A painting of Hua Mulan.

***We are currently in the final push to prepare and release the second issue of the interdisciplinary journal Martial Arts Studies.  This will be a themed issue examining different aspects of the “invention of the martial arts” in a wide variety of settings and time periods.   Paul Bowman and I are very excited about the selection of articles and reviews that we will be presenting later this week.  But at the moment all hands are needed for the final round of proof-reading, editing and otherwise preparing the issue for its impending release.  As such we will be revisiting an important discussion from the archives, touching on the prehistory of the Wing Chun mythos, for today’s post.  Enjoy!****

I propose to speak on fairy-stories, though I am aware that this is a rash adventure.  Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold.  And overbold I may be accounted, for though I have been a lover of fairy-stories since I learned to read, and have at times thought about them, I have not studied them professionally.  I have been hardly more than a wandering explorer (or trespasser) in the land, full of wonder but not of information.

J.R.R.Tolkien. “On Fairy Stories.” 1939.

Introduction

These are the words with which J.R.R. Tolkien, the distinguished author and professor of English, began the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews.  The entire essay is well worth reading.  Tolkien had devoted considerable thought to the growth and evolution of stories and he was well aware that they take on a life of their own.  If we were to substitute the words “martial arts mythology” for “fairy stories,” the preceding quote sums up many of my feelings towards our own subject.

The early Republic of China period generated an enormous body of new martial arts folklore.  As a community we are still identifying, contemplating and digesting a lot of this material.  Some critics, upon learning that the wine they drink is not of the vintage that they first assumed, are prone to dismiss the entire exercise as a fraud.  They wish to get as far back into the “authentic martial arts” as they can and often see the relatively late Republic period as one of hucksters “diluting the arts.”  Yet in most instances the wine actually tasted pretty good before anyone stopped to take a closer look at the label.

Herein lies our dilemma.  Many of the elements of the traditional arts that are the most popular today, generating the most excitement with audiences in both the East and the West, are not the ancient and “authentic” material, but rather the later innovations of the 1920s and 1930s.  If we were to simply throw out everything that was “new” and return to some arbitrarily dictated “golden age” (1800, 1600, 1100, 500…….) we would not just discard a lot of recent marketing, but also much of what attracts people to the traditional Chinese martial arts in the first place.

Consider for example the Wing Chun creation myth.  Wing Chun is one of Southern China’s more recent boxing styles.  Its mythology claims that the arts dates back to the 1720s at the earliest, whereas most hand combat schools prefer to situate their genesis at an even earlier point in China’s long history.

Almost all of these claims are massively exaggerated.  Yet ironically the order of the points on the timeline is approximately correct.  Wing Chun is a younger art.  Its first organization probably dates to the middle of the 19^th century and it was later reformed in the Republic period.

This relative newness has done nothing to prevent the art from generating a rich body of folklore.  Its mythology even has some interesting and unique features.  For instance, students often marveled that Wing Chun is one of the few martial arts from China to be “invented by a woman.”

Nor does this association with the feminine principal appear to be some sort of fluke.  Both the creator of the art (Ng Moy, a survivor of the destruction of Shaolin) and her student, (Yim Wing Chun, who was forced to fight a challenge match to prevent a forced marriage) were women.  It was only in the third generation that male students entered the art.

The gender of these two individuals had a profound effect on the development of Wing Chun.  Ng Moy began with the standard Shaolin arts, but after becoming a recluse in South West China she had a vision of a crane fighting a snake.  Only after this revelation was she able to combine both evasive movements and structured direct attacks in a way that would allow a smaller fighter, like a woman, to overcome a much larger and stronger opponent.

Of course Ng Moy was a master of the martial arts.  Her abilities are the stuff of legend.  The real question was whether this system could be taught to a new student, one without any physical advantage or extensive training in the martial arts?

Female student studying Wushu in a scene from Inigo Westmeier’s Dragon Girls.

The story of Yim Wing Chun provides us with the perfect proof of concept.  The older woman takes the young daughter of a tofu merchant to her mountain retreat where she initiates her into the mysteries of her art.  Upon descending from the mountain the young girl promptly proves that a smaller person can defeat a much larger opponent by employing the proper principals and structures.  Fittingly it was Yim Wing Chun who gave her name to the art.

Modern Wing Chun students still love this story.  I have provided only the briefest outline of it above, but it is rich in meaning and symbolism.  It is amazing how much understanding a thoughtful reader can pull out of it.

The only problem is that this myth is generally read as a historical account.  In fact it is a piece of popular literature.  I say literature, rather than folklore, quite intentionally.  This is not the sort of thing that orally evolved over a long period of time, at least not in its present form.

Rather, some individual, probably working in the 1930s, sat down and appropriated certain stock characters from Wuxia martial arts novels that had been recently published in the area, possibly combined them with older traditions from the White Crane or Hung Gar clan, added in what might be an authentic (or partially-authentic) genealogical name list, and consciously composed the story that we have today.   I have already discussed the details of this process (particularly as they apply to the evolution of the character Ng Moy) elsewhere.

Nevertheless, this story was not created in a vacuum.  If it was it would be easy for students of Chinese martial studies to ignore it.  One could simply write it off as a flight of fancy or as a particularly effective advertising gambit.

I do not think that this would be very wise in the present case.  To begin with, it is an interesting (and fairly sophisticated) example of the sort of storytelling that was going on all over the hand combat community.  The martial art story telling tradition was not new.  There had been a vibrant market in cheaply printed martial arts novels throughout the late Qing.  But it was usually authors and publishers who generated the mythology.  Martial artists seem to have been more concerned with their military, law enforcement, operatic or criminal careers.

As the nature of the economy changed in the early 20^th century the creation of public commercial hand combat schools became a possibility.  Each of these newly created institutions discovered that they needed the sort of historical authenticity that can only be provided by a really compelling backstory.  Schools from earlier periods may have had their own backstories as well, but most of the ones that we possess now date from the early years of the 20^th century, or just a little earlier.

Other things changed beyond the sheer volume of stories that were published.  New types of characters emerged.  One of the most interesting things about the Republic period literature was the sudden proliferation of female heroes in these stories.

Traditionally wuxia novels, like the martial arts themselves, had been a male dominated domain.  It is true that there are occasional references to female knights-errant in some of the older works.  There is even a female hero in the classic novel Water Margin.  But these figures were very much the exception that proved the rule.

Very rarely did women appear in older martial stories and when they were mentioned it was almost never in a heroic capacity.  Instead they were often used as a malignant plot device to give the male hero a chance to “restore the proper social order.”

All of this begins to change in the Republic period.  Certain reform movements (most notably Jingwu) began to actively teach and cultivate female martial artists, giving them an increased prominence in society.  But even before that there was an explosion of female characters in martial arts stories.  These characters manage to break out of the stereotyped roles of “virgin-martyr” and “femme fatale” and become actual heroines.  They also appeared in a wide range of stories, from the comic to the historic and even the tragic.

This literary trend should be remembered when reading the story of Yim Wing Chun and Ng Moy.  There are certainly older stories of female warriors, but these two characters were imagined and put to paper at the height of the popular interest in martial arts heroines.  The very fact that the Wing Chun creation narrative focuses so closely on a pair of female warriors, and is so self-conscious in its discussion of how a smaller and weaker “female” body could defeat a stronger and larger “male” one, is yet another piece of circumstantial evidence that we are dealing with a literary creation of the early-mid Republic of China period.

The thing that I find most interesting about all of this, and which most discussions tend to ignore, is that a story which was explicitly composed to address the tastes and needs of individuals in Southern China in the 1930s can continue to speak so strongly to individuals on the other side of the world today.  That is a remarkable achievement and one to be admired.

Martial arts fiction is actually much more complicated than something like wine, which simply improves with age.  It is more like a gourmet soup.  It has many ingredients, some of which blend imperceptibly together, while others stand out providing high notes and a sense of depth.  To the uniformed it may look as though the chef simply pours everything into the pot and stirs, but there is usually some very important selection that goes into a good recipe, or story.

Is it possible to look at these stories and guess what ingredients went into them?  Can we understand how the 1920s narratives of female warriors were constructed and why they struck such a cord with audiences?  Certain large elements within the Wing Chun narrative are easily identified, though it is hard to ascertain what their original form was before they went into the pot.

The female creator of Yong Chun White Crane can be seen in both the later stories of Ng Moy and Yim Wing Chun.  Further, the Cantonese Opera Singers with their ill-fated rebellion is easily distinguished.

Professor Tolkien at Oxford University. Incidentally this is what an academic office is supposed to look like!

But what else can we detect floating in the broth?  What sorts of ideas about female warriors were common in popular culture and why did they start to rise to the top at the end of the Qing dynasty?    In the same essay that I quoted earlier Tolkien warns that such an enterprise is difficult and possibly not as profitable as it might be hoped:

 “…with regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them. In Dasent’s words I would say: ‘We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.’”

In both literary and ethnographic terms his advice is sound.  Once we have separated our dinner into its various components it will no longer be “soup.”  In the quest for the bones we will have lost some of the emergent properties that made these stories so powerful and interesting to us in the first place.  Still, to the historian bones can be a useful thing.

Tang Saier: Buddha Mother and Rebel Warlord

David Robinson, in his book on Ming social history (Bandits, Eunuchs and the Son of Heaven, Hawaii UP, 2001), argues quite convincingly that we have generally underestimated the importance of violence in daily life during even relatively peaceful eras of dynastic history.   China’s history was literally written by Confucian scholars who saw the word in deeply ideological terms.  They sought to promote a certain vision of the past so as to guide the decisions of rulers in the future.  In their narrative violence is a tragic aberration, or the result of social disorder in either society or the court.

Robinson instead argued that violence was a regular feature of daily life in late imperial China.  The government and the military were chronically underfunded and understaffed.  Without the cooperation of local “men of action” it was impossible to accomplish any task from clearing the road of bandits to collecting tax payments.  There was an actual “economy of violence” that stretched through all levels of society, from the highest eunuchs at the court down to village thugs.  This market in violence was just as complicated, and essential to the good governance of the kingdom, as any other aspect of the economy.

It should come as no surprise then to learn that the sphere of women often intersected with the economy of violence.  The Venn-diagram of China was simply not big enough to keep these two massive cultural areas from intersecting.  Then as now women were often victims of violence.  But at other times they were actually independent agents in these destructive cycles.

Consider for instance the social upheaval caused by the Yongle Emperor (1360-1424).  Hongwu, the first Emperor of the Ming dynasty, left a complicated succession situation at the time of his death.  After his first son preceded him, the Emperor decided that the throne should go to his primary grandson (reign title Jianwen), rather than his own next inline surviving son.  The younger, militarily minded, son of Hongwu would not let this slight pass, especially when Jianwen started to eliminate his powerful siblings.  After a successful military campaign Yongle was able to oust his nephew and capture both the capital and the throne for himself.

Unfortunately it was easier to capture the physical space occupied by the capital than the hearts and mind of its inhabitants.  Many important officials flatly refused to serve the new Emperor, and were murdered (along with their families) as a result.  In an attempt to consolidate his legitimacy, and address long standing tactical problems, Yongle ordered that the capital be moved north to Beijing.

This too was easier said than done.  Beijing had been devastated by disease and disaster.  It needed to be rebuilt.  New walls and a grand palace (the Forbidden City) had to be constructed.  Nor could this be done in an economic vacuum.  Other northern economic and population centers also had to be upgraded to shelter and service the new capital.  Even the Grand Canal had to be restored.

This was a massively expensive undertaking.  To finance it the tax role needed to be restored and huge amounts of waste-land had to be reclaimed and tilled.  Vast numbers of workers were necessary to carry out all of these tasks.  Labor was the one item the one item that the Yongle Emperor had in relative abundance.  Nevertheless, tapping those reserves turned out to be more expensive than he imagined.

In order to carry out the various rebuilding projects large numbers of peasants from poverty stricken, and notoriously rebellious, Shandong province were pushed into government labor corvees.  These demands upset the economic and social situation in the area, leading the normal banditry and millennial movements to morph into something much more dangerous, open rebellion.

A painting depicting Tang Saier opposing the troops of the Yongle Emperor.  Note the paired sabers, favored by a number of China’s literary heroines.

One of the critical leaders of this movement was Tang Saier, a woman.  Along with her husband she was successful in leading a group of rebels in the capture of a number of walled cities in Shandong starting in 1420.  In each case the imperial representatives were murdered and her band gained more followers.  Eventually she commanded a rebel army that numbered in the tens of thousands.

Tang Saier used what social roles were available to her in crafting her public political personality.  On the one hand he posed as a self-styled female knight-errant.  Like other warriors from this mold she was seen as fighting both against injustice and for the establishment of the proper social order.  And by all account she was an active and successful military leader.

Prof. Victoria Cass has pointed out that there was also another aspect to her persona.  She was widely seen as a religious adept.  As the de facto “god-mother” of the area’s White Lotus movement she was expected to display the signs of mystical (and even magical) attainment.  Stories circulated that enemy weapons could not harm her, or that she had come into possession of her martial skills when she found an arcane text and a magical sword in a mountain cave.  Some claimed that she was chosen by the Primal Mother of the Nine Heavens, the problematic patron saint of female mystics, recluses and warriors.  Others, including her troops, called her “Mother Buddha.”

This mixing of the martial and magical is typical for millennial uprisings in northern China.  The same basic patterns will reemerge in the rebellions of the late 19^th century.  However, Prof. Cass points out that the thematic mixing of the mystic and martial archetypes was much more common in female warriors and military leaders than male ones.  To their followers these miracles were signs that the leader was a true adept who followed the dictates of heaven.  To the state they were evidence of dangerous sorcery and a threat to the established social order that went well beyond the purely military potential of such groups.

The Yongle Emperor may have been particularly vulnerable to the challenge posed by a movement like Tang Saier’s.  Clearly he would have remembered that his own grandfather used his leadership of a millennial army to seize control of the state and establish his own dynasty.  Further, Yongle was moving the capital to the north at a time when his legitimacy was still a sore spot.  He showed little restraint in crushing the new rebellion in Shandong.

What happened next was remarkable.  The imperial army was able to destroy the poorly armed, fed and trained rebels.  Yet after an extensive search they failed to catch Tang Saier.

Obviously the first rule of fighting a messianic figure is not to let her get away, thereby establishing expectations of an imminent return backed by heavenly armies.  In a symbolic sense the legitimacy of the Yongle Emperor’s reigns was based on his ability to find and punish dangerous heterodox leaders who threatened the kingdom with chaos.  This is what it meant to be the “Son of Heaven.”  Yet in this case the search yielded nothing.

The Emperor was incensed and decided (reasonably) that the only way that Tang Saier could evade imperial justice for so long was if someone was hiding her.  Of course there were not that many bases of independent power in the poorer regions of northern China.  The gentry in the area was weak, and most of the big rebel bands had just been crushed.  That left the temples and monasteries, institutions which the state viewed as potentially problematic at the best of times.  It would have been all too easy for Tang Saier to blend into the poorly regulated local religious landscape as either a Daoist or Buddhist adept.

The Emperor’s agents turned their attention to the area’s religious institutions.  On imperial orders the region’s entire population of nuns (both Buddhist and Daoist) was put under arrest and brought to the new capital for questioning.   It was illegal to take up a religious vocation without a license from the government.  These were highly regulated and generally only given to the educated and orthodox.  One can only assume that a huge number of “unofficial” Buddhists and Daoists clergy were returned to the tax role, as well as the land owned by their temples and sanctuaries.  This sweep of the local religious landscape would have been a great help to the Emperor’s efforts to establish de facto social control over northern China.

The one thing it did not accomplish was locating Tang Saier.  Like the later “Elders of Shaolin” and Ng Moy, she successfully evaded the imperial dragnet and was never heard from again.  This was a major embarrassment for the government.  An individual bandit warlord or rebel might evade capture and no one outside of the effected region would really know or care.  But the move against Shandong’s religious community was an event on such a massive scale that it could not be kept secret.  Now everyone knew who Tang Saier was, and they knew that she had gotten away.

The wife of a Chinese general circa 1810. Notice that both she and her female attendant are armed. Source: Digital Collections of the New York Public Library.

The Literary After-life of Tang Saier

There is a lot we do not know about Tang Saier.  It turns out that much of what we know about the birth, death and lives of important rebel leaders is glean from imperial records.  These in turn reflect interrogation and trial documents as well official reports.  Given that she was never captured we actually don’t have a clear idea of when she was born or died.

This lack of basic biographical facts has not stopped a rich literature, some political, but most fictional, from springing up around her.  The Ming vilified her as a witch and sorcerer.  Qing historians reevaluated her legacy, and Republic and later Communist historians noted that she fought against what amounted to legalized slavery.

Tang proved to be too charismatic and mysterious a figure to ever disappear from popular discussions, either at the level of local folklore (where she is still remembered) or in the more elite literature.  Ironically an “outsider” like the rebel Tang Saier became the perfect vehicle for a certain group of 18^th century Ming loyalists to criticize the political and social conventions of their day.

The first (surviving) novel about Tang Saier was published in 1711 by Lu Xiong.  Lu was highly educated but on the orders of his father (a Ming loyalist) he never sat for the imperial exams, and instead became a physician.  Apparently Lu shared many of his father’s political views and he employed Tang’s criticism of the Yongle Emperor as a screen to comments on much more recent events without running afoul of the censors.

His novel, titled Nuxain Waishi (The Unofficial History of the Female Immortal), was shared widely in manuscript form before it was published and it had many admirers.  The first edition appears to have been fairly successfully.  Unfortunately, the novel was closely tied to a critique of events in the opening years of the 18^th century, and as such it was not widely read by succeeding generations, except perhaps by those with an interest in martial arts fiction.  The sweeping nature of its heterodox claims may have also impacted its popularity.  For more on this work and its reception see The Sword or the Needle: The Female Knight Errant (Xia) in Traditional Chinese Narrative by Roland Altenburger (Peter Lang Publishing, 2009).

Perhaps the lasting contribution of this work was its discussion of gender.  Altenburger notes that the novel seems to totally uproot traditional hierarchies and this includes extolling the martial virtues and potential of Yin, or female energies, while at the same time “deflating” male figures and archetypes.  In previous novels female swordsman succeeded only by becoming, in effect, “honorary men.”  Yet that is not the strategy of the heaven-sent protagonist of Nuxain Waishi.  This fictionalized version of Tang represents the Yin energies of the moon and she embraces them to use them to their full advantage.

This choice raises a pressing question.  How can a smaller weaker female body triumph in the intensely physical realm of the knight-errant, where one is expected to meet you enemy not just through strategy (long seen as the strong suit of female warriors) but also through force of arms?  For Lu the answer was clear.  Tang was renown as a female Daoist adept, so the answer must be magic.

While somewhat jarring to modern readers I think this move makes a lot of sense.  The Yin forces of corruption and chaos had always been feared on the battlefield.  As late as the end of the 19^th century military leaders in China had attempted to co-opt Yin magic and turn it to their own ends.  It was entirely in keeping with character for Lu to endow his heroine with these same abilities.

Nuxain Waishi may have had a limited readership, but many of its themes went on to influence other, more important novels.   Altenburger notes a number of intertextual dependencies between it and Xianxia Wu Huajian (Five Flower Swords of the Immortal Knights, 1900).  This novel, published under the pseudonym “The Shanghai Sword Freak” by Sun Jiazhen, had a much deeper impact on the development of the modern martial arts novel.

Sales of the initial publication were quite good.  It was so popular that in the early Republic era many authors wrote unauthorized “sequels” hoping to cash in on its success.  In fact, so many people were profiting from the work that its real author actually decided to get in on the act and write a sequel of his own which he had never originally intended to produce.  In this way Sun’s initial story spawned an entire group of novels.  This body of literature, all of which was connected to the memory of Tang Saier, helped to popularize the idea of the female knight errant and set the stage for its the subsequent explosion in the popular consciousness.

Like other authors before him, Sun was forced to ask where exactly a female martial artist would receive her skill or strength from.  Sadly none of these story tellers were actually connected with the real martial arts, so once again magic seemed like a plausible answer.  But this magic had to be different from that employed in the 1711 novel.

In the earlier story Tang was reimagined as a heavily emissary.  She was an embodied immortal sent to protect the legitimate Ming emperor from his corrupt uncle.  But in Flower Sword the plot is more complicated.  A group of immortals are sent to convey their skills, but they must recruit human disciples who are responsible for fighting the battles of this world.  Ultimately the story develops a gender balanced cast of characters. But how do these fully-human females survive in their new calling?

This time it is Daoist alchemy that is specifically invoked.  Human male martial artists recruited by the brotherhood need no physical augmentation to learn the superhuman techniques of the immortals.  Female recruits, however, are given a pill made through alchemical processes.  It strengthens them and hardens their bodies, as well as replacing their bones with light.  Still, the process leaves them in essence female.  They are not so much endowed with Yang properties as made capable of defending themselves through their Yin powers.  They must also master their boxing skills the old fashioned way, through practice.

This sort of flashy external alchemy allows for exciting plots and tense confrontations between good and evil.  Yet at the same time that this is coming out Sun Lutang is starting to publish his own martial philosophy, now available to the middle class reading public.  In these works he too claims that a combination of martial arts and Daoist practices could renew health and promote longevity.  However, for Sun the alchemical furnace that powers this transformation is the internal one.  It goes without saying that his ideas were the more reasonable ones, but ultimately it was the thriller wuxia novels that sold more copies.

Chinese post card showing a young girl studying a sword routine as her teacher looks on.

Conclusion

Tolkien’s initial warnings should be carefully considered.  It is a difficult and dangerous thing to take a living story and try to understand where it came from.  Difficult because in the process of writing, information is not just conveyed, it is twisted, molded and recombined in irrevocable ways.  Once you have made the ox into a soup there is no way to reconstruct the draft animal, let alone to understand its place in an early agrarian society.  The exercise is dangerous as stories are written for a reason, and in breaking them down into a series of interconnected parts we are prone to miss the emergent properties of the system as a whole.  Those were, after all, what attracted most readers or listeners in the first place.

Still, we have learned some important facts about the evolution of Chinese popular culture.  It is certainly true that the motif of the female martial artists exploded in popularity in the early Republic period.  We cannot analyze and understand the Wing Chun creation myth, or many other modern hand combat legends, if we divorce them from this setting.

Yet we have also discovered that this motif has much deeper roots in Chinese literature and culture.  It is possible to find stories of important female warriors in practically every period of Chinese history.  For the sake of brevity I restricted the current essay to an examination of a single figure from the Ming dynasty, but this exercise could be repeated any number of times.

Tang Saier is interesting to us for a number of reasons.  Obviously the story of a female religious adept turned warrior has many echoes in the folklore of the southern Chinese martial arts.  Her evasion of the Yongle Emperor’s attempts to reassert control over the temples and arrest the nuns even prefigures the development of literary figures like Ng Moy in important ways.

Yet what is really remarkable is the relative ease with which we can trace the development of stories based on her life and their subsequent incorporation into modern literature.  It may not be possible to identify all of the source material behind the Wing Chun creation myth, but stories like this one certainly helped to give it flavor.

Of course one central question remains unanswered.  We have now seen how the idea of the female knight-errant exploded in Republic era popular literature, but why did this trend emerge in the first place?  And what relationship, if any, did it have to the transformation of China’s traditional hand combat systems?  We will pursue these questions in a future post.

“In the case of Tai Chi however, the major defining feature of hybridity, the sense of mixture and the equal status of the different cultures involving in the mixture, is absent.  In the eyes of its UK practitioners Tai Chi is not a combination or mixture of Chinese and English bodily/spiritual disciplines.  On the contrary, they consider their practices to be more authentic and original than their contemporary Chinese counterparts, since they see them as having a direct linkage to Tai Chi’s ancient lineage and continuing a tradition which they claim was lost in Communist China.  As we will see, in fact, they have added, deleted, adopted and distorted practices derived from their Chinese (or English) masters in a continuous process of translation based on an imagined construction of Chineseness.”

Gehao Zhang.  2010. “Invented Tradition and Translated Practices: The Career of Tai Chi in the West.” Doctoral Thesis, Loughborough University. P. 16

Introduction

Other commitments have taken me away from blogging over the last few weeks.  The Spring 2016 issue of Martial Arts Studies (now available for download) required attention, as did the draft of my paper for this year’s conference at the University of Cardiff in July.  I recently finished a first draft of what will be my keynote address, but it will still require work over the next week or so.

These commitments also distracted me from something else that I had been working on.  Recently I received a copy of Prof. Gehao Zheng’s dissertation “Invented Tradition and Translated Practices: The Career of Tai Chi in the West.” Given that the theme of our recent journal issue was “The Invention of Martial Arts,” I had been reading this with a great deal of interest.  Unfortunately I was not able to finish his manuscript before other commitments caught up with me, but it is something that I intend to return to once things settle down.

Gehao’s discussion of the cultural appropriation of Taijiquan in the West is significant.  And while many of these sorts of studies tend to focus on events in America I found his case-study of the British community quite interesting.  In short, this is the sort of dissertation that warrants a close reading.

Unfortunately that will have to wait for later.   This will be a much lighter essay as I attempt to ease back into my writing schedule.

In today’s post I would like to focus on a single passage from his introductory discussion which I have been mulling over for the last few weeks.  While it speaks directly to the process by which Taijiquan has been received in the West, it carries some basic insights applicable to discussions of all sorts of martial arts.  In fact, it is not hard to spot many of the same basic trends that he notes at work in the Wing Chun community (the area of the traditional arts with which I have the greatest familiarity).

Consider the following observation, “As we will see, in fact, they have added, deleted, adopted and distorted practices derived from their Chinese (or English) masters in a continuous process of translation based on an imagined construction of Chineseness.”  When thinking about the cultural appropriation or translation of the Asian martial arts I think there is a tendency to simplify, or see only a single aspect of this process.

Yet Gehao notes that a community’s preexisting beliefs about the nature of Chinese identity (as well as their own cultural identity) can actually result in a number of strategies of translation.  Here he quickly lists four possibilities.  Obviously his dissertation takes a more nuanced approach and introduces additional concepts.

Nevertheless, over the last few weeks I have decided that I like this simple formulation as it is both easy to remember and reminds us to look for an entire constellation of changes.  To quickly explore the utility of these four descriptive concepts, this post will consider some of the ways that Wing Chun, a traditional martial art hailing from Southern China, has been “translated” into an American commercial and cultural context.  As Gehao found in the case of Taijiquan, popular ideas about the nature of Chinese identity would have an important impact on the resulting reconstruction of Wing Chun in the West.

Added, Deleted, Adopted and Distorted

Before delving into this discussion a few caveats are in order.  As much as we might want to practice our art in a “perfect” and pristine state, we should admit that this is probably not possible.  We might also go further and ask why the idea of “purity of transmission” has gained such a hold on the popular discussion of the martial arts?  What set of values and desires does this rhetoric advance?  How are they different in the West than China?

In reality cultural translation is an unavoidable process whenever a given set of practices or identities crosses global and cultural borders.  There have even been substantial periods of “translation” within China itself as the martial arts went from being a mostly rural, occupationally focused, pursuit in the 19^th century to being promoted as a nationally focused urban, middle class hobby in the 20^th.

Given that none of us are Cantonese speaking tradesmen living in Foshan in the 1850s, our understanding and embodied experience of Wing Chun must be different from Leung Jan’s.  The notion that “identity moves” (to borrow a memorable turn of phrase from Adam Frank) is not an inherently bad thing.  While the process of cultural translation inevitably changes something about an identity or sets of practices as it seeks to make them legible in a very different context, we do not need to view the end product of this process as inherently illegitimate.  This is not to imply that one cannot find better or more unfortunate examples of such translations within the martial arts world.

How can we understand the sorts of transformations that we are likely to see?  As Western practitioners of these systems attempt to make sense of their arts they are forced to negotiate their own experience of these practices with an inevitably imperfect understanding of Chinese identity.  When the transmitted techniques do not conform to their culturally conditioned expectations, change is often the result.

First, “additions” might be made to a system.  These sometimes take the form of core Western cultural values being read onto an Asian art.  In other cases what is added is an inappropriate element of Asian culture or philosophy so that the practice better meets Western expectations about what an “Oriental” art should be.

On the opposite end of the spectrum certain practices or elements of identity might be “deleted” from a westernized version of an art.  Again, specific cultural elements that do not match Western expectations often receive this treatment.

The traditional Chinese martial arts were often rigidly located with regards to questions of social class and gender in ways that would make students in liberal western countries uncomfortable.  While their modern schools often go to great lengths to demonstrate how “traditional” they are, no one that I am aware of refuses to teach women, or prohibits physical contact between unrelated men and women in class even though that would have been a common taboo at the time that Wing Chun was first formulated.  What was once an important set of practices regarding the construction and maintenance of masculinity within a Chinese cultural context has simply been deleted with very little notice.

In addition to these first two responses, Western students might also strategically “adopt” certain practices and identities which fit their expectations about Asian culture.  While relatively few Western martial artists seem inclined to actually learn the native language of their arts (often a daunting challenge), many nevertheless make the mastery of foreign language names and labels something of a fetish.  Yet to Western students this vocabulary often carries connotations that are quite different from how the same terms might be perceived by a native speaker.  Paradoxically, attempts to achieve linguistic accuracy by avoiding the processes of “translation” can actually lead to even greater levels of cultural mystification.

Lastly there is the problem of “distortion.”  In my own experience there are a number of ways that distortion might arise.  The first is a simple misunderstanding.  The lack of cultural and linguistic expertise noted in the previous examples suggests that fighting against the tide of this distortion is the daily work of a dedicated martial arts student seeking a serious encounter with their chosen art.

Distortions are also likely to arise because of the very nature of cultural appropriation.  Once a practice has come to be socially accepted and commercially successful, consumers and students will naturally begin to hybridize the values of their chosen practice with the (often quite different) social discourses that surround them.  Consider how often we encounter advertising materials promoting the health benefits of Kung Fu within the commercially driven paradigm of western athleticism.  It is simply human nature to want all good things to fit together.

In truth the culture of Taekwondo that is practiced in strip malls across America is quite different from that which is seen in Korean military units.  And yet there is an almost universal tendency to accept one’s own vision of the art as uniquely legitimate.  This was one of the more interesting aspects of Gehao’s discussion which I hope to explore in future posts.

Ip Man Comes to America

Each of these four strategies have shaped the cultural translation of Wing Chun in the United States.  Perhaps the most notable changes have been the additions.

One of the great challenges that the Chinese martial arts faced in making themselves legible to Western consumers was the prior success of their Japanese cousins.  While Chinese practices tended to be treated somewhat dismissively as boxing, juggling or “sword dancing,” the Western reading public seems to have had a healthy (and remarkably nuanced) appreciation of the Japanese martial arts by the early years of the 20^th century.

This early familiarity (and in some cases practice) was amplified by the experience of WWII in which returning GI’s imported an interest in Judo, Karate and (to a much lesser extent) Kendo.  The sorts of Japanese hand combat systems that existed at this period shaped the public’s perfection of what a “traditional Asian martial art” should look like.

The American public quickly came to expect exotic uniforms and colored belts.  Classes were regimented and often reflected the military values of the individuals who brought them back to the US.  And the martial philosophy of Judo and Karate quickly came to be seen as generically “Asian” in nature.

All of this gave the Japanese a substantial “first mover” advantage in the Western marketplace.  In comparison the Chinese hand combat systems did not look like martial arts at all.  The relationship between Chinese teachers and students tended to be much less structured and idiosyncratic.  A formal class curriculum was the exception rather than the norm.  Most Chinese folk styles did not revolve around the idea of regular progression tests and colored belts.  And while the Japanese donned their white gi’s, their Chinese counterparts tended to work out in western style street clothes or t-shirts.  Somehow the Chinese martial arts managed to be both too exotic for comfort and yet not quite “Asian” enough.

Of course almost all of these Japanese “traditions” are of rather recent vintage, reflecting efforts made to modernize their martial arts and introduce them into the education system in the first half of the 20^th century.  But the end result was that traditional Kung Fu systems (like Wing Chun) did not always conform to consumers expectations about what a martial art should be.

Chinese Sifu’s (and later their first generation of Western students) were quick to accommodate their new students.  Uniforms were bought, tests for various sorts of colored belts were created, and instruction was standardized.  Thus much of the institutional and organizational infrastructure seen in any Western Wing Chun school today is an example of the ways in which “additions” are used to bring a preexisting set of practices in-line with our current expectations about what a “real” Asian martial arts should be.

The flip side of this process is the deletion.  As was mentioned above, most traditional Chinese arts were situated within local society in very specific ways.  Individual schools were often aligned with specific social, political, economic or even criminal factions.  There was a strong correlation between the practice of boxing and economic marginality.  Nor were women welcome in most traditional training environments.

The story of the cultural translation of these systems has in large part been the abandonment, and even conscious inversion, of each of these realities.  The sorts of neighborhood social structures that supported the martial arts during the Republic period simply do not exist in the West.  Further, the popularity of Daoist and Buddhist philosophy among counter-culture elements in the Western society led to a situation in which egalitarian readings of Asian society were privileged and assumed to be universal.  Gender and racial discrimination in training never carried the same weight on this side of the Pacific.

This example is a valuable reminder that not all changes are negative.  In fact, the judicious use of “deletions” is necessary if the traditional arts wish to survive in a global environment.  Reformers within the Chinese martial arts have understood this since at least the end of the Boxer Rebellion.  Yet the Confucian emphasis on “faithful transmission” of traditional practices and methods means that many of the same people who actively innovate within the martial arts must also work the hardest to maintain the air of “timeless immutability.”

A number of adoptions are also visible within the American Wing Chun community.  The rigid adherence to a set body of forms, training routines, creation myths and conceptual framework allows for the maintenance of truly transnational clan of practitioners.

Still, the preservation of certain forms or ideas can become yet another site of “Orientalization” within the martial arts.  Perhaps there is no more classic example of this than the many contortions that happen around the concept of “Qi” and “internal training.”  While these concepts do not play as central a role in Wing Chun as they do in Taijiquan, they remain a source of speculation.  In fact, certain of his Western-grand students seem to focus on these concepts more than Ip Man himself did.  A similar tendency is also seen in an emphasis on traditional Chinese medicine.  It is often forgotten that this was not particularly popular in Hong Kong during the 1960s-1970s, and certainly not to the same degree that it became on the mainland after the 1990s.

While the rise and fall of the popularity of TCM is a historically bounded (and frequently studied) phenomenon in China, Western consumers have essentialized it.  As such, students of a Chinese martial art may feel a strong pull towards the study of this other discipline. It can even become a lens through which seemingly unrelated martial arts are understood.

Lastly we come to the question of “distortion.”  Some of the ways that Chinese religion, more specifically Chan Buddhism and Daoism, are read into Wing Chun might fall into this category.  The style’s creation myth references the burning of the Shaolin temple, but this is a common motif shared by a number of social groups throughout southern Chinese society.  While some students of Wing Chun have been dedicated Buddhists it does not follow that the practice itself is a Buddhist art.  Likewise, many of the supposedly Daoist elements that students sometimes perceive are better understood as cases of generic Chinese culture.

An exaggerated emphasis on Buddhism and Daoism creates “distortion” in the cultural translation of Wing Chun on at least two levels.  Most immediately, it obscured other influences that are present and may reveal something either about the nature of the art or Ip Man’s thinking.  Ip Chun, the son of Ip Man, has noted on numerous occasions that his father was strongly influenced by his Confucian education, and that those looking for the deep philosophical roots of the art should start there.

His advice could easily be expanded upon.  A lack of interest in Confucian thought is one of the odd blind-spots of current students of Chinese martial studies.  This was the dominant social philosophy throughout the 19^th and early 20^th century, the same time period that many of these fighting systems were taking shape. Students of any number of southern Martial Arts systems might benefit form a closer study of this cultural milieu.

Yet on a deeper level, why must Wing Chun have a spiritual (or religious) philosophy?  Is a martial art only legitimate if it is dedicated to some sort of transcendent goals?  When Ip Man told a young Clausnitzer that it was his goal to teach Wing Chun as “a modern form of kung fu, i.e., as a style of boxing highly relevant to modern fighting conditions,” can we not take him at his word?

Once again, our expectations of what a “proper” martial art should be can powerfully shape the ways in which we experience, understand and transmit these systems.  Japanese ideals of the “martial way” and Republic era Chinese notions of the martial arts as vectors for nationalism and cultural essentialism continue to shape the popular understanding of Asian identity in powerful ways.  These, in turn, have impacted the way that Wing Chun has been culturally translated.

Conclusion

Ip Man’s photo is displayed prominently on the walls of martial arts schools across North America.  If he were to look out through the eyes of these icons, what would he see?  Would he recognize the Wing Chun being performed in his name?

I suspect that he would be very surprised with some aspects of the scene below.  He would recognize the colored belts, but would probably find them out of place.  The highly structured format of our classes would also seem alien to him.  He could not help but wonder why his picture so often hangs next to that of Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto.

Yet I doubt that he would be confused by the purposes of the changes that he saw.  After all, Ip Man guided his branch of Wing Chun through an important period of “cultural translation” as it went from being one kind of martial art in Republican Foshan, and became something notably different in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong.

Those with previous training in the system were surprised to see how differently Ip Man’s post-1950 classes were structured.  A curriculum had been added, traditional concepts were deleted, the local culture of youth fighting was “adopted” (or at least tolerated) and the practice of chi sao had been elevated and made a central aspect of daily training. Translation and change was the price of making Wing Chun legible to a new generation of Hong Kong students.

While Ip Man might at first be mystified by some of the details, he would understand the basic processes at work in our own era.  He knew that it would take work and flexibility to maintain Wing Chun as a modern fighting system.  Mostly, I suspect,  he would just be happy to have another generation of students to practice his chi sao on.

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If you enjoyed this you might also want to read:  Why is Ip Man a Role Model?

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Ip Man practices Chi Sao With Moy Yat.

Introduction

It goes without saying that I should not be writing this post.  On Sunday I will be boarding my flight for the UK and the 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference at Cardiff University.  I am looking forward to this event, but there are all sorts of other last minute things I should be doing right now.

This will also be my last “live” post for the next couple of weeks.  There will be updates on the blog as I have arranged for some other articles to be posted in my absence.  I will also be working on a full conference report as soon as I get back home.

Today’s essay attempts to explore a few of the problems of translation and communication as they relate to the practice of the Chinese martial arts.  This is a huge topic.  Ideally such a discussion would involve an entire series of essays each looking at a different aspect of the problem.  Even a single topic, such as “the textual translation of early 20^th century manuals,” could generate enough puzzles to keep us busy for a long time.

Obviously that exercise will need to wait.  Today we will instead consider how the embodied practice of martial arts might aid the process of cultural translation even in cases where (for social or linguistic reasons) this might seem very difficult.  The Southern Chinese style wing chun will be called upon to illustrate some of these concepts and possibilities.

Specifically, I hope to explore how chi sao (or “sticking hands”) allows for extended communication through time in the absence of explicit discussion and translation.  While Ip Man was by no means the first wing chun teacher to employ this sensitivity drill, training exercise and combative game, he did make it the centerpiece of his teaching during the Hong Kong period of his career.  To an outside observer, familiar with the TCMA, chi sao would probably look vaguely familiar, and be recognized as similar to the training exercises seen in a number of other systems (such as Taijiquan’s push hands).

Yet for many students of wing chun, it defines their relationship with the art.  By practicing chi sao you become part of a larger conversation that transcends both temporal and geographic locations.  When a training partner throws a punch, or slaps one of yours away, their actions demand “What will you do?”  “How will you respond to violence?”  “What is your reaction to the unexpected?”

From one set of hands to another this conversation has been passed.  With each transmission it is enlarged.  For better or worse it has molded generations of Wing Chun students.  The pressing question “What will you do?” needs no spoken translation. Ip Man taught only in Cantonese, and the vast majority of his students were instructed in Hong Kong.  But now his central question can be experienced around the world.

The Problem with Translation

It is one thing for a message to be heard.  It is quite another for it to be understood.  Again, Chi Sao is a fascinating example of problem.  In Hong Kong the exercise was used as a primary element of classroom training in an environment in which extra-curricular (and totally unsanctioned) fights between young kung fu students were common.  American culture today frowns on that same level of youth violence and I don’t think that most Western students are subjected to anything like the rooftop challenge matches of post-war Hong Kong.

“Kickboxing night” at a local MMA school would probably be the closest easily accessible analog.  Yet it goes without saying that these cannot replicate the social and cultural milieu from which Hong Kong Wing Chun arose.  So how confident can we ever be in the quality of our translation?  Are we actually taking part in a communal conversation that Ip Man started?   Or are we lost in somatic drift, playing an embodied version of the telephone game in which we imagine whatever message best fulfills our orientalist fantasies?

A number of prior scholars have wrestled with the problem of translation in the performance, discussion and portrayal of the TCMA.  They collectively deserve the credit for inspiring my own questions on the subject.  In the current essay there is only time to touch on two or three examples from this literature.

Paul Bowman, in his upcoming volume Mythologies of Martial Arts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) expresses a fair degree of pessimism regarding our ability to achieve actual linguistic translations of key concepts within martial arts studies.  This, he warns, may skew our ability to openly discuss even the most basic ideas, such as the nature or definition of the “martial arts” themselves.

Bowman correctly notes that any attempt to generate a universal (and universalizing) definition of the term “martial art” is predicated on first solving an immense number of other much more specific translation problems.  How have various groups around the world socially and linguistically defined their “martial arts?”  What activities fall within those boundaries, and what fall outside of them?  How do all of these discussions compare cross culturally?  When Western scholars define “martial arts” in the abstract, are we capturing the essence of something that actually exists, or imposing a type of understanding that obscures the richness of human experience, rather than revealing it?

Indeed, if “translation issues” can have such a disruptive effect on our attempts to define key concepts (in a cross-national setting), what hope is there for a deeper conversation at even the best of times?

Bowman is not the only writer on the martial arts to be concerned with the challenges of translation and communication.  Fans of the recent Ip Man films may want to take a look at a book chapter titled “The Sino-Japanese War in Ip Man: From Miscommunication to Poetic Combat” by Paola Voci.  In this essay (originally published in Chinese and Japanese Films on the Second World War, Routledge 2014) Voci takes a close look at Ip Man’s various failures to communicate, both with the Chinese martial artists who are making their way to Foshan from the north and (more critically) the Japanese forces led by General Miura, in Wilson Ip’s 2008 biopic.  Readers may recall that the later villain had decided to train his troops by having them fight with impoverished and starving kung fu masters (who were paid in rice).

Particularly important to Voci’s argument is the character Li Zhao, first introduced as a police officer, and later as a Chinese translator (and hence collaborator) working for the Japanese military.  As the only character who understands both the Chinese and Japanese languages and communities, Li would seem to be in an ideal position to facilitate linguistic and social understanding.  Yet this was not to be.

According to Voci, in a militarized environment (and following the conventions of Chinese war films) such “open communication” is not possible, and usually not even desirable.  Instead Ip Man and the Japanese military officers find themselves in a world of “closed communication” where the lack of a common spoken language, differing cultural frameworks and vast power disparities make it impossible to have verbal conversation in which both parties meet as equals to lay out a dispute.  While it might appear that there are a number of conversations throughout the film, Voci concludes that these are basically monologues in which Ip Man, the Northern Chinese martial artists, or the Japanese military officers use those around them as props in what are really self-absorbed monologues.  It is this this specific pattern that Voci’s terms “closed communication.”

An actual exchange of ideas and arguments between the Ip Man and Miura regarding the value of Chinese culture does not become possible until the final scene of the movie, when the two meet for a physical confrontation.  And even then Sato, a pure soldier who cares nothing for the logic or rules of martial arts contests, does everything in his power to disrupt it.

While Li is a relatively minor character in Wilson Ip’s film, he looms large over Voci’s argument.  It is noted that at first his translations are faithful to intent of his Japanese employers.  Chinese audiences are thus able to identify him as a text book “collaborator,” similar to other figures in various war films.  Yet when he encounters Ip Man during his fight in the grain warehouse, the fidelity of his translations begins to slip.

Li begins to insert himself into the situation, actively mistranslating the statements of Ip Man in an attempt to smooth over a volatile situation.  After defeating the ten karate students Miura, suitably impressed, asks the unknown fighter his name and invites him to return.  Ip Man refuses to give his name (identifying himself only as a member of the wronged Chinese nation) and wants no part in the gladiatorial exercise.  But rather than faithfully relaying these responses Li instead provides an introduction and the promise to “think the offer over.”

These insertions of the translator into the communication process become more brazen as the film progresses.  Yet ultimately they backfire.  Rather than bringing the two sides into greater understanding, chaos ensues.  Voci asserts that by the end of the film members of the audience will be left contemplating the complete failure of verbal language in either defining or resolving any of the key ethical issues in the film.

Everyone will also be struck by the ease by which Ip Man and General Miura, (sharing a common physical language emerging out of their extensive training in the martial arts) address these same questions in a way that is highly legible for those in the audience.  Indeed, the message of their fight is too obvious for Sato to tolerate, and he attempts to shoot Ip Man from the sidelines.

I will admit to not having thought too much about Li and the significance of his translations before reading this chapter.  Like others I had certainly noted the “creative” nature of some of his words.  I suspect that if Li had accurately translated Ip Man’s first response to General Miura he would have been locked up or shot on the spot.  In either event the movie would have been over.  An element of miscommunication was needed to set up a confrontation in which the righteous forces of Confucianism could prevail over the militaristic Japanese, rather than dying in a pool of blood after a spectacular, but ultimately pointless, display of pugilism.

Li’s “in universe” motives are not hard to discern.  Nor, for that matter, is the belligerent nature of Ip Man’s responses given the murder of his friend.  Yet when we re-frame this discussion from one of “vengeance” to “communication,” there is yet another factor for viewers to consider.

While audiences may immediately identify Li as a collaborator, it is probably best that they not spend too much time thinking about patriotic status of the various kung fu masters who have come to fight for their bags of rice.  Or even Ip Man himself.  Recall that General Miura is using these fights to train his troops and prove the superiority of the karate.  By showing up to fight, whether you win or lose, whether you take the rice or not, one is providing “material support to the enemy.”  The logic of this reality is softened somewhat by treatment of the Chinese fighters (climaxing in the brutal murder of Master Liu), yet it is inescapable.

It is not just that the physical act of fighting allows for an escape from the problem of closed, uncommunicative, language.  The use of the martial arts, all performed under the watchful eye of the Japanese officers, communicates too much.  It reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese forces in a way that needs no translation.  Of course Ip Man refuses to give his name, or to come back.  For the story to proceed he must demonstrate to the audience that he is no collaborator.  And so Li, in the first of his many mistranslations, steps into the breach.

What is really interesting about Voci’s paper is the demonstration that this pattern, with its anxiety about translation and communication, is not confined to this specific film.  Rather it is seen in a number of war movies dealing with the Sino-Japanese conflict.   The question of the physical embodiment of communication (more commonly seen in the martial arts genera) is then used to complicate this well-worn conversation.

Ip Ching, the younger son of Ip Man, discussing Chi Sao techniques with a teenage student at the VTAA headquarters in Hong Kong.

From Representation to Practice

Wing chun has an interesting relationship with questions of communication.  I suspect that we have tended to overstate the “illiteracy” of the Chinese martial arts in general. And readers might recall that during the early 20^th century wing chun itself seems to have been comparatively more popular with bourgeois and professional individuals (earning itself the moniker “rich person kung fu”).   That may also have had an impact on the development and presentation of the art.

Regardless, the version of the art that I was taught is full of self-conscious verbal metaphors.  Where as other toalu or katas are often envisioned as complete or partial confrontations with imaginary opponents, the Wing Chun forms are different.  Siu Lim Tao, the first of the unarmed forms, is particularly unique in this regard.  Rather than a type of shadowboxing, it functions as a catalog of possible body movements relating to certain types of punches.

As my own Sifu pointed out on a number of occasions, properly speaking, it is not even a collection of “techniques”.  Each of the movements in the form can be applied singularly, or in combination, in a wide variety of combative situations.  The form itself functions as a “dictionary” of movements.  To study Siu Lim Tao is to come to understand the alphabet-chunks of movement further developed throughout the entire system.

These same verbal metaphors were then extended to the other forms.  As groups of movements aggregated into more complex combinations in Chum Kiu (the second unarmed form) one is “learning to form words.”  In Biu Jee (the third and final unarmed form) one begins to “string together sentences.”  The dummy and weapons teach one a greater variety of complex structures in the hopes of making original self-expression possible. Now you are writing your own books.

I am sure that Wing Chun students from other schools and lineages might take issue with this thumb-nail sketch of the system.  Yet the central purpose of this digression was to point out that the entire system was presented and explained to me through a series of verbal and language based metaphors.  Nor is my experience unique within the Chinese martial arts.  There must be some type of communicative logic behind all systems in which both instruction and combat happen through individuals “talking with their hands.”

But what do we have to say?  And are we all part of the same conversation?

Chi sao is sometimes criticized as being an unrealistic method of sparring or an inefficient platform for teaching self-defense skills.  And I suppose that there is a fair measure of truth in these criticisms.  It was never designed to be a method of sparring at all.  It is a sensitivity drill and combative game.  And when was the last time that you did chi sao while holding a rubber knife?  Again, there are probably better structures for drilling weapon defense skills.

Yet in light of our current exploration of translation and communication, such criticisms appear to be missing something crucial.  Yes there are “cooperative” aspects to game, and both parties must mutually agree upon certain standards beforehand.  But it is the presence of these predictable structures that allow for the systematic introduction, exploration and experimentation with more interesting unknowns.

This is where the communicative value of the exercise lays.  And it is where much of the actual insight of the wing chun system can be introduced and taught in a non-verbal, quasi-universal way.  What will you do when faced with this type of pressure?  What happens when you are attacked along this (unexpected) line?  How will you react to a series of punches that slip through your defensive structure?  Every individual, regardless of their ethnic or linguistic background, must encounter and decipher these questions through their own bodily experience.  As they learn an “alphabet of movement” they will struggle to formulate their own answers and follow-up questions.

The embodied nature of the exercise does not remove the possibility of misunderstanding and mistranslation.  Yet it does open the possibility of meaningful exchange and learning across linguistic, national and cultural barriers.  As Adam Frank has noted, this is why the Asian martial arts can exist so successfully as multi-lingual and multi-sited communities even though most outsiders see them only as symbols of ethno-nationalist identity.

Is my experience of chi sao identical to a given student in Hong Kong?  Do we share a single identical understanding of the art?

Probably not.  But that was never the point of the conversation.  As Frank noted in his ethnography of Taijiquan in Shanghai, the deeply rooted desire to experience an art just as an authentic native practitioner might (with all of the Orientalist baggage that comes along with such western desires) may well inhibit us from grasping the basics at all.

When Ip Man threw his first punch at a student he was not asking “What would I, your Sifu, do in this situation?”  That would not have been a real conversation.  It would simply be a monologue played out in violence.

Instead he was asking all of those who would come later “What would you do?”  My embodied experience and cultural understanding of chi sao may be different from those held by some of my kung fu brothers and sisters.  That is precisely what makes the conversation real and worth having.

 
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If you enjoyed this essay you might also want to read: Cantonese Popular Culture and the Creation of Wing Chun’s “Opera Rebels.”

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The title slide of my keynote address at the July 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference.

***What follows is the text of my recent keynote address given at the 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference.  I am currently in the process of revising and expanding this paper for inclusion in an edited volume.  As such I debated whether I should post this initial draft, or wait until the additional quotes, footnotes and arguments have been added.  Further, changes are unfolding in my fieldwork site that may provide additional insights into some of the questions that I ask here.  Rather than waiting for all of these these new developments to come into focus, I have decide to make this initial draft of my paper available now.  The images included with this article are a sample of the slides that I presented with my keynote.***

“Liminoid Longings and Liminal Belonging: Hyper-reality, History and the Search for Meaning in the Modern Martial Arts” A keynote address delivered at the July 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference, Cardiff University, UK.

by Dr. Benjamin N. Judkins

Introduction

You can learn a lot about a martial arts class by the ways in which it begins and ends.  They all have their own small rituals and verbal incantations.  Consider the closing of a fairly typical class at the Central Lightsaber Academy.

Sweating, in a not sufficiently air-conditioned space, the fourteen of us gathered, saluted the instructor, deactivated our weapons and received a few parting words of advice on the drills we had run for the better part of an hour.  After which our leader, Darth Nihilus, said “Your basic combat applications are looking better, and next week we will be working on our choreography again.   Lastly, anyone wanting to spar should use the set of mats at the back of the gym.  And remember, this is all just for fun!”

This is, give or take a few details, how every class ends.  Unrelentingly upbeat and supportive, it is not the parting benediction that one might expect from a self-style “Dark Lord of the Sith.”

The students standing around me broke into groups as the class dispersed.  Four of them grab fencing masks and armored gloves so that they could get in a few last rounds of sparring before heading home.  Others exchanged contact information and planed times to get together to practice their choreography, or just hang out, during the week.  And one martial arts studies researcher stood in the middle of it wondering, “Why does someone as intense as Darth Nihilus repeatedly, multiple times a class, insist that this is all just for fun?”

Certainly the students who meet at the CLA have a lot of fun.  You can see it in the expressions on their faces, and the intensity of their engagement with the curriculum.  The atmosphere of the class is relaxed but focused.  There is not a lot of talking as letting your concentration slip might very well mean getting smacked in the head with a heavy polycarbonate blade emitting a cool blue, green or a more sinister red glow.  Weapons work always requires a high degree of mental discipline, even when the blades in question do not actually exist.

For an activity that is “just for fun,” the students of the CLA show a surprising degree of dedication.  Half of them practice daily (a few for up to an hour).  Everyone in the room has purchased their own stunt sabers, even though the school always has plenty of loaners.  Most of these are economical models, costing less than $100.  But some individuals have paid up to $500 for a replica weapon that is personally meaningful.

When asked about their reasons for coming they provide a wide variety of responses.  Perhaps the most common is a desire to find a fun way to get in shape and stay active.  For the self-described martial artists in the room the lightsaber is an irresistible thought experiment and a release from the stresses, constraints and “politics” of the traditional Asian martial arts.  And for about half of the students, the lightsaber class is an extension of their Star Wars fandom.  As one of my classmates, a self-styled Jedi Knight, memorably stated, the CLA “is where bad-ass nerds are made!”

Yet after a few weeks what almost everyone focuses on is the community.   As another member of class noted:

“When I heard about a lightsaber class I thought that it was so dorky that I was totally in.  I thought that we were just going to be goofing off and hitting each other with lightsabers.  I totally did not expect what it has come to be, which is a new group of friends unlike anything that I have encountered before.”

In her comments Darth Zannah goes on to describe the degree of personal empowerment and confidence that she discovered as she became a more competent duelist over the last several months.  Recently she even competed in an open tournament against a number of much more experienced swordsmen from a variety of backgrounds.

Darth Zannah’s sentiments seem to be widely shared and probably accounts for the Central Lightsaber Academy’s excellent student retention.  Between the fast paced classes, wide variety of activities and the general social dynamic, there can be no doubt that these students are objectively “having fun.”  Yet I found the frequency of Darth Nihilus’ refrain puzzling.

While I have always enjoyed my martial arts training, I suspect that “just for fun” is not a turn of phrase that most practitioners of the traditional arts would be willing to embrace.  What we do in the “real martial arts” is almost always couched in a rhetorical framework that at once justifies and apologizes for the resources spent on training.

Taekwondo builds “character” in American school children. Kendo teaches other children what it means to be Japanese.  Styles as diverse as MMA and Wing Chun claim to teach vitally important “real world self-defense skills.”  While many individuals enjoy martial arts training, very few would admit that we spend our means on a hobby that is “just for fun.”  We almost always shift our discussion into the realm of “investment” and “hard work.”

In this regard Darth Nihilus is no exception.  When not moonlighting as a Darth Lord of the Sith, he is a professional martial arts instructor.  The CLA is actually housed within a cavernous 2,500 square foot commercial space in an enclosed suburban shopping mall which, for most of the week, is the home of the “Central Martial Arts Academy.”  Nihilus, along with a business partner, offer classes in wing chun, kali and JKD.  The mall itself is located in a more affluent suburb of a medium sized rust-belt city.

The atmosphere in his other, more traditional, classes is notably different.  Social interactions are inflected by vertical hierarchies marked by an explicit system of colored sashes layered over the more traditional system of “senior students.” What had been a generally relaxed atmosphere is somewhat tenser, and that tension shows in the posture and body language of the students.  It reads in the way they automatically form hierarchically graded straight lines at the end of their classes.  This is something you never see in the CLA which manages, at best, lazy semi-circles.

