Introduction: What do historical documents reveal? Students of martial arts studies often investigate the various “discourses” which surround these fighting systems. Such discussions turn to the media (movies, TV programs, video games, internet postings, wuxia... Continue Reading →
Introduction We all know the story (and those who do not may want to quickly review the most popular version of it here). With the destruction of the Shaolin Temple at the hands of a fearful... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
“We now come to the most critical yet most prickly of all questions: does any of this matter beyond the martial arts and combat sports, symbolically rich but socially marginal activities after all…The greatest challenge that the fighting... Continue Reading →
“Without ‘letters,’ the effort to spread the martial arts across the nation is bound to fail.” -Cai Yangwu, a slogan of the Jingwu (Pure Martial) Association. Introduction: Books Are the Way It may... Continue Reading →
The Kukri in Three Symbolic Registers As regular readers will know, I have a keen interest in both the history of bladed weapons and vintage postcards. The kukri, a type of fighting knife from... Continue Reading →
Introduction: Rational Choice Theory in Martial Arts Studies This essay picks up on a few threads in my ongoing attempt to parse out whether there is a place for “rational choice theory” in martial... Continue Reading →
The following is guest post by Sixt Wetzler, dvs-Kommission Kampfkunst & Kampfsport (sixt.wetzler@gmail.com). While Martial Arts Studies is, by its very nature, an international and interdisciplinary subject, we generally see relatively little discussion of the scholarship that is happening in... Continue Reading →
Introduction: Is there room for rationality in the martial arts? The study of hand combat suggests many types of questions. Following the “levels of analysis” typology I tend to mentally organize these into three categories; the... Continue Reading →
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