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Kung Fu Tea

Martial Arts History, Wing Chun and Chinese Martial Studies.

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David Palmer on writing better martial arts history and understanding the sources of “Qi Cultivation” in modern Chinese popular culture.

  Catching Qigong Fever. I have read my fair share of books on religion in late imperial and modern China.  Unfortunately I had been neglecting a classic.  In 2007 David Palmer released a volume titled Qigong Fever: Body, Science and... Continue Reading →

The Book Club: The Shaolin Monastery by Meir Shahar, Chapters 5-Conclusion: Unarmed Combat in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

  Introduction This is the third and final installment of our in-depth review of Meir Shahar’s groundbreaking work, the Shaolin Temple.  Today we will be looking at the evolution of unarmed boxing in late Ming and Qing era China.  I... Continue Reading →

How Yoda Helped to Invent Kung Fu: Star Wars and the Martial Arts in the Western Imagination.

***I was surprised to run across this post in the blog's archives for 2012 as I generally think of Star Wars and lightsabers as a research interest that developed years later.  But apparently these were ideas that had been circulating... Continue Reading →

Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Martial Arts: Another Approach to Globalization and Chinese Martial Studies

***Greetings. Globalization has been a persistent theme here at Kung Fu Tea. It is a topic that occupied much of my thinking as a professor of political economy, and it continues to be a shaping force within the study and... Continue Reading →

Traditional Chinese Medicine and Qigong in the Wing Chun Community

  Martial Arts and Globalization in late 19th and early 20th century China. In my previous post I proposed a framework for using globalization and the liberalization of China’s economy in the 1980s and 1990s to understand the progressive “medicalization”... Continue Reading →

Chinese Martial Arts in the News: October 14th, 2013: Kung Fu Diplomacy, Qi in the Western World and Saving the Chinese Martial Arts Film.

Introduction Welcome to another edition of Chinese Martial Arts in the news.  This is a semi-regular feature in which we review a roundup of media stories dealing with the martial arts over the last three to four weeks.  We try... Continue Reading →

From the Archives: David Palmer on writing better martial arts history and understanding the sources of “Qi Cultivation” in modern Chinese popular culture.

Qigong Fever. by David Palmer. Columbia University Press, 2007.  ****I would like to thank to all of the individuals who participated in the 2013 Kung Fu Tea Web Symposium on Chinese Martial Studies.  A special thanks is also in order... Continue Reading →

Leung Kai’s Ghost Story: Remembering a Modern Choy Li Fut Master.

Introduction Once again I find myself staying up late to write my Monday morning post.  I had originally planned on doing a news update, but given the hour I thought a ghost story might actually be more appropriate.  The following... Continue Reading →

Are the Internal Martial Arts the “Next Big Thing?”

  A lot of schools have that in their motto: mental, physical and spiritual. But when you get into the school, you just fight and do forms. When do we get to that part I see at the Shaolin Temple... Continue Reading →

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