The rhetoric of these traditional martial arts classes is grimmer, featuring frequent outburst like “really hit him!”; “Remember, he could have a knife!” and the warning “If you get lazy it won’t work on the street.”

Students do not come to these classes simply for fun.  Their motivations are those that we would generally expect in a martial arts school.  Some are interested primarily in self-defense, others are looking for a challenging route to self-improvement, and a few are drawn to the school’s successful kickboxing team.  No matter what goals brought them in, everyone in the Central Martial Arts Academy is engaged in “hard work” and expects to be held to a high standard.

The code switching that Darth Nihilus exhibits when the discussion shifts between these two realms is, at times, remarkable.  When talking about wing chun he is serious, adamant in his views, historically informed and visibly frustrated by the state of lineage politics within that art.  He speaks as a martial artist.  A tension enters his body language and facial expressions.

When the conversation turns to lightsaber combat he relaxes, adopts a remarkably ecumenical view of the world, is eager to explore a vast range of activities (from kata practice, to competitive tournaments to cosplay).  Here he favors horizontal forms of cooperation and association between a wide range of groups with very different sorts of goals.  It is all, as he frequently reminds us, “Just for fun.”

In strictly empirical terms, this sort of “fun” is essentially a part time job for Nihilus, occupying many hours a week.  The CLA also brings a notable number of new paying students to his classes who, in many cases, have never set foot in a gym or martial arts school before.  In the world of small, and often struggling, suburban martial arts schools, that is an economic reality that simply cannot be ignored.

In a recent article I looked at the history and basic characteristics of lightsaber combat and argued that while it is a hyper-real practice, meaning that it draws much of its inspiration from a set of fictional texts, universally acknowledged as such, it nevertheless fulfills all of the basic criteria of a martial art.  I further suggested that the invention of hyper-real martial arts might help us to better understand the processes by which all martial arts are created, as well as the varieties of social functions that they fulfill in modern societies.  That, in turn, might suggest some important hypotheses about who takes up different sorts of martial arts training, and what the future of these fighting systems might hold.

In this paper I suggest a possible framework for thinking about the varieties of the martial arts in the modern world and the motivations that fuel them.  Let us begin with two very basic questions.  What sort of martial art is lightsaber combat? Second, why would someone choose to practice it given the many other, better established, combat systems that already exist?

To address these puzzles we begin by examining a few additional details about the CLA.  Second, I turn to the work of the well-known American anthropologist Victor Turner for insights into the various ways that voluntary associations focused on transformative play might create meaning in the lives of their members.

Is Lightsaber Combat an American Martial Art?

What is lightsaber combat?  At the most basic level it is a collection of loosely associated combat and performances practices that began to coalesce in the wake of the release of the prequel Star Wars movies in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  As part of the marketing effort surrounding these films replica lightsabers with realistic metal hilts, motion driven sound and lighting effects and colored polycarbonate blades were released in 2002.  Other elements of Lucas’ media empire then began to develop an invented history for lightsaber training, selling it to a public eager for the “relics” of that far away galaxy.[i]

The creators of this new mythology had a surprisingly free hand as the actual Star Wars movies say very little about this iconic weapon.  Much of this invented history was organized around the idea that within the Jedi Order there had been “seven classic forms of lightsaber combat” which had evolved over a period of thousands of years.[ii]  As described each of these seven forms has a unique combat philosophy as well as specific strengths and weaknesses, essentially making them distinct fencing systems.

From the start a clear equation was made between the fictional fighting systems of the Jedi and their real world Asian counterparts.  Each form was given a vaguely Eastern sounding name (Form I is “Shii-cho”) and an Orientalist animal association (again, Shii-cho is “the Way of the Sarlacc”).  Popular notions of what a “proper” martial arts should be seem to have shaped much of what the seven forms became.

The first lightsaber group to gain national and international notoriety (if perhaps not the first to offer a public performance) was “NY Jedi”, founded in Manhattan in 2005 and still holding weekly classes.  They combine instruction in traditional martial arts techniques with a heavy emphasis on choreography and stage performance.  After their rise to prominence other groups quickly coalesced and began to articulate their own vision of what lightsaber combat should be.

Some focused on costuming, public performance and charity work.  Others opted to create something more akin to a bladed combat sport.  More recently, a number of groups have dedicated themselves to combining the mythology of the “seven forms of lightsaber combat” with historically based fighting traditions to create an authentic martial arts system.

The Central Lightsaber Academy falls into this latter category.  However, a number of members, led by Darth Nihilus himself, enjoy producing the occasional fan-film.  This sort of mixing of interests seems to be more common in the lightsaber community than in other areas of the martial arts where practitioners sometimes seek to draw strict boundaries (often based on competing definitions of legitimacy) between “practical” and “performance” based arts.

We know that lightsaber combat is a hyper-real martial art.  It is a fairly new, and also a market driven, creation.  What else is it?  Is it an American martial art?

In the current era many martial arts have come to be seen as indicators of national and regional identity.  In some places the practice of these systems has even become a mechanism for producing a certain sort of citizen, typically ones dedicated to the nation, embodying certain identities and capable of carrying out the state’s demands.

In Japan the Budo arts are seen as revealing the essence of Japanese identity and they have been closely associated with the state since the late Meiji period.  In China the Jingwu Association rose to prominence during the 1920s by promising to create a rationalized, modern, middle class martial art that would increase the physical and spiritual strength of the people, ensuring “national salvation.”  With some variation of emphasis this same mission was carried on by the later Guoshu and Wushu movements.  This interest in uncovering the “national essence” and “cultural heritage” of an art can even be seen in popular discussions of “Israeli” Krav Maga, “Korean” Taekwondo, “Thai” Kickboxing and “Brazilian” Capoeira.

The rise of the martial arts as a tool that both states and other social groups adopt to define their identity and promote their values is one of the most striking trends of the 20^th century.  This strongly ethno-nationalist turn has become a means by which the martial arts do social and political work.  They first labor in the production of mature and strong citizens, and then in the promotion of certain identities both at home and abroad.

What sort of “social work” does lightsaber combat do?  Is it an American martial art projecting American cultural values and identities within the global marketplace?  Or is it something else?

The Star Wars franchise has already attracted attention from critical theorists and academic students of cultural studies.[iii]  Many have looked at the project with some ambivalence.  They have seen in these films some of the most conservative and reactionary elements of American society.  One could certainly see the export of these films as a clear case of the global spread of American popular culture.

I suspect that these theorists, if they were to ever consider the question, would not hesitate to label lightsaber combat as a uniquely American martial art.  After all, it is hard to think of any film franchise that is more culturally American.  The opening chapter in the series was a mashup of a western and classic Hollywood swashbuckler reimagined in the universe of Flash Gordon, mixed with a hint of Kurosawa.  How could be it be anything else?

Without denying those basic facts, it is nevertheless fascinating to see how resistant the global lightsaber community has been to such labels.  Lightsaber combat has been culturally translated and localized with surprising ease.  Indeed, one of the most striking things about this movement has been its near universal popularity, from South East Asia to Europe and, of course, in the Americas.  How has this been possible?

Through a wide variety of books, DVD special features, documentaries and interviews the Star Wars mythos actively presents itself to audiences as culturally universal.  The creators of these products explain the on-going appeal of their story lines by invoking the structuralism of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung.  While these sorts of theories do not sit well with scholars today, they seem to have become an important element of how many of the more thoughtful Star Wars fans around the world understand their own engagement with the franchise.  The end result is to partially obscure the national and ideological origins of the story’s core value systems in favor of a more psychological and universal discourse.

The students of the CLA have also sought to construct lightsaber combat in ways that escape the ethno-nationalist pull that surrounds many other martial arts.  Again, these are not ideas that they are ignorant of.  Their classes take place in a space that prominently advertises training in “Chinese” Wing Chun and “Filipino” Kali.

Surrounding mall storefronts offer Taekwondo, Karate, Hung Gar and Olympic fencing (among other options).  Anyone coming to a lightsaber class must make a conscious choice to physically pass by a number of competing alternatives, most of which are culturally associated with a specific national or regional identity.  The question is why?

Some of the more experienced martial artists in the class have drawn explicit connections between the “culturally neutral” aspect of their practice (as they see it) and the possibility of pursuing more creative types of martial play and research. Multiple of them stated that Western, Chinese, Japanese and Filipino styles could be brought together and tested under the guise of lightsaber sparring in ways that would not normally be possible in a traditional instructional environment.

When discussing his lightsaber class Darth Nihilus, repeatedly noted the sense of freedom he enjoys in leaving behind the lineage politics that dominate the more traditional Chinese martial arts.  This has translated into a greater technical freedom to combine multiple approaches free from the sorts of social surveillance that would normally inhibit this type of hybridization.  It also manifests in an ability to engage in performance based activities like cos-play, choreography and hero-building.  Such activities were actually the origin of Darth Nihilus’ memorable name and in-universe identity.

It would seem that lightsaber combat is not seen as an “American martial art” precisely because those who adopt its practice are seeking a specific type of freedom.  This manifests in a self-conscious turning away from the constraints of historically grounded and ethno-nationalist martial arts.  Many individuals are drawn to an activity that is like the martial arts on a technical level, but one that does different sorts of work.  In lightsaber combat we see a rejection of constructed nationalist histories and a move towards a system of forward looking, and open ended, mythic play.

To better understand the details of the social “work” done within the traditional martial arts, as well as the means by which more recent hyper-real systems might seek to escape it, we will need a set of theoretical tools focused on the ways in which voluntary associations mediate the relationship between “creative play” and the process of personal transformation.  In his writings on the nature of liminality in the modern western world Victor Turner has provided one such framework.

Liminal History and Liminoid Mythology

Turner is particularly helpful in the present case as much of his research and writing touched on the question of how meaning is generated through ritual and drama.  In his ethnographic research he expanded on the ideas of Van Gennep to better understand the ways that symbols and rituals functioned during “rites of passage,” or those instances in which people leave one social status (a child, single individual or uneducated person) for another (a married, adult, university graduate).[iv]  Anthropologists had noted that through rites of passages such transitions could be made both socially legible and personally meaningful.

Following Van Gennep, this transition has often been described as a three part process.  Transformative ritual starts with a period of separation, in which the individual is removed from her normal community, a liminal period in which the previous identity is stripped away, leaving the initiate in Turner’s famous term “betwixt and between.”  Lastly, the transformed individual is reincorporated back into a society that will now support them in playing their newly constructed role.

Much of Turners writing and thinking focused on the middle (or liminal) stage.  What exactly happens when an individual enters a threshold state but has not yet passed beyond it?  How is social meaning created and social knowledge bestowed through ritual and symbolism?  According to Turner this often happened in very creative ways.

Through a rich combination of rituals, myths, rites of reversals and other modes of symbolic teaching, Turner found that individuals can engage in a period of cosmic play in which they themselves rearranged the symbolic building blocks of the social order, often in ways that seem chaotic or disordered.  In so doing they confront fundamental truths about the community that were not previously accessible.  By going through this process, initiates learned something both about their own identity and the nature of society.

While Turner’s work (like others in his generation) tended to focus on what were then referred to as “primitive societies,” both he and his students immediately recognized many parallels to these processes in their own, much more modern, lives.  Indeed, there may have been too many parallels for comfort.

Turner’s later critics would note that there was a certain strain of universalism and cultural essentialism in his work that may have led him (and Van Gennep) to project these basic patterns onto other non-Western cultures inappropriately.  Nor did Turner spend enough time exploring the “borderlands,” or those areas of society comprised of individuals who either refused to integrate through totalizing social processes, or who found creative ways to subvert this process and use similar structures to create counter-systemic identities.[v]

It is not difficult to find striking similarities between the ritual and initiatory processes described in classic ethnographic accounts of rites and passage and current practices in modern Western society.  The process associated with fraternity initiations on college campuses, religious baptisms in neighborhood churches, or joining a social order like the Masons, all exhibit something very much like the same three part structure of separation, liminality and reintegration.

Nor would we be the first to note that martial art training is full of rituals, both large and small.  They can be seen in the wearing of special clothing (the white karate gi symbolizing burial clothing) and the grueling public ordeals endured in some rank tests or tournaments.  All of this is explicitly designed to fulfill two functions.  First, to elevate an individual’s status within the community, transforming them from novice to expert.  Second, to create a sense of social meaning and fulfillment by passing on a specific set of physical practices or cultural philosophies which (we are constantly reminded) have their truest applications beyond the confines of the training hall.

Is it surprising that in the current era Western consumers have come to see the martial arts as vehicles of personal transformation?[vi]  In an increasingly secular society they appear to be taking on essential social and psychological roles that might previously have been fulfilled by other sorts of community rituals.[vii]

Nor are individuals the only ones to have taken note of the transformative powers and liminal potential of the martial arts.  States such as Japan, China and Korea, to name a few of the better known examples, determined during the 20^th century that martial practices could be adapted not just to improve civilian fitness and public health, but to create institutions through which individuals would be inducted into a new, specifically curated, vision of the nation and society.

Martial arts reformers, eager for government patronage, designed specific programs, and lobbied to have them included in school curriculums, to do just that.[viii]  The emergence of a close association between some Asian martial arts and ethno-nationalism was neither a coincidence, nor a reflection of the essential nature of these practices.  Both martial arts modernizers and government reformers worked hard to make this connection happen and then to promote their new creations on the international stage.

So, on one hand, individuals adopt these processes as a means of personal improvement, or just recreation.  On the other, powerful social and political forces have attempted to co-opt them as modern rites of passage, ones that could do the social work of producing certain kinds of citizens and favored identities.  Of course there is no necessary reason why these two goals must contradict each other.  Yet sometimes they might.

To grasp what this implies for our theoretical understanding of the nature of lightsaber combat, we must return to one of Victor Turner’s fundamental questions about ritual.  What, exactly, is transformed in a rite of passage?  Is it the initiate?  Or should we instead be focused on the community?

Turner argued that the intended subject of transformation in a classic rite of passage was actually the community.[ix]  While the individual was affected, the fundamental issue was actually how the group processed and this change.  Turner noted that his students were thus mistaken when they described their own initiatory experiences as “rites of passage.”  He cautioned in his 1974 essay that true examples could only be found in small scale societies characterized by primary social interactions.[x]

Given the obvious structural similarities, what exactly separates the two scenarios?  The fact that these rites were often compulsory in small scale communities betrays the fundamentally social nature of the exercise. These rituals were events through which society understood itself.  Even seemingly riotous rites of reversal and bacchanalia were, for Turner, examples of social work that demanded the participation of the entire community.

All of these activities are socially mandated and therefore a type of labor, no matter how much “fun” the participants might be having.  None of them fall into the category of “leisure” as we typically use the term in the modern West.  Turner argued that this slightly different category is really a byproduct of the commodification of labor that occurred during the period economic and social transformation that Karl Polanyi called the “Great Transformation.”

An individual who joins a modern church, fraternity or martial arts class is in a very different position.  These are activities that, within modern Western society, explicitly occupy our leisure time.  They cannot be compelled.  Individuals participate in these activities and rites because they themselves feel drawn to them.  This takes what was once social work and makes it a much more personal experience.

Nor are all of these experiences exactly the same.  Turner concluded that at least two distinct types of institutions structure modern voluntary activities.  The first category was still referred to as “liminal” as they most closely resemble the rituals of previous eras that they may have, in some cases, grown out of.  These include things like formal initiations into religious groups, seasonal celebrations or a traditional wedding ceremony.

Yet while they resembled older rites of passage, they are still voluntary.  Simply put, no one can force you to join the Rotary Club. As such, he noted that his continued use of the term “liminal” needed to understood as metaphorical.

Turner then identified another group of activities which were even less socially focused in nature, and more oriented to individual play, experimentation and self-expression.  These could still induce a process of personally meaningful transformation, but they were less likely to be focused on conforming one’s life to a hegemonic social pattern.  At times they could even take on an anti-systemic nature.  Turner termed this second group of practices, “liminoid.”

By Turner’s own admission, his exploration of these categories was partial and experimental in nature.  As a first cut he found that liminal practices tend to be community oriented.  They emerge out of larger social patterns and are comprised of symbols that are universally intelligible. They are fundamentally eufunctional, meaning that they reinforce widely held social, economic and political identities.  A baptism or religious wedding ceremony fit this pattern.

In contrast, liminoid activities tended to arise later in history and are more focused on individual attainment.  They are often distributed via economic markets and develop at the margins of society.  Thus they are fragmentary and experimental in nature.  Liminoid activities can rearrange symbols in highly idiosyncratic (even monstrous) ways, and have the potential to critique dominant social discourses.  Common examples include the creation of art and literature or the development of many sports and games.

These categories may help us begin to make sense of what is going on with Darth Nihilus’ two seemingly contradictory martial arts institutions.  They may also suggest something about the variety of social work that martial arts are called on to perform in the modern global system.  Lastly, a closer examination of how these ideas function in the realm of the martial arts might suggest some way to refine Turner’s original concepts.

From Liminal Work to Liminoid Play in the Martial Arts

It is not difficult to discern a liminal aspect within the Chinese martial art.  While students of martial arts studies tend to classify wushu as a voluntary activity, one suspects that many of the young children that fill the wushu based technical schools of Henan and Shandong province were not full consenting participants in the decision making process that sent them to these grueling boarding schools.  Instead their guardians made the decision that this was a better environment for their children as it would give them the technical and cultural foundation to become a certain sort of adult.  Specifically, one who could get a job with the police or military.

The martial arts have come to be an accepted aspect of childhood education in the West as well.  What do we hope that our children gain from these exercises?  To listen to the rhetoric surrounding these practices, confidence and compliance are the actual goals of our efforts.  Regardless of what is actually accomplished, these classes are often framed as a means to create certain sorts of adults, ones that will succeed within society’s dominate cultural and economic paradigms.

Many of these same more liminal tendencies are evident in adult martial arts classes as well.  As Jon Nielson and I reported in our book, The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts, Ip Man’s notable martial arts abilities were not the only thing that attracted teenage and young adult students to him in the early 1950s.  After all, in the aftermath of the 1949 liberation of the Mainland, Hong Kong was quite literally overrun with talented martial artists.  So what set him apart?

Ip Man had grown up as a member of the “new gentry” in Guangdong. As such he received a dual Confucian and Western education.  He had deep cultural knowledge of a past that young adults in the crown colony of Hong Kong felt isolated from.  He was an individual who had synthesized the lessons of two worlds and could model the value of an unapologetically Chinese identity in a modern, globally connected, metropolis. Many of his younger students idolized the Confucian glamor that he radiated.

Contemporary government sponsored wushu and the wing chun community that existed in Hong Kong during the 1950s and 1960s are very different types of institutions.  Yet both of them are engaged in the social work of producing certain sorts of citizens.  In the first case this takes on a more statist cast, while Ip Man’s project was more social and cultural in nature.  Yet in both instances, we see that martial arts training attempts to produce a certain sort of student, one accepting of important social values, through a process of physical transformation.

This is one of the reasons why the creation myths of the various Chinese martial arts are so interesting.  It would be a mistake to view them only as poorly recorded history.  Instead they function as a lens by which the community sees itself, defines core values, and finds its place in the social landscape.  Yim Wing Chun, Wong Fei Hung or the many monks of Shaolin are important because they point the way.  They illustrate a destination that the initiate has set out to achieve.

A traditional martial arts class is characterized by a type of liminal play.  We set aside our mundane professional identity when we enter the training space and submit ourselves to a new social hierarchy.   We reverse and rearrange many of the most basic cultural values that we brought with us as we suddenly find ourselves punching, throwing and choking our fellow initiates.  Yet all of this happens within limits and is subordinated to a single, unified, transformative vision.

All of this conforms to Turner’s expectations for a more traditional liminal experience in the modern world.  Creative play is possible, but only up to a point, and only in the service of certain goals.

I have spent a number of years observing Wing Chun classes.  And while you might hear individuals expressing admiration for Ng Moy and Yim Wing Chun, or in other cases doubting their existence, I have yet to hear anyone declaring their allegiance to the villains of that particular creation myth.  After all, the Manchu banner troops did succeed in burning the Shaolin Temple to the ground, which much say something about their martial prowess!

Yet that is exactly the sort of thing that happens multiple times a day at the Central Lightsaber Academy.  At first glance one might think the biggest difference between it and a traditional martial arts class is the non-reality of their chosen weapon.  It is easy to become fixated on the glowing, buzzing blades.  Much more important is the open ended and free-wheeling way in which symbol can be manipulated, reversed and hybridized in one environment, but not the other.

We have already noted that such extended play exists on the technical level.  Yet this ability to creatively rearrange symbols is not limited to the act of fencing.  Consider the fact that the CLA is led by a figure who has adopted the title Darth Nihilus (or Dark Lord of Hunger) as his public persona for interacting with the lightsaber combat community.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the Star Wars lore we should note that individuals who go by the title “Darth” are not the heroes of this story.  Instead they are the masters of a malignant political and metaphysical philosophy that is said to have been responsible for billions of deaths during their age old war against the Jedi.

The specific story-lines behind the various “Darths” are interesting to consider, though a full account would take us too far afield.  At the most basic level many of these Dark Lords have, through a process of corruption, become something less than human.  In many cases their loss of emotional empathy is mirrored by physical damage or decay.  The Sith do not call on the healing and life sustaining energy of the force.  Many have become monstrous human machine hybrids.

Sith characters are always sociopathic, and often psychotic.  That makes them an interesting foil for storytelling.  And when not teaching either wing chun or lightsaber classes, Darth Nihilus spends time on what might be called “hero building” (or in his case maybe “villain construction”).  This includes crafting back stories, engaging in cosplay and producing fan films in which his alter ego kills large numbers of Jedi knights (played by his students) along with the requisite innocent bystanders.

Not all of the CLA students follow this left handed path.  Others have invested considerable time and resources in the creation of more traditionally heroic Jedi persona.  A third group, turned off by the psychotic nature of the Sith and the overly disciplined lives of traditional Jedi have turned to creating “Grey Jedi” characters.  These are becoming quite popular as they allow students to mix and match symbols and histories in ways that fit their real world personalities.  Occasionally even characters from outside of the Star Wars universe are remixed into the world of lightsaber combat (a trend pioneered by the creators of NY Jedi).

Well over half of the students ignore these exercises all together.  They might instead focus on Star Wars trivia or collecting lightsabers.  Other students see themselves primarily as martial artists and arrive at class wearing wing chun or kali T-shirts.

This last contingent reminds us of an important, somewhat paradoxical, fact.  Not all of the members of the CLA identify themselves as Star Wars fans.  While pretty much everyone has seen the movies, a fair number of students have never attempted to explore the expanded universe of videogames, novels or television shows.

While some students may understand lightsaber combat as an aspect of their fandom, other participants see it primarily as a way to stay in shape with the help of a supportive community of likeminded friends.  While everyone views their practice as important and transformative, the goals that they seek are strikingly personal in nature.  There is no single symbolic pathway that all lightsaber students share.

Conclusion

Lightsaber combat presents us with a powerful example of Turner’s concept of the liminoid.  In comparison, the wing chun classes of the Central Martial Arts academy are vertically structured and designed to advance a very specific skillset. Its curriculum is meant to have a transformative impact on students, one that will see them replicate a eufunctional set of behaviors outside of the school.  That is the very definition of the liminal.

In contrast, the Central Lightsaber Academy exists to cooperatively fulfill individual desires for highly creative, fractured, idiosyncratic, and sometime monstrous, play.  Students are free to focus on sparring and practical lightsaber combat, or to skip that in favor of forms training and choreography.  They can engage in cosplay and hero building, trying on villainous or heroic alter egos.

The individuals in this community are not socioeconomically marginal compared to similar martial arts groups in the area.  Yet they actively choose to play at the social margins.  This cacophony of goals and purposes coexists both within the CLA and the broader lightsaber combat community as a whole.

We should be cautious about reifying these two categories, liminal and liminoid, as binary opposites.  Certain students of the anthropology of athletics have noted that Turner’s categories sometimes have trouble categorizing specific activities.  Sharon Rowe has argued that while an amateur basketball league at the local YMCA is liminoid in character, much as Turner expects, professional sports often exhibits a much more liminal nature, both in terms of their social function and the discourses that surround them.  She has questioned whether sports should ever be classified as liminoid.[xi]

Our current case suggests instead that the liminal and the liminoid may exist on a continuum.[xii]  While Darth Nihilus’ Wing Chun class appears to be liminal compared to the lighsaber group, the degree to which it is “upholding dominant social discourses” pales in comparison to the previously discussed wushu boarding schools in China.  They are literally indoctrinating and training thousands of children for future careers in a vast state security apparatus. Clearly we must consider matters of degree as well as kind when evaluating the nature of martial arts institutions.

Still, Turner’s basic distinction between the liminal and the liminoid is helpful to students of martial arts studies precisely because it suggests that totalizing statements about the role of these combat systems in modern society are bound to miss the mark.  Rather than being one thing, Turner suggests that there are different types of social work that we can expect to see within the martial arts.

The success of hyper-real arts, divorced from the myths of nationalism and focused on enjoyment, rather than the “hard work” of producing even more ideal citizens, should force us to think deeply about the future of the martial arts in the current era.  Lightsaber combat demonstrates a world in which the plural, fragmentary and horizontal can succeed despite the existence of the universal, disciplined and hierarchically organized.

It may be that Darth Nihilus’ frequent refrain that this is “all just for fun” is as much a warning for us as a reassurance to his students.  Accepting his statement might signal the disruption of our understanding of what the martial arts can be, as well as the basic desires that motivate their students.  But what else would we expect form a Dark Lord of the Sith?

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Are you interested in reading more about Light Saber Combat?  If so click here or here.

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[i] For a detailed discussion of this process see Judkins, Benjamin N. 2016. “The Seven Forms of Lightsaber Combat: Hyper-reality and the Invention of the Martial arts.” Martial Arts Studies 2, 6-22.

[ii] Reynolds, David West. 2002. “Fightsaber: Jedi Lightsaber Combat.” Star Wars Insider 62, 28-37.

[iii] Carl Silvio, Tony M. Vinci. 2007. Culture, Identities and Technology in the Star Wars Films: Essays on the Two Trilogies. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.; McDowell, John C. 2014. The Politics of Big Fantasy: The Ideologies of Star Wars, the Matrix and the Avengers. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.;  Lee, Peter W. 2016. A Galaxy Here and Now: Historical and Cultural Readings from Star Wars. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.; McDowell, John C. 2016. Identity Politics in George Lucas’ Star Wars. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.

[iv] Gennep, Arnold Van. 1960. Rites of Passage. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.  First Published 1909.

[v] See for instance Weber, Donald. 1995. “From Limen to Border: A Meditation on the Legacy of Victor Turner for American Cultural Studies.” American Quarterly. Vol. 47, No. 3 (Sep.), pp. 525-536.  A more far reaching critique of Turner’s relevance to historical discussions of the Western world (particularly as they apply to women’s narratives) has been offered by Caroline Walker Bynum. 1984. “Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols: A Critique of Victor Turner’s Theory of Liminality,” in Robert L. Moore and Frank Reynolds (eds). Anthropology and the Study of Religion. Chicago: Center for the Study of Religion. pp. 105-125.

[vi] Berg, Esther and Inken Prohl. 2014. “‘Become your Best’: On the Construction of Martial Arts as Means of Self-Actualization and Self-Improvement.” JOMEC 5, 19 pages.

[vii] Jennings, George. 2010. “‘It can be a religion if you want’: Wing Chun Kung Fu as a secular religion.” Ethnography Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 533-557.

[viii] Gainty, Denis. 2013. Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan.  Routledge. Chapter 4; Judkins, Benjamin and Jon Nielson. 2015. The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of Southern Chinese Martial Arts. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.148-154. Judkins, Benjamin. 2016. “Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (17): Chu Minyi – Physician, Politician and Taijiquan Addict.” Kung Fu Tea. https://chinesemartialstudies.com

[ix] This is amply illustrated by the fact that the third and final phase of the ritual transformation is always reintegration into the social whole.  Such transformations are rarely undertaken purely for the edification of the initiate.  For more on Turner’s theories of ritual see The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Nbembu Ritual (Cornell UP, 1967) and The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1969).

[x] Turner, Victor. 1974. “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology.” Rice Institute Pamphlet – Rice University Studies, 60, no. 3 Rice University: http://hdl.handle.net/1911/63159.

[xi] Rowe, Sharon.  2008. “Liminal Ritual or Liminoid Leisure.” in Graham St John (ed.) Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance. Berghahn Books  pp. 127-148

[xii] This same point has also been argued, in a different context, by Andrew Spiegel.  See 2011. “Categorical difference versus continuum: Rethinking Turner’s liminal-liminoid distinction.” Anthropology Southern Africa (Anthropology Southern Africa) 34, no. 1/2: 11-20.

Nima King, in his Hong Kong Wing Chun school.  Source: South China Morning Post

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

  Nima King.  Source: South China Morning Post.

News From All Over

Our first story this week comes from the (digital) pages of the South China Morning Post.  The paper recently ran a profile (complete with a 15 minutes video) of Sifu Nima King, (Chu Shong Tin lineage) who runs the Mindful Wing Chun School in Hong Kong.  As one might guess from the name of his studio, mindfulness is a big part of King’s approach to the martial arts.  It is the subject that dominates much of the video and article.  But he also has an interesting narrative about the various ways that Wing Chun helped him as an “angry youth” which also plays into popular perceptions of the TCMA.

I think that we will be having at least one academic event looking at the topic of mindfulness in the martial arts in the upcoming year, so this seems to be one area where the traditional arts are well situated to grow.  Overall its a nice profile and worth checking out.  And I always enjoy getting a glimpse into another school.  This one has some very nice dummies on the back wall.

Ip Man demonstrating the wooden dummy form. Photograph was taken in 1967 by Tang Sang and is currently the property of Ip Ching.

“Clean Footage Of Wing Chun Grandmaster IP Man Has Emerged.”  So proclaims the title of another news story which is currently making its way around a number of e-zine and blogs.  Many Wing Chun students will already be familiar with this footage, taken during the Master’s final weeks.  If its not something that you have seen before, this is mandatory viewing for all Wing Chun students.  But what is really interesting to me is that Ip Man now has enough public recognition that there can be a certain level of public discussion of these sorts of artifacts.  Thanks should be directed to Donnie Yen (who will be making his own appearance later in this post).

A scene from the Wushu Master Challenge Event. Source:macaudailytimes.com

Hong Kong often makes the news, but we hear less about Macau.  This week is the exception.  The Macau Daily Times ran an article covering the recent Wushu Master Challenge event.  The gathering was designed to promote awareness of, and training in, the traditional martial arts.  It brought together a large number of practitioners from both Southern China and the global community.  Of course the obligatory Sanda matches pitting Chinese and Western fighters against each other were also held.

There is a certain body of academic theory criticizing movie plots in which Caucasian fighters (Chuck Norris, Van Damme….) confront and defeat an “Eastern” opponent to prove their mastery/appropriation of the arts (Chong).  What is always surprising to me is that something so structurally similar to these situations get enacted with such regularity and vigor in real life.  I suspect that this is an interesting example of mutually reinforcing but different cultural narratives (nationalism vs. the quest for self-cultivation) creating a predictable pattern.   Or maybe everyone just wants to live out there own version of Blood Sport?

Our second news item from Macau was reported by the Shanghai Daily.  It ran a feature on the recent One Championship MMA event and discussed the growing body of local and regional talent featured in these fights.

A fresco on a cave wall in Dunhunag. Source: en.people.cn

The next item will appeal to readers who are more interested in medieval social history.  The recent Rio Olympics inspired some Chinese scholars to release a number of images of ancient sports as preserved on the walls of the famous Dunhunag caves.  Obviously most of this art work is Buddhist in nature.  It is what the area is most famous for.  But in this case the emphasis was on some lesser known vignettes showing swimming, wrestling, horseback riding, gymnastic feats and other martial arts.  Some of these paintings have an abstract or surrealist quality to them.  Plus, if you have never read about the Dunhunag Caves before, this is a great excuse to check some of this material out.

A Young Bruce Lee in Oakland. Source: Charlie Russo.

Readers may recall my recent discussion of Charlie Russo’s new (and highly recommended) study of the history of the Bay Area Chinese Martial Arts community, Striking Distance: Bruce Lee and the Dawn of the Martial Arts in America.  It looks like he recently had the opportunity to do a radio interview in which he discussed some of the various ways in which Lee’s legacy has lived on after his death.  Unfortunately I have not been able to find a full audio copy of this piece, but you can see parts of the transcript here.

Does Bruce Lee have a long lost sister?  Source: CCTV

The Daily Mail has been wondering whether Bruce Lee might have had a long lost sister.  In fact, ever since CCTV ran footage of an incredible nunchuck demonstration lots of people have been asking the same question.  Unfortunately the news releases which I have seen on this have very little additional information.  But the footage of the demonstration is well worth watching.  Now, if someone can just send her a yellow tracksuit….

Donnie Yen takes the stage as a blind, Force sensitive, warrior (though probably not a Jedi) in Rogue One.

I have now had an opportunity to discuss Donnie Yen’s upcoming role in Rogue One in a few places.  The recent release of a new theatrical trailer for the film (due out in December) now has lots of people in China talking as well.  And apparently they don’t all like what they are seeing.  By way of background I should begin by noting that unlike other American movie franchises, Star Wars has always struggled in China.  The reasons are obvious.  Inter-generational nostalgia is a big part of the franchise’s success in North America, but it was never released in China during the 1970s and 1980s.  Nor did the Force Awakens do much to win over Chinese audiences.

Disney has been looking for a way to more effectively introduce these stories to new viewers, and to that end the upcoming film will feature not one but two well known Chinese actors.  Unfortunately a skeptical public is reading these efforts as yet another example of Hollywood’s penchant for tokenism rather than crafting stories actually designed to appeal to Chinese audiences.  It looks this may be another bumpy box office ride for Star Wars in China.

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

While we are on the subject of Star Wars, I should also mention that I recently did an interview discussing lightsaber combat as a martial art over at Inverse.  I would not say that this is my best interview (and the final product could have used some additional editing), but some readers may find it to be a helpful introduction to the topic.

Martial Arts Studies by Paul Bowman (2015)

Martial Arts Studies

Summer is generally a slow time for academic news as everyone in on break and working on their new research.  But there have been some recent developments on the Martial Arts Studies front.  First off, a new book has been announced that will be of interest to students of New World martial arts traditions.  Michael J. Ryan’s volume, Venezuelan Stick Fighting: The Civilizing Process, is due to be released by Lexington Books in December.  This volume will also feature a forward by Thomas A. Green.  The publisher’s note on the project is as follows:

Ryan examines the modern and historical role of the secretive tradition of stick fighting within rural Venezuela. Despite profound political and economic changes from the early twentieth century to the modern day, traditional values, practices, and imaginaries associated with older forms of masculinity and sociality are still valued. Stick, knife, and machete fighting are understood as key means of instilling the values of fortitude and cunning in younger generations. Recommended for scholars of anthropology, social science, gender studies, and Latin American studies.

Striking Beauty by Barry Allen

I have mentioned the book Striking Beauty by the Philosopher Barry Allen a few times on this blog.  Michael Wert has just published a review of this volume.  While generally critical of Allen’s treatment of the martial arts, it is well worth reading.  One of Wert’s central points is that Allen’s repeated gaffs regarding martial arts history are not simply side-notes.  Rather they have critical implications for the substance of his philosophical arguments.  This line of reasoning is actually quite similar to the argument that Stanley Henning advanced in a number of his writings.  A warped understanding of martial arts history leads to all sorts of other problems precisely because these institutions and practices have always been more central to society than we generally care to admit.

Paul Bowman and Meaghan Morris having a frank exchange of ideas. Source: http://martialartsstudies.blogspot.com/2015/06/conference-2015-and-2016.html

Over the last few weeks I have noticed slides and papers from the 2016 Martial Arts Studies at the University of Cardiff begin to appear on Academia.edu.  George Jennings and Anu Vaittinen have kindly uploaded the very detailed slides from their presentation on the use of multimedia resources by Wing Chun students.  Hopefully this is a subject that we will be hearing more about in the next few months.  Neil Hall has uploaded his paper (presented in a special session) titled a “Convenient Myth.”  Its abstract is as follows:

This paper looks at how the martial artist’s need to make a living (or on a smaller scale a class teacher’s need to make the class viable) has a determining effect on the things martial artist teachers convey about martial arts. Drawing on real and easy to grasp examples from present-day martial arts schools, including his own, the author explains the financial imperative to engage with potential customers who have no martial arts experience, and whose purchasing choices are shaped by myth and media representation. He shows how quickly and easily the need to play popular perceptions comes to shape not only the marketing of the teacher’s class, club or school, but also the  perceptions that the teacher – and their students – continue to convey about martial arts, and how the multiplication of this type of effort itself helps to shape popular perceptions – and often myths – about martial arts

Lastly, William Acevedo has posted an essay on his blog titled “An Overview of Chinese Martial Arts in the Olympics.”  This is the most detailed discussion of this topic that I have seen, and I am sure that many Kung Fu Tea readers will find it quite interesting.  Its a timely discussion of an important event.

SUNY Press Book Sale, Only One Week Left!

SUNY is currently running a 30% off sale on everything on their webpage. That is great news for you as they have long been one of the premier publishers of innovative studies of the martial arts. I have attached a couple of cover images above just to give you a quick sense of the range of work that they have published over the years.

For the next two weeks its all 30% off, making this a great time to pick up some summer reading or to fill that gap in your library.

By George Jennings (Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK) and Anu Vaittinen (Newcastle University, UK)

Reference to conference presentation:

Jennings, G. & Vaittinen, A. (2016). Mediated transformation: Interconnections between embodied training and multimedia resources in Wing Chun. Paper presented at the 2^nd International Martial Arts Studies Conference, Cardiff University, UK, 19 July 2016.

We would like to thank Benjamin Judkins for his generous offer for us to write a summary of our conference paper for the excellent Kung Fu Tea blog, which is very timely, considering the relationships that our study has with such open-access, digital martial arts media for practitioners and scholars alike. Readers are very welcome to contact us directly if they have any questions, suggestions or other comments:

George Jennings        gbjennings@cardiffmet.ac.uk

Anu Vaittinen             anu.vaittinen@newcastle.ac.uk

Introduction

In their recent research on the history of Wing Chun Kung Fu, Ben Judkins and Jon Nielsen have  demonstrated that this martial art has been taught, learned, practised and understood in a myriad of ways, which have diversified since its humble beginnings in South East China. Today’s varied interpretations of Wing Chun are particularly evident in the Ip Man branch of the genealogical tree, where in a matter of two or three generations, there often appears to be very different fighting systems in terms of weight distribution, technique shapes, form sequences, omissions and additions of certain blocks and punching variations, and also foci in terms of the attention given to the empty hand forms, wooden dummy, weapons, theory, conditioning, fitness and, of course, how they are put together into self-defence and even sporting combat applications. Scholars in media and cultural studies have so far focused on the legendary exploits of Ip Man in the recent Hong Kong films (see, for example, here and here).  Yet to date, no research has detailed how forms of media like films/movies, documentaries, YouTube videos, images and blogs might shape (and be shaped by) the actual “hands-on”, solo and interactive physical training of the art of Wing Chun Kung Fu.

That is somewhat peculiar considering the global popularity of this Chinese martial art across cultures, generations, ethnicities and socioeconomic levels. This gap in the literature is precisely what we wish to address in this invited contribution to the Chinese Martial Arts Studies discussion. It is with this complex variety in mind that we begin to address the ways in which Wing Chun is currently learned from a sociological, phenomenological and pedagogical perspective. The small body of research on the training aspects of the art has touched upon topics such as body awareness (McFarlane, in his brief outline), how the unique methods employed in Wing Chun might hone fighting skills and whether they may even make the practitioner a better person (Scott Buckler’s taxonomy thesis).

Elsewhere, more sociologically-oriented ethnographic studies have discovered a core narrative and ethos of secular religion in a particular association, as well as ideas of the diversity of a cultivated martial habitus or scheme of dispositions. These publications provide a basis for the unification of an embodied, “carnal” sensitivity on Wing Chun with a contemporary sociological and educational vantage point. The fusion of all of these types of research may allow us to draw upon the recent studies on important topics including body lineage, digital technology and narrative from researchers in the field of martial arts studies.

Interestingly, this relative dearth of research on how participants’ corporeal practices intersect with digital, primarily visual media, as well as the active use of new media technologies, extends beyond Wing Chun and the martial arts, into studies of physical culture, media and visual culture more generally. Outside the context of formal physical education, what has received particularly limited attention is the perspective of the practitioners, and the role multi-mediated materials, new information economy and technologies play in their development of corporeal, and sensory know-how of combat sports. This lacuna is particularly intriguing, considering the ‘ocular-centrism’ of Western society, and way in which a range of sports (including martial arts) are transmitted to our living rooms, onto our PCs and smart phones at increasing intensity. Images play an increasing important role in our lives, experiences and concerns. Generally, sports media research has tended to focus on media texts, media institutions and audiences.  The research on new media technologies, on the other hand, has explored sports video games along with examinations of online platforms such as Wikipedia, as a vehicle for communication among sports fans.

For a more in depth-discussion of some of the existing field of research, see:

http://amodern.net/article/mixed-martial-arts/

In this project we seek to explore another avenue which, within the existing literature, remains relatively unexplored. The aim of our study is to offer fellow researchers, practitioners and instructors some insights into learning and teaching in Wing Chun using multimedia resources to support both teachers and students. We do this through two case studies of specific Wing Chun pedagogical approaches and social environments: 1) a series of private classes with individuals in different locations (private, public and commercial) in Mexico City, taught in English and Spanish; 2) an informal, small school run in the Northeast of England that is composed of more experienced practitioners. Our specific objective is to facilitate discussion on contemporary issues in Wing Chun under the working research question: In what ways can today’s practitioners use modern digital (and online) technology to support their learning before, during and after lessons and training sessions? Although restricted to one style of Kung Fu, this study might interest other martial arts scholars examining the links between media and embodied practice in a variety of styles and systems. It offers insight into how digital multimedia – accessed anywhere and anytime – can add to the multisensorial learning of the martial arts. This post is exploratory in nature, and raises far more questions than could be hoped to answer.

A publicity photo for a Wing Chun themed app titled “Kung Fu Grand Master.”

Methodological medley

Our collaboration is an unusual one, as we had never met until uniting at the second Martial Arts Studies Conference at Cardiff University in 2016. Both of us are associate researchers at the Health Advancement Research Team (HART) at the University of Lincoln, interested in entirely different topics: Thermoception and thermoregulation (see here). We are from England and Finland respectively, and were at the same time researching the Chinese art of Wing Chun in Mexico and England. This is another example of the increasingly international nature of martial arts studies: a new multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary field with international researchers who travel to other countries to study and discover fighting systems developed from a range of cultures and civilisations, and who engage with a plethora of languages and native technical terms, and later teach and research in various global contexts.

This study – still very early in its development – is an opportunistic offshoot from our phenomenological work with Jacquelyn Allen Collinson and Helen Owton.  It is more methodological than theoretical in nature. We began our first article together with an important reflexive note on our own positioning, which combined to provide a more rounded approach to studying Wing Chun than would have been possible alone. Reflexivity is now common practice to outline new qualitative studies of martial arts due to the fact that the researchers are often practitioners themselves. Confessional, reflexive and auto-ethnographical work has been shared by authors such as: Channon, introducing his martial arts and fighting experience prior to studying mixed-sex martial arts; Delamont and Stephen’s early reflections on their joint fieldwork in a Capoeira school as a complete observer and immersed participant respectively, and Martinez’s autoethnography of her pursuit of Karate in a male-dominated dojo. Our own work follows this important representational turn, with George’s vignettes on the embodied nature of interviewing, and how physical training can lead to spontaneous and flexible interviews, along with other forms of data collection.

In her recent work, Anu has examined the importance of reflexivity in relation to gender, and the embodied labour of the researcher in participatory fieldwork (Forthcoming, 2016). This paper illustrates the advantages and challenges of insider research, but equally interrogates the gendered positionality which the research embodies concurrently with their insider status, and its impact on the research process and data.

Despite being the same age (32) and both having academic background in the sociology of sport and physical culture, our different training experiences have shaped the way we learn, practise and teach Wing Chun. George has tended to focus on non-sporting martial arts after brief periods in Taekwondo, Judo and Kendo. He has practised Wing Chun since 1999, first as a student, later as an assistant instructor, and most recently as a nomadic “ronin” instructor and independent researcher in Scotland and Mexico. He retains a research interest in Wing Chun pedagogy and training methodology, but has since switched his academic attention to the new martial arts of Mexico, such as Xilam whilst teaching Wing Chun privately and in a small group at the Universidad YMCA, where students, staff and the general publish were welcome.  George’s small group of Wing Chun novices were not well versed in chi sau (the sensitivity game also known as sticking hands), so he opted to look at the role of theory and specific Wing Chun fitness and conditioning exercises to provide them with a firm foundation for more technical aspects of the art. The students were aged 14-72 (two female, three male), and mainly learned through private tuition or in pairs. George tried to maintain a very tactile approach, and did not rely on videos or images during training. However, some students requested recordings of him performing the first form before the Christmas holidays.  This event sparked his interest in the relationships between seemingly timeless digital media and the phenomenological issues of training in more specific space.

Although she has been involved in a range of competitive and recreational sports since an early age, Anu was a relative latecomer to martial arts and combat sports. After arriving in the United Kingdom from Finland in 2005, she had the opportunity to try kickboxing in her early 20s, and subsequently got involved in Mixed Martial Arts and Wing Chun. She trains with a small, informal group of practitioners led by her Sifu in the Northeast of England. This involvement shaped her research interests.  Her doctoral dissertation examined ways of embodied knowing in mixed martial arts through an ethnographic study which utilised a phenomenologically-guided, interdisciplinary analytical frame.

In her previous work on mixed martial arts, Anu found that practitioners actively utilised multimedia (in particular visual) materials to accompany physical training and as part of the learning process.  They also documented their own practice through new media technologies including smart phones. This sparked questions as to whether practitioners of more traditional martial arts (such as Wing Chun) utilized technology in similar ways.

Anu suffered a severe knee injury in 2014 during the course of her MMA training when she tore her anterior cruciate ligament.  Following her recovery from surgery her involvement in Wing Chun training intensified, although she is still a relative novice. The small, but committed group of practitioners she trains with focus on the Wing Chun forms, accompanying technical and conditioning drills as well as Chi Sau. However, their training is not completely restricted to traditional Wing Chun.  Her Sifu’s very eclectic background in a range of combat sports and martial arts ensures that the group’s training also incorporates elements from Western boxing, Bruce Lee’s Jun Fan, kickboxing and grappling. There are usually three to five participants (aged 33-65; one female, the rest male) attending training sessions.  Some only attend once a week whereas the three core members of the group, including Anu, gather to train more frequently.  She also participates in private tuition in addition to the group classes.

In summary, we are working together to examine novel approaches to Wing Chun pedagogy. Our different personal, professional and martial arts biographies, dispositions and intuition have led us to delve into material on different topics. This is of course due to our position in our respective groups, and their stages of development (beginning and established). The novelty in this article is in the use of digital technology between instructors, students and other Wing Chun devotees, who all form the global Wing Chun community. We both used the same methods and forms of analysis, and shared our data via email, and later via Facebook and the Messenger mobile phone application to verify our analysis and core argument. Our open-ended research design moved from what began as a phenomenological consideration of time, space, the senses and the body through autophenomenology (Allen Collinson) to a methodological bricolage including field notes and observations, one-on-one focused interviews, email interviews and dialogue, online media analysis and autobiographical reflections which came together at different stages of the six-month study.

We followed Newcastle University’s official guidelines for conducting qualitative research through informed consent. All names have been changed to protect the practitioners’ identities, although the original media that we and the practitioners have used remain overt for the readers’ visual reference and for better clarity in the description of movements and concepts that can easily be mistaken with the written word. Furthermore, we remain in contact with our participants as future collaborators, who are informed of the study from the beginning to the dissemination process.

Discussion: Using multimedia before, during and after classes and training sessions

The discussion of the qualitative data that we have gathered has been divided into three parts by adopting a temporal or ideal typical approach to understanding both official Wing Chun classes and seminars alongside informal training between Kung Fu brethren and solitary home training. The first section deals with the use of media before training sessions, and even before some of the participants became involved in the formal study of Wing Chun. The second part briefly explores how Wing Chun media might be used as a training and teaching aid at the same time that the practitioner is working on specific skills and exercises. The last part provides an insight into how online information can solidify into embodied knowledge directly (or shortly) after the training session or class in question as a means of analysis and circumspection.

A diagram from the Black Flag Wing Chun system discovered online that George found helpful.

Before training

The Ip Man films noted in the literature review are well known in both English and Mexican society. George was pleasantly surprised when a university student, Raul, knocked on the door of the studio he used as a kwoon:

Thanks to the Ip Man trilogy and related films, many people recognize the characteristic movements in Wing Chun. I was finishing the second and third section of Siu Lim Tao when a young student appeared in the doorway.

“Is that Wing Chun?” He asked in a confident manner, as if he knew the answer already.

“Yes, that’s right – it’s Wing Chun.” I replied.

“I thought so. I recognize that movement from Ip Man!” He remarked, as he demonstrated the quintessential chain punch.

Mario, my devoted student in his 70s, turned round and smiled with great joy at the mention of Ip Man. He was normally austere and distant with visitors, but not on this occasion.

This recognition of the triple punch combination led Raul to join the class, and combine it with his Japanese martial arts training. George found it imperative to install a solid understanding of Wing Chun theory in a “scientific” way, especially for the sport science students at the university, who were studying topics such as biomechanics and anatomy. Having explored numerous websites and old books, he found Google Images to be an invaluable resource to help him explain the founding principles of Wing Chun, as seen in one diagram:

I was instantly attracted to a coloured diagram depicting five different lines within three zones (heaven, man and earth). It drew me to an article by the leader of the mysterious Black Flag Wing Chun lineage. Some people claim this is the original style, while others refute this branch as a recent invention and marketing gimmick. Regardless of these often politically motivated debates, the diagram could serve Wing Chun practitioners from all schools and styles. It would help them understand the correct position of techniques and the six gates according to the three Dantiens. Pak Sau, for example, is not a centerline technique; instead, it works within the inner shoulderline, just outside the head.

Personally, George has used videos of hard training sessions with accompanying music to motivate him to train alone, and has sought out rare Wing Chun conditioning drills for the hands, forearms and problematic areas in order to offset potential postural difficulties. Regardless of style, association or “body lineage”, there were useful multimedia resources from veteran Sifus, relatively unknown instructors and even intermediate students sharing fitness tips.

Different multi-mediated materials also provided an initial entry point to members of the English training group, helping to spark their interest in Wing Chun.  This led to exploration of further resources and the search for a place to practice. Senior students like Jack (who is in is mid-forties) initially sought out information through a range of sources which inspired him before he took up training in Wing Chun:

 

“So before I started training in Wing Chun, I had an awareness I suppose from popular films and television. So it would have been Bruce Lee films and generally representation of Kung Fu on television, Jackie Chan, but also magazines like Martial Arts Illustrated and so on, which I would read — Because before I had only seen what he had done in his films, so pretty superficial until I learnt a bit more by reading magazine articles, so people who know knew more about him and about his past and I thought well if you went down that path then maybe it’s worth at least having a look at ” (Jack, May 2016).

Older students also described seeking out a range of material in their interviews. Yet such information was not as widely available or as easily accessible prior to the Internet. Our Sifu recalled the challenges of seeking out resources on Wing Chun (and Kung Fu more generally) in the ‘old days’ and when written sources such books and magazines were harder to get a hold of. For the younger members of the group, including myself and fellow student Alex (35), the online sources provided the primary material utilized in our search for information about the art.  Yet in neither case was this the sole source of information.  Rather, our interest in Wing Chun was preceded by participation in other arts [for Alex, Tae Kwon Do and Aikido; for myself, kickboxing, Thai boxing and MMA].

In terms of the use of these materials, prior to actual physical training sessions, practitioners tended to seek out online materials – primarily YouTube videos – on different technical drills and chi sau.  They were employed as aide-memoires which helped them to review elements of Wing Chun that they would be practicing during the upcoming session. New media technologies such as smartphones facilitated access to these materials.  Alex (35), for example, often watched videos on his mobile phone prior to sessions and when he had free time during his job as a taxi driver:

“I generally watch videos on You Tube on a daily basics usually while waiting for jobs, or when waiting to start a class, etc.” (Alex, March 2016).

Anu also utilised these online visual materials in a similar fashion.  She sought out drills and techniques which she had found challenging during the previous session. The videos offered useful visual reference points that intersected with the corporeal reference points acquired through experience during the group and one-to-one sessions.

During movement

Pre-designed diagrams and figures are an obvious resource when teaching Wing Chun theory, and some podcasts, videos and images can also be used to teach students. Meanwhile, videos and photographs can be an effective way to help students realize their mistakes, as George found when he learned the art in England, in the days before smart phones.

The deployment of such technology can be helpful in avoiding confusion, often overwhelming to beginners, over the various ways to execute techniques and forms. During an interview, one of George’s students, Saul, actually suggested using his cell phone to record the technique:

“I was going to suggest that in the last five minutes of class that perhaps I could record with my cell phone some of the things that I could do at home. They’re not always easy to remember. I’m at home, and I go like, “Was it like this that I was supposed to practise? Do I go like this, or like this?” So, if I could record some of the techniques to bring home, I could record them on my cell phone and it would be easier to remember.”

Although smart phones were employed by Anu, Alex and Jack to study videos prior to sessions, none of them had utilised this technology to record their own training during practice. However, an observational field-note and the subsequent reflection illustrate how connections to multi-mediated materials were regularly made with the bodily and sensuous training sessions:

The online videos available on YouTube are sometimes referred to during practice in relation to different aspects and discussions of efficiency and form, and during last evenings’ training session our Sifu mentioned particular videos that illustrated the form, and the drills that are utilised to practice the different elements of attack and defence particularly well. Within our small group, these references made during practice provide guidance in searching information and videos online, within the wealth of information that is now available and accessible, simply with a click of a button. (Field notes, May 2016)

Senior student Jack reflected on the idea of recording videos of his own practice and the possibility of it being useful for learning, along with limitations for the use of such materials for himself and also from the instructors’ perspective:

“But it would feel quite strange to see it from the outside, when you have experienced it internally from your own perspective, but to see it externally would be quite interesting and say for instance from the instructors’ perspective.  Obviously without the experience you don’t have the tactility that is central there, so you wouldn’t have all the information that you could actually access practicing it for real.  But it’s, VR and things like video playback, that could be…”

A screengrab from the arm conditioning video found on YouTube discussed below.

After practice

Video material is by far the most used form of media by most practitioners we have encountered, especially the younger participants. Whereas some older practitioners complained about the decline in the quality and quantity of martial arts print media, youngsters took to the use of video quite naturally. Mariana (14) videoed George demonstrating the first form, but eventually ran out of memory on her phone due to other videos she had recorded in the week.  George recalled:

 I felt strange being filmed – I imaged other Wing Chun practitioners scrutinizing my positions and even a piece of rare archive footage from my students to come in future decades. Setting aside these thoughts, I tried to perform the form without thinking, until I realised that I was slanting slightly in order to face Valentina’s camera phone.

“We could also film the form from the side”, I suggested, moving my body to the profile view in order to emphasize this. “It would be good in order to see the elbow line.” I said, demonstrating the movement from the profile view. This was another thought that popped into my head during the form: That the vast majority of Siu Lim Tao videos show the form from the front, but never from the side, which can lead to confusions concerning the fixed elbow position, the elbow line and posture in general.

It was exciting to realize that some newcomers to Wing Chun were actively creating new forms of media that could go online, or could be reserved for personal reflection and “old-fashioned” note taking. Regarding the so-called “old school” approach, George came across a challenging exercise for the neck, shoulders and arms that utilised Wing Chun hand positions:

Searching various YouTube videos, I came across an arm exercise demonstration by a seasoned Sifu in my own lineage who claimed it was an “old school exercise” from “thirty years ago.” He told the viewers to hold each position for thirty seconds, and individual movements one hundred times, “or as many times as you can. Basically, do this exercise until you can’t do it anymore.”

This Sifu was a practitioner somewhere between his mid-fifties and mid-sixties, but seemed to be in excellent physical condition. I felt honoured to be able to receive this one-man drill from a veteran practitioner and was surprised that I had never performed it in seven years within the exact same body lineage to which he belongs.

George first trained this exercise at home, and later prescribed it to students after several weeks of supervised repetition, before adding his own “twist” to the exercise through the use of two further – and rather awkward – hand positions (fak sau and ding sau).

