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Views from the South – Martial Arts of Vietnam, Part I
Giáng long thôi sơn (“Descending dragon presses the mountain”)—Vietnamese martial artists training amidst Cham ruins in Bình Định of southcentral Vietnam. Source: ZingNews. ***Greetings! What...
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Martial Arts Studies: Issue 10 Release!
Paul Bowman and I are happy to announce that Issue 10 of Martial Arts Studies is now available. As always, this interdisciplinary peer reviewed journal is free to read or download by anyone with an...
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Lessons from the South – Martial Arts of Vietnam, Part II
Vietnamese martial artists training amidst Cham ruins in Bình Định of southcentral Vietnam.Source: ZingNews ***What follows in the second installment in our short guest series considering the...
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The Book Club: The Shaolin Monastery by Meir Shahar: Introduction and...
Tourists at the front gates of the Shaolin Temple. Note the large inscribed stone monuments that line the walk. ***Ah the book club! I had almost forgotten about these posts. They were a common...
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The Book Club: The Shaolin Monastery by Meir Shahar, Chapters 3-4: Monastic...
Front gates of the Shaolin Temple prior to the 1928 destruction. This photo was part of a Republic of China era survey of the temple grounds. Introduction Welcome back to the second installment of the...
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The Book Club: The Shaolin Monastery by Meir Shahar, Chapters 5-Conclusion:...
Early 19th Century Mural, Shaolin Temple. This work of art depicts the monks demonstrating their Martial Arts for a visiting Qing dignitary. Luckily this historically significant piece of art survived...
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A Social and Visual History of the Dadao: The Chinese “Military Big-Saber”
Nationalist troops in a trench, Dadaos at the ready. Photo was probably taken sometime in the 1930s. ***Is there any topic more beloved by modern students of Chinese martial arts history than the...
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Ip Man and the Roots of Wing Chun’s “Multiple Attacker” Principle, Part 1
Law Enforcement and the Martial Arts in Republican China The intersection between law enforcement and the development of the modern Chinese martial arts is a fascinating topic that deserves a lot more...
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Ip Man and the Roots of Wing Chun’s “Multiple Attacker” Principle, Part 2
Ip Man not only brought Wing Chun to Hong Kong, he also passed on a rich collection of principles and fighting strategies. Introduction and Review This is the second part of an extended article on Ip...
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Forgetting about the Gun: Firearms and the Development of the Southern...
Japanese Samurai by Ueno Hikoma, 1860s. Note the Enfield Two-Band Musket and large sword-bayonet that he carries in addition to a traditional katana worn across the back. This same musket was used as...
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Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming on the Development of the TCMA in North America
Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming. Source: from the personal collection of Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming. Introduction Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming generously sat down with Kung Fu Tea for a lengthy and wide ranging discussion of...
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Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (4): Sun Lutang and the Invention of the...
Self portrait of Sun Lutang, demonstrating Xingyi Quan for one of his five books. I am currently working on a paper that has me thinking about Sun Lutang again. To my mind he has always been one of...
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Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (4): Sun Lutang–Secrecy, Reform and the...
Antique map of Beijing circa 1888. This map represents the capital as Sun Lutang would have known it as a young man. While these sorts of maps lack modern scale, they often convey important social...
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Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (4): Sun Lutang’s Unified Theory of the...
Longsheng county, Guilin, China. Source: Wikimedia. Sun Lutang and the Field of Chinese Martial Studies This post is the third and final installment of our three part review of the life and...
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A Brief History of Nostalgia and the Future of the Martial Arts
Chinese Sword Dance. Vintage postcard. Source: Author’s personal collection. That Special Time of Year It must be that time of year again. December is the season in which Disney unleashes a new...
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Ip Man and the Prostitute: Female Sexuality as a Weapon in Traditional...
A classic postcard, circa 1920s. Introduction: Masculinity as a Core Value in the Traditional Southern Martial Arts. One of the few facts that everyone seems to “know” about Wing Chun is that the art...
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Two Decades of Chinese Martial Studies
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. On...
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Reconstructing the Tang Dao: Regionalism and Cultural Exchange
LK Chen’s Heng Dao. Source: LKchensword.com Introduction Regionalism has been all the rage in certain academic circles for at least a decade, though no field demonstrates the potential and...
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Chinese Martial Arts in the News: Jan 11, 2020: Taky Kimura, Shaolin and...
Bruce Lee and Taky Kimura Introduction It has been too long since our last news update. For new readers, this is a semi-regular feature here at Kung Fu Tea in which we review media stories that...
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Inventing MMA: Martial Arts Between Culture, Media and Sport
Starting the Commotion: An Early UFC Logo “Inventing MMA: Martial Arts Between Culture, Media and Sport” By Dr. Kyle Barrowman Introduction: Traditional Thinking In the Preface to his recent...
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