander C. Bennett’s 2015 University of California Press book Kendo: Culture of the Sword. While Japan is not my main area of focus, it has been strongly recommended by a number of scholars. Heeding my own warning, I would like to expand my field of inquiry to take in some additional comparative cases. Given that the martial arts studies literature on Japan is already well developed, it seems like a logical place to start.

Nevertheless, I have been hesitant to dive directly into Bennett. I am not a specialist, or even a practitioner, of the Japanese martial arts. Nor would it be possible to grasp what is new and innovative about his research without brushing up on some of the prior literature first. So rather than reading the book which I just bought, I dug out my much older copy of G. Cameron Hurst’s Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery (Yale University Press, 1998).

Hurst’s volume must be considered one of the foundational classics of the modern martial arts studies literature. Published two years after Douglas Wile’s Lost Tai Chi Classics (SUNY, 1996), it is unlikely that our current research area could exist in its current form without their pioneering efforts to argue that these subjects revealed critical historical insights that were worthy of publication by top university presses.

I first encountered Bennett’s work because of my own (mostly unfulfilled) interest in Kendo. Armed Martial Arts of Japan was one of the first serious books on the martial arts which I read, long before I had any idea that I might someday be writing in the same literature myself. In college I took numerous courses on Japanese history, society and language. I even spent the better part of a year as a student in Japan.

As such I was already very familiar with the basic factual outline that structured Hurst’s historical narrative. Yet I found his discussion of the martial arts intoxicating. It made all of the political and popular history that I had been studying come alive. As a much younger reader of martial arts studies, this book made a very good first impression.

Unfortunately this auspicious introduction went nowhere. In graduate school my own studies became more theoretically focused and Japanese interests receded into the background. When I did turn my attention to martial arts studies it was the tumultuous situation in 19th century southern China, rather than Japan, that caught my attention.

Hurst may have remained in the shadows if not for a visit last autumn to TJ Hinrich undergraduate class on the martial arts in East Asia at Cornell University. Her reading list drew on a wide range of book chapters and articles, but Hurst was the thread that held it all together. Students read a different section of his work each week augmented with additional materials. While watching the ensuing class discussion I realized that it was time to take another look at this volume. And the recent purchase of Bennett’s book provided me with the perfect excuse to make time to do so.

A European trade card showing traditional Japanese archery (probably circa 1930). Kyudo was one of the martial arts promoted by the Butokukai. Source: Author’s Personal Collection.

Swordsmanship and Archery: Reading Hurst

It is not the purpose of this post to provide a detailed and comprehensive review of the Armed Martial Arts of Japan. Instead there a couple of issues that I want to touch on as they speak to the what we have accomplished in the recent development of martial arts studies, and what is still left to be done. But even this, less formal, discussion might benefit from a brief overview of the contents of the text.

Hurst’s study is in many ways ideally suited for use in undergraduate classrooms. At just under 200 pages it is relatively brief. Nor does it presuppose more than a passing familiarity with Japanese history or culture. With some strategic classroom discussion even that is negotiable.

The author’s straight forward and highly accessible tone must be considered this work’s greatest asset. Most of his discussions are relatively short and to the point. Nor will students be confronted with either theoretical or linguistic/cultural jargon. Ideas that are central to Hurst’s presentation are introduced to the reader in an easy to digest manner. It is not surprising that so many professors turn to this work as an initial introduction to the field of martial arts studies.

What I considered to be some of the most interesting material in this study can actually be found in the introduction and first chapter. In addition to situating the martial arts within Japanese culture (itself a fascinating exercise given their very different associations in China) the author repeatedly returns to questions surrounding the meaning and social development of competitive sports in both the East and West. As the text progresses, his reasoning on this point becomes increasingly clear. The meta-narrative of the Japanese martial arts, as understood by Hurst, is a process by which combat exercises were increasingly seen as avenues for self-cultivation, and then further developed into pure competitive sports, during the period of their obsolesces in the Tokugawa and Meiji eras.

This process is most easily seen with archery, where the very act of scoring practice sessions easily lends itself to the development of both competitive sports and religious/social rituals. As Selby would no doubt remind us, some of the earliest written accounts of Chinese court culture make reference to non-combative archery. While this process took longer to unfold in the world of Japanese swordsmanship, the development of bamboo training swords (Shinai) and their use in what can only be described as competitive matches within urban dojos during the second half of the Tokugawa period eventually brought swordsmanship to a similar place.

While we tend to think of combat sports as an entirely modern phenomenon, even treating them as a symptom of later-industrial and post-industrial materialist values, in fact, they are firmly grounded in a much older set of historical processes. And yet the idea of competitive sports has been seemingly invisible in most discussions of the history of Japanese popular culture. To the extent that Hurst’s work can be said to address theoretical questions, or to draw on a broader framework of arguments, this is where readers are likely to find their orientation. How did combat swordsmanship and archery evolve into the types of Kendo and Kyudo that we are familiar with today? And what does this suggest about the nature of Japanese society at various points in time?

Following what is a well-established pattern in the writing of martial arts history, Hurst then turns his attention to the earliest known martial traditions in Japan. In this case he focused on the development of ancient sword traditions (up through the start of the Heian period) and the various social roles of archery at roughly the same time. The use of these skills in realms not normally associated with either the martial arts or combat sports today, such as religious ritual or court hunting, were also explored.

This is a common discursive strategy and it has the benefit of establishing a foundation of terms, concepts and facts that the rest of the discussion can draw from. Yet the more I read within the martial arts studies literature, the less satisfying I find these deep historical discussions. Increasingly I suspect that they betray a certain conceptual confusion as to what is actually being researched. While Hurst is by no means alone in grounding his martial history in the Bronze or early Iron Age, it might be helpful to consider what exactly this implies.

If the subject of the book at hand was the evolution of the Japanese sword as a physical object (say as a reference manual for archaeologists or museum curators) such an approach would be essential. One would want to be able to identify swords from various eras, know some details of their construction and how they were used by different classes of warriors. One would also want to explore period accounts detailing all of these facts.

Yet both the title and introduction to this book make it clear that Hurst did not set out to write a book about physical objects. Rather he is researching the “armed martial arts” which at their most fundamental levels are social institutions, supported by other aspects of both the state and society, which in the case of Japan have tended to perpetuate themselves through very specific types of social organizations. In short, the Japanese martial arts which Hurst is most interested in (Kendo and Kyudo) are practices that are deeply tied to, and in some ways epiphenomenal of, specific moments in Japanese history. What technical debt they may owe to the battlefield skills of prior centuries is of relatively little importance to understanding how they were established as basically civilian arts dedicated to self-cultivation (and social advancement) in an entirely different era characterized by fundamentally different social structures.

In short, if we take seriously the fact that we are studying social institutions, and not the physical objects or technologies that they may use and venerate, it seems odd to begin our discussion of the modern Japanese martial arts in the period of ancient history. The actual stories Kendo and Kyudo, as outlined in the book, appear to be ones of the early modern and modern periods.

This fact is readily apparent in the structure of Hurst’s two part work (the first half of which is dedicated to swordsmanship while the second half tackles archery). In the very next chapter readers find themselves transported directly to the early Tokugawa period for a discussion of the immense social transformations that the new government of a unified Japan brought about.

The critical issues which arise in this discussion are the advent of a prolonged peace after a period of civil war, and the transformation of the Samurai from mostly rural (illiterate) warriors tied directly to feudal landholdings to an urban (highly educated) group of bureaucrats capable of serving the needs of an increasingly sophisticated government.

It was at this moment that the wide scale movement away from battlefield skills, usually learned by individuals in a military context under realistic conditions, towards “martial arts,” typified by demilitarized instruction in formal (usually indoor) schools began to occur. Dueling was still common early in this period. As a result self-defense, rather than battlefield tactics, came to dominate discussions of swordsmanship.

Later, with increased social stability and the organization of the dominant fencing schools, this gave way to an emphasis on Kata performance and conceptually driven study as a means of “self-cultivation.” Eventually civilians even took up a greater role in the development and teaching of what had become a fundamentally demilitarized skill set. Chapter three really captures the moment of the creation of the modern Japanese “martial arts.”

I suspect that many readers, particularly those who have spent much time follow the debate about the value of “realism” in training and competition within the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), will find the fourth chapter of the book to be the most interesting in the volume. In it Hurst relates a fascinating set of developments that began to dominant the discussion of swordsmanship in the late Tokugawa (though elements of this shift can be seen throughout the entire period of study).

Increasingly certain swordsman (mostly associated with the competitive dojos located in major cities, rather than the more traditional teachers in the domain academies) began to question the value of kata and traditional training methods. The development of new types of training gear, from better bamboo Shinai, to masks, chest protectors and gloves, made it safer and easier for (often low status) samurai to engage in vigorous sparring and competition, thereby creating a name for themselves. With either a Katana or Bokken (wooden sword) such activity could easily result in serious injury or death. But now it was possible to put various training methods to the test and see (after hundreds of years of peace) which “sword” techniques were truly “realistic” and “effective.”

Not all schools jumped at this new development. It was evident to everyone that these “realistic” matches were essentially competitive sporting contests which were fundamentally about establishing social status. In short, for something claiming the mantle of “realism” they were about as far removed from the actual battlefield as one could get. Practitioners of kata based training methods knew perfectly well that they were engaged in an abstraction. Yet they saw the transformation of fencing into a competitive sport as essentially a step in the wrong direction.

The second half of Hurst’s book then turns to the question of archery. If this discussion feels substantially briefer, it is because the author devotes only half as many pages to the topic. The same division between the early and late feudal periods that structured his earlier study of swordsmanship is once again employed.

In chapter 5 a number of stories of battlefield archery are related impressing upon readers why the bow was seen as the “soul of the Bushi” long before the sword became the “soul of the Samurai.” Various types of ceremonial court archery, hunts and competitions (many of which carried at least some hint of spiritual or ritual undertones) were introduced.

In the second half of the discussion readers were introduced to changes in the practice of archery following the end of Japan’s long period of civil war. In some ways the Tokugawa transition was a smoother one for archers. Firearms were already displacing them from the battlefield. Yet the nature of archery practice made sporting competitions obvious and popular ventures. And the idea of archery as a means of self-cultivation could claim a well-established and illustrious pedigree going back to no less a figure than Confucius himself.

The end result was that the lords of many domains were willing to support and pour resources into the cultivation of competitive archers. All of this manifested in a sudden mania for setting records. Some of the most popular of these including grueling endurance competitions in which archers vied to see how many “clear shots” could be sent down a long and low temple corridors without hitting the roof, walls or floor. From an initial mark of about 50 shots, Japan’s competitive archers were soon sending thousands of arrows down the corridors in marathon 24 hour shooting sessions. A note at the end of Hurst’s volume indicates that as of the time of its writing no modern Japanese archer has come close to replicating the feats of an earlier generation of bowman.

In the final section of the book Hurst turns his attention to the reform of both archery and swordsmanship in Meiji and 20th century Japan. Again, the fall of the Tokugawa government and the massive social dislocation which followed were initially quite disruptive to martial artists. Seeking to modernize (and stabilize) society the government did away with the Samurai class, banned the wearing of swords in public and forcibly closed many of the urban dojos (throwing countless martial artists out of work). Archery too suffered similar setbacks, though in truth its prior transformation into a sport (and means of self-cultivation) eased this later transformation as well.

Still, Japan’s martial artists did not simply give up or disappear. Some entrepreneurial former-Samurai began to stage public fencing matches (based on models for sporting spectacles already established by Sumo wrestlers) which pit swordsman from various locations and schools against each other. These were initially very popular with the public as civilians had always maintained an interest in the martial arts. Japan’s new police forces also decided that fencing skills were more of a practical skill than an anachronism given their experience in local uprisings and the frequent arrests of former Samurai. This resulted in the first efforts to create a standardized set of national Kata for Kendo training.

The establishment of the Butokukai, civilian group dedicated to the promotion of the martial arts and martial virtues in both the educational system and Japanese society at large, also helped to ensure that these fighting systems would find a place within Japanese modernity. In fact, given the tenacity and creativity that these arts showed in their continual efforts to accommodate changing social situations, it should probably come as no surprise that American efforts to marginalize the place of the martial arts in the Japanese educational system (and society) follow WWII ultimately came to nothing. The story of the development and survival of the Japanese fighting arts is ultimately a very modern one in which these practices have been the means by which numerous individuals have sought to promote their own vision of what a modern, yet fully authentic, Japanese society should look like.

A vintage Japanese postcard showing Kendo practice on a battleship. Source: Author’s personal collection.

Conclusion: The Need for Theory and Comparative Case Studies in Martial Arts Studies

Hurst’s pioneering volume has much to recommend it. It provides an easily digestible, well researched, overview of critical developments in the Japanese martial arts since the 16th century. In publishing this book Hurst demonstrated that martial arts studies was a subject that university presses could not ignore. He has also given us a great classroom resource for those seeking to introduce this material to undergraduates. I would not hesitate to use sections of this book on my own reading list.

Yet there is also something about this work that feels a bit tired. It looks back to a style of historical writing in which, after extensive research, “facts” were simply presented to the reader without any sort of theoretical or interpretive framework to contextualize them. Hurst himself rarely enters into either causal or descriptive arguments. As he states on page 198, this volume was to be more dedicated to “narrative than analysis.”

He only seeks to draw two firm conclusions in his book’s final chapter. First, too much has been made of the conceptual difference between the “martial arts” and other types of “sports.” Second, while ritual and personal development have certainly been part of the Japanese martial arts, Western students have tended to overemphasize the place of Zen Buddhism in their development.

Both are helpful reminders, after 200 pages of reading one is left wondering whether the game has been worth the candle. Is there really nothing else that we can say about the nature and the development of the Japanese martial arts?

Hurst’s coy statement about “narrative over analysis” notwithstanding, one suspects that quite a bit of interpretive and causal theorizing must have gone into this work. Yet following the conventions of some historians of earlier generations, the author is content to let the readers guess what his assumptions have been, and how they may have colored his reading of the “facts.”

More specifically, Hurst’s discussion of the transition of swordsmanship from a roughly trained battlefield skill to a refined, inward focused, martial art by the third decade of the Tokugawa period advanced quite a bit of subtle analysis. Yet it did so in the guise of “letting the facts speak for themselves.” After all, this remarkable transformation happened at exactly the same time as the dawning of Japan’s great period of peace. Thus it does not seem so difficult to explain the origin of the nation’s most popular martial art.

Upon rereading Hurst this narrative strikes me as incomplete at best, and potentially misleading. It also nicely illustrates the potential benefits of the comparative case study method, even if it means giving up some descriptive detail.

The dawning of peace was only one of many elements that changed in Japanese society at the start of the Tokugawa period. The class structure was frozen with new social regulations. The economy was overhauled. Buddhism was largely sidelined in favor of a renewed emphasis on neo-Confucian leadership strategies. The many small feudal governments that had ruled the state were consolidated into increasingly bureaucratized institutions. It is hard to think of a single element of Japanese life that did not change during this period.

Yet from the perspective of the martial arts the most important of these changes was the rapid urbanization that occurred throughout Japan. The growth of large and vibrant cities with robust economies and bustling entertainment quarters would have been perhaps the most obvious of these changes to an outside observer.

The transformation of the Samurai class was deeply bound up with this process of urbanization. As Hurst points out, they were cut off from their feudal obligations to the land and relocated to the city in mass, paving the way for a new type of bureaucrat…and martial artist. As such, the links between dawning peace and the development of the martial arts may not be as obvious as it first appears. Hurst even notes that urbanization co-varied with this process in his description of the period. Yet all subsequent discussions in the book focus to the cessation of warfare. If anything Hurst seems to see urbanization, like the martial arts themselves, as yet another result of the Tokugawa period of peace.

The Chinese case, however, suggest something very different. The first great eras of urbanization in the Late Imperial period occurred during the Song and Ming dynasties. Yet these were not notably peaceful times. In fact, invasion, conquest, and flows of refugees drove much of the process of urbanization during the Song dynasty. It was almost the exact opposite of the security environment seen in Japan.

And yet some of our first written references to what appear to be recognizable lineages of boxing and wrestling in China date back to this period. Specifically, as Chinese cities grew the martial arts became a popular form of urban entertainment. This took the form of both martial performances on stage, but also the opening of wrestling and martial arts schools. Again, this basic pattern is quite similar to what would be seen in Japan during the 17th century.

Even at its most peaceful the countryside of the Ming dynasty never enjoyed the degree of stability seen in much of Japan. Yet this was also a period of urbanization. And as the security situation degenerated in the final century of the dynasty, there was an immense outpouring of interest in the martial arts. Some individuals seem to have been primarily interested in these skills as potential resources for training local militias and such. Yet as Shahar has demonstrated, it was in this fractious security environment that the connections between unarmed boxing, traditional medicine and spiritual development were first seen in China.

In short, at exactly the same time that one might expect a return to rough and ready sword training, many individuals in China were expressing interest in esoteric types of martial arts that spoke directly to the need for self-cultivation. Clearly the exact nature of the relationship between these variables and the development of the modern martial arts is a topic that requires additional research. Yet the Chinese case suggest that we must take a much harder look at variables such as urbanization and the development of economic markets if we want to understand how this process worked.

This sort of multi-variate causal analysis cannot simply be subsumed in a “narrative” exercises like the one offered by Hurst. The facts cannot speak for themselves. A movement towards comparative case study will require the development of much more explicit theoretical frameworks.

A similar problem arises when Hurst tackles another paradox having to do with the social organization of the Japanese martial arts. He notes that all sorts of artistic activities, from flower arranging to tea ceremony, are organized through highly structured ryu systems. These institutional forms are by no means unique to the Japanese martial arts. In fact, these fighting systems can be thought of as “late adopters” of this important cultural pattern.

In other cases these institutions did a much better job of creating cohesive social organizations than they did for the Japanese martial arts. Whereas students of tea ceremony tended to remain loyal to their teachers, both personally and artistically, Japanese swordsmen were forever creating splinter organizations which would in turn break down along segmentary lines in future generations. As in China the Japanese martial arts organized themselves through a pseudo-kinship structure.  But it seems that they were never particularly happy families.

Hurst explained this puzzle by noting the unique feature of Japan’s political organization during the Tokugawa period. To forestall the possibility of rebellion the central government closely regulated the movement of individuals and ideas. It was necessary to have a visa to travel even from one domain to the next. Under this system famous teachers would have to fully transmit their methods to their students prior to their return home to protect the reputation of their schools. Yet it would be difficult to maintain an ongoing relationship within the state’s feudal structures.  As a result these students had an incentive to form their own schools.

For Hurst the splintering of martial arts schools seen in Tokugawa Japan might be a byproduct of the government’s Machiavellian approach to ensuring peace by making cross-domain relationships as difficult to maintain as possible. This seems very reasonable, until we again consider the case of the traditional Chinese martial arts.

There are both similarities and differences between the lineage groups that preserve the martial arts in China and the more highly structured schools that arose in Japan. And the political structures overseeing these countries were quite different. Yet the propensity to splinter along generational and lineage lines described by Hurst almost exactly fits the situation in China as well. In fact, we see something substantially similar in China in the 19th century, China in the 20th century, and China today. We even see the same pattern in the Chinese martial arts as practiced in Europe and America. While the principles of political and social organization between these cases fluctuates tremendously, the same basic outcome (messy lineage politics within martial arts styles), seems to be a constant. As any social scientist can tell you, a variable cannot explain a constant.

Despite his protestations to the contrary, it is almost impossible to write only “narrative” history while leaving the “analysis” to others. Simply describing the “facts” requires that one make inferences about what is going on and how these events are linked. “Analysis” is never separate from description. It is at the heart of the narrative enterprise. Whether he intended to or not, Hurst wrote a theoretical and explanatory book. You simply cannot avoid it when telling any story of sufficient complexity.

Given that causal and descriptive theory are unavoidable, it is better to confront the problem in as transparent a way as possible. One of the great advances that we have made in martial arts studies is to be much more conscious of what work our theories are actually doing for us. Ultimately this will lead to the development of better interpretive and social scientific theories.

Yet Hurst has also illustrated the danger of a single case. Social change is a complicated process in which multiple variables are always at play. Yet we cannot control for multiple factors if we only have a single observation to draw on. In that case there is a tendency to try and reduce the complexity of history too far, to reach for simplistic single variable models of outcomes because they are the only thing that we can test.

The best way to deal with this is through the use of the comparative case study method. As we have seen, many of the conclusions that Hurst reaches about the Japanese case read quite different when we set them besides events in China.

Yet this is an area where we have not seen nearly as much progress in recent years. Nor are such projects always easy to construct. They may require the use of historical sources in multiple languages or a movement away from the sorts of area studies approaches that have been common as scholars look for social scientific models offering more theoretical rigor. Still, the interdisciplinary nature of martial arts studies suggests that we may have certain advantages when undertaking this sort of work.

That then may be the ultimate value of the Armed Martial Arts of Japan. It is too easy to dismiss a book or a theory for being “wrong” in some detail. In reality such a critique tells us nothing. As simplifications of a vastly more complex underlying reality, all theories are born falsified. That is the original sin of academic thought.

The question then is whether you can be wrong in an important way, one that suggest future avenues for exploration or development. While Hurst’s pioneering working is now almost two decades old, I think that this post demonstrates that it still has the power to inspire those who want to think more deeply about the origin and meaning of the Asian martial arts. That is a sure sign of an important work.

oOo

If you enjoyed this essay you might also want to read: Bruce Lee: Memory, Philosophy and the Tao of Gung Fu

oOo

Introduction

Welcome to the third entry in our series of guest posts titled “Doing Research.”  If you missed the first essay by D. S. Farrer (which provides a global overview of the subject), or the second by Daniel Mroz (how to select a school or teacher for research purposes), be sure to check them out.