Likewise in the second group of practitioners, both participants and the instructor would also review online materials following training sessions, primarily during leisure time and address questions raised during the subsequent gatherings:

“It’s probably normally during leisure time, rather than immediately afterwards, because I probably use the opportunity at that time to ask the questions or I’ll try and recall one for the next session and ask my questions then. Also, I’ll discuss the things I’ve seen so if there’s been a variance or differences between what I perceive on the video or lack of understanding of what’s actually going on, then I will ask my instructor.” (Jack)

Due to the explosion in the volume of videos and other online materials, filtering the information was important:

 

“I mean, I suppose one of the key things is to filter the information that is out there, that is very much about narrowing it down a bit. But not exclusively, but narrowing down perhaps an initial search to for example, to the lineage holders, so Ip Chun and Ip Ching, so you know you’re kind of getting the same sort of forms that I currently practice anyway. But also having maybe a look at some people who have different takes on it, you know to get at something that is not too narrow to get some wider exposure.”

The way in which the students and the Sifu used these materials was pragmatic and directly related to their own practices and experiences. In addition to online materials Anu often enjoyed studying books, particularly the scientific approach to the structure of Wing Chun by Sifu Shaun Radcliffe which also includes diagrammatic representations of the art, similar to those that George had explored online.

Multimedia resources can be accessed from mobile phones, tablets, computers and can even be saved through cloud technology in ways that do not occupy physical space.  Nevertheless, from the perspective of embodied training this complex consumption of media can best be broken down into three times: before, during and after physical practice. There remains a lot of work to be done in terms of how other forms of digital and online multimedia are being used, and can be used, in a pragmatic and safe manner.  We touch on these issues in our tentative conclusion.

A single moment from Ip Man’s teaching career immortalized on YouTube.

Concluding comments: A call for further research and reflection

This small-scale study remains in its infancy.  Yet we hope that it makes a small contribution to the pedagogical and social scientific work on Wing Chun, traditionalist Chinese martial arts and martial arts and combat sports in general. Other researchers and exponents of the art may wish to explore how the constantly expanding and flexible body of digital media offered on YouTube, Vimeo, private and open Facebook groups, specialist (and often commercial) websites, and blogs such as this one, can combine to influence learners and teachers of Wing Chun. Likewise, researchers could (and perhaps should) examine how practitioners themselves are shaping the knowledge of the art – and how this knowledge is transmitted – to new generations of Wing Chun learners and potential students in years to come.

Due to the almost infinite and “immortal” nature of digital information, it will be interesting to chart the development of this knowledge.  What can be inspiring for some is frustrating and confusing for others unable to discern skill levels, quality of technique and nuances of lineage. Issues of credibility, authenticity and authority may intrigue scholars as training exercises, history, technical explanations and “secret” applications move from tightly-knit groups and federations to Wing Chun practitioners anywhere in the world at any time, at the click of the button. This is just as Spencer mentions in the aptly titled “From Many Masters to Many Students,” which ties together ideas of transnational identities, real and imagined movements in the martial arts, such as in the case of Capoeira in Canada.

We join calls from martial arts scholars such as Paul Bowman to disrupt seemingly established disciplinary boundaries in order to join forces to explore this challenging and stimulating topic from a range of disciplinary perspectives, and with their correlating methodologies and theoretical frameworks. Our own approach was limited to a more sociological standpoint that overrode our previous inclination towards phenomenology.  It may yet provide room for other investigations looking at the historical development of martial arts instructional media, the ethical issues accompanying them, the cultural sensitivities when dealing with the politics and traditions of knowledge and its possession, and issues of regulation and legal control of potentially damaging material that could lead to bad or unhealthy practice. Phenomenology may afford purchase on investigations which explore the role of the senses within pedagogic and enskillment practices involved in embodied transmission of Wing Chun knowledge. An example of such avenue in another combat sports context is a chapter examining the role of the sense in pedagogies of MMA coaches by Anu, in a forthcoming book on the senses in physical culture.

Pedagogy in its broadest sense, like our backgrounds in sport and exercise sciences, is interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary. Martial arts studies can work closely with these similarly disrupted disciplines to explore complex themes such as the one we have selected here. And so we finish this short article with a question that remains to be fully explored: How can we understand the connections between multimedia and embodied knowledge in Wing Chun and other TCMA from a multisensorial, timeless and global approach?

About the Authors

George Jennings is a lecturer in sport sociology/physical culture at the Cardiff School of Sport, Cardiff Metropolitan University. His current work examines the relationships between martial arts, health and society. Previously, George has conducted ethnographic and case studies of Wing Chun and Taijiquan, as well as an examination of the newly crated martial arts in Mexico, such as Xilam.

Anu Vaittinen is a qualitative sociologist and a health researcher based at the Institute of Health & Society at Newcastle University, interested in sociological phenomenology and development of socially situated, sensuous embodied ways of knowing within physical cultures and health. Anu is a recreational MMA and Wing Chun practitioner and novice triathlete.

Becoming Ip Man, in all the Wrong Ways

On a Saturday morning in 2011 I found myself running an “open session” for my Sifu’s Wing Chun school.  The weekday classes were always structured affairs in which learners worked their way through an extensive curriculum centered on one of the various forms in the Wing Chun system.  Monday through Thursday students were separated into individual classes for Siu Lim Tao, Chum Kiu, Biu Jee, the dummy, pole and swords.  There was also a separate introductory class in which beginners were taught basic skills before being advanced to Siu Lim Tao.

Friday nights and Saturday mornings, however, were different.  Sifu would take the day off and one of his senior students opened the school for anyone who wanted to train.  Most students were interested in working on their Chi Sao or “sticky hands.”  But in other cases people would work on skills that had been introduced during the week, perfect their forms or train on the schools dummies.

That was where I found Danny*.  In his mid-twenties he was a relatively new and enthusiastic student.  Danny had only recently been advanced from the beginner to the Siu Lim Tao class.  But he was a quick learner and spent a lot of time on social media.

Given the order in which Sifu introduced class material, Danny had never been formally introduced to the dummy form.  That would come a couple of years down the road.  But he had been shown some basic drills that could be done on the dummy to help him improve his basic skills and conditioning.

Enthusiastic as ever Danny was eager to move beyond this material.  So he went on Youtube and, in the course of a single week, taught himself the entire dummy form.  When he arrived at the school on Saturday he was eager to show me what he had been working on.

Danny admitted that the entire exercise turned out to be more complicated than he had expected.  A talented dancer, he was no stranger to the reconstructing other people’s movement techniques from video.  I must admit that this is something that does not come easily to me.  It is much easier for me to understand a sequence of movements from the way that they feel, rather than how they might look to a theoretical third party observer.  To each his own.

The first issue that Danny discovered was that there are a million versions of the dummy form on Youtube, and most of them seemed to have little in common.  He had no way of knowing which was the most appropriate model for our school (Sifu had yet to start posting his own videos).  Nor, in his estimation, were all of the performers equally skilled.  But if you do not already know the form, how can you tell who is actually doing it “correctly?”

Danny decided to cut the Gordian knot with an argument by authority.  He had not heard of a lot of the lineages and teachers that he saw on Youtube, but he did know that he was studying “Ip Man” Wing Chun.  A couple of quick searches revealed the 1972 recording of Ip Man performing the dummy form in his own home in Hong Kong.  Realizing that he just found a fount of “authenticity” Danny drank deeply.

What he proceeded to demonstrate for me was, in a word, terrifying.  It was an absolutely uncanny reproduction of the now iconic Ip Man film.  Every movement, gesture and pause was flawlessly reproduced.  And yet what was performed was most definitely not our dummy form.  It was at best a shadow of it, a type of Kung Fu mime.  Movements that can contain power did not, his angles of approach were all just a bit off (which is a problem when you are punching a block of solid wood), and his form lacked the cadence one typically sees (I suspect because the video he worked from had no sound).  Yet before my eyes a young and healthy student was transformed into a frail Cantonese gentleman.

The entire thing was an exercise in self-transformation, just not any of the ones that the dummy form is usually concerned with.  I asked Danny if he knew how Ip Man had died, and he did not.  What followed was an explanation of the fact that the recordings he had seen were of an old sick man in the final stages of throat cancer.  Some of what Danny had been practicing was indeed dummy material.  Yet a surprising amount of it was simply the imitation of a single specific moment in time.

One suspects that if we had a recording of Ip Man’s dummy form during the 1930s he would have approached it somewhat differently.  And it still would have been “authentic” Wing Chun.  Yet which recording would a modern student find more useful?

Simply jumping into the world of Youtube instruction thus presents two problems.  First, we must locate the appropriate model.  Next we need to determine what is actually significant, and what is secondary, in that performance.

Danny’s solution to the fist problem was actually clever.  Indeed, our schools version of the dummy form is virtually identical to what he saw in the video.  But without a firm grasp of the basic techniques and philosophy of Wing Chun, he was not able to separate out the core purpose of the dummy form from all of the secondary considerations that emerged at one specific moment in 1972.

An image of the Ancient Jedi Master Bodo Baas appears to Kam Solusar as the keeper of a Holocron. Source: wookieepedia

The Jedi’s Holocron

I had not thought about Danny or that incident back in my Sifu’s school for years.  Yet for the last couple of days it has been on my mind.  Recently George Jennings and Anu Vaittinen visited Kung Fu Tea and shared some of their research on the growing presence of the multi-media resources within the Wing Chun community.  While other scholars have tackled the issue from the film and media studies perspective, they were more interested in pedagogical questions.  How does the omnipresent smartphone, with instant access to a huge database of video, change the way in which Wing Chun is taught or learned?

Of course this situation is in no way restricted to Wing Chun.  All of the more popular styles seem to be inundated with on-line instructors and students offering a wealth of free advice.  The combat sports (Boxing, Wrestling, Kickboxing, MMA) have been using film as part of training and fight preparation since literally the invention of the moving picture.  From that perspective, the TCMA are relative latecomers to a crowded media landscape.

It was my ongoing ethnographic fieldwork with the Central Lightsaber Academy that first forced me to confront these issues in my personal training.  While I have mostly managed to avoid the social-media scene surrounding Wing Chun, Darth Nihilius (also a Wing Chun Sifu), is very engaged with these technologies of communication.  He has brought this same enthusiasm to his lightsaber combat class.  In order to help students practice various techniques at home he posts frequent video updates to his various Facebook groups and Youtube channel.

Lots of material is inevitably pulled into these discussions from other places as well.  Much of that comes from the Terra Prime Lightsaber Academy, run by another individual with an extensive background in the Chinese martial arts. This group functions, at least in part, as a sort of “virtual lightsaber school.”

It has assembled a training and advancement program and put out a huge number of videos on a mind-boggling number of topics.  Students who do not have the benefit of direct classroom instruction can go through this material on their own, post videos of their progress, and get detailed criticism and feedback from a select group of more experienced practitioners within the TPLA.

Within the TPLA community you will find some lightsaber students associated with traditional schools (much like Darth Nihilius’ CLA), and others who gather only in the digital realm as “learners in exile.”  Needless to say, this type of hybrid teaching structure is only possible because of relatively recent advances in communications technology.  Yet even the students within more traditional schools are encouraged to keep video diaries of their own training, as well as to consult the extensive library of teaching resources that can be found on-line.

One finds these sorts of hybrid and networked teaching structures in other places as well.  Aspects of the Taijiquan community, which combines both traditional schools as well as large numbers of semi-detached and solo-practitioners, comes immediately to mind.  Yet when we begin to look at these practices through the lens of the lightsaber community, it all begins to look like a case of life imitating art.

One of the many iconic images to be found in the Star Wars extended universe is the “holocron.” Shaped as either a cube or pyramidal box, and made up of a complex arrangement of crystals and circuitry, this supposedly ancient technology allowed Jedi and Sith masters to store vast amounts of information for future generations.  Explicitly designed as a pedagogical tools, a holocron possessed an artificial intelligence that could access and display recordings from many fields of knowledge, including lightsaber combat.  And while they were not “alive,” these devices were said to have been able to detect both the motivations and skills of their users.  This allowed them to withhold information until such a time as it might provide real insight.

More than once I have found myself holding a lightsaber in one hand, and my phone in the other, as I attempted to work my way through a new training exercise. (Unfortunately we have yet to perfect the holographic display, which would greatly simplify things).  At those moments I sometimes think how close we have come to being able to realize the essential promise of a holocron.  Twenty minutes later, when I find myself still working on the same basic sequence, I am more likely to reflect on the pedagogical distance between a Youtube video and the assembled wisdom of the Jedi sages.

Such has been the case over the last few days.  I was recently assigned to begin learning a new form (or “dulon”) in my lightsaber class.  Because I have some travel coming up over the next few weeks Darth Nihilius mentioned that I should look at the various videos that I have been produced on this particular form and keep working on it on my own.

This has worked fine for learning the basic sequence of techniques in the dulon.  Yet as any martial artist can tell you, there is more to learning a form than just mastering the gross motor movements.  Those only put you in a place where the real work of perfecting intent, energy, and the fine details of technique can begin.

Nor is this material of secondary importance.  Very often conceptual arguments are encoded in the rhythm and energy of a form.  This is where one might also find a dulon’s more elusive “internal aspect.”  Unfortunately “energy” and “intent,” qualities that can be easily felt and experienced, do not always come through on video.

This is not to say that they never come through.  The more depth of knowledge you have in these areas, the more you will be able to decode in another martial artists performance.  Yet there are always secondary considerations that cloud the picture.  And the very fact that you are attempting to learn a dulon from a video clip in the first place suggests that you may not be totally qualified to critique and deconstruct its performance.

On the small black holocron that currently sits on my desk, I have four different recordings of the dulon that I am currently working.  They were recorded by two different instructors (both trusted sources) over the last couple of years.  While the basic sequence of techniques in each of these recordings is the same, when examined carefully the fine details between them are sometimes strikingly different.

In one form the movements are clear and distinct, punctuated by brief pauses in which a stance is held.  When one watches the blade tip it looks as though most of the movements and cuts are basically linear in their travel.

In the next recording the instructor appears to be working on presenting a smooth flow of movement.  The sword tip never rests, so much so that certain techniques that were distinct in the first recording seem to be totally swallowed in the second.  Further, some movements that had previously been linear now take on a looping quality in which economy of motion is traded for momentum.

The third recording goes even further down this same pathway.  Now the swordsman’s body seems to be allowed to arch and sway in compensation for specific techniques.  This form also covers the least ground and the footwork is, in places, restricted.

The final recording is different still.  Its movements are sharp and linear.  This quality of movement has been tied to a feeling of aggression not seen in the first three.  Upon closer inspection it seems to be the result of more power being issued through each of the strikes and a slightly faster tempo of the footwork covering more ground.

Danny worked from only a single recording of Ip Man.  As such he had no subtle variations to fixate upon.  Without an exterior frame of reference (or a strong grounding in the basics of the style) each small detail in the form looked as valid and central to the performance of the set as the next.

My current situation is slightly different as I can directly observe the same individuals performing the same form in slightly different ways.  My background as a martial artist leads me to suspect that both environmental and personal factors are at play.  In one case the room was too short and the footwork at the end of the dulon had to be altered to accommodate the environment.  But did a feeling of being “cramped” alter other aspects of the performance as well?

Nor do martial artists always approach a form with the same goals.  At certain times their objective might be to give a clear performance for the audience.  In another practice session they may be trying to flow smoothly between actions.  At yet another moment they may be practicing the form as a way for working on power development.

How then do we locate the essence of a form in this plethora of representation?  A holocron that presents information selectively, and possesses a sense of its own authority, might be able to help.  A smartphone, on the other hand, leaves us to our own devices.

Instruction at a TPLA Workshop held on April 30th, 2016. Source: The TPLA Facebook Group.

Martial Arts, Lakatos and the Scientific Research Program

Perhaps we can begin to think more critically about this problem by abstracting away from the realm of the martial arts.  One of my favorite books in graduate school was Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave’s co-edited volume Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge.  This was derived from the proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science held in London in 1965.  At these meetings a number of philosophers responded to Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  Lakatos attempted to bridge the gap between Popper and Kuhn by advancing his own notion that science was based not so much on discrete, easily falsified theories (Popper’s position), but on more holistic “research programs.”

In retrospect it seems like an odd book to find in a survey course on the Theories of International Relations.  And the debates over the epistemology of knowledge have moved on from where they were in the middle of the 1960s.  Still, I often find myself thinking back to ideas I first encountered in this collection, even when I am working with a lightsaber or wooden dummy.

There are many ways to conceptualize the martial arts.  Some students seem to regard them as a collection of discrete techniques to be mastered.  Other individuals look to them as vehicles of philosophical understanding, a “way of life.”  In my academic work I tend to view them as social organizations.  Indeed, the martial arts really only exist when there is (at least potentially) a master and an apprentice.

Another possibility is to think of them as something similar to scientific theories, each of which is upheld and expanded by a dedicated community of researchers.  More specifically, many martial arts seem to be based around particular theories of violence. They contain certain core assumptions about how the human body works, and responds in different situations.

These are then hedged about with smaller secondary theories regarding what sorts of attacks one is most likely to encounter (Wing Chun often defaults to multiple attacker scenarios), and what sorts of structures will most likely to be effective (ones that control the “center line”).  Beyond that, there are a number of commonly shared minor hypothesis (punching wall bags and hanging heavy bags helps to build “good structure”), that get tested in schools around the globe on a nightly basis.

But what if our theory is wrong?  The seemingly utilitarian logic of science (championed by Popper) would call on us to discard our theories when we first encounter evidence that contradicts them.  Thus when Bruce Lee’s fight with Wong Jack Man was not as successful as he hoped, he moved farther away from his traditional Wing Chun training.

While there is a great deal of wisdom in knowing when to move.  Still, one must be cautious when employing such an approach.  The basic problem with falsification based models of learning is that there is always a mismatch between our theories of reality, and the way that reality actually functions.

Simply put, the world is an exceedingly complex place.  Even a single topic, like community violence, is maddeningly complicated.  The human mind is simply incapable for fully perceiving, let alone computing, all of the facts necessary to deal with “reality.” As a result we create theories.  They are essentially simplified visions of reality that focuses on only the key points that are necessary for us to solve our problem.

J. Z. Smith has argued that theories, like maps, guide us through unknown territory. Yet no map is perfectly accurate. That would require a document drawn in one-to-one scale.  Such a thing would literally blanket and hide the territory that it was meant to reveal.  What makes a map truly useful is not that which is included, but that which is left behind.  The more you omit, the easier it is to carry the map in your pocket or read it on a crowded subway car.  A map that is too large or cumbersome to read is, by definition, not useful.

Like maps, theories are simplifications of reality.  What this means is that in a strict sense every theory is born falsified.  That is the original sin of disciplined academic thought, particularly in the social sciences.  How one moves forward from that point has been the subject of debate.1  Yet on some level we hold on to our theories because they are useful to us.  100% descriptive accuracy has never been a possibility, nor is it really the point of the exercise.

Whether the Wing Chun structure will perfectly defend against specialists in every known type of violence (it will not), is not a relevant question.  Instead we need to ask, “Will this be useful to me in a number of situations against the sorts of attackers that I personally am likely to encounter?” Again, there are many reasons why someone might train in the martial arts that have nothing to do with self-defense.  But my hope is that this line of thought will help us to think more carefully about framing relevant questions.

Lakatos had quite a bit to say on what happens next.  Because all theories of violence (or anything else) will depart from reality on some level, the only thing that can actually falsify one approach is the creation of a “better” theory.  Failure to explain all observed facts is never enough.

What constitutes a “better” theory?  According to Lakatos we should only accept the second theory if it could accomplish three tasks:

1) It must do all the intellectual work that the first theory did.

2) It must account for the specific failure of that theory.

3) It must go on to explain a range of new and novel facts that are both important and unrelated to specific events of 1 and 2.

Admittedly that is a pretty high bar.  But when it is achieved we tend to see sweeping “paradigm shifts” in our understanding of a topic, much as Kuhn predicted. Unfortunately this insight alone did not solve Lakatos’ epistemological problems.  Nor will it resolve the dilemma posed in the first half of this essay.

To put the matter simply, we must still be able to define and identify our theories before we can collectively test them.  Nor is that process always easy in either the sciences (“Sure Dr. Jone’s work talks about the density of star formation, but is it really central to our theory of dark matter?”) or in the martial arts (“Yes, everyone says the Red Boat martial artists flipped their butterfly swords into reverse grips when training in confined spaces, but is that relevant to Wing Chun’s core understanding of bladed combat?”).

Lakatos observed that the work of actual scientists rarely conformed to the simplistic models of a single theory and set of hypotheses envisioned by most philosophers.   In real life we see lots of research teams working on many different projects, not all of which share the same basic assumptions.  So how do we locate the “real” theory of quantum gravity?  Or for that matter the real “Shii-cho” in lightsaber combat?

To solve the dilemma Lakatos observed that theoretical discussions are never unitary.  Instead we see at least two elements within a theory.  He called them a “positive” and “negative” heuristic.  But it might be simpler to think of them as a hard inner core of axiomatic insights, and a flexible outer belt of protective hypothesis and minor theories that can be derived from them.

When an important assumption was challenged a new set of hypotheses might be added to the protective belt to protect it.  If astronomers notice that the stars in a galaxy rotate faster than they expect given the observable mass of its cosmic structures, rather than throwing out our theory of gravity and starting from scratch, we might instead save Newton by postulating the existence of some sort of “dark matter” that does not interact with light or electromagnetic forces.  In fact, that is exactly what scientists have done, and the results have been fairly fruitful if not entirely satisfying.

Likewise, when I watch four unique performances of the same lightsaber Dulon, or I see two of my Wing Chun brothers play the same dummy set in slightly different ways, I do not assume that every small detail is equally valid and that somehow one performance has invalidated the others.  Instead there may be secondary considerations for what I have seen.  One student may be trying to develop energy in his dummy set, while the other is working on relaxation and flow.

This is then is the advantage of having multiple views of related events.  Through a process of elimination one might be able to work back towards the central core of the form.  Yet our view of the world is always incomplete.  We will never have a complete play list of all of the valid ways in which the form could be played, and so any inductively derived understanding of the theory behind the form must always remain incomplete.

Robert Downey Jr. and Eric Orem working on the wooden dummy.

Conclusion: When the student is ready….

Having access to a skilled teacher is helpful on any number of levels.  Yet in this particular case they are able to speak to what Lakatos’ might call a martial art’s “central conceptual core” and the “protective belt” of training strategies and individuals innovations.  They can relate to a student their specific theory of violence.  It may or may not be an accurate representation of reality, but it is certainly easier to encounter these ideas through conversation than by attempting to inductively derive everything from videos on a smartphone.

Perhaps most importantly of all, a real life teacher is able to withhold information in a way that Google and Youtube are not.  A teacher should know when to step in to instruct, but also when to step back and tell the student to continue to drill the basics.  There is something almost seductive about the sheer amount of video that is now available on many fighting systems.  Yet the pure weight of this unsorted, ungraded and often very opinionated information that can also be stifling.

Once a common core of knowledge and insight has been built up through dedicated practice, much that was a mystery (“Should my blade tip cut in a direct line, or loop back and swing forward?”) naturally falls into place.  Having a vast sea of martial knowledge at our finger tips must be counted as an asset.  Yet perhaps the more valuable one is having a teacher that can inspire us to put the phone down, return to the basics, and solve some of these problems for ourselves.

It is important not to overstate this case.  The advent of virtually free video has been a major boon for the martial arts.  My fieldwork in the lightsaber community has introduced me to its undeniable pedagogical value, from the quick distribution of class notes and “homework assignments,” to the creation of movement archives with real depth.  Nor do I think that teachers within the traditional arts should be too quick to dismiss these tools as mere distractions.

Nevertheless, they do have limitations.  Most recordings capture only a single performance, crystallizing a specific moment in time.  Yet from these we seek generalizable understandings.

The results of imitating such sources too closely are often unfortunate.  Lakatos’ understanding of scientific inquiry helps us to understand why this method so frequently fails.  The inductive study of discrete events simply does not give us a reliable way to separate out the central defining aspects of a martial theory from the epiphenomenal aspects of a given recording. Creating ever more technically advanced recordings of a discrete sequence of performances, such as we see with some efforts to document the Asian martial arts for their cultural heritage value, does not resolve these more basic philosophical problems.

Ultimately multimedia resources work better when accessed in conjunction with other types of instruction.  Note, for instance, that the TPLA does not simply post their videos on-line and tell the Learners in Exile to have at it.  These students are instead encouraged to post their own progress reports, receive specific points of feedback, and be proactively engaged in a rich conceptual discussion.

Perhaps asking whether it is possible to learn Kung Fu from a video is actually the wrong question.  The much more relevant one would seem to be why in an age of abundant expertise, declining training costs and virtually free electronic communication, do so many individuals want to try?  That is fundamentally a sociological rather than a technical or philosophical issue.  Yet those who wish to preserve and pass on these fighting systems must grapple with its answers.

*As always when discussing fieldwork, names and identifying features have been changed to protect the innocent.

1. “Kuhn as does Popper rejects the idea that science grows by accumulation of eternal truths. But while according to Popper science is ‘revolution in permanence’, and criticism the heart of the scientific enterprise, according to Kuhn revolution is exceptional and, indeed, extra-scientific, and criticism is, in ‘normal’ times, anathema… The clash between Popper and Kuhn is not about a mere technical point in epistemology. It concerns our central intellectual values, and has implications not only for theoretical physics but also for the underdeveloped social sciences and even for moral and political philosophy. If even in science there is no other way of judging a theory but by assessing the number, faith and vocal energy of its supporters, then this must be even more so in the social sciences: truth lies in power. Thus Kuhn’s position would vindicate, no doubt, unintentionally, the basic political credo of contemporary religious maniacs (“student revolutionaries”).”   *Imre Lakatos (1974), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge.

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If you enjoyed this post be sure to also check out:  Costly Signals, Credible Threats and the Problem of Reality in the Chinese Martial Arts

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Weapons seized by the NYPD and photographed for a 1922 report on violence in Chinatown. Source: NYPD Public Records/Vice.com.

The Yin and the Yang of the Hudiedao

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to participate in a day-long seminar on the Wing Chun swords taught by Sifu John Crescione. This was a great experience that provided many students with an introduction to this iconic weapon. Such events, by necessity, tend to be packed with information, activity and new faces. It is always a challenge to select a single high-point. Yet I think that for some of the students such a moment might have come just before we broke for lunch.

One of the themes that Sifu Crescione emphasized was the importance of knowing your weapon. At this point in time there doesn’t seem to be any single standard pattern for the construction of the double swords used within Wing Chun, let alone across all of the southern Chinese martial arts. While these weapons all have enough points of resemblance to be identifiable, elements such as blade length, shape and handling characteristics vary immensely. Some swords are optimized for chopping and slashing while others seem to be better suited to stabbing. The form used within Wing Chun contains a wide range of techniques, but it is up to the practitioner to select the most appropriate ones for any given situation and set of blades.

Nor does this concern apply only to recently produced weapons. As I noted in my previous history of the butterfly swords, a huge amount of variation can be seen in the size and shapes of swords that were produced in 19th and early 20th century in Southern China. To demonstrate this Sifu Crescione had brought a set of late Qing era blades to the seminar. I also brought a pair of knives from my collection which date to approximately the same era. Both sets of knives were longer (and heavier) than most modern examples and possessed distinct tips.

It was fascinating to watch the other students crowd around, eager to get a glimpse, and then handle, these antique blades. Such relics are not frequently encountered by students today. There was a feeling of reverence in the room. The Butterfly Swords have taken on a near legendary status within the practice of our art. Instruction in this weapon is often reserved for only the most advanced students.

The knives have become a symbol of martial attainment. Mastery of these blades is seen as the culmination of years of dedicated practice. This may help to explain why so many organizations have included these swords in their school’s logo.

Nor am I immune to the romance of the blade. After some discussion with the publisher it was decided that the butterfly swords should grace the cover of our book on the history of Wing Chun and Southern Chinese Martial Arts. I must admit that I was elated when I received the news.

Still, it is not clear that any of the meanings that modern martial artists attribute to these weapons have much intrinsic value. Many of these students might be surprised, if not a bit scandalized, to see how these same weapons were perceived at various points in the past.

Far from being the epitome of martial excellence, in the 1840s the hudiedao were a standard issue weapon stocked for use by the quickly trained (and poorly equipped) militia companies of the Pearl River Delta. These weapons were produced by the tens of thousands and issued to troops who tended to carry them as side-arms (their main weapons being the musket, spear or pole). While never issued to the “official” Green Standard Army troops, local gentry seem to have appreciated the fact that these blades could be made cheaply and new recruits (more used to village boxing than formal military drill) could be trained in their use.

Ships crews and private security guards were also issued these weapons for the same basic reasons. That probably helps to explain their association with pirates, traveling opera companies and other elements of southern China’s rich nautical lore. During the 1840s and 1850s these short, guarded, double swords seem to have carried a different, more plebeian, set of symbolic associations.

Nor was southern China the only place where the public encountered such swords. For better or worse butterfly swords also appeared in publications, museum displays and public demonstration in the West throughout the 19th century. Once again, they carried with them a set of connotations quite distinct from those admired by modern Kung Fu students.

Rather than being a marker of self-discipline and martial excellence, these swords were most often associated with the periodic breakouts of violence that rocked both the East and West Coast Chinatowns. Whereas British military observers in the 1840s had found the Chinese use of these swords to be paradoxical and quaint, American audiences viewed them as symbols of everything that was untrustworthy and dangerous about the nation’s steadily growing Chinese population. In many ways the spread of the image of the butterfly sword went hand in hand with the spread of the Yellow Panic and the news coverage that supported it.

Butterfly Swords in the Roaring 1920s

This point was driven home for me as I read some of the publicity releases for a new book titled Tong Wars: The Untold Story of Vice, Money and Murder in New York’s Chinatown by Scott D. Seligman (Penguin 2016). Given this volume’s discussion of community violence in the Chinese diaspora community during the 19th and early 20th centuries it has earned a spot on my “to read” pile. Even more interesting were some of the publicity photos that were distributed to the press and other media outlets.

Perhaps the most exciting of these can be seen at the top of this post. Taken from the archives of the New York City Police Department this image was apparently included in a 1922 report detailing the ongoing problem of violence in Chinatown. It shows a large group of weapons (and other contraband material) that had been captured by police.

Some of this material is what one would expect to see being carried by any well-outfitted gangster during the 1920s. I counted 16 revolvers in this picture and at least one automatic handgun in addition to holsters and ammunition. Yet more traditional weapons were also well represented. Within the haul there were two (quite nice) sets of butterfly swords as well as other daggers. These particular Tong members also seem to have had an affinity for brass knuckles, having accumulated at least five sets.

I have yet to read Seligman’s book, so I can’t say if his narrative contains a more detailed backstory for this particular photograph. But I did notice the following quote in a publicity interview that he did for Vice.

“Vice: How did the violence evolve from meat cleavers to pistols to bombs?

Segliman: It was a slow process, but it escalated as weapons got more sophisticated and capable of taking out more people at a time. In the late 1800s, they were mostly using cleavers and knives; by 1900, Chinatown saw a large influx of revolvers. Explosives were only used once or twice later in the game—about 1912—and they fortunately did more damage to property than to people.” (Read More Here)

What struck me about this quote was the sense of nostalgia for a previous period of violence. Needless to say, we hear a lot of this in traditional martial arts circles.

On a purely philosophical level I am not sure that being beaten to death or stabbed is preferable to being shot. Nor, historically speaking does there seem to have been a golden, pre-gun, era in modern Chinese violence. As I pointed out in a previous post looking at violence in the San Francisco Chinese community of the 1870s, the police seem to have been confiscating firearms from that neighborhood’s criminals at about the same rate as they were being taken off the streets in the rest of the city. While it is undoubtedly true that violence in NY escalated after 1900, I doubt that the primary factors behind that were exclusively technological in nature.

The other thing that struck me about the 1922 photograph was how similar it was to other images that police and government officials had been producing across the country for at least 50 years. Indeed, given the qualitative change in the level of violence, what is surprising is that the weapons look so similar.

Chinese Highbinders and Weapons in San Francisco. Harper’s Weekly, Feb. 13th, 1886.

Readers might recall that in 1886 Harper’s Weekly ran a lengthy piece profiling the “Highbinders” of the Bay Area. This included engravings showing the various types of arms that had been confiscated from these groups including knives, handguns and butterfly swords. The author of the piece went on to include a chilling description of their use:

“The weapons of the Highbinder are all brought from China, with the exception of the hatchet and the pistol. The illustration shows a collection of Chinese knives and swords taken from criminals, and now in the possession of the San Francisco police. The murderous weapon is what is called the double sword. Two swords, each about two feet long, are worn in a single scabbard. A Chinese draws these, one in each hand, and chops his way through a crowd of enemies. Only one side is sharpened, but the blade, like that of all the Chinese knives, is ground to a razor edge. An effective weapon at close quarters is the two-edged knife, usually worn in a leather sheath. The handle is of brass, generally richly ornamented, while the blade is of the finest steel. Most of the assassinations in Chinatown have been committed with this weapon, one blow being sufficient to ensure a mortal wound. The cleaver used by the Highbinders is smaller and lighter than the ordinary butcher’s cleaver. The iron club, about a foot and a half long, is enclosed in a sheath, and worn at the side like a sword. Another weapon is a curious sword with a large guard for the hand. The hatchet is usually of American make, but ground as sharp as a razor.”

(Feb 13, 1886. Harper’s Weekly. P. 103).

While never the deadliest weapon in the Tong arsenal, the American press certainly seems to have considered the Butterfly Sword to be the most distinctive. Some accounts seem to have gone beyond the purely tactical value of this weapon and to have associated it with obscure, esoteric and threatening aspects of the Chinese American Experience. Of course the Tongs themselves often stood in for all of these qualities in late 19th century “Yellow Peril” literature.

The San Francisco Call, 1898.

Consider the cover of an 1898 edition of the The San Francisco Call. The paper ran an expose on the initiations conducted by the area’s Chinese secret societies. The main illustration showed a number of tong members, butterfly swords in hand, swearing to destroy the Qing and restore the Ming.

Another evidence photo, produced around 1900 and included in a government report, also shows a typical assortment of weapons carried by Chinese criminals and Tong members. Among the various knives (one of which is clearly Japanese) we also find a pair of bar maces, a revolver and set of hudiedao. It appears to be almost identical in size and shape to the examples that the New York police department would confiscate one generation latter.

Chinese Highbinder weapons collected by H. H. North, U. S. Commission of Immigration, forwarded to Bureau of Immigration, Washington D. C., about 1900.
Courtesy the digital collection of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkley.

An Evolving Symbol of Chinese Identity in the West

The 1922 NYPD photograph is interesting precisely because it suggests that while levels of violence may have escalated and fallen off in rhythmic patterns, firearms and more traditional weapons continued to co-existing for a surprising length of time. The number of handguns in the community escalated but butterfly swords did not disappear. And if this photo is a representative sample, knuckledusters seem to have grown in popularity. That would be a good sign that someone was still expecting hand-to-hand encounters.

The one thing that is absent from any of these photos or discussions, however, is the martial arts. While elements of the American public were certainly aware of these swords, they were not imagined as the training tools of skilled practitioners of martial arts, or even as an element of Chinese cultural heritage. Of course this was exactly how Samurai swords came to be seen in the first few decades of the 20th century. Instead these weapons were imagined as the cutting edge of a violent and subversive force in American life.

I suspect that the popular discourse linking obscure Chinese fighting methods to criminal groups was a powerful force in impeding the transnational transmission of these arts in the first half of the 20th century. It was not until Chinese-Americans came to be reimagined as a “model minority” in the post WWII era that immigration policies would be relaxed and the stage set for Bruce Lee to unleash a Kung Fu Fever in the 1970s.

The hudiedao are a fascinating topic of study precisely because they have seen it all. First associated in the western mind with humble militia troops and later with criminal groups, for many people butterfly swords represented the backwards and dangerous elements of Chinese society. In the current era this same object has been reinterpreted as a relic of a “more civilized” time in which persistent effort led to martial mastery and self-transformation. It is hard to say that one of these visions is more intrinsically “true” than the others, but this unfolding discourse may hold important keys to the meaning and spread of the Chinese martial arts in the West.  As a result we must be careful not to inappropriately project our reading of these symbols onto the past.

oOo

If you enjoyed this you might also want to read:  Tools of the Trade: The Use of Firearms and Traditional Weapons among the Tongs of San Francisco, 1877-1878.

oOo

Introduction

I recently had the good fortune to attend the 2016 Martial Arts Studies conference held at the German Sports University of Cologne, sponsored by the German Society of Sport Science’s Martial Arts Commission.  The theme of this year’s gathering was “Martial Arts and Society.”  Over the course of three days (October 6th-8th) I saw dozens of papers and posters on a number of fascinating topics.  I am happy to report that the future of Martial Arts Studies in Germany looks very bright.  In my next post I hope to be able to offer a complete report on the conference.

In the mean time, I would like to post the text of my keynote, delivered on the morning of October the 8th.  When I was initially contacted about this conference the organizers asked me to reflect on the process of writing my recent book on Wing Chun, to discuss why this style makes a potentially interesting case study, and to explore the process of writing good, engaging, martial arts history.  The following paper is a result of my reflections on those questions.  But, just to keep things interesting, I have also tossed in a couple of new discoveries uncovered during the course of my recent research at Cornell.

On a more personal note I would like to extend a special note of thanks to three individuals.  Prof. Dr. Swen Korner (and family) for the great hospitality and stimulating conversations that they offered over the course of these meetings.  Next, Leo Istas for all of his hard work in helping to bring this conference together and making it possible for me to attend.  And lastly Sixt Wetzler, who generously introduced me to some priceless treasures at the German Blade Museum (more on that later).  It was a great conference, and I highly recommend that anyone who has the chance to attend in future years do so.

Creating Wing Chun: Towards a Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts

Why should scholars be concerned with the history of the Asia martial arts?  And why is social history, in which we seek to understand the practices of ordinary people by situating their involvement with these fighting systems against a broad range of factors, particularly useful?  This paper addresses these questions as they related to my recent book, co-authored with Jon Nielson, The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts (SUNY Press, 2015).  It begins with two stories.

The first is a well-known legend within the TCMA community.  I am sure that there are people in this room who know it well.  It is the creation myth that is taught to every student within the Ip Man branch of the Wing Chun system.

Ip Man (1893-1972) was a master of a Chinese martial arts style called Wing Chun.  He became a prominent figure in the hand combat community after he fled to Hong Kong from his native town of Foshan in 1949, just ahead of the Communist advance.  Once in Hong Kong, economic necessity forced the aging Ip Man to open a martial arts school from which he promoted what had previously been a local art.  One of his best known students, the American actor and martial artist Bruce Lee, transformed his art into a global phenomenon.[1]

Our second story comes from the pages of the July 13^th, 1872, edition of a now forgotten newspaper called the North China Herald.  Published in English, this newspaper was popular with Western expatriates living in Shanghai and other parts of China.  I have never seen this account discussed in any publication on the Chinese martial arts.

In some respects these stories will be quite different, yet shared concerns and themes echo between them.  Taken as a set they help to illustrate the questions that emerge when we attempt to write social history.  Let us begin by attempting to imagine two competing visions of the Southern Chinese martial arts as they may (or may not) have existed at some point in the past.  The first of them comes directly from the brush of Ip Man.
The Burning of the Shaolin Temple and the Birth of Wing Chun

“The founder of the Ving Tsun Kung fu system, Miss Yim Ving Tsun was a native of Canton China. As a young girl, she was intelligent and athletic, upstanding and manly. She was betrothed to Leung Bok Chau, a salt merchant of Fukien. Soon after that, her mother died. Her father, Yim Yee, was wrongfully accused of a crime, and nearly went to jail. So the family moved far away, and finally settled down at the foot of Tai Leung Mountain at the Yunnan-Szechuan border. There, they earned a living by selling bean curd. All this happened during the reign of Emperor K’anghsi (1662-1722).

At the time, kungfu was becoming very strong in Siu Lam Monastery (Shaolin Monastery) of Mt. Sung, Honan. This aroused the fear of the Manchu government, which sent troops to attack the Monastery. They were unsuccessful. A man called Chan Man Wai was the First Placed Graduate of the Civil Service Examination that year. He was seeking favour with the government, and suggested a plan. He plotted with Siu Lam monk Ma Ning Yee and others. They set fire to the Monastery while soldiers attacked it from the outside. Siu Lam was burnt down, and the monks scattered. Buddhist Abbess Ng Mui, Abbot Chi Shin, Abbot Pak Mei, Master Fung To Tak and Master Miu Hin escaped and fled their separate ways.

Ng Mui took refuge in White Crane Temple on Mt. Tai Leung (also known as Mt. Chai Har). There she came to know Yim Yee and his daughter Yim Ving Tsun. She bought bean curds at their store. They became friends.

Ving Tsun was a young woman then, and her beauty attracted the attention of a local bully. He tried to force Ving Tsun to marry him. She and her father were very worried. Ng Mui learned of this and took pity on Ving Tsun. She agreed to teach Ving Tsun fighting techniques so that she could protect herself. Then she would be able to solve the problem with the bully, and marry Leung Bok Chau, her betrothed husband.

So Ving Tsun followed Ng Mui into the mountains, and started to learn kung fu. She trained night and day, and mastered the techniques. Then she challenged the local bully to a fight and beat him. Ng Mui set off to travel around the country, but before she left, she told Ving Tsun to strictly honour the kung fu traditions, to develop her kungf u after her marriage, and to help the people working to overthrow the Manchu government and restore the Ming Dynasty. This is how Ving Tsun kung fu was handed down by Abbess Ng Mui.”[2]

After this point the Wing Chun creation myth becomes a more standard lineage genealogy.  It relates how the art was passed first to a group of traveling Cantonese Opera performers, then to a prominent Foshan pharmacist named Leung Jan and his student, Chan Wah Shun, and finally to Ip Man himself.

It is difficult to establish the date of this story with precision.  The version that I just read to you was written down by Ip Man in the Hong Kong period of his career in anticipation of the creation of an organization called the “Ving Tsun Tong Fellowship.”[3] For whatever reason, that group never materialized and this hand written account was found in his papers following his death in 1972.

The popularity of this story in other Wing Chun lineages strongly suggests that it was something that was in general circulation by the 1930s.  As we argued in our book, this myth, in its current form, probably dates to the Republic period as it relies rather heavily on the figure Ng Moy who in older versions of the Shaolin myth was actually a villain.  She was not reimagined as a hero until a group of novels were published in the 1930s.[4]

Leaving aside specific arguments about the origin of the Wing Chun system, this story is of interest because it paints a vivid picture of the world of the southern Chinese martial arts during the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  Consider some of the major themes that we find in this legend.  First, the martial arts occupy a lawless environment in which the state is powerless to enforce order.

Still, the situation is anarchic (as that term is defined by political scientists) rather than purely chaotic.[5]  There is a certain code of conduct that contains and shapes the expression of violence within the community.  This is exemplified by the challenge fight with the marketplace bully, rather than a resort to private war.  Lastly, there is just a hint of romance wrapped in a large dose of social propriety.[6]  We see this expressed when Yim Wing Chun fights off an unwanted suitor to preserve the honor of her childhood fiancée, whom she has probably never seen before.

All of this happens in an undeniably romanticized Chinese landscape.  The actions starts when the Yim family flees the known world of the Pearl River Delta and heads for a far off mountain in Western China complete with mist covered temples and a mysterious Buddhist recluse.  It all sounds oddly like the plot of a kung fu movie.[7]  By the conclusion of the story the reader has no reason to doubt the inherent virtue of the southern Chinese martial arts.

Our second story, published under the title “Chinese Boxing,” also revolves around a life-defining challenge fight.  This event took place in a much more mundane environment, totally lacking in mist covered temples. Yet it also echoes many of the same themes found in the first story.

Image taken from a vintage french postcard showing soldiers gambling in Yunnan province. Note that the standing soldier on the left is holding a hudiedao in a reverse grip. Source: Author’s personal collection.

A Death in the Marketplace

“If there is one particular rather than another in which we might least expect to find John Chinaman resemble John Bull, it is in the practice of boxing.  The meek celestial does get roused occasionally, but he usually declines a hand to hand encounter, unless impelled by the courage of despair.  He is generally credited with a keen appreciation of the advantages of running away, as compared with the treat of standing up to be knocked down, and is slow to claim the high privilege the ancients thought worthy to be allowed only to freemen, of being beaten to the consistency of a jelly. 

How the race must rise in the estimation of foreigners, therefore, when we mention that the noble art of self-defence and legitimate aggressiveness flourished in China centuries probably before the “Fancy” ever formed a ring in that Britain which has come to be regarded as the home of boxing.  Of course, like everything else in China, the science has rather deteriorated than improved; its practice is rough; its laws unsystematized; its Professors of the art, called “fist-teachers,” offer their services to initiate their countrymen in the use of their “maulies,” and, in addition in throwing out their feet in a dexterous manner…

…Boxing clubs are kept up in country villages, where pugilists meet and contest the honours of the ring…

We are not unused to hearing of fatal encounters in the Western ring, where the brutal sport is hedged about with restrictions intended to guard against its most serious eventuality, but in China homicide in such affairs is made more frequent by the admission of kicking.  A case of the sort has just occurred at Tachang, a village about eight miles due north from the Stone Bridge over the Soochow creek. 

In a teashop where gambler and boxers were wont to meet, a dispute arose between two men about 18 cash, and it was arranged to settle it by fight.  After a few rounds, one man succeeded in knocking over the other, with a violent kick to the side.  The man sprang to his feet, exclaiming “Ah! That was well done,” and as he advanced to meet his antagonist again, suddenly fell back, dead. 

Consternation fell on those concerned in the matter, and every effort was made to evade a judicial enquiry.  The relatives of the deceased, however, come forward to make the usual capital out of their misfortune.  They seized the homicide, put him in chains, and bound him for two days and nights to the body of the dead man, which had been removed to the upper part of the teahouse. 

An arrangement for a pecuniary salve to their lacerated feeling was made, by which the people in the neighborhood paid $150, the teahouse keeper $100, and the dealer of the fatal blow $50.  But gambling and fighting had drained the resources of the latter, he was an impoverished rowdy without a respectable connection in the world, except the betrothal tie, by which the fate of a young lady was linked with his, before either had a will to consult or the wayward tendency of his character had appeared.  Glad of an opportunity to break off the engagement, the young lady’s friends came forward and offered to pay the sum if he would surrender all claim to his fiancée. 

The offer being accepted, the whole affair was settled; the sum of a Chinese boxing match being thus one combatant killed, a teahouse keeper ruined, a neighborhood heavily fined, and a marriage engagement broken off.  Probably such incidents occur very often, but if the parties can settle it among themselves, the magistrates, for their own sakes, are only too glad to have the matter hushed up.”[8]

One could write an entire paper analyzing, deconstructing and investigating this short news item.  Period accounts of actual challenge matches, and their social aftermath, are extremely rare in any language.  Yet consider the major themes shared between the two stories.  Unlike the previous legend, this one can be dated with a fair amount of precision.  It is an account of events that probably happened sometime in the summer of 1872, reported to the English reading public on July 13^th of that year.

That is significant as it makes this fight roughly contemporaneous with a critical stage in the development of Wing Chun.  Leung Jan, the pharmacist from Foshan who we just mentioned, may have been instructing his friend from the marketplace, Chan Wah Shun, as all of this was happening.[9]  Nevertheless, this description of the 19^th century martial arts lacks the exotic orientalism and romance of its predecessor.

Still, the martial arts are once again associated with economic marketplaces and the types of ruffians one might find there.  That is an important clue for historians of the Chinese hand combat systems to contemplate.

In the first, more romanticized, story the martial arts are seen as the means by which social norms are upheld.  The second case demonstrates the opposite possibility as the fight leads only to death, financial ruin the dissolution of an engagement.  Yet in both instances individuals seem to believe that keeping the state out of the matter is a good idea.

The thematic differences between these accounts are also interesting.  In the first story Yim Wing Chun and her family are very much alone in a hostile world.  Yet the second account reminds us that in reality the Chinese martial arts, and social violence more generally, occurred in villages that were dominated by strong clan structures.

In fact, most villages of this size would contain between one and three surnames, being dominated by a few large clans.  While the author of the article chose not to go into detail on this point, taking a male who has wronged your clan hostage and holding him until a hefty ransom was paid was not an uncommon way of settling inter-village disputes in the late Qing.

Tone is perhaps the most important difference between these stories.  The account of Yim Wing Chun emerges from within the world of Chinese boxing.  It is an emic explanation of these fighting systems which views them as a fundamentally positive means by which individuals address pressing personal and community matters.

The second story is etic in nature, presenting us with an outsider’s perspective.  Moreover, the anonymous author of the account of the fight in Tachang Village held the world of the Chinese martial arts in low regard.  In other portions of this account that I omitted due to the limitations of time it seems possible that he does not think all that highly of the English sport of boxing either.  One wonders whether his criticisms of people who practice the Chinese martial arts should be read as a subtle jab at his Western readers who may well be fans of their own forms of boxing.

Still, this air of disdain is quite accurate in some respects as it reminds us that, even in the volatile second half of the 19^th century, most respectable individuals in China were not interested in the martial arts.  They found these practices, and the individuals who took them up, to be socially marginal.  Nevertheless, once we control for questions of tone, the author’s outsider perspective yields a number of interesting historical and ethnographic observations.

An interior picture of the renown library at Shaolin prior to the 1928 destruction. Prominently displayed in the center are copper plated Buddhist scriptures. Researchers on the expedition also noted that this library contained illustrated manuscripts and a collection of staffs from historically important monks.

My Method of Social History

We now have two competing accounts of the Southern Chinese martial arts.  One is a period account of an alleged event that was likely recorded a few weeks after the fight in question transpired.  The other is a legend, an example of folk history, which purports to reveal the origins of an increasingly popular regional fighting tradition that was already a century old.

There is also the matter of social memory.  One of these accounts is still known, believed, taught and enacted in communities around the globe.[10]  Individuals look to it for inspiration and technical guidance as they seek to transform themselves through the practice of the martial arts.  The other story, while probably much more factually accurate, has been totally forgotten.  Its service as a cautionary tale ceased to be relevant when the community that it sought to inform dissolved in the 20^th century.

When faced with two differing accounts, the first question that we often ask is in many respects the least helpful.  Students will look at these two contrasting descriptions of the Southern Chinese martial arts and want to know, “which one is true?”  Which vision most accurately captures “reality?”[11] On some level the answer must be neither.

The problems with the Wing Chun creation legend are more obvious.  The Southern Shaolin Temple, as it is described by the region’s martial artists, likely never existed.  And the Shaolin Temple of Henan province (specifically referenced in the Ip Man version of the story) was never burned by Qing.  Nor did they slaughter its monks.

These are established facts, not up for historical debate.  It is quite suggestive that some of the figures in this account show up as characters in late-Qing kung fu novels long before they appear anywhere else.  Likewise, the resemblance of the heroines of the Wing Chun legend to central female figures in the creation accounts of White Crane Boxing (from Fujian) is probably not a coincidence.

Our second account also has some serious problems.  It is in no way a shining example of investigative journalism, even by 19^th century standards.  The author makes no effort to hide the fact that he is far from neutral observer.  Nor does he include some very basic facts in his account, such as the names of the two fighters, or even the date on which these events took place.

The level of descriptive detail in this account leads me to suspect that it is basically credible.  Yet the way in which it is written strongly suggests that the point of this article was never to teach readers technical or sociological facts about Chinese boxing.  Rather, it was a transparent attempt to convince them to imagine China in a certain way.  It is basically an exercise in the construction of ethnic and national “mythologies” by other means.

The correlation between the socio-economic status of our authors and the ways in which they discussed the martial arts is probably not a coincidence.  As one reads the various accounts of the martial arts that appeared in the popular press in China between the 1870s and the 1940s we see competition between groups who viewed the personal empowerment promised by the martial arts in positive terms, those who wish to reform these practices and put them at the disposal of the state, and lastly a large group of relatively elite voices that viewed the martial arts as a backwards waste of resources that had no place in a modern China.  The crafting of accounts supporting these different positions is highly reminiscent of the process that James C. Scott described in his classic study, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday forms of Peasant Resistance.[12]

In many respects the preceding accounts are fairly representative of the sorts of data that scholars discover throughout the course of their research.  Faced with such narratives, all of which have been shaped by other hands, what is a social historian to do?

First we must step back and think carefully about research design.  What is the actual object of our analysis?  What puzzles are we attempting to solve?  Is our goal really to understand the technical development of a hand combat system?  Or are we instead interested in the community that developed and transmitted these practices at different points in time?

Good social history is concerned with the production of sound descriptive and causal inferences.  My approach to these questions is probably a result our background in the social sciences and training in the case study (rather than the area studies) approach.  As such, both Jon Nielson and I were interested in moving beyond purely interpretive exercises.  We wished to develop a framework that could speak directly to a range of sociological theories.[13]

Without denying the fruitfulness of the “embodied turn” that we have seen in fields like sociology and anthropology over the last few decades,[14] we would suggest that students of martial arts studies think very carefully about their linked methodological and theoretical assumptions.  The hand combat systems are said to be “arts” precisely because they exist only as social institutions.   They differ from pure violence in that these techniques exist within a framework of ideas and identities which are meant to be conveyed from teacher to student.[15]  Questions of community involvement are not superfluous to the development of the martial arts.  Rather, they are central to the entire enterprise.

The author of the 1872 article was absolutely correct to identify the individuals most likely to invest themselves in these systems of practice and knowledge as being socially marginal.  Nor is this pattern isolated to China in the Qing or Republic periods.  Modern sociologists and anthropologists have noted a link between many hand combat traditions and social marginality in a wide range of cultures and settings.[16]

This is precisely why historians interested in questions of social history and popular culture must take note of the Chinese martial arts.  As in most places, the history of China was written by educated elites.  This makes the day to day realities of most people’s lives very difficult to reconstruct.

The Chinese martial arts are interesting in that they offer a unique window into the hopes and concerns of a large segment of the population that might otherwise be overlooked.  Further, the lineage based nature of these fighting systems means that modern organizations and practices continue to look to the past for legitimacy.  These fighting systems have sometimes preserved information, usually stories but in other cases actual documents, that historians will find useful.

More importantly, members of the local community tend to regard martial art traditions as being ancient and the guardians of certain types of values.  While most of the Asian fighting systems that people actually practice are very much products of the modern era, they are nevertheless closely tied to critical discourses about identity, community violence and history.

There are other social organizations that share many of these same traits.  I actually began my research on community organization and violence in China before I ever became personally involved in the practice of kung fu.  Initially I was conducting research on new religious movements and their association with violent uprisings in the late Qing dynasty in an attempt to test a general theory of the relationship between religious communities and the generation of social capital.[17]

After giving a paper on social capital and the Boxer Uprising at the 2009 Midwest Political Science Association meetings, one of the commentators suggested that I take a look at some of the events in southern China.  He was attempting to direct my attention to the Taiping Rebellion.  As I began to investigate the issue I was surprised to find a number of martial arts schools still in existence that claimed a heritage going back to those events.  This memory of revolutionary action, whether real or imagined, would arise again within these groups at later moments of historical crisis.[18]

At that point I became quite interested in the development of the martial arts associations of southern China.  Other sorts of social organizations, like trade guilds, clan associations or new religious movements might occasionally become involved in community violence.  Yet martial arts societies often viewed themselves as specialists in this realm.[19]  While the trade guilds of Beijing and Yihi Boxers of Shandong have ceased to exist, many of southern China’s martial arts movements are still with us today.  As a student of globalization, I was also fascinated by the degree of success that these groups had enjoyed in spreading themselves throughout the world.[20]

Shortly after coming to these realizations I began a personal study of Wing Chun with Jon Nielson, who at the time also taught at the same university where I was employed.  He was interested in many of the same historical and theoretical questions and had been planning a more limited historical research project of his own.  At that point we began to discuss the possibility of putting together a broadly based, theoretically informed, study of Wing Chun.

This seemed like an obvious topic as my co-author is a direct student of Ip Ching, one of Ip Man’s surviving children.  We were assured of getting access to certain resources that would be helpful in understanding the evolution of this particular system.  Yet basic research design questions still required serious thought.  Making a contribution to the social scientific literature requires more than just access to good data or an interesting story.  Specifically, one needs a theory.

We began our investigation with a simple premise.  We proposed that increased instances of community instability would lead, in time, to the development new martial arts organizations.  Rather than simply providing self-defense training on an individual level, these organizations should be seen as expressions of the community’s self-interest and would be tolerated by local elites (who might otherwise fear their rebellious potential) to the extent that they provided a degree of stability.  In short, while martial artists often posture as outsiders who flaunt societal conventions, in fact they played an important role within traditional Chinese communities.

