The rhinoceros-hide armor was of seven folds or links, one over another; the wild-buffalo's-hide armor was of six folds or links; and the armor, made of two hides together was of five folds or links. The rhinoceros-hide armor would endure... Continue Reading →
***Greetings! Here is one of my earlier attempts to talk about the topic of theory within martial arts studies (from back in 2012, when there was a lot less of it). It is one area where my thinking has... Continue Reading →
***Greeting readers, and thank you for your continued patience. Today we are going to revisit a review of a Wing Chun documentary that I wrote back in the Fall of 2012. This turned out to be one of two... Continue Reading →
An Invaluable Inventory In 1993 local residents in Yinwan (Donghai county, Jiangsu Province) made a remarkable discovery. They uncovered a group of relatively well-preserved flooded tombs dating back to the Han dynasty. Only two of these tombs have been... Continue Reading →
Introduction Ok, here is a fun post that I originally wrote in 2012 that really needs to be updated. So many new articles and books have come out in the last eight years (including ones written by myself) that I... Continue Reading →
Martial Arts Studies blogging is a hard habit to break. No sooner had I resolved to step away from more academic questions and spend a few months writing about Wing Chun practice and history than I came across an... Continue Reading →
The Emergence of the Dao “The Chinese martial arts that we practice today tend to be a recent phenomenon.” This is something that I have said on this blog many times, but what does it actually mean? Our earliest extent... Continue Reading →
Introduction I have always wondered about the Song period (960-1279) and its connection to the modern Chinese martial arts (let’s say 1850 to the present). One could be forgiven for placing the genesis of our current systems sometime in... Continue Reading →
This post started life as a book review, but as I thought about what I actually wanted to say it quickly became a different sort of essay. It was inspired by Janet O’Shea’s 2019 Oxford UP Press, Risk, Failure,... Continue Reading →
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