Compared to other fields of scholarly inquiry, Martial Arts Studies has a distinctly democratic flavor.  Many individuals are introduced to these systems while students at a college or university and are interested in seeing a more intellectually rigorous treatment of their interests.  And certain practitioners want to go beyond reading studies produced by other writers and undertake research based on their own time in the training hall.   The emphasis on ethnographic description, oral and local history, as well as the methodological focus on community based collaborative research within Martial Arts Studies (itself a radically interdisciplinary area), makes participation in such efforts both relatively accessible and highly valuable.  Or maybe you are a student about to embark on your first ethnographic research project?

Dr. Jared Miracle has been kind enough to draw on his extensive research experience in both Japan and China to suggest some practices that can be called upon when facing the daunting task of learning a new martial arts system while also being immersed in a novel culture.  First time ethnographers will find much of value in this discussion, and even more experienced practitioners will likely discover some thought provoking ideas on how to better absorb and understand new martial arts material.

It’s My Way or the Wu Wei: A Note of Advice for Novice Field Researchers

Let us suppose you’re a student conducting fieldwork for the first time. You have a lot of questions.

Actually, no, you probably don’t.

As an educator, the most common issue my students have (other than not studying in the first place) involves coming to me for help only to realize that they don’t know what they need. You can’t find the answers to your questions if you don’t know what you don’t know. So rather than attempt to address frequent questions that you didn’t know you had, I would like to offer a set of solid practices for your first trip to the field. I hope this will be useful regardless of the project, but I write this with a specific set of circumstances in mind. This is essentially a letter to myself about ten years ago, when about to embark on research which called for learning both the lore and bodywork of an ancient Japanese sword system without the slightest idea what I was doing.

To begin with, let’s consider a far-too-neglected topic in the martial arts studies: choreometrics. The late, great musicology Alan Lomax was well-known for his recordings of traditional American music in an effort to preserve cultural heritage. Some of his later work led him to realize that music is often inextricably linked with dance. He began to question if lessons from folk studies and musicology may apply to the physical realm, as well. Lomax’s team conjured up an interesting notion called “choreometrics.” The idea was to take video recordings of movements in different cultures and then analyze them to find commonalities. Much like Draeger’s hoplology, unfortunately, it never seems to have hit the big time. There is something to be learned here, however, for our own endeavors: you need a system.

Dr. Miracle examining a set of traditional Japanese armor. Source: The collection of Dr. Jared Miracle.

The problem: why many Westerners can’t learn East Asian systems

One of the more popular topics in the early years of MMA forums was the lack of utility and student-driven pedagogy in “traditional” (read: East Asian) martial arts. This is not exactly true, but there is a very reasonable explanation for why a great many students struggle with especially foreign systems, such as my own choice of Japanese koryu. You see, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese pedagogy—among other cultures—has historically revolved around a pattern called shu-ha-ri or jo-ha-kyu in Japanese. First you must shu (守) or obey, then ha (破) or break away, and finally to ri (離) or separate and transcend. I’ve been a teacher and a student in both China and Japan and can personally attest that this ancient way of thinking is heavily embedded in the cultures, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. Contrast that approach with the Western European method of education in which students are challenged to become autodidacts, employ creativity, and think critically. If you want to acquire the martial arts skills of your interlocutors to a degree sufficient for analysis, you first need to understand how their brains are programmed, and this is a good starting point.

Next comes narrative structure. Martial arts training is nothing more than kinetic storytelling, but the means of doing so is markedly different in Western European cultures when compared with East Asia. Again, your teacher and fellow students may not be consciously aware of it, but they have been programmed from a young age to follow a certain way of developing narratives. In Japanese, the phrase is ki-sho-ten-ketsu. First comes ki (起), the introduction, then sho (承), the development, ten (転), a virtually unrelated turn in events, and ketsu (結), the conclusion. This is why storylines in films, novels, etc. that originate in places like Japan seem so convoluted to Western audiences. It’s also why so many Japanese exchange students can’t grasp why they receive poor marks on English-language essays. The concept even extends to the storytelling in video games. In your martial arts training, too, you can expect a slightly nonlinear road to your goal. Between the frustrating pedagogical structure and a confusing way to relate information, those who would conduct fieldwork in East Asia must steel themselves for something of a bumpy ride.

Hokey tricks and nonsense vs. a good blaster at your side

Like all handsome, athletic young men, I was on my school’s chess team. Thanks to the coach’s son being one of those rare prodigies who populate the chess circuit, we were in the final round of a very important state-level tournament. I sat fourth board, meaning I was the worst player on the team, but they didn’t have enough warm bodies to compete otherwise. I opened the game with an advance of the king’s pawn, then center pawn, knight, bishop, and then knight again. My opponent was in check and I thought I’d won with a handy little trick known as “scholar’s mate.” It’s a kind of indirect flank that ends the game quickly. As it turned out, the other boy was not a complete rube and I ended up losing a few moves later. The lesson: a bag of tricks is worth precisely one empty bag.

A lot of authors these days are offering “hacks” or “one simple trick” to do any number of things. The result, more often than not, is a complete waste of time. If you would be an effective and efficient field researcher, it behooves you to ignore these traps and focus instead on crafting your own system in a way that works for you. My first efforts to learn the Japanese sword were complete failures. The classical method of training in my style calls for memorizing lengthy and complex forms, each following a theme. The forms are then to be examined for years to learn the embedded lessons. The trouble was that I’m not particularly inclined toward memorization. The Japanese answer, of course, was to keep hammering away. After a couple months of this, I bought a video camera and started supplementing the official instruction with my own ideas to much greater effect.

Source: Photo by Jared Miracle.

Systematize, systematize, systematize

To make my teacher and cohort happy, I continued to do as I was told each day during training, but I also secured permission to set my camera up in an inconspicuous corner of the room. Upon returning home, I would slice up the video so that I had the complete forms in a single file. From there, I broke them into pieces of three or four movements that I could then rehearse on my own, retaining each piece by associating it with a story I invented. For each set of techniques I made up a childish narrative like those used to teach shoe-tying. Luckily for me, it still works as an adult. Within a week I had sufficiently absorbed the same form I’d been struggling for over a month to remember.

The point here is not that video recording is the ideal way to study, but to figure out what works for you and follow it regardless of tradition. I began my sword studies with the foolish mindset that you must learn in the same way as your forbearers. I was wrong. What I learned in the process was not just to act outside the established means of knowledge transmission, but to accept that I needed something different from what my population was willing to offer. In Western-style education we refer to this idea as “differentiation.” After your differentiated education has taken you sufficiently far to catch up with your peers, a good teacher will then institute “scaffolding” by setting up a roadmap to your end goal so that you aren’t stuck in the remedial class for the rest of your life. For more on how to improve your internal learning process, I highly recommend Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning. Waitzkin was a world-class chess player as a child (see Searching for Bobby Fischer) before retiring to take national and international championships in taiji push-hands and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so he knows what he’s talking about.

Be an idiot child

In order to make adequate progress in acquiring body skills (or any other kind of information, really) in a short amount of time, you need to revert to childhood. By that I mean you should approach your subject with an attitude of absolute ignorance. Take nothing as a given. This is a standard point of all good anthropological fieldwork courses, but it needs to be doubly emphasized in martial arts studies for two reasons. First, you will have a hard time synthesizing information and spotting nuances if you have preconceived notions. Second, people love to teach, and when they perceive that you need extra attention, they may reveal things of which you would not have otherwise been aware.

I managed to weasel my way into a very old-fashioned dojo to learn a five-centuries-old method of fencing. That was tough, and I naturally assumed that the training would also be a challenge. Then one of the senior students—a middle-aged man beset with the funkiest halitosis I’ve ever encountered—handed me my new trousers. Hakama are those many-pleated skirt-like garments worn in aikido and kendo. While I had worn them before, I suddenly noticed that everyone else tied theirs in a very particular way, forming a beautiful cross-shaped knot in the front. Rather than risk being called out during training, I asked for help. It took a fair bit of pride-swallowing to not respond when Mr. Mouthrot laughed a noxious cloud in my face while showing me how to put on my own pants. That knot turned out to be one of the countless unspoken transmissions of the art. And all it cost me was a breath mint.

Relax your way to success

There is a minor inconvenience of which you should be aware before traveling to Japan. Because of a powerful lobby benefiting the taxi companies, virtually every train in the country stops service around ten or eleven in the evening. The lack of trains isn’t much of an issue in metropolitan Tokyo, where you need only cough up a few more yen to catch a ride across town. When living in the boondocks, however, I soon discovered that one may find himself standing in an abandoned train station. On the top of a mountain. In the middle of the night. Alone.

Thinking that I was in for a lengthy hike down into my village in the dark, I zipped up my jumper, plunged hands into my pockets, and… realized that I had lost my house key. It must have fallen out while riding in a cab earlier that evening. Although I could recall the name of the company, I lacked any confidence in my language abilities, especially on the telephone. Not seeing any other way to return home, I picked up a payphone and dialed the taxi dispatch. Had I allowed nerves to overtake my thinking, I may have tried to force the unfortunate woman on the other end to speak what she could recall from her high school English class (always a bad idea). Instead, some special confluence of my exhaustion from a day of travel and passive absorption of daily conversation shone through and I managed to explain that I was a stupid, stupid man who was without his key. The kindness of the Japanese people was on full display as the operator contacted each driver working that night. Within ten minutes, that saintly gentleman pulled up in front of the station, handed me my key, insisted on driving me home, complimented my (atrocious) Japanese, refused to accept any pay, and then offered me a piece of candy as a parting gift.

The lesson? Your ability to absorb new knowledge and skills is quite prodigious if you just step out of your own way. Like a child learning to walk, don’t fear making simple errors or looking foolish. Martial arts field research demands that you lose all sense of pride and egocentrism so that you can do proper justice to your interlocutors. If you aren’t mindful to approach the situation with a sense of relaxed ignorance and trust your own intuitive learning process, you risk not only missing out on valuable knowledge, but also offending your teachers and fellow students by violating the social conditions. Be humble, be calm, and be a buffoon.

Photo of a training session in Shandong. Source: Field notes of Dr. Jared Miracle.

Learn to speedread

Speedreading is immensely useful, and not just because you can knock out over a hundred books a year like Theodore Roosevelt. Indeed, many of history’s great personalities were known to possess nearly superhuman reading abilities, sometimes on the order of two or three per day. Doubtless, this will prove useful to just about anyone. Graduate school more or less forced me to learn the skill. My mentor—who also happens to be a seminal member of martial arts studies since before I was born—instructed me to take all the courses offered by another member of the faculty whose interests did not appear to mesh with mine. After surviving the first of these, I spent the next two years trying to avoid the man, but to no avail.

The professor in question was known for being highly confrontational, racially and sexually offensive, and for assigning hundreds upon hundreds of pages of reading for homework each week. What graduate anthropology student has time to read all of The Brothers Karamazov, the complete collection of Skeptical Inquirer, and a dozen obscure research articles that you have to track down without the aid of a library (they pled “exhausted all resources”), all for a single class? In the end, my cohort and I did. I quickly learned the importance of speedreading, pre-skimming, and which parts of a scholarly book or article should be read in-depth or eschewed entirely. I have never looked back, either. I typically fill and empty my Kindle’s memory about once per month. Also, that nightmarish professor ended up on my committee and proved to be an incredibly valuable asset in the long run, as well as a valued friend and teacher.

But what else does one attain by mastering the ability to devour entire volumes in a day? There is a sort of unquantifiable skill to be found in relaxing the mind and flying through text. It almost feels the same as the much-touted “flow state” or one of those rare “Zen” experiences. When you attain true control over your reading speed, the world disappears, the pages pass by, and suddenly you’ve accumulated a mountain of data without realizing that you were trying. Because you weren’t. This skill transfers well to field research in the martial arts because many of us are learning the nuances of systems that take decades to grasp. Let me be clear: I’m not saying that the ability to apply speedreading-style cognitive methods to your training will equip you to suddenly learn entire systems and cultures instantly ala The Matrix. You will, however, see a notable improvement in your progress and feel less stress and frustration over the entire convoluted mess that is qualitative ethnographic research.

This has worked for me, personally, on a number of occasions. In a recent project, I studied the rudiments of taiji meihua tanglang quan (太極梅花螳螂拳), taiji plum blossom praying mantis boxing. This was part of the agenda during my year as an adjunct at a major university in China. Praying mantis is one of the local styles and one must strike while the iron is hot. In this case, the hard part wasn’t learning, but gaining access. More on that below. Once I connected with a willing master of the form, I ended up driving both him and the other students to no small amount of irritation because they only intended to share one movement with me at a time. When the combination of speedreading his technique and hours of practicing at home each night put me ahead of older students, a few became somewhat indignant. They asked if I was “cheating on” our teacher by attending lessons elsewhere. This is hardly to brag; any effort to demonstrate my meagre understanding of the praying mantis system would end in total embarrassment for me, my family, and eight generations of ancestors. The point is that you can learn how to learn more effectively than you currently do.

Transfer what you know

Whenever I give public talks about martial arts research, the first question from the audience is almost always the same, “So do you practice a martial art?” After some years of this, I still don’t see why that would be relevant for their ends. If a medical doctor were to make a study of dimple prevalence among conjoined twins, is it unlikely that someone in the audience will ask, “So do you have a former conjoined twin with dimples?” Either way, there are some aspects of the present concern that are directly affected by past martial arts study.

As I say, you need to have a system for acquiring body knowledge just as you do for intellectual knowledge. If you have past experience and interest in learning a combat system (and odds are you do, given how many of us got into martial arts studies for the money and fame), it can be quite valuable to determine that system’s approach to cognitive information transfer. One example of this may be the famous wing chun quadrant system. The body is bisected two ways to more easily get a handle on the style’s trademark intercepting maneuvers. In any event, it can greatly expedite the process of learning a new system when you have a solid grounding in another. The operative word here is “can.”

Many teachers will complain about students arriving with preconceived notions or ingrained habits. Those are definitely valid concerns (even Luke Skywalker was “too old to begin the training”), as they are in any kind of education. I would encourage any novice fieldworker to perform extensive reflection and self-examination in terms of prior experience. When you are aware of your habits and biases, they are both easier to overcome and you can leverage that experience to develop new habits. After all, if you already possess a habit then it is proof positive of a method’s effectiveness.

Dr. Miracle in the ring in Japan. Source: Collection of Dr. Miracle.

Done is better than perfect

In a perfect world, we would all have a wealth of time to spend with our interlocutors. The fact that you sometimes bite the inside your own lip indicates that the world is not perfect. Take into account the amount of time and energy you realistically have before even setting out on any field excursion. Whether at your neighborhood taekwondo academy or some remote temple in Shangri-La, the time from setting foot in the door to sending out your article for publication is finite, so plan accordingly.

To that end, I offer my own graduate school Prime Directive: Done is better than perfect.

Repeating that mantra on an hourly basis is one of the tools that helped me graduate from a rigorous PhD. program in seven semesters. It applies just as well in fieldwork. It is important to keep in mind that your own intimacy with the art and population about which you will be writing depends on time and access. Learn what you can, while you can, from whom you can and accept the rest as reality. Take notes and video if you can. Copy down every scrap of data that you collect before going to bed each night. Be appreciative of the opportunities that are presented, not the ones you wish for.

Think like a journalist

Finally, I would like to address the question of how to track down and make contact with individuals who may or may not be willing to spill the kung fu beans. In some cases it’s as simple as walking in and signing up, but I find that the most interesting and enlightening projects involve making good with people who are not interested in teaching. Case-in-point: Master Gu.

Looking for authentic Shandong mantis style, I set out to make connections. What I quickly learned upon arriving in Qingdao is that there are very, very few people actively practicing Chinese martial arts other than the ubiquitous morning taiji groups. Through those folks and a few personal contacts, I was able to find a group practicing plum blossom boxing, another highly regional style. That proved to be a dead-end, however, when a well-respected colleague and Chinese martial arts expert informed me that the club in question would be a waste of time. I visited them anyway, and their instructor demanded outrageous sums of money from the “wealthy foreigner.” It became obvious that I would make no headway on that front.

I told everyone I knew what I was looking for. I even began introducing myself with the usual name, rank, and whatnot, then immediately mentioning that I hoped to study mantis boxing. I dragged a few of my native speaker friends into the search and had them cold calling numbers of martial arts teachers from the public phone listing. Finally, after a couple of months, a friend of a friend told me about Master Gu, a taiji push-hands teacher who was also a master of mantis style. It involved getting up at some ludicrous hour every Sunday morning and committing to an all-day commute to a park where he teaches (sometimes, when he feels like it), but I did eventually get what I came for.

Other cases are more straightforward. Perhaps you know the teacher, have contact information, and maybe even know where to go, but he/she still refuses. Keep showing up. Keep calling. Don’t be annoying, but persistence pays off more often than not. Journalists are the best model for this kind of thing. If it works, it works, and no method should be put out of mind without trying it. With Master Gu, the key ended up being the use of social media. I canvased all of my online connections via the Chinese program WeChat.

Either way, it may be psychologically healthiest to view resistance as a test of one’s drive to learn. Personally, I always think about an atrocious 1991 film called American Shaolin in which the protagonist camps outside the eponymous temple for days until the monks agree to torture him. He does end up becoming a monk and getting the girl. I’m not quite sure how that is supposed to work, but it gives one hope.

So there you have it. The rest is situationally-dependent and may require a degree of creativity, but this should be more than enough to get you started. Below is a list of suggested resources for a more robust education on the topic. The key, however, is to get out and do the work, whenever, wherever, and however you can. Done is better than perfect. Best of luck.

oOo

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.

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Some Additional Reading and Sources:

Choreometrics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantometrics#Branching_out_into_Choreometrics

More on Josh Waitzkin’s work in learning and education:
http://www.joshwaitzkin.com/the-art-of-learning/

A nice primer of flow states:
http://positivepsychology.org.uk/pp-theory/flow/30-living-in-flow.html

I suggest “human guinea pig” Tim Ferriss’ thoughts on speedreading:
Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes

Some tips on getting started with investigative journalism:
http://www.icfj.org/sites/default/files/10_Steps_Investigative_Reporting_0.pdf

Some fun and terrible weekend viewing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Shaolin

The best book available on ethnographic fieldwork methods is still Bruce Jackson’s 1987 classic:
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/64nyb2bz9780252013720.html

It is both enlightening and cathartic to read others’ virgin field experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend an edited volume of such tales called Dispatches from the Field:
http://www.waveland.com/browse.php?t=151&pgtitle=Dispatches+from+the+Field+by+Gardner-Hoffman

A photograph (probably 1930s) showing a marketplace martial arts demonstration. Note the Shuang Gau led by the man on the left. Source: The personal collection of Benjamin Judkins

Introduction

 
Ephemera, such as postcards, tourist snapshots and newspaper accounts are an important (if often overlooked) source of information regarding the traditional Chinese martial arts. While a number of printed manuals and detailed philosophical discussions do exist from the period of the 1920s onward, I am always surprised at how difficult it is to find period accounts of a set of practices and organizations that have done so much to shape our modern perception of Chinese identity. When rediscovered, ephemera is fascinating precisely because it suggests something about the individuals who consumed it as well as offering a few nuggets of information regarding the social place of the practices that they report.

 
A Marketplace Demonstration of Heroic Kung Fu

The main image for today’s post is no exception. It records a fascinating snapshot of the modern evolution of the traditional Chinese martial arts. But which moment is it?

I first acquired this image in the from of a vintage photograph taken form a tourist’s travel album. Unfortunately, as is often the case, a dealer had already broken up the individual collection and was selling off the photos one at a time. While a common sales strategy this is regrettable as it deprives students of the opportunity to use the rest of the album to contextualize, and hopefully identify, the scene that we are interested in.

The photograph itself measures 3.5 by 5.5 inches and is in generally good condition. Its surface has been scratched in a few places and the scene is generally a bit overexposed. It was probably taken on a bright and sunny day.

The backside of the photo has no labels but does show signs that it was once pasted onto a scrapbook page. Images like this were often printed in large numbers by local photographers for sales to tourists and travelers. Unfortunately, the lack of studio marks means that we have no idea where the image was taken or by whom.

The label under which the photo was sold has also been singularly unhelpful. When it was first auctioned the photograph was said to show two martial artists training in Hong Kong during the 1940s.

Given the arid look of the landscape and the fortress walls in the background, I suspect that this is unlikely. The image was probably taken in Northern China at any point between the late 1920s and the 1940s. When I first saw this image my gut instinct was to date it to some point in the 1930s.

But again, what exactly is this a picture of?

At first glance we are meant to see a recording of a typical marketplace martial arts performance. As we have argued elsewhere, these were a critical element of China’s hand combat subculture and were the places where non-practitioners were most likely to actually see and be exposed to these systems. That may also help to explain (in part) the low esteem in which many ordinary citizens held the tradition martial arts at this point in time.

Yet upon closer inspection we immediately notice that the image has actually been rather extensively staged. To create a sense of “activity” the cameraman stood close to his subjects, requiring that they stand close to one another. A good swing from the sword held by the man on the left could take off the near child’s leg at the hip. Likewise, the sharpened tip of the spear held by this child is positioned only a few inches away from a spectator’s spleen. While this shot successfully conveys a feeling of drama and action, it is not an example of spontaneous “street photography.” Rather it is an attempt to convey the photographer’s impression of a dynamic and quickly moving hand combat demonstration.