Further, the impulse to create and fund such groups is basically rational in nature and it varies with the level of demand.  A purely cultural explanation of the martial arts might, on the other hand, see them as relatively constant over time as cultural factors change more slowly than political or economic ones. If the martial arts are simply an expression of timeless patterns in Chinese culture, then there would be no reason to expect that their popularity would decline in times of peace.  In fact, with extra resources to dedicate to non-essential activities, their practice might even increase in popularity. As the idiom goes, constants cannot explain variables.

In order to test this theory we developed a few implicit hypotheses.  The first of these was that factors that decreased community stability would lead to an increase in martial arts activity.  Given my academic background in international relations, one of the variables that we were immediately drawn to was globalization, meaning rapid increases in the flow of goods, capital, individuals and ideas across previously closed borders.

During the 19^th century China’s once isolated and protected markets were forcibly opened to global trade on a massive scale.  As the country’s economy adjusted to new patterns of imports and exports some people discovered windfall profits.  Many more found themselves trapped in dying modes of handicraft production and agriculture.  In short, shifts in trade always create waves of winners and loser.  Unless carefully managed this contributes to social instability.[21]

When viewed in this context, the development of Wing Chun suddenly begins to look very interesting.  The practice originated in the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong province, home to Guangzhou (Canton), Foshan and Hong Kong, three major economic centers of trade and production.  This was also the first region of China to be opened to foreign trade and missionary work on a massive scale.

As Jon Nielson and I discussed possible research and writing strategies we realized that in addition to providing a window onto the popular culture of ordinary Chinese citizens, our project suggested ways in which a large number of additional theories could be tested or explored using the Chinese martial arts as a data source.  Unfortunately, there were very few known historical facts about these systems.  And most of the work that had been done focused on systems coming out of Shanghai or Northern China.[22]  In some cases their findings had been extrapolated, we felt incorrectly, to make generalizations about all of the Chinese martial arts.

The nature of the existing literature thus helped to shape our research design.  Rather than focusing exclusively on Wing Chun (which would remain our major case study) we would attempt to provide a detailed social history of the martial arts in a single region in Southern China.  It would involve the exploration of economic, political, social and cultural factors within the Pearl River Delta.

Since our subject of analysis was now geographic in nature, we would be free to examine a number of the leading styles rather than focusing only on a single art. Given our personal backgrounds in Wing Chun, the inclusion of other systems (such as Choy Li Fut, White Eyebrow or the Jingwu movement) was also important from a research design standpoint.  It ensured that we would not test our ideas about the relationship between the martial arts and their social environment on the exact same body of insights that we used to derive our basic theoretical model.

Further, these other arts tended to have different relationships with the main economic, social and political variables that we discussed.  So while we presented our readers a single case study, a rich reading of the area’s martial history allowed us to multiply our observations in ways that we hoped would allow us to avoid issues like tautology and selection bias.[23]

Inevitably many of our findings had to be left out of the final manuscript.  Even with the amount of space that we dedicated to Wing Chun, it was impossible to go much beyond Ip Man’s lineage in a single volume.  Other southern arts, such as Hung Gar, certainly deserved more discussion than they received.  Yet our hope was that by providing a comprehensive social history of the region’s martial arts community, students of these other lineages and styles would be able to discover the sorts of forces that had an impact on the development of their own practice.  Likewise, social scientists interested in a wide variety of theoretical questions would be able to turn to our book as a reliable source of description and data.

This brings us back to the questions posed by the two stories introduced at the start of this paper.  If we focus only on a technical history of the Chinese martial arts, seeking to verify the claims of various lineage myths, we are bound to be disappointed.  The historical record is simply too thin in most places.  And as Foucault reminds us, a high degree of caution and introspection is necessary whenever scholars find themselves striking out to discover, rather than to question, the “origins” of a revered practice.[24]  Martial arts studies must not become an apologetic exercise.

Nor, on a more practical level, is the question of “ultimate origins” of much interest to scholars who approach these fighting systems from an outside perspective.  Indeed, the most interesting question is not whether Ng Moy really created Wing Chun, but rather why that specific story became so important to groups of teenagers living in Hong Kong in the 1960s.  Why does that image still resonate with so many Western martial artists today?

When approached through the lens of social history, the stories that introduced this discussion reveal a wealth of information about the communities that composed and passed them on.  That, in turn, suggests something important about the nature and purpose of the southern Chinese martial arts themselves.  The social history of these fighting systems gives us a way to better understand the intersection of these folk narratives with a vast variety of economic, political and cultural variables.

Why Should Readers Care About the Social History of the Martial Arts?

Finally, why should the general reader care about the social history of the Asian martial arts? It may be cliché to say, but explorations of history are rarely concerned only with the past.  Ideally such works speak also to the concerns of readers in the present.  I second D. S. Farrer’s call, first made in his keynote address to the 2015 Martial Arts Studies meetings at the University of Cardiff: our field must tackle socially relevant questions and present actual solutions.[25]

Wing Chun, and the other Chinese martial arts, are fascinating precisely because they offer us an opportunity to investigate many pressing issues.  At this moment there is more interest than ever in the development of Chinese regional and national identity.  The evolving situation in Hong Kong is particularly relevant given Wing Chun’s current status as a powerful symbol of that city’s local, and increasingly independent, identity.[26]

Yet beyond such geographically focused concerns, do these systems, many of which were tied to specific moments in the 20^th century, still have something to teach us today?  I would like to argue that they do.  This message comes in the form of both a warning and an opportunity.

Nothing demonstrates the continued social relevance of the Chinese martial arts more quickly than an examination of our current multi-media environment.  Simply turn on the television.  The Asian martial arts have come to be an expected element of film, tv programing and even major sporting events.

They are dramatized in novels and comic books.  An entire subsection of the internet seems to be dedicated to both instructional and comedic videos featuring martial artists.[27]  Indeed, most of us got our first exposure to the martial arts via some sort of mediated image, and not through direct exposure to actual physical practice.

This state of affairs is actually less of a historical departure than one might think.  Residents of southern China in the Qing and Republic periods also lived in an environment saturated with entertainment based visions of the martial arts.  They came in the form of Cantonese operas, marketplace performers, professional storytellers, serialized newspaper stories, collectible cigarette cards, kung fu novels and later radio dramas and films.[28]

It was through these routes that many residents of Guangdong and Hong Kong first developed an interest in these fighting systems.  To fully understand the social work that the martial arts have done in various times and places, one must give careful thought to social discourses, mediatized images and the economic markets that surround them.[29]  First impressions are a powerful force.

Consider the portrayal of the Chinese martial arts in current film.  Audiences seem to be attracted to the unapologetic violence in many of these stories.  The fight choreography of the Xu Haofeng’s recent film The Master (2015) is likely to appeal to modern Western Wing Chun practitioners given the abundant use of Butterfly Swords (the style’s signature weapon). Or consider Donnie Yen’s dojo fight scene in Wilson Ip’s 2008 biopic Ip Man, in which he wipes out an entire room of karate students.  While watching these sequences one cannot help but take note of the sheer body count that the various protagonists manage to rack up.  At times I am reminded of the Bride’s blade work (minus the copious blood) in Quentin Tarantino 2003 homage to the kung fu genre, Kill Bill.

Nor are these the only places in the current media landscape where viewers might find such images.  Scenes of unskilled, nameless, and thoughtless attacker being cut down by the dozens bring to mind the exaggerated action and martial arts stylings of the Resident Evil franchise, or the grittier violence of The Walking Dead.  I suspect that on some level there is a shared language of violence in these two genres (the kung fu film and zombie thriller).  In both cases spectacular portrayals of violence are placed in the service of a “world creation” exercise.

These images of violence underscore the break with the conventional social rules that govern the audience’s mundane lives.  Thus they are a primary aspect of the story, and not simply a stylistic flourish. The martial arts epic and the post-apocalyptic zombie adventure offer us a world that does away with the “decadent” comforts and conventions of the current environment.  They present a stage on which only the “awesome” will survive.

Who are these heroes?  Among their ranks we find the awesomely strong, the skilled, the cagey and sometimes the evil.  Every new world, it seems, needs an iconic villain.

In short, the subtext of many of these stories seems to be that those who will survive and thrive in these new realms are individuals who are “like us,” because they embody precisely the traits that we like to imagine in ourselves.  There is an unmistakable air of wish fulfillment in these secondary creations.  As we watch our heroes fight their way across the exotic landscapes of a fantasy Oriental past, or the post-apocalyptic future, they embody and project back to us our own love of masculinity, rugged independence and stoic resilience.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that the sense of looming social and economic crisis that has helped to popularize such stories over the last few decades is also thought to have contributed to the rise of various types of extremist movements around the globe.  Rather than the inevitable triumph of globalization and liberal democracy envisioned at the end of the Cold War, we are seeing the rise of violent (and media savvy) non-state actors, illiberal democracies, and both populist and rightist movements.  Nor, as Jared Miracle reminded us in the conclusion of his recent study of the global spread of the Asian martial arts, should we forget that in the past these political movements were sometimes associated with these fighting systems.[30]

The ethno-nationalist turn in certain martial arts, pioneered in Japan and China during the first half of the 20^th century, provided a mechanism by which their symbolic association with physical strength, national heritage and masculinity could be marshalled and placed at the disposal of both extremist political movements and the state.[31]  We would be unwise to ignore the fact that there is much in the popular culture of the martial arts, in both the East and West, which continues to make them a tempting target for appropriation by such groups today.

Are these traits part of the essential nature of the Asian fighting arts?  Or were they instead epiphenomenal and historically contingent, a relic of the particular circumstances under which these systems achieved momentum as mass social movements?

This is another area where a better understanding of the social history of the southern Chinese martial arts might provide us with models for thinking about the current situation.  Consider again the stories that introduced this paper, the myth of Yim Wing Chun and the fight in Tachang Village.  From the final decades of the 19^th century to the current era many of the region’s Wuxia novels, and other types of martial arts storytelling, have focused on the lives of impossibly talented wandering heroes in the Jianghu, or the realm of “Rivers and Lakes,” not unlike Ng Moy and her student.

This somewhat unsettling territory (imagined as an alternate social dimension, ever present yet just beyond the edge of our own life experience) seems to suffer from a lack of effective central governance.  What government exists is often seen as corrupt and in the process of oppressing the people.  The protagonists of these stories, frequently the inheritors of ancient martial arts lineages, are thus forced to seek their own solutions to pressing problems.  As one would expect in novels feature a colorful array of wandering monks, corrupt soldiers and hidden kung fu masters, this often involves an enthralling resort to arms.  These stories actively sought to create a sense of nostalgia among their readers for a type of past that never existed.

At first glance the rough and tumble realm of “Rivers and Lakes” would seem to bear more than a passing resemblance to the ultraviolent fantasy worlds of Kill Bill or Resident Evil.  It too seems to have an established hierarchy of awesomeness based on one’s strength, fighting style and the “martial virtue.” What use do wandering swordsmen have for village life and its many restraints?

Yet first impressions can also be deceptive.  While it may not always be apparent, the wandering swordsmen of the Rivers and Lakes are often quite concerned with questions of both social organization and justice.  Far from being only violent escapist fantasies, many of the most popular stories were rooted in easily identifiable debates about political ideals and social modernization.

Two scholars of the Wuxia literary genre, John Hamm and Petrous Liu have examined these stories from slightly different perspectives.  As Liu argued in his study of Chinese martial arts literature, Stateless Subjects (Cornell EAP, 2011), when understood in their original context such novels were often obsessed with political questions.[32]  Nor did they view traditional society as a mediocre mass that the martial hero fought to escape.

Rather than attempting to establish a hierarchy of social organization based exclusively on martial strength, the real controversy in many of these narratives seems to have been the preexisting forms of social order inherited from the late Qing, the Warlord period and even the Communist eras.  In short, internal imperialism and the teleology of western models of modernization were the problems that demanded a solution.

By demonstrating possible ways that society could address serious, even existential, concerns without recourse to a coercive state apparatus, these stories sought to argue for a social model that was essentially horizontal in organization, drawing on the strength of what current Western scholarship calls civil society.[33]  These authors advanced a model that placed authority in the hands of society and not in an externally imposed hierarchy emanating from a far off center.

While we tend to imagine these stories, and even the creation myths of the various southern martial arts, as reflecting the values of ancient China, it is probably no coincidence that the giants of the genre, individuals like Xiang Kairan (1890-1957) and later Jin Yong (born 1924), wrote in moments of social and political upheaval.  All of these stories, like the martial arts of Southern China themselves, emerged from a period of when the character of “modern China” was being actively debated.

During this period the traditional martial arts argued for a specific vision of the future by creating an idealized past.  Within it the holistic nature of Chinese culture need not give way to teleological dreams imported from the West.  As Liu observed, and Jon Neilson and I attempted to document in the area of physical practice and social organization, they crafted a vision of Chinese modernity in which action would be organized according to the principals of Minjian “between people” as opposed to the universal, centralized and always state dominated frameworks inherent in the idea of Tianxia, or “all under heaven.”[34]

Liu suggested that this was the real reason for the May 4^th Intellectuals opposition to the supposedly “feudal” Wuxia genre.[35]  Similar concerns also seem to have motivated much of the Central Guoshu Institute’s anxieties about the China’s thriving local martial arts marketplaces in regions like Guangdong and Fujian.[36]

It was not that these stories and practices, as they came to exist in the 1920s and 1930s, accurately represented China’s ancient past.  Rather they represented an alternate view of the future.  It was one in which the state would serve the interests of a diverse and robust society, rather than an artificially homogenized society being placed at the disposal of a technocratic and highly centralized state.  Other intellectuals, deeply invested in models of modernization that privileged a strong state, found these (extremely popular) notions threatening.

The social history of the Southern Chinese martial arts matter because they reveal moments when these institutions, practices and reformers stood at a crossroads.  A close examination of any of the Asian martial arts will show that these things never existed in a vacuum.  Nor have they been motivated by a timeless and inscrutable morality uniquely their own.

Our account of Wing Chun demonstrated that the region’s martial arts have always functioned in conjunction with other social, economic, political and even aesthetic impulses.  For instance, it is just not possible to tell the story of this style without also exploring its relationship with Guangdong’s yellow unions, or its close alignment with bourgeois social interest within a landscape marked by class struggle.[37]  In China, but also in other places in Asia, individuals have become involved in the martial arts precisely because they have sought a voice in ongoing debates as to how we should react to the ongoing challenges of globalization, modernization and rapid social change.[38]

As we review these debates, or examine the life histories of masters like Ip Man, we are reminded that many aspects of these practices, and the values that seem to underpin them, are radically historically contingent.  The traditional Chinese martial arts could have evolved in many ways over the course of the 20^th century.  And the changes have been striking.

Rediscovering this history is important as it reminds modern martial artists that they also have choices to make.  They must choose, just as their predecessors did, where to innovate and when to adhere to tradition. In social and political discussions, they must choose how these fighting systems will be presented to the public.

What sorts of values will the modern martial arts advance?  Will they be governed by the principal of Minjian, attempting to reach out horizontally, creating broad based coalitions of cooperation within civil society?  Or will the martial arts put their resources at the disposal of those seeking to rebuild the hierarchies of awesomeness by supporting violent, illiberal or simply exclusionary ethno-nationalist ideals?

I do not pretend that a study of the past can offer definitive guidance in the present.  As we read about the actions of those who came before we are reminded that the choices made now will have consequences.  Likewise the ways in which scholars chose to write about the martial arts may have important implications for our understanding of not just these practices, but of ourselves as well.

Works Cited

Almond, Gabriel and Sidney Verba. 1989. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy In Five Nations. Sage.

Amos, Daniel. 1983. “Marginality and the Heroes Art: Martial Arts in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Canton).” PhD Diss.,University of California.

Bennett, Alexander C. 2015. Kendo: Culture of the Sword. Los Angles: University of California Press. 123-162.

Berg, Esther and Inken Prohl. 2014. ‘“Become your Best”: On the Construction of Martial Arts as Means of Self-Actualization and Self-Improvement.” JOMEC Journal 5.

Boretz, Avron. 2011. Gods, Ghosts and Gangsters: Ritual Violence, Martial Arts, and Masculinity on the Margins of Chinese Society. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Bowman, Paul. 2016. Mythologies of Martial Arts. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Bowman, Paul. 2015.  Martial Arts Studies: Disrupting Disciplinary Boundaries. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Cass, Vitoria. 1999. Dangerous Women: Warriors, Grannies and Geishas of the Ming. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Channon, Alex 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.

“Chinese Boxing.” North China Herald. July 13^th, 1872.

Farrer, D. S. “Efficiency and Entertainment in Martial Arts Studies: Anthropological Perspectives.” A Keynote Address Presented at the June 2015 Martial Arts Studies conference held at Cardiff University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4t6WXYukHQ.

Farrer, D. S. 2015 (b). “Efficacy and Entertainment in Martial Arts Studies: Anthropological Perspectives.” Martial Arts Studies 1. 43.

Farrer, D. S. and John Whallen-Bridge. 2011. Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge: Asian Traditions in a Transnational World. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Foucault, Michel. 1977. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Frank, Adam. 2006. Taijiquan and the Search for the Little Old Chinese Man: Understanding Identity through Martial Arts. New York: Palgrave.

Gainty, Denis. 2015. Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan. Routledge.

Garcia, Raul Sanchez and Dale C. Spenser. 2014. Fighting Scholars: Habitus and Ethnographies of Martial Arts and Combat Sports.  New York: Anthem Press.

Hamm, John Christopher. 2005. Paper Swordsmen: Yin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press

Henning, Stanley. 2003. “Martial Arts in Chinese Physical Culture, 1856-1965.” In Martial Arts in the Modern World, edited by Thomas A. Green and Joseph R. Svinth. London: Praeger. 13-35

Hurst, G. Cameron. 1998. Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery. New Haven: Yale UP.

Ip Chun and Michael Tse. 1998. Wing Chun Kung Fu: Traditional Chinese Kung Fu for Self-Defence and Health. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.

Ip Man. “The Origin of Wing Chun.” http://www.vingtsun.org.hk/history.htm accessed 9/18/2017.

Judkins, Benjamin N. 2016. “The Seven Forms of Lightsaber Combat: Hyper-Reality and the Invention of the Martial Arts.” Martial Arts Studies. 2. 6-22.

Judkins, Benjamin N. “Does Religiously Generated Social Capital Intensify or Mediate Violent Conflict? Lessons from the Boxer Uprising.” Presented at the 67th MPSA National Meetings in Chicago, IL, April 2-5, 2009.

Judkins, Benjamin N. and Jon Nielson. 2015. The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Kennedy, Brian and Elizabeth Guo. 2010. Jingwu: The School that Transformed Kung Fu. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books.

King, Gary, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton University Press.

Lee, James Yimm. 1972. Wing Chun Kung Fu: Chinese Art of Self Defense. Santa Clarita, CA: Ohara Publications.

Liu, Petrus. 2011. Stateless Subjects: Chinese Martial Arts Literature & Postcolonial History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, East Asia Program.

Lorge, Peter. 2012. Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge UP.

Miracle, Jared. 2016. Now with Kung Fu Grip! How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented the Martial Arts for America.  Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland.

Morris, Andrew. 2004. Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China.  Berkley: University of California Press.

Putnam, Robert D., Robert Leonardi, Raffaella Y. Nanetti; Robert Leonardi; Raffaella Y. Nanetti. 1994. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton University Press.

Rogowski, Ronald. 1989. Commerce and Coalitions: How Trade Affects Domestic Political Alignments. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Shahar, Meir. 2008. The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts. Honolulu: Hawaii UP.

Vaccaro, Christian. 2015. Unleashing Manhood in the Cage: Masculinity and Mixed Martial Arts. Lexington Books.

Walkman, Frederic Jr. 1997. Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839-1861. Los Angles: University of California Press.

Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979.  Theory of International Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Wacquant, Loïc. 2003. Body & Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Oxford University Press.

Wert, Michael. 2016. Review of: Alexander C. Bennett.  2015. Kendo: Culture of the Sword. UC Press. The Journal of Japanese Studies. 42:2 (Summer). 371-375.

Wetzler, Sixt. 2015. “Martial Arts Studies as Kulturwissenschaft: A Possible Theoretical Framework.” Martial Arts Studies. 1. 20-33.

Wong, Doc Fai and Jane Hallander. 1985. Choy Li Fut Kung Fu: A Dynamic Fighting Art Descended from the Monks of the Shaolin Temple. Burbank CA; Unique Publications.

Zhao Shiqing. 2010. “Imagining Martial Arts in Hong Kong: Understanding Local Identity through ‘Ip Man’.”  Journal of Chinese Martial Studies 1, no. 3. 85-89.
Endnotes

[1] Judkins and Nielson 2015, 179-186; 211-263.

[2] Ip Man. “The Origin of Wing Chun.” http://www.vingtsun.org.hk/history.htm accessed 9/18/2017.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Hamm 2005, 34-36.

[5] Waltz 1979, 102-116.

[6] Cass (1999) provides an excellent discussion of the inherent social tensions within Chinese images of archetypal female warriors.

[7] Adam Frank (2006, 35-36), among others, has discussed the tendency towards self-Orientalizing within the Chinese martial arts.  It is not hard to imagine some of the motives behind this development.  Once the martial arts came to be linked to the project of building a robust sense of Chinese nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s, the Central Guoshu Association and other actors showed a strong tendency to link these fighting systems with supposedly “essential” and “primordial” Chinese traits that they wished to promote.  Authors of Wuxia novels also marshaled idealized visions of the past to support their own vision of China’s future.  Nor has this project ever been totally forgotten.

[8] “Chinese Boxing.” North China Herald. July 13^th, 1872.

[9] Judkins and Nielson 175-176.

[10] Practically all of the basic guidebooks on the Wing Chun system relate this story.  Chun and Tse 1998, 16-21.  Even James Yimm Lee’s notoriously taciturn manual, Wing Chun Kung Fu: Chinese Art of Self Defense, produced from Bruce Lee’s class notes, includes a brief summary of the story.

[11] The concept of “reality” plays an important part in popular discussion of the martial arts.  Bowman (2015) 109-135.

[12] Scott 1985.

[13] King,Keohane and Verba 1994.

[14] Key contributions in this literature include Wacquant 2003; Farrer and Whallen-Bridge 2011; and various contributors in Garcia and Spenser 2014.

[15] The definition of the martial arts (and whether focusing on the topic is even a good idea) is contested: Channon and Jennings 2014; Wetzler 2015; Judkins 2016; Bowman 2016. Nevertheless, all of these authors share points of agreement regarding the fundamentally social nature of these practices.  That is likely the proper place to beginning a historical exploration.

[16] Amos 1983; Boretz 2011. Perhaps the best known statement on marginality and the combat sports in North America has been provided by Loic Wacquant (2003) who approached boxing as a way to understand life in the Chicago ghetto. All of these works touch on the interaction of social marginality and masculinity.  Those topics have been taken up more directly by Miracle 2016 and Vaccaro 2015. Collectively this literature suggests that the martial arts can be seen as an exercise in individual and community self-creation rising out of the experience of exclusion and self-doubt. Berg and Prohl (2014) note that this is how these fighting systems have self-consciously described themselves and their mission in the modern era.

[17] Judkins 2009.

[18] This tendency seems particularly well developed in the folk history of Choy Li Fut.  See for instance Wong and Hallander 1985; Judkins and Nielson 92-99.

[19] While most emic accounts of Chinese martial arts history seem to focus on lineage creation accounts and emphasize the “purity” of martial practice, contemporary etic reports indicate that one was most likely to find serious martial artists gainfully employed in roles that focused on the management of social coercion and violence.  Examples of such careers might include working as a tax collector for the Imperial salt monopoly, being an enforcer in a gambling house, working in law enforcement or traveling as an armed escort protecting merchant caravans.  Judkins and Nielson 73-74; 125-129; 205-206.

[20] Ibid 265-281.

[21] For a classic statement on how the expansion of free trade exacerbates social cleavages (sometimes to the point of violence) and effects political outcomes see Rogowski 1989.

[22] Shahar 2008. Kennedy and Guo (2010), in an otherwise fine work discussing the Jingwu Association, illustrate some of the problems that arise from universal extrapolations based on only a single city or region. The best introduction to the Chinese martial arts has been provided by Peter Lorge (2012). Unfortunately, for our purposes, this volume lacks a sufficiently detailed discussion of Southern China.  Much of Lorge’s work also tends to focus on earlier eras of military history.  More focused examinations of the modern Chinese martial arts have been provided by Stanley Henning (2003) and Andrew Morris (2004).  Yet again, the history of the martial arts in Southern China and Hong Kong has gone largely unexamined.

[23] For a discussion of the ways in which a single case study can be used to test progressively more complex theories see King, Keohane and Verba 208-229.

[24]Foucault 1977; Michael Wert (2016) has recently noted that scholars of martial arts studies who are also practitioners of the disciplines that they research are not immune to these traps.

[25] D. S. Farrer 2015, 2015(b).

[26] Zhao 2010.

[27] For a discussion of the importance of martial arts humor see Bowman 2016, chapter two.

[28] Hamm, in his study of martial arts fiction, noted that radio dramas (now a mostly forgotten genre) helped to bridge the worlds of early martial arts fiction and modern Kung Fu films. 39-40.

[29] Bowman 2015, 155-157.

[30] Miracle 163-165.

[31] Morris 195-228; Hurst 1998; Bennett 2015.

[32] Liu 2011.

[33] Almond and Verba (1989) and Putnam (1994) provide classic, social-scientific, studies of the concept.

[34] Judkins and Nielson 16.

[35] Liu 8-9; 29-38; 39; 59-60.

[36] Judkins and Nielson 160-163.

[37] Judkins and Nielson 116-124.

[38] Gainty 2015.

Chu shing Tin demonstrating the pole form. Source: http://www.wingchun.edu.au

A New Pole

I had been meaning to get a new “long pole” (or Luk Dim Boon Kwan) for a while.  As the name implies, these are somewhat unwieldly training tools and (unless you own a truck) they do not travel well.  In my experience most poles simply “live” in the training hall or at home.  It is easier to keep a couple of them at the various locations in which one might train than to constantly haul them back and forth.  As a result, I had been without a pole at home since moving to Ithaca almost a year ago.

That changed a few weeks ago when I returned to my place to find a very long package laid out awkwardly along the staircase.  Upon maneuvering it into the house I was delighted to discover my new, absolutely beautiful, hickory pole.

My first realization as I picked it up was how heavy it was.  Like all woods hickory exhibits a certain variation in densities and the stock for this staff seems to have been at the upper end of that range.  Hickory is also one of the few commonly milled North American woods that easily stands up to the rigors of martial arts training.  I like the grain, and the fact that one can be fairly certain that no tropical forests were cut for the making of hickory training weapons.

Nevertheless, this new pole still feels strange in my hands.  The balance is clearly off.  I do not say this out of any sense of emotional attachments to the weapons I have used before.  Rather, my circumstances forced me to get a little experimental when I ordered this pole.

Physics dictates that long poles can be very dangerous weapons to train with.  At close to nine feet in length, they are basically a real life workshop on the degree of force that can be generated through leverage and momentum.  The few actual injuries I have suffered while practicing Wing Chun have all been the result of seemingly incidental contact in partner pole drills or light sparring.

As such it is easy to forget that long poles can also be surprisingly delicate.  Their length makes them prone to warping.  They must be stored either vertically or laid out flat on a perfectly smooth surface.  They should never be hung in a horizontal position.

Also, the momentum generated while smashing a relatively long lever into the ground can be more than any wood (no matter how dense) can withstand.  If you plan on engaging in this sort of training, or any drills that involve hard contact, it is often better to invest in a pole with a slightly thicker diameter at the front end.

All of which brings me back to my new pole.  I delayed getting one in large part because the place that I currently live in, while nice, does not leave me with many options for pole storage.  The ceilings are too low to store a pole vertically, and because of the way that various rooms are laid out, it is even difficult to lay one down against a wall without it getting in the way of a door or heating vent.

It was clear that compromise would be necessary.  After some thought (and measurement) I decided that the longest pole I could house would be between 7.5 and 8 feet.  Nor did I want to spend a lot of money on a nicely carved pole from Hong Kong, only to be forced to cut a couple of feet off the end of it.

Eventually I found an armory that produced wooden and synthetic weapons for HEMA practitioners and ordered an 8 foot hickory pole from them. With a sigh of relief I noted that it just barely fits into its appointed place.  And compared to specialty Wing Chun poles, this one was really cheap.

Of course it was also inexpensive as European pole and staff weapons do not have any taper to them.  Most of the Southern Chinese fighting poles that I have worked with have a diameter of about 1.5 inches at the base, narrowing to just over 1 inch at the tip.  My new pole is a consistent 1.25 inches throughout.

The extra thickness at the tip gives me a bit more confidence in the strength of the pole.  Yet the point of balance and handling characteristics for these two different types of poles are surprisingly different.  Ironically my new pole seems to require greater strength in my hands, wrists and forearms to manipulate, even though it is actually shorter than other weapons that I have trained with.

Illustrations of pole fighting, “The Noble Art of Self-Defense.” Guangzhou, Circa 1870.

The Materiality of the Long Pole 

Acclimating to this new pole has given me plenty of time to think a bit about the history of these weapons in the TCMA.  Much of what we know about the development of the martial arts in China (especially prior to the Ming dynasty) is closely tied to the rising and declining popularity of different sorts of weapons.  Weapons, like written texts, are never simply the product of a single maker.

Rather they reflect both the utilitarian goals and the cultural values of the communities that created and passed them on.  They are the product of social discourses.  Properly understood weapons can be read, interpreted and deconstructed, just like any other sort of text.  The seeming lack of interest in material culture within the field of Martial Arts Studies has always struck me as somewhat puzzling.

What exactly do we know about the evolution and use of the long pole?  What do they reveal about the history of Wing Chun, the Southern Chinese martial arts, or Chinese martial culture in general?  What can they tell us about the types of people who passed on these technical and material traditions?

Let us begin by considering the physical description of these weapons.  A variety of staff-type weapons have been used within the Chinese martial arts over the centuries.  Yet the Long Pole stands out as a uniquely recognizable, and oddly stable, point of reference.

It is impossible to say exactly when this exact configuration came into use.  Yet we do know that some of the earliest surviving written martial arts training manuals, produced during the Ming dynasty, make reference to this weapon.

We also know that late imperial armies adopted the long pole as a type of basic training regime.  It was thought that expertise in the pole would facilitate later training in other double handed weapons, such as the spear or halberd.  Martial artists, on the other hand, often saw the pole as an ends unto itself.

Cheng Zongyou, a civilian expert on military training, published an account titled Exposition of the Original Shaolin Staff Method sometime around 1610.  This work was the end product of more than a decade of study at both Shaolin Temple in Henan, and with its monks in the field.  Martial Arts historians consider it to be an extremely important document.  It is both the oldest surviving manual of a Shaolin Martial Art, and it provides fascinating insights into the nature of life and instruction at this venerable institution during the late Ming.

It also provides a detailed discussion of at least one of the long pole fighting methods taught at Shaolin.  Cheng prefaces this manual with a description of the weapon in question.  He notes that a fighting staff can be made of either wood or iron.  Iron poles (which, to the best of my knowledge, have totally fallen out of use) were said to be 7.7 feet long, and weighed close to 20 pounds.

By way of comparison, the M1 Garand, America’s main battle rifle during WWII and Korea, weighed less than half of that at 9.5 pounds.  Most soldiers complained that even that was too heavy and cumbersome on extended marches.  Still, if one had the strength to wield a 20 pound iron pole in the field, it would make for a fearsome weapon.

17^th century wood poles, in comparison, were virtually identical to the weapons still used throughout the Southern Chinese martial arts today.  Their weight was a relatively light 3-4 pounds, and they ranged in length from 8 to 9 feet.  This range in dimensions is probably a reflection of wood’s natural plasticity.

Cheng noted that practically any hard yet pliant wood could be used to produce a pole.  As such, poles carved in the north or south of the country would have been made from woods of different types and weights.  Further, Cheng recommended using harvested pole lumber for the production of fighting staffs.  Cutting a small tree at the base ensured a uniform taper with minimal additional shaping.

Unfortunately Cheng did not specify what the preferred diameters at the tip and base of his poles were.  Still, we might be able to make some educated guesses on this point.  Most of the traditional poles advertised at Everything Wing Chun vary in weight from 4 pounds (shorter oak examples) to 6 pounds (heavier, exotic hardwoods).  It seems likely that Shaolin’s 17^th century staffs might have been made of hardwoods that more closely matched the density of something like oak, and had an average diameter slightly narrower than what martial artists favor today.  Still, when reading Cheng’s description the overwhelming impression that one gets is of how much has remained the same.

How did Shaolin (a Buddhist temple) become a nationally recognized center for pole fighting?  And why were its fighting staffs tapered, rather than straight like their European cousins of the same time period?  It turns out that the answers to these questions are closely related.

While we do not the space to review all of the relevant history in this post, Meir Shahar has demonstrated that by the Ming Dynasty the Shaolin Temple in Henan had become a recognized center of martial training with close ties to critical figures in the Chinese military.  A number of temples (both in China and Japan) found it necessary to house teams of “martial monks” to protect the institution’s estates and land holdings.  Modern students sometimes forget that in addition to being religious institutions, large temples were also some of the most economically powerful actors in their environments.  Like other landlords they found it necessary to provide their own security in turbulent times.

Obviously wooden staffs could be made cheaply and easily replaced.  While these weapons could be quite deadly, they were also in keeping with a monk’s prescribed public appearance.  Yet once the Temple became more closely associated with the Ming military, pole training gained an additional layer of importance.

The Chinese military had long used poles as a form of basic training.  One of the most important weapons on the 17^th century battle field was the spear.  It is not hard to imagine how the thrusting movements so commonly seen in the Six and a Half Point Pole form might function if a blade were to be affixed to the martial artist’s shaft.

In a recent article Peter Dekker discussed the regulation military spears of the Ming and Qing dynasties.  Luckily we know quite a bit about the earlier period as the later Qing seem to have simply adopted much of the older Ming regulation and equipment as the standard for the “Green Standard Army.”

In reviewing the various spears used by military, one thing quickly becomes evident.  None of them seem to be a close match for the long pole.  Some of the most commonly issued spears were much longer than poles with total lengths of between 12 and 15 feet.  As the adage goes, “an inch longer is an inch stronger.”

Various sorts of hooked spears tended to be closer in size to the long pole.  They could easily have been 7.5 to 9 feet long.  Yet we must also consider their taper.

The shafts of regulation Chinese military spears always had a straight taper, and they were usually lacquered red.  The relatively heavy iron tip was counter-balanced with a weighted metal piece affixed to the end of the spear.  This system maintained a certain balance and kept the spear from becoming excessively tip heavy and unwieldly.

Dekker notes that in contrast the (generally shorter) spears used by civilian militias and martial artists tended to be tapered, exactly like the long pole.  Noting that the production of steel spearheads and metal counterweights was expensive, he speculates that having a thicker diameter base on the weapons shaft was simply a cheaper way of achieving a proper balance.  Indeed, we have photographs of weapons confiscated from Red Spear Units in the 1930s that seem to show a similar geometry.  The relatively roughhewn poles favored by the village militias tended to be noticeably tapered.

All of this would seem to reinforce the notion that the specific form of the long pole was shaped by the realities of spear combat.  The military adopted pole training as an introduction to the spear, and many local militia members would have been expected to be conversant with both the pole and the spear.

Communist Party Women’s Militia in Yanan, 1938. Photographer unknown.

Southern Militias and the Birth of Modern Kung Fu

This brings us back to Wing Chun and the history of the Six and a Half Point Pole.  Far from being unique to just a single style, the Luk Dim Boon Kwan is a favored weapon throughout the world of Southern Chinese Kung Fu.  Historical sources suggest that public displays of pole work were quite popular in the 19^th and even the 20^th century.

The current mythology of Wing Chun (and certain other regional styles) tends to emphasize the “compact” nature of the system as its adaptation to fighting in cramped spaces (either narrow alleyway or on crowded ships, depending on who one asks).  Yet like almost all martial arts Wing Chun aspires to be a “complete style,” even if that is not the way that is often discussed by students today.  To put it bluntly, from a tactical standpoint there is just no point in stating that one will focus only a single range or situation (e.g., short boxing) to the exclusion of all else.

When looking at the current crowded conditions in Hong Kong it might be hard to remember that the pole really is a central part of the Wing Chun system.  Its presence reminds us that in the past this system operated in environments, and considered tactical problems, different from those faced by most students today.  Indeed, it is the environmental nature of these issues that best explains why so many Southern styles practice some variant of the Six and a Half Point form, or one of its many cousins.

To understand the place of the long pole in these systems we must once again return the question of military training.  As Jon Nielson and I discuss in our recent book, the Pearl River Delta region developed a very strong gentry led militia movement during the 19^th century.  These para-military forces emerged as a response to the external threats of the Opium Wars and continued to function during the later civil conflicts that wracked the region.  The most notable of those was the Red Turban Revolt (sometimes called the Opera Rebellion).

During the volatile middle years of the 19^th century tens of thousands of individuals were recruited into various sorts of militias and para-military groups.  What were the most commonly issued weapons?  A split bamboo helmet, a spear (usually about 8-9 feet long), and a pair of hudiedao (carried by most soldiers as a sidearm).

The Wing Chun system that was passed on by individuals like Leung Jan and Chan Wah Shun emerged out of the aftermath of these conflicts.  It is no coincidence that the only two weapons taught in most lineages of this art happen to be the same ones used by the area’s many militia units.  And other regional arts with much more extensive armories (Choy Li Fut, Hung Gar, etc…) also tend to introduce these same tools near the start of weapons training.

This suggests something important about the community, era and concerns that shaped the early history of all of these fighting styles.  It also suggests that perhaps the region’s fighting poles were tapered so that they could easily be fitted with spear heads should the need arise.

If that is the case, then perhaps the relatively base heavy balance of these shafts which we have all become accustomed to is more a quirk of training safety protocols than anything else.  The more tip heavy feel of my new hickory pole might more accurately reflect how the Six and a Half Point pole form was supposed to feel in battle (e.g., when the pole is mounted with a steel spearhead).

Or maybe not.  As we look back on the Ming era literature I referenced earlier it is clear that there was an active debate in military circles as to how well pole training actually prepared soldiers for spear combat.  Recall for instance that many of the spears issued to Ming and Qing era soldiers were much longer and heavier than Shaolin’s most substantial poles.

In his 1678 treatise, Spear Method from the dreaming of Partridge Hall, the military writer Wu Shu noted:

The Shaolin staff method has divine origins, and it has enjoyed fame from ancient times to the present.  I myself have been quite involved in it.  Indeed, it is high as the mountains and deep as the seas.  It can truly be called a “supreme technique.”…Still as a weapon the spear is entirely different from the staff.  The ancient proverb says: “The spear is the lord of all weapons, the staff is an attendant on its state.”  Indeed, this is so…the Shaolin monks have never been aware this.  They treat the spear and staff as if they were similar weapons.

(Translation in Meir Shahar, 2008 p. 64).

This point bears consideration.  While some of the techniques and tactics of the Wing Chun pole method could be adapted to the spear, others might be more counter-productive.  Or perhaps what we see here is yet another example of the simplifying, almost theoretical, tendency to search for a single set of principles capable of solving the greatest number of tactical problems regardless of what weapon one happened to pick up.

That certainly sounds like the modern, conceptually focused, approach to Wing Chun.  And it makes a lot of sense from an amateur’s point of view.

Yet it is quite different from the highly specialized world that most professional soldiers inhabited.  When leaving the barracks as a member of the Green Standard Army there was exactly zero mystery as to what sort of spear you would be handed, or who you would be fighting besides.  All of this helps to remind us that while the growth of the militia movement may have shaped these fighting systems, they remained fundamentally “civilian” in their worldview and concerns.

Chin Woo crouching tiger quarterstaff stance, Singapore, 2007

The Weapon, The Self

This essay began with the observation that even seemingly minor variations in a weapon are immediately sensed by the body of the trained martial artist.  17^th century soldiers in both China and Europe trained and fought with 9 foot poles.  To the untrained eye they may have appeared to be identical.  Yet the hand would never mistake one for the other.

Students of martial arts history need to pay more attention to the material culture of these fighting systems for this precise reason.  Each of these weapons carries fossilized within it layers of history and meaning.  It may be impossible to reconstruct with perfect accuracy what a Ming era Shaolin pole form looked like, even if we are lucky enough to have a manual and some pictures describing it.  Yet when we pick up the weapon that Cheng Zongyou described, we can experience something of its reality on an embodied level.

Indeed, bodies are the other half of this equation.  My body may be very different from that possessed by a 19^th century militiaman in Guangzhou.  Yet our poles are identical, and they have a disciplining influence upon the body.

A certain amount of absolute strength must be developed to wield the weapon.  New types of bodily awareness and dexterity will be necessary to do so well.  While we may be starting from different points, the unyielding materiality of the weapon has a transformative effect on both of our bodies.  As we train with the pole, and are shaped by it, we are forced to transcend the self and converge on a new state of being.  It is the demands of the pole and its techniques shape the student.

This last point might solve a minor mystery that I have wondered about for some years.  While training with my Sifu in Salt Lake I noticed that lots of students seemed to quit the Wing Chun system about the time that they were introduced to the pole.  (In our lineage it is introduced after all of the unarmed forms and the dummy have been taught).  Students who had previously been enthusiastic and dedicated just seemed to lose interest.

On one level this might be easy to explain.  Pole training is physically demanding, even painful at times.  It is probably the only time in the Wing Chun system that the low horse stance is extensively trained and used.  Its basic strength and conditioning exercises ensures that there will be sore muscles.

Yet I think there was something more going on.  The pole did not seem to meet their expectations of what the system was about.  Boxing and chi sao are very flexible expressions of martial skill.  Many individuals simply find an approach that works with their body type and personality and seek to perfect that.  That may not have been what Bruce Lee meant when he discussed Kung Fu as the art of “expressing :the human body, but I think that this is how many individuals interpret his adage.  What works for them personally is the “proper” expression.

The pole is different.  Its materiality demands a greater degree of transformation.  Our bodies are physically altered (made stronger, more flexible) so that the pole’s logic can be expressed.  This commitment to transcend (rather than to express) the self does not seem to easily mesh with the way that many modern students understand Wing Chun.  I wonder if that, more than the pain, caused some to lose interest.

Still, this process of embodied transformation allows us to experience elements of the fossilized history of the martial arts that might not otherwise be accessible.  Written historical accounts of professional soldiers and militia members wielding their spears might sound very similar.  As we read about the 19^th century “militarization of the countryside” these two figures might even begin to merge in our heads.   Indeed, historians have noted with some frustration the ease with which categories like “militia member,” “bandit” and “soldier” seem to blend into one another, or appear in a single individuals career.

Yet when you pick up their preferred weapons, your physical senses are immediately confronted with evidence of the different identities, techniques and goals that they possessed.  The martial training that each group underwent imprinted these nuances of philosophy on their flesh and bone.

All of which is to say, choose you pole carefully.  The details matter.

 
oOo

If you enjoyed this post you might also want to read: The Nautical Origins of the Wooden Dummy.

oOo

Ip Man and his best known student, Bruce Lee.

An all too Common Conversation

Last week my Sifu and I were discussing the public conversation that surrounds Wing Chun.

 

“So this guy was trying to tell me that we have no head movement in Wing Chun.  Not just bobbing and weaving” he clarified “but that we can literally never move our heads.”

“So he thinks we stand there and get punched in the face?” I asked incredulously.

“Pretty much.  I told him to take a closer look at the forms.”

Such exchanges are not all that uncommon.  Normally I try to ignore them. However, in the last few months I have had a number of almost identical conversations with talented, highly experienced, Sifus all relating practically identical incidents.

Not all of these discussions focused on head movement.  In one case an instructor was approached by an individual (who apparently was not a Wing Chun student) claiming that our system contained only a single punch.  This is a rather odd assertion to make about a fighting system that prides itself on a rich and deep bench of boxing techniques.

I have actually heard a similar claim made before by some practitioners attempting to make a philosophical point.  They note that the basic Wing Chun punch reflects a set of core principles that, when applied in different situations, can yield a variety of techniques that superficially look quite different, but all reflect a common approach to hand combat.  This is sometimes couched in quasi-Taoist terms as “the one thing giving rise to the ten thousands.”  I immediately asked whether this is where my friend’s interlocutor may have been headed.

 

“Nope.  He literally believed that we only have a center-line chain punch.  Anything else, an outside line, an uppercut or hook, ‘cannot be Wing Chun’.”  The instructor absentmindedly went through movements from the second and third unarmed boxing form as he clarified the objection.

“So what did you tell him?” I asked.

“I just kept telling him to go back and look at the forms.  Youtube is full of people doing all sorts of forms.  For Christ sake, just pick anyone of them.”

“Sending someone to Youtube can be a trap for the unwary.” I offered.

“Yeah, I sent him some links.  But I have no idea if it did any good!”

Perhaps the most interesting thing about such challenges is that they do not all arise from outside of the system.  Earlier this summer I had a conversation with a third Sifu that was more serious in nature.  When another instructor (from the same Wing Chun umbrella organization) visited his school, he was aghast to discover that my friend was having his students practice entry drills (or more specifically, techniques that allow one to transition from disengaged, to kicking to boxing ranges as safely as possible).  Nor was he happy to discover that my friend’s more advanced students were starting Chi Sao (a type of sensitive training game) from unbridged positions.  “This is not Traditional Wing Chun!” he objected.

That was certainly news to me.  The system contains entry techniques.  Why not drill them?  Why not create a greater sense of complexity and realism by adding them (or joint locks, or kicks) to your Chi Sao?  My personal training happened in a school built on a “traditional lineages” going back to Ip Man.  We certainly practiced both of these things, nor was it ever considered to be the least bit controversial.  Apparently not all lineages share this same approach to training.  The uproar that resulted from the visit caused my friend to remove his school from an organization that he had been part of for some time.

Who wants their martial practice to be defined only by the things that one (supposedly) does not do?

This is something all Wing Chun students deal with from time to time.  My personal favorite is when people tell me that Wing Chun is an exclusively short range art with highly restricted footwork.  All this tells me is that the individual in question has never seriously studied the swords and has no idea how much distance that footwork can actually cover.  Let’s just say that there is a very good reason why Bruce Lee turned to fencing in his attempt to augment his own incomplete training in Wing Chun.  Nor would I call a 3-4 meter pole a “short range” weapon.  Wing chun is clearly a short range art…except when it is not.

In reality every self-defense art strives to be a complete system of combat.  Granted, all approaches will have their unique strengths and weaknesses, but real martial artists work very hard to present as strong a front as possible.  No one who wants to defend themselves refuses to train kicks, throws or weapons simply because “everyone knows that Wing Chun is a short range boxing art.”

An American Wrestler facing off against a Judo student. This photo is identified as having been taken in the Philippines in 1912, but Joseph Svinth suspects that it was actually taken in the US in 1904. Source: https://calisphere.org

Fighting Strength with Strength

I have never been one for social media debates over statements like this.  There is always too much to read, and time spent arguing about Wing Chun gets in the way of actually doing it.

Recently I came across something in my research that made me start to wonder if perhaps I should think a little more deeply about these conversations.  The Wing Chun community is not the only martial art in which such debates occur.  Why do people try so hard to impose negative definitions on a community of practice, even if it means ignoring techniques that are clearly present in the orthodox forms?  How can we understand the social purpose of these debates?  What sorts of work are they doing in the martial arts community today?

Unsurprisingly Japanese martial artists were among the first to explain their practice to the wider global community.  Rather than allowing systems like Kendo, Jujitsu or Judo to be framed and discussed in English exclusively by foreign reporters and visitors, reformers from within the Japanese martial arts community went out of their way to describe, and even promote, their practices on their own terms.  They frequently discussed their arts as extensions of fundamental Japanese values.  In so doing they entered directly into the ongoing debate as to what the values of the Japanese people actually were, what vision of Japanese modernity should emerge, and what role traditional “physical culture” should play in promoting and cementing these identities.

Kanō Jigorō, internationalist, educator and the creator of Judo was often at the center of these discussions.  Other young, educated, members of the Kodokan also took up his mission of the spreading the gospel of Judo.  On April 18^th of 1888 he and Rev. T. Lindsay presented a paper titled “Jiujitsu: The Old Samurai Art of Fighting Without Weapons” at the British Embassy in Japan.  The paper sought to introduce Kanō’s recently created martial art to the English speaking world while at the same time situating it firmly within the bounds of Japanese martial history and nationalism.  Given the timing, subject matter and location of the talk, one would be hard pressed to see this as anything other than an early example of the martial arts entering the realm of cultural and public diplomacy.

Nor would this be the last that the English speaking world would hear on the subject.  A stream of newspaper and magazine articles would bring Judo to the forefront of Western popular culture following Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905.  Yet even before that the West’s fascination with Japanese culture, and its admiration for its rapid reforms, ensured a fair amount of attention.

Shidachi’s 1892 paper, “Ju-Jitsu: The Ancient Art of Self-Defence by Slight of Body,” in some ways is even more interesting than Kanō’s earlier piece. Its importance in no way derives from its originality. Shidachi, a Judo enthusiast, was serving as the Secretary of the Bank of Japan when he delivered his paper at the Japan Society in London.  At times he followed Kanō’s original presentation so closely that one suspected he might have been editorializing on the previous article.  From the perspective of our current discussion, the most interesting aspect of Shidachi’s paper was the response that it provoked from well-placed members of the area’s “sporting community” (boxers and wrestlers).

Like Kanō, Shidachi spent a great deal of time framing the newly created (or reformed) practice of Judo as a continuation of Japan’s unique history and “national heritage.”  It should be remembered that while still important today, such conversations were especially loaded during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  This was the great era of awakening in which the discovery (or construction) of national identities was in full swing.  Bodies of folk culture were ransacked by intellectual entrepreneurs hoping to support claims of national legitimacy, and to win the global respect that came with it.  Of course such elements could only be seen as evidence of a “primeval national community” if they were ancient and unique.

Naturally this led the early exponents of Judo to spend a lot of time defining their practice by clarifying what it was not.  To begin with, both Kanō and Shidachi knew that there were many lineage myths tracing certain Japanese martial practices back to China.  Modern students of martial arts studies now acknowledge that there was a fair amount of martial exchange between these two states at certain points in time.  For instance, Knutsen and Knutsen (2004) have discussed the many Samurai who traveled to China during the Ming dynasty specifically to study Chinese spear and pole fighting techniques.  Further, it is clear that 19^th century Fujianese Kung Fu had a notable effect on the development of Okinawan Karate.

Given China’s late 19^th century reputation as being a hopeless backwards “failed state” (to use modern political terminology), the last thing that Japanese nationalists wanted was to be in any way associated with “Chinese Boxing.”  And so both authors went to lengths to argue that Chinese boxing practices (focused as they were on hitting and kicking) had no part in the development of Japan’s “pure” jujitsu.  Such techniques were never part of Japanese unarmed combat, even if the lineage histories of some clans suggested otherwise.

This move was only the first step in a more complex balancing act.  While Shidachi sought to distance his martial practice from Chinese Boxing, he did not want his audience to go on and draw the natural conclusion that what he was describing (and demonstrating) was more similar to Western wrestling.

Once again, Shidachi turned to negative arguments.  Judo, he informed his audience, is different from wrestling because it does not employ strength.  Rather, it is a character building exercise.  Beyond that, technique and practice were the keys to victory.  Judo was not about trying to “overpower” your opponent, as was the case in wrestling.  He concluded his talk with a brief demonstration designed, by all accounts, to illustrate why he characterized his practice as “slight of body.”

Shortly thereafter a review of Shidachi’s talk ran in the local press.  The Japan Society did modern students of martial arts studies the great favor of printing the ensuing debate at the end of the original talk in their proceedings. It seems that not all members of the local sporting community were impressed by what Shidachi had said or his subsequent demonstrations.

Certain allowances were made for the fact that Shidachi was by no means a professional wrestler and he had only a hapless (and improperly dressed) volunteer to work with.  It was candidly admitted that one could only expect so much from his demonstration.

Yet critics also objected that very little of what they saw or heard was actually new.  One could already find much sturdier Jujitsu practitioners in the city’s fledgling Japanese community.  Shidachi’s reply to this claim more or less boiled down to an assertion that since these individuals were not Kodokan trained, whatever it was they were doing could not be considered “authentic.” Some types of martial debates, it seems, are eternal.

The author of the review also took offense to the off-handed, yet frequently repeated, assertion that Western wrestling was an amoral endeavor in which victory was achieved by pitting brute strength against brute strength.  Such characterizations of Western boxing and wrestling were common in both China and Japan where martial arts reformers sought to locate the essence of certain foreign sports in an essentialist vision of national identity.  The West had triumphed in the realm of economic, military and scientific might, and that truth must be reflected in its modes of athletics and combat.

Early reformers in martial arts like Taijiquan (Wile 1996) and Jujitsu sought to shore up their own national identities by asserting that they brought a unique form of power to the table.  Rather than relying on strength, they would find victory through flexibility, technique, and cunning (all yin traits), just as the Chinese and Japanese nations would ultimately prevail through these same characteristics.  It is no accident that so much of the early Asian martial arts material featured images of women, or small Asian men, overcoming much larger Western opponents with the aid of mysterious “oriental” arts.  These gendered characterizations of hand combat systems were fundamentally tied to larger narratives of national competition and resistance (see Wendy Rouse’s 2015 article “Jiu-Jitsuing Uncle Sam” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 84 No. 4, November, pp. 448-477).

The problem with repeating myths like these is that, if one is not careful, you actually start to believe them.  Or in more theoretical terms, they come to structure one’s understanding of both practice and its place in the larger world.

Shidachi’s repeated assertions not withstanding, few Western wrestlers understood their practice as an amoral exercise in brute strength.  Both the UK and the US have long had their own discourses as to how sports like wrestling and boxing function as a type of “moral education” for young men.  Promoting these discourses in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries was an important step in winning society’s tolerance for such activities (and their legalization).  One suspects that Chinese and Japanese arguments about the ethical benefits of their martial arts were accepted so readily in the West because they were a continuation of what was already believed about the social value of wrestling, and to a certain extent boxing.

Shidachi appears to have had little actual familiarity with Western wrestling.  It is clear that his discussion was driven by nationalist considerations rather than detailed ethnographic observation.  And there is something else that is a bit odd about all of this.  While technical skill is certainly an aspect of Western wrestling, gaining physical strength and endurance is also a critical component of Judo training.  Shidachi attempted to define all of this as not being a part of Judo. Yet a visit to the local university Judo team will reveal a group of very strong, well developed, athletes.  Nor is that a recent development.  I was recently looking at some photos of Judo players in the Japanese Navy at the start of WWII and any one those guys could have passed as a modern weight lifter.  One suspects that the Japanese Navy noticed this as well.

These inconsistencies only got worse when the conversation turned to the realm of actual technique.  In an attempt to show how one might deal with an opponent without resorting to the use of strength Shidachi demonstrated a certain technique before the assembled gentlemen of the Japan Society.  Yet the wrestlers in the room immediately realized that this supposed hallmark of the Japanese national character was also a part of their (very English) daily tool kit.  Nor, in their view, was it nearly as clever or as well executed as Shidachi seemed to think.

On a fundamental level Japanese and British wrestlers had more in common than either side might be eager to admit. Or to put it slightly differently, the obvious differences between Western wrestling and Japanese judo stemmed from a number of sources that had little to do with the myths of “national essence” being promoted by Shidachi.

For his part Shidachi had no good response when confronted with the many similarities that his audience perceived.  In the modern age there is no more fundamental type of identity than nationalism.  Like all identities it structures how we perceive the world and the evidence that we are willing to accept.  To point out that a number of Judo techniques also appear in other styles of wrestling was taken (and possibly meant) as a direct affront to the legitimacy of Japan’s unique identity.

Instead of engaging with Western wrestlers on their own terms (and in a way that reflected their own values and understanding of wrestling) Shidachi simply retreated back into his talking points.  Everyone knew that Japan and England were different; therefore their philosophies of wrestling must be fundamentally unique as well. Any perceived similarity could only be a misperception born of ignorance of Judo’s deeper aspects. The Japanese student had no need of strength, and the Western wrestler (all protests to the contrary) must rely on nothing else.  Only in that way could the identity of both communities be preserved.

Ip Ching, the younger son of Ip Man, discussing Chi Sao techniques with a teenage student at the VTAA headquarters in Hong Kong.

Technique as Community, Practice as Research

This incident, culled from the first years of the engagement between Asian and Western martial artists, sheds light on why so many modern students feel compelled to define Wing Chun by what it does not do.   Notice again that almost all of these discussions revolve around the question of technique.