A detailed look at a pair of Shuang Gau. This is pair measures 95 cm in length and may be of a similar vintage to the swords seen in these images. Source: http://www.swordsantiqueweapons.com/s1015_full.html

The most interesting element of this photograph is probably the matching hooked swords held by the instructor of the two young fighters. This weapon, referred to by a number of names including the Shuang Gau, or “tiger head hook swords,” is rarely seen in antique collections. Nor, for that matter, is much known about its development and use.

While commonly employed by modern martial arts practitioners today, there are only a limited number of antique examples available for study. Most of these date to either the late 19th or early 20th century. Nor are there any clear literary, military or artistic references to this weapon prior to the late 19th century. As such we can safely assume that these weapons were developed and popularized by civilian martial artists in Northern China during the late Qing revival of interest in boxing. In fact, the creation of such esoteric weapons and accompanying oral traditions may suggest something important about the fundamental nature of this movement.

This is not to suggest that these swords are not “real” weapons. They most certainly were.

While they were never issued by the military, reliable reports from those who have handled well-made period examples suggest that they could have been quite deadly in skilled hands. By the Republic period these weapons were being used in a few Northern styles including Seven Star Mantis. They later made their way south and were adopted into the Choy Li Fut system. Still, their appearance in this relatively early photograph further suggests a northern location.

Chinese martial arts display. Northern China, sometime in the 1930s.

 

Conclusion: Efficacy and Entertainment in Republic Era Martial Arts

It may also be of some interest to note that the very first photo published in this series also featured a martial artist wielding a pair of tiger head hook swords. Both of these images captured this rare weapon’s appearance as one element of a larger public performance. They collectively suggests an element of theatricality and possibly the ultimate reason why these swords began to spread throughout the Chinese martial arts world during the Republic period.

As D. S. Farrer reminds us, the martial arts are by their very nature social activities mediated by cultural forms. If this was not the case they could not be taught by one generation to the next. Yet this fundamental truth also suggests that every aspect of these systems, including their weapons, will include elements of “efficacy” and “entertainment.” Nor is it ultimately possible to disentangle these elements as an increase on one side of the equation leads to new possibilities opening up for the other.

The sudden appearance of the Shuang Gau in both the training halls and performance stages of Northern China suggests something about the fundamental trends that were driving innovation within the Northern martial arts during the Republic period. These photographs and postcards are valuable historical documents precisely because they grant insights into how both of these elements, the practical and the symbolic, were being framed for the audience at a specific moment in time.

oOo

If you enjoyed this you might also want to read: London, 1851: Kung Fu in the Age of Steam-Punk

oOo

Earl White, chief instructor,
Ijo Ija Academy (left), and author (right),
Capoeira Batuque, Los Angeles, CA, 2008. Source: http://abcclio.blogspot.com/2010/08/author-guest-post-thomas-green-on.html

Introduction

Welcome to the fourth entry in our series of guest posts titled “Doing Research.”  If you missed the first essay by D. S. Farrer (which provides a global overview of the subject), the second by Daniel Mroz (how to select a school or teacher for research purposes), or the third by  Jared Miracle (learning new martial arts systems while immersed in a foreign culture) be sure to check them out!

Compared to other fields of scholarly inquiry, Martial Arts Studies has a distinctly democratic flavor.  Many individuals are introduced to these systems while students at a college or university and are interested in seeing a more intellectually rigorous treatment of their interests.  And certain practitioners want to go beyond reading studies produced by other writers and undertake research based on their own time in the training hall.   The emphasis on ethnographic description, oral and local history, as well as the methodological focus on community based collaborative research within Martial Arts Studies (itself a radically interdisciplinary area), makes participation in such efforts both relatively accessible and highly valuable.  Or maybe you are a student about to embark on your first ethnographic research project?

Prof. Thomas A. Green is no stranger to discussions of Martial Arts Studies.  Through both his publications and teaching he has demonstrated the importance of studying “traditional” fighting systems as a method of understanding current social and cultural conditions.  In the following essay he offers new researchers advice on the process of collecting folklore.  The Asian martial arts in particular are often said to be “oral traditions,” and gathering this material is a critical aspect of understanding any school or group of practitioners.  To help us better do this Prof. Green draws our attention to the importance of building the proper rapport while in the field as well as the need for flexibility and a healthy dose of respect.  Though critical advice for first time ethnographers, this essay also contains helpful hints for anyone wishing to get the most out of their time in the training hall.

Left to right Gurus Tony Valdez, James Leach, Maha Guru Clifford Stewart, Green, Guru Thomas Lomax, Los Angeles, CA. Source: Personal Collection of Prof. Thomas Green.

I’m Only in it For the Stories
Dedicated to the Memory of Zheng Xìujìng

“Doing ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of ‘construct a reading of’) a manuscript—foreign, faded, full of ellipses, incoherencies, suspicious emendations, and tendentious commentaries, but written not in conventionalized graphs of sound but in transient examples of shaped behavior.”

-Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973)

I’ve always resisted the label of social “scientist.” Particularly since I focus on symbolic dimensions of folklore and characterize my approach as leaning toward the qualitative, I’m more comfortable conceiving of what I do as an art. After all, what I do is classified as ethnography: etymologically “writing a culture.“ How can we as outsiders write a culture? As ethnographers, we must keep a certain distance even when writing our native culture. Doing so is just as difficult as it sounds. Complicating matters further is an issue Bronislaw Malinowski addresses in his classic Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), “To study the institutions, customs, and codes or to study the behaviour and mentality without the subjective desire of feeling by what these people live, of realising the substance of their happiness—is, in my opinion, to miss the greatest reward which we can hope to obtain from the study of man”. Two points leap out: subjectivity has a place in the study of culture, and it is okay to practice our trade because we enjoy doing so.

I think it is fair, especially if we consider it reasonable to label qualitative field research as an art, to say that I’m just in this for the stories. That statement also has the advantage of being true. Who tells the stories? That can be a problem if the ethnographer refuses to tell the stories (beyond reading Geertz’ manuscript), but chooses to let someone else assume the role of narrator. To accomplish this one risks the possibility of falling into the narratives in much the same way that Alice fell down the rabbit hole (These tend to be the best ones, of course). In that situation, one cannot always know how (or if) a story begins, how it will develop, or where it will end. Returning to Geertz’ metaphor, I suggest that the ethnographer should stand behind the cultural interlocutors to read their stories over their shoulders as far as possible. If you listen closely and if you are lucky, they will tell you where to stand.

Let’s agree for the time being that we are “only in it for the stories.” In order to “ask” for a story, we must establish rapport. In my experience, establishing rapport in the field demands three qualities from the researcher. Two stories about getting the stories from the field illustrate these qualities.

My first real fieldwork took me to the town of Ysleta a few miles outside El Paso, Texas. I planned to write my dissertation on the ways that folklore, particularly folk history and festival, had facilitated social cohesion and fostered a Native American identity among the Tigua Pueblo of Ysleta del Sur. The Texas Tigua had become separated from their parent village in New Mexico following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. A series of historical accidents and social injustices delayed their official recognition and enfranchisement by the federal government and the state of Texas until the 1960s. Nevertheless, the Tigua had maintained their identity for over 300 years, and a cultural revival followed in the wake of recognition.

I arrived armed with a cassette recorder (we are talking about the 1970s, after all), a notebook full of questions, and a head full of hypotheses drawn from the literature on cultural revitalization movements. After checking in with the local representative of the Texas Commission for Indian Affairs, I was taken across the central plaza to meet the Cacique, the Tigua spiritual leader and patriarch. At a little before noon, the June sun pushed the temperature toward 100 degrees F. We found the Cacique, José Granillo, standing by an adobe building in the early stages of being converted to a multipurpose community center. He was looking up at a small group of men repairing leaks in its roof. On hearing that I was on hand to begin, in the TCIA employee’s unfortunate choice of verbs, ”studying” his people, the Cacique gestured with an upward tilt of his chin to a weather-beaten twelve foot ladder leaning against the dusty brown wall. Mr. Granillo told me, “To know about the Indians, you need to work like the Indians.” To show that I accepted the advice (or was it a challenge?), I climbed the ladder and asked how I could help. I came back the next day and the next and the next, etc.–wearing a hat to avert further sunburn and work gloves to cover my blisters, and sans recorder.

Word travels fast in a village. That’s true all over the world. In Ysleta, people began to ask questions. Then they began to answer questions. After a while, some people began to tell stories and share exactly the kind of knowledge I had come to gather. I never became much of a roofer or mason or cook or chauffeur or any of the other odd jobs that materialized over the next year. On the other hand, by means of this genuine participant-observation I began to hear in a more or less natural context (after all, they did know who I am and why I was there) the narratives I had come to collect. I was not always having fun; I was not using the research protocol I had been taught, but I was getting the job done.

Prof. Green attending a performance at the Spring Festival in Hou Ma (Henan Province). Source: From the private collection of Thomas A. Green.

Forty years later I was in another village, this one in Henan Province, PRC. I had traveled to Hou Ma with my colleagues Li Yun and Zhang Guodong in order to document Liangquan (“Show Boxing”) performances held by the Meihua (Plum Blossom) Boxers during Spring Festival (“Chinese New Year”). We had arrived a few days before the actual performance to interview local Boxers who Guodong (himself a well-known Mei Boxer) had identified during previous visits and to record coinciding events such as traditional popular opera.

A few days before Liangquan I stood as a conspicuous Caucasian in the festival crowd watching an opera performance when I felt a tug on the sleeve of my coat. I turned to see an elderly, but extraordinarily animated, lady speaking to me in the local dialect. I later learned that her name was Zheng Xìujìng, and she was 84 years-old. Guodong’s sister, who had come along to help with the translation, explained that the lady wanted me to know she was glad I came to her village, and that she wanted us to visit her house. We had a full research agenda, but rather than offending her, the four of us agreed to visit.

We followed the directions she had given us and arrived at a modest older style house in the heart of the village. We entered directly into the largest room of the dwelling—a general purpose room upon whose walls hung a large portrait of Mao Zedong surrounded by framed calligraphy and a variety of traditional weapons of indeterminate age, but obviously very old. Some belonged to Master Zheng, who we learned was a 13th generation master of Mei Boxing, and some had belonged to her late husband. She explained the rugged condition of most of the weapons by telling us stories of their having been buried in the fields along with ancestral tablets and other traditional treasures to prevent their destruction during the Proletarian Cultural Revolution. She and her husband, along with other members of Hou Ma’s Mei Boxing families, practiced at night in the same fields in order to preserve the embodied treasure that was their art without detection by authorities charged with eradicating this alleged relic of feudalism.

When I told her I was puzzled that she hung a picture of the leader who was, in the Western view at least, the face of the Cultural Revolution among martial treasures and over an altar used for ancestor veneration. Her response: After Mao came to power she was not hungry every day as she had been before the establishment of the People’s Republic. Then, she shrugged her shoulders beneath her heavy quilted coat and added, “Even the best people make mistakes.”

That day and on other occasions during our stay in Hou Ma, Master Zheng shared history, her own and Mei Boxing’s. She read through with us the frayed pages of a hand-written book that chronicled the lineage and original history of Plum Blossom Boxing. From Master Zheng we began to become aware of two distinct streams of Mei Boxing: Wu (physical techniques) and Wen (non-physical techniques; ritual, metaphysics). Because of her mastery of Wen, people regularly called on her for help, including members of the visiting opera troupe I had been documenting. The performers came to her house to venerate ancestors and petition for her blessing. Although we never saw her skills at Wu, her grandson’s demonstration of the guan do (Chinese halberd) suggested that her command of the physical combative side of Mei Boxing was equally well-developed. None of this could have been anticipated before she tugged on my sleeve to tell us her story.

A snapshot of Master Zheng as she shares the history of her art. Source: From the private collection of Thomas A. Green.

CREDIBILITY: The first questions any ethnographer encounters in the field relate to: Who are you, why should I believe you, and why should we trust you with our stories? Researchers, the illusory role of participant-observer notwithstanding, are bystanders at best and potentially intruders. Credibility, even to stand by, must be earned. This can be especially true in situations in which inter-group relationships have been strained, as was the case with the Tigua who had been the victims of both racial prejudice and political malfeasance since European contact. Subordinating myself to village authority, engaging in manual labor that apparently had no relationship to my research goals, and doing both repeatedly clearly demonstrated that I wanted to “study” the Tigua badly enough to undertake the enterprise on their terms.

On the other hand, credibility may come at a comparatively low price. In Hou Ma, I accompanied a trusted member of the Mei Boxing brotherhood, and I was willing to listen to an elderly lady who seemed an unlikely bearer of Meihuaquan tradition. In both cases, I could not play the role I had prepared; the roles were assigned by the host communities, and a role of some sort always will be assigned.

A viable role is crucial to success. In other research situations, even when sweating and occasionally bleeding alongside other martial arts students, I invariably have been categorized as unusual. Early on, Maha Guru Cliff Stewart tagged me as “Professor” and “Doc,” in group contexts at least. This went a long way to establishing my bona fides when I began working with his martial associates, and that was his intent, of course. The use of those titles suggests no deferential treatment, however, only difference and usually license to ask questions that would have seemed odd or intrusive had they come from either insiders or outsiders.

FLEXIBILITY: Reading over our hosts’ shoulders can demand unexpected contortions, and not a little endurance to maintain that reading posture. Obviously I never intended to collect my information on the roof, but since that was the only option I was given I did it. The only genuine “textbook” recorded interview I attempted at Ysleta was unsatisfactory. It was stilted, and my narrator Pablo repeatedly responded to requests for stories with something like, “Oh, I already told you that one.” That was true. Most of the folk history I collected at Ysleta came “on the fly,” in the context of other conversations.

Fortunately, I took notes as soon after hearing a tale as possible, have a better than average memory, and recorded my own recreation of what resulted from the notes and my memory as soon as possible. The fact that the really important narratives were repeated more than once by Pablo and other gifted storytellers helped, too. Conversation, not interrogation, was the proper mode for this situation. A lack of flexibility would have left me flailing in the dark.

The research project in Hou Ma was carefully planned. Guodong is an insider, a Mei Boxer who is the disciple of one of the most highly respected masters in China, and the author of a dissertation on Meihuaquan. He had visited the village before, and during these visits had identified the best resource persons. These factors helped us target those persons in the village who were most likely to help us answer our research questions, or so we thought until Master Zheng tugged at my sleeve and pulled us in a new and extraordinarily productive direction. Fortunately, we had the flexibility to stand where she told us in order to read her texts over her shoulder.

Serendipity was the catalyst for the success in both of these stories about stories. Need I belabor the point? Here we are back where this story began, with Alice. My advice to you? When you see the White Rabbit pause to wink back over his shoulder, drop your preconceptions and follow him down the hole.

Thomas A. Green
TAMU

Prof. Green at lunch, where lots of good fieldwork happens. Source: From the private collection of Thomas A. Green

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About the Author: Prof. Green (Anthropology, Texas A&M University) conducts research on African and African-descended martial culture in the Americas. The primary focus of this research has been the role of martial arts in African American cultural nationalism and the relationships among martial arts and expressive genres such as music, dance, games, and drama.

In 2012, he initiated fieldwork in northern China on traditional village martial arts with colleagues from the PRC. The projects in Hebei, Henan, and Shandong analyze of the use of vernacular martial arts in post-Mao northern China to confront the potential social fragmentation brought on by the rapid social change that characterizes modernization. Their current project investigates the Liangquan Festival of  the Plum Blossom Boxers of Hou Mazhuang Village as a vehicle to maintain group cohesion in the face of the social and economic pressures that encourage residents to move to urban locations. Following the recognition of Plum Blossom Boxing as an example of Intangible Cultural Heritage, local government entities intend to develop the shrine devoted to Zou  Hongyi, the patriarch of  this martial art,  into a tourist attraction. Future research will document the success of these efforts and the ways in which Liangquan and the performing community are affected.  

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If you enjoyed this guest post you might also want to read: Professor Thomas Green on the Survival of Plum Blossom Boxing, Martial Folklore and the State of Martial Arts Studies

A lush hillside. Source: From the private collection of Thomas A. Green.

The Nine Dragon Wall in the Forbidden City, Beijing. Note that the full beauty of the wall can only be seen if one takes a step back and looks at it from multiple perspectives. Source: Wikimedia.

 
Introduction

 
“Martial arts studies” is an eponymously named research area. This fact seems so obvious as to require no further exploration. But is it really so?

Why does no one write about “professional combat sports studies,” “kung fu studies,” “Budo studies” or “unarmed self-defense studies”? Most researchers and readers make two important judgements on an almost subconscious level before ever asking these sorts of questions. First, they conclude that each of these activities falls within a larger category that has come to be collectively identified as “martial arts.” Second, due to the shared history that connects these practices, and the shared social and media discourses that link their discussion, a collective definition is useful precisely because it facilitates comparative study.

What exactly qualifies a practice as a “martial art?” Even casual readers of this blog will have noted that we spend quite a bit of time discussing the subject, but I have yet to offer a definition or sustained discussion of the topic.

Nor is this a oversight. Readers familiar with my recent book, The Creation of Wing Chun, may have noticed that at no point did I offer a simple covering definition for the martial arts in that volume, even though I explored the processes surrounding the invention of these fighting systems in late imperial and Republic era China in some depth.

I am far from alone in this editorial choice. After spending an evening skimming volumes from my library it quickly became apparent that most authors discussing the history, sociology or theory of martial arts studies offer only a cursory treatment of subject or skip over it entirely.

Peter Lorge is notable as he provided a brief discussion which we will review below. Yet Meir Shahar never explicitly examines the subject in his groundbreaking work on the historical evolution of the Shaolin Temple’s famous fighting systems. Douglas Wile’s discussion of the Taiji Classics seems not to have suffered for his lack of a definition of the martial arts (or even an argument as to why Taijiquan qualifies as one.)

More recently, Alexander C. Bennett’s exploration of the history of Kendo begins with a bracing personal narrative. Readers are told of his introduction to the sport while a high school exchange student living in Japan. Yet while his younger narrative-self wonders aloud as to whether he is watching a real martial art or a scene from Star Wars (in which the club’s instructor plays the role of an imposing and sadistic Vader), Bennet as a mature scholar, never stops to define the martial arts as a whole.

Paul Bowman’s recent monograph extensively draws on the idea of the martial arts in his definition and exploration of “martial arts studies.”  Yet the prior foundational concept is never brought into clear focus. And in Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge D. S. Farrer and John Whalen-Bridge simply define them as “the things done to make the study of fighting appear refined enough to survive elite social prohibition.” While a rather shrewd observation on the social position of the martial arts (and perhaps the impossibility of designing a simple statement that captures all of their varieties) many readers may want something more.

While not a comprehensive review of the literature, my purpose here has been to demonstrate that it is entirely possible to write a scholarly book on the martial arts without first ever stopping to define them. Nor are we alone in this. Drawing on my own professional background, most books on some subject in international politics (trade disputes or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction) do not first begin with an exhaustive discussion of the nature of the international system. Nor, as a field, have we ever come up with a settled and universally agreed upon definition of “politics.” Similar puzzles can be found in all of the disciplines. Martial arts studies appears to be in good company. (Wetzler, 23)

Still, the body of specialized literature in political science attempting to define and explore concepts such as the “international system,” or even “power,” is more developed than what we currently enjoy in martial arts studies. Much of this comes down to resources and time. It has taken many scholars working over the course of decades to produce the degree of conceptual clarity that political science now enjoys. As a relatively new research area martial arts studies is still laying the foundations of future conversations.

Yet there are likely at least two other reasons why such an important concept often goes undiscussed. The first of these derives from the nature of the definitions that we do have. Broadly speaking scholars have used at least three different strategies in conceptualizing the martial arts. First, they have relied on (often unspoken) socially accepted practice. While there may be questions about some activities at the margins, everyone seems to accept Okinawan Karate, Chinese Wushu and Filipino Kali as “martial arts” with little or no discussion.

Many of the articles and monographs that have been produced within martial arts studies have focused either on an isolated style (Wile’s work on Taiji) or the fighting systems of a single state (Hurst’s work on the armed martial arts of Japan). As there is often a well understood agreement within these regions as to which activities are martial arts, and which are not, authors often find themselves implicitly adopting local vernacular definitions. I suspect that this sort of “pre-scientific” social categorization explains most of the absence of discussion within our field.

Nevertheless, at the margins this sort of approach can cause problems. Should we really accept historical Korean taekkyeon as a martial art or was it instead better understood as a game? What about combative displays within Chinese opera? How much of this qualifies as a “real” martial art versus a specialized acting technique? Without clear conceptual boundaries such questions tend to reinforce social hierarches and debates within specific martial arts communities rather than revealing any new information on the actual nature of these practices and the roles that they play within society.

Detail of the Nine Dragon Wall in the Forbidden City, Beijing. Source: Wikimedia.

The search for a Universal Definition

In an attempt to clarify this core concept, and resolve debates such as the one above, some authors have developed more explicit definitions which focus on how the martial arts relate to other bodies of technique within society. These discussions tend to be abstract in an attempt to describe events in as many countries and time periods as possible. Such universal definitions are usually also minimal ones. Some of these discussions are not all that different from what might be found in a dictionary.

The 2015 on-line edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the martial arts as:

“Any of several arts of combat and self-defense (as karate and judo) that are widely practiced as sport.”