By technique I mean the aspect of martial practice that can be conveyed between generations and taught to students.  Technique can deal with basic movement and body mechanics or specific applications.  It can be transmitted through rote repetition or reinforced with a conceptual framework.  In any case, technique is the embodied aspect of a martial practice that endures.  Whereas individual applications or reaction to acts of violence may be brilliant, they are always singular events, confined to a specific moment in time.  Technique, however, has the possibility of transcending any individual moment (Spatz 2015).

It is this ability to endure through the generations that makes bodies of technique so important within the traditional martial arts.  As I have argued elsewhere, at their heart the martial arts are essentially social institutions.  One cannot understand their origins, social function or individual meaning if you divorce them from the larger cultural, economic, legal, philosophical or aesthetic institutions that tolerate and reinforce them.  That is one of the reasons why interdisciplinary approaches to martial arts studies have such great utility.

Society allows the martial arts to exist because they do work that is collective usefully.  Individuals support these institutions because they desire the social and personal transformation that they promise. Yet none of these goals can be accomplished if the hand combat community does not first find a way to spread and perpetuate its identity through space and time.

A shared body of technique represents the physical embodiment of a new collective identity.  As I have argued in previous papers, the martial arts can be understood as liminal structures that seek to transform their members through an extended initiatory experience. Learning new techniques is almost always at the heart of this progression.  It is the mastery of technique that is put to the test in public spectacles designed to confirm one’s advancement in the system.  Nor can one go on to teach new members of the group without having first mastered this shared body of technique.  Both those inside and outside the community are likely to identify your place within the larger martial world by the range of techniques that you can display.

Within this context to cease to practice (or even forget) certain techniques is not simply matter of expediency.  One may be seen as literally walking away from a community based on shared collective practices.  Likewise, to add new elements to one’s training (such as entry drills) can be taken as an affront to the group’s identity.  One cannot simply dismiss this reaction as all martial arts are first and foremost social institutions.

Yet there is another aspect of practice that must be considered.  Here I draw freely from Ben Spatz’s volume, What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research (Routledge 2015).  While there is an undeniably social aspect to the formation and transmission of technique, practice also generates types of knowledge that resides within an individual body.  Further, individual practice structures and augments the body in ways that are sometimes predictable (one learns Wing Chun precisely because you wish to punch faster), and sometimes radically unexpected (after five years of Wing Chun practice you find yourself becoming ambidextrous, even though that was never a stated conceptual aim of the system).

Spinoza’s question “What can a body do?” has no simple answer.  What your body can do today is largely a matter of what techniques you learned in the past.  Further, as you delve more deeply into the details of a given practice you are likely to find previously undiscovered depths and insights.  Thus the practice of Wing Chun inevitably shades into more basic research on Wing Chun’s techniques.  As any University professor can tell you, basic theoretical research inevitably leads to innovation in practice.  Innovation is a not a bug in this system, rather it is an essential feature of any pedagogical system based on the practice of bodies of techniques (the protests of Confucian traditionalists not withstanding).

Innovation within the realm of the martial arts is inevitable for another reason as well.  Students of self-defense arts like Wing Chun (or Judo for that matter) are not simply practicing their techniques in a vacuum.  Whether in training or actual combat, they are expected to deploy them against a partner who will react in strategic, innovative and adversarial ways.  Such training forces one to accelerate the process of personal research when it happens in a classroom.  One can only imagine the impact of Ip Man gleefully goading his young students into starting actual street fights to test their techniques.

Of course what was effective in Hong Kong in 1953 was probably pretty different from what Leung Jan was contemplating in Foshan in 1853, as gentry led militias fought their way through the burning streets of Foshan employing muskets, hudiedao and long spears.  Both the internalized process of individual research as well as the need to react strategically to an evolving threat environment ensures that martial arts will change, sometimes in radical ways, over time.

The debates that opened this essay will not disappear anytime soon.  They reflect a dialect process that has been present since the first years of the West’s engagement with the Asian martial arts.  Nor will they be resolved by referencing Youtube’s ever growing archive of martial practice.

These fighting systems, and their pedagogical strategies, are fundamentally social in nature.  Potential students are attracted by the promise of community and a deep personal need for transformation.  All of that implies boundary maintenance.  A closed canon of techniques makes this identity real at an embodied level.  Through practice one’s membership in the community can literally be felt and enacted on a daily basis.  Breaking with that may elicit strong emotions, including feelings of betrayal.

On the other hand, one cannot practice technique without engaging in research.  This is how a student makes a martial art their own.  It is what allows them to respond, in rational ways, to an evolving threat environment.  And the martial arts must continue to change.

While they are quite good at promoting the illusion of eternal continuity, the truth is that they have changed in every previous generation, sometimes in radical ways.  It would be a mistake to assume that our generation alone is exempt from this responsibility.  Perhaps the most generous way to understand the debates about what Wing Chun is missing is as a popular expression of the need to balance these fundamental, yet competing, aspects of practice.  As technique travels through time it enables the renegotiation and movement of identity.  Only through this process can we understand what Wing Chun is, and what it is becoming.

oOo

If you enjoyed this essay you might also want to see: The “Wing Chun Rules of Conduct”: Rediscovering Ip Man’s Original Statement on the Philosophy of the Martial Arts.

oOo

Antique hudiedao or “butterfly swords.” These weapons are commonly seen in a number of styles of southern Kung Fu including Choy Li Fut, Hung Gar and Wing Chun. Source: Author’s personal collection.

In January of 2013 I posted an essay titled “A Social and Visual History of the Hudiedao (Butterfly Sword) in the Southern Chinese Martial Arts.” As a student of Wing Chun I have always been fascinated by these weapons, and as a researcher in the field of martial arts studies I have been equally curious as to what they reveal about life in Southern China during the 19th and 20th centuries.  I was both surprised and gratified to discover just how many of you share my enthusiasm for these questions.  That post has become one of the most frequently visited articles here at Kung Fu Tea.  

While revisiting that document as part of my current research, it occurred to me that it was time to offer an updated and revised version.  Since writing that piece I have encountered a number of other important sources that have added to, and modified, our understanding of these iconic weapons. Some of those discoveries have been discussed in various places on the blog.  In truth, our current body of knowledge is too large to be contained in a single post. Nevertheless, I felt like Kung Fu Tea’s readership deserved a more up to date resource.

To maximize continuity I have kept the original text of the article where possible, deleted sections or made edits where necessary and added new discussions, images and topics where space would permit.  A notice has also been added to the top of the original post directing readers to the newly updated and expanded version.

I would like to extend a special note of thanks to Swords and Antique Weapons for allowing me to use a number of wonderful photographs of hudiedao that have passed through their collection over the years.  It would have been very difficult to present anything approaching a complete survey of the subject without their assistance.  Also, Peter Dekker has generously shared the fruits of his own extensive research on Chinese swords and weapons.  His insights have been most helpful.

Introduction:  What do we really know about butterfly swords?

No weapon is more closely linked to the martial heritage of southern China than the hudiedao (Cantonese: wu dip do), commonly referred to in English as “butterfly swords.”  In the hands of Wing Chun practitioners such as Bruce Lee and Ip Man, these blades became both a symbol of martial attainment and a source of regional pride for a generation of young martial artists.

Nor are these blades restricted to a single style.  Choy Li Fut, Hung Gar, Lau Gar and White Crane (among numerous others) all have lineages that employ this weapon.  Prior to the modern era these swords were also a standard issue item in the region’s many gentry led militias and private security forces.  Even ocean going merchant vessels would carry up to two dozen sets of these swords as part of their standard compliment of sailing gear.  The hudiedao are worthy of careful study precisely because they have functioned as a widespread and distinctive cultural marker of the southern Chinese martial arts.

This is not to say that hudiedaos are not occasionally seen in other places.  They have been carried across China by the adventurous people of Guangdong and Fujian.  By the late 19th century they were making regular appearances in diaspora communities in Singapore and even California.  Today they can be found in training halls around the world.

Of course there are a number of other Chinese fighting traditions which have focused on paired swords, daggers or maces that are very reminiscent of the butterfly swords of southern China.  Still, there are distinctive elements of this regional tradition that make it both easily identifiable and interesting to study.

The following post offers a brief history of the hudiedao.  In attempting to reconstruct the origin and uses of this weapon I employ three types of data.  First, I rely on dated photographs and engravings with a clear provenance.  These images are important because they provide evidence as to what different weapons looked like and who carried them.

Secondly, I discuss a number of period (1820s-1880s) English language accounts to help socially situate these weapons.  These have been largely neglected by martial artists, yet they provide some of the earliest references that we have to the widespread use of butterfly swords or, as they are always called in the period literature, “double swords.”  While the authors of these accounts are sometimes hostile observers (e.g., British military officers), they often supply surprisingly detailed discussions of the swords, their methods of use and carry, and the wider social and military setting that they appeared in.  These first-hand accounts are gold mines of information for military historians.

Lastly, we will look at a number of surviving examples of hudiedao from private collections.  It is hard to understand what these weapons were capable of (and hence the purpose of the various double sword fighting forms found in the southern Chinese martial arts) without actually handling them.

Modern martial artists expect both too much and too little from the hudiedao.  With a few exceptions, the modern reproductions of butterfly swords are either beautifully made a-historical “artifacts,” high tech simulacra of a type of weapon that never actually existed in 19^th century China, or cheaply made copies of practice gear that was never meant to be a “weapon” in the first place.  This second class of “weapon” sets the bar much too low.  Yet it is also nearly impossible for any flesh and blood sword to live up to the mythology and hype that surrounds butterfly swords, especially in Wing Chun circles.  As these swords appear with ever greater frequency on TV programs and within video games, that mythology grows only more entrenched.

Unfortunately antique butterfly swords are hard to find and highly sought after by martial artists and collectors.  They are usually too expensive for most southern style kung fu students to actually study.  I hope that a detailed historical discussion of these swords may help to fill in some of these gaps.  While there is no substitute for holding a weapon in one’s hands, a good overview might give us a much better idea of what sort of weapon we are attempting to emulate.  It will also open valuable insights into the milieu from which these blades emerged.

This last point is an important one.  Rarely do students of Chinese martial studies inquire about the social status or meaning of weapons.  This is a serious oversight.  As we have seen in our previous discussions of Republic era dadaos and military kukris, the social evolution of these weapons is often the most interesting and illuminating aspect of their story.  Who used the hudiedao?  How were they employed in combat? When were they first created, and what did they mean to the martial artists of southern China?  Lastly, what does their spread tell us about the place of the Chinese martial arts in an increasingly globalized world?

The short answer to these questions is that butterfly swords were popular with civilian martial artists in the 19^th century.  While never an official “regulation weapon” within the imperial Qing military they may have been a local adaptation of the “Green Standard Army Rolling Blanket Double Sabers” seen in official manuals outlining the weapons of both the Ming and Qing armies.  Based on his translations of  皇朝禮器圖式, Peter Dekker notes that these blades (shaped like small military sabers) had the following dimensions:

The left and right opposites are each 2 chi 1 cun and 1 fen long. [Approx. 73 cm]. The blades are 1 cun 6 fen long. [Approx. 56 cm]. Width is 1 cun [Approx 3.5 cm].

The Rolling Blanket Saber of the Green Standard Army as discussed in the 皇朝禮器圖式. 1766 woodblock print, based on a 1759 manuscript. Subsequent editions from 1801 and 1899 reproduced basically identical images. Source: Peter Dekker.

While dressed to look like standard issue sabers, these double blades were actually comparably sized to many of the “war era” hudiedao that can be found in collections today.  Thus there may be more of a military rational for the existence of such weapons than was previously thought.  While the vast majority of butterfly swords were owned or used by civilians, this might also suggest an explanation of why a few pairs have been found with military markings. It is hypothetically possible that at least some of these swords were seen as a locally produced variant of a known military weapon.

While exciting, we must be careful not to over-interpret this discovery.  When discussing the martial arts were are, by in large, referencing a civilian realm that, while related to military training, remained socially distinct from it.  To be a “martial artist” in 19^th century China was to be a member of one or more other overlapping social groups.  For instance, many martial artists were one or more of the following: a professional soldier, a bandit or pirate, a member of a militia or clan defense society, a pharmacist or an entertainer.

As we review the historical accounts and pictures below, we will see butterfly swords employed by members of each of these categories.  That is precisely why this exercise is important.   Hudiedao are a basic technology that help to tie the southern martial arts together.  If we can demystify the development and spread of this one technology, we will make some progress toward understanding the background milieu that gave rise to the various schools of hand combat that we have today.

Hudiedao: Understanding the basic history of the butterfly sword.

The monks of the Shaolin Temple have left an indelible mark on the martial arts of Guangdong and Fujian.  This mark is none the less permanent given the fact that the majority of Chinese martial studies scholars have concluded that the “Southern Shaolin Temple” was a myth.  Still, myths reflect important social values.  Shaolin (as a symbol) has touched many aspects of the southern Chinese martial arts, including its weapons.

In Wing Chun Schools today, it is usually assumed that the art’s pole form came from Jee Shim (the former abbot of the destroyed Shaolin sanctuary), and that the swords must have came from the Red Boat Opera or possibly Ng Moy (a nun and another survivor of temple).  A rich body of lore linking the hudiedao to Shaolin has grown over the years.  These myths often start out by apologizing for the fact that these monks are carrying weapons at all, as this is a clear (and very serious) breach of monastic law.

It is frequently asserted that our monks needed protection on the road from highwaymen, especially when they were carrying payments of alms.  Some assert that butterfly swords were the only bladed weapons that the monks were allowed to carry because they were not as deadly as a regular dao.  The tips could be left blunt and the bottom half of the blade was often unsharpened.  Still, there are a number of problems with this story.

These blunt tips and unsharpened blades seem to actually be more of an apology for the low quality, oddly designed, practice swords that started to appear in the 1970s than an actual memory of any real weapons.

The first probable references to the hudiedao (or butterfly swords) that I have been able to find date to the 1820s.  Various internet discussions, some quite good and worth checking out, as well as Jeffery D. Modell’s article “History & Design of Butterfly Swords” (Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine, April 2010, pp. 56-65) usually suggest a later date of popularization.  Modell concludes that the traditional butterfly sword is a product of the “late 19^th century” while other credible sources generally point to the 1850s or 1860s.  The general consensus seems to be that while a few examples may have existed earlier, this weapon did not really gain prominence until the middle or end of the 19^th century.

This opinion was formed mostly through the first hand examination of antique blades.  And it is correct so far as it goes.  Most of the existing antique blades do seem to date from the end of the 19^th century or even the first few decades of the 20^th.  Further, this would fit with our understanding of the late 19^th century being a time of martial innovations, when much of the foundation for the modern Chinese hand combat systems was being set in place.

Recently uncovered textual evidence would seem to indicate that we may need to roll these dates back by a generation or more.  As we will see below, already in the 1820s western merchants and British military officers in Guangzhou were observing these, or very similar weapons, in the local environment.  They were even buying examples that are brought back to Europe and America where they enter important early private collections.

The movement of both goods and people was highly restricted in the “Old China Trade” system.  Westerners were confined to one district of the Guangzhou and they could only enter the city for a few months of the year.  The fact that multiple individuals were independently collecting examples of hudiedao, even under such tight restrictions, would seem to indicate that these weapons (or something very similar to them) must have already been fairly common in the 1820s.

Accounts of these unique blades become more frequent and more detailed in the 1830s and 1840s.  Eventually engravings were published showing a wide variety of arms (often destined for private collections or the “cabinets” of wealthy western individuals), and then from the 1850s onward a number of important photographs were produced.  The Hudiedao started to appear in images on both sides of the pacific, and it is clear that the weapon had a well-established place among gangsters and criminals in both San Francisco and New York.

But what exactly is a hudiedao?  What sorts of defining characteristics binds these weapons together and separate them from other various paired weapons that are seen in the Chinese martial arts from time to time?

The term “hudiedao,” or “butterfly sword,” never appears in any of the 19^th century English language accounts that I have examined.  Invariably these records and illustrations refer instead to “double swords.”  A number of them go to lengths to point out that this is a weapon unique to China.  Its defining characteristic seems to be that the two blades are fitted together in such a way that they can be placed in a shared opening to one sheath.  Some accounts (but not all) go on to describe heavy D guards and the general profile of the blade.  I used these more detailed accounts (from the 1830s) and engravings and photos (from the 1840s and 1850s) to try and interpret some of the earlier and briefer descriptions (from the 1820s).

Some of these collectors, Dunn in particular, were quite interested in Chinese culture and had knowledgeable native agents helping them to acquire and catalog their collections.  It is thus very interesting that these European observers, almost without exception, referred to these weapons as “double swords” rather than “butterfly swords.”  Not to put too fine a point on it, but some western observers seemed to revel in pointing out the contradictory or ridiculous in Chinese culture, and if any of them had heard this name it would have recorded, if only for the ridicule and edification of future generations.

I looked at a couple of period dictionaries (relevant to southern China) that included military terms.  None of them mentioned the word “Hudiedao,” though they generally did include a word for double swords (雙股劍: “shwang koo keem,” or in modern Pinyin, “shuang goo gim.”  See Medhurst, English and Chinese Dictionary 1848; Morrison, Dictionary of the Chinese Language, 1819.)

Multiple important early Chinese novels, including the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin (All Men are Brothers) include protagonists who use these weapons, so for that reason alone this would be a commonly understood term.  Even individuals who were not martial artists would have known about these literary characters and their weapons.  In fact, the literary legacy of those two novels could very well explain how these blades have managed to capture the imagination of so many martial artists up through the 21^st century.

In modern martial arts parlance, “double swords” (shuang jian or shuang dao) refer to two medium or full size jians (or daos) that are fitted into a single scabbard.  These weapons also became increasingly popular in the late 19^th century and are still used in a variety of styles.  It is possible that they are a different regional expression of the same basic impulse that led to the massive popularization of hudiedao in the south, but they are a fairly different weapon.

The real complicating factor here is that neither type of weapons (shuang dao vs. hudiedao) was ever adopted or issued by the Imperial military, so strictly speaking, neither of them have a proper or “official name.”  (Again, while similar in size and function, the “Rolling Blanket Double Sabers” clearly followed the forging and aesthetic guidelines seen in all other military sabers and were categorized accordingly.)  When looking at these largely civilian traditions, we are left with a wide variety of, often poetic, ever evolving terms favored by different martial arts styles.  Occasionally it is unclear whether these style names are actually meant to refer to the weapons themselves, or the routines that they are employed in.

The evolution of the popular names of these weapons seems almost calculated to cause confusion.  For our present purposes I will be referring to any medium length, single edged, pair of blades fitted into a shared scabbard, as “hudiedaos.”  Readers should be aware of the existence of a related class of weapon which resembles a longer, single, hudiedao.  These were meant to be used in conjunction with a rattan shield.  They are only included in my discussion only if they exhibit the heavy D-guard and quillion that is often seen on other butterfly swords.

Hudiedao were made by a large number of local smiths and they exhibit a great variability in form and intended function.  Some of these swords are fitted with heavy brass D-guards (very similar to a European hanger or cutlass), but in other cases the guard is made of steel.  On some examples the D-guard is replaced with the more common Chinese S-guard.   And in a small minority of cases no guard was used at all.

The sorts of blades seen on hudiedao from southern China can also vary immensely.  Two types are most commonly encountered on 19^thcentury weapons.  Some are long and narrow with a thick triangular cross section.  These blades superficially resemble shortened European rapiers and are clearly designed with stabbing in mind.  Other blades are wider and heavier, and exhibit a sturdy hatchet point.  While still capable of stabbing through heavy clothing or leather, these knives can also chop and slice.

Most hudiedao from the 19^th century seem to be medium sized weapons, ranging from 50-60 cm (20-24 inches) in length.  It is obvious that arms of this size were not meant to be carried in a concealed manner.  To the extent that these weapons were issued to mercenaries (or “braves”), local militia units or civilian guards, there would be no point in concealing them at all.  Instead, one would hope that they would be rather conspicuous, like the gun on the hip of a police officer.

While these two blade types are the most common (making up about 70% of the swords that I have encountered), other shapes are also seen.  Some hudiedao exhibit the “coffin” shaped blades of traditional southern Chinese fighting knives.  These specimens are very interesting and often lack any sort of hand guard at all, yet they are large enough that they could not easily be used like their smaller cousins.

One also encounters blades that are shaped like half-sized versions of the “ox-tail” dao.  This style of sword was very popular among civilian martial artists in the 19^th century.  Occasionally blades in this configuration also show elaborate decorations that are not often evident on other types of hudiedao.

Lastly there are shorter, thicker blades, designed with cutting and hacking in mind.  These more closely resemble the type favored by Wushu performers and modern martial artists.  Some of  these weapons could be carried in a concealed manner, yet they are also better balanced and have a stronger stabbing point than most of the inexpensive replicas being made today.  It is also interesting to note that these shorter, more modern looking knives, can be quite uncommon compared to the other blade types listed above.

I am hesitant to assign names or labels to these different sorts of blades.  That may seem counter-intuitive, but the very existence of “labels” implies a degree of order and standardization that may not have actually existed when these swords were made.  19^th century western observers simply referred to everything that they saw as a “double sword” and chances are good that their Chinese agents did the same.  Given that most of these weapons were probably made in small shops and to the exact specifications of the individuals who commissioned them the idea of different “types” of hudiedao seems a little misleading.

What defined a “double sword” to both 19^th century Chinese and western observers in Guangdong, was actually how they were fitted and carried in the scabbard.  These scabbards were almost always leather, and they did not separate the blades into two different channels or compartments (something that is occasionally seen in northern double weapons).  Beyond that, a wide variety of blade configurations, hand guards and levels of ornamentation could be used.  I am still unclear when the term “hudiedao” came into common use, or how so many independent observers and careful collectors could have missed it.

The First Written Accounts: Chinese “double swords” in Guangzhou in the 1820s-1830s.

The first English language written account of what is most likely a hudiedao that I have been able to find is a small note in the appendix of the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society for the year 1827.  Lieutenant Colonel Charles Joseph Doyle had evidently acquired an extensive collection of oriental arms that he wished to donate to the society.  In an era before public museums, building private collections, or “cabinets,” was a popular pastime for members of a certain social class.

The expansion of the British Empire into Asia vastly broadened the scope of what could be collected.  In fact, many critical artistic and philosophical ideas first entered Europe through the private collections of gentlemen like Charles Joseph Doyle.  Deep in the inventory list of his “cabinet of oriental arms” we find a single tantalizing reference to “A Chinese Double Sword.”

I have not been able to locate much information on Col. Doyle’s career so I cannot yet make a guess as to when he collected this example.  Still, if the donation was made in 1825, the swords cannot have been acquired any later than the early 1820s.  (Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 1.  London: Royal Asiatic Society. 1827.  “A Chinese double Sword.  Donated on Nov. 5, 1825.” P. 636)

If Doyle’s entry in the records of the Royal Asiatic Society was terse, another prominent collector from the 1820 was more effusive.  Nathan Dunn is an important figure in America’s growing understanding of China.  He was involved in the “Old China Trade” and imported teas, silks and other goods from Guangdong to the US.  Eventually he became very wealthy and strove to create a more sympathetic understanding of China and its people in the west.

For a successful merchant, his story begins somewhat inauspiciously.  Historical records show that in 1816 Nathan Dunn was disowned (excommunicated) by the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers) for bankruptcy.  While socially devastating, this bankruptcy may have been the best thing that ever happened to Dunn.  In 1818 he left for China on a risky trading mission in an attempt to rebuild his fortune.  He succeeded in that task many times over.

Unlike most western merchants Dunn found the Chinese to be very intelligent and worthy of close study and contemplation.  He objected strenuously to the selling of opium (an artifact of his prior Quaker faith) and made valuable friendships and alliances with individuals from all levels of Chinese society.  Appreciating his open outlook these individuals helped Dunn to amass the largest collection of Chinese artifacts in the hands of any one individual.  In fact, the Chinese helped Dunn to acquire a collection many times larger than the entire cabinets of both the British East India Company and the British Government, which had been trying to build a vast display of its own for years.

Dunn’s collection was also quite interesting for its genuine breadth.  It included both great works of art and everyday objects.  It paid attention to issues of business, culture, horticulture and philosophy.  Dunn made a point of studying the lives of individuals from different social and economic classes, and he paid attention to the lives and material artifacts of women.  Finally, like any good 19^th century gentleman living abroad, he collected arms.

Dunn’s collection went on display in Philadelphia in the 1838’s.  When it opened to the public he had an extensive catalog printed (poetically titled 10,000 Chinese Things), that included in-depth discussions of many of the displays.  This sort of contextual data is quite valuable.  It is interesting to not only see double swords mentioned multiple times in Dunn’s collection, but to look at the other weapons that were also employed in the 1820s when these swords were actually being bought in Guangdong.

“The warrior is armed with a rude matchlock, the only kind of fire-arms known among the Chinese.  There is hung up on the wall a shield, constructed of rattan turned spirally round a center, very similar in shape and appearance to our basket lids.  Besides the matchlock and shield, a variety of weapons offensive and defensive, are in use in China; such as helmets, bows and arrows, cross-bows, spears, javelins, pikes, halberds, double and single swords, daggers, maces, a species of quilted armour of cloth studded with metal buttons, &c.” pp. 32-33.

“Besides these large articles, there are, in the case we are describing, an air-gun wooden barrel; a duck-gun with matchlock; a curious double sword, capable of being used as one, and having but one sheath; specimens of Chinese Bullets, shot powder, powder –horns, and match ropes…..” p. 42

“444. Pair of Swords, to be used by both hands but having one sheath.  The object of which is to hamstring the enemy.” P. 51

“In addition to the spears upon the wall, there are two bows; one strung, and the other unstrung; two pair of double swords; one pair with a tortoise shell, and the other a leather sheath; besides several other swords and caps, and a jinjall, or a heavy gun on a pivot, which has three movable chambers, in which the powder and ball are put, and which serve to replace each other as often as the gun is discharged.” P. 93.

Enoch Cobb Wines.  A Peep at China in Mr. Dunn’s Chinese Collection.  Philadelphia: Printed for Nathan Dunn. 1839.

I found it interesting that Dunn would associate the double sword with “hamstringing” (the intentional cutting of the Achilles tendon) an opponent.  In his 1801 volume on crime and punishment George Henry Mason included an illustration of a prisoner being “hamstrung” with a short, straight bladed knife.  This was said to be a punishment for attempting to escape prison or exile.  He noted that there was some controversy as to whether this punishment was still in use or if legal reformers in China had succeeded in doing away with it.  It is possible that Dunn’s description (or more likely, that of his Chinese agent) on page 51 is a memory of the “judicial” use of the hudiedao by officers of the state against socially deviant aspects of society.

It is hard to overstate the importance of Dunn’s “Museum” in shaping China’s image in the popular imagination.  As such, descriptions of his ethnographic objects reached the public through many outlets.  One of these was the writings of W. W. Wood.  Wood was a friend and collaborator of Dunn’s while in Canton.  In fact, Wood was actually responsible for assembling most of the natural history section of the “China Museum.”  Still, his writings touched on other aspects of the collecting enterprise as well.

CHINESE ARMS.

A great variety of weapons, offensive and defensive, are in use in China; such as matchlocks, bows and arrows, cross-bows, spears, javelins, pikes, halberds, double and single swords, daggers, maces, &c. Shields and armor of various kinds, serve as protection against the weapons of their adversaries. The artillery is very incomplete, owing to the bad mountings of the cannon, and efficient execution is out of the question, from the ignorance of the people in gunnery. Many of the implements of war are calculated for inflicting very cruel wounds, especially some kinds of spears and barbed arrows, the extraction of which is extremely difficult, and the injuries caused by them dreadful. A kind of sword, composed of an iron bar, about eighteen inches long, and an inch and a half thick, or two inches in circumference, is used to break the limbs of their adversaries, by repeated and violent blows.

The double swords are very short, not longer in the blade than a large dagger, the inside surfaces are ground very flat, so that when placed in contact, they lie close to each other, and go into a single scabbard. The blades are very wide at the base, and decrease very much towards the point. Being ground very sharp, and having great weight, the wounds given by them are severe. I am informed, that the principal object in using them, is to hamstring the enemy, and thus entirely disable him.

Most of the arms made in canton, are exceedingly rude and unfinished in comparison with our own, In the sword-making art they are better than in other departments, but the metal is generally of inferior quality, and the form of these weapons bad; the mountings are handsome, but there is little or no guard for the protection of the hand.

W. W. Wood. 1830. Sketches of China: with Illustrations from Original Drawings. Philadelphia: Carey & Lead. pp. 162-163

Woods descriptions of the hudieado are important on a number of counts.  To begin with, they prove that European collectors had started to acquire these specimens by the 1820s.  Further, the swords that he describes are relatively broad and short, similar to the weapons favored by many modern Wing Chun students.  Lastly, his contextualization of these blades is invaluable.

These are the earliest references to “double swords” in southern China that I have been able to locate.  Already by the 1820s these weapons were seen as something uniquely Chinese, hence it is not surprising that they would find their way into the collections and cabinets of early merchants and military officers.

Still, the 1820s was a time of relatively peaceful relations between China and the West.  Tensions built throughout the 1830s and boiled over into open conflict in the 1840s.  As one might expect, this deterioration in diplomatic relations led to increased interest in military matters on the part of many western observers.  Numerous detailed descriptions of “double swords” emerge out of this period.  It is also when the first engravings to actually depict these weapons in a detailed way were commissioned and executed.

Karl Friedrich A. Gutzlaff (English: Charles Gutzlaff; Chinese: Guō Shìlì) was a German protestant missionary in south-eastern China.  He was active in the area in the 1830s and 1840s and is notable for his work on multiple biblical translations.  He was the first protestant missionary to dress in Chinese style and was generally more in favor of enculturation than most of his brethren.  He was also a close observer of the Opium Wars and served as a member of a British diplomatic mission in 1840.

One of his many literary goals was to produce a reliable and up to date geography of China.  Volume II of this work spends some time talking about the Chinese military situation in Guangdong.  While discussing the leadership structure of the Imperial military we find the following note:

(In a discussion of the “Chamber for the superintendent of stores and the examination of military candidates.):

“Chinese bows are famous for carrying to a great distance; their match-locks are wretched fire-arms; and upon their cannon they have not yet improved, since they were taught by the Europeans.  Swords, spears, halberts, and partisans, are likewise in use in the army.  Two swords in one scabbard, which enable the warrior to fight with the left and right hands, are given to various divisions.  They carry rattan shields, made of wicker work, and in several detachments they receive armour to protect their whole body.  The officers, in the day of battle, are always thus accoutered.  Of their military engines we can say very little, they having, during a long peace, fallen into disuse.” P. 446.

Karl Friedrich A. Gützlaff. China opened; or, A display of the topography, history… etc. of the Chinese Empire. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1838.

This is an interesting passage for a variety of reasons.  It seems to very strongly suggest that the Green Standard Army in Guangdong was using large numbers of either Rolling Blanket Double Sabers or hudiedao in the 1830s, or at least stockpiling them.  Occasionally I hear references to hudiedao being found that have official “reign marks” on them, or property marks of the Chinese military.  Accounts such as this one might explain their existence.

The conventional wisdom (as we will see below) is that the hudiedao were never a “regulation” weapon and were issued only to civilian “braves” and gentry led militia units which were recruited by the governor of Guangdong in his various clashes with the British.  Still, this note falls right in the middle of an extensive discussion of the command structure of the Imperial military.  Who these various divisions were, and what relationship they had with militia troops, is an interesting question for further research.

More specific descriptions of hudiedao and their use in the field started to pour in from reporters and government officers as the security situation along the Pearl River Delta disintegrated.  The May 1840 edition of the Asiatic Journal includes the following notice:

“Governor Lin has enlisted about 3,000 recruits, who are being drilled daily near Canton in the military exercise of the bow, the spear and the double sword.  The latter weapon is peculiar to China.  Each soldier is armed with two short and straight swords, one in each hand, which being knocked against each other, produce a clangour [sic], which, it is thought, will midate [sic] the enemy.” P. 327

The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China and Australia.  May-August, 1840. London: Wm. H. Allen and Co.

Such new recruits would clearly have been both “Braves” and members of the gentry led militia system.  So this would seem to indicate that the hudiedao was a weapon favored by martial artists and citizen soldiers.  This is also the first reference I have seen to soldiers beating their hudiedao together to make a clamor before charging into battle.  While this tactic is usually noted with disdain by British observers, it is well worth noting that their own infantry often put on a similar display before commencing a bayonet charge.

Born in 1805 (1805-1878) J. Elliot Bingham served for 21 years in the Royal Navy.  In the late 1830s he had the rank of First Lieutenant (he later retired as a Commander) and was assigned to the H. M. S. Modeste.  Launched in 1837, this 18 Gun Sloop or corvette was crewed by 120 sailors and marines.  It saw repeated combat along the Guangdong coast and the Pearl River between 1839 and 1841.

As a military man Commander Bingham was a close observer of Chinese weapons and he leaves us with what must be considered the very best account of the use of hudiedao by militia troops in the late 1830s.

“March the 21^st, Lin was busy drilling 3,000 troops, a third portion of which was to consist of double-sworded men.  These twin swords, when in scabbard, appear as one thick clumsy weapon, about two feet in length; the guard for the hand continuing straight, rather beyond the “fort” of the sword turns toward the point, forming a hook about two inches long.  When in use, the thumb of each hand is passed under this hook, on which the sword hangs, until a twist of the wrist brings the grip within the grasp of the swordsman.  Clashing and beating them together and cutting the air in every direction, accompanying the action with abuse, noisy shouts and hideous grimaces, these dread heroes advance, increasing their gesticulations and distortions of visage as they approach the enemy, when they expect the foe to become alarmed and fly before them.  Lin had great faith in the power of these men.” P. 177-178.

J. Elliot Bingham.  Narrative of the Expedition to China, from the Commencement of the Present Period. Volume 1.  London: Henry Colburn Publisher.  1842.

Commander Bingham was not much impressed by the Chinese militia or their exotic weaponry.  In truth, Lin led his forces into a situation where they were badly outgunned, and more importantly “out generaled,” by the seasoned and well led British Navy.  Still, his brief account contains a treasure trove of information.  To begin with, it confirms that the earlier accounts of “double swords” used by the militia in and around Guangzhou in the 1830s were in fact references to hudiedao.

Fredric Wakeman, in his important study Stranger at the Gate: Social Disorder in Southern China 1839-1861, cites intelligence reports sent to the British Foreign Office which claim that Lin had in fact raised a 3,000 man force to repel a foreign attach on Guangzhou.  Apparently Lin distrusted the ability of the Green Standard Army to get the job done, and the Manchu Banner Army was so poorly disciplined and run that he actually considered it to be a greater threat to the peace and safety of the local countryside than the British.

He planned on defending the provincial capital with a two pronged strategy.  First, he attempted to strengthen and update his coastal batteries.  Secondly, he called up the gentry led militia (and a large number of mercenary braves) because these troops were considered more committed and reliable than the official army.  Bingham was correct, Lin did put a lot of confidence in the militia.

The Foreign Office reported that Lin ordered every member of the militia to be armed with a spear, a rattan helmet, and a set of “double swords” (Wakeman 95).  Other reports note that members of the militia were also drilled in archery and received a number of old heavy muskets from the government stores in Guangdong.  Bingham’s observations can leave no doubt that the “double swords” that the Foreign Office noted were in fact hudiedao.

Local members of the gentry worked cooperatively out of specially built (or appropriated) Confucian “schools” to raise money, procure arms and supplies for their units, to organize communications systems, and even to create insurance programs.  It seems likely that the hudiedao used by the militia would have been hurriedly produced in a number of small shops around the Pearl River Delta.

Much of this production likely happened in Foshan (the home of important parts of the Wing Chun, Choy Li Fut and Hung Gar movements).  Foshan was a critical center of regional handicraft production, and it held the Imperial iron and steel monopoly (He Yimin. “Thrive and Decline:The Comparison of the Fate of “The Four Famous Towns” in Modern Times.” Academic Monthly. December 2008.)  This made it a natural center for weapons production.

We know, for instance, that important cannon foundries were located in Foshan.  The battle for control of these weapon producing resources was actually a major element of the “Opera Rebellion,” or “Red Turban Revolt,” that would rip through the area 15 years later. (See Wakeman’s account in Stranger at the Gate for the most detailed reconstruction of the actual fighting in and around Foshan.)

Given that this is where most of the craftsmen capable of making butterfly swords would have been located, it seems reasonable to assume that this was where a lot of the militia weaponry was actually produced.  Further, the town’s centralized location on the nexus of multiple waterways, and its long history of involvement in regional trade, would have made it a natural place to distribute weapons from.

While all 3,000 troops may have been armed with hudiedao, it is very interesting that these weapons were the primary arms of about 1/3 of the militia.  Presumably the rest of their comrades were armed with spears, bows and a small number of matchlocks.

Bingham also gives us the first clear description of the unique hilts of these double swords.  He notes in an off-handed way that they have hand-guards.  More interesting is the quillion that terminates in a hook that extends parallel to the blade for a few inches.  This description closely matches the historic weapons that we currently possess.

This style of guard, while not seen on every hudiedo, is fairly common.  It is also restricted to weapons from southern China.  Given that this is not a traditional Chinese construction method, various guesses have been given as to how these guards developed and why they were adopted.

There is at least a superficial resemblance between these guards and the hilts of some western hangers and naval cutlasses of the period.  It is possible that the D-guard was adopted and popularized as a result of increased contact with western arms in southern China.  If so, it would make sense that western collectors in Guangzhou in the 1820s would be the first observers to become aware of the new weapon.

The actual use of the hooked quillion is also open to debate.  Many modern martial artists claim that it is used to catch and trap an opponent’s blade.  In another essay I have reviewed a martial arts training manual from the 1870s that shows local boxers attempting to do exactly this.  However, as the British translator of that manual points out (and I am in total agreement with him), this cannot possibly work against a longer blade or a skilled and determined opponent.  While this type of trapping is a commonly rehearsed “application” in Wing Chun circles, after years of fencing practice and full contact sparring, my own school has basically decided that it is too dangerous to attempt and rarely works in realistic situations.

Another theory that has been advanced is that the hook is basically symbolic.  It is highly reminiscent of the ears on a “Sai,” a simple weapon that is seen in the martial arts of China, Japan and South East Asia.  Arguments have been made that the sai got its unique shape by imitating tridents in Hindu and Buddhist art.  Perhaps we should not look quite so hard for a “practical” function for everything that we see in martial culture (Donn F. Draeger. The Weapons and Fighting Arts of Indonesia.  Tuttle Publishing.  2001. p. 33).

Bingham makes a different observation about the use of the quillion.  He notes that it can be used to manipulate the knife when switching between a “reverse grip” and a standard fencing or “brush grip.”  Of course the issue of “sword flipping” is tremendously controversial in some Wing Chun circles, so it is interesting to see a historical report of the practice in a military setting in the 1830s.

It is also worth noting that Commander Bingham was not the only Western observer to describe hudiedao training and to doubt its effectiveness.

Of swords the Chinese have an abundant variety.  Some are single-handed swords, and there is one device by which two swords are carried in the same sheath and are used one in each hand.  I have seen the two sword exercise performed, and can understand that, when opposed to any person not acquainted with the weapon, the Chinese swordsman would seem irresistible.  But in spite of the two swords, which fly about the wielder’s head like the sails of a mill, and the agility with which the Chinese fencer leaps about and presents first one side and then the other to this antagonist, I cannot think but that any ordinary fencer would be able to keep himself out of reach, and also to get in his point, in spite of the whirling blades of the adversary.

J. G. Wood. 1876. The Uncivilized Races of All Men in All Countries. Vol. II. Hartford: the J. B. Burr Publishing Co. Chapter, CLIV China—continued. Warfare.—Chinese Swords. pp. 1434-1435. (Originally published in 1868.)

J. G. Wood, while responsible for few discoveries of his own, was one of the great promoters and popularizers of scientific knowledge in his generation.  Most of his writings focused on natural history, but occasionally he ventured into the realm of ethnography. Like Dunn, Wood was a collector by nature.  So its not hard to imagine him amassing a number of Chinese swords.

Yet where would he have seen these skills demonstrated?  While Wood traveled to North America on a lecture tour, I am aware of no indication that he ever ventured as far as China.  Of course, one did not have to go to Hong Kong or Shanghai to see a martial arts demonstration.  Between 1848 and 1851 the crew of the Keying (a Chinese Junk) staged twice daily Kung Fu performances in London.

Stephen Davies, who is an expert of the voyages of the Keying, has hypothesized that by the time the ship reached London almost all of its original Chinese crew had already left and returned home.  If this is true, the Keying would have had to recruit a replacement “crew” from London’s small Victorian era Chinese community.  If his supposition is correct (and to be clear, I feel this still needs additional confirmation), by the middle of the 19th century the UK may have had its own population of indigenous martial artists, more than willing to perform their skills in public.  J. G. Wood’s account suggests that the butterfly sword was a well established part of their repertoire.

Early Images of the Hudiedao: Western Engravings of Chinese Arms.

It was rare to encounter collections of Chinese artifacts of any kind in the 1820s and 1830s.  However, the situation changed dramatically after the First and Second Opium Wars.  The expansion of trade that followed these conflicts, the opening of new treaty ports, and the creation and growth of Hong Kong all created new zones where Chinese citizens and westerners could meet to change goods and artifacts of material culture.  Unfortunately these meetings were not always peaceful and a large number of Chinese weapons started to be brought back to Europe as trophies.  Many of these arms subsequently found their way into works of art.  As a quintessentially exotic Chinese weapon, “double swords” were featured in early engravings and photographs.

Our first example comes from an engraving of Chinese weapons captured by the Royal Navy and presented to Queen Victoria in 1844.   The London Illustrated News published an interesting description of what they found.  In addition to a somewhat archaic collection of firearms, the Navy recovered a large number of double handed choppers.  These most closely resemble weapon that most martial artists today refer to as a “horse knife” (pu dao).

Featured prominently in the front of the engraving is something that looks quite familiar.  The accompanying article describes this blade as having “two sharpened edges” and a “modern guard.”  I have encountered a number of hudiedao with a false edge, but I do not think that I have found one that was actually sharpened.  I suspect that the sword in this particular picture was of the single variety and originally intended for use with a wicker shield.

Another useful engraving of “Chinese and Tartar Arms” can be found in Evariste R. Huc’s Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China (London, 1852).  Unlike some of the previous sources this one is not overly focused on military matters.  Still, the publishers include a fascinating engraving of Chinese arms.  The models for these were likely war trophies that were brought to the UK in the 1840s and 1850s.  They may have even been items from Nathan Dunn’s (now deceased) vast collection which was auctioned at Sotheby in 1844 following a tour of London and then the countryside.

Featured prominently in the middle of the picture is a set of hudiedao.  The engraving shows two swords with long narrow blades and D-guards resting in a single scabbard.  It is very hard to judge size in this print as the artist let scale slide to serve the interests of symmetry, but it appears that the “double swords” are only slightly shorter than the regulation Qing dao that hangs with them.

While it would appear that hudiedao had been in use in southern China since the 1820s, they make their first documented appearance on the West coast of America in the 1850s.  The Bancroft Library at UC Berkley has an important collection of documents and images relating to the Chinese American experience.  Better yet, many of their holdings have been digitized and are available on-line to the public.

Most of the Chinese individuals who settled in California (to work in both the railroads and mining camps) were from Fujian and Guangdong.  They brought with them their local dialects, modes of social organization, tensions and propensity for community feuding and violence.  They also brought with them a wide variety of weapons.

Newspaper accounts and illustrations from this side of the pacific actually provide us with some of our best studies of what we now think of as “martial arts” weapons.  Of course, it is unlike that this is how they were actually viewed by immigrants in the 1850s.  In that environment they were simply “weapons.”

The coasts of both Guangdong and Fujian province were literally covered in pirates in the 1840s, and the interiors of both provinces were infested with banditry.  Many individuals have long suspected that the hudiedao were in fact associated with these less savory elements of China’s criminal underground.  Butterfly swords, either as a pair or a single weapon, are sometimes marketed as “river pirate knives.”

The Armory of the Wang-Ho as seen on an early 20th century postcard. Note the Hudiedao in the rack on the back wall. Source: Author’s personal collection.

Perhaps it would be more correct to note that these versatile short swords were an ubiquitous part of Chinese maritime life.  In a period account describing (in great detail) the outfitting of typical Chinese merchant vessels we find the following note:

The armament is as follows: one cannon, twelve pounder, one do., six pounder; twelve gingalls or small rampart pieces, on pivots; one English musket; twenty pairs of double swords; thirty rattan shields, 2000 pikes, sixty oars; fifteen mats to cover the vessel, two cables, one of them bamboo, and the other coir, fifty fathoms long, one pump of bamboo tubes; one European telescope: one compass, which is rarely used, their voyages being near shore.

R. Montgomery Martin, Esq. 1847. China; Political, Commercial and Social: In an Official Report to Her Majesty’s Government . Vol. I. London: James Madden, 8 Leadenhall Street. p. 99

As Chinese sailors and immigrants traveled to new areas they brought their traditional arms with them.  Early observers in the American West noted that these weapons were often favored by the Tongs, gangs and drifters who monopolized the political economy of violence within the Chinese community.

The Bancroft library provides the earliest evidence I have yet found for hudiedao-type weapons in an engraving produced by the “Wild West Office, San Francisco.”  This picture depicts a battle between two rival Tongs (communal organizations that were often implicated in violence) at Weaverville in October, 1854.  Earlier that year the two groups, Tuolomne County’s Sam Yap Company and the Calaveras County Yan Wo Company, had nearly come to blows.

Both groups closed ranks, began to order weapons (including helmets, swords and shields) from local craftsmen, and spent months drilling as militia units.  However, the two sides were far from evenly matched.  The Sam Yap Company ordered 150 bayonets and muskets in San Francisco and hired 15 white drill instructors.  The Yan Wo Company may also have had access to some firearms, but was generally more poorly provided.

Period accounts indicate that about 2,000 individuals (including the 15 western military advisers) clashed at a place called “5 Cent Gulch.”  The fighting between the two sides was brief.  After a number of volleys of musket fire the much more poorly armed Yan Wo Company broke ranks and retreated.  Casualty figures vary but seem to have been light.  Some reports indicate that seven individuals died in the initial clash and another 26 were seriously wounded.

The conflict between these two companies was a matter of some amusement to the local white community who watch events unfold like a spectator sport and put bets on the contending sides.  An engraving of the event was sold in San Francisco.

While a sad historical chapter, the 1854 Weaverville War is interesting to students of Chinese Martial Studies on a number of fronts.  It is a relatively well documented example of militia organization and communal violence in the southern Chinese diaspora.  The use of outside military instructors, reliance on elite networks and mixing of locally produced traditional weaponry with a small number of more advanced firearms are all typical of the sorts of military activity that we have already seen in Guangdong.   Of course these were not disciplined, community based, gentry led militias.  Instead this was inter-communal violence organized by Tongs and largely carried out by hired muscle.  This general pattern would remain common within immigrant Chinese communities through the 1930s.

“A Chinese Battle in California.” Depiction of rival Tongs of Chinese miners at Weaverville in June 1854. Contributing Institution: California Historical Society. Bancroft Library, UC Berkley.

Given that the first known Chinese martial arts schools did not open in California until the 1930s, the accounts of the militia training in Weaverville are also one of our earliest examples of the teaching of traditional Chinese fighting methods in the US.  The degree to which any of this is actually similar to the modern martial arts is an interesting philosophical question.

The Hudiedao as a Marker of the “Exotic East” in Early Photography

While the origins of photography stretch back to the late 1820s, reliable and popular imaging systems did not come into general use until the 1850s.  This is the same decade in which the expansion of the treaty port system and the creation of Hong Kong increased contact between the Chinese and Westerners.  Increasingly photography replaced private collections, travelogues and newspapers illustrations as the main means by which Westerners attempted to imagine and understand life in China.

Various forms of double swords occasionally show up in photos taken in southern China.  One of the most interesting images shows a rural militia in the Pearl River Delta region near Guangzhou sometime in the late 1850s (Second Opium War).  The unit is comprised of seven individuals, all quite young.  Four of them are armed with shields, and they include a single gunner.  Everyone is wearing a wicker helmet (commonly issued to village militia members in this period).  The most interesting figure is the group’s standard bearer.  In addition to being armed with a spear he has what appears to be a set of hudiedao stuck in his belt.

The D-guards, quillions and leather sheath are all clearly visible.  Due to the construction of this type of weapon, it is actually impossible to tell when it is a single sword, or a double blade fitted in one sheath, when photographed from the side.  Nevertheless, given what we know about the official orders for arming the militia in this period, it seems likely that this is a set of “double swords.”

The next image in the series confirms that these are true hudiedao and also suggests that the blades are of the long narrow stabbing variety.  This style of sword is also evident in the third photograph behind the large rattan shield.  These images are an invaluable record of the variety of arms carried by village militias in Guangdong during the early and mid. 19th century.

The next photograph from the same period presents us with the opposite challenge.  It gives us a wonderfully detailed view of the weapons, but any appropriate context for understanding their use or meaning is missing.  Given it’s physical size and technology of production, this undated photograph was probably taken in the 1860s.  It was likely taken in either San Francisco or Hong Kong, though it is impossible to rule out some other location.

On the verso we find an ink stamp for “G. Harrison Gray” (evidently the photographer).  Images like this might be produced either for sale to the subject (hence all of the civil war portraits that one sees in American antique circles), or they might have been reproduced for sale to the general public.  Given the colorful subject matter of this image I would guess that the latter is most likely the case, but again, it is impossible to be totally certain.

The young man in the photo (labeled “Chinese Soldier”) is shown in the ubiquitous wicker helmet and is armed only with a set of exceptionally long hudedao.  These swords feature a slashing and chopping blade that terminates in a hatchet point, commonly seen on existing examples.  The guards on these knives appear to be relatively thin and the quillion is not as long or wide as some examples.  I would hazard a guess that both are made of steel rather than brass.  Given the long blade and light handle, these weapons likely felt top heavy, though there are steps that a skilled swordsmith could take to lessen the effect.

It is interesting to note that the subject of the photograph is holding the horizontal blade backwards.  It was a common practice for photographers of the time to acquire costumes, furniture and even weapons to be used as props in a photograph.  It is likely that these swords actually belonged to G. Harrison Gray or his studio and the subject has merely been dressed to look like a “soldier.”  In reality he may never have handled a set of hudiedao before.

A studio image of two Chinese soldiers (local braves) produced probably in Hong Kong during the 1850s or the 1860s. This mix of weapons would have been typical of the middle years of the 19th century.  Note the hudiedao (butterfly swords) carried by both individuals. Unknown Photographer.

The Hudiedo and the Gun

While guns came to dominate the world of violence in China during the late 19^th century, traditional weaponry never disappeared.  There are probably both economic and tactical reasons behind the continued presence of certain types of traditional arms.  In general, fighting knives and hudiedao seem to have remained popular throughout this period.

The same trend was also seen in America.  On Feb. 13th, 1886,  Harper’s Weekly published a richly illustrated article titled “Chinese Highbinders”  (p. 103).  This is an important document for students of the Chinese-American experience, especially when asking questions about how Asian-Americans were viewed by the rest of society.

Readers should carefully examine the banner of the engraving on page 100.  It contains a surprisingly detailed study of weapons confiscated from various criminals and enforcers.  As one would expect, handguns and knives play a leading role in this arsenal.  The stereotypical hatchet and cleaver are also present.

More interesting, from a martial arts perspective, is the presence of various types of maces (double iron rulers and a sai), as well as an armored shirt and wristlets.  The collection is finished off with a classic hudiedao, complete with D-guard and shared leather scabbard.  It seems that the hudiedao actually held a certain amount of mystic among gangsters in the mid 1880s.  The author notes that these weapons were imported directly from China.

“The weapons of the Highbinder are all brought from China, with the exception of the hatchet and the pistol. The illustration shows a collection of Chinese knives and swords taken from criminals, and now in the possession of the San Francisco police. The murderous weapon is what is called the double sword. Two swords, each about two feet long, are worn in a single scabbard. A Chinese draws these, one in each hand, and chops his way through a crowd of enemies. Only one side is sharpened, but the blade, like that of all the Chinese knives, is ground to a razor edge. An effective weapon at close quarters is the two-edged knife, usually worn in a leather sheath. The handle is of brass, generally richly ornamented, while the blade is of the finest steel. Most of the assassinations in Chinatown have been committed with this weapon, one blow being sufficient to ensure a mortal wound. The cleaver used by the Highbinders is smaller and lighter than the ordinary butcher’s cleaver. The iron club, about a foot and a half long, is enclosed in a sheath, and worn at the side like a sword. Another weapon is a curious sword with a large guard for the hand. The hatchet is usually of American make, but ground as sharp as a razor.

The coat of mail shown is the sketch, which was taken from a Chinese Highbinder, is of cloth, heavily padded with layers of rice paper that make it proof against a bullet, or even a rifle ball. This garment is worn by the most desperate men when they undertake a peculiarly dangerous bit of assassination. More common than this is the leather wristlet. This comes halfway up to the elbow, and pieces of iron inserted in the leather serve to ward off even a heavy stroke of a sword or hatchet.” (Feb 13, 1887.  Harper’s Weekly. P. 103).

These passages, based on interviews with law enforcement officers, provide one of the most interesting period discussions of the use of “double swords” among the criminal element that we currently possess.  These weapons were not uncommon, but they were feared.  They seem to have been especially useful when confronting crowds of unarmed opponents and were frequently employed in targeted killings.  It is also interesting to note that their strong hatchet-points and triangular profiles may have been a response to the expectation that at least some enemies would be wearing armor.

Desperate men and hired thugs were not the only inhabitants of San Francisco’s Chinatown to employ hudiedao in the 19^th century.  Both Cantonese Opera singers and street performers also used these swords.

During the early 1900s, a photographer named Arnold Genthe took a series of now historically important photographs of San Francisco’s Chinese residents.  These are mostly street scenes portraying the patterns of daily life, and are not overly sensational or concerned with martial culture.  One photo, however, stands out.  In it a martial artist is shown performing some type of fighting routine with two short, roughly made, hudiedao.

Behind him on the ground are two single-tailed wooden poles.  These were probably also used in his performance and may have helped to display a banner.  Period accounts from Guangzhou and other cities in southern China frequently note these sorts of transient street performers.  They would use their martial skills to attract a crowd and then either sell patent medicines, charms, or pass a hat at the end of the performance.  This is the only 19^th century photograph that I am aware of showing such a performer in California.

The lives of these wandering martial artists were not easy, and often involved violence and extortion at the hands of either the authorities or other denizens of the “Rivers and Lakes.”  Many of them were forced to use their skills for purposes other than performing.

Arnold Genthe collected information on his subjects, so we have some idea who posed for in around 1900.

 “The Mountainbank,” “The Peking Two Knife Man,” “The Sword dancer” – Genthe’s various titles for this portrait of Sung Chi Liang, well known for his martial arts skills. Nicknamed Daniu, or “Big Ox,” referring to his great strength, he also sold an herbal medicine rub after performing a martial art routine in the street. The medicine, tiedayanjiu (tit daa yeuk jau), was commonly used to help heal bruises sustained in fights or falls. This scene is in front of 32, 34, and 36 Waverly Place, on the east side of the street, between Clay and Washington Streets. Next to the two onlookers on the right is a wooden stand which, with a wash basin, would advertise a Chinese barbershop open for business. The adjacent basement stairwell leads to an inexpensive Chinese restaurant specializing in morning zhou (juk), or rice porridge.”

Genthe’s Photographs of San Francisco’s Old Chinatown by Arnold Genthe, John Kuo Wei Tche. p. 29

Dainu’s hudiedao are shorter and fatter than most of the earlier 19^th century models that have been described or shown above.  One wonders whether this style of shorter, more easily concealed, blade was becoming popular at the start of the 20^th century.  These knives seem to be more designed for chopping than stabbing and are reminiscent of the types of swords (bat cham dao) seen hanging on the walls of most Wing Chun schools today.

Lin expected his militia to fight the British with these weapons, and the swords shown in G. Harrison Gray’s photograph are clearly long enough to fence with.  In contrast, Dainu’s “swords” are basically the size of large 19^th century bowie knives.  They are probably too short for complex trapping of an enemy’s weapons and were likely intended to be used against an unarmed opponent, or one armed only with a hatchet or knife.

The next photograph was also taken in San Francisco around 1900.  It shows a Cantonese opera company putting on a “military” play.  The image may have originally been either a press or advertising picture.  I have not been able to discover who the original photographer was.

It is interesting to consider the assortment of weapons seen in this photograph.  A number of lower status soldiers are armed with a shield and single hudiedao shaped knife.  More important figures in heroic roles are armed with a pair of true hudiedaos.  Lastly the main protagonists are all armed with pole weapons (spears and tridents).