This brief statement captures how most people think of the martial arts within popular culture. A nod to both combat and self-defense are noted, as is the transformation of these practices into recreational sports in the current era. Unfortunately this definition also includes some critical omissions.

What about elements that are not geared towards combat (such as most modern Taiji practice)? What role does social organization, teaching or transmission play in making something a martial art, rather than just a “self-defense technique”? Are all martial arts Asian in origin (as the example would seem to imply)? And more pressingly, how do we even know that karate and judo meet this somewhat tautological definition?

A more suitable, yet still universal, definition can be found in Peter Lorge’s Chinese Martial Arts:

“I define ‘martial arts’ as the various skills or practices that originated as methods of combat. This definition therefore includes many performance, religious, or health-promoting activities that no longer have any direct combat applications but clearly originated in combat, while possibly excluding references to these techniques in dance, for example. Admittedly, the distinction can be muddled as one activity shades into another. In addition, what makes something a martial art rather than an action done by someone who is naturally good at fighting is that the techniques are taught. Without the transmission of these skills through teaching, they do not constitute an ‘art’ in the sense of being a body of information or techniques that aim to reproduce certain knowledge effects.”

Peter Lorge. 2012. Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 3-4.

This discussion offers us a number of improvements. First, it de-centers Asia from the definition of the martial arts, recalling that similar combat practices have been observed in practically all human societies at one point or another. Indeed, the term “martial art” has a long and distinguished history in Europe where it has also been used to describe western fighting systems.

Secondly, Lorge directly addresses the fact that martial arts are, by their very nature, social activities. They are not simply random responses to acts of violence (no matter how effective they might be in the moment). A given body of techniques only becomes an “art” when it can be effectively transmitted from one individual to another. Still, as Sixt Wetzler has cautioned in his own discussion of this definition, the “transmission” of techniques is not always reducible to formal classroom instruction. (p. 24)

Historically, most martial arts existed as what Thomas A. Green has described as “vernacular” fighting systems, where instruction tended to happen in the field and be a good deal less formal than what we might expect today. On the other side of the spectrum, literate martial artists in Europe, China and Japan have been writing detailed fighting manuals for hundreds of years with the explicit goal of passing on techniques to fellow students who they would never meet in person. The current era of cheap video and social media has also revolutionized the way that techniques are shared, tested and debated. The insight that knowledge must be transmitted from one generation to the next seems to be at the heart of the martial arts.

While a notable improvement, this definition still presents scholars with certain challenges. It is certainly the case that many martial arts arose from combat practices. But is this central to our understanding of them? Archery may have been used in hunting and ritual before it was used in warfare. Indeed, it is interesting to note how much of Hurst’s discussion of the evolution of military archery in Japan actually focuses on hunting well into the medieval period.

How should we really think about the many unarmed arts? While wrestling has long been part of Western and Eastern weapons training (and so it could be argued to have real military value) boxing appears only sporadically and even then mostly as a type of recreational activity within military camps. Even General Qi Jiguang, who did more to promote the practice of boxing within the Chinese military than anyone else, saw it something with no actual place on the battlefield. He introduced it as a new type of training for his troops because of its ability to build mental and physical strength rather than its inherent martial value or long pedigree in combat. It would be possible to multiply examples, but the basic point is clear. The actual historical links between modern martial practices and their supposed battlefield origins is sometimes more complicated than current mythmaking might lead one to suspect.

Detail of the Nine Dragon Wall in the Forbidden City, Beijing. Source: Wikimedia.

Classifying the Martial Arts

 
This implies a second, slightly more theoretical, issue. Universal definitions, such as those discussed above, attempt to provide us with a framework for understanding the boundaries that separate the martial arts from other activities (or even types of violence) within society. This is critical work and a necessary first step. Yet there is more to the problem.

Within our literature we do not want to simply identify instances of the martial arts. Once we have found them our attention immediately turns to the tasks of either descriptive or causal analysis. Where did a given art come from? Why do some people, but not others, practice it? What is significant about the ways that it is discussed in popular culture? What unique social roles does it play within a given society?

These are very basic questions, yet each of them raises issues of comparison, classification and typology. Or to quote the old social scientific dictum, we find ourselves asking “what is this a case of?”

In my recent study of Wing Chun I found that these sorts of questions could only be answered in a useful way by comparing one particular style to the other martial arts that surrounded it. Wing Chun existed as a distinct entity, but one that was defined in large part by its relationship with a complex system of other martial arts and types of social conflict.

Nor is this example unique. In some respects we will only be able to explore and understand the nature of a martial art through comparison to other systems. Yet where do we draw the boundaries between styles, and how should we analyze them? This set of questions has led other authors to suggest definitions of the martial arts geared towards comparative study.

An early attempt, and one that affected the subsequent development of the literature, was advanced by Donn F. Draeger.
Table 1: Draeger’s Classification of Fighting Systems

Martial Arts                                                                        Civilian Arts
Promote group solidarity                                                 For self-protection and home defense
Designed for battlefield use                                             Largely urban based
Designed and practiced as weapon arts                        Mainly ‘empty handed,’ limited weapons use
Designed for natural terrain and climate                     Designed for ideal surfaces, roads, streets and floors
Designed for wearing armor                                           Designed for civilian clothing
Use a wide range of weapons and skills                        Skills (and weapons) use is specialized and limited
Use genuine weapons rather than domestic tools      Weapons tend to be domestic tools
Developed by professional fighting class                      Part-time training is best

Donn F. Draeger. 1981. “The Martial-Civil Dichotomy in Asian Combatives” Hoplos. Vol. 3: No. 1. pp. 6-9

Reflecting Draeger’s own military service in both the Second World War and Korea, his discussion focuses primarily on Asian combative systems and attempts to classify them based on their origin and purpose. On the one hand he proposes the existence of a group of “true” martial arts based on real world combat skills (even if they are rarely practiced in that context in the modern world). He then contrasts these to “civilian” fighting arts that are essentially hobbies rather than the concern of “real” warriors.

One does not have to read too far down the list, or be overly familiar with the outlines of Draeger’s biography and background in the martial arts, to see the emergence of an implicit hierarchy within this exercise. Indeed, this is a danger that must be confronted in any attempt to formally define or classify our object of study. Such exercises can easily turn into an opportunity to impose one’s own values on an unsuspecting readership.

Much of Draeger’s own research in the martial arts focused on the idea that it was possible to empirically “test” various styles or approaches to judge their reality and effectiveness on an absolute scale. For Draeger it was the (often Japanese) military practices that came out on top while civilian boxing traditions (such as those found in China) were seen as having little worth. Indeed, this overly narrow understanding of how the martial arts developed and the roles that they were meant to play in society seem to have strained his relationship with his friend R. W. Smith. As Sixt Wetzler reminds us, ultimately “The [academic] researcher has to refrain from being simultaneously a critic.” (p. 30)

There are other issues with this list as well. Even if we were to restrict its application to “traditional” styles there are a number of martial arts that it would seem to misclassify. Entire schools of civilian fencing and knife fighting have existed in the West that focuses exclusively on real weapons. Nor is it clear that “group solidarity” is any less a goal for a village Dragon Dance society than it is of a military combatives classroom.

While it is tempting to think of the Bushi or later Samurai as “professional warriors” who dedicated their lives to swordsmanship as a battlefield skill, both Hurst and Bennet would remind us that this is not actually an accurate reflection of history. Swords were of relatively limited use of the battlefield and the Samurai were as much professional bureaucrats as anything else. Except for a limited number of specialists, the amount of time that most Japanese warriors dedicated to swordsmanship training could only be described as “part-time” at best.

Indeed, this definition’s most valuable contribution to the current literature might be to illustrate the degree to which our current understanding of the history and sociology of the martial arts has evolved in the last three decades. If nothing else it illustrates the dangers that arise when we tie our understanding of a universal concept to a narrow (and ultimately flawed) reading of history.

Nor is it immediately evident that the military/civilian dichotomy, while commonly made in certain sorts of historical and popular discussions, accurately reflects what we see in the global martial arts community today. More recent discussions tend to propose three or more categories in an attempt to be sensitive to a wider range of the social functions that the martial arts routinely fulfill. [For another approach this problem readers may also want to investigate this article by Joseph Svinth in the 2011 summer volume of InYo.]

In their review of the martial arts studies literature Alex Channon and George Jennings propose their own definition and classification system. Their discussion reads in part:

“Thus, we have adopted the aforementioned term ‘martial arts and combat sports’ [MACS], which we propose be used as an inclusive, triadic model encompassing competition-oriented combat sports, military/civilian self-defence systems, and traditionalist or non-competitive martial arts, as well as activities straddling these boundaries.”

Alex Channon and George Jennings. 2014. “Exploring Embodiment through Martial Arts and Combat Sports: A Review of Empirical Research.” Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics 17.6, 773-789.

Here we see Draeger’s two categories folded into one encompassing any system that is concerned with non-consensual violence, either at the personal or social level. This is juxtaposed with those arts that focus on “traditional” goals (health, personal development) on the one hand, and competitive combat sports on the other. Indeed, this tripartite system seems to do a better job of capturing the full range of social functions that the martial arts are routinely called upon to serve. A single community center might have a “Taiji for seniors” class running at the same that a “boxing essentials” outreach program is happening in the basement. And all of this is quite distinct in the minds of most of the patrons from the “women’s self-defense” programs that are hosted in the gym twice a year.

While intuitively appealing, this sort of exercise quickly runs into problems when we start to ask on what grounds a specific art should have been classified as a “combat sport” verses a “self-defense” system. Here we run up against the immense degree of internal variation that we see within individual styles and even specific schools. While one teacher may emphasize the health benefits of traditional karate training, another individual might be coaching his students to participate in local kickboxing tournaments. Some Wing Chun teachers approach their style as a primarily self-defense art, while others argue that in the modern (relatively safe) world health preservation should be our main concern. Nor, as Wetzler argues, is it all that difficult to find a single school pursuing all three of these functions at the same time.

While this definition appears to offer us objective standards by which a researcher can classify certain activities as belonging in one box or another, one suspects that in practice many such decisions will end up devolving to the level of popular perception (e.g., “everyone knows that Kung Fu is not a serious self-defense art!”) or pre-scientific bias. The entire exercise also has the unfortunate side-effect of erasing or obscuring much variation in behavior and practices that academic students might be interested in exploring.

How did Taiji come to be so closely associated with health practices? What should we make of Taiwan’s large competitive push-hands tournaments in light of this evolution? Such conversations become difficult when our basic definitions and concepts presuppose certain answers.

Detail of the Nine Dragon Wall in the Forbidden City, Beijing. Source: Wikimedia.

From Definition to Exploration

One does not have to read very far into the existing literature before concluding that it may be impossible to propose either a universal definition or simple set of categories that perfectly describes the ever shifting practices, identities, institutions and discourses that make up the martial arts today. Perhaps we should consider abandoning the idea of classifying the martial arts themselves and instead turn our attention to the sorts of social functions that they perform and the ways in which they are encountered. When tied with an existing minimal definition, this might give researchers an adequate toolbox to begin the process of comparison, description and explanation.

Towards these ends Wetzler proposes the following:

“Instead of creating boxes to put the existing styles in, we could rather search from common, recurring qualities in the martial arts. A discussion of a given style can then analyze how these qualities are fulfilled, and to what degree.” (Wetzler, p. 25).

He then goes on to define five possible “dimensions of meaning” that often characterize the social function of martial arts. While many arts may contribute something in each of these five dimensions, he warns us that others will not. Further, Wetzler suggests that his list is in no way definitive and later scholars may discover additional dimensions. Again, the purpose of his exercise is to facilitate comparison within the set of activities called “martial arts” rather than to discriminate between which activities are to be included or excluded from the exercise based on some objective and unchanging set of criteria.

The five dimension of meaning which he finds within the martial arts are as follows:

1. Preparation for violent conflict: This can occur in either a civil or military context and includes efforts to not only increase one’s physical integrity but also to destroy an enemy’s capabilities as well as to resist fear, fatigue and imagined violence.

2. Play and Competitive Sports: Any type of voluntary physical struggle or competition bounded by rules and regulated through consent.

3. Performance: This includes displays that happen before an audience (entertainment and ritual) or activities undertaken for the martial artists own aesthetic satisfaction. While many popular discussions of the martial arts seek to explicitly exclude these practices in their attempt to focus on “real” violence, D. S. Farrer reminds us that these elements can never be totally separated.

4. Transcendent Goals: This includes the spiritual, physical and cultural aims of the martial arts. Also included in this dimension would be pedagogical connections that are often made to nationalist themes or mythological (but highly inspirational) figures or images from the imagined past.

5. Health Care: While great emphasis is often placed on the combative origins of these practices, many practitioners today take them up with an explicit eye towards increasing their physical health and maintaining a sense of bodily well-being. Nor can the psychological benefits of training be neglected. (p. 26)

Where should researchers look for evidence to help them evaluate a martial art’s engagement along each of these dimensions? Or put another way, what sorts of observations should be collected when attempting to define or classify a martial art? Wetzler suggests nine types of phenomenon that should be considered. These include: the body, movement techniques, tactics or concepts, a styles material objects and weapons, its media representation, teaching methodology, mythology or philosophy, its social or institutional structures and lastly its place within the wider social context. While this list is not meant to be exhaustive it points to the types of observations that could be made that would allow us to define or classify martial arts in ways that are not tautological or dependent on the researcher’s own unexamined biases.

For instance, a wide variety of martial arts claim to be dedicated to the pursuit of self-defense. In the 1960s Karate clubs were seen as a solution to the problem of personal security. In the 1980s Wing Chun gained popularity as a “street fighting art” while Karate increasingly took on other social functions (such as building “character” in young adults.) In the current era individuals who are most interested in self-defense seem to turn to systems such as krav maga and various forms of MMA training. Media discourses and the allocation of social resources strongly suggest that, the protests of traditional practitioners notwithstanding, the center of gravity of the first dimension has shifted noticeably over time. Better yet, these categories suggest avenues of investigation to determine when, and why, this may have happened.

A final panel bringing two dragons together.

Conclusion: Moving Forward Through Empirical Investigation

Unfortunately no definition of the martial arts is perfect. The universal definitions that we began with were parsimonious and directly addressed what activities lay outside of the category called “martial arts.” Yet their systems of classification were often flawed and they did not provide researchers with any tools to either compare classes of martial arts or to understand in theoretical terms where one system ended and the next began. The more complex definitions offered by Draeger and Channon and Jennings allowed for comparative study, but they still tended to be tied to certain preconceptions in ways that diminished their usefulness.

While Wetzler’s five dimensions of meaning avoid these pitfalls, they are also the most distant from what we might think of as a conventional definition. His framework allows for an almost infinite range of comparative investigations. As I have argued elsewhere, this will be critical to the development of martial arts studies going forward. In fact, one must wonder whether the reliance on historically and culturally bounded understandings of the martial arts has not been one of the factors in suppressing the development of a more rigorous comparative case study literature. Wetzler’s definition, on the other hand, strongly encourages focused comparative analysis.

Still, it does not really solve the fundamental problem of defining what is or is not a martial art. To do this his more complex framework probably needs to be tied to a universal definition of the researchers own choosing. In that sense it is less of a definition than a theoretical exploration of how this concept manifests itself within the social world.

Lacking any way to make firm statements, Wetzler also seems to find himself backed into uncomfortable situations where we come up against his conceptual limits. He asks, for instance, if movements learned from sophisticated fighting video games can count as martial arts techniques. After all, motion capture of real martial artists employing historically derived techniques are increasingly employed in the production of these games. And if books count as a means of transmitting information about hand combat training, why not video games?

Taken to its natural extreme this leads to a crisis of relativism. Is anything a martial art simply because someone claims that it is? Must we accept as a legitimate any “lost lineage” that is advanced in the marketplace no matter how shaky its historical foundations or apparent practice? Such questions will cause many researchers discomfort, yet Wetzler himself seems to imply that we must have a theoretical framework that is broad enough to accept these arguments and proceed on from there (p. 24).

Even more disturbing are the possibilities that arise on the other end of this spectrum. Paul Bowman has recently argued that the martial arts, as practiced in the West, will always been seen as a subaltern and culturally marginal practice. While relatively few individuals see them as dangerous or sinister, they cannot escape their frequent associations with orientalism and anachronism. This makes people uncomfortable and humor is a commonly employed defense mechanism in these situations. Nor does one have to have a degree in media studies to notice that most of this humor is laughing at martial artists rather than with them.

Should we then be surprised to see a variety of individuals actively dissociating their activities from the martial arts in an attempt to find greater respect or a more open audience? MMA and kickboxing students might more readily identify as practitioners of “combat sports” as it seems to emphasize the athletic and physically aspects of their practice. And while students in an “executive boxing” class might fit an academic definition of martial artists, I doubt that most would see themselves in the same light. Yet any academic conference on the martial arts will feature a number of papers on various aspects of boxing.

While flexibility is a necessary aspect of any definition of the martial arts, it remains the responsibility of the analyst to determine which activities meet a given set of criteria. That is not a function that can be delegated to the subjects of an academic study. While it may be interesting to understand why certain kickboxers refuse to self-identify as martial artists, as researchers we are under no obligation to base our core concepts on their vernacular definitions.

How then should we proceed? On the surface it may seem that we are no closer to a single, parsimonious, definition of the martial arts than we were when started. While true in some sense, this discussion has done much to enrich our conceptual understanding while highlighting dangers that must be guarded against in any such exercise.

Each of the preceding authors has made a valuable contribution to our overall level of understanding. Further, Wetzler has provided us with a conceptual framework for dealing with a wide range of activities that may previously have been overlooked while at the same time developing rigorous comparative case studies.

Perhaps the most fruitful avenue of investigation would be the systematic testing of “hard cases.” A hard case is one that is designed to explore the limits of a concept or hypothesis. Rather than simply wondering whether a martial art could be developed from a video game perhaps we must find someone who has claimed to have done just that and examine the results along the five dimensions of meaning proposed above.

Is there any validity to the common assumption that “proper” martial arts must emerge from historically grounded combat systems? Again, that seems like the sort of question that should be investigated rather than simply assumed away by definitional fiat. The discovery of true “hyper-real” martial arts might have a substantive impact on our understanding of both the actual development and social functions of these practices.

It may be that we have come to the point in our discussion where further theoretical and conceptual developments cannot happen in the absence of new empirical findings. Luckily Wetzler has provided us with a framework for discovery.

oOo
If you enjoyed this essay you might also want to read: Martial Arts Studies: Answering the “So what?” question

oOo

A now iconic image of Bodhidharma as imagined by the Japanese Woodblock Artist Yoshitoshi, 1887. Source: Wikimedia.

***For the Friday post we will be revisiting a classic (and very popular) article from the archives.  I originally posted this essay almost two years ago and recently I have found myself thinking about it again.  It will also be good to review as it introduces some concepts that are key to a larger project that I am working on at the moment.  While I have completed most of the rough draft for an initial post on this topic I am still waiting on a few sources, and I don’t want to rush things.  Hopefully it will be ready by next week.  In the mean, time please enjoy this discussion of Bodhidharma and then take a quick look at the recommended post at the end.  With both of them under your belt you should be well prepared for what is coming next.***

Introduction

I was recently exchanging emails with a martial arts instructor and reader who suggested that I address the historical facts behind the “Bodhidharma myth.” This is a critical topic for anyone interested in either the historical or cultural aspects of Chinese martial studies. Bodhidharma is a shadowy figure. A Buddhist missionary to China, he is often credited with the importation of Chan Buddhism sometime in the 5th or 6th centuries.

As Meir Shahar and others have already pointed out it, is hard to take these claims literally. Chan Buddhism is an indigenous creation which reflects then current trends and debates within China’s social environment, not India’s. It would not even arise as a religious movement until more than a century after the “First Patriarch’s” death, though there are some who have argued that his teachings may have been important to the eventual emergence of Chan.

Even Bodhidharma’s origins remain a mystery. Chinese tradition holds that he was a native of India. Japanese schools, on the other hand, assert that he was a Persian.

Of course the venerable patriarch also has a longstanding association with the Shaolin Temple in Dengfeng county of Henan province. Later myths, first appearing in the late 17th century (and still promoted by many modern martial artists today) claim that he brought some sort of unique fighting system to Shaolin which has subsequently become the basis of all traditional Kung Fu.

Even before the emergence of this story Bodhidharma had a complicated and evolving relationship with the region surrounding Shaolin. As Shahar relates, none of the earliest records of the temple mention his presence. It is not until after the advent of Chan Buddhism that he begins to make an appearance in retrospectively produced historical accounts. In the earliest stories he only visits the capital, then a few years later his journey takes him to Mt. Song. Only some years after that did accounts of him visiting Shaolin first appear. In short, while the Indian Saint has long been associated with the religious reputation of the Shaolin monastery, few scholars seem to accept the popular accounts of his life or teachings (all of which are anachronistic) at face value.

The stories of Bodhidharma teaching the Indian martial arts (or even Yoga like exercises) at Shaolin are, if anything, even more outlandish. The earliest religious myths associating him with Shaolin seem to date to the 8th century. The accounts linking him to the region’s martial arts do not make their first appearance until the start of the 17th century. Nor do the many Buddhist chronicles produced through the intervening years contain any hint that the wandering Indian genius was also a martial artist.

In short, stories linking Bodhidharma to the creation of the Chinese martial arts are clearly problematic. This is not a recent revelation. Practically every historian or student of Chinese religion to have looked at these issues has already debunked this legend. Douglas Wile, Stanley Henning, Dominic LaRochelle, Meir Shahar and a host of other have already pointed out the myriad of inconsistencies in these accounts.

As Henning reminds us, one of Tang Hao’s first contributions to the modern study of the Chinese martial arts in 1930 was to demolish the Shaolin-Bodhidharma connection. Shahar points out that even as early as the middle of the Qing dynasty, Chinese historical scholars and biographers were well aware that the central texts linking the Indian missionary to the martial arts were poorly executed forgeries, probably produced by “village masters” in the early decades of the 17th century.

So much has already been written on the historicity of Bodhidharma by so many other competent scholars that I was hesitant to jump into the fray. It is actually hard to imagine any Kung Fu legend that has been more frequently “debunked” than this one. It is not even a question of “modern research.” Almost from the day that this story first began to circulate during the Late Imperial period, well-educated historical and literary scholars knew that it was a forgery.

Still, if I have learned one thing during the course of my research, it is that the traditional Chinese martial arts community will never let “mere” history get in the way of a good story. And the Bodhidharma myth is just that. It’s a fascinating story that has remained in circulation for about 400 years. Nor has globalization and the easy availability of reliable historical sources slowed the spread of this myth. In fact, there are probably more people around the global who now “know” about Bodhidharma’s role in the creation of the martial arts than at any time in the past.

Given the mountains of evidence that we now have at our fingertips, why do modern martial artists, both in China and the west, still insist on linking the “Shaolin Arts” to an ancient Indian missionary? How is it that the numerous critiques of this legend, in the 18th, the 20th and 21st centuries, have had practically no impact on the growth and spread of this “folk history?”

It would seem redundant to recount in detail all of the arguments as to why the link between Bodhidharma and the Chinese martial arts is spurious. Anyone interested in reviewing this debate is more than welcome to check out practically anything ever written by Tang Hao, Stanley Henning or Meir Shahar. In my view the more interesting theoretical question is the odd persistence of this legend in modern martial arts folklore. Why is it that so many well-known martial artists continue to produce books and articles that all take this story for granted?

In order to get a better understanding of this phenomenon the following post begins by examining the first appearance of Bodhidharma in the martial arts literature of the early 17th century. Of special importance is the question of how this sage’s martial contributions came to be attached to (and accepted by) the monks of the Shaolin Monastery. While this figure had long been regarded as the founding patriarch of Shaolin’s transmission of Chan Buddhism, Shahar reminds us that his cooptation into the temple’s martial tradition was far from inevitable. In some ways it is even a bit puzzling.

The second section of this essay turns to the idea of “hyper-real religions.” This recently developed concept from the religious studies literature attempts to describe spiritual movements that are consciously founded on the basis of fictional texts. Jediism, a “new religious movement” that is based on George Lucas’ Star Wars film franchise, is a typically cited example of this sort of movement.

Hyper-reality, as a conceptual category, owes its existence to post-modern arguments about the nature of perception. Particularly important is Jean Baudrillard’s contention that culture is inherently a form of representation, or a “simulacra.”

Current scholarship tends to apply this idea to the various “post-modern” new religious movements that appear in the western world today. Nevertheless, this concept might help us to make sense of a number of puzzles in Chinese martial studies, including the odd persistence of the cult of Bodhidharma. I also suggest that certain structural similarities between the Ming-Qing transition period, the early 20th century, and the modern western world today, might help to explain why individuals in these three different epochs accept a story that is widely known to be fictional.

A Japanese painting of Bodhidharma with a wild staff.

Bodhidharma and the Sinew Transformation Classic

The very first text to claim Bodhidharma as a martial arts master was the Sinew Transformation Classic. While historically spurious this work (according to Tang Hao and Meir Shahar) probably dates to 1624 in Zhejiang. The book is interesting for another reason as well. It is a good example of the multiple types of syncretism that became popular in late Ming thought. It also demonstrates that these traits, well documented among elites, were influencing patterns of belief and behavior in society’s more plebeian levels as well.

Most of this manual is dedicated to a series of “internal” (or neigong) exercises drawn from Daoist longevity practices. For our purposes the most interesting aspect of this work is its various introductory prefaces. In addition to giving us certain hints as to the text’s authorship, they also help to situate this book in late Ming popular culture.

Shahar has noted that the introductions to the Sinew Transformation Classic are typical of certain strands of late Ming thought in the degree to which they freely mix and draw from Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism. All three of these religious and philosophical systems are seen as means to a similar end. Bodhidharma, a Buddhist saint, is introduced as the teacher of what is clearly a set of Daoist gymnastic exercises.

Still, there is another type of syncretism at play that is of more interest to students of martial studies. The pseudepigraphal authors of these prefaces are great generals from China’s distant past. Their testimony attest to the awesome power of the practices contained within the book. They leave the reader with no doubt that they attained their military and worldly success by following the qigong-esque exercises laid out in the manual. Yet at the same time they lament that they never pursued the equally potent “spiritual truths” contained in these sets. Readers are instructed to learn from their example, and to cultivate their spiritual powers as well.

Students of modern martial arts fiction might not find this sort of a creation narrative to be all that surprising. Yet as Shahar points out, this is the earliest manuscript we have that clearly states that the practice of a single set of physical exercises will lead to both martial and spiritual attainment (not to mention increased physical health).

This synthesis of interest around a single set of practices is incredibly important. The great popularity of this work and the exercises that it suggests indicates that this view found a ready audience. It is also the first foreshadowing that we have of trends within the hand combat community which would become more pronounced as the second half of the Qing dynasty wore on.

Still, there are some puzzles that need to be dealt with. To begin with, the prefaces of the Sinew Transformation Classic explicitly attribute these practices to Bodhidharma. That is not totally surprising. Other novels and texts dealing with various esoteric arts (including gymnastics) being produced in the late Ming also saw him as a teacher of mystical self-cultivation techniques. Interestingly most of these were associated with Daoism. In this way Bodhidharma, a Buddhist missionary, became an embodiment of the values behind late Ming syncretism. I think that it might also be fair to say that he became a symbol of a certain vision of Chinese cultural identity.

Yet this manuscript tradition tends to have a somewhat hostile view of the monks of Shaolin. It attributes what martial genius they have to their remembrance of these practices, but it also claims that they have lost the ability to read and understand the original text. They are, in essence, the inheritors of an empty practice. Readers of this text are promised that they will excel far beyond what the monks of Shaolin have achieved. So given the hostility of these texts, how did they, and the image of Bodhidharma as a martial teacher, come to be adopted into the Shaolin tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries?

A different, yet related, question has to do with the social transformation of this text in the wake of the Ming-Qing transition. A literary analysis of this work indicates that it was produced by an only marginally educated individual early in the 17th century. As such we can assume that it reflects a body of popular practice at that point in time.

Prior to the fall of the Ming dynasty few elites concerned themselves with the martial arts, and those that did (particularly the ones from military families) tended to focus on either weapons training or serious military service. Given the turbulent final years of the dynasty this emphasis makes a lot of sense.

The situation came to look very different in the years following the Qing rise to power. With the nation pacified military training was less pressing. At the same time, the Confucian educated social elites faced a series of serious existential challenges. What had gone wrong in both statecraft and social values at the end of the Ming dynasty? How had the Middle Kingdom been conquered? What value was there in Chinese society, and how should one go about rebuilding and strengthening it?

A new generation of educated students began to take a serious second look at martial and physical training during these years. But rather than going back to previous practices, they continued to push forward with the trends that had just been emerging at the start of the 17th century. Shahar contends that they were fascinated with the possibility of combining military, philosophical and medical training in one place, much as the Sinew Transformation Classic promised. It was during the middle years of the Qing dynasty that more educated elites began to seriously promote this work in both manuscript and printed editions.

This creates a paradox. Classically trained individuals might be enthusiastic about the ideas behind the text, but they were also the most likely to see through its highly problematic facade. In fact, Shahar reminds us that a number of Qing era researchers did conclude that the book was a forgery based on sound scholarship. Still, their efforts did not seem to have much of an impact on the spread of the legend.

Why would these educated individuals, who were at least likely to understand that they dealing with a fictional text, be willing to go along with it anyway? Likewise, why would the Shaolin monks, who probably knew more about Bodhidharma than any other group in China, have felt comfortable appropriating a work like this, and making its mythology part of their own religious heritage?

The answer seems to be that the symbolic value of the story of Bodhidharma displaced the patriarch’s historical legacy in the wake of the Ming-Qing transition and the existential crisis that it unleashed. At a time when individuals were doubting the reliability of the Chinese cultural tradition, and blaming the lax attitudes of the Ming for the defeat of the Han people, Bodhidharma seemed to embody values that were capable of saving the nation. On the one hand he had already become a symbol representing a synthesis of what was good and essentially “true” in Chinese culture. On the other he offered a pathway to mystical attainment that promised not just spiritual salvation, but military prowess as well.

The monks of Shaolin were faced with a similar dilemma. With the defeat of the Ming dynasty their temple could no longer depend on the imperial patronage of their martial system as a means of support. The monks would have been forced to teach what was popular in the area, and increasingly that was unarmed boxing. Shahar also speculates that the mixture of martial, philosophical and medical knowledge offered by traditions like that preserved in the Sinew Transformation Classic may have been of great interest to them.

One might also speculate on the role of market incentives in all of this. The creator of the Bodhidharma tradition had sought to appropriate and denigrate the martial prowess of Shaolin to promote his own system of internal training. In the wake of the temple’s destruction at the end of the Ming, warnings of the monk’s empty practices looked as though they had come home to roost.

In this new environment Shaolin may have been forced coopt the Classic and eventually venerate Bodhidharma as the author of their martial arts tradition, even though at least some of these individuals would have known that he was not thought of in these terms during the final years of the Ming dynasty. In short, a subset of both cultural elites and Shaolin monks likely invested themselves in the promotion of the Bodhidharma system even though they would have known (or had strong reasons to suspect) that the prefaces to the Sinew Transformation Classic (the text that started it all) were essentially works of historical fiction.

A painting of Bodhidharma by the renown Japanese swordmaster, Miyamoto Mushashi. Source: http://www.musashi-miyamoto.com

Kung Fu as a Hyper-Real Religion
There are lots of different ways in which one could interpret or make sense of the situation that I outlined above. When attempting to understand why individuals hold certain fictitious beliefs about the past one could start with functionalist explanations. Perhaps these beliefs, if they come from the grassroots levels, are examples of “folk histories,” what James C. Scott has called “weapons of the weak.”

These stories are essentially normative argument meant to re-balance prestige or power within the community. Perhaps this is a good way of thinking of the Sinew Transformation Classic’s plebian roots. Alternatively such stories might be thought of as “invented traditions” in the vein of Hobsbawm and Ranger if they instead reflect elite interests.  I have explored both of these concepts in other places.

In the current essay I would like to consider another possibility, drawn from the field of religious studies. Both “invented traditions” and “folk histories” see the perpetuation and acceptance of historically dubious stories in essentially materialist and strategic (one is tempted to say Machiavellian) terms. While individuals in the distant future might come to accept an invented tradition as legitimate, the creator will always be aware of the truth. He is much more likely to be incentivized by either economic or political struggles.

Yet what if the creator of the story actually “believes” it? Or to turn the situation around, what if future generations acknowledge that the story is essentially fictional but structure their identities and norms around it anyway?

In the west we have a very strong tradition of believing that our religious communities are based on historical events. But is this really the case? Jesus of Nazareth may have been a historical individual, but he left no modern witnesses. His life story was interpreted years after his death in four gospels, each of which is strikingly different. In some fundamental ways they are simply not telling the same story. So how is it that a believer can accept each of these four accounts?

The answer appears to be “easily.” The human mind has a great capacity for synthesizing and resolving these sorts of differences. It must, because all we will ever perceive are imperfect representations of the universe. Jean Baudrillard has discussed at length how in the modern age our experience of “reality” tends to collapse beneath the weight of increasingly abstract representations of the world. Obviously certain trends in the modern media accelerate this, but it should not be thought of as an exclusively “post-modern” issue. Some areas seem to be more susceptible to the rise of hyper-reality than others.

Consider religion. How many of us can actually claim to have felt a divine presence? And how many times within our lives has this happened? The central objects of religious performance are rare indeed, but their representation in art, liturgy, myth and ritual are ubiquitous. One suspect that for most people the “representation” of the truth is all that they will ever actually experience.

Adam Possamai, a sociologist of religion, has applied these basic insights to understand a growing group of new religious movements which are founded on avowedly fictional texts. Star Wars, Harry Potter, the Matrix and the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien (to name just a few examples) have all spawned religious or spiritual movements in recent years.

The adherents of these “hyper-real religions” are not delusional. They are very much aware that Star Wars is just a movie, and that the remains of “elves” will never be found in the archaeological record. Yet in their consumption of this material they have sought to weave together underlying mythic fragments in such a way that elements of the story, or its characters, become embodiments of important social values.

The popular nature of these stories allows for the creation of new types of communities built on a shared reverence for these values. Interestingly enough the norms that these groups espouse tend not to be particularly novel. One can usually identify “old religions” that teach the same basic tenants. Yet for some reason the myths of these older social communities have become “disenchanted.” They have ceased to open a space for wonder, or even imagination, in the hearer. It seems to be at these moments that individuals strike out, and begin to look for new stories.

In this sense it doesn’t really matter whether a myth has a historical basis or not. Chronological accuracy is not what determines how a symbol functions within a faith community. Fictive power is most important.

In a chapter titled ‘“A world without rules and control, without boarders or boundaries.”: Matrixism, New Mythologies, and Symbolic Pilgrimages.’(Adam Possamai (ed.) Handbook of Hyper-real Religions. Brill. 2012) John W. Morehead has offered some guidance as to how fictional stories function in the construction of a religious community.

One of his central points is that to be effective such stories are often nested symbolic systems. There must be an element of the story that focuses on personal transformation. This is what holds out hope for individual renewal and empowerment. Yet at the same time the story must also work on a macro-social level.

The types of scripts that are adopted by hyper-real religions in the west today generally tell a very strong cosmic story as a way of addressing the larger social situation. They graphically illustrate the decay and corruption of the old system, while holding out hope that it could be transformed or remade. In essence, the new myth must explain why the previous system of finding meaning in the world has failed.

Lastly these stories tend to provide a bridge between the individual and the social/systemic level. By engaging in a course of personal transformation one furthers the process of systemic evolution or change. The story gains its psychological power by ushering its listeners onto the cosmic stage.

One does not have to be an expert in peasant uprisings or late Qing history to hear much that sounds vaguely familiar in this description. The many rebellions, tax revolts and armed insurrections that wracked northern China in the 18th and 19th centuries often coalesced around millennial outpouring of popular spirituality or new religious movements. At least some of these, most notably the Boxer Uprising, saw individuals adopting the social scripts of, and in some cases even being subjected to spirit possession by, entirely fictional characters from popular theatrical performances.

It is possible to argue that impoverished peasants may have had such a poor grasp of history that they did not known that figures like Wu Song were fictional. Still, most of them were farmers, and very familiar with farm animals. It is hard to imagine that any of them thought of “Monkey” and “Pigsy” from Journey to the West as historically real personages. Yet they were among the most popular figures employed in spirit possessions.

Historians have long debated how to deal with the various accounts of spirit possession that we see arising out of these episodes. Likewise how many of the individuals involved in “White Lotus uprisings” were really fervent believers? The logic of hyper-real religions suggests that we may be asking the wrong questions. Rather than seeing 19th Chinese peasants as exceptionally deluded when they become involved in new religious movements, we might instead take this as opportunity to reexamine some of our own assumptions about what “real” religion is, and the role that it plays in society.

Bodhidharma as an abstraction.  Notubata (1565-1614)

Conclusion: Bodhidharma’s Never Ending Journey into the West

These same ideas have interesting implications for our understanding of the role of Bodhidharma in the modern martial arts. His story first arose and galvanized individuals behind a narrative of personal transformation at a time when the Ming dynasty was coming under stress. He exploded in popularity among more educated martial artists and readers when the basis of the old social system was disgraced and facing an existential crisis. Likewise in the modern era his memory has thrived among communities of martial artists who are looking for a remedy to the woes of post-industrial capitalism.

In each of these three eras the figure of Bodhidharma, as a fictional rather than a historic construction, has been imbued with certain key social values. In times when other avenues of social expression were becoming stale, his memory continued to open a route to personal transformation and empowerment.

Students of hyper-real religion have noted that these spiritual systems tend to generate their own types of pilgrimage. Fan conventions seem to be a way to both boost group identification and to engage in a collective reaffirmation of the central values that individuals find within the shared myth. Morehead notes that pilgrimage, as a religious journey, involves more than just geographic travel. It contains a deeply personal element.

In writing this essay I have started to wonder if perhaps martial training serves as type of “perpetual pilgrimage” for certain students. The creation myths and legendary figures of the Chinese martial arts embody values that we yearn for. In pilgrimage and ritual we engage in “rites of passage” that allow us to approach the abstract values that motivate us.

It does not take a great leap of imagination to see the process of martial arts training as a ritual of personal transformation. Students are separated from society so they can enter a liminal state. There they are deconstructed and rebuilt through both physical and psychological challenges. These come with the promise that when they renter society they will be different. And because of them the community will be different as well.

The genius of modern Asian martial arts training is that it can become an initiatory ritual that never ends. It allows the student to prolong that liminal state, to remain in contact with those core values and identities that motivate a quest for transformation.

Myths, regardless of their historicity, are a central part of this process. On a personal level they explain to the student the social meaning of their actions. They help to make sense of the many embodied experiences that go along with martial arts training.

On a broader social level they have an ability to travel through society, expanding the size and the scope of the community of practitioners. This in turn grants a sense of expertise and an increased measure of social status to those who have previously joined and started their training. The growth of the system becomes a testimony of its legitimacy.

Stories and legends, such as that of Bodhidharma, allow for the creation of new social communities where none had existed before. They open a space for individuals to cultivate and experiment with different values. Almost nowhere else in the modern world can an ordinary individual be so completely transformed, or assume the aura of a “master,” as in the Asian martial arts.

We have now come full circle. Why has the Bodhidharma legend survived more than 300 years of continual debunking? As a myth this fictional story powers the creation of social groups that have a very real impact on the lives of individual practitioners. Many of these students will be somewhat marginal. They will have entered the group precisely because the orthodox social ways of explaining the world no longer worked for them. The martial arts become a ritual that allows for the perpetual reenchantment of their lives.

Historical or academic critiques aimed at disrupting this are by definition coming from a different value system. Sometimes, as in the case of modern professional historians, this process is “entirely academic” (if not always benign). In other cases, such as the writings of Tang Hao, one suspects that his historical arguments were being marshaled as weapons in a conscious attempt to destroy the social world of the traditional martial arts so that it could be remade in a way that the Chinese state would find more useful. In either case practitioners are unlikely to accept a historical critique precisely because it is coming from a social position that they have already rejected in favor of something that they find more subjectively meaningful.  In short, never underestimate the power of motivated cognitive bias to shape the world we inhabit.

The rise of the myth of Bodhidharma was one of the most important developments in the martial arts of the Late Imperial period. Not only is it still with us today, but it has spawned an entire genera of other stories (most notably the Taijiquan legend of Zhang Sanfeng) which have helped to buttress it, creating a rich and complex world view. The concept of the “hyper-real religion” might help to explain how a clearly fictional tradition has continued to be so influential for so long. The same idea might also help us to think more clearly about the relationship between fiction and popular religion in a number of other areas that relate to the Chinese martial arts.

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If you enjoyed this post you might also want to read: Can Donnie Yen Bring Kung Fu (Back) to the Star Wars Universe?

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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 (almost a month) since our last update so there is a lot to be covered in today’s post.  Let’s get to the news!

Sifu Allen Lee, 1948-2016. Source: http://www.wingchunnyc.com/

 
A Busy Month for Wing Chun in the News

Given my personal interest and research focus, I always start these posts by looking for stories relating to Wing Chun.  Most months offer few substantive stories to choose from.  But the last three weeks have proved to be an exception to that trend.

That said, our first Wing Chun related story is a sad one.  Sifu Allan Lee of Wing Chun NYC has passed away.  Lee was a personal student of both Ip Man and Lok Yiu and his contributions to the Wing Chun community in North America will be sorely missed.  Those interested in learning more about his life may want to start here.  His students are currently raising a fund to honor the life and legacy of Sifu Lee.

Master Sam Lau, also a student of Ip Man. Source: Timeout Hong Kong

In happier news, Time Out Hong Kong recently ran a profile of Master Sam Lau, another of Ip Man’s original students who is still actively teaching and promoting the art of Wing Chun.   I have never had a chance to visit his school but he is one of the people in the Wing Chun community whom I would most like to meet if given the opportunity.

The short article in Time Out covered a lot of ground.  It discussed Ip Man’s early days in Hong Kong and the initially hostile reception that Wing Chun received.  Master Lau then went on to discuss some of the misconceptions about Ip Man promoted by the recent films.  Lastly the question of government support for the preservation of Wing Chun (a topic which he has addressed a number of times) was discussed:

“The situation is not helped by the lack of governmental support, both in Hong Kong and mainland China. “Unlike taekwondo in South Korea or karate in Japan, which are endorsed by their governments or large institutions, we can only rely on ourselves. The kind of kung fu supported by the Chinese government relates more to acrobatics, which has lost the original intentions of kung fu,” states Lau.”

After articles detailing events in North America and Asia, we next turn our attention to the Middle East.  The Shanghai Daily ran a short piece on the opening of a new school in Cairo, Egypt, to meet the region’s growing demand for Wing Chun instruction.