Cantonese opera troops paid close attention to martial arts and weapons in their acting.  While their goal was to entertain rather than provide pure realism, they knew that many members of the audience would have some experience with the martial arts.  This was a surprisingly sophisticated audience and people expected a certain degree of plausibility from a “military” play.

It was not uncommon for Opera troops to compete with one another by being the first to display a new fighting style or to bring an exotic weapon onstage.  Hence the association of different weapons with individuals of certain social classes in this photo may not be a total coincidence.  It is likely an idealized representation of one aspect of Cantonese martial culture.  Fighting effectively with a spear or halberd requires a degree of subtlety and expertise that is not necessary (or even possible) when wielding a short sword and a one meter wicker shield.

We also know that the government of Guangdong was issuing hudiedao to mercenary martial artists and village militias.  Higher status imperial soldiers were expected to have mastered the matchlock, the bow, the spear and the dao (a single edged saber).   While many surviving antique hudiedao do have finely carved handles and show laminated blades when polished and etched, I suspect that in historic terms these finely produced weapons there were probably the exception rather than the rule.

Confiscated weapons. Shanghai Municipal Police Department, 1925. University of Bristol, Historical Photographs of China.

The Hudiedao as a Weapon, Symbol and Historical Argument

Butterfly Swords remained in use as a weapon among various Triad members and Tong enforcers through the early 20^th century.  For instance, an evidence photo of confiscated weapons in California shows a variety of knives, a handgun and a pair of hudiedao.  This set has relatively thick chopping blades and is shorter than some of the earlier examples, but it retains powerful stabbing points.

Still, “cold weapons” of all types saw less use in the second and third decades of the 20^th century as they were replaced with increasingly plentiful and inexpensive firearms.  We know that in Republican China almost all bandit gangs were armed with modern repeating rifles by the 1920s.  Gangsters and criminal enforcers in America were equally quick to take up firearms.

The transition was not automatic.  Lau Bun, a Choy Li Fut master trained in the Hung Sing Association style, is often cited as the first individual in America to open a permanent semi-public martial arts school.  He also worked as an enforcer and guard for local Tong interests, and is sometimes said to have carried concealed butterfly swords on his person in the 1920s and 1930s.

Weapons confiscated in Chinatown, New York City, 1922. This haul shows a remarkable mixture of modern and traditional weapons. Source: NYPD Public Records.

On the opposite coast, New York newspapers ran a number of pictures of butterfly swords that reinforced many of the mythologies of the period. These portrayed Chinese-Americans as violent and untrustworthy individuals.  While a certain level community violence is (unfortunately) a constant in American life, such photos of exotic weapons (sometimes at crime scenes) seem to have closely tied such incidents to supposedly “timeless” and “unchanging” ethno-nationalist traits.  In a very real way butterfly swords and hatchets became identifying symbols of the Chinese American community prior to WWII.

“Chinese With Knives. Ready for a Hammer and Tong War?” June, 1930.

Consider the iconic photograph of the Tong leader Eddie Gong inspecting a pair of hudiedao in 1930.   The caption that originally ran with this image promised violence as local Chinese-American hatchet men shined up their “cleavers” before turning them on their enemies.  In truth much of the violence in this period was carried out with guns, but the hudiedao remained a powerful symbol within the public imagination.

On a more technical level these swords have broad blades which show little narrowing as you approach the tip.  The actual point of the sword is rounded and not well adapted to stabbing.  In fact, they seem to be built more along the lines of a performance weapon than anything else.  On the one hand they are too large for concealed carry, yet they also lack the reach and stabbing ability that one would want in an offensive weapon.

Still, Eddie Gong’s hudiedao compare favorably with many of the more cheaply produced copies available to martial artists today.  Many experienced fencers and sword collectors are utterly perplexed when they pick up their first set of “bat cham dao,” and openly express wonder that these short, rounded, and poorly balanced blades could actually function as a weapon.  Their disbelief is well founded, but it usually evaporates when you place a set of well-made mid-19^th century swords in their hands instead.

Hudiedao, like many other weapons, developed a certain mystique during the 19^th century.  They were used in the poorly executed defense of Guangdong against the British.  In the hand of the Triads they were a symbol of personal empowerment and government opposition.  They were widely used by groups as diverse as local law enforcement officials, traveling martial artists, opera singers and community militias.  Their iconic nature probably helped them to survive in the urban landscape well after most other forms of the sword had been abandoned (the dadao being the notable exception).  However, by the 1920s these weapons were finally being relegated to the training hall and the opera state.  In those environments length, cutting ability and a powerful tip were not only unnecessary, they were an unrewarded hazard.  The symbolic value of these weapons was no longer tied to their actual cutting ability.

When not found within the training hall, butterfly swords made frequent appearances within Western “Yellow Peril” literature. The San Francisco Call, 1898.

Consider for instance the “bat cham dao” (the Wing Chun style name for butterfly swords) owned by Ip Man.  In a recent interview Ip Ching (his son),confirmed that his father never brought a set of functional hudiedao to Hong Kong when he left Foshan in 1949.  Instead, he actually brought a set of “swords” carved out of peach wood.  These were the “swords” that he used when establishing Wing Chun in Hong Kong in the 1950s and laying the foundations for its global expansion.

Obviously some wooden swords are more accurate than others, but none of them are exactly like the objects they represent.  It also makes a good deal of sense that Ip Man in 1949 would not really care that much about iron swords.  He was not a gangster or a Triad member.  He was not an opera performer.  As a police officer he had carried a gun and had a good sense of what real street violence was.

Ip Man had been (and aspired to once again become) a man of leisure.  He was relatively well educated, sophisticated and urbane.  More than anything else he saw himself as a Confucian gentleman, and as such he was more likely to display a work of art in his home than a cold-blooded weapon.

Swords carved of peach wood have an important significance in Chinese society that goes well beyond their safety and convience when practicing martial arts forms.  Peach wood swords are used in Daoist exorcisms and are thought to have demon slaying powers.  In the extended version of the story of the destruction of the Shaolin Temple favored by the Triads, Heaven sends a peach wood sword to the survivors of Shaolin that they use to slay thousands of their Qing pursuers.

Hung on the wall in a home or studio, these swords are thought to convey good fortune and a certain type of energy.  In fact, it was not uncommon for Confucian scholars to display a prized antique blade or a peach wood sword in their studies.  Ip Man’s hudiedao appear to be a (uniquely southern) adaptation of this broader cultural tradition.  As carved wooden works of art, they were only meant to have a superficial resemblance to the militia weapons of the early 19^th century.

Ip Ching also relates that at a later date one of his students took these swords and had exact aluminum replicas of them created.  Later these were reworked again to have a flat stainless steel blade and aluminum (latter brass) handles.  Still, I think there is much to be said for the symbolism of the peach wood blade.

Butterfly swords remain one of the most iconic and easily recognizable artifacts of Southern China’s unique martial culture.  Their initial creation in the late 18^th or early 19^th century may have been aided by recent encounters with European cutlasses and military hangers.  This unique D-grip (seen in many, though not all cases) was then married to an older tradition of using double weapons housed in a single sheath.

By the 1820s, these swords were popular enough that American and British merchants in Guangdong were encountering them and adding them to their collections.  By the 1830’s, we have multiple accounts of these weapons being supplied to the gentry led militia troops and braves hired by Lin in his conflicts with the British.  Descriptions by Commander Bingham indicate the existence of a fully formed martial tradition in which thousands of troops were trained to fight in the open field with these swords, and even to flip them when switching between grips.  (Whether flipping them is really a good idea is another matter entirely).

Increased contact between Europeans and Chinese citizens in the 1840s and 1850s resulted in more accounts of “double swords” and clear photographs and engravings showing a variety of features that are shared with modern hudiedao.  The biggest difference is that most of these mid-century swords were longer and more pointed than modern swords.

Interestingly these weapons also start to appear on America’s shores as Chinese immigration from Guangdong and Fujian increased in the middle of the 19^th century.  Period accounts from the 1880s indicate that they were commonly employed by criminals and enforcers, and photographs from the turn of the century show that they were also used by both street performers and opera singers.

Later, in the 1950s, when T. Y. Wong and other reformers wished to reeducate the American public about the nature of the Chinese martial arts they turned to public demonstrations and even the occasional TV appearances.  Once again the hudiedao were deployed to help them make their point.

TY Wong demonstrating the use of the hudiedao on network television in 1955.  In this instance he appears to be using a very nice set of vintage blades. (Photo courtesy of Gilman Wong)

Still, these blades were in general shorter, wider and with less pronounced points, than their mid. 19^th century siblings.  While some individuals may have continued to carry these into the 1930s, hudiedao started to disappear from the streets as they were replaced by more modern and economical firearms.  By the middle of the 20^th century these items, if encountered at all, were no longer thought of as fearsome weapons of community defense or organized crime.  Instead they survived as the tools of the “traditional martial arts” and opera props.

Conclusion

While it has touched on a variety of points, I feel that this article has made two substantive contributions to our understanding of these weapons.  First, it pushed their probable date of creation back a generation or more.  Rather than being the product of the late 19^th century or the 1850s, we now have clear evidence of the widespread use of the hudiedao in Guangdong dating back to the 1820s.

These weapons were indeed favored by civilian martial artists and various members of the “Rivers and Lakes” of southern China.  Yet we have also seen that they were employed by the thousands to arm militias, braves and guards in southern China.  Not only that we have accounts of thousands of individuals in the Pearl River Delta region receiving active daily instruction in their use in the late 1830s.

The popular view of hudiedao as exotic weapons of martial artists, rebels and eccentric pirates needs to be modified.  These blades also symbolized the forces of “law and order.”  They were produced by the thousands for government backed elite networks and paid for with public taxes.  This was a reasonable choice as many members of these local militias already had some boxing experience.  It would have been relatively easy to train them to hold and use these swords given what they already knew.  While butterfly swords may have appeared mysterious and quintessentially “Chinese” to western observers in the 1830s, Lin supported their large scale adoption as a practical solution to a pressing problem.

This may also change how we think about the martial arts that arose in this region.  For instance, the two weapons typically taught in the Wing Chun system are the “long pole” and the “bat cham do” (the style name for hudiedao).  The explanations for these weapons that one normally encounters are highly exotic and focus on the wandering Shaolin monks (who were famous for their pole fighting) or secret rebel groups intent on exterminating local government officials.  Often the “easily concealable” nature of the hudiedao are supposed to have made them ideal for this task (as opposed to handguns and high explosives, which are the weapons that were actually used for political assassinations during the late Qing).

Our new understanding of the historical record shows that what Wing Chun actually teaches are the two standard weapons taught to almost every militia member in the region.  One typically learns pole fighting as a prelude to more sophisticated spear fighting.  However, the Six and a Half Point pole form could easily work for either when training a peasant militia.  And we now know that the butterfly swords were the single most common side arm issued to peasant-soldiers during the mid. 19^th century in the Pearl River Delta region.

The first historically verifiable appearance of Wing Chun in Foshan was during the 1850s-1860s.  This important commercial town is located literally in the heartland of the southern gentry-led militia movement.  It had been the scene of intense fighting in 1854-1856 and more conflict was expected in the future.

We have no indication that Leung Jan was a secret revolutionary.  He was a well known and well liked successful local businessman.  Still, there are understandable reasons that the martial art which he developed would allow a highly educated and wealthy individual, to train a group of people in the use of the pole and the hudiedao.  Wing Chun contains within it all of the skills one needs to raise and train a gentry led militia unit.

The evolution of Wing Chun was likely influenced by this region’s unique history of militia activity and widespread (government backed) military education.  I would not be at all surprised to see some of these same processes at work in other martial arts that were forming in the Pearl River Delta at the same time.

The Creation of Wing Chun by Judkins and Nielson.

oOo

If you enjoyed this essay you might also want to read: The Creation of Wing Chun – A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts.

oOo

Donny Yen reprises his role as Ip Man. Is this “Ip Man” your role model?

***Greetings!  I am currently on the road for research.  As such, we will be delving into the archives for today’s post.  This essay (first published in 2014) takes a closer look at Ip Man’s transformative social memory in the current era.  Given that his visibility continues to increase, and we are expecting even more Ip Man films in the future, this weekend seems like the ideal time to revisit some of these issues.***

A Question from a Reader

The title (and subject) of today’s post is borrowed from a search query that brought a reader to this blog last week. WordPress has an incentive to encourage writers to improve the popularity of their blogs as that allows them to sell more advertising. As such they provide a basic package of metrics allowing the owner of every blog to see just how popular their latest post was, how many other pages have been clicked and where all these visitors are coming from.

I suspect that this blog is fairly ordinary in that most of its traffic is generated first by visits from regular readers (thanks!) followed by searches and Facebook clicks. Some browsers allow you to see the specific search query that directed someone to your page.

“Bruce Lee” generates more traffic for this blog than any other single question. Given his association with the Chinese martial arts in the public consciousness, that is not much of a surprise. Beyond that things are pretty random.

I do not normally pay a lot of attention to search queries, but at some point last week a reader ended up coming to Kung Fu Tea looking for information about Ip Man. Specifically, they wanted to know why he is a role model. I do not know who the reader was, or even in what context they asked the question.

Still, this seemingly simple question struck me as being actually quite complicated. I could easily imagine someone asking me this exact question in a personal conversation and I realized that I am not sure what I would say.

This is not because I am unfamiliar with Ip Man. He became the subject of an extended case study in my volume (now in paperback!) on the social history of the southern Chinese martial arts. I have read most of what has been published on his life (in both Chinese and English), my coauthor has interviewed his surviving family members. I have spent years studying his martial art on a practical level as well as delving into more theoretical discussions about their origin and place in Hong Kong society. Ip Man is someone with whom I am very familiar and have deep respect.

Still, on some level I am not sure what it means to ask why a martial arts master from a previous generation is a “role model.” One suspects that many of the individuals who might hold him in this regard are not all that familiar with the actual details of his life and career. Like his student Bruce Lee, Ip Man’s image has been spread and immortalized through a number of generally well produced martial arts films by directors such as Wilson Ip (“Ip Man” 2008), Wong Kar-wai (“The Grand Master” 2013) and Herman Yau (“Ip Man, the Final Fight” 2013). It looks like there may even be more in the works.

The real Ip Man was known within the Hong Kong martial arts community, but he was far from a household name. While teaching Wing Chun was his primary source of income, he never advertised his school and refused to even hang up a sign. His younger students in the 1950s and 1960s certainly looked up to him as a role model. In accounts of his school they remember not just his great skill but also his humor, gentleness and genuine friendship in an era when Kung Fu teachers and students did not always have close relationships.

For the current generation of students in both Hong Kong and the west, who have never had the opportunity to meet Ip Man, asking in what ways he functions as a “role model” becomes a more complicated question. He has gone on from being remembered as “the teacher of Bruce Lee” to becoming a popular media property in his own right. The Ip Man that most of us are familiar with is not a humble Kung Fu teacher in Kowloon, but a local hero from Foshan who single handedly defended the honor of the southern Chinese martial arts (and identity) by wiping out a room full of Japanese karate students after defeating a number of wandering northern wushu masters in artistically choreographed duels.

It would be wrong to note that the Ip Man who exists in the public consciousness is an artistic creation, an invention of the entertainment industry, and simply dismiss the question out of hand. Obiwan Kenobi, one time general of the Clone Wars and Jedi recluse, is also a fictional character. Yet he continues to be cited as an inspirational role model by generations of movie goers. When it comes to role models, their tactile reality may be less important than the functions that they perform. As so many others have noted, Obiwan is an almost perfect “initiatory figure.”  He shows no sign of fading from discussions of youth role models just because he is fictional.

The question seems not be whether one has actually talked with a role model, but whether you have “focused” on them. Indeed, the selection and construction of role models always includes a dose of fantasy.  In that sense Ip Man once again becomes very interesting.

As a recent historical figure, fans that enjoyed his movies have a chance to go out and collect more information about their new hero. Since Ip Man’s career is pretty well documented there are many accounts that can be studied and meditated upon. In an ironic twist the known historical details of Ip Man’s life have become a sort of “hypertext” for his fictionalized biography. They are an additional “DVD Special Feature” that true fans might wish to track down to show their increasing dedication to their role model.

Then there is Wing Chun. Ip Man left behind more than just historic accounts and vintage photographs. He and his students did a remarkable job of saving their version of the Wing Chun system from obscurity. It is now one of the most popular Chinese martial arts in the world.

Most Wing Chun schools are presided over by Ip Man’s portrait and they feature his training methods. These are usually an emphasis on practical applications, a concept based approach to the Chinese martial arts, and an emphasis on Chi Sau (or sticky hands) as a major teaching tool. Ip Man’s personal approach to the martial arts still exists within his teaching system and it gives modern students a way of experiencing some aspect of his presence even if they cannot touch hands with the master directly.

Within my lineage it is said that Chi Sao unfolds like a conversation. In tactile and subconscious terms it asks students to consider “what would you do in this situation.” When Ip Man touched hands with his first student he started a new branch of this age-old conversation, and it is one that has never stopped.

Students are drawn to Wing Chun for a variety of reasons. Some are looking to get in shape, others want to learn how to defend themselves. A not insubstantial number have seen the recent Ip Man films and they, on some level, are looking for that “role model.” Almost all of them will discover after a few weeks or months that the reality of Wing Chun training (or any martial art) is different from what they initially expected.

More interesting to me is the question of why they stay. I suspect that for many individuals they remain because they enjoy being part of the conversation that Ip Man started. They feel compelled to keep listening and they want to make their own contributions to it.

Ip Man as imagined in “The Grandmaster” (2013).  Is this “Ip Man” your role model?

What is a Role Model?

Still, not everyone who is respected is accepted as a role model. In the United States presidents are generally respected, yet the partisan nature of the political system tends to excludes modern leaders from the ranks of universally accepted “role models.” Likewise on a university campus the president is always a respected figure, but empirically speaking students are much more likely to cite their own professors as role models, or individuals who had a transformative impact on their lives.

The idea of a “role model” has so completely penetrated popular thought that we often forget that it is in reality a (contested) sociological theory attempting to explain certain aspects of youth socialization. This term was coined by Robert Merton, an important professor of Sociology who spent much of his career at Columbia University in New York City.

Merton is probably best remembered today as the father of the “sociology of science” as well as for his work on “unintended consequences” in complex social systems (another new common term which he coined). The idea of the “role model” emerged as he watched the ways in which medical students at Columbia learned new social roles and identities as they sought to align their behavior with the expectations of a “reference group.” The realization of the importance of an individual “role model” and mentor arose as an extension of his research on “reference groups.”

One of Merton’s critical realizations was that initiates did not necessarily have to belong (or have expectations of belonging) to the reference group in order to be influenced by its presence. Broader social structures that linked these players and transmitted expectations turned out to be the critical links. It is these structures that both open the possibility for, and demand the acceptance of, an entire range of new behaviors and identities rather than just the adoption of a single role (in this case becoming a medical doctor).

A reference group or role model helped to demonstrate this more complex set of social relationships. Yet what makes someone an effective role model is precisely the fact that they are in some ways quite different from the individuals who are observing them. If we are discussing an instructor passing on purely technical skills, it may be helpful to have two individuals with similar backgrounds so that the student will be confident in their ability to also perform the task at hand.

In the case of a role model the specific things that they do take a back seat in importance to how they go about doing them. Or more specifically, how do they relate to other individuals and social groups in the performance of these skills. This is where identity, rather than just technical expertise, is demonstrated.

Of course the idea of “difference” is central to discussions of role models and identities in the Asian martial arts. Adam Frank explored the question of how racial and national identity affected the transmission and transformation of martial practice in his volume Taijiquan and the Search for the “Little Old Chinese Man”: Understanding identity through the martial arts. It may be worth considering how different preexisting social categories affect Ip Man’s availability as a role model.

As we saw previously, within the primary community of his own Wing Chun clan in Hong Kong during the 1950s and 1960s, there can be no doubt that Ip Man functioned as a role model for his younger students. In his accounts of life during the early years of the school, Chu Shong Tin has noted how the older Ip Man, who received a traditional education in Foshan before attending an English high school (or college) in Hong Kong, appeared to be the epitome of the traditional Confucian gentlemen. Displaced young men in Hong Kong, or simply those wrestling with questions of what it meant to be “Chinese” while living in a rapidly changing city under foreign control, were drawn to the confidence and “Confucian glamor” that he radiated.

In Ip Man these individuals found a role model for the performance of (one version of) traditional Chinese values and identities in the modern world. This image led to the development of certain expectations that went well beyond the presentation of Wing Chun as a fighting system. When it was revealed that Ip Man was involved with another woman (other than his wife) during the 1950s many of his students took this to be a serious breach of their conception of “martial virtue” as well as their expectations of how a traditional gentleman should behave.

In point of fact the “traditional gentlemen” who inhabited the world of Ip Man’s youth took second wives with some frequency. Still this rupture in expectations hurt his ability to act as a role model. Many students left during this period.

This brings up one of the many issues that surround the question of role models. In technical terms such an individual is valuable because they demonstrate a new set of identities and social relationships that the student feels compelled to take on. They act as initiatory figures in the ritual of life.

Yet as a society we tend to place unrealistic demands on our role models. We want our youth to be exposed to only the most exemplary behaviors. This is the trap of the modern celebrity role model. Youth turn to celebrities (often in the sports and entertainment industries) as they are exemplars of both social and material success. The fact that their image is distributed through various mass marketing campaigns also makes them readily available for different sorts of appropriation and manipulation in youth culture.

Unfortunately the personal lives of many of these celebrities seem almost calculated to give parents and teachers heart burn. Actors and athletes are more often chosen for their unique professional qualifications rather than their ability to model the set of values (usually quite puritanical) that we wish for our own children. Nor is it always wise to delve too deeply into the biographies of your childhood heroes.

This warning also holds true for Ip Man, and many other traditional martial arts masters. As the younger son of a very wealthy family, Ip Man was not forced to do much to contribute to the family fortune. After returning to Foshan from Hong Kong he enjoyed a life of wealth and leisure as he focused on his martial arts and other hobbies, rather than making more concrete social contributions. To use modern parlance, as a young man the future master was basically a “kung fu bum.”

Accusations of drug use swirl around Ip Man’s career.  Opium was commonly consumed within elite social circles during the Republic period and Ng Chung So’s school (frequented by Ip) was said to be in the back room of a local opium den. Some of Ip Man’s students have also accused him of using drugs (either opium or heroin, accounts differ) later in the Hong Kong period as well. The historical reliability of these accounts is questionable.  Yet when thinking about someone’s value as a “role model” reality is much less important than perception. The current popular wisdom which will quickly be encountered by anyone researching the internet for details of Ip Man’s life is that he was a drug addict.

There are other stories about his career which, while not damming, do not easily fit into the sorts of exemplary modes that we wish to see our children emulating.  While the Ip Man of the big screen is clearly meant to be a hero, the historical figure was vastly more complex. It is not uncommon to encounter on-line discussions in which certain darker elements of his life story are held up as reasons to stay away from Wing Chun, or at least his organization.

Socially speaking we seem to reserve a special place in hell for (often reluctant or unwitting) role models who disappoint our expectations. Nor is Ip Man alone in this. The one fact that has become abundantly clear as I have researched the lives of many Republic era martial artists is that while most of these individuals had very admirable traits, few of them were saints. All of them were complex people with multifaceted lives. Ip Man’s recent prominence seems to have attracted a certain amount of negative attention that more obscure figures are often spared. Still, it raises questions of who could function as an effective role model in the current social environment.

Answering this last problem requires that we be willing to refocus our analytical lens on our own motivations. American society is marked by a certain sense of restlessness. In different times this has manifest itself in a variety of ways from the drive for independence, to the Jacksonian push to overthrow social restrictions, to “manifest destiny” as the country pushed west. We seem to be a people either geographically or socially on the move.

China (and by extension Chinese martial culture) has played an interesting role in all of this. So often it has become the “metaphorical other,” the foil against which we have defined our conception of self. As John Rogers Haddad points out, Chinese tea, served in blue and white porcelain bearing images of a wistful oriental landscape, were some of the only trade goods to be found in the majority of American homes from the middle of the 18th to the early 19th century.

Even more interesting to consider is that in an age before mechanical reproduction, when few newspapers had illustrations, the images of an idealized Chinese landscape found on these willow ware dishes was often the only pictures that one could find in the average American home. Is it any wonder then that when so many Americans dreamed of an escape from the drudgery of daily life it was to China (or more precisely the quasi-imaginary and mystical land of Cathay) that their minds flew?

Later in the 19th century with the advent of steam ships and rail roads (and the violent opening of both China and Japan by western imperialist) the dream of travel started to become a reality. Of course it was only a reality for the fortunate few. Most people remained tied down by work and family and commitments, and could not afford to spend six months on a grand tour of Asia. Yet in an era when the restless American spirit found its fullest expression in exploration and wanderlust, there was immense interest in those who could.

Haddad notes that the late 19th century, as a new round of western colonization was encircling the globe, was perhaps the only time in which travel writers became universally acclaimed national celebrities and role models. Within the printed pages of their journals middle class readers found entertainment, often dressed as educational expositions, in the vicarious voyages being mass produced by various newspapers and publishers.

Bayard Taylor became a national celebrity after the publication of series of letters detailing his journey up the coast of China and then to Japan (with Admiral Perry) in the 1850s. Lacking any form of scientific or geographic training Taylor relied on the art of analyzing faces and heads (popular in the 19th century) to divine the true nature of the communities who he encountered.

His judgments on Chinese society (then wracked by the Red Turban Revolt in Guangzhou and the Taiping Rebellion in Shanghai) were devastating. In China Taylor found a people who were prone to disorder, vice and violence. Apparently he made no allowances for the fact that the people he encountered were largely refugees from the most devastating civil war in human history. The Japanese he judged to be intellectually curious and progressive, a nation to be watched with empathy and great interest.

Taylor’s judgments helped to pave the path for the late 19th century Exclusion Act which barred Chinese immigration to the United States. They also seem to prefigure a long standing pattern in the role that China and Japan would play in the popular imagination. While America would go on to fight a bloody war against the Japanese, the public has always had an easier time accepting their aesthetic and cultural values. In the 20th century China, while still exotic, remained tinged with the perception of disorder and violence.

During the post-war period Americans were once again struck with wanderlust, yet increasingly it was the internal world to which they turned their attention. The exploration of the mind and the unknown kingdom of “personal potential” became major themes during the 1960s and 1970s. This quickly became bound up with the growing interest in Asian culture and art which was evident in many quarters of American society, from the 1950s veterans of the Japanese occupation to the counter culture movements of the 1970s.

At this cultural moment the ascetic discipline and philosophy of the martial arts became linked to the exploration of the self through altered states of consciousness. Here was a method by which practically any individuals could experience their body and senses in new ways, doing things that they had never previously thought possible.

While all of this is certainly true, it is also worth pointing out that what drove a peasant to join the Red Spears in 1928, or a teenager to study Kung Fu in Hong Kong in 1958, differed in important ways from the motivations of the average American in 1978. Here we see the wide scale adoption of Chinese physical culture as an expression of distinctly western political and social impulses.

Still, if one is going to radically transform the self, a “reference group” is necessary. If one is going to unlock the potential of altered states of consciousness, a guru or initiatory figure seems to be an essential part of the process. And if one enrolls your child in martial arts classes in the hopes that they will gain confidence, self-esteem and discipline, the promise of an appropriate set of role models is mandatory.

A rare shot of Ip Man enjoying a cup of Kung Fu Tea.  Is the historic Ip Man your role model?

Reevaluating Ip Man as a Role Model

All of this brings us back to our opening question. Why is Ip Man a role model? The most immediate answer is that certain communities have decided to promote him as such because his public image has become closely linked with a set of social values that they hold. Still, it should be noted that not all of these communities share the same ideals. The Confucian behavior that was so important to his students in Hong Kong in the 1950s would likely go largely unnoticed (or unidentified) by his great-grand students in America today.

Their knowledge of Ip Man is not a product of personal contact and relationships within a primary community. Rather he is similar to other celebrity role models, the product of a commercial media discourse which individuals appropriate and modify (often in very creative ways) to their own ends. Often these have more to do with the expression of western New Age impulses and orientalist fantasies than they do an actual engagement with the complex and messy reality of Chinese culture. The memory of Ip Man becomes a screen onto which these various identities and yearnings can be projected. To borrow a concept from Adam Frank, Ip Man functions as a role model in the west to the extent that he can be imagined as simply the latest incarnation of the wise and eternally vital “Little Old Chinese Man.”

Of course all of this discussion leaves open the question of my own feelings about Ip Man and whether I personally consider him to be a role model. One of the hazards of going to graduate school is the slowly dawning realization that “theory ruins everything.”

On the one hand it gives you the conceptual tools and research skills to really delve into subjects of interest. Yet in some ways it makes the enjoyment of popular culture more difficult. After studying economics one sees market failures on every trip to the grocery story. Feminist theorists discover an unending stream of gendered discourses in every new television show, and historians can be very difficult people to watch movies with. Graduate school might make you smarter, but I am not sure that it makes you any happier.

On a fundamental level I am not really sure how useful the idea of “role models” are for understanding how new identities form. This was a concept that arose in the context of a specific theory and its ultimate value is something that sociologists and psychologists will have to determine. I am more certain that trying to make martial arts masters easily marketed “youth role models” by reducing the complexity and nuance of their lives is probably a losing proposition in the long run.

Still, I suspect on some level I do accept Ip Man as a role model. It is hard to admire someone who is absolutely perfect. One of the things that I find most interesting about him is that he is a very sympathetic figure. He was capable of being lonely and depressed, he had trouble sleeping and he loved nothing more than to watch building fires. His personal life was marred by constant disruption and frustrated expectations.

Throughout this all Ip Man demonstrated a remarkable ability to endure, to go on and build a new life in the face of disappointment. In a way his life story is emblematic of what was happening throughout Chinese society. He was born into a landlord’s family at the end of the Qing dynasty, he came of age during the tumultuous Republic, weathered the Japanese invasion and finally witnessed the victory of the communist party. Each of these events redirected the course of his life in important ways. These changes also transformed the role of the martial arts within Chinese society.

Ip Man had an opportunity to witness a period of immense social change. In every period he found a new way to live. Finally, in Hong Kong he drew on this accumulated wisdom to create a compelling vision of how Wing Chun could be transformed and promoted as a modern fighting system, one which would bridge China’s past and future.

Ip Man was many things, some of them contradictory. He was both a pragmatist and an idealist. He valued traditional culture, yet he was a reformer within the world of the southern Chinese martial arts. When faced with change and loss he responded by putting forth a burst of creative energy. In his martial arts instruction he advanced a series of questions that his students are still exploring today.

The pace of change and global transformation has not diminished since Ip Man’s death in 1972. If anything it has increased. Social dislocation and frustrated expectations are the inevitable results of these large scale economic shifts. What does one do when the dreams of past generations have lost their luster? Can greatness still exist in a world of diminished expectations? Ip Man’s life forces us to once again confront the central question, “What would you do?” In many ways he seems to be an ideal role model for the current age.

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If you enjoyed this post you might also want to read: Ming Tales of Female Warriors: Searching for the Origins of Yim Wing Chun and Ng Moy.

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Ip Man practices Chi Sao With Moy Yat.

***Over the next couple of weeks I will be devoting time to some non-blog writing projects.  So, from time to time, we will be dipping into the Kung Fu Tea’s (rather extensive) archives.  I particularly enjoyed writing this post and its a topic that I still think about.  This essay is also a nice example of how a historical familiarity with the development of the Chinese martial arts can help us to frame current trends.  Enjoy***

Introduction

Rather than delving into a deeply historical discussion, today’s post is intended to be a personal reflection on the role of Chi Sao, or sticky hands training, in the modern Ip Man lineage Wing Chun. That is not to imply that there will be no history. There will, but I will try to keep it topical.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the practice, Chi Sao is one member of a larger family of “sensitivity training” drills that are seen in some (though not all) Chinese martial arts. Probably the best known example of this sort of training would be “Push Hands” in Taijiquan. Yet even that simple equation exposes the first of two problems that must be dealt with before we can proceed.

While in some ways similar, Chi Sao is not Push Hands. Both exercises represent an abstraction away from free sparring and seek to educate their practitioners about the proper responses to certain types of contact and pressures.  Yet they proceed with different assumptions and a logic of their own. There are a great many sensitivity games out there, and each one is unique. Worse than that, I suspect that even within the Wing Chun community there is sufficient variation in our understanding of what the goals of Chi Sao are, and how the game is most productively played, that it might actually be counterproductive to lump it all under a single label.

All of which is to say, it is difficult to speak in overly broad terms about Chi Sao. It is something that most Wing Chun practitioners spend a lot of time on, and so naturally everyone feels a sense of ownership over this distinctive training process. While the following reflections will try to be as general as possible, at the end of the day my remarks will inevitably reflect the lineage and philosophy that I have trained in. Your mileage may vary.

The second problem that arises when we attempt to speak of the place of Chi Sao in Wing Chun training is more historical in nature. I just said that this was going to be a personal reflection, but historical curiosity is an important part of who I am and how I approach my training. Simply put, while Chi Sao practice is at the heart of Wing Chun today (at least within my lineage and most of the schools that I am personally familiar with), this was not always the case.

A Social History of Chi Sao

What was traditional Wing Chun training like in the generation of Leung Jan? To be totally honest we have no idea, and I personally would be suspicious of anyone claiming hard and fast answers to that question. We have very few written sources from that period and most of the oral traditions that exist in the Wing Chun world today seem to have been massively overhauled in more recent decades.

But we can speak more reliably about the era of Chan Wah Shun. Accounts indicate that when individuals from Foshan (such as Jiu Wan as well as Ip Chun and Ip Ching) arrived in Hong Kong they were surprised by how Ip Man (Chan’s student) was presenting his art.

With all of the talk of “lost lineages” it is not uncommon to hear individuals questioning whether Ip Man “changed his art” in the Hong Kong period. Was he still teaching the sort of Wing Chun that he had learned earlier in the century? The various eye-witness accounts that we have from the 1950s and 1960s would seem to indicate that what he was doing was very clearly identifiable as Wing Chun. The biggest changes seemed to be in the process that he was using to present his art to a new generation of younger, urbanized and more modern students.

As many accounts indicate, Ip Man streamlined the presentation of material and adopted something like an informal curriculum. He jettisoned many of the cultural trappings of Wing Chun such as the rhymed couplets that had been used in Chinese martial arts training for hundreds of years, as well as traditional concepts including the eight trigrams and the five elements. And while Ip Man had some background in the traditional medical systems of his teachers, this does not appear to be something that he ever stressed in his Wing Chun training. Like many residents of Hong Kong at the time, he turned to western medicine when seriously ill.

Another change has less to do with what he taught than how he introduced material. As with other fighting systems, the sorts of Wing Chun instruction seen in Foshan during the 1920s seem to have featured long periods of stance and movement training prior to the introduction of more combative techniques. Realizing that his younger and highly mobile students in Hong Kong would not put up with this, Ip Man’s children have asserted that he introduced both single and double armed sticky hands training much earlier in his curriculum to help increase student retention.

This move makes sense on multiple levels. To begin with, sticky hands training can be a lot of fun. It is more of a game than a type of sparring, but it’s a game where someone can get smacked in the head quite hard if they aren’t paying attention to what is going on. While it teaches sensitivity, Chi Sao can also be a fast paced and competitive practice. Many schools today go to lengths to keep things calm, yet as more advanced techniques are brought into play, and more open (non-bridged) structures are introduced, what started out as a simple game can come to approach something that looks a lot more like sparring. It was hoped that these elements of Chi Sao would aid in students retention, and judging by the raw numbers, the plan worked.

Of course by introducing Chi Sao earlier Ip Man was also forced to teach basic offensive and defensive techniques right at the beginning of the instructional process. Gone were the weeks or months of stance training. Instead students could be equipped with a passable kit of self-defense skills in a few months.

A number of commentators (chief among them Leung Ting) have speculated that this change in the way that information was introduced was responsible for much of Wing Chun’s early success in Hong Kong’s marketplace. Relatively new students were given fighting techniques, a venue to hone these skills in a semi-competitive setting, and then plenty of chances to try them out in the unsanctioned rooftop matches that were so common in Hong Kong at that point in time. As they gained experience in both arenas they became noted as skilled fighters compared to other students of equal age. This reputation then attracted more athletic talent to Ip Man’s doorstep.

Thus the strong emphasis on Chi Sao training seen in much of Wing Chun today (certainly within the Hong Kong branch) appears to be an artifact of Ip Man’s desire to build a certain sort of school in a specific time and place. It might be too strong to say that Chi Sao made Wing Chun what it is, but it certainly gave it a push in that direction

In my (admittedly partial) reading of these events, Chi Sao probably functioned as an effective training tool for two reasons. After the first couple of years Ip Man’s efforts to build a school were pretty successful, so there were a large number of enthusiastic students to take up the practice. This is one of those activities where you definitely benefit from touching arms with a more diverse group of practitioners.

Secondly, a pretty high percentage of these students were actually involved in the bemio, or youth challenge fight, subculture that so vexed Hong Kong’s parents and civil authorities in the 1950s and 1960. Thus they had some actual fighting experience, and probably expected to receive more in the near future. I suspect that individuals with this sort of background might be better able to absorb the skills that Chi Sao is attempting to convey while not confusing the abstraction of the training exercise with the reality of a fight (at least as they experienced it).

So does that mean that Chi Sao always functions as an effective training tool? Probably not. As the previous discussion suggests, there are a number of factors at play.

Hong Kong in the post-WWII era was something of a special case for martial arts instruction. The sheer number of styles that were present in the city, the social tensions that resulted from the influx of refugees and other economic problems, and the area’s unique cultural history all helped to encourage the growth of a variety of martial arts traditions.

Yet this highly concentrated mode of development, in which we see many students flocking to established schools and styles, was not always the case in southern China. Consider once again the story of the Phoenix Village Boxing society, which I reviewed in a post earlier this year.

Ip Man and his best known student, Bruce Lee.

A Short Visit to Phoenix Village

An ethnographic account of Phoenix Village in Guangdong Province, completed during the 1920s, included a short but interesting discussion of the role of traditional boxing in the area’s social structure. What we saw in this case was an oscillation between two different modes of martial arts organization.

Most of the time, relatively few people seemed to be interested in boxing. Some of the aficionados likely found specialized employment as bouncers in the town’s two full-time gambling houses. The others were basically hobbyists who maintained a personal interest in some aspect of the martial arts, but lacked any larger collective institution or school to advance their practice.

Then, every so often, a social alignment would occur. One of the two clans that ran the village would decide, for whatever reason, to either tolerate or encourage the resurrection of the village Boxing Society. When this happened an outside instructor from a neighboring village was hired, regular classes were organized, and for a period of time a very large proportion of Phoenix Village’s young men would take up martial arts training.

Unfortunately the authors of this particular study were highly focused on the internal structure of this single village and so they did not have much to say on what might have sparked these developments. We know from other accounts that rumors or the actual appearance of bandits in the countryside could lead to calls for martial arts training. Periodic feuding with neighboring villages could also have the same effect. Both of these catalysts might negatively impact the wealth of major landlords, and this would probably explain their sudden enthusiasm for the martial arts. After all, one must protect your investments.

Then, after a period of time, the outside teacher would leave for a new job. His local students would continue on for a while, but inevitably disputes would break out. These were deemed to be socially disruptive to the village, and the entire Boxing Society would be disbanded and put into stasis until the next time that the local elites decided to support its rejuvenation. Anyone who maintained their interest in the martial arts did so as an individual with no institutional support within the village (though the authors hint at the possible importance of larger regional networks).

This account struck me as interesting as it showed two different modes of social organization that Phoenix Village’s boxers seemed to swing back and forth between with a fair degree of regularity. Most of the time they maintained their interests (and any studies) as either individuals or within very small groups. We will call this the “dispersed” model of social organization. In these cases personal efforts combined with some reference to wider (but relatively weak) social networks supported the existence of the martial arts.

At other times everything shifted. Suddenly the pool of potential martial artists expanded and became geographically concentrated in a single school or training ground. This all coincided with wider shifts in village priorities. The previously marginal interest in boxing now received the community’s full attention. We will call this the “concentrated” phase of social organization.

Two things struck me about this account. The first was the regularity of this change. The boxers of Phoenix Village could expect to live through multiple iterations of this cycle which was taken as the normal (if regrettable) state of affairs. Secondly, I noted how similar this was to accounts that I had previously pieced together of other martial arts associations in late 19th or early 20th century Guangdong.

When I was doing research for my recent book, I realized that a lot of the area’s martial arts organizations seemed to go through periods of intense activity followed by a prolonged hiatus. The account from Phoenix Village helped to make sense of this pattern and its underlying causes. While school and association lineage histories tend to tell a fairly consistent tale, the accounts given by outside observers have been, at times, markedly more cyclic.

It is interesting to think of what all of this might have meant for Chi Sao and its place in Wing Chun. Admittedly, what follows is purely speculative. Yet it may help to make sense of why Chi Sao played much less of a role in the practice of Chan Wah Shun’s students in Foshan than it did in Ip Man’s pupils in Hong Kong. Clearly the exercise was present and a part of the Wing Chun system in both places. Yet the martial arts were not particularly popular in Foshan between 1900-1910s.

We know, for instance, that Chan Wah Shun only taught about 16 students during his career. Further, when Ip Man returned from his time as a student in Hong Kong he discovered that very little Wing Chun was being practiced in his home town except in Ng Chung So’s school. And even this was a somewhat elite and small scale affair. With relatively few other people to practice with, the gains from devoting all of one’s time to Chi Sao would be limited. Thus more of an emphasis on forms practice, weapons training, the wooden dummy, basic strength, movement and conditioning drills might make a lot of sense. That is where one might reap the highest return in a relatively “dispersed” training environment.

Eventually things would change. Later in the 1920s, and during the first half of the 1930s, Wing Chun, like all of Foshan’s martial arts, seems to have grown in popularity. More students from a wide variety of backgrounds began to enter the style. This trend was accompanied by a more pronounced debate on the relative merits of different schools of Kung Fu.

All of this came to a head in Hong Kong during the early 1950s. After another period of “dispersed organization” between 1937-1945 (thanks to the Japanese), huge numbers of martial arts masters and students found themselves tightly packed into a new space, competing for recognition while at the same time looking for a better way to organize their schools in a new commercial environment. The geography of Kowloon alone probably made the shift to a “concentrated” mode of social organization inevitable. Ip Man’s increased emphasis on Chi Sao was not so much an invention, as it may simply have been a realization of the changing utility of different training strategies in this new environment.

Ip Man visiting Ho Ka Ming’s School in Macau.

Conclusion: The Situation Today

It is always a dangerous thing to take a model (even a “back of a napkin” exercise such as this) that was developed in one area and apply it to a totally different time and place. Nevertheless, I wonder if the idea of “dispersed” and “centralized” modes of organization might not have some value for us, at least as a metaphor. It might also suggest something important for how we think about the place of Chi Sao in Wing Chun today.

When I was first introduced to Wing Chun about a decade ago I had the good fortune to study at a large and thriving school in an urban environment. My teacher (Sifu Jon Nielson) approaches Wing Chun as a self-defense practice and introduces his students to movement, punching and defensive structures on literally the first day of class. Chi Sao was a big part of what I did and, if I may be permitted to say so, I got pretty good at it.

Like so many others before, I found the game to be addictive. I was a serious student and so I ended up practicing my Chi Sao (and other related skills) multiple hours a day, five (sometimes six) days a week. Better yet, there were a lot of advanced (and very tough) students at this school who were perfectly happy to hand out thrashings.

In my personal experience that is the key to becoming really good at Chi Sao. It is not magic. I don’t think it takes any special genetic predisposition. You simply spend lots of hours a week practicing these skills with a really large pool of people, some of whom are a great deal better than you and few of whom are actually kind of scary. Under those conditions, it is amazing how fast you pick this stuff up. But is being good at Chi Sao the same thing as being good at Wing Chun? Or even being a good martial artist?

Those are somewhat abstract questions, but they are ones that I have found myself forced to confront after moving from Salt Lake City to a small town in rural Western NY. Unsurprisingly, there are no large Wing Chun schools with the same combative approach to Chi Sao within driving distance of where I live.

This is not to say that it is impossible to do Wing Chun. Taking my years of experience I opened my own, much smaller school. While it is nothing on the scale of what my teacher has back in Salt Lake, I have been able to find a handful of people to work with, and that has allowed me to stay involved in Wing Chun community.

Yet Chi Sao is a problem. It is not that I no longer do it. I still spend some time on Chi Sao.  Yet working with a very small number of people, all junior to you, is not the same. Whatever it is, Chi Sao is not like riding a bike. The sorts of skills taught in sensitivity drills absolutely can be forgotten and will go dormant very fast if not continually used.

Compared to a lot of former Wing Chun students in a similar position I am really lucky. Even in a rural environment I have been able to keep my hand in the game. But am I growing as a Wing Chun practitioner?

On some level I want to say yes, but doing so might require us to de-center Chi Sao from its traditional place in the Wing Chun universe. As I suggested above, I am starting to wonder whether the actual utility of certain skills is tied to the environment that they are practiced in. The situation in my Sifu’s school was just about ideal for developing varied and nuanced skills in Chi Sao. (Parenthetically I should note that we did practice a full range of other skills, from forms to free sparring to combative weapons as well).

My students in rural western New York can certainly still gain some critical insights from the Chi Sao that we do. But given the limited number of partners any of them will ever be able to touch arms with, one quickly comes up against the problem of diminishing marginal returns. At what point would an additional hour of Chi Sao be better replaced with an hour of ground work, the heavy bag or basic conditioning? What mix of skills will actually make me a better martial artist and student of Wing Chun where I am today?

I suspect that there may not be a single answer to this question. Instead the mix of things that work best in a densely concentrated training area might be different than those in a dispersed environment. Students studying in small groups or on their own may need to think creatively about how to interpret and apply Wing Chun in their situation, rather than just becoming discouraged that they cannot replicate the “ideal” seen in Hong Kong in the 1960s or the West in the 1990s.

For a variety of reasons, mostly social and economic in nature, I think that we are entering a period of dispersed social organization more general (and not just in the martial arts). Certainly in large urban environments we will continue to see healthy schools, yet increasingly students of a wide variety of combat arts will find themselves in less connected places without a ready-made support system. In some senses we are better positioned to ride out this cyclic change than past generations. The internet provides the opportunities to construct new kinds of communities while recording and dispersing all sorts of training information. And certainly the organization of small local study groups, combined with the occasional workshop, can be very helpful.

Yet making the most of these new resources will require a careful reconsideration of our goals and even what it means to be a student of Wing Chun. This is one area where a more detailed understanding of our history can be particularly helpful. The southern Chinese martial arts have always been very flexible and they have survived many swings between concentrated and dispersed modes of social organization.

Nor has Chi Sao always enjoyed the pride of place that it is currently afforded within Wing Chun. I suspect that all of the traditional arts contain a variety of training tools precisely because they were practiced in a wide variety of environments. When properly understood, and combined with all of the information that we now have at our finger tips, there is no reason why our practices cannot continue to thrive under relatively dispersed models of social organizations.

oOo

If you enjoyed this you might also want to read:   Spiritual Kung Fu: Can Wing Chun be a Secular Religion?

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Twin Chinese Pagodas in Singapore. Source: Wikimedia.

***I am happy to report that I am making good progress on my current writing project.  But it is still an ongoing task, and one that consumed much of my weekend.  As such our post for this Monday is another essay pulled for the archives.  This essay asks what Ip Man’s “rules of conduct” suggest about the origins and social place of Wing Chun within the larger community of the Southern Chinese martial arts.  Enjoy!***

Introduction: Defining Community in the Traditional Chinese Martial Arts

How does one define a social community? How are boundaries drawn between those who are within the group and those who fall outside of it? This is an important question for students of martial studies. Given that the various hand combat systems, both in the East and the West, invariably revolve around fighting, one might be forgiven for assuming the martial artists would be rather sullen and solitary creatures.

Yet just the opposite is true. Studying and teaching hand combat is an inescapably social behavior. As much as we love the myth of the lone hermit on a misty mountain top, the truth is, you cannot really learn to box, wrestle or fence by yourself. These skills must be demonstrated by one or more teachers and they need to be sharpened on a variety of opponents if they are to be of any actual use. We spend a lot of time discussing “self-creation,” but the type of knowledge that is conveyed in the martial arts is inescapably social.

The definition of “community” is particularly complex in the Chinese martial arts. There are a variety of different markers that are used to define those who are “like us.” To begin with, we have the style names. But these can only take us so far. It appears that many (most) fighting traditions did not even have names until sometime in the Qing dynasty. Style names are also notoriously slippery things. Homophones and puzzling variations in characters are common encountered. And it is all too easy for small arts to re-position themselves in the martial marketplace simply by modifying their name.

Creation narratives and a shared mythology is also a common marker of community. The story of the burning of the Shaolin temple unites all of the Hung Mun styles of Guangdong province. Likewise, many different Wing Chun lineages make use of the Red Boat Opera as a device to explain their origins. While the performance of individual sets may vary from one lineage to another, a sense of shared community is preserved by the fact that we revere the same “martial ancestors.”

Of course these myths are often borrowed and modified. Hung Gar traditions also discuss figures like Jee Shim and the Red Boat Opera companies. It seems likely that Wing Chun borrowed elements of these traditions, as well as the White Crane creation legend, when compiling its own mythic identity. Still, the creations myths are helpful because they can suggest both relationships and differences between various groups.

The nuanced mechanics of physical practice is another way in which the community is defined and regulated. Much of the unspoken knowledge and culture of the Chinese martial arts is passed directly from teacher to student as they “correct forms” and engage in either sparring or “sensitivity training.” This creation of a shared culture (and a set of expectations) through an unbroken line of physical contact going back to the founder is probably the single most important way in which the group is defined. This sort of physical transmission is essential in certain Taijiquan lineages that emphasize “push hands” training. Likewise, many other schools have similar exercises that convey their core culture in a direct, non-verbal, way.

As a Wing Chun student I do not really care how another practitioner spells the name of their art, or what stories they tell about the origins of their lineage. What I really want to know is “Do they chi sao?” and “How do they chi sao?” If the ways in which we train are mutually intelligible, and we can improve together, then on a very concrete level we are in the same community.

A traditional garden with a modern created within a modern city. Source: Wikimedia.

The Wing Chun Jo Fen and the Definition of Community

There is another way in which communities are defined and expectations are cultivated. Rather than relying only on the intuitive and unspoken norms that arise in the course of training, most martial arts communities also propagate explicit rules. These codes of conduct, usually written, are supposed to govern life in the community. The number of rules and their content can vary immensely from one tradition to the next, but the basic impulse is widely shared.

Such formal lists are quite common in the martial arts of southern China. However, in my limited experience, they are often observed in the breech. Students know that they exist, but they don’t generally get discussed all that often. This seems to be particularly true in Wing Chun. Early in his teaching career in Hong Kong Ip Man propagated a set of nine rules, collectively referred to as the “Ving Tsun Jo Fen.” In the case of Ip Man’s list, they tended to be suggestions of what proper behavior should be rather than overly detailed admonitions or prohibitions. Nor, when reading the historical accounts from the 1950s and 1960s, is it always clear how the behavior of his young and unruly students related to these rules.

Still, the fact that the Jo Fen were given, and that they are now commonly reproduced and displayed in Wing Chun schools around the world, seems to indicates that we should give some thought to how these guidelines have been read and helped to shape the Wing Chun community. After all, these statements come as close to a formal philosophy of personal behavior as anything in the Ip Man lineage. And it is interesting to note that the Jo Fen describe not just proper behavior in the school, but within society as a whole. By explaining how a student should comport themselves in relation to the broader community, they offer valuable hints as to the social milieu that gave rise to the early Wing Chun community.

Before we delve into a discussion of the Jo Fen there are a couple of puzzles that need to be addressed. The first is their ultimate date of origin. It is known that Ip Man wrote down and displayed the basic set of rules that are used today in his school in Hong Kong during the 1950s. However, it is not clear if these rules were entirely his own creation or if some of them were inherited from an earlier instructor (Chan Wah Shun and Ng Chung So would both be good candidates). For reasons that we will discuss later I suspect that these rules are really a response to trends and pressures from the 1920s-1930s. Even if Ip Man first wrote them down in the 1950s, the Jo Fen appear to be a thoughtful response to a conversations that had been happening decades earlier.

The second paradox is how one should read the Jo Fen. This is a critical issue for Western Wing Chun students looking for guidance in living their art. For instance, when we are commanded to “Keep sacred the Martial Morality” (Wu De; Cantonese: Ma Dak) are we being sworn to uphold the marginal and criminal behavioral codes of the “Rivers and Lakes”? The individuals who inhabit these marginal social zones often have quite strong opinions on proper behavior under “Wu De,” and have even created an entire subaltern set of cultural values. Boretz does a great job of illustrating this worldview in his carefully crafted ethnography, Gods, Ghosts and Gangsters: Ritual Violence, Martial Arts, and Masculinity on the Margins of Chinese Society (University of Hawaii Press, 2010).

Yet Ip Man was a highly educated individual who clearly held Confucian values. During his younger life he was in no way a marginal figure. The circles that he moved in were quite different from those that Boretz described, and so were his cultural values. He had both a classical Chinese and Western education. He owned land and businesses. His personal values tended to be somewhat conservative and influenced by his Confucian education. So what exactly does such an individual really mean when he exhorts his students to remember “martial virtue?” This is probably not the martial morality of the Triads.

Nor does it seem to be the same as the revivalist ideals promoted by Jin Yong in his novels. These novels have dominated the popular discussion of Chinese martial values from the 1950s to the present. In fact, Jin Yong is probably the most widely read Chinese language author of the entire 20^th century. While it seems likely that these books had an impact on the expectations of many of Ip Man’s younger students, the old master’s views on these matters were probably already set well before he started teaching in 1950.

In the west we tend to read these suggestions through our own cultural lens. Ron Heimberger, in my own lineage, once produced a small volume titled Ving Tsun Jo Fen: Expectations and Guidance from the Ving Tsun Tradition (Ving Tsun Ip Ching Athletic Foundation, 2006). It’s an interesting book to think about. The author makes a conscious attempt to bridge the two, at times very different, cultural traditions that are at play. Yet in the end his interpretations of the Jo Fen always seem to reflect a home-spun American ethical perspective rather than traditional Chinese culture. The author actually warns us that this will be the case in the introduction to his book. The central problem, as he saw it, was to make the Jo Fen meaningful to modern, English speaking students.

It is an interesting project, and on some level I suspect that this is the direction that we must go. Translation is always as much a cultural as a linguistic issue. But I suspect that such exercises are still missing something.

This suspicion brings us back to the central question of the post. How should we, as informed students, read the Jo Fen of Wing Chun, or any other southern martial art? How would these rules have been read by a student in either the 1930s or 1950s? What sorts of unstated frames and contexts, familiar to his own students but alien to modern western ones, was Ip Man relying on when he put these guidelines for living to paper?

To answer that question we are going to need compare this document to other (much better known) contemporaneous texts. This exercise will suggest some ways in which we might want to read the Wing Chun Jo Fen. It will also shed some light on how Ip Man understood the community he was trying to create, and the norms of behavior that he wished to codify.

A rainy day at the Ancestral Temple in Foshan. In the distance the old neighborhood behind the temple is being demolished to make way for a new urban development project. Ironically the new neighborhood is being designed to “look traditional” and capitalize on the area’s important “history.” Source: Whitney Clayton.

A rainy day at the Ancestral Temple in Foshan. In the distance the old neighborhood behind the temple is being demolished to make way for a new urban development project. Ironically the new neighborhood is being designed to “look traditional” and capitalize on the area’s important “history.” Source: Whitney Clayton.

Translating the Wing Chun Jo Fen

The original text of the Wing Chun Jo Fen still hangs at the Hong Kong Ving Tsun Athletic Association (VTAA). As such it is well attested. More difficult is settling on a suitable English translation. For our purposes I am providing two translations of the text below. I think it is useful to compare and contrast at least two different versions of the Jo Fen to get a better sense of what points the original is driving at. Neither translation attempts to be a pure mechanical rendering. Both translators made some editorial decisions in how they rendered the Jo Fen corresponding to their understanding of the meaning of the text.

The top line of text (marked SK) is a translation by Samuel Kwok, originally published in his book Mastering Wing Chun: the Keys to Ip Man’s Kung Fu published with Tony Massengill in 2007. Generally speaking this is my preferred translation. The second translation (marked RH) is taken from Ip Ching, Ron Heimberger and Eric Myers, Ving Tsun Jo Fen: Expectations and Guidance from the Ving Tsun Tradition published in 2006. This is also a clear translation with some interesting readings of the text. Together these two different approaches provide a comprehensive look at the original.

Figure 1: Ip Man’s Wing Chun Jo Fen

1. (SK) Remain disciplined – uphold yourself ethically as a martial artist
   1. (RH) Discipline yourself to the Rules: Keep Sacred the Martial Morality
2. (SK) Practice courtesy and righteousness – serve the community and honor your family
   2. (RH) Understand Propriety and Righteousness: Love your Country and Respect Your Parents
3. (SK) Love your fellow students or classmates – be united and avoid conflicts
   3. (RH) Love Your Classmates: Enjoy Working Together as a Group
4. (SK) Limit your desires and pursuit of bodily pleasures – preserve the proper spirit
   4. (RH) Control Your Desire: Stay Healthy
5. (SK) Train diligently and make it a habit – never let the skill leave your body
   5. (RH) Work Hard and Keep Practicing: Never Let the Skill Leave Your Body
6. (SK) Learn to develop spiritual tranquility – abstain from arguments and fights
   6. (RH) Learn How to Keep the Energy: Quit Inciting a Fighting Attitude.
7. (SK) Participate in society – be conservative, cultured and gentle in your manners
   7. (RH) Always Deal with World Matters with a Kind Attitude that is Calm and Gentle.
8. (SK) Help the weak and the very young – use your martial skill for the good of humanity
   8. (RH) Help the Elderly and the Children: Use the Martial Mind to Achieve “Yan”
9. (SK) Pass on the tradition – preserve the Chinese arts and its Rules of Conduct
   9. (RH) Follow the Former Eight Rules: Hold to the Ancestors’ Rules Sincerely.

The Hung Sing Association: Three Exclusions and Ten Rules for Behavior

From the turn of the century to the late 1920s the single most important martial arts association in Foshan (the home of Wing Chun before Ip Man brought it to Hong Kong in 1949) was the Hung Sing Association. This school, originally established in the middle of the 19^thcentury, taught Choy Li Fut, then the most popular and widespread martial art in the region.

By the 1920s the Hung Sing Association literally boasted dozens of branch locations and claimed thousands of members between its many schools and Lion Dance Associations. Foshan was a hot bed for martial arts development, and the local area boasted many competing styles. Yet in terms of sheer size, none of them could come close to competing with the Hung Sing Association.

Size was not Hung Sing’s only advantage. It was also the first (more or less) public martial arts school in the region. Established in the second half of the 19^th century, many of the later schools modeled their public face and business plans on the successful example established by Choy Li Fut. As a result some of the specific norms of the Choy Li Fut school became quite widespread in the local marketplace. Other instructors either adopted these expectation, or they were forced to react against them. Wing Chun (which really started to expand in the 1920s and 1930s) was no exception. It emerged out of a dialogue that was dominated by these larger and more successful styles.

One can debate whether Hung Sing was really a “public” school. Late in the 19^th century Chan Ngau Sing (an important leader in the history of the institution) established two doctrines. The first was the famous “Three Exclusions Policy” and the second was a ten point code of conduct.

The three exclusions appears to have been an attempt to bridge the symbolic world of secret societies with the more profitable aspects of commercial boxing instruction. Chan claimed that there were three classes of individuals he would not teach. These were high government officials, gangsters or local bullies and individuals without respectable employment. If one wished to join the school they had to be sponsored by an existing member, and their application had to be approved by the organization’s chairman (Chan himself). These exclusions were promoted as a way of ensuring the moral righteousness of the school.

The end result of this policy is that even though Hung Sing became a very large institution, it maintained the feel and appearance of an exclusive club. This was sheer marketing brilliance. But how “exclusive” were they?

It seems unlikely that any “high government officials” from Beijing would travel to Foshan only to petition a distinctly working-class martial arts school for admittance. While the first exclusion played to anti-government and anti-Manchu sentiment, it never really cost the school any students. One could tell a similar story about the second exclusion. The Triads already had their own much more exclusive secret societies and martial arts teachers. Aside from the Lion Dance Associations, it is not clear they ever actually had any interest in Hung Sing.

Lastly, Chan Ngau Sing was running a commercial school. Students had to pay for their tuition either in cash or in bags of rice. Of course not all of southern China’s economy was fully monetized at this point. The only individuals who would be able to pay these fees would be the semi-skilled artisans who worked in Foshan’s workshops. The Hung Sing Association acted as a place where workers could network, find out about new jobs and create a rudimentary social safety net.

This was the real genius of the “Three Exclusions” policy. While outwardly elitist, all the policy actually did was make the association more appealing to its primary market demographic, young semi-skilled workers in Foshan. For that reason I have always treated Hung Sing as the areas first true public martial arts school. It showed that public commercial teaching was possible and in that way Hung Sing really altered the development of the southern Chinese martial arts. It is not hard to understand how this school was able to create expectations of what a “real” martial art should look like which later teachers would have to deal with.

Where do we find authenticity? In the city or the garden? Source: Wikimedia.

Figure 2: Chan Ngau Sing’s Ten point code of behavior for the Foshan Hung Sing Association

Three Exclusions

• Refusal to teach government officials.
• Refusal to teach local bullies (gangsters?)
• Must have respectable employment.

Ten Points

1. Seek the approval of your master in all things relative to the school.
2. Practice hard daily.
3. Fight to win (but do not fight by choice).
4. Be moderate in sexual behavior.
5. Eat healthily.
6. Develop strength through endurance (to build a foundation and the ability to jump).
7. Never back down from an enemy.
8. Practice breathing exercises.
9. Make the sounds (“Yik” for punches, “Wah” for tiger claws, “Tik” for kicks).
10. Through practice you cannot be bullied.

Chan also introduced a ten point list of rules that became standard in the local branches of the Hung Sing Association. My translation of this list (and the Three Exclusions) comes from Ma Zineng’s Foshan Wu Shu Wen Hua (2001). Comparing this set of rules to Ip Man’s Jo Fen reveals some interesting parallels.

It quickly becomes apparent that the Wing Chun Jo Fen are modeled directly on Chan’s Ten Rules. Note for instance that a number of Ip Man’s rules not only appear to be based on Hung Sing, but are in a similar place in the list. For instance, the admonition against sexual excess (seen as damaging to one’s martial virtue) appears in the fourth slot on both lists. Likewise both lists begin with an appeal to authority and obedience.

The creation of these written behavioral codes is yet another area where Hung Sing was able to exercise its first mover advantage and shape the development of other regional styles. I suspect that Hung Sing’s code was a reflection of earlier Qing era guild practice, but that is a topic for a different post. It seems entirely likely that arts like Wing Chun adopted explicit sets of behavioral guidelines (separate from the amorphous concept of Wu De) precisely because Hung Sing had already done so. This is what martial consumers had come to expect.

However, there are also some equally interesting differences between our two different codes of behavior. Ip Man was not just copying the Ten Rules. He was responding to them. This can be seen as an attempt to differentiate Wing Chun students from the martial environment around them, and more carefully define how they should deal with society as whole. As such the Jo Fen are an important witness to the creation of the early Wing Chun community.

The first major point of difference is that the facade of the “Three Exclusions” has been done away with. Ip Man basically taught whoever showed up to his classes and put forward no pretense that his was anything but a public commercial school. He did not exclude government officials or ethnic Manchus. In fact, later in his career Ip Man went out of his way to introduce Wing Chun to ranking civil servants and police officials.

It is often said with great certainty that Ip Man never taught foreigners, and so that could be treated as his own “exclusion.” Still, I have a hard time knowing what to make of this statement. Foreigners were not exactly knocking down his door demanding to be taught in the early 1950s, so it is unlikely that he actually turned anyone away for strictly racial reasons. Further, we know that Ip Man had no trouble working with individuals of mixed descent, such as Leung Ting or Bruce Lee. Rumors to the contrary, he does not appear to have been a racial purist.

Instead we see that Ip Man took on and encouraged a very wide range of students. He taught men and women, experienced martial artists and teens. Nor did he ever promote the idea that the Wing Chun clan operated as some sort of secret society. One of the remarkable things about his Hong Kong career was how truly open it was.

Comparing Ip Man’s list to Chan’s earlier effort also reveals his attitude toward excess or ornamentation. For instance, Ip Man simply drops “rule ten” all together. Looking back at the original list its clear that this “rule” is not really a point of ethical behavior so much as it’s a promise of the reward that one might expect from hard work. Of course life has a way of being unfair, and ignoring such promises.

A number of Ip Man’s other points appear to be direct responses to the more popular and widely known rules of the Hung Sing Association. Where they mandate strength training in the sixth entry (“Develop strength through endurance-to build a foundation and the ability to jump”) he characteristically emphasizes the importance of softness and internal training (“Learn How to Keep the Energy: Quit Inciting a Fighting Attitude “). While Chan’s list seems bellicose and is geared towards maintaining the reputation of the school (“Never back down from an enemy”) Ip Man insists that his students engage constructively with the community as a whole, and not just other martial artists (“Participate in society – be conservative, cultured and gentle in your manners”). Both lists end with a charge to pass on the unique norms and codes of recognition that define their respective communities (“Yik” for punches, “Wah” for tiger claws, “Tik” for kicks” vs. “Pass on the tradition – preserve the Chinese arts and its Rules of Conduct”).

I suspect that Ip Man was intimately familiar with Chan Ngau Sing code of conduct, made famous in the region by the Hung Sing Association. Looking at the both the structure and the content of the Jo Fen it appears to have been a topic that he had given some thought to. His definition of the ideal martial community is in many ways different from that advanced Chan, but it also appears to be a response to it.

Chan’s list is mostly concerned with questions of behavior and recognition within the world of martial artists. It reflects the pugnacious attitudes that are typically associated with southern Chinese martial artists. In contrast Ip Man’s is outward looking. His main concern is how the martial artist finds his place in society. A return to traditional Confucian values is seen as the key to maintaining harmony not just within the clan, but with the broader community as a whole.

The historic Tin Hua (Mazu) Temple is Xuwen County, Guangdong.

Reading the Wing Chun Jo Fen as a Philosophical and Ethical Statement

The creation of the Jo Fen may have been a creative exercise undertaken by Ip Man sometime in the 1950s. While some of these rules or perspectives may have been inherited from previous teachers, the list as it exists now is probably Ip Man’s project. Yet that vision of community did not emerge in a vacuum. No vision of society ever does.

Instead the Jo Fen emerged out of a dialogue with other groups and norms. The strength and popularity of the Hung Sing Association in the early 20^th century forced other local martial artists to follow its lead in terms of business practices and probably to conform to certain expectations.  Yet it also created a set of structures that they could react against in an attempt to claim their own vision of martial virtue. The very existence of the Jo Fen shows that both of these tendencies were alive and well in the Wing Chun community, and that they continued to be an important force up through at least the 1950s.

Our review has also revealed that Ip Man thought deeply on the question of social identity and was quite concerned with the question of how a martial artist (or a group of them) should interact with society. Rather than simply reverting to the ideas of “martial virtue” seen in contemporary fiction or in the subaltern world of “rivers and lakes,” he turned to his Confucian education. There he found core values that could support the type of community he was attempting to build.

It is not uncommon to find Wing Chun students searching for the “deep philosophy” that underlies their art. Some people do this in an attempt to build a better synthesis of the fighting system. Other individuals are more interested in building a secure foundation for their ethical or spiritual lives. The myth of the Shaolin temple, as well as the claim that Wing Chun is somehow a “Buddhist art” leads some people to investigate the Dharma. Others seem drawn more to Daoism after encountering ideas like the “five elements” or the “eight directions” in a Wing Chun class.

Clearly there is much to be gained from a deep study of either Buddhism or Daoism. Nevertheless, I suspect that this might be over-thinking the problem. If one feels called to study the Dharma, by all means, go and do it. Yet this is not necessary to understand Wing Chun, its origins or the nature of its social community.

Instead I would propose that individuals looking for the deeper meaning in the art start by seriously studying the Jo Fen. This short document was the only formal statement that Ip Man ever gave us on his beliefs about the philosophical basis of his art. It lays out in some detail a code of behavior that regulates not just the internal life of the school, but also how a “hero” can relate to society as a whole in such a way that their actions promotes peace and harmony rather than violence and disorder. This is probably the great motivating question of martial ethics.

Reading the Jo Fen it is clear that Ip Man’s vision of the art was influenced much more by Confucianism than either Buddhism or Daoism. Further, each of the short rules in his list can be unpacked and examined in some detail once you have an appropriate body of thought to situate it within. When discussing his father’s beliefs Ip Chun has argued that the Confucian classic titled “The Doctrine of the Mean” would probably be a great place to start. After studying and thinking about the Jo Fen I am inclined to agree with him. If we start by reading it as a response to texts and ideas that were in circulation at the time (rather than seeing it simply as a nine point list) the true depth of his arguments become apparent.

oOo

If you found this post interesting you might also want to read: “Ip Man and the Roots of Wing Chun’s “Multiple Attacker” Principle.”

oOo

I love that it is the fans who are inside the ring, and the combatants who stand outside of it in this picture.

Introduction

Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News!”  Its great to be back at the blog.  I am happy to report that the conference in Utah went very well and I had a chance to talk with a number of political scientists about the work that we are doing in Martial Arts Studies and the contribution that we can make to other areas of the social sciences.  I now have about two months to prepare for my next trip, but right now its time to get caught up on current events.

As regular readers know, 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 may 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 way too long since our last update so there is a lot to be covered in today’s post.  Let’s get to the news!

And this is how it ended.

News From All Over

It was the pummeling seen around the world.  Unless you have been living under a rock you will already know how the fight between MMA trainer Xu Xiaodong and “thunder-style” taiji master Wei Lei ended, about 10 seconds after it began.  Yet, as is so often the case, the event itself proved to be just the starting point of a debate on the reality, nature and viability of the traditional Chinese martial arts that has raged for weeks.  The fact that I was contacted by a number of reporters asking me about the match in the last week suggests that the conversation is far from over.

As I mentioned in a brief post outlining my initial thoughts on the event, the fight itself does not seem all that unique or interesting.  Youtube is full of videos of traditional stylists getting overwhelmed by more “modern fighters.”  This is one of the stock tropes of Chinese martial arts culture going back to the days of Bruce Lee and others.  What seems to be unique about this case is the public attention that the fight has inspired, both in China and around the world.  Suddenly everyone has an opinion on the traditional Chinese martial arts.

For instance, no less an outlet than the NY Times ran an article titled “MMA Fighter’s Pummeling of Tai Chi Master Rattles China” discussing both the fight and its aftermath.  It notes that the state run Chinese Martial Arts Association posted a statement on its website saying that the fight “violates the morals of martial arts” and the Chinese boxing association followed suit.  These official denunciations seem to indicate the government’s position on the controversy.

The reporting in Forbes offers a little more detail on the pressure (both official and otherwise) that is being brought to bear on Xu in the wake of his efforts to capitalize on the initial victory.  And the BBC has covered the story as well.

In the wake of this event a number of similar videos have started to appear on-line, such as this match between another Chinese stylist and a Taekwondo student.  Given the importance of the traditional martial arts to China’s national image, and the fact that places like Chen Village and the Shaolin Temple are important sources of revenue for local governments and industries, its not a huge surprise that the Chinese government might want to put its thumb on the scales of this debate.  But one also wonders to what degree they will decide that they must crack down on these unsanctioned fights precisely because, from a law-enforcement standpoint, you don’t want a wave of street fights that could spin out of control.

The Chinese press is also reporting that other figures in the fledgling Chinese MMA scene have started to publicly criticize Xu.  Apparently a segment of the population has taken his attack on fraud in the martial arts as an attack on traditional Chinese culture itself.  Other competitors have denounced him for both disrespecting the traditional martial arts and, through his actions, provoking a widespread backlash that could damage the reputation of MMA at a time when it is still still attempting to find its footing in China’s crowded martial arts marketplace.

The much debated fight seems to have brought other insecurities about the Chinese martial arts to the fore.  I particularly liked this article which seemed to argue that the real problem plaguing traditional Kung Fu was the lack to a profitable business model.  I am not sure that having a better business plan would have helped Wei in this case, but it is true that many traditional school in China are struggling.  This piece, titled “Why China still lags behind its martial arts industry ambitions” picks up on similar themes.

Source: South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post, which generally does a good job covering the martial arts, has had a lot to say on this fight.  One of their think pieces even argued that “a kick in the teeth is good for Chinese Kung Fu.”  These events also seem to have inspired some articles not directly related to the fight, such as this one attempting to get readers up to speed on the evolution of the Chinese martial arts.  In another article the the Xu vs Wei fight is used to frame reporting on a experiment conducted by the Hong Kong Police that pitted Japanese bayonet fighting against Chinese Dadao techniques.

The legend continues to this day. Today, in Chinese war dramas, you often see Chinese soldiers charging towards Japanese invaders with their broadswords raised, killing enemies with ease.

But is the Chinese dadao really effective against Japanese jukendo?

The fact that this unrelated story could so easily be equated to the recent MMA vs. Taijiquan fight illustrates the degree to which the public has come to see the event not as a contest between two equally Chinese, but differently trained, martial artists.  Rather it has become a forum on Chinese versus foreign martial culture, and the anxieties that these debates have exacerbated within Chinese social history.

The Global Times also used the the fight as an opportunity to ask some “deeper” questions.  First, why will the “traditional Chinese Martial Arts always lose to brutal MMA?” Second (and more interestingly), “what do foreigners who study Chinese martial arts think of the recent viral combat video?”  Again, these discussions are interesting as they suggest that the fight is not being viewed within a strictly domestic context, but is impinging on question of how China is viewed on the international stage.

This is just a small sampling of the many articles that have come out on this fight.  And the fact that multiple journalists are still working on it leads me to suspect that the conversation is far from over.  I am starting to wonder whether we have witnessed a critical moment in the history of the modern Chinese martial arts, similar to the 1954 “Battle in Macau,” which pitted Wu Gongyi against Chen Kefu, or Bruce Lee’s now mythic fight with Wong Jack Man.

The social significance of these fights was immense.  In many respects it far outstripped the technical virtues of the contests.  As in the current case, those fights became famous because they were seen as critical discussions that transcended narrow questions of school or training regime.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that questions of style and practice became closely aligned with larger social questions that remained fundamentally contested. It is well worth noting that most of these people discussing the Xu/Wei encounter at this point have never trained in MMA or stepped foot in a Taijiquan class. Indeed, the martial arts are a fascinating subject of study precisely because of their ability to throw light on these broader social anxieties and conflicts.

African students at the Shaolin temple. Source: Council on Foreign Relations.

Kung Fu Diplomacy

There were also a couple of news stories in the last month that focused directly on China’s efforts to use the traditional martial arts to establish their global brand.  The first of these, titled “Traditional medicine, martial arts – two giants of Chinese culture” is unique in focusing on South America (even though the article starts off with a discussion of China’s efforts to build a global trade empire that runs through central Asia).  While we hear a lot about wushu in Africa, cultural diplomacy efforts in South America, while important, get less discussion.

Peru has embraced Chinese culture ever more as the two countries have developed their economic, trade and social ties in the last decade. Chinese traditions such as martial arts and acupuncture are popular with Peruvians and act as windows to a distant culture.

Master Juan Vasquez, 63, has traveled to China over 20 times, with each trip furthering his study of Tai Chi.

Vasquez has been training in diverse martial arts since he was 17 but Tai Chi has been his favorite, because he thinks it has “more complete and deeper” cultural and philosophical connotations than other kinds of martial arts.

For the more academically inclined, be sure to check out “China’s Big Bet on Soft Power” on the Council of Foreign Relations blog (full disclosure, I was an associate member of the CFR while finishing my doctorate at Columbia.)  This article doesn’t go into the details of the use the martial arts as a tool of soft power (though it mentions the efforts).  Anyone interested in that subject can read about it here on Kung Fu Tea.  But it does provide a great overview of China’s soft power strategy, and some initial conclusions as to why these efforts do not always succeed (despite the popularity of Chinese culture on the global market.)

China is believed to spend billions of dollars to boost its international image, but it has yet to see a marked return on its investment in soft power…..

What are the limitations of China’s soft power?

China’s soaring economy has elevated the country as a model to be emulated, but there are multiple strains that threaten to undermine its image. Environmental pollution and degradation, food safety issues, overcapacity of state-owned enterprises, and Xi’s exhaustive anticorruption campaign are likely to dissuade others from following China’s example.

Moreover, experts say, China’s soft power campaign is limited by the dissonance between the image that China aspires to project and the country’s actions.  Rising nationalism, assertiveness vis-à-vis territorial disputes, crackdowns on nongovernmental organizations, censorship of domestic and international media, limits to the entry of foreign ideals, and political repression constrain China’s soft power. “If China’s narratives don’t address the country’s shortcomings, it becomes very hard to sell the idea of China as a purveyor of attractive values,” says CFR Senior Fellow Elizabeth C. Economy. Chinese culture and ideas have the potential to appeal worldwide, but only when there is “honesty in the depiction,” Economy adds.

No where is the success of soft power more evident than in the accelerating flow of students headed to China to study various elements of the country’s traditional culture.  CCTV (a public television network) often highlights these stories and publicizes them through their various English language media outlets, creating a multiplier effect.  This month they released a photo essay looking at two Norwegian twins who are currently studying taijiquan on Wudang Mountain.

“The Norwegian twins are among a growing number of foreigners from various counties who have dedicated themselves to the mastery of Tai Chi on Wudang Mountain.

The twins say there is a growing interest in learning Tai Chi in Norway, but say there are very few instructors in the country. They hope they’ll be able to pass on the skills they’ve learned on Wudang to others in their home country.”

Wing Chun

There were a couple of big Wing Chun stories in the last month.  I suspect that these would have attracted a lot more attention if not for the viral fight footage which seems to be sucking up all of the oxygen at the moment.  These first of ran in the Straits Times.  Its a profile and interview with Dennis Lee, who is the current Chairman of the Hong Kong VTAA titled “Spreading Wing Chun culture.”  Anyone interested in the current state of Wing Chun will want to check this out.  Here is a quick excerpt:

Mr Lee, who is married with no children, says his goal is to promote wing chun culture, which goes beyond the martial art’s technicalities.

“We hope that by teaching people wing chun, they can learn about the culture behind it too, so the passion will not be so easily extinguished, ” adds the Hong Konger, who spoke to The Straits Times last month when he was visiting the Singapore branch of his school, the Dennis Lee Ving Tsun Martial Arts Association.

Sam Lau. Source: South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post also ran a major piece titled “How Ip Man helped turn a rebellious young Hongkonger into a wing chun master.” Sam Lau has always struck me as an interesting figure, and this article includes some great stories, including how he first met Ip Man:

“One day in the 1950s, as Sam Lau Kung-shing was getting a haircut at a barber shop in Mong Kok, a bald man wearing a traditional Chinese Tang suit and kung fu shoes showed up. Lau was told the man was Yip Man, the grandmaster of the Chinese martial art wing chun.”

The article offers a thumbnail biography of Ip Man and a number of accounts of the Wing Chun community in the 1950s-1960s.  As such, its definitely worth checking out.

Speaking of the Wing Chun community, the VTAA will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this October!  Festivities will include both a forms and sticky-hands competition, a gala dinner and a trip to Foshan (October 7th-10th). For More information click here: PDF.vtaa.50th.

No collection of Chinese martial arts stories would be complete without a nod to the ongoing legacy of Bruce Lee.  Fans will be happy to hear that there is a new “authorized” biopic in the works.  This film will apparently focus on Lee’s life in Hong Kong in the 1950s.  As such we might get some on-screen glimpses into the period’s Wing Chun community.

“The latest biopic, Little Dragon, will have Shannon’s seal of approval, since her company Bruce Lee Entertainment along with Convergence Entertainment will produce it….According to reports, Little Dragon will be set in 1950s Hong Kong, where Bruce Lee grew up. The story will reportedly focus on the socio-political events as well as people that contributed to the transformation of Lee into the world’s most famous kung fu star.

Ninjas Wanted

Finally….Japan is facing a Ninja shortage.  That is a group of words that one does not often see in the same sentence.  A confluence of factors, including increased visibility in popular culture and the upcoming Olympic Games are putting the spotlight on everyone’s favorite black clad spies and assassins.  Unfortunately, actually being a Ninja hasn’t been a viable career path for a while, so the numbers are lacking.

“As tourism to Japan has grown, there has been an increasing demand to see the iconic warriors perform “ninja shows” to crowds – but martial arts squads are struggling to find candidates who are up to scratch.

Takatsugu Aoki, the manager of a martial arts squad in the city of Nayoga in the south of the country, told the Asahi newspaper: “With the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan on the increase, the value of ninja as tourism content has increased.”

Luckily aspiring ninjas have some new study material.  The Japan Times recently ran an article reporting on Edo period textbooks that reveal the tricks of the espionage trade.

Of course such works are difficult to interpret without the help of specialists in the reconstruction of martial culture.  And given the nature of the work, one would probably need an interdisciplinary team to really grasp the world of the ninja….

Just such a project in now on the horizon.  Call it “Ninja Studies.”

In a first of its kind endeavour, Mie University has decided to set up the world’s first research centre devoted to ninja. Ninjas, who have for decades ruled the imagination of people around the world, were black clad assassins known for secrecy and stealth. While mostly confined to history books and fiction, the ninjas have been enjoying renewed interest in the wake of the 2020 Olympic games slated to happen in Tokyo. Mie University is situated in a region which is considered the home of the ninja masters. The university said that the Ninja Research Centre would be set up in July.

Yuji Yamada, a professor of Japanese history at the Mie University, said that the University plans to compile a database of ninja and encourage cooperation between scholars from different disciplines who study ninja. He said that the researchers at the centre would study ancient documents and collaborate with science researchers to develop ways to implement ninja wisdom to modern society.

Martial Arts Studies

It looks like its going to be a busy summer for students of Martial Arts Studies.  The Martial Arts Studies Research Network just wrapped up a fascinating conference in Bath that focused on the Japanese arts.  And there will be a number of additional meetings this summer and autumn as well.  We will cover these as they happen, but I would like to remind readers that I am always looking for conference or event reports to share with the readers of Kung Fu Tea.

Michael J. Ryan, who just released an ethnography on stick and machete fighting in Venezuela, recently posted one of his articles to academia.edu which is now free to download.  If you have been wondering whether to check out his book (see the photo above) this might be a good place to start.

“I Did Not Return a Master, But Well Cudgeled Was I: The Role of ‘‘Body Techniques’’ in the Transmission of Venezuelan Stick and Machete Fighting.”

This article looks at the way that bodily attributes are cultivated and disciplined in the process of being recognized as a member of a restricted social group. This study took place in northwestern Venezuela, and looks at the role of stick, machete, and knife fighting as it has been refined and transmitted by a group of men. Following a description of the different contexts where these local armed combative methods (known collectively as ‘‘Garrote de Lara’’) developed, this article suggests that stepping and seeing are not merely physical attributes, but ‘‘body techniques,’’ or technical and efficient ways of looking at, moving through and belonging to a world. Where contingent historical and ecological factors shape a community’s traditional habitual responses toward acts of interpersonal violence.

Also, anyone interested in the development of Martial Arts Studies may want to check out Paul Bowman’s working draft, the “Triviality of Martial Arts Studies.”  I found myself dealing with many of the issues while attempting to explain our project to individuals involved in more traditional, and disciplinary bounded, areas of the social sciences.

Given the recent conference in Bath, the following new book caught my attention.  It appears to be historically rather than theoretically oriented, but that just means that it might be a rich source of data for future studies.

The Oshu Kendo Renmei: A History of British and European Kendo (1885-1974) Paperback – April 21, 2017 by Paul Budden $28

The Ōshū Kendo Renmei documents kendo’s beginnings and establishment in the UK, its spread into Europe, and the formation of the Ōshū Kendo Renmei, forerunner to the European Kendo Federation. It explores the link with the UK’s judo clubs, namely the Budokwai and the Anglo Japanese Jujutsu and Martial Arts Association (later known as the Anglo Japanese Judo Club), that were instrumental in kendo’s introduction in the UK.

With extensive commentary by Roald Knutsen, one of the UK’s kendo pioneers, it also profiles the efforts of others such as Horie Etsuko, R.A. Lidstone, Ōsaki Shintarō and Okimitsu Fujii.

Outside of the UK, The Ōshū Kendo Renmei examines the contributions of such people as Hungarian Count Robert von Sandor, Jacques Dupont, Alain Floquet and Shiga Tadakatsu as they sought to establish kendo in Europe and aim for the foundation of a European governing body. The efforts of the All Japan Kendo Federation and prominent Japanese instructors in promoting kendo in the UK and Europe are also documented.

Capoeira. Photo by Turismo Bahia. Source: Wikimedia.

The already vibrant literature on Brazilian Capoeira appears to be exploding at the moment.  In addition to the new ethnographies just released by Lauren Miller Griffith and Sara Delamont (both of which were fascinating), we can look forward to a new study by Sergio González Varela.

Power in Practice: The Pragmatic Anthropology of Afro-Brazilian Capoeira by Sergio González Varela (expected release on September 30, 2017).

Considering the concept of power in capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian ritual art form, Varela describes ethnographically the importance that capoeira leaders (mestres) have in the social configuration of a style called Angola in Bahia, Brazil. He analyzes how individual power is essential for an understanding of the modern history of capoeira, and for the themes of embodiment, play, cosmology, and ritual action. The book also emphasizes the great significance that creativity and aesthetic expression have for capoeira’s practice and performance.

Sergio González Varela is Professor of Anthropology at Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Mexico. He is currently working on a book about the anthropologist Paul Stoller.

An assortment of Chinese teas. Source: Wikimedia.

Kung Fu Tea on Facebook

A lot has happened on the Kung Fu Tea Facebook group over the last month.  We have talked about the “YMCA Consensus” in the Republic era martial arts, double sword and tradition vs. modernity. 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.

Mr Bean Wins the Wing Chun Dummy, courtesy Snickers and Youtube.

“Practice does not make perfect.  Only perfect practice makes perfect.”  – Vince Lombardi

The Bane of my Existence

I have spent a lot of time thinking about Vince Lombardi’s famous maxim on the value of practice.  I will readily admit to hating this quote.  It is exactly the sort of tough, yet ultimately unexamined (and perfectly circular) statement that reminds me of everything I despised about team sports while in school.  That probably explains my attraction to individually oriented martial arts.

Not that any of this matters when you are laying on your back staring up at your wooden dummy from an angel that Ip Man never intended.  Not that I blame the dummy.  I blame the carpeting.

Dummies and carpets, especially high pile or shag carpeting, do not mix.  To properly practice the mook yan jong you need to step with confidence as you shift and employ a variety of kicks.  You can technically do the set in bare feet.  I certainly have as I walk by, or find myself wanting to try out an idea out without getting geared up.  Yet the nature of the unpadded dummy limits how hard and realistically you can kick (especially if you have a square legged model).  Wing Chun, in contrast with arts like karate or judo, seems to have been designed with shoes in mind.

This is where carpeting becomes a problem.  Prior to taking up Wing Chun I never really thought that much about flooring.  And for the first four or five years of my training I simply did all of my daily practice at the school.  Still, having to rely on the school’s jong was never ideal.  During the advanced classes there were always more students than dummies, and I didn’t want to be a distraction to the students in the more junior classes which were held at other times.  Successful schools tend to be busy schools.

When I finally had the opportunity to buy a dummy I jumped at the chance.  I was sure that having my own jong would enable a level of daily practice that would vastly improve the quality of my Wing Chun.  And then I moved to a new place with (shudder) wall to wall carpeting.

The dummy came with me of course.  But so has the carpeting.  For some reason, each of the last three places I have lived have had very nice carpets throughout.  My wife loves them.  I am more mixed.  Don’t get me wrong.  They are great when you are getting out of bed on a cold winter morning, or throwing down the yoga mat to do your core work.  But dummies really work better on hardwood floors.  Polished concrete is even better.

With a little creativity you can work around the issue.  You can move in bare feet, but kicking is a problem.  The sneakers allow you to kick, but can become so grippy on the carpets that I am afraid of ripping something in my knees.  The coefficient of friction on socks are way too low to be considered safe.  In the end I settled on a pair of house slippers with rubber soles.  They offer enough protection to my feet that I can kick without worry, while providing enough grip to allow me to move around the dummy without fear of slipping (most of the time).

This arrangement is by no means perfect.  Mounted on a portable stand with horizontal bars (rather than the typical thin slats) my dummy feels more “dead” than “alive.”  It does not have that nice spring that more traditional Wing Chun practitioners crave.  Nor is it likely that I will be able to do anything about it until I can find a place to have it permanently mounted.  But I did come up with a way to hang my rice bags onto the dummy itself, making a more diverse training tool that is now a central part of my daily practice.

And I would like to think that the quality of this practice is now pretty good.  But it took a lot of terrible practice sessions to get to this point.  Contrary to the implications of the quote above, I do not think of those frustrating sessions as a waste of time.  As one of my teachers recently pointed out, we only waste time when we fail to practice at all.

Instruction at a TPLA Workshop held on April 30th, 2016. Source: The TPLA Facebook Group.

The Problem with Perfect Practice

Vince Lombardie is far from alone in his admiration of “perfect practice.”  While reading threads on a private lightsaber combat facebook group I noticed that the merits of a similar quote (this time delivered by an olympic fencing instructor) were being vigorously debated.  A couple of the students (one drawing on his own background as a firearms instructor) believed it was vastly better to have students who never practiced rather than those who practiced poorly.  As far as they were concerned, the first group was superior as they possessed “no bad habits” and would therefore be easier to teach.

I experienced a mixture of emotions as I read this thread.  Darth Nihilus, the instructor at the Central Lightsaber Academy (the location of my current ethnographic research) has a lot to say on the topic.  I recorded an instance in my field notes where, after watching the performance of one of his students, he shouted that it was not enough to just practice daily, you actually had to strive to practice perfectly.

Nihilus’ was a professional musician before becoming a full time martial arts instructor.  The approach to practice and personal study that you see in the musical world has certainly influenced how he approaches training within the martial arts.  As he went on discussing what our practice sessions should look like (a topic that he decided that the class needed some ersatz instruction on) he ended up doing a hilarious imitation of his high school keyboard teacher who would sagely appraise his performances and tell him, “if your practice is garbage, it doesn’t matter if you do it a thousand times, you are still getting garbage.”  Which makes perfect sense.

And yet, there are some difficult truths that haunt this entire conversation.  The most obvious would be that perfection is a moving target.  At least in the martial arts.  It is not a thing or a singular point.  It is more of an aspirational philosophy.  No one ever reaches perfection.  As one gains technical mastery in a single area, other horizons of possible improvement suddenly appear that you were not even aware of.

All of which brings me back to Wing Chun.  One of the best pieces of advice on teaching that I got from my Sifu was that when introducing new material to students I should demonstrate, explain, answer questions, and then step back and let them work on the problem themselves.  It is so easy to smother someone acquiring a new skill with well intentioned, but ultimately incomprehensible, advice.  Sometimes what students need is not more explanation, but a structured opportunity for practice.

As I have watched teachers that I admire, I noticed that they all encourage (and even demand) that their students practice.  But none of them are all that insistent that their students be “perfect” or practice perfectly.  Not that their students usually realize this.  Learning any new, sufficiently complex, embodied skill can (and often does) feel overwhelming.  Yet from where I am now, I can look back on them supervising the mastery of a complex task (say, the dummy form) and appreciate the way in which they would give their students one task to work on at a time rather than simply listing all 53 of the major mistakes that were made the last time the student did the form.  This is how progress is made, one correction at a time.  And that means that none of our practice is “perfect.”

Ip Ching, the younger son of Ip Man, discussing Chi Sao techniques with a teenage student at the VTAA headquarters in Hong Kong.

Practice as Research

The strangely shifting and fungible nature of perfection is not the only difficulty that such conversations pose.  The more we think about the topic the more questions arise about both the nature of the thing being practiced, as well as the act of practice itself.   Indeed, scholarly research into both areas may be helpful.

Readers interested in delving deeper into the question of what ‘practice’ is, as well as its relationship to the mastering of technique and the production of knowledge, might be well served by picking up a copy of Ban Spatz’s book What a Body Can Do (Routledge, 2015).  This book has become something of a hit in martial arts studies circles because it directly speaks to a number of questions that lay at the heart of the turn towards the exploration of “embodiment” and “practice as research” rather than historical or social modes of inquiry.

A more traditional discussion of “practice” might start by supposing the existence of a self-contained, coherent and unchanging body of technique called a style.  Techniques might be derived from conceptual first principals (the fastest point between any two points is a straight line) or inherited from a more traditional form of transmission (Ng Moy invented the art that would become Wing Chun after watching a snake fight a crane).  These bodies of techniques, and a conceptual understanding of how to use them, are then transmitted directly from one generation of teachers to the next generation of students through the process of diligent, dare I say perfect, practice.  Only in this way can a student’s fundamental dispositions be changed, and can the genetic purity of the next generation of the art be maintained.

Yet, as Spatz might point out, it is not clear that any teachers are actually up to the task of revealing the full depth of insight about a given technique that years of diligent practice can reveal.  Any martial artist can tell you that more goes into our punches, kicks, locks and throws than just gross motor movements.  There are a myriad of small adjustments that can alter the nature of a technique, and another myriad of insights that might be gained (or not) as to when and how to employ them.  Nor do students approach the learning process as a blank slate, or an empty vessel ready to be filled with some sort of genetic transmission of pure knowledge.

Each of us brings our own assortment of bodily predispositions to the learning process.  Some of these are physical, others are cultural.  My wife’s approach to, and understanding of, Wing Chun will never be the same as mine.  I will never experience a punch or laup the same way that she does.  How could it be otherwise?

Yet one of the biggest determinants of how easy or difficult it will be to master a technique is what prior bodily dispositions you already have.  Or to put it slightly differently, there is no such thing as a student that comes to a problem with no “bad habits.”  We all have many idiosyncratic bodily dispositions.  Some of them will push our development in one direction, while others might give us a shove in the other.

There is sometimes a suggestion that when Ip Man (or any other kung fu instructor of his generation) tailored his teaching to a given individual’s background or nature he was only passing on the “technique” and not the “true system” of Wing Chun which would be reserved for a handful of close disciples.  Yet by placing the student at the center of the learning process, and allowing Wing Chun to be conceptually rather than technically driven, there were aspects of his pedagogy that can be thought of as ahead of their time.

Rather than seeing “techniques” as simply closed bodies of movement and knowledge, Spatz (capturing the intuitive understanding of most of the martial artists I know) describes them as akin to onions, each level of technical mastery reveals a new layer of questions and nuance.  Nor depending on our background and nature, is it clear that we are all headed in the same direction on this journey of exploration.  And beyond a certain point in our training, most of the new knowledge that we acquire will not come from classes and seminars (though that route never vanishes), but from the process of practice itself.

Practice is not just the acquisition of a finite skill.  It’s a powerful research tool.  As we practice we make discoveries.  Spats notes that at first many of these will focus on how we can improve our own performance.  As we become more advanced they may include insights into the application and nature of a given technique.  Later, more original discoveries might open the way to creating new techniques and insights into how to better structure the process of practice.  When reading the biographies of individuals like Kano Jigoro or Morihei Ueshiba, it becomes clear that this is the way that at least some martial arts are born. Yet at all of these levels of research martial artists are engaged with the age old question, articulated by Spinoza, of asking “what can a body can do?”  This is such a simple question, and yet the answers always manage to surprise.

The idea of a direct transmission of knowledge from the mind/hands of the master to the mind/hands of the apprentice is mostly an illusion.  (And I say this as someone with great love and respect for my teachers).  The nature of practice itself suggests that the learning of technique, beyond its basic stages, is a rhizomic and ever evolving process.  As our practice becomes better, our research into the nature of techniques becomes more profound.

Keep practicing! Nima King Wing Chun School. Source: SCMP

Practicing on Carpet

When we think about what actually happens as we strive to practice and master a technique, the very idea of perfection is quickly revealed as a myth.  After years of practicing the dummy form I have yet to finish a routine and think “That is it!  Perfection has been achieved.”  At this point in time I am as much motivated by curiosity as anything else.  There is so much more that I want to understand, and the only way of getting there is through practice.

Yet it is never enough to declare something a “myth” and move on.  Rather, within martial arts studies, we must stop and examine what these myths do.  What social functions do they serve?  How is it that mythic statements about something as fundamental as daily practice get passed on?

Caution is required as we move forward.  As with most things, I suspect that this particular myth serves more than one purpose.  Specifically, myths can be used to point to insights that empower, or they can set up hierarchies and relationships that disempower.  Our goal as scholars is not so much to dismiss all myths as lies, as it is to actually understand them. Ergo my ongoing interest in the creation myths of the southern Chinese martial arts.

This essay drew on two practical examples of “bad practice.”  One that resulted in me staring up at my dummy after having slipped on shag carpeting, the other elicited a shout from an instructor in a lightsaber combat class.  Together they might weave a more complex understanding of what this council to perfection may signify.

Lets begin by returning to the Central Lightsaber Academy.  The instructor, Darth Nihilus, made his living as a professional musician before devoting himself to teaching Chinese martial arts.  Musicians understand something about the nature of practice and embodied skills.  But what is more interesting was that the specific student who he pulled aside was also a professional musician (in this case a drummer) who had played with multiple bands and toured quite successfully.

When Nihilus told him that he needed to perfect his practice (and related the story about an old piano instructor of his own), he was entering into a type of dialogue that his student would immediately understand in a very specific way.  Both had taught music lessons.  They understood how the process of practice and learning interact.  Both understood that he was issuing a call to practice with improved mindfulness.

Simply going through the motions is not enough. One must be self-aware, actively choose goals when practicing, and strive to improve those one or two things until you could do them “perfectly.”  In a moment of frustration Nihilus called on a student not to “be perfect,” but to make a conscious choice to put himself on a path to mastery.  At its best, this is what the challenge of “perfect practice” can be.

At its worst, it is a paralyzing agent.  Consider gain the story of my own experience with the dummy.  I really enjoyed the feel and tactile feedback that I could get from my Sifu’s dummy mounted in his school.  Unfortunately, my dummy arrived a short-time after leaving Salt Lake.  And when I set it up, I found both the flooring and the stand less than ideal.

Notice that I did not say “unworkable.”  There were certain skills that I wouldn’t be able to practice.  And it is difficult to do the form “properly” on a carpeted floor.  Yet rather than compromising and getting down to business, I let my perfectionism take over.  I convinced myself that it was better not to practice than to do so badly, or in less than ideal circumstances.  Specifically, I was concerned that I would develop “bad habits.”

Fear and paralysis is the dark side of a call to perfectionism.  Luckily, guilt eventually got the best of me and I was able (through a lot of terrible practice sessions) to experiment and work out a (mostly) suitable resolution to my situation.  At this point I can practice the dummy without thinking about these issues too much.  Have I developed “bad habits” by practicing on carpeting for the last five years?  Probably.  But I have also learned a few things about effective footwork that I would never have known.  God help the guy who decides to come after me on a shag rug.

Perhaps the real problem with the concept of “perfect practice” is that its inherent impossibility encourages an often unhealthy appeal to authority.  Consider again our opening quote.  How would one know if your practice had been “perfect?”  I suspect that in the world of football Vince Lombardi would have been more than happy to act as an expert witness.

When the process of striving for mastery is short circuited by an instructor, school or brand that claims to be able to judge and certify “perfection,” a more serious set of problems arise.  Rather than practice evolving as a form of research, it may devolve from hollow mimicry to stultification.  That is a problem whenever one outsources personal judgments about progress or motivation to an exterior authority.  This situation can be tricky to identify when we are the ones who are caught up in it.  The observations of scholars like Ben Spatz can raise the warning cry, and suggest that we reexamine whether we are still on the path of mastery.  It all comes down to how you practice.

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If you enjoyed this essay you might also want to read:  Butterfly Swords and Long Poles: A Glimpse into Singapore’s 19th Century Martial Landscape

oOo

***I am current on the road for the annual Martial Arts Studies conference at Cardiff University in the UK.  As soon as I return home I will be posting a full report of the event and sharing the text and slides from my keynote (titled “Show, Don’t Tell: Making Martial Arts Studies Matter.”)  In the mean time, here is the text from my 2015 keynote, which draws on themes discussed in my book The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts.  Enjoy!***

Introduction

In a recent post I discussed some of the major themes and ideas to emerge from the keynote addresses delivered at the recent Martial Arts Studies held at the University of Cardiff.  Astute readers may have noticed that something was missing.  Due to the constraints of time I omitted any mention of my own presentation from that first report.  Now that a few weeks have passed and I have had a chance to get settled, its time to rectify this omission.

This task was made even easier when I received an email from the conference organizer letting me know that a recording of my talk was going to be made available on Youtube.  A number of presentations were taped (with permission) and some of the graduate students at Cardiff have been editing and compiling footage so that this can be shared with the public.  Rather than simply reading my account of my paper, you can go and watch the original presentation here.  The total running time on this video is just over an hour.  Special thanks go to Ester Hu and Ning Wu for their hard work in preparing this and the other recordings.

I am also happy announce that two of the other keynote addresses have also been uploaded and are made available to viewers.  These are the conferences opener by Stephen Chan (“Martial Arts: The Imposture of an Impersonation of an Improvisation of Infidelities (amidst some few residual fidelities”)  and D. S. Farrer (“Efficiency and Entertainment in Martial Arts Studies: Anthropological Perspectives”).  While by no means exhaustive, I think that together these three presentations do convey a sense of the work being done in this newly emerging interdisciplinary field.

Of course not everyone loves video.  I for one would always prefer to read a paper.  For those of you who share my inclination I am also posting the text of the remarks that I prepared below.

Before launching into the substance of this discussion a few words of explanation may be in order.  This paper summarizes some of the final arguments made in my forthcoming volume (with Jon Nielson) The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts (State University of New York Press, 2015).  It can almost be thought of as a public reading of the volume’s concluding chapter.  Except that it isn’t.  The conclusion would have been too long and it presupposes that one has just read the preceding book.  So this talk combined discussions from both the books introduction and conclusion, as well as some other material bringing it all together.  Still, one might think of this as a “reading” from the upcoming volume. Enjoy!

Imagining Ip Man: Globalization and Growth of Wing Chun Kung Fu

In April of 2011 Hong Kong Airlines did something seemingly out of character. Most airlines seeking a share of the lucrative business class market attempt to impress the public with photos of their genteel and sumptuous cabins. Some seem to be engaged in an arms race to find ever more attractive and demure flight attendants. Instead Hong Kong Airlines announced that their flight crews would be taking mandatory training in a southern Chinese form of hand combat called Wing Chun. Having earned a reputation as a street fighting art on the rooftops of Hong Kong in the 1950s, this move appears paradoxical. It is one thing to quietly train cabin crews in rudimentary self-defense skills. It is quite another to offer press releases, give interviews, and post internet videos of how an unruly customer might be restrained.

It would be wrong to suggest that there is no glamour attached to Wing Chun. This was the only martial art that the iconic Bruce Lee ever studied. Nevertheless, when one juxtaposes the image of a bloody Lee (straight from the promotional material for Enter the Dragon) with a petite flight attendant from any competitor’s television commercial, one must ask what the advertising executives of Hong Kong Airlines know about their regional markets that we do not.

On purely historical grounds, it is rather odd that anyone seeking the past should “remember” Wing Chun, or any other traditional martial art, at all. The blunt truth is that for most of China’s history, the martial arts have not been very popular. While there has always been a subset of people who took up these pursuits, they were something that the better elements of society studiously avoided.

In the mid-1950s, when Bruce Lee was learning Wing Chun from his teacher Ip Man, there were probably less than a 1000 practitioners of the art in all of Hong Kong. When Ip Man learned the style from his teacher (or Sifu) in Foshan at the turn of the 20th century, it seems likely that there were less than two dozen students of his version of the art in total. The first realization that we need to wrap our minds around is that in many ways studying the “traditional” Chinese martial arts is actually a quintessentially modern activity.

Given this disconnect, much of my research over the last couple of years has sought to understand how exactly these arts have come to be such effective symbols of local identity and continuity with the past in southern China. But in today’s address I would instead like to shift my focus slightly and ask why some arts, like Wing Chun, have succeeded in the global system while others slipped quietly into obscurity.

What does this success indicate about the nature of the martial arts in general? And what does it suggest about the challenges that individuals perceive in the face of rapid economic, social and cultural dislocation?

The techniques of the traditional Chinese martial arts have a history that stretches back hundreds if not thousands of years. Yet the story of Ip Man, Bruce Lee, and the success of Wing Chun nicely illustrates the degree to which these arts have succeeded precisely because they are modern and global practices. Of course this is not how we generally think about or discuss the “traditional” martial arts.

While Ip Man and his student Bruce Lee are headlining today’s address, in many ways it is “globalization” that actually provides the terrain that we will explore. Originally rooted in the birth of European modernity this system of rapid social, economic and cultural change has since expanded to mark every corner of the globe.

Like much of the world China was first touched by globalization during the rush to construct a free trade system based on open markets during the 19th century. One simply cannot dismiss the influence of larger systemic forces when thinking about critical events in recent Chinese history like the Taiping Rebellion, the growth of regional imperialism or the Opium Wars.

It is also fascinating to note that so many of the martial arts that are popular today, including practices like Taijiquan or Wing Chun, were actually either created or reformulated and disseminated during this late period. Authors like Douglas Wile have suggested some reasons as to why this should not be a surprise. And then we see these same practices explode onto the global scene in during the 1960s-1970s as globalization hit another peak.

Yet just as the martial arts are a complex subject that must be examined from multiple perspectives, there is more than one way of thinking about the challenges posed by globalization. A more conventional, empirically driven, reading of the phenomenon claims that globalization is present when we see three things: the increased flow of goods (meaning trade), capital (or money) and labor (people) crossing state boundaries.

This rather simple conceptualization of globalization is the sort of thing that I was introduced to in my graduate economics training. It’s a very materialist approach to the problem. But it does direct our attention to some factors that are absolutely critical in understanding the challenges that an art like Wing Chun faced as it has sought to expand its presence throughout international markets.

Yet this isn’t the only way to think about globalization or the obstacles and opportunities that it has presented the Asian martial arts. Peter Beyer, in his work on the survival and evolution of religion in a modern era, suggests that we can also conceptualize globalization as the increased flow of ideas or “modes of communication” between previously isolated communities.

Beyer goes on to note that this sort of transformation can have important implications for any social institution responsible for transmitting fundamental social values, and during the late 19th and early 20th century, that is exactly how the Chinese martial arts came to be understood.

Modernization theorists long suspected that traditional types of identity such as ethnicity and religion would vanish in the modern era, and for the most part China’s May 4th intellectuals agreed. They also claimed that the traditional martial arts with their feudal and backwards values could not survive in the current era. Needless to say this hasn’t actually happened. Regional identity is strong, religions still exist in the world today, and more people are currently practicing Wing Chun than at any other time in its past.

So how do practices survive in a hanged world? By evolving. More specifically, while rapid modernization may resolve one set of dilemmas, it often creates a whole host of secondary problems.

This presents the guardians of more traditional ways of defining social meaning with an opportunity. On the one hand they can either find a new problem to offer a solution for, in essence turn themselves into a purveyor of a specialized skill and conform to the demands of modernization. Or they can double down on the more basic question of identity and meaning in a world where these things have become somewhat scarce commodities. But the critical thing to realize is that both of these strategies represent a transformation to accommodate modernity, even if one continues to market your brand based on its long history.

This is where the debates about Ip Man, who he was, what he taught, what sort of art Wing Chun really is, enters the picture. As we look at discussions within the Wing Chun community and other traditions we see exactly this discussion taking place. Do the martial arts need to evolve in order to survive, or does their value come from the timeless message of who we really are? Note also that this dynamic can help us to make sense of the powerful drive to find the supposedly “ancient” and “authentic” roots of these practices that currently dominates so many discussions of the martial arts including, once again, Wing Chun.

Bruce Lee. Detailed portrait.

Wing Chun as a Commodity in the Global Marketplace

Ip Man did much to increase Wing Chun’s profile as a regional martial art after 1949 and he set the stage for its eventual rise to prominence within the larger hand combat community. Still, one cannot understand the global growth of this system, or any of the Asian fighting arts, without appreciating the role of his better known student, Bruce Lee.

Lee is the axiomatic figure in any discussion of the late 20th century internationalization of the martial arts. While some individuals in both North America and Europe had been exposed to these systems during the tumultuous middle decades of the 20th century, often as a result of military service in the Second World War, the Korean War or Vietnam, the appeal of the traditional Asian hand combat systems had remained limited.

These limitations manifest themselves in different ways. Fewer individuals in the west practiced these arts in the 1950s and 1960s than is the case today. Nor did they enjoy the almost constant exposure in the popular media that we have become accustomed to.

A survey of the pages of Black Belt magazine, then the largest American periodical dedicated to the martial arts, shows that most of the articles published in the early to middle years of the 1960s focused on Japanese hand combat systems. Karate and Aikido were probably the best known alternatives to Judo. Indeed, much ink was spilled during the decade debating the relative merits of these different systems.

Bruce Lee’s initial appearances on television, where he played the role of Kato on the Green Hornet (1966-1967), and then on the big screen in the 1973 sensation Enter the Dragon, had a profound effect on the place of the Asian martial arts in western popular culture. Given their current popularity we often forget that prior to the 1970s very few individuals were familiar with the term “kung fu” or even knew that the Chinese had also produced hand combat systems of their own.

Bruce Lee’s appearance on the Green Hornet had an immediate impact on the North American martial arts community. What was not evident at the time was that the boundaries of this still relatively small community were about to be fundamentally redrawn. 1973 saw the release of both Enter the Dragon and the news of Lee’s death at the shockingly young age of 32. The film captivated western audiences with its innovative fight choreography, nods to Asian philosophy (something else which had been growing in popularity with western consumers since WWII) and unabashed violence.

Concerned that the public might not identify with a single leading Asian actor, the film featured a diverse cast which gave important roles to both John Saxon and Jim Kelly. These fears proved to be unfounded as audiences around the globe were drawn to Lee’s charismatic performance. Still, the self-conscious decision to feature an ensemble cast of martial artists from a variety of racial, national, economic and social backgrounds had a powerful impact on viewers. It broadcast once and for all that the potential for both self-realization and group empowerment promised by the martial arts lay within every human being regardless of their personal circumstances or nation of origin.

Lee’s untimely death in 1973 crystallized his image at a single moment in time. He became a prophet to his followers, snatched away at the very moment of revelation. Rather than looking forward to what Lee would have done next, those who struggled to understand the promise of this message were instead forced to look back to his previous films, television appearances, interviews and assorted writings. All of these things could be easily commoditized.

Martial arts instruction could also be commoditized and distributed to the public. The wave of enthusiasm unleashed by Lee’s sudden eruption into the popular consciousness filled martial arts classes of seemingly every style with new students. As one might expect, the previously obscure Chinese martial arts were major beneficiaries of this new attention. Wing Chun’s development was forever shaped by its association with Bruce Lee.

While Lee had been involved with the film industry since his youth (when he starred in a number of movies as a child actor), he was also a dedicated martial artist. Lee had first been introduced to Wing Chun in Hong Kong in the 1950s when he became a student of Ip Man.

After coming to the United States he continued to teach and promote the Chinese martial arts. His skills, personable nature and TV roles led to appearances in Black Belt magazine where he mentioned his background in Wing Chun and his teacher. Multiple articles published in this period actually featured images of Ip Man sitting beside, or practicing chi sao with, his increasingly famous student.

Given how little western media exposure the Chinese arts as a whole received, this was an unprecedented amount of publicity. Even before the advent of the “Kung Fu Craze” in 1973, Bruce Lee had assured that his Sifu would be among the best known Chinese martial artists in the west.

The Bruce Lee phenomenon boosted the ranks of many different Asian martial arts styles. In truth Karate schools, because of their popularity, probably benefited more from his appearance than anyone else. Yet this transformation in the way that the global public perceived these fighting systems was not enough to preserve every fighting style that had been practiced earlier in the 20th century. At the same time that arts like Wing Chun, Taijiquan and the various schools of Karate were reaping the benefits of this unexpected windfall, other traditional Chinese systems were slipping into obscurity.

What are some of the other more material factors that may have facilitated Wing Chun’s spread throughout the international system?

The first, and possibly most critical variable to consider, is geography. Exporting any good, whether physical or cultural, is expensive. All forms of trade are ultimately limited by the size of the “transaction costs” associated with the exchange. These costs include factors such as the expenses of adapting, translating and shipping goods for sale in other markets.

Ip Man’s flight to Hong Kong late in 1949 was, without a doubt, the single most important factor in explaining the subsequent success of his art. Why? This city occupied a unique place in the post-WWII economic order. It had traditionally been a major transit port for trade between western markets and China. As a result residents of Hong Kong were connected to global markets in ways that most individuals on the mainland were not.

These links were manifest in many areas, all of which served to reduce Wing Chun’s transaction costs. Hong Kong itself was one of the most urban and modernized sections of southern China. It had a highly efficient educational system which actually produced more students than the local universities could absorb. Some of these individuals were fluent in English and had either family or business connections abroad. In fact, a number of Ip Man’s younger students in the 1950s and 1960s came from relatively affluent middle class families and traveled to North America, Europe or Australia to pursue additional educational opportunities.

Ip Ching, the son of Ip Man, has noted that this pattern of out-migration was one of the main ways in which the socioeconomic status of his father’s students contributed to the spread of the Wing Chun system. When the Bruce Lee phenomenon hit in the early 1970s, there were already a number of individuals studying and working in various western cities who were able to take on students and begin to teach the Wing Chun system. More soon followed. The transnational flow of labor, in this case students and young adults, was critical to Wing Chun’s eventual success.

Other arts, even ones that had been very popular, had fewer opportunities to take advantage of this outpouring of enthusiasm if they were located in areas less connected to the global transfer of capital, ideas and individuals. The various martial systems of south-west China struggled to gain a foothold within the global market as comparatively few individuals from this region had emigrated to the west prior to the 1970s. Likewise, not all of Hong Kong’s arts were blessed with a relatively affluent group of students who had access to international employment and educational opportunities.

It is also important to consider the general attitude of these students and how that may have interacted with their socio-economic status. It seems to me that in the current era there seems to be a push to reimagine the Wing Chun of the 1960s as something more “traditional” than it actually was. This can be seen in a number of areas, from the re-emergence of the “discipleship” system in a number of schools to the enthusiasm with which some students have greeted the rediscovery of “lost lineages” claiming direct descent from either the Shaolin Temple or late Qing revolutionary groups.

While discussing the Wu Taijiquan community from Shanghai Adam Frank has argued that the shifting economic opportunities presented by global expansion will not always lead to more openness within a fighting style. At times the pressures and potential profits of international markets may actually lead to a renewed emphasis on secrecy and exclusion as organizations attempt to differentiate their product and control the flow of financially valuable teaching opportunities. We should not assume that the process of globalization will necessarily lead to more open or liberal styles.

So how did Wing Chun, and its various students, appear to observers prior to the explosion of interest that would make it a leading Chinese art? Did it give the impression of a forward looking system, or one that was basically reactionary, seeking to preserve tradition?

In 1969 a Wing Chun student named Rolf Clausnitzer and his teacher Greco Wong published a book titled Wing-Chun Kung-Fu: Chinese Self-Defence Methods. Clausnitzer had lived in Hong Kong as a youth and was one of the first westerners to practice and closely observe the Wing Chun system. He had initially interviewed Ip Man in 1960 and later studied with his student Wong Shun Leung. After moving to the UK he continued his studies with Greco Wong, who was a student of Moy Yat.

Readers should carefully consider the timing of this publication. In 1969 the general explosion of interest in the martial arts (and Wing Chun in particular) that would be unleashed with Enter the Dragon was still a few years off. So this early work offers us a suggestion of how Ip Man’s Wing Chun system might have appeared to western martial artists prior to the launch of the “Kung Fu Craze” and the orientalist urges that it seems to have embodied.

Originally from Kwangtung province he migrated to Hong Kong where he still resides. An outspoken man, Yip Man regards Wing Chun as a modern form of Kung Fu, i.e. as a style of boxing highly relevant to modern fighting conditions. Although not decrying the undoubted abilities of gifted individuals in other systems he nevertheless feels that many of their techniques are beyond the capabilities of ordinary students. Their very complexity requires years if not decades to master and hence greatly reduced their practical value in the context of our fast-moving society where time is such a vital factor. Wing Chun on the other hand is an art of which an effective working knowledge can be picked up in a much shorter time than is possible in other systems. It is highly realistic, highly logical and economical, and able to hold its own against any other style or system of unarmed combat.

Even more thought-provoking is Clausnitzer and Wong’s description of Ip Man’s students and how they compared to other groups in Hong Kong’s hand combat marketplace.

An interesting characteristic common to most practitioners of Wing Chun lies in their relatively liberal attitude to the question of teaching the art to foreigners. They are still very selective when it comes to accepting individual students, but compared with the traditional Kung Fu men they are remarkably open and frank about the art. If any one Chinese style of boxing is destined to become the first to gain popularity among foreigners, more likely than not it will be Wing Chun.

Bruce Lee’s rise to superstardom ushered Wing Chun onto a wider stage than Clausnitzer and Wong could have imagined in 1969. Yet, as we have seen, the system did possess certain characteristics that allowed it to capitalize on this windfall during a time when other traditional Chinese styles were falling into obscurity. Perhaps the most important of these were Ip Man’s decision to streamline the art following his move to Hong Kong and the nature of the students that his school attracted. Clausnitzer and Wong’s early observations appear almost prophetic in light of the system’s subsequent emergence as one of the most popular fighting arts within the global arena.

Ip Man visiting Ho Kam Ming’s School in Macau.

Two Visions of the Wing Chun Community

Some accounts (such as those left by Chu Shong Tin) suggest that Ip Man liked to play the role of the Confucian gentleman. This embodiment of traditional cultural values attracted a certain type of student during the Hong Kong period. Yet, as the previous quotes remind us, Wing Chun succeeded in large part because Ip Man understood it as a modern fighting system.

Even Lee’s films, while examples of visual fantasy, retained a veneer of gritty social reality. His protagonists stood up to racial, social, national and economic oppression in an era when those problems were acutely felt. And Lee’s fame has done much to facilitate the subsequent success of Ip Man as a media figure.

Still, the Ip Man that seems to be the most popular with audiences today is a different sort of hero than his later student. Whereas Bruce Lee’s early films appeared to carry a politically radical subtext, Ip Man as he is imagined on-screen has been a much more conservative figure. Portrayed as a local and national hero, he fights to retain the values and hierarchies of the past rather than to overturn them.

There are a number of ways to approach this disjoint. When reimagining Ip Man for the big screen it is no longer enough to see him only as a local kung fu teacher. For these movies to be a commercial success they had to be embraced by wide audiences in both Hong Kong, on the mainland and in the west. As such a dual discourse was adopted where Ip Man found expression as both a local and a national figure. Wilson Ip’s 2008 effort succeeded precisely because it managed to strike a masterful balance between these various audiences.

So what is the significance of the current reimagining of Ip Man’s legacy for those of us in martial arts studies? Peter Beyer might remind us that there is more than one way to think about the process of globalization. While ultimately a continuation of the drive towards modernity that was launched in 19th century Europe, we can also understand it as a transformation of the ways in which meaning is communicated between society and individuals. This more conceptual understanding of globalization may shine a different light on the sorts of roles that the martial arts, and Wing Chun in particular, are being called on to perform in the current era.

According to Beyer, the process of globalization has resulted in traditional means of value creation being displaced by schools of thought that privilege efficiency and professionalism. Religious modes of communication have been one of the great losers in this process. Indeed, Beyer’s work is centrally concerned with the fate of organized religion in an increasingly global world.

To create systems of meaning (which can then be used to support a variety of administrative and political functions) Beyer argues that religions, and other “generalized” modes of communication, begin by positing the existence of two realms, a “transcendent” and an “imminent.”

Given that the imminent defines the totality of our daily existence, we actually have trouble talking about it as we have no exterior points of reference from which to define abstract values and concepts. This problem is overcome by postulating the existence of a “transcendent” state in which none of the basic conditions that define daily life are said to exist. Through their monopoly on socially meaningful communication, religions (and other ritual systems) were traditionally able to make themselves essential in all sorts of social spheres.

This balance was upset by the rise of more professionalized modes of action during the modern era. Why? Highly focused types of communication are more efficient than those based on general cultural ideas. Modern societies value this increase in efficiency. As a result the priests and nuns that had overseen so many elements of western life were replaced with doctors, nurses, teachers, counselors, lawyers and bureaucrats.

This same process of increased specialization and professionalization has now found expression all over the globe. Nor are religious institutions the only ones to be challenged by these fundamental shifts in social values. Any “generalist” mode of communication can potentially find its social influence threatened by the rise of professionalism and increased rationalization. In fact, when individuals talk about the declining popularity of many martial arts in mainland China today, it is often this sort of narrative that they turn to. The traditional martial arts are seen as incompatible with the demands of modernity.

This is a very brief summary of Beyer’s complex argument as presented in his volume Religion and Globalization (2000). Yet contrary to the expectations of the early modernization and secularization theorists, religion, ethnicity and the like has not simply vanished. Instead the disruptions created by globalization have presented new opportunities for these institutions to retain some degree of social relevance.

On the one hand, they can focus on new aspects of “public performance” by addressing the secondary problems caused by this massive economic and social transformation. This more liberal strategy proved to be popular and can be seen in places as diverse as the rise of “liberation theology” in Latin American or the increased concern with environmental protection by a number of different types of churches in the more affluent west.

Other organizations have instead adopted a more conservative approach by refocusing their energies on the question of “fundamental communication” about the transcendent.
This second strategy is especially useful if one wishes to address questions of identity, and hence the definition and boundaries of the community, in the face of increased global pressures and dislocation. Such approaches have proved to be popular and their influence can be seen in the rise of fundamentalist communities in many world religions.

Nor is there any reason to think that these two adaptive strategies are restricted to discussions of religion. Douglas Wile has noted that the disruptions which imperiled the Chinese empire in the middle of the 19th century (including the Taiping Rebellion and the Opium Wars) badly shook society’s self-confidence. This, in turn, became a critical moment in the formation of modern Taijiquan.

He argues that the Wu brother’s subsequent research and development of the Taiji Classics can be understood as an attempt to find, reevaluate and reassemble what was valuable in Chinese culture in the face of a rapidly evolving existential challenge from the modern west. While Taijiquan clearly has technical roots which stretch back for centuries, it is this late 19th century social agenda, expanded and reimagined in explicitly nationalist terms during the 20th century, which defines how many people experience the system today.

Still, there are debates as to what Taiji should become. On the one hand there are groups who see in the art a cultural repository of what is essentially “Chinese.” While foreign students might learn the techniques, it is doubtful that they could even gain the deep cultural knowledge necessary to correlate and perfect this mass of material. For some practitioners what lies at the root of the system is an essentialist ideal of racial or national identity.

Other reformers have claimed that for Taiji to survive in the modern world it must adapt. Specifically, it must evolve to meet the needs of its changing student. An aging population can benefit from the increased feelings of health, balance and well-being that come with daily forms practice. Busy corporate executives can turn to simplified versions of the art for stress relief and lifestyle advice. I think that the idea of Sifu as life coach is something that many of us are probably familiar with.

Here we see the two adaptive strategies that Beyer suggested were open to all traditional modes of communication threatened by globalization. The first camp has focused on the question of primary communication, which in the modern era so often finds its expression in the exploration of cultural and national identity. The second group has instead sought to adapt the art to deal with the ancillary problems created by life in an increasingly fast paced and interconnected modern society.

This same process can also be seen in the Wing Chun community. Certain schools continue to focus on the “solutions” (be they self-defense, health or psychological well-being) that Wing Chun can provide. Yet not every discussion of the art trends in this utilitarian direction. The endless debates of the deep (and basically unknowable) origins of this style signal an ongoing interest in the idea that a hidden and somehow more “real” identity is out there. It is interesting to note how often that search leads back to nationally motivated myths of resistance grounded in either the Shaolin Temple or legendary rebel groups.

Indeed, the impulse to see Ip Man as something more than a martial arts teacher is not confined to recent films. It also reflects a fundamental current within the Wing Chun community. What defines the heart of this system, and what should it become in the future? Is this a style built around the solutions to pressing technical and social problems? Or is it instead one that attempts to imagine a space in which its members have a better, and more empowered, understanding of who they are?

Conclusion

In conclusion I would like to turn to a few lines of dialogue from a more recent reimagining of Ip Man, one that seems almost self-reflective about what he is becoming not just in Chinese popular culture but on the world stage. In an early scene of Wong Kar-wai’s 2013 film The Grandmaster we find Ip Man accepting a challenge from a northern master looking to pass on the mantle of leadership. When mentioning the divide between the Southern and Northern styles of the martial arts Ip Man asserts:

“The world is a big place. Why limit it to “North” and “South?” It holds you back. To you this cake is the country, to me it is so much more. Break from what you know, and you will know more. The southern [martial] arts are bigger than just the North and South.”

This scene is fascinating as it seems to contemplate the rise of Ip Man as a cultural icon and then goes on to address this debate in almost explicit terms. What is the value of the Southern Chinese martial arts? Are they an expression of local identity? Are they subservient to nationalist dreams? Or do they somehow transcend this? Can they become more? Nor, if Beyer is correct, should we expect to see this debate resolved in the near future. A dispute between positions representing such fundamentally different sets of possibilities simply cannot be resolved.

The dialectic tension between these two competing visions generates much of the emotional power that drives the Chinese martial arts today. While these fighting systems may appear to be “traditional,” in their present form they are inescapably the product of a modern global world. Ip Man’s actual genius lay in his perception and embrace of this fundamental truth.

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If you enjoyed this presentation you might also want to see the Keynote addresses by Stephen Chan (“Martial Arts: The Imposture of an Impersonation of an Improvisation of Infidelities (amidst some few residual fidelities”)  and D. S. Farrer (“Efficiency and Entertainment in Martial Arts Studies: Anthropological Perspectives”), which have also been uploaded to Youtube!

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The title slide of my keynote address at the July 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference.

***I am current on the road for the annual Martial Arts Studies conference at Cardiff University in the UK.  As soon as I return home I will be posting a full report of the event and sharing the text and slides from my keynote (titled “Show, Don’t Tell: Making Martial Arts Studies Matter.”)  In the mean time, here is my 2016 keynote, which examines the nature and purpose of hyper-real martial arts.  Enjoy!***

“Liminoid Longings and Liminal Belonging: Hyper-reality, History and the Search for Meaning in the Modern Martial Arts” A keynote address delivered at the July 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference, Cardiff University, UK.

by Dr. Benjamin N. Judkins

Introduction

You can learn a lot about a martial arts class by the ways in which it begins and ends.  They all have their own small rituals and verbal incantations.  Consider the closing of a fairly typical class at the Central Lightsaber Academy.

Sweating, in a not sufficiently air-conditioned space, the fourteen of us gathered, saluted the instructor, deactivated our weapons and received a few parting words of advice on the drills we had run for the better part of an hour.  After which our leader, Darth Nihilus, said “Your basic combat applications are looking better, and next week we will be working on our choreography again.   Lastly, anyone wanting to spar should use the set of mats at the back of the gym.  And remember, this is all just for fun!”

This is, give or take a few details, how every class ends.  Unrelentingly upbeat and supportive, it is not the parting benediction that one might expect from a self-style “Dark Lord of the Sith.”

The students standing around me broke into groups as the class dispersed.  Four of them grab fencing masks and armored gloves so that they could get in a few last rounds of sparring before heading home.  Others exchanged contact information and planed times to get together to practice their choreography, or just hang out, during the week.  And one martial arts studies researcher stood in the middle of it wondering, “Why does someone as intense as Darth Nihilus repeatedly, multiple times a class, insist that this is all just for fun?”

Certainly the students who meet at the CLA have a lot of fun.  You can see it in the expressions on their faces, and the intensity of their engagement with the curriculum.  The atmosphere of the class is relaxed but focused.  There is not a lot of talking as letting your concentration slip might very well mean getting smacked in the head with a heavy polycarbonate blade emitting a cool blue, green or a more sinister red glow.  Weapons work always requires a high degree of mental discipline, even when the blades in question do not actually exist.

For an activity that is “just for fun,” the students of the CLA show a surprising degree of dedication.  Half of them practice daily (a few for up to an hour).  Everyone in the room has purchased their own stunt sabers, even though the school always has plenty of loaners.  Most of these are economical models, costing less than $100.  But some individuals have paid up to $500 for a replica weapon that is personally meaningful.

When asked about their reasons for coming they provide a wide variety of responses.  Perhaps the most common is a desire to find a fun way to get in shape and stay active.  For the self-described martial artists in the room the lightsaber is an irresistible thought experiment and a release from the stresses, constraints and “politics” of the traditional Asian martial arts.  And for about half of the students, the lightsaber class is an extension of their Star Wars fandom.  As one of my classmates, a self-styled Jedi Knight, memorably stated, the CLA “is where bad-ass nerds are made!”

Yet after a few weeks what almost everyone focuses on is the community.   As another member of class noted:

“When I heard about a lightsaber class I thought that it was so dorky that I was totally in.  I thought that we were just going to be goofing off and hitting each other with lightsabers.  I totally did not expect what it has come to be, which is a new group of friends unlike anything that I have encountered before.”

In her comments Darth Zannah goes on to describe the degree of personal empowerment and confidence that she discovered as she became a more competent duelist over the last several months.  Recently she even competed in an open tournament against a number of much more experienced swordsmen from a variety of backgrounds.

Darth Zannah’s sentiments seem to be widely shared and probably accounts for the Central Lightsaber Academy’s excellent student retention.  Between the fast paced classes, wide variety of activities and the general social dynamic, there can be no doubt that these students are objectively “having fun.”  Yet I found the frequency of Darth Nihilus’ refrain puzzling.

While I have always enjoyed my martial arts training, I suspect that “just for fun” is not a turn of phrase that most practitioners of the traditional arts would be willing to embrace.  What we do in the “real martial arts” is almost always couched in a rhetorical framework that at once justifies and apologizes for the resources spent on training.

Taekwondo builds “character” in American school children. Kendo teaches other children what it means to be Japanese.  Styles as diverse as MMA and Wing Chun claim to teach vitally important “real world self-defense skills.”  While many individuals enjoy martial arts training, very few would admit that we spend our means on a hobby that is “just for fun.”  We almost always shift our discussion into the realm of “investment” and “hard work.”

In this regard Darth Nihilus is no exception.  When not moonlighting as a Darth Lord of the Sith, he is a professional martial arts instructor.  The CLA is actually housed within a cavernous 2,500 square foot commercial space in an enclosed suburban shopping mall which, for most of the week, is the home of the “Central Martial Arts Academy.”  Nihilus, along with a business partner, offer classes in wing chun, kali and JKD.  The mall itself is located in a more affluent suburb of a medium sized rust-belt city.

The atmosphere in his other, more traditional, classes is notably different.  Social interactions are inflected by vertical hierarchies marked by an explicit system of colored sashes layered over the more traditional system of “senior students.” What had been a generally relaxed atmosphere is somewhat tenser, and that tension shows in the posture and body language of the students.  It reads in the way they automatically form hierarchically graded straight lines at the end of their classes.  This is something you never see in the CLA which manages, at best, lazy semi-circles.

The rhetoric of these traditional martial arts classes is grimmer, featuring frequent outburst like “really hit him!”; “Remember, he could have a knife!” and the warning “If you get lazy it won’t work on the street.”

Students do not come to these classes simply for fun.  Their motivations are those that we would generally expect in a martial arts school.  Some are interested primarily in self-defense, others are looking for a challenging route to self-improvement, and a few are drawn to the school’s successful kickboxing team.  No matter what goals brought them in, everyone in the Central Martial Arts Academy is engaged in “hard work” and expects to be held to a high standard.

The code switching that Darth Nihilus exhibits when the discussion shifts between these two realms is, at times, remarkable.  When talking about wing chun he is serious, adamant in his views, historically informed and visibly frustrated by the state of lineage politics within that art.  He speaks as a martial artist.  A tension enters his body language and facial expressions.

When the conversation turns to lightsaber combat he relaxes, adopts a remarkably ecumenical view of the world, is eager to explore a vast range of activities (from kata practice, to competitive tournaments to cosplay).  Here he favors horizontal forms of cooperation and association between a wide range of groups with very different sorts of goals.  It is all, as he frequently reminds us, “Just for fun.”

In strictly empirical terms, this sort of “fun” is essentially a part time job for Nihilus, occupying many hours a week.  The CLA also brings a notable number of new paying students to his classes who, in many cases, have never set foot in a gym or martial arts school before.  In the world of small, and often struggling, suburban martial arts schools, that is an economic reality that simply cannot be ignored.

In a recent article I looked at the history and basic characteristics of lightsaber combat and argued that while it is a hyper-real practice, meaning that it draws much of its inspiration from a set of fictional texts, universally acknowledged as such, it nevertheless fulfills all of the basic criteria of a martial art.  I further suggested that the invention of hyper-real martial arts might help us to better understand the processes by which all martial arts are created, as well as the varieties of social functions that they fulfill in modern societies.  That, in turn, might suggest some important hypotheses about who takes up different sorts of martial arts training, and what the future of these fighting systems might hold.

In this paper I suggest a possible framework for thinking about the varieties of the martial arts in the modern world and the motivations that fuel them.  Let us begin with two very basic questions.  What sort of martial art is lightsaber combat? Second, why would someone choose to practice it given the many other, better established, combat systems that already exist?

To address these puzzles we begin by examining a few additional details about the CLA.  Second, I turn to the work of the well-known American anthropologist Victor Turner for insights into the various ways that voluntary associations focused on transformative play might create meaning in the lives of their members.

Is Lightsaber Combat an American Martial Art?

What is lightsaber combat?  At the most basic level it is a collection of loosely associated combat and performances practices that began to coalesce in the wake of the release of the prequel Star Wars movies in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  As part of the marketing effort surrounding these films replica lightsabers with realistic metal hilts, motion driven sound and lighting effects and colored polycarbonate blades were released in 2002.  Other elements of Lucas’ media empire then began to develop an invented history for lightsaber training, selling it to a public eager for the “relics” of that far away galaxy.[i]

The creators of this new mythology had a surprisingly free hand as the actual Star Wars movies say very little about this iconic weapon.  Much of this invented history was organized around the idea that within the Jedi Order there had been “seven classic forms of lightsaber combat” which had evolved over a period of thousands of years.[ii]  As described each of these seven forms has a unique combat philosophy as well as specific strengths and weaknesses, essentially making them distinct fencing systems.

From the start a clear equation was made between the fictional fighting systems of the Jedi and their real world Asian counterparts.  Each form was given a vaguely Eastern sounding name (Form I is “Shii-cho”) and an Orientalist animal association (again, Shii-cho is “the Way of the Sarlacc”).  Popular notions of what a “proper” martial arts should be seem to have shaped much of what the seven forms became.

The first lightsaber group to gain national and international notoriety (if perhaps not the first to offer a public performance) was “NY Jedi”, founded in Manhattan in 2005 and still holding weekly classes.  They combine instruction in traditional martial arts techniques with a heavy emphasis on choreography and stage performance.  After their rise to prominence other groups quickly coalesced and began to articulate their own vision of what lightsaber combat should be.

Some focused on costuming, public performance and charity work.  Others opted to create something more akin to a bladed combat sport.  More recently, a number of groups have dedicated themselves to combining the mythology of the “seven forms of lightsaber combat” with historically based fighting traditions to create an authentic martial arts system.

The Central Lightsaber Academy falls into this latter category.  However, a number of members, led by Darth Nihilus himself, enjoy producing the occasional fan-film.  This sort of mixing of interests seems to be more common in the lightsaber community than in other areas of the martial arts where practitioners sometimes seek to draw strict boundaries (often based on competing definitions of legitimacy) between “practical” and “performance” based arts.

We know that lightsaber combat is a hyper-real martial art.  It is a fairly new, and also a market driven, creation.  What else is it?  Is it an American martial art?

In the current era many martial arts have come to be seen as indicators of national and regional identity.  In some places the practice of these systems has even become a mechanism for producing a certain sort of citizen, typically ones dedicated to the nation, embodying certain identities and capable of carrying out the state’s demands.

In Japan the Budo arts are seen as revealing the essence of Japanese identity and they have been closely associated with the state since the late Meiji period.  In China the Jingwu Association rose to prominence during the 1920s by promising to create a rationalized, modern, middle class martial art that would increase the physical and spiritual strength of the people, ensuring “national salvation.”  With some variation of emphasis this same mission was carried on by the later Guoshu and Wushu movements.  This interest in uncovering the “national essence” and “cultural heritage” of an art can even be seen in popular discussions of “Israeli” Krav Maga, “Korean” Taekwondo, “Thai” Kickboxing and “Brazilian” Capoeira.

The rise of the martial arts as a tool that both states and other social groups adopt to define their identity and promote their values is one of the most striking trends of the 20^th century.  This strongly ethno-nationalist turn has become a means by which the martial arts do social and political work.  They first labor in the production of mature and strong citizens, and then in the promotion of certain identities both at home and abroad.

What sort of “social work” does lightsaber combat do?  Is it an American martial art projecting American cultural values and identities within the global marketplace?  Or is it something else?

The Star Wars franchise has already attracted attention from critical theorists and academic students of cultural studies.[iii]  Many have looked at the project with some ambivalence.  They have seen in these films some of the most conservative and reactionary elements of American society.  One could certainly see the export of these films as a clear case of the global spread of American popular culture.

I suspect that these theorists, if they were to ever consider the question, would not hesitate to label lightsaber combat as a uniquely American martial art.  After all, it is hard to think of any film franchise that is more culturally American.  The opening chapter in the series was a mashup of a western and classic Hollywood swashbuckler reimagined in the universe of Flash Gordon, mixed with a hint of Kurosawa.  How could be it be anything else?

Without denying those basic facts, it is nevertheless fascinating to see how resistant the global lightsaber community has been to such labels.  Lightsaber combat has been culturally translated and localized with surprising ease.  Indeed, one of the most striking things about this movement has been its near universal popularity, from South East Asia to Europe and, of course, in the Americas.  How has this been possible?

Through a wide variety of books, DVD special features, documentaries and interviews the Star Wars mythos actively presents itself to audiences as culturally universal.  The creators of these products explain the on-going appeal of their story lines by invoking the structuralism of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung.  While these sorts of theories do not sit well with scholars today, they seem to have become an important element of how many of the more thoughtful Star Wars fans around the world understand their own engagement with the franchise.  The end result is to partially obscure the national and ideological origins of the story’s core value systems in favor of a more psychological and universal discourse.

The students of the CLA have also sought to construct lightsaber combat in ways that escape the ethno-nationalist pull that surrounds many other martial arts.  Again, these are not ideas that they are ignorant of.  Their classes take place in a space that prominently advertises training in “Chinese” Wing Chun and “Filipino” Kali.

Surrounding mall storefronts offer Taekwondo, Karate, Hung Gar and Olympic fencing (among other options).  Anyone coming to a lightsaber class must make a conscious choice to physically pass by a number of competing alternatives, most of which are culturally associated with a specific national or regional identity.  The question is why?

Some of the more experienced martial artists in the class have drawn explicit connections between the “culturally neutral” aspect of their practice (as they see it) and the possibility of pursuing more creative types of martial play and research. Multiple of them stated that Western, Chinese, Japanese and Filipino styles could be brought together and tested under the guise of lightsaber sparring in ways that would not normally be possible in a traditional instructional environment.

When discussing his lightsaber class Darth Nihilus, repeatedly noted the sense of freedom he enjoys in leaving behind the lineage politics that dominate the more traditional Chinese martial arts.  This has translated into a greater technical freedom to combine multiple approaches free from the sorts of social surveillance that would normally inhibit this type of hybridization.  It also manifests in an ability to engage in performance based activities like cos-play, choreography and hero-building.  Such activities were actually the origin of Darth Nihilus’ memorable name and in-universe identity.

It would seem that lightsaber combat is not seen as an “American martial art” precisely because those who adopt its practice are seeking a specific type of freedom.  This manifests in a self-conscious turning away from the constraints of historically grounded and ethno-nationalist martial arts.  Many individuals are drawn to an activity that is like the martial arts on a technical level, but one that does different sorts of work.  In lightsaber combat we see a rejection of constructed nationalist histories and a move towards a system of forward looking, and open ended, mythic play.

To better understand the details of the social “work” done within the traditional martial arts, as well as the means by which more recent hyper-real systems might seek to escape it, we will need a set of theoretical tools focused on the ways in which voluntary associations mediate the relationship between “creative play” and the process of personal transformation.  In his writings on the nature of liminality in the modern western world Victor Turner has provided one such framework.

Liminal History and Liminoid Mythology

Turner is particularly helpful in the present case as much of his research and writing touched on the question of how meaning is generated through ritual and drama.  In his ethnographic research he expanded on the ideas of Van Gennep to better understand the ways that symbols and rituals functioned during “rites of passage,” or those instances in which people leave one social status (a child, single individual or uneducated person) for another (a married, adult, university graduate).[iv]  Anthropologists had noted that through rites of passages such transitions could be made both socially legible and personally meaningful.

Following Van Gennep, this transition has often been described as a three part process.  Transformative ritual starts with a period of separation, in which the individual is removed from her normal community, a liminal period in which the previous identity is stripped away, leaving the initiate in Turner’s famous term “betwixt and between.”  Lastly, the transformed individual is reincorporated back into a society that will now support them in playing their newly constructed role.

Much of Turners writing and thinking focused on the middle (or liminal) stage.  What exactly happens when an individual enters a threshold state but has not yet passed beyond it?  How is social meaning created and social knowledge bestowed through ritual and symbolism?  According to Turner this often happened in very creative ways.

Through a rich combination of rituals, myths, rites of reversals and other modes of symbolic teaching, Turner found that individuals can engage in a period of cosmic play in which they themselves rearranged the symbolic building blocks of the social order, often in ways that seem chaotic or disordered.  In so doing they confront fundamental truths about the community that were not previously accessible.  By going through this process, initiates learned something both about their own identity and the nature of society.

While Turner’s work (like others in his generation) tended to focus on what were then referred to as “primitive societies,” both he and his students immediately recognized many parallels to these processes in their own, much more modern, lives.  Indeed, there may have been too many parallels for comfort.

Turner’s later critics would note that there was a certain strain of universalism and cultural essentialism in his work that may have led him (and Van Gennep) to project these basic patterns onto other non-Western cultures inappropriately.  Nor did Turner spend enough time exploring the “borderlands,” or those areas of society comprised of individuals who either refused to integrate through totalizing social processes, or who found creative ways to subvert this process and use similar structures to create counter-systemic identities.[v]

It is not difficult to find striking similarities between the ritual and initiatory processes described in classic ethnographic accounts of rites and passage and current practices in modern Western society.  The process associated with fraternity initiations on college campuses, religious baptisms in neighborhood churches, or joining a social order like the Masons, all exhibit something very much like the same three part structure of separation, liminality and reintegration.

Nor would we be the first to note that martial art training is full of rituals, both large and small.  They can be seen in the wearing of special clothing (the white karate gi symbolizing burial clothing) and the grueling public ordeals endured in some rank tests or tournaments.  All of this is explicitly designed to fulfill two functions.  First, to elevate an individual’s status within the community, transforming them from novice to expert.  Second, to create a sense of social meaning and fulfillment by passing on a specific set of physical practices or cultural philosophies which (we are constantly reminded) have their truest applications beyond the confines of the training hall.

Is it surprising that in the current era Western consumers have come to see the martial arts as vehicles of personal transformation?[vi]  In an increasingly secular society they appear to be taking on essential social and psychological roles that might previously have been fulfilled by other sorts of community rituals.[vii]

Nor are individuals the only ones to have taken note of the transformative powers and liminal potential of the martial arts.  States such as Japan, China and Korea, to name a few of the better known examples, determined during the 20^th century that martial practices could be adapted not just to improve civilian fitness and public health, but to create institutions through which individuals would be inducted into a new, specifically curated, vision of the nation and society.

Martial arts reformers, eager for government patronage, designed specific programs, and lobbied to have them included in school curriculums, to do just that.[viii]  The emergence of a close association between some Asian martial arts and ethno-nationalism was neither a coincidence, nor a reflection of the essential nature of these practices.  Both martial arts modernizers and government reformers worked hard to make this connection happen and then to promote their new creations on the international stage.

So, on one hand, individuals adopt these processes as a means of personal improvement, or just recreation.  On the other, powerful social and political forces have attempted to co-opt them as modern rites of passage, ones that could do the social work of producing certain kinds of citizens and favored identities.  Of course there is no necessary reason why these two goals must contradict each other.  Yet sometimes they might.

To grasp what this implies for our theoretical understanding of the nature of lightsaber combat, we must return to one of Victor Turner’s fundamental questions about ritual.  What, exactly, is transformed in a rite of passage?  Is it the initiate?  Or should we instead be focused on the community?

Turner argued that the intended subject of transformation in a classic rite of passage was actually the community.[ix]  While the individual was affected, the fundamental issue was actually how the group processed and this change.  Turner noted that his students were thus mistaken when they described their own initiatory experiences as “rites of passage.”  He cautioned in his 1974 essay that true examples could only be found in small scale societies characterized by primary social interactions.[x]

Given the obvious structural similarities, what exactly separates the two scenarios?  The fact that these rites were often compulsory in small scale communities betrays the fundamentally social nature of the exercise. These rituals were events through which society understood itself.  Even seemingly riotous rites of reversal and bacchanalia were, for Turner, examples of social work that demanded the participation of the entire community.

All of these activities are socially mandated and therefore a type of labor, no matter how much “fun” the participants might be having.  None of them fall into the category of “leisure” as we typically use the term in the modern West.  Turner argued that this slightly different category is really a byproduct of the commodification of labor that occurred during the period economic and social transformation that Karl Polanyi called the “Great Transformation.”

An individual who joins a modern church, fraternity or martial arts class is in a very different position.  These are activities that, within modern Western society, explicitly occupy our leisure time.  They cannot be compelled.  Individuals participate in these activities and rites because they themselves feel drawn to them.  This takes what was once social work and makes it a much more personal experience.

Nor are all of these experiences exactly the same.  Turner concluded that at least two distinct types of institutions structure modern voluntary activities.  The first category was still referred to as “liminal” as they most closely resemble the rituals of previous eras that they may have, in some cases, grown out of.  These include things like formal initiations into religious groups, seasonal celebrations or a traditional wedding ceremony.

Yet while they resembled older rites of passage, they are still voluntary.  Simply put, no one can force you to join the Rotary Club. As such, he noted that his continued use of the term “liminal” needed to understood as metaphorical.

Turner then identified another group of activities which were even less socially focused in nature, and more oriented to individual play, experimentation and self-expression.  These could still induce a process of personally meaningful transformation, but they were less likely to be focused on conforming one’s life to a hegemonic social pattern.  At times they could even take on an anti-systemic nature.  Turner termed this second group of practices, “liminoid.”

By Turner’s own admission, his exploration of these categories was partial and experimental in nature.  As a first cut he found that liminal practices tend to be community oriented.  They emerge out of larger social patterns and are comprised of symbols that are universally intelligible. They are fundamentally eufunctional, meaning that they reinforce widely held social, economic and political identities.  A baptism or religious wedding ceremony fit this pattern.

In contrast, liminoid activities tended to arise later in history and are more focused on individual attainment.  They are often distributed via economic markets and develop at the margins of society.  Thus they are fragmentary and experimental in nature.  Liminoid activities can rearrange symbols in highly idiosyncratic (even monstrous) ways, and have the potential to critique dominant social discourses.  Common examples include the creation of art and literature or the development of many sports and games.

These categories may help us begin to make sense of what is going on with Darth Nihilus’ two seemingly contradictory martial arts institutions.  They may also suggest something about the variety of social work that martial arts are called on to perform in the modern global system.  Lastly, a closer examination of how these ideas function in the realm of the martial arts might suggest some way to refine Turner’s original concepts.

From Liminal Work to Liminoid Play in the Martial Arts

It is not difficult to discern a liminal aspect within the Chinese martial art.  While students of martial arts studies tend to classify wushu as a voluntary activity, one suspects that many of the young children that fill the wushu based technical schools of Henan and Shandong province were not full consenting participants in the decision making process that sent them to these grueling boarding schools.  Instead their guardians made the decision that this was a better environment for their children as it would give them the technical and cultural foundation to become a certain sort of adult.  Specifically, one who could get a job with the police or military.

The martial arts have come to be an accepted aspect of childhood education in the West as well.  What do we hope that our children gain from these exercises?  To listen to the rhetoric surrounding these practices, confidence and compliance are the actual goals of our efforts.  Regardless of what is actually accomplished, these classes are often framed as a means to create certain sorts of adults, ones that will succeed within society’s dominate cultural and economic paradigms.

Many of these same more liminal tendencies are evident in adult martial arts classes as well.  As Jon Nielson and I reported in our book, The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts, Ip Man’s notable martial arts abilities were not the only thing that attracted teenage and young adult students to him in the early 1950s.  After all, in the aftermath of the 1949 liberation of the Mainland, Hong Kong was quite literally overrun with talented martial artists.  So what set him apart?

Ip Man had grown up as a member of the “new gentry” in Guangdong. As such he received a dual Confucian and Western education.  He had deep cultural knowledge of a past that young adults in the crown colony of Hong Kong felt isolated from.  He was an individual who had synthesized the lessons of two worlds and could model the value of an unapologetically Chinese identity in a modern, globally connected, metropolis. Many of his younger students idolized the Confucian glamor that he radiated.

Contemporary government sponsored wushu and the wing chun community that existed in Hong Kong during the 1950s and 1960s are very different types of institutions.  Yet both of them are engaged in the social work of producing certain sorts of citizens.  In the first case this takes on a more statist cast, while Ip Man’s project was more social and cultural in nature.  Yet in both instances, we see that martial arts training attempts to produce a certain sort of student, one accepting of important social values, through a process of physical transformation.

This is one of the reasons why the creation myths of the various Chinese martial arts are so interesting.  It would be a mistake to view them only as poorly recorded history.  Instead they function as a lens by which the community sees itself, defines core values, and finds its place in the social landscape.  Yim Wing Chun, Wong Fei Hung or the many monks of Shaolin are important because they point the way.  They illustrate a destination that the initiate has set out to achieve.

A traditional martial arts class is characterized by a type of liminal play.  We set aside our mundane professional identity when we enter the training space and submit ourselves to a new social hierarchy.   We reverse and rearrange many of the most basic cultural values that we brought with us as we suddenly find ourselves punching, throwing and choking our fellow initiates.  Yet all of this happens within limits and is subordinated to a single, unified, transformative vision.

All of this conforms to Turner’s expectations for a more traditional liminal experience in the modern world.  Creative play is possible, but only up to a point, and only in the service of certain goals.

I have spent a number of years observing Wing Chun classes.  And while you might hear individuals expressing admiration for Ng Moy and Yim Wing Chun, or in other cases doubting their existence, I have yet to hear anyone declaring their allegiance to the villains of that particular creation myth.  After all, the Manchu banner troops did succeed in burning the Shaolin Temple to the ground, which much say something about their martial prowess!

Yet that is exactly the sort of thing that happens multiple times a day at the Central Lightsaber Academy.  At first glance one might think the biggest difference between it and a traditional martial arts class is the non-reality of their chosen weapon.  It is easy to become fixated on the glowing, buzzing blades.  Much more important is the open ended and free-wheeling way in which symbol can be manipulated, reversed and hybridized in one environment, but not the other.

We have already noted that such extended play exists on the technical level.  Yet this ability to creatively rearrange symbols is not limited to the act of fencing.  Consider the fact that the CLA is led by a figure who has adopted the title Darth Nihilus (or Dark Lord of Hunger) as his public persona for interacting with the lightsaber combat community.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the Star Wars lore we should note that individuals who go by the title “Darth” are not the heroes of this story.  Instead they are the masters of a malignant political and metaphysical philosophy that is said to have been responsible for billions of deaths during their age old war against the Jedi.

The specific story-lines behind the various “Darths” are interesting to consider, though a full account would take us too far afield.  At the most basic level many of these Dark Lords have, through a process of corruption, become something less than human.  In many cases their loss of emotional empathy is mirrored by physical damage or decay.  The Sith do not call on the healing and life sustaining energy of the force.  Many have become monstrous human machine hybrids.

Sith characters are always sociopathic, and often psychotic.  That makes them an interesting foil for storytelling.  And when not teaching either wing chun or lightsaber classes, Darth Nihilus spends time on what might be called “hero building” (or in his case maybe “villain construction”).  This includes crafting back stories, engaging in cosplay and producing fan films in which his alter ego kills large numbers of Jedi knights (played by his students) along with the requisite innocent bystanders.

Not all of the CLA students follow this left handed path.  Others have invested considerable time and resources in the creation of more traditionally heroic Jedi persona.  A third group, turned off by the psychotic nature of the Sith and the overly disciplined lives of traditional Jedi have turned to creating “Grey Jedi” characters.  These are becoming quite popular as they allow students to mix and match symbols and histories in ways that fit their real world personalities.  Occasionally even characters from outside of the Star Wars universe are remixed into the world of lightsaber combat (a trend pioneered by the creators of NY Jedi).

Well over half of the students ignore these exercises all together.  They might instead focus on Star Wars trivia or collecting lightsabers.  Other students see themselves primarily as martial artists and arrive at class wearing wing chun or kali T-shirts.

This last contingent reminds us of an important, somewhat paradoxical, fact.  Not all of the members of the CLA identify themselves as Star Wars fans.  While pretty much everyone has seen the movies, a fair number of students have never attempted to explore the expanded universe of videogames, novels or television shows.

While some students may understand lightsaber combat as an aspect of their fandom, other participants see it primarily as a way to stay in shape with the help of a supportive community of likeminded friends.  While everyone views their practice as important and transformative, the goals that they seek are strikingly personal in nature.  There is no single symbolic pathway that all lightsaber students share.

Conclusion

Lightsaber combat presents us with a powerful example of Turner’s concept of the liminoid.  In comparison, the wing chun classes of the Central Martial Arts academy are vertically structured and designed to advance a very specific skillset. Its curriculum is meant to have a transformative impact on students, one that will see them replicate a eufunctional set of behaviors outside of the school.  That is the very definition of the liminal.

In contrast, the Central Lightsaber Academy exists to cooperatively fulfill individual desires for highly creative, fractured, idiosyncratic, and sometime monstrous, play.  Students are free to focus on sparring and practical lightsaber combat, or to skip that in favor of forms training and choreography.  They can engage in cosplay and hero building, trying on villainous or heroic alter egos.

The individuals in this community are not socioeconomically marginal compared to similar martial arts groups in the area.  Yet they actively choose to play at the social margins.  This cacophony of goals and purposes coexists both within the CLA and the broader lightsaber combat community as a whole.

We should be cautious about reifying these two categories, liminal and liminoid, as binary opposites.  Certain students of the anthropology of athletics have noted that Turner’s categories sometimes have trouble categorizing specific activities.  Sharon Rowe has argued that while an amateur basketball league at the local YMCA is liminoid in character, much as Turner expects, professional sports often exhibits a much more liminal nature, both in terms of their social function and the discourses that surround them.  She has questioned whether sports should ever be classified as liminoid.[xi]

Our current case suggests instead that the liminal and the liminoid may exist on a continuum.[xii]  While Darth Nihilus’ Wing Chun class appears to be liminal compared to the lighsaber group, the degree to which it is “upholding dominant social discourses” pales in comparison to the previously discussed wushu boarding schools in China.  They are literally indoctrinating and training thousands of children for future careers in a vast state security apparatus. Clearly we must consider matters of degree as well as kind when evaluating the nature of martial arts institutions.

Still, Turner’s basic distinction between the liminal and the liminoid is helpful to students of martial arts studies precisely because it suggests that totalizing statements about the role of these combat systems in modern society are bound to miss the mark.  Rather than being one thing, Turner suggests that there are different types of social work that we can expect to see within the martial arts.

The success of hyper-real arts, divorced from the myths of nationalism and focused on enjoyment, rather than the “hard work” of producing even more ideal citizens, should force us to think deeply about the future of the martial arts in the current era.  Lightsaber combat demonstrates a world in which the plural, fragmentary and horizontal can succeed despite the existence of the universal, disciplined and hierarchically organized.

It may be that Darth Nihilus’ frequent refrain that this is “all just for fun” is as much a warning for us as a reassurance to his students.  Accepting his statement might signal the disruption of our understanding of what the martial arts can be, as well as the basic desires that motivate their students.  But what else would we expect form a Dark Lord of the Sith?

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Are you interested in reading more about Light Saber Combat?  If so click here or here.

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[i] For a detailed discussion of this process see Judkins, Benjamin N. 2016. “The Seven Forms of Lightsaber Combat: Hyper-reality and the Invention of the Martial arts.” Martial Arts Studies 2, 6-22.

[ii] Reynolds, David West. 2002. “Fightsaber: Jedi Lightsaber Combat.” Star Wars Insider 62, 28-37.

[iii] Carl Silvio, Tony M. Vinci. 2007. Culture, Identities and Technology in the Star Wars Films: Essays on the Two Trilogies. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.; McDowell, John C. 2014. The Politics of Big Fantasy: The Ideologies of Star Wars, the Matrix and the Avengers. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.;  Lee, Peter W. 2016. A Galaxy Here and Now: Historical and Cultural Readings from Star Wars. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.; McDowell, John C. 2016. Identity Politics in George Lucas’ Star Wars. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.

[iv] Gennep, Arnold Van. 1960. Rites of Passage. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.  First Published 1909.

[v] See for instance Weber, Donald. 1995. “From Limen to Border: A Meditation on the Legacy of Victor Turner for American Cultural Studies.” American Quarterly. Vol. 47, No. 3 (Sep.), pp. 525-536.  A more far reaching critique of Turner’s relevance to historical discussions of the Western world (particularly as they apply to women’s narratives) has been offered by Caroline Walker Bynum. 1984. “Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols: A Critique of Victor Turner’s Theory of Liminality,” in Robert L. Moore and Frank Reynolds (eds). Anthropology and the Study of Religion. Chicago: Center for the Study of Religion. pp. 105-125.

[vi] Berg, Esther and Inken Prohl. 2014. “‘Become your Best’: On the Construction of Martial Arts as Means of Self-Actualization and Self-Improvement.” JOMEC 5, 19 pages.

[vii] Jennings, George. 2010. “‘It can be a religion if you want’: Wing Chun Kung Fu as a secular religion.” Ethnography Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 533-557.

[viii] Gainty, Denis. 2013. Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan.  Routledge. Chapter 4; Judkins, Benjamin and Jon Nielson. 2015. The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of Southern Chinese Martial Arts. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.148-154. Judkins, Benjamin. 2016. “Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (17): Chu Minyi – Physician, Politician and Taijiquan Addict.” Kung Fu Tea. https://chinesemartialstudies.com

[ix] This is amply illustrated by the fact that the third and final phase of the ritual transformation is always reintegration into the social whole.  Such transformations are rarely undertaken purely for the edification of the initiate.  For more on Turner’s theories of ritual see The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Nbembu Ritual (Cornell UP, 1967) and The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1969).

[x] Turner, Victor. 1974. “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology.” Rice Institute Pamphlet – Rice University Studies, 60, no. 3 Rice University: http://hdl.handle.net/1911/63159.

[xi] Rowe, Sharon.  2008. “Liminal Ritual or Liminoid Leisure.” in Graham St John (ed.) Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance. Berghahn Books  pp. 127-148

[xii] This same point has also been argued, in a different context, by Andrew Spiegel.  See 2011. “Categorical difference versus continuum: Rethinking Turner’s liminal-liminoid distinction.” Anthropology Southern Africa (Anthropology Southern Africa) 34, no. 1/2: 11-20.

Bruce Lee with his favorite onscreen weapon.

Introduction

My original plan for the day included writing a conference report on the recent Martial Arts Studies gathering at Cardiff University (which, as always, was a blast).  However, when I opened my email this morning I found a note from Paul Bowman reminding me that today is the 44th anniversary of Bruce Lee’s death.  Paul was kind enough to send me a copy of a draft chapter that he had written for the occasion and offered to share it with the readers of Kung Fu Tea as a guest post.  Normally I would post this early on Friday morning, but given that today marks the actual anniversary, I thought it would be better to break with tradition and get this up a bit early.  In addition to his more recent work on Martial Arts Studies, Paul Bowman has written multiple books on the cultural and social significance of Lee’s films and martial arts career.  As such, he is ideally situated to discuss Lee’s continuing legacy.  Enjoy!

Bruce Lee: Cult (Film) Icon

Paul Bowman

Cardiff University

Draft chapter written for a collection on cult film, edited by Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton.

I write these words on the 44^th anniversary of the death of Bruce Lee (July 20^th 1973). When he died I was two years old. Lee was at the height of his fame. At the time of his death, his fourth martial arts film, Enter the Dragon, was being released internationally. He was already well known around the world: in Asia he was stellar; in the West his films had a growing cult status (Hunt 2003; Teo 2009; Lo 2005). For all audiences, he was becoming the exemplar of a new type of masculine cool invincibility – a simultaneously impossible yet (possibly – almost) achievable ideal (Chan 2000; Nitta 2010). It was impossible because Lee was invincible, but it seemed (quasi) achievable because Lee’s invincibility was always shown to be the product of dedicated training in kung fu. So, his image wasn’t simply fictional. His image wasn’t merely fake. He wasn’t magic. He was simply a kung fu expert. This meant that all you had to do to be like him was train. Anyone could train. Everyone could train. So, very many people did. And this became known as the ‘kung fu craze’ of the 1970s (Brown 1997).

At the time of his death, Enter the Dragon was about to push Lee into the mainstream of global popular consciousness. If up until this point he had achieved ‘cult’ status in the West, he was about to attain the status he had already attained across Asia: superstardom. But this would not involve selling out or dampening down any of the ‘cult’ features that characterised his kung fu films. Rather, Lee’s success would amount to the international explosion of martial arts film and martial arts practice: its leaping out from the shadowy margins and into the bright lights of the mainstream.

This explosion is still referred to as the kung fu craze of the 1970s. Bruce Lee was the image and the name that exemplified this ‘craze’. There were other martial arts stars, of course, both before and after Bruce Lee; but he was and remains the quintessential figure. His name still sells books. Documentaries are still being made about him (Webb 2009; McCormack 2012). Martial arts magazine issues that have his image on the cover still sell more copies than those which don’t. Blog entries about him still generate spikes.[i] He is still credited as an inspiration by athletes, boxers, UFC and MMA fighters, and martial artists of all stripes (Miller 2000; Preston 2007). YouTube continues to throw up new Bruce Lee homages and montages. Computer games still have Bruce Lee characters. He is still used in adverts. He is universally regarded as having been a key figure for non-white film and TV viewers of the 1960s and early ’70s – a kind of oasis in a desert of white heroes and (at best) blackspoitation (Prashad 2003, 2002; Kato 2007; Bowman 2010; Chong 2012). He was immediately (and remains) a complex and important figure for diasporic ethnic Chinese the world over (Hiramoto 2012; Teo 2013; Marchetti 2001, 1994, 2012, 2006). And he forged the first bridge between Hong Kong and Hollywood film industries.

There is so much more to say about all of this. I could go on with this list. But I have said much of this before (Bowman 2010, 2013). So instead, having set the scene, however fleetingly, let’s pause to reflect on whether this makes Bruce Lee a ‘cult’ figure.

In order to focus principally on Bruce Lee as a cult icon, we cannot undertake too much of a digression into a fully elaborated discussion of the controversial and problematic term ‘cult’ in film and cinema studies (Shepard 2014; Mathijs and Mendik 2008; Mathijs 2005). Suffice it to say that in and around film studies the ongoing academic disputes about the notion of ‘cult’ centre on the question of what makes something a cult object. Is the thing that makes an object (normally a film but sometimes an actor, director or even genre) into a ‘cult’ object to be found in the properties of the object itself, or in the status of that object in relation to other objects, or in an audience’s response to it?

There is a lot of disagreement about this. My own sense is that cult is principally a useful descriptive term, but that it is less useful analytically. Nonetheless, in attempting to think about Bruce Lee through this lens, some hugely stimulating insights can emerge. In what follows, I will principally concern myself with responses and relations to the cinematically constructed image of Bruce Lee, rather than with attempting to adjudicate on the matter of whether this or that feature of his films (Barrowman 2016) or his cinematic, media or spectacular image fit into his or that categorisation or definition of ‘cult’ or ‘not-cult’. So rather than worrying about taxonomies, I will translate the ideas and associations of the word ‘cult’ into the sense of a variably manifested passionate relation to or with something – in this case, the textual field of objects known as ‘Bruce Lee’.[ii]

I do this because there is not now and there never has been a single or singular cult of Bruce Lee. It has always been cults, plural. The ideas, ideals, injunctions and aspirations associated with Bruce Lee were always multiple. In effect, there have always been several Bruce Lees – different Bruce Lees for different people. Lined up side by side and viewed together, the ‘Bruce Lee’ constructed by each group, audience or constituency often appears, on the one hand, partial and incomplete, yet on the other hand, larger than life and impossibly perfect. There are biographical, technological and textual reasons for this.

Firstly, Lee died unexpectedly, very young, in obscure circumstances, and for a long time afterwards much of his life remained shrouded in mystery – a mystery that largely arose because of a lack of reliable, verifiable information about him, his life, and the circumstances of his death. It is arguably the case that his family, their advisors, and his estate made a series of less than ideal decisions around the dissemination of information about Bruce Lee both in the immediate aftermath of his death and in the subsequent years and even decades (Bleecker 1999). These decisions all seem to have arisen from a desire to paint Bruce Lee hagiographically, as a perfect figure, a kind of saintly genius. Somewhat predictably, then, other voices have more than once come out of the woodwork to make somewhat contrary claims and to paint Bruce Lee in rather different lights . Through all of the mist and murk, one of Lee’s many (unauthorised) biographers, Davis Miller, makes an important point when he observes in his 2000 publication, The Tao of Bruce Lee, that surely there has been no other 20^th century figure, so globally famous, about whom so little was actually known for so long (Miller 2000; Bowman 2010).

The film theorist André Bazin might have disputed such a claim, however. For, as he argued when discussing the cinematic images of Joseph Stalin, the cinematically constituted, disseminated and experienced image does much to create a kind of double or doubling effect (Bazin 1967:1-14). Of course, there may be a world of difference between Bruce Lee and Joseph Stalin, but Bazin’s observations can be applied to the figure that viewers felt they experienced when they experienced Bruce Lee. Indeed, it can be extended to apply to many other cinematic or media experiences of many other kinds of celebrity image too. The logic is this. Firstly, the cinematic image can make the figure seem larger than life. Baudrillard would call this ‘hyperreal’: more real than real (Baudrillard 1994). But Bazin also notes that the image on the cinema screen is, in a way, already dead, absent, out of reach, ‘mummified’. Yet, at the same time, and paradoxically by the same token, the nature of the cinematic image can make us feel we personally have intimate, personal, access to the person we are watching (Bazin 1967: 1-14; Chow 2007: 4-7).

Ip Man and his best known student, Bruce Lee.

These kind of observations about the cinematic image can serve as an entry point into thinking about the ‘technological’ reasons why there has never simply been one cult of Bruce Lee, but always more than one. We each see a very distant, larger than life figure, and yet we can also come to feel that we have an intimate insight into him – whatever that may be. He is there, and we can see what he is saying and doing; but he is gone, and we have to construct an interpretation.

This is where the textual or semiotic dimension becomes fully active. For, like any other media image, ‘Bruce Lee’ is essentially and irreducibly textual. When we think of or speak about Bruce Lee we are dealing not with one single or simple thing, but with complex pieces of textual material, woven into different textual constructs (films, documentaries, books, magazines, posters, anecdotes, memories). In fact, taken to its most ‘radical’ extreme, the theory of textuality essentially dispenses with the need for there to be an actual ‘text’ (such as a film, a book or a magazine article) in front of us at all. For, as elaborated by Jacques Derrida, the theory of textuality (aka deconstruction), holds that for each and every one of us the entire world is a text. We relate to everything the same way we relate to texts: we look, we listen, we think, we try to interpret, to make sense, to extract or establish meaning, and so on. According to the infamous phrase of Derrida (who was the most famous proponent of textuality as an approach to more or less everything), ‘there is nothing outside the text’ (Derrida 1976: 158-9).

Whether we go this far or not, according to most theories of text and textuality, the meaning of any given text is produced in the encounter with the reader. So, although the creators of any given text (literary, cinematic, TV, radio, etc.) will have had intentions, and will have wanted to create certain effects and induce certain responses, the buck stops with the reader, or the person who experiences these devices and combinations of elements. Accordingly, whilst some viewers may watch Bruce Lee’s filmic fights with his opponents and find them thrilling, tense, exciting, brilliant, even tragic, other viewers may find them boring, turgid, unintelligible, or even comical, and so on. Elsewhere in his acting, where some may perceive ‘cool’ others may see ‘wooden’; where some may perceive genius others may see idiocy.

Nonetheless, despite the range of meanings that could be attached to any aspect of