Located on the first floor of a building in a quiet street, Egypt Wing Tsun Academy, the only officially certified Chinese academy for Wing Tsun in the Middle East, consists of a medium-sized parquet-floor hall with a wall-size mirror on top of which there is a portrait of Grandmaster Ip Man, Chinese Kung Fu legend Bruce Lee’s teacher.

“The popularity of Wing Tsun martial art increased in Egypt due to the recent movies about Ip Man, Bruce Lee’s teacher, and the circulated online videos on it,” Sifu Noah told Xinhua at the academy.

Of course the recent release of Ip Man 3 is the looming issue in the background of many of these stories.  On the one hand the historical myth-making promoted by these films tends to irritate Ip Man’s still living students and family members.  Yet it cannot be denied that these films have been a boon for the popularity of the style that he devoted the final decades of his life to promoting.  As a community, what should our feelings be towards these films?

A still from Ip Man 3. Source: The Hollywood Reporter.

Master William Kwok, who teaches Wing Chun at Gotham Martial Arts, takes up this question in our next article. He argues that it is basically OK to like (or even love) the Ip Man films despite the fact that they have a wildly creative relationship with history.  After all, we expect a lot of things from a good Kung Fu film, but accurate biographical discussion is one of the few things that audiences rarely clamor for.  In my view the most interesting aspect of this piece wasn’t actually the discussion of the films themselves, but the insights that the exercise offered on the state of Wing Chun in the US today and the sorts of students that the art is attracting.

Marie-Alice McLean-Dreyfus, writing for The Interpreter, had a different take on the film.  Drawing on the work on Dr Merriden Varrall she argued that Ip Man 3 closely reflected the world view and foreign  policy positions of the Chinese government.  Specifically, she argued that audiences in China are likely to view the film as a metaphor for the current conflict between China and other states for influence and access to disputed regions of the South China Sea.  Her discussions included a few obvious misreadings of the film (e.g., Ip Man lives in Hong Kong during the 1950s, not Foshan).  It also wasn’t clear to me that audiences in Hong Kong would approach what to them would be a distinctly local story through the same set of interpretive lens as viewers in Beijing or Shanghai.  Still, its interesting to see the sorts of discussions that Martial Arts Studies promotes appearing in a wider variety of publications.

Other recent discussions of Ip Man 3 have focused on problematic aspects of the films marketing and business model.  Or, as the LA Times put it, “Chinese regulators smell a rat over ‘Ip Man 3’ ticket sales.”  There is no doubt that the film has been quite popular with audiences.  But the volume of reported ticket sales are so high that it strongly suggests that the film’s production company has spent millions of dollars buying up tickets for performances of the film on screens that may or may not even exist.  Obviously such a promotion strategy would provide a nice windfall for certain theater chains, but it would also overstates the popularity of Ip Man 3 and by extension the financial health of its parent company.

It turns out that this sort of manipulation is not unheard of in the Chinese film industry.  When domestic productions employed similar strategies to boost their numbers against foreign films government regulators had been content to turn a blind eye to the practice.  It is also thought that theaters have also systematically unreported the ticket sales of foreign films and then pocketed the difference.  But similar tactics aimed at domestic competitors can seriously disrupt markets and undercut our understanding of both the actual character of Chinese movie-goers (e.g., what sorts of films would they actually want to see in the future) and successful advertising strategies (how can we reach these consumers).  Apparently the abuses surrounding the release of Ip Man 3 have inspired government regulators to publicly put their foot down.  Interestingly this story is starting to make the rounds and I have seen it reported in a couple of other places, including the Wall Street Journal.

Nevertheless, there is one marketing strategy that always succeeds.  Make a viral video.  One is currently circulating in which Ip Man himself offers viewers a “lesson” in Wing Chun.  The discussion in question mostly focuses on the question of what happens when Ip Man decides to “bring the pain.”  I thought it was interesting that this montage of epic beat-downs began with some footage of dummy work in an effort to establish the “theory” behind the silver screen magic to come.

The reviews for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny are in, and it would be overstating things to say they are mixed.  Variety sums up what the critics have been feeling when it says:

“What a lousy year for long-delayed sequels: It may not be a stink bomb of “Zoolander 2” proportions, but in many ways “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny” feels like an even more cynical cash grab. Trading on the pedigree of Ang Lee’s 2000 Oscar winner but capturing none of its soulful poetry, this martial-arts mediocrity has airborne warriors aplenty but remains a dispiritingly leaden affair with its mechanical storytelling, purely functional action sequences and clunky English-language performances. The result has grossed a healthy $32 million in China so far and began its Stateside streaming release on Friday (while opening on about a dozen Imax screens), but regardless of how it fares, exec producer Harvey Weinstein’s latest dubious non-contribution to Asian cinema will add some quick coin but no luster to Netflix’s library.”

If anything the discussion in the Atlantic, which featured an extended piece on the film, was even more negative.  They introduce the project to the readers with the following line.  “Sword of Destiny, Netflix’s new sequel to Ang Lee’s 2000 Oscar-winner, feels like little more than a desperate knockoff.”  Nor do things improve as the author delves into the details.  The upshot of all of this is that the big miss with Crouching Tiger is calling Netflix’s strategy for distributing new and innovative original films into question.

Ju Ju Chan at the Los Angeles premiere of Crouching Tiger. Hidden Dragon – Sword Of Destiny. Source: SCMP.com

One piece of positive press I found emerging from this project was the following story in the South China Morning Post.  They ran a couple of linked articles on the growing popularity of Muay Thai kickboxing with women in Hong Kong.  The first of these profiled Ju Ju Chan who starred in the Hidden Dragon sequel.  When not working as an actress she is a Muay Thai coach at the Fight Factory Gym (FFG) in Central where she teaches both kickboxing and functional fitness classes for women three times a week.  About 40% of the kickboxing students at this gym are currently women.

Candy Wu fights Macau’s Tam Sze Long during the Windy World Muaythai Competition 2014. Source: SCMP

The SCMP also ran a longer and more detailed article titled “Young and dangerous: Hong Kong’s women muay Thai boxing champions.” This piece profiles four young female fighters who compete and work as coaches in an up and coming gym that caters to female students.  I thought that the following quote opened an interesting window onto the motivations and background of one of these women.

“Muay Thai has boomed in popularity as a fitness regimen globally in recent years, but so has the number of tournaments for serious practitioners looking for a fight. And despite the risk of injury, a small number of Hong Kong women have broken the sex barrier by competing in the traditionally male combat sport.

“I’ve liked men’s sports since I was very small,” says Tsang, who previously practised wing chun. “I got into muay Thai because I found it more exciting. The punches come lightning fast so you have to know quickly whether to fight back, block or move away. I find that fun.”

A still from Chinese Boxer, a 1970s Shaw Bros. production. Source: avclub.com

Ever wonder what Kung Fu films looked like before Bruce Lee put the genera on the map in the west?  If so the AV Club has a suggestion for you.  Check out the 1970 Shaw Brothers production Chinese Boxer.  I will admit to never having seen this film, but after this discussion I am inclined to make time to do so.

Speaking of Bruce Lee, a museum exhibit dedicated to the late star’s life is set to open in Beijing.  The items are on loan from the Lee estate, and the discussion in the article suggests that this is at least part of the exhibit that was recently showing at the Wing Luke Museum.

Who doesn’t feel inspired by an epic martial arts infused landscape shot?

Medical studies extolling the virtues of Taijiquan practice continue to roll in.  The most recent findings, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found a small but statistically significant improvements in practitioners blood pressure and cholesterol levels for those doing a gentle style of Taiji or Qigong.  The South China Morning Post also ran an article on these findings titled “Why Chinese exercises such as tai chi are good for patients’ all-round health.”

Taiji practice at Chen Village. Source: Shanghai Daily.

Taijiquan was also in the news for other reasons.  The Shanghai Daily ran a feature that focused on the variety of students coming to Chanjiagou to learn Chen style Taijiquan.  The article touched on both the motivations and personal stories of some of these students, as well as the business of martial arts tourism.  Click here to check it out.

Martial Arts Studies
As always, martial arts studies has been a busy place.  But that does not mean we can’t have fun.  After all, who doesn’t like a good martial arts joke?

Paul Bowman has recently been at a conference help at Waseda University (report to follow) in which he presented a working paper titled “The Marginal Movement of Martial Arts: From the Kung Fu Craze to Master Ken.”  Be sure to check this out if you want to deepen your appreciation of martial arts humor.

Also, the Martial Arts Studies Research Network has released a list of confirmed speakers for their one day conference (held at Birmingham City University on April 1) titled “Kung Fury: Contemporary Debates in Martial Arts Cinema.”  Click the link to register for this free event.  Its an impressive list of speakers for a one day gathering.  There are too many names to list them all, but here are some of the topics that the papers will cover:

• Martial arts cinema and digital culture
• Funding and distribution
• Film festivals, marketing and promotion
• Martial arts cinema heritage, nostalgia and memory
• Mashups and genre busting intertextuality
• The place of period cinema
• Martial arts stardom and transnationality
• Martial arts audiences and fandom

Women Warriors and Wartime Spies of China by Louise Edwards (Cambridge UP, 2016).

While not directly addressing the martial arts, I am sure that this next book will find its way onto all of our bibliographic lists and works cited pages.  Cambridge University Press is about to release a volume by Louise Edwards titled Women Warriors and Wartime Spies of China.  In it Edwards discusses some of the most famous female spies and warriors in Chinese history (including devoting an entire chapter to Qiu Jin) and then goes on to address the importance of this archetypal image in Chinese society.  Given the centrality of female warriors to the Wing Chun creation myth (which I have always suspected dates to the Republic period) I look forward to seeing her discussion.  Here is the publisher’s summary:

In this compelling new study, Louise Edwards explores the lives of some of China’s most famous women warriors and wartime spies through history. Focusing on key figures including Hua Mulan, Zheng Pingru and Liu Hulan, this book examines the ways in which these extraordinary women have been commemorated through a range of cultural mediums including film, theatre, museums and textbooks. Whether perceived as heroes or anti-heroes, Edwards shows that both the popular and official presentation of these women and their accomplishments has evolved in line with China’s shifting political values and circumstances over the past one hundred years. Written in a lively and accessible style with illustrations throughout, this book sheds new light on the relationship between gender and militarisation and the ways that women have been exploited to glamorise war both historically in the past and in China today.

Louise Edwards is Professor of Chinese History and Asian Studies Convener at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. She publishes on women and gender in China and Asia.

Readers looking for English language translations of primary texts dealing with the Chinese martial arts should follow the always fantastic Brennan Translation blog.  It recently released a new translation of  TAIJI BOXING PHOTOGRAPHED by Chu Minyi (The Many Blessings Company of Shanghai, 1929).  This is a fascinating text written by someone who was not only a martial arts enthusiast but an important figure in Republic era politics.  He also had some ideas for innovative Taiji training dummies that are introduced in this manual.  Be sure to check it out.

Hing Kee shop in Wan Chai Road, Hong Kong. Source: Wikimedia.

Kung Fu Tea on Facebook

A lot has happened on the Kung Fu Tea Facebook group.  We discussed the definition of “martial arts,” getting the most out of your training while abroad, and rare footage of the Wing Chun master Pan Nam.   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.

A meeting of the Golden Gates Knights. Instructor Alain Block (right) leads a class. Source: Associated press, image by Jeff Chiu.

***This is the first half of two part article.  However, readers may actually want to begin by reading my recent post  What are “martial arts,” and why does knowing matter?***

“It [Ludosport] started in 2006 in Italy. A few friends got some lightsabers as gifts and being into martial arts and re-enactment fanatics they decided to see if there was a way they could make it into a sport, and they did. They spent hundreds of hours consulting many different martial artists and fencing coaches to make sure that they got a really good sport.

It’s not a martial art. We’re not trying to teach people how to cause physical harm, in fact that’s exactly the opposite of what we’re trying to do. We want something that’s fast and fun, that people can enjoy.”

Jordan Court, Instructor of the Ludosport England, Lighstaber Combat Academy in Bristol (UK) as quoted in the Bristol Post, January 29th 2015.

 

“[Flynn:] People laugh at us and say, “That’s not a real martial art!” I say, why don’t you pick one up and try.

[Damon Honeycutt:] They can say all they want…you know what I mean. But the fact is we are practicing and they are not.”

“Flynn” and Damon Honeycutt. Reclaiming the Blade, DVD2. Bonus Feature: New York Jedi. 2009. Min. 4:14.

Introduction: What are Martial Arts?

Is lightsaber combat a martial art? This seemingly odd question may have important implications for how we understand critical concepts within the field of martial arts studies. It also promises to shed light on the fundamental processes by which the traditional martial arts have been revived, reimagined and invented in the modern era.

As both a relatively new and radically interdisciplinary research area, martial arts studies is currently enjoying a period of rapid conceptual development. Nowhere is this more evident than in attempts to define the term ‘martial art.’ While it is in many ways synonymous with the field, only a minority of the foundational texts in our literature have attempted to define this concept or to explore it in ways that would point to new avenues for research. Nor has the existing literature coalesced around a single definition.

In a previous post we saw that researchers have adopted at least three discrete strategies when attempting to craft their understanding of this concept. The first, and most widely used, might be referred to as the “sociological strategy.” It simply accepts the social or cultural consensus on the question as it has arisen within a tightly focused research area.

Given that everyone in 21st century Japan simply “knows” that kendo, karate and aikido are martial arts, there may not be an urgent need to further explore the matter when discussing some aspect of Japanese martial studies. This is especially true as so many works currently being produced adopt an “area studies” approach which calls for a deep examination of the historical, social or even linguistic forces affecting developments in only a single region or state. It may seem beyond the bounds of a given research project to deeply explore what characteristics make both kendo and karate “martial arts” given their many historical differences. The existing consensus is simply accepted as a social fact.

Nevertheless, future theoretical development within martial arts studies requires a greater emphasis on comparative case studies. This research strategy often necessitates comparing practices that have arisen in very different times or places. For instance, what makes both capoeira and kendo martial arts, and how can both be understood in light of the economic, political and social changes that swept the globe in the 19th century? In cases such as this it is no longer possible to avoid definitional discussion. For better or worse, classification and categorization are at the heart of the comparative enterprise.

Towards this end scholars have attempted to define the martial arts in at least two different ways. First, they have advanced short “universal” definitions meant to identify those activities deemed to be “martial arts” within the broader category of all social practices. Further, most of these authors have attempted to advance relatively abstract definitions that can be applied to any society, time or place.

As we saw in our previous post, such efforts can be challenging. And while identifying “martial arts” in the abstract, most of these discussions provide no way of knowing where one style ends and the next begins. Are wing chun, weng chun and white crane three different styles, or simply three interpretations of the same regional fighting tradition? Scholars need a concept that can help us to address questions such as this.

A second group of authors have developed definitions that seek to classify the wide range of observed martial arts along different metrics. Some authors, such as Donn Draeger, sought to separate the truly “martial” from the “civilian” fighting systems. Unfortunately his system seems to be based on a now dated understanding of Japanese military history. And in any case, it is not always possible to draw a clean distinction between the military and civil realms.

Other students have looked at the specific goals motivating individuals to practice the martial arts. Perhaps the most common division in the literature is a three part typology separating the competitive combat sports, traditional arts (focused on self-development and health) and self-defense or combat arts. While this cuts to the heart of the ways in which the martial arts are often discussed in popular culture, this approach has trouble dealing with the huge amount of variation found within any single tradition. In China it is not that hard to find Wushu coaches who approach the Taiji forms as competitive sports, while some of their students will go on to teach similar forms as traditional health practices.

Lastly, Sixt Wetzler has proposed that we move away from efforts to definitively place certain practices in one conceptual box or another. He argues that we should instead acknowledge that the martial arts owe much of their popularity to their fungiblity. The fact that a single set of practices can play many social roles in a student’s life gives them great practical utility. The social functions of a children’s afterschool Tae Kwon Do class might be very different from those pursued in the adult Saturday afternoon session of the very same school. It is precisely this multi- vocality that allows these hand combat systems to function as central organizing symbols in the lives of their practitioners.

Wetzler suggest that the best way to understand what a martial art is, and to compare various schools or approaches, is to examine their impact on five dimensions of social meaning. Briefly these are:

1. Preparation for violent conflict
2. Play and Competitive Sports
3. Performance
4. Transcendent Goals
5. Health Care

Unfortunately this is more of a framework for analysis than a traditional definition. And Wetzler freely admits that future researchers may find it necessary to add additional categories to his list.

Nor does his approach solve the problem of sociological relativism. The flexible nature of Wetzler’s concept opens the field up to a wide range of activities that not all researchers might be willing to accept as martial arts. For instance, would realistic combative movements learned from a video-game count as a “martial art” if their practitioner claimed them as such? What about the many apps currently on the market to help students learn taiji or wing chun? Is this simply a novel way of teaching an old art, or is it something very different? Do we simply accept as a martial art anything that claims to be one?

The problem of relativism can also be seen on the other end of the spectrum. Because the martial arts are often seen as somewhat “odd,” “eccentric” or “socially marginal” some individuals may try to evade the label all together. Students taking a “boxing essentials” or even kickboxing class at the local YMCA might claim not to be studying a martial art, even though any martial arts studies conference will include multiple papers on participation in amateur boxing and kickboxing activities.

It would seem that self-identification might be a poor metric to judge what activities qualify as a martial art, or how we as researchers should structure our case studies. Indeed, this has always been a potential weakness of the “sociological approach.” Lacking a universally agreed upon definition, how should we move forward?

This puzzle is a useful one in that it helps us to clarify our goals. When we ask “Is lightsaber combat a martial art?” we must be clear that this question does not intend to establish a value hierarchy in which the researcher draws on their expertise to offer a binding opinion on what does or does not qualify as an authentic combat system. Nor are we even asking whether a given activity is worthy of consideration in martial arts studies as a research area. After all, our interdisciplinary literature routinely tackles a variety of topics and sources (including novels, films, community festivals and public rituals) that are not the product of any specific training hall.

What this question really points to is the relationship between our object of study (in this case Lightsaber combat) and the theoretical toolkit that we have developed to explore these sorts of systems within martial arts studies. Put slightly differently, do we expect that our core concepts and theories will help us to make sense of lightsaber combat in the same way that they might be useful when thinking about the rise of judo or wing chun? And if they fail in this specific case (as theories often do), will the lessons learned improve our understanding of the traditional martial arts as well?

Within the social sciences progress rarely comes from theoretical development or empirical observation in isolation. It is the triangulation of approaches that is the most likely to lead to the development of a successful research program. Do all martial arts arise from authentic combat activities? Must they be historically grounded? Can an activity be a martial art even if its students and teacher do not claim it as such?

Ultimately these are all important questions as they help us to expand the borders of martial arts studies, and demonstrate the broader utility of our field. They are also the sorts of issues that deserve to be empirically examined rather than simply accepted or dismissed by definitional fiat.

Concept art by Ralph McQuarrie showing an early version of the lightsaber.

Getting a Grip on the Lightsaber
Towards that ends, the current post investigates the case of lightsaber combat. Any attempt to define these practices as an authentic martial art will face a number of obvious objections. The typical lightsaber class usually introduces students to some combination of forms training, practical drills, competitive fencing and stage combat/choreography. The emphasis on each activity varies from school to school and depends in large part on the goals of the instructors.

Yet the lightsaber is not a historical, or even a real, weapon. The idea that one might be able to systematically study “lightsaber combat” is a relatively recent notion inspired by a successful film franchise. In that sense we are dealing with a “hyper-real” martial art. By this we mean that it is an “invented tradition” that everyone acknowledges is based on a fictional text rather than a more or less accurate transmission of some historical practice.

Lightsaber combat presents students of martial arts studies with a set of theoretical fighting systems coalescing around the image of a (wildly popular) fictional weapon. Nevertheless, many of the individuals working to develop lightsaber combat programs are traditional martial artists with extensive training in both Eastern and Western fighting arts. Their historically grounded skills are being married to the mythos and world view of the Star Wars franchise and then marketed to the public. Finally, the resulting synthesis is presented to new students in classroom environments that practitioners of the traditional martial arts would find very recognizable.

Nor is the practice of lightsaber combat limited to a few isolated individuals. The renewed popularity of the Star Wars franchise following first the release of the prequel films in the early 2000s (Episodes I-III), and the Force Awakens (Episode VII) in 2015, has given rise to a dramatic increase in demand for “practical” lightsaber training. With a number of additional films already in the works, we may be well positioned to watch the birth of a substantial new hyper-real martial movement. But are these systems true martial arts?

What does the answer to that question suggest about the various ways in which the older and more established systems can also be understood as “invented traditions?” Should this change anything about the way we view the relationship between media portrayals of violence and the creation (or practice) of actual combat systems? How will our understanding of the relationship between the martial arts and the historical forces of ethno-nationalism and culture need to be adjusted when we see individuals turning to hyper-real martial arts to pursue their need for self-development or transcendence?

Using Wetzler’s five dimensions of social meaning I explore the various ways in which lightsaber combat functions as an authentic martial art for its practitioners. Some of these may be obvious, others will be less so. Ultimately this discussion suggests that a set of activities functions as a martial art not because of their historical authenticity or connection to “real-world” combat. Rather, the martial arts have always been defined primarily through their modes of social organization and the individual, group and systemic roles that they play. At heart they are social institutions rather than collections of isolated techniques. More specifically the modern martial arts are a social project by which individuals hope to secure multiple aspects of their personal and social destiny, and not simply their physical safety.

This should not be understood as a new development. We see this same pattern at the very moment of the genesis of the Asian martial arts. Japanese warriors did not need formal sword schools organized as ryu-ha to ply their trade or survive on the battlefield. They had succeeded in these tasks quite nicely for hundreds of years without them.

Rather, as Alexander C. Bennett has cogently argued, these social institutions were created as a means of demonstrating social sophistication and self-discipline when Bushi warriors found themselves transitioning to political roles in urban areas which brought them into direct contact with Japan’s highly cultured aristocracy. The original Japanese swords arts functioned just as much as a source of social legitimization as martial capital. These schools again saw massive growth under the later Tokugawa government, a period of protracted peace in which they once again served mostly social, cultural and economic functions.

While history is not unimportant (indeed, we will see that it is deeply implicated in the creation of even hyper-real martial arts) researchers may ultimately wish to pay more attention to how ideas and beliefs about the martial arts, as a social project, are created and transmitted from one generation to the next. Nor is this set of conclusions unique to the world of lightsaber combat. Instead the existence and rapid growth of hyper-real martial arts requires us to reevaluate what we think we know about the invention of the traditional martial arts more generally.

Luke receiving his fathers lightsaber in Episode IV: A New Hope (1977).  Its interesting to compare Luke’s lightsaber in this shot to the original concept art above.

Creating the Seven Classic Forms of Lightsaber Combat: A Very Brief History

While various 20th century science fiction stories had mentioned weapons like the lightsaber, the image of this now iconic weapon seared its way into the popular consciousness in 1977 with George Lucas release of his first Star Wars film (Episode IV: A New Hope). Luke Skywalker igniting his father’s arctic blue lightsaber (“an elegant weapon for a more civilized age”) in the presence of the mysterious Obi-Wan Kenobi became a symbol that defined the hopes and aspiration of an entire generation of film goes.

They too wished for an adventure that would allow them to take their first steps onto a broader stage. What better weapon for the knight-errants of the quickly dawning technological age than the lightsaber. It captured the romance and esoteric promises of our half-remembered, half-imagined, collective past, while pointedly reminding us that it was an “artifact” from the distant future. The symbolism of the lightsaber seamlessly combines a weapon of truly fearsome destructive potential with the promise of spiritual renewal. Once seen it is an image that is not easily forgotten.

The lightsaber’s strangely hypnotic blade has now gone on to colonize the imagination of multiple generations, spawning countless novels, comic books, video games, collectibles, sequels and most recently, entire combat systems. It goes without saying that in the absence of the Star Wars film franchise, and the immense marketing empire that surrounds and supports it, there would be no lightsaber combat training today. Our first conclusion must be that media generated images of lightsaber combat led directly to the creation of later combat systems, albeit with a somewhat puzzling delay.

I strongly suspect that the first fan-based “lightsaber duel” was probably performed with broom sticks the day after Lucas’ original vision was revealed to the public in 1977. Yet I have found very little evidence of organized attempts to institutionalize and spread specific ideas about what lightsaber combat might look like until the early 2000s. Systematized lightsaber fencing, as it currently exists, dates only to the middle of that decade.

This presents us with our first challenge. Given the immense popularity and huge cultural impact of the initial three movies, why did lightsaber combat organizations emerge only in the 2000s? More specifically, what was their relationship to the less popular, and critically reviled, prequel trilogy chronicling the Clone Wars and the rise of Darth Vader?

The answer to both of these questions can be found in the complex mix of materiality and mythos that lies as the heart of the Star Wars enterprise, as well as the efforts to market its merchandise to the public. After all, what is more powerful than a myth whose relics can be held in one’s own hands…for a price.

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

It is a proven fact that if you put replica lightsabers in the hands of any two normal adults, they will immediately try to beat each other about the head with them. The impulse to attempt to use a replica lightsaber seems to be an inescapable part of human nature. This actually makes replica and “stunt lightsabers” (simple sabers without elaborate sound effects created by third party vendors for the express purpose of dueling) somewhat dangerous. On the one hand their metal hilts and heavy, glowing, polycarbonate blades provide the same sort of psychological gratification that comes from handling any other sort of weapon.

At the same time, the fact that we all know that these replicas are “not real” can lead to problems. While not actually filled with jets of hot plasma, the purely kinetic energy that a rigid 1 inch polycarbonate blade can deliver is roughly equivalent to any wooden stick of similar length. It is certainly enough to cause pain or injury if full contact dueling is attempted without some basic safety equipment. In short, corporate liability issues may have initially limited the creation of licensed replicas of these iconic weapons.  The fact that large costuming groups, such as the 501st Legion and Jedi Council, have a no combat/choreography policy would also have diminished the demand for more durable prop replicas.

There would have been technical issues to consider as well. Most sabers today utilize LED technology to “ignite” their blades. These can withstand more forceful blows than delicate incandescent bulbs and they do not burn out. Integrated circuit boards with motion detectors can also be added to provide sound effects or special lighting effects. By the early 2000s the technology to mass produce convincing replica lightsabers became cheap enough to make the project economically viable while at the same time a new generation of (now adult) fans was in place to spend hundreds of dollars on each new model.

I hypothesize that it was the appearance of relatively high quality replica (and later stunt) sabers which sparked the sudden boom of interest in practical lightsaber combat. These marketing efforts were also supported by the expansion of other aspects of the Star Wars universe. In October of 2002 Dr. David West Reynolds (the holder of a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Michigan who went on to write multiple Star Wars reference books) published an article in Star Wars Insider (#62) titled “Fightsaber: Jedi Lightsaber Combat.”

While the movies themselves say almost nothing about the details of lightsaber training, Reynolds, drawing on his academic background, wrote an essay outlining the “Seven Forms” of lightsaber combat as taught within the Jedi Order. He provided each numbered form with a short description outlining its philosophy as well as its strengths and weaknesses. Later resources augmented these with exotic sounding names (such as “Shii-cho” or Form I), associated them with mythic creatures from the Star Wars universe in ways that seem to intentionally mimic the use of animal imagery in the Asian martial arts (Shii-cho is “The Way of the Sarlacc”). They also concocted increasingly complex backstories. While Reynolds is an archaeologist rather than a martial artist, he set in motion a story-development arch which created a rich body of invented lore around the seven forms, giving them an alluring feel of verisimilitude.

By the early 2000s Star Wars fans had been given access to both a steady supply of replica lightsabers, a new trilogy of films which featured many iconic lightsaber battles, and an increasingly complex system of invented traditions explicitly designed to create a history for lightsaber usage that would feel “realistic.” While the Star Wars franchise has always emphasized the role of merchandise, the situation for would be Jedi and Sith acolytes was more favorable in the 2000s than it was in the 1980s.

The next major step forward took place in 2005. Inspired by some short fan-films in which lightsabers had been digitally recreated, “Flynn” a founding member of the group NY Jedi, bought two Master Replicas lightsabers, took them to the roof of his New City apartment building at night, and began to duel with a friend.

The resulting enthusiasm on the part of his neighbors was great enough that he then decided to bring a larger group of sabers to the 2005 Greenwich Village Halloween parade where their demonstration was again met with great enthusiasm and numerous inquiries as to where one could go to learn to fight with a “real” lightsaber. The group NY Jedi was formed shortly thereafter, and has offered weekly lessons taught be a variety of martial artists, choreographers and stage combat coaches.

The simultaneous worldwide dissemination of the newly created mythos and marketing of replica sabers makes it difficult to reconstruct a single linear history of lightsaber combat. NY Jedi raised the profile of the practice and inspired the creation of a number of other similar groups all along the East Coast of the United States. Some of them emphasized costuming and performance, others attempted to focus on the creation of a “pure” martial art.

Only a few months later three friends in Italy (all trained martial artists) brought a bunch of replica lightsabers to a birthday party. They were impressed with the technical flexibility that this new training weapon allowed. Almost immediately they started to develop their own martial system (Ludosport) based on the physical characteristics of replica lightsabers as well as elements of the Star Wars mythos.

Most lightsaber groups seem to combine multiple elements in their training. While NY Jedi mixes traditional martial arts training with a heavy emphasis on stage combat and performance, Ludosport instead emphasizes the development of lightsaber fencing as a type of competitive combat sport. They have since opened branch schools across Europe and organized a system of international tournaments and rankings.

A match at the Combat Saber Tournament held in Singapore at Liang Court, on 20 Nov 2015. Source: http://www.thesaberauthority.com

One of the most interesting things about the recent spread of lightsaber combat has been its diverse and global nature. Clubs and schools dedicated to promoting the practice have been opened in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. Indeed, much of the early development of the art was taking place nearly simultaneously in the United States, Italy and South East Asia (where such groups have proved to be popular in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.)

These organizations approach lightsaber training with a variety of goals and methods. They also have a variety of opinions on whether or not what they do can be considered a martial art.

As the introductory quote suggests, Ludosport appears to have distanced themselves from the claim that lightsaber fencing might be considered a “martial art.” In their vernacular terminology, an activity only qualifies as a martial art if it is aggressive in nature and focused on causing harm. Thus for their own marketing purposes they seem to have decided to emphasize the athletic and competitive aspects of their practice.

Other groups, such as the Terra Prime Lightsaber Academy, have instead emphasized the degree to which lightsaber fencing is, and should be thought of, as a martial art. After all, the fight choreography that influenced the development of the Star Wars films was highly influenced by a variety of traditional martial arts including kendo, kali and historic European practices such as longsword fencing.

Many of the instructors teaching lightsaber combat today also bring their own background in the martial arts to the table. For them the challenge is to find a ways to recreate the “Seven Forms” of lightsaber combat outlined in the Star Wars mythology using historic techniques, concepts and strategies. Drawing on their individual training, and the unique physical properties of commercially available stunt lightsabers, they have attempted to “recreate” effective and historically grounded systems of lightsaber combat which are still true to the texture of the movies and the Star Wars mythology. All of this has then been packaged in a way that it can be taught to succeeding generations of students in something that very much resembles a standard classroom environment. Some instructors even see in lightsaber combat a possible tool for promoting, preserving and disseminating traditional types of martial knowledge.

***Check Back Next Week for Episode II: The Five Social Dimension of Lightsaber Combat***

A choreographed reenactment of the final duel in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Public performances like these have helped to popularize lightsaber combat.  Photo by Jenny Elwick. Source: Wikimedia.

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Are you interested in taking a more detailed look at the world of Lightsaber Combat? If so start here!

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***This is the second half of our exploration of lightsaber combat as a martial art.  Reader who have not yet read Part I are strongly encouraged to do so before going on. In the last essay we considering some of the basic strategies that scholars have adopted in defining the “martial arts.”  Following that discussion we briefly reviewed the emergence of the current lightsaber combat community.  In the current post we attempt to test Wetzler’s theory of the “five dimensions of social meaning” as a strategy for understanding the martial arts by using it to explore various aspects of lightsaber fencing.  Enjoy!***

Five Social Dimensions of Lightsaber Combat

 
While it helps to ground our discussion, the preceding historical exploration does little to resolve the theoretical question of whether we should consider lightsaber combat to be an authentic martial art. At best we are thrown back on the statements of various practitioners. Some look to their own backgrounds and goals to assert that they are in the process of developing and teaching a martial art. In their view the media driven origins of these practices should have no bearing on our classification of the resulting institutions. What is important is the nature of the techniques used and taught.

Other individuals, even those deeply involved in the lightsaber community, are not so sure. Some see “combat sports” and “martial arts” as mutually exclusive categories. And given the degree of cultural discomfort that still follows the traditional martial arts, a few groups may have decided that it is economically more feasible to market lightsaber combat as a sporting, fitness or recreational activity.

Nor would it be difficult to find practitioners of more traditional sword arts who might claim that lightsaber fencing simply cannot be a martial art at all. So many of the small details that are critical in traditional forms training or cutting practice (e.g., edge control) simply disappear when we begin to discuss fictional all cutting plasma blades. For them the potent symbolism of a futuristic sword cannot displace the historically grounded reality of the blade.

This sort of indeterminacy has always dogged both the sociological and universal strategies for defining the martial arts. The current essay seeks to move beyond this impasse by empirically examining the practice of lightsaber combat in light of Wetzler’s theory of the “five dimensions of social meaning.” This will provide us with an appropriate baseline from which to explore whether the fictional origins of lightsaber combat alters the sorts of social roles that it plays in the lives of its students. It should also suggest something about the utility of the existing martial arts studies literature in making sense of these practices. As such we will briefly consider how lightsaber combat ranks on each of these five dimensions.

Early concept art by Ralph McQuarrie showing a Storm Trooper holding a lightsaber. In the Star Wars mythos a hero may well have to rely on the lightsaber as a means of self-defense.

Preparation for violent conflict: When interviewed, new students of the martial arts often claim that they have been inspired to join a school by a need for self-defense training. Indeed, there has always been a strong linkage between (some) martial arts and the perceived need to prepare oneself for the reality of violent conflict. Yet at the same time students of martial studies have noted that many of the sorts of techniques that are commonly used in these systems lack an element of “realism.”

Students of Japanese military history have noted that high-school kendo training did a poor job of preparing Japanese military officers to actually use their swords in the field during WWII. Practitioners of the Mixed Martial Arts often complain about the lack of “realism” in more traditional styles. Yet weapons are a sadly common element of actual criminal assaults and they are banned from the octagon. Indeed, one cannot escape the conclusion that the ways in which the martial arts attempt to prepare their students for the future cannot simply by reduced to “violence simulators” of greater or lesser degrees of accuracy. Equally important has been the building of physical strength, mental toughness and a tactical tool kit in environments that are quite different from what might be encountered in an actual attack.

Lightsaber combat also has a complex relationship with Wetzler’s first dimension of social meaning. The chance of an individual being called upon to defend themselves from an actual lightsaber attack today is only slightly less than the probability that they will encounter a villain wielding a traditional Chinese three meter long spear in a dark alley. Which is to say, few people take up traditional weapons training (such as swords, spears or bows) because of their great utility “on the street.”

Yet in a kendo class one will be called upon to defend against a mock (but still very spirited) sword attack. Likewise, in a modern lightsaber duel fencers will be called upon to defend themselves against a determined attacker who has been systematically trained in a variety of techniques. A failure to do so (especially if proper safety measures are not observed) might result in injury. In that sense lightsaber students are preparing themselves for combative encounters. All of this also contributes to the creation of a degree of physical and mental resilience.

Many forms of traditional weapons training have become functionally obsolete in the current era. Spears, swords and bows are no longer encountered on the battlefield and they play a limited role in any discussion of self-defense. While lightsabers can be placed further along the continuum of abstraction, these are fundamentally differences of degree rather than kind.

A Sportlight Saber League Tournament held in Paris, France. Source: http://www.themalaymailonline.com

 
Play and Competitive Sports: There can be no doubt that for most students the fundamental appeal of lightsaber combat is to be found in its recreational value. Indeed, the central mythos and symbolism of the exercise derives from the realm of film and commercial entertainment. Of course in the current era what most of us know about past military battles and personal duels is also heavily mediated by media representations rather than firsthand experience.

Even in Hong Kong in the 1950s, a supposed golden age of traditional martial arts practice, wuxia novels and martial arts films were the medium by which most individuals were introduced to, and developed an interest in, the martial arts. While not as frequently discussed, the traditional martial arts have always been closely tied to the worlds of physical recreation and story-telling.

The very nature of lightsaber fencing has also contributed to the development of a strong sporting impulse. Whether in the form of Olympic fencing or Japanese kendo, in the current era the sword arts have come to be seen largely as combat sports. Students of lightsaber fencing will approach their new practice with an already well established set of ideas about what a “proper” match will look like. Inevitably this includes proper safety equipment (eye protection, fencing masks, armored gloves, other protective gear), one or more judges to call points, a transparent scoring system and a limited number of timed rounds. All of these practices come from previous innovations in other arts, but they are immediately available to lightsaber fencers. The end result is that for many students lightsaber combat is primarily thought of as a faced paced, highly enjoyable, combat sport.

As I have interviewed various instructors in the field, some have pointed to these sorts of matches as sites for “technical research.” A few have asserted that the traditional martial arts might benefit from a “neutral” platform where students of western, Chinese, Japanese or South East Asian systems can come together to compare techniques with those whose training is different from their own. The physical simplicity of a stunt saber (which is essentially a smooth polycarbonate tube), and the ease with which it can be used by a variety of styles, has even led to some discussion of whether lightsaber combat might develop as a type of “mixed martial art” for swords (albeit one with a very different world view). While this possibility is not what attracts most new students to their local lightsaber combat group, it is certainly a possibility that is being considered by key teachers and promoters of the practice.

The Force is strong with this one. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKELWe6dACA

Performance: The anthropologist D. S. Farrer has argued at length that every martial system contains both a practical and performative aspect. Further, these two elements cannot easily be separated. While all sorts of practitioners may find that they have an economic or a social motive to promote their practice as a “pure fighting art” (or alternatively, and probably more lucratively, as “pure combat choreography”) this is usually far from the truth. Developments in the practical realm tend to drive new innovations in the “realistic” portray of the martial arts on stage, and the public discussion of these recreational images has inspired new thoughts about the more practical aspects of violence.

For example, throughout Asian history, archery did double duty as a cornerstone of public ritual as well as a critical military skill. Even the periodic military exams held by the Chinese government in the late imperial period tended to draw a large crowd and functioned as public spectacles as much as a rational mechanism for choosing the best military recruits (well into the age of the gun). Nor can we forget about the important social place of practices like “wedding silat,” dance like capoeira matches or the public performance of traditional martial arts styles on the stage of southern China’s Cantonese opera. All of this has a long and established history within the cultural realm of the martial arts.

Still, the relationship between the practical and the performative aspects of the martial arts is one of the most vexing aspects of these systems for current scholars. The development of lightsaber combat has the potential to contribute much to this aspect of the martial studies literature.

When looking at the variety of lightsaber combat groups, some individuals may be tempted to separate them into two categories. On the one hand we have those doing “real” martial arts, such as Ludosport, Saber Legion or the Terra Prime Lightsaber Academy. They focus almost exclusively on the practice of historically derived techniques and competition. On the other hand we have a number of schools, such as NY Jedi, whose main activities seem to be the staging of elaborate public spectacles through choreographed duels and storytelling.

Yet none of these groups function in pristine isolation. As a result innovations in one area tend to impact the others. While NY Jedi is known for its stage combat and public choreography, a number of its members are also martial artists. One such individual is Damon Honeycutt. A practitioner of the Chinese martial arts, he developed a basic lightsaber training form (or kata) called “Shii-cho” (based on Japanese and Chinese saber techniques) which has gone on to become perhaps the most widely distributed training tool within the lightsaber community. It is widely practiced by both theatrical and martially oriented groups and both seem to find it quite useful.

Nor is there always a clear division between the sorts of individuals who will be attracted to more “traditional” martial training and those who might find themselves making and posting fan-films on the internet. Rather than having two distinct sets of individuals, often what we see are related practices used to fulfill multiple sets of social goals by the same individuals. While on the surface this might appear paradoxical, it has always been part of the appeal of the traditional Asian martial arts. Current developments within the lightsaber combat community are useful precisely because they serve to illustrate the arguments of scholars such as Farrer and Wetzler.

Luke Skywalker meditating on the assembly of his new lightsaber. Image by Frank Stockton. Source: rebloggy.

Transcendent Goals: Even if lightsaber combat succeeds as a fast paced combat sport, or as a channel for martial performance, what psychological or spiritual value could it have? In the current era many individuals turn to the traditional (usually Asian) martial arts precisely because they see in them a font of ancient wisdom. For the less esoterically inclined, the physical and mental discipline of the martial arts has also been seen as a way to develop character.

While many actual martial arts instructors go out of their way to avoid discuss their practice in these terms, the idea that the martial arts should be a pathway to some sort of “transcendent attainment” seems firmly fixed in the popular imagination. It is one of the promises that draws students, in both the East and the West, to these traditional practices. Much of the commercial success of the traditional martial arts appears to be rooted in a near mystical faith in their ability to promote balanced development in both children and adolescents. One wonders how much of this belief we can attribute to Luke Skywalker’s very public journey to adulthood aided by the dual disciplines of the Force and the lightsaber training during the 1970s and 1980s.

Can lightsaber students find transcendent values in a practice grounded in what they know to be a set of fictional texts? The fact that we now have a literature on the existence of hyper-real religions (systems of religious belief based on fictional texts such as Star War or the Matrix) strongly suggests that the answer is, “yes.” The underlying values that students can detect in a story or practice are more important for many people than its connection to an authentic ancient history.

My own, very preliminary, ethnographic research with a lightsaber combat group in a mid-sized city in central NY has revealed a surprising degree of dedication on the part of many of the students. The often repeated mantra that it is all “just for fun” notwithstanding, it is clear that many students are approaching lightsaber combat as a key organizing symbol in their lives. The weapons may be fictional, but the feelings that are invoked through practice are clearly authentic and deeply felt. Nor are the sorts of mentoring relationships that students seek from their instructor any different from what one might find in a traditional martial arts institution.

Given the resources being dedicated to lightsaber combat, it should come as no surprise that students so often see their norms and beliefs (or perhaps those that they aspire to hold) reflected in these practices. The Jedi and Sith themselves are readymade symbols ripe for spiritual or psychological appropriation.

When addressing a related point in an interview Damon Honeycutt of NY Jedi said:

“You can bring about things in a subculture; you can create change through that. You can elevate consciousness through it. That is what I would like to see it do, really bring people to a heightened potential of what they really are. To be a lens for that, outside of comicons or conventions or competitions or forms or fighting or sparring or whatever people think that they are doing with it. That really would be the greatest thing.

With NY Jedi we are making ourselves better people to serve humanity, you know, the same thing that I do with the Kung Fu school. In a lot of ways they are the same. Its just that the myth behind it is different. The lineage behind it is different. The world view is different. But the overall goal is the same.” Damon Honeycutt. Reclaiming the Blade, DVD2. Bonus Feature: New York Jedi. 2009. Min. 11:01-11:46.

 

This description matches my own preliminary observations. Future research might fruitfully focus on the underlying social changes that have opened a space for such hyper-real martial arts to play these roles at this particular moment in social history.

A Jedi healing a wounded storm trooper through her manipulation of the Force. Current discussions of health in relation to lightsaber combat seem to be more focused on mundane factors such as regular exercise.  Still, there is a strong mythic association between the Jedi and accelerated healing. Source: starwars.wikia

Healthcare: As we have already seen, a number of factors separate the martial arts from simple collections of combat techniques. One of them is the multiplicity of social roles that these systems are expected to play in the lives of their practitioners. In the current era individuals often turn to the martial arts to defend not just their physical safety but their personal health.

Many martial arts studios offer basic fitness and conditioning classes. Weight loss is a frequently advertised benefit of all kinds of martial arts training. And every month a new set of articles is published about the medical benefits of taijiquan for senior citizens in both the Western and Chinese press.

This may seem like yet another example of the commercial appropriation of the martial art. Fitness is a multi-billion dollar industry and the average individual is constantly subjected to powerful media discourses extolling the benefits of athleticism. Is it any wonder that all sorts of martial arts teachers attempt to link their practices to the culturally dominant athletic paradigm?

In light of this it may be necessary to remind ourselves that the links between the practice of the martial arts and health promotion are actually quite old. Meir Shahar has demonstrated that by the end of the Ming dynasty unarmed boxing training was gaining popularity around China partially because of the unique synthesis of self-defense and health promoting practices which it offered.

While less pronounced than some of the other dimension of social meaning, it is clear that lightsaber combat is viewed as an avenue for promoting physical health by some of its students. In this case the emphasis is less on esoteric practices and Daoist medical ideas than western notions of physical fitness and exercise. A number of the students that I have spoken with mentioned the need to “get in shape” and “stay active” as primary motivations for taking up lightsaber combat.

A quick review of news stories in the popular press indicates that a number of lightsaber groups have been created throughout the English speaking world in recent years. While most of these are run by individuals coming out of the traditional martial arts, others are being started by Yoga teachers. In many cases their emphasis is on the health and fitness benefits of lightsaber training rather than it’s more competitive or combative aspects.

Yet fitness also plays a role in the ways that lightsaber combat is discussed by more traditional martial arts instructors. More than one has noted that these classes attract individuals who might otherwise have no interest in setting foot in a martial arts school or gym. Lightsaber combat gives such students a means to stay active and an incentive to get in shape.

For some students lightsaber combat also sparks an interest in other martial arts. Indeed, one suspects that this is exactly why so many traditional martial artists are currently opening classes dedicated to the subject. They have the potential to expand the appeal of the martial arts to groups of consumers who might not otherwise have ever been attracted to them.

The health benefits of any martial art depend in large part on how it is introduced to students and subsequently practiced. The same is certainly true for lightsaber combat. Once again, when comparing this practice to historically grounded martial arts what we find are differences in degree rather than kind.

Stunt sabers and helmets at a Paris lightsaber tournament. Photo by Charles Platiau. Source: http://avax.news

Conclusion: Lightsaber Combat as a Martial Art

Is lightsaber combat a martial art? The answer is almost certainly yes. At its core are a group of combative and performance techniques, almost all of which have been gathered from previously existing martial traditions. These have been developed into pedagogical systems capable of transmitting not only physical practices but also elaborate pseudo-histories, invented identities and a mythic world view that seem to be a no less potent for its fictional origin. All of this provides students with a variety of tools to craft social and personal meaning in their lives.

An examination of Wetzler’s “five dimensions of social meaning” suggests that in its current incarnation students of lightsaber combat understand their practice in much the same way that traditional martial artists approach their training in the West today. More importantly, both set of activities play broadly similar roles in the lives of students, and respond to the same social forces in basically similar ways. As such we have no a priori reason to believe that the theories developed within martial arts studies cannot also be applied to the investigation of hyper-real combat systems.

More importantly, our brief investigation of lightsaber combat may suggest a few ways to improve our understanding of the social meaning of these systems. Martial artists are often reluctant to discuss the economic consequences of their practice. On the one hand many individuals make a living teaching these systems, and students sacrifice notable resources (in capital, time and opportunity cost) to practice them.

In the current era the distribution of martial knowledge is closely tied to economic markets. Yet openly discussing this fact seems like a violation of an unspoken norm. Among practitioners there is a strong presumption that the martial arts “cannot be bought or sold;” that the attainment of excellence transcends such “base” considerations. Given that many academic students of martial arts studies are also practitioners of these same systems, if we are not careful such attitudes can shape our own research as well.

The rapid growth of lightsaber combat over the last decade is interesting for a number of reasons. One of the most important is what it suggests about the power of economic markets to shape the development of martial arts systems and the ways that consumers encounter and experience them. At the most basic level there would be no lightsaber combat without the production of successive generations of Star Wars films and massively expensive campaigns to market them to the public. More specifically, the exact timing of the boom of interest in lightsaber combat owes much to the creation (and marketing) of high quality replica and stunt lightsabers in the early 2000s.

Economic variables can be seen to play important roles in other places as well. The major manufacturers of stunt sabers host message boards and social media groups that play an important part in creating a sense of community. Individual teachers have turned to lightsaber fencing as a means of spreading the message of the martial arts beyond the horizons of the normal reachable market. And it is sometimes surprising to see how much money individual students are willing to pay for a personally meaningful replica lightsaber or for the opportunity to attend a seminar with a specific instructor or group. It is even interesting to think about why different lightsaber organizations adopt the various economic models that they have.

None of this is all that different from what we see in the world of the more traditional martial arts. The ability to offer instruction can become an important source of personal income. The sudden appearance of a popular new action film can lift a little known fighting system out of obscurity. And economic markets strongly condition how the martial arts can be taught, and who they can potentially reach, at any given point in history.

While these sorts of considerations receive little attention in many of our studies, they simply cannot be avoided when thinking about the nature and recent origin of lightsaber combat. As such we should consider adding a sixth category to Wetzler’s discussion of social meaning within the martial arts. Economic markets are a means by which scarce resources are distributed within society. The martial arts have often served similar functions through their attempts to control community violence, support new status hierarchies and even create social capital. We should not be surprised to see powerful synergies emerging through the interactions of these systems. In fact, no student or teacher can approach the martial arts in the current era without taking their economic aspect into careful consideration. This suggests that students of martial arts studies should also be more mindful of this dimension of social meaning.

Critics of the time and energy being devoted to the development of lightsaber combat may voice a number of complaints. Stunt lightsabers, despite their seeming versatility, are essentially cylindrical sticks rather than copies of true blades. And given the unique mythology of this weapon, there is no incentive to imagine it as a metal sword for the purposes of practice and training. As such lightsaber combat is bound to depart from historically derived techniques in important ways. Ultimately an hour invested in the investigation of German longsword fencing, or even kendo, would probably grant a better understanding of real military history than an equal amount of practice with a lightsaber.

Though it may be possible to find key norms within the practice of lightsaber fencing, or while the rich symbolism of the Force and the Jedi may point some students towards transcendent themes, the development of these ideas within the Star Wars universe is still shallow compared to the depth of lived religious experience that can be found within real Buddhist, Daoist or Christian monastic communities. Again, why invest scarce resources in a second order reflection of reality when the real thing is almost immediately available?

These are valid concerns. And ultimately most martial artists will not be interested in lightsaber combat. Then again, most martial artists also have little interest in kendo, wing chun or any other specific style. Many of these objections also revolve around questions of taste rather than objective conceptual categories. Why practice that style when “everyone knows” that mine is superior?

The very fact that lightsaber combat can so easily be drawn into this all too familiar mode of debate is yet another indication that it is seen as residing within the set of practices which we call “martial arts.” Yet as Wetzler reminded us in his discussion, when it comes to definitions, scholars must rely on more objective measures. Ultimately the student of martial arts studies cannot become merely a critic of good taste in martial arts practice (Wetzler, 23-25).

Instead we should ask why, when so much information about many historical styles is readily available, these specific individuals are choosing to study a hyper-real martial art? Why are seekers suddenly more open to finding transcendent meaning in a fictional story than in actual organized religions which espouse many of the same values and views? Lastly, how have consumers appropriated the products of a vast commercial entertainment empire to create independent social groups that better allow them to exercise their agency in creating more empowered identities?

None of these puzzles are unique to lightsaber combat. In realty we could ask a very similar set of questions of most of the traditional martial arts that are practiced in the world today. Nothing simply arises from the past tabula rasa. We seek to understand the invention of the martial arts because every hand combat system must find a place for itself in the social system of its day if it wishes to survive. Their many solutions to this dilemma reveal critical data about the nature of social struggles.

All arts, even the most historically grounded, are caught in a continual cycle of renewal and reinvention. The study of practices such as lightsaber combat is valuable precisely because it forces us to focus on the details of how that process unfolds within specific communities. Yet to be fully realized, we must first understand that hyper-real combat practices can be authentic martial arts.

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If you enjoyed this post you might also want to read:  Can Donnie Yen Bring Kung Fu (Back) to the Star Wars Universe?

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Breaking ceramic action figure by Martin Klimas. Source: http://www.whudat.de/exploding-porcelain-action-figures-by-martin-klimas-7-pictures/

Introduction

Welcome to the fifth entry in our series of guest posts titled “Doing Research.”  If you missed the first essay by D. S. Farrer (which provides a global overview of the subject), the second by Daniel Mroz (how to select a school or teacher for research purposes), the third by  Jared Miracle (learning new martial arts systems while immersed in a foreign culture), or the fourth by Thomas Green (who is only in it for the stories) be sure to check them out!

Compared to other fields of scholarly inquiry, Martial Arts Studies has a distinctly democratic flavor.  Many individuals are introduced to these systems while students at a college or university and are interested in seeing a more intellectually rigorous treatment of their interests.  And certain practitioners want to go beyond reading studies produced by other writers and undertake research based on their own time in the training hall.   The emphasis on ethnographic description, oral and local history, as well as the methodological focus on community based collaborative research within Martial Arts Studies (itself a radically interdisciplinary area), makes participation in such efforts both relatively accessible and highly valuable.  Or maybe you are a student about to embark on your first ethnographic research project?

Dr. Daniel Amos is a pioneer of modern ethnographic research on the Chinese martial arts.  His work opened a window onto the social world of southern Chinese martial artists (both in Hong Kong and Guangzhou) during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  This was an incredibly important time in the spread of the modern Chinese fighting styles, making his detailed observations all the more important.  His work was hugely helpful to me when I began my own writing on the region a few decades later.  As such I am thrilled that he has agreed to join this discussion.  In the following essay Dr. Amos will tackle a number of questions regarding a researcher’s ethical responsibilities as they first become members of, and then report on, various (often marginal) communities.  While the political situation in China following the end of the Cultural Revolution threw these issues into stark relief, they are a topic that no ethnographer can afford to ignore.

Lies I have told about martial artists

by Daniel M. Amos, March 17, 2016
hungchongshan@yahoo.com

Recently, I joked with a friend of mine that I did not actually do ethnographic fieldwork in Post-Mao, Guangzhou, China and the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, but rather invented my studies of Cantonese martial artists while enjoying the sunshine of Santa Monica Beach.  At the very least, I can be thought of as a suspicious character.  My schoolmate at UCLA was Carlos Castaneda.  We shared the same graduate student mailbox (for surnames A-C), the same dissertation chair, and had many of the same anthropology faculty members on our dissertation committees.  Carlos was accused of poetic license, of embellishing the details of his well-known accounts of flying Yaqui brujos who perform magic in the Sonoran desert.  In his review of Castaneda’s first book, Edmund Leach, the eminent social anthropologist, observed that “…this is a work of art rather than of scholarship, and it is as a diary of unusual personal experiences that the book deserves attention (Leach 1969).”

Carlos frequently visited the UCLA anthropology department during my early graduate student days there, and he spoke with and cultivated a number of graduate students, mostly women.  I was not a member of Carlos’ inner-circle and only vaguely associated with him.  Yet it is probable that our ethnographic writing shares at least one trait: All the characters that appear in my ethnographic descriptions of martial artists in southern China during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s are fiction.  My fiction, however, differed from that of my famous schoolmate in that I considered my study to be largely a political study.  During the time of my dissertation research (1976-1981) in two neighboring Cantonese cities, impoverished socialist Guangzhou and comparatively wealthy colonial Hong Kong, I felt that Chinese martial arts in both places could be partly understood as a form of cultural play that illuminated and revealed conflict between social classes.

Ultimately, the fictionalization of my ethnographic writing about Chinese martial artists was generated out of concern for protecting the privacy and personal identities of the participants in my study.   In Hong Kong from the beginning of colonial rule through the end of British rule in 1997, practitioners of Chinese martial artists who belonged to martial arts brotherhoods were suspected by the colonial government of being involved in criminal activities, organized crime, members of Triads.   A Hong Kong police report prepared in the 1970s by the Hong Kong Triad Society Bureau for Hong Kong police officers at the rank of lieutenant and above, for example, stated that one-third of independent Hong Kong martial arts brotherhoods were associated with Triads and engaged in criminal activities.

“In many cases local gymnasia, particularly gymnasia associated with the more traditional forms of Chinese martial arts training, serve as the local headquarters for Triad society factions, especially in respect of local enforcement work.  A percentage of the staff, managers, and instructors of such establishments are known to be or are suspected of being Triad officials or active Triad members.   Of the 419 such establishments in the Colony, 141 are suspected of Triad associations (Hong Kong Triad Bureau 1974:54)”

Although I could not definitively prove it, my own biases led me to feel that the strong official association of martial artists with criminality was exaggerated, generated out of natural fear by the ruling and middle classes of a mobilized and semi-militarized segment of the impoverished and working poor.  In a society where there were no guns except those carried by the local British-led military and police, the higher social orders felt anxiety about working class youth and adults who developed martial skills within their own voluntary associations.

However, I knew Hong Kong martial artists who, while not members of criminal Triad gangs, would suffer physical, psychological, social, economic, or legal harm, or damage to their dignitary if my writing exposed their identities and behavior.  I knew Hong Kong martial artists who were alcoholics, opium users, organizers of dog fights and gambling, butchers and sellers of dog meat, gay and transgender martial artists, frequenters of prostitutes, those with sexually transmitted diseases, martial artists who could not read, unemployed martial artists and martial artists who were undocumented immigrants.  For this reason I wrote fiction, not identifying individuals, but attempted to describe a variety of cultural scenes related to martial arts in Hong Kong.

Already sensitive about the potential harm to those who participated in my study of martial artists, my concern about protecting the identities of the participants in my study of martial artists in Guangzhou was heightened because of the Mosher Affair.   Steven Mosher, a Stanford University anthropology graduate student had conducted research in a Guangdong village for several months, from the end of 1979 to the beginning of summer 1980.  He was the first anthropology graduate student from the United States permitted to do ethnographic research in mainland China since the end of the Cultural Revolution.  The Chinese authorities repeatedly complained about Mr. Mosher’s behavior during his time in Guangdong province.  They abruptly ended his study and he was not permitted to remain in China.

As far as I am aware, I was the second U.S. graduate student ethnographer to do research in China during this time.  Although my stay in Guangdong province (June 1980 – August 1981) was of longer duration than Mr. Mosher’s, it caused far less controversy with the Chinese authorities and with fellow anthropologists.

During the time of Mr. Mosher’s project and my research project in China the fundamental rule taught to every beginning ethnographer and formally accepted by all in the field was that researchers were obligated to protect the participants of their studies.  The code of the American Anthropological Association at the time clearly stated this most basic requirement: “In research, an anthropologist’s paramount responsibility is to those he studies.   When there is a conflict of interest, these individuals must come first.  The anthropologist must do everything within his power to protect their physical, social and psychological welfare and to honor their dignity and privacy (Van Ness, The Mosher Affair, The Wilson Quarterly, 1984:160-172).”  

During his stay in the village where he did his research, Mr. Mosher discovered that some Chinese women had been forced by local officials to undergo involuntary abortions, sometimes late in pregnancy.  In May 1981, writing under the name Steven Westley, Mr. Mosher described forced abortions in Guangdong province in an article he produced for a popular Taiwanese magazine (Ibid.).  Taking no care to disguise their identities, in the same article he published photographs of women who had been forced to undergo this procedure (Ibid.).  By publishing their photos, clearly identifying and exposing those who had undergone involuntary abortions, Mr. Mosher subjected the women he wrote about to punishment by the Chinese government.

Both the Stanford University academic committee investigating his case and Mr. Mosher separately interviewed me about the incident.  I had nothing to add to their investigations.  Chinese officials had not shared information about Mr. Mosher with me, a lowly U.S. graduate student.

Based on information gather during the academic committee’s investigation of the affair, Stanford University produced a report, shared it with Mr. Mosher, and expelled him from the university’s anthropology program.  Neither side has revealed the contents of the report.

The fates of the women Mr. Mosher exposed to harm are unknown to me, but it is my hope that the damage they experienced from his selfish, reckless actions was not severe.  Clearly, they were the most important actors in this event, and had the most to lose.

At present, because of irresponsible researchers in the past who showed no concern about the consequences of their research on those who participated in their studies, there are now more rigorous institutional safeguards for research which use human subjects.  Researchers affiliated with a university or government agency must have their research projects approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB).   Research participants need to be informed and consent to research which involves them. They should understand the purpose and nature of the research, and their role in it.  Before proceeding with their investigations, researchers must rigorously assess and minimize possible harm to participants, and assure the confidentiality of their identities, including protecting them from exposure through photographs, videos, audio recordings, and computer records (Robert Yin, Qualitative Research from Start to Finish, 2016:49).  Hopefully, contemporary undergraduate martial arts researchers experience more rigorous human subjects training and research review of their projects than anthropology students of 40 years ago.

When I was in Guangzhou, I knew many martial artists who would suffer physical, psychological, social, economic, legal harm or damage to their dignitary if my writing exposed their identities, thoughts and actions.  Some hated Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party, others engaged in gambling and fighting, some were alcoholics, others had pre-marital sex, then an illegal activity, and many others had positive, uncritical fantasies about developed, capitalist countries and hoped to emigrate.

The first several months I lived in Guangzhou I practiced kung fu with a private martial arts brotherhood.   Most mornings I awoke at 5 a.m. and rode my bicycle several miles into the city from Zhongshan University.   1980 was before the massive growth of Guangzhou, and at that time the university was on the outskirts of the city.  In my early ethnographic writing about Chinese martial artists, because of the sensitive nature of my research, none of the martial artists with whom I practiced kung fu appeared in the pages of my dissertation and early publications.  The identities of the martial artists I wrote about were changed.  Further, in my early publications all the martial artists from Guangzhou whom I described in detail had left the People’s Republic of China, and were residing in Hong Kong, Macau, overseas or were deceased.  In summary, my ethnographic descriptions did not portray any martial artist then living in the People’s Republic of China, and any similarity to any individual residing in China was strictly unintentional and coincidental.

When I finished my fieldwork, I brought home dozens of recorded interviews and translated and transcribed interviews with martial artists, articles and works in Chinese about martial arts, books of field notes, photographs, Super 8mm film, and video-recordings.    My primary field advisor, Barbara E. Ward, a brilliant, generous, creative anthropologist, with an appointment at Cambridge, and founder of the Anthropology program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, asked me what I was going to do with all my marvelous ethnographic data.   I did not have the slightest idea of where to begin, and was immobile, petrified, buried under a mountain of stuff.   Barbara said, “OK, start with this,” and handed me a copy of James Liu’s work, “The Chinese Knight-Errant (1967).”  Liu discussed how martial arts have long been associated in Chinese culture with knight errantry, an ancient symbol of resistance against social constraints.  He described the Chinese knight errant as a playful warrior who is rebellious, loyal to friends, altruistic, courageous, an extreme individualist who despises society’s conventions, but desires honor and fame.  Liu’s Chinese knight errant sounded a lot like some of the martial artists I knew in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.  Even more Chinese martial artists told stories about people who were similar to the Chinese knights Liu described.

The point that Barbara was making when she handed me James Liu’s book was that you can have a mountain of ethnographic data, but if you don’t come around to having an accurate and useful understanding of what you’ve discovered, it can be useless.   Like many anthropologists of my generation, the work of Victor Turner helped to illuminate my data.  Carlos G. Velez, one of my dissertation committee members, greatly influenced me on the topic of social marginality, as did the work of my friend Jean DeBernardi on social marginality in Penang’s black societies.

I have used the ideas of my mentors and friends and of the scholars that I admire to analyze the data about martial artists that I brought back with me.  It is my hope that the lies I have told about Chinese martial artists have been honest ones, protecting them, while adding some light to the field.

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About the Author: Daniel M Amos has practiced martial arts for forty years, and has taught social science courses or been a faculty researcher at five Chinese and five U.S. universities, including the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Beijing Normal University, Wuhan University, Clark Atlanta University, and the University of Washington. He was awarded a PhD degree in Anthropology from UCLA in 1983.

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If you enjoyed this essay you might also want to read: Dr. Daniel Amos Discusses Marginality, Martial Arts Studies and the Modern Development of Southern Chinese Kung Fu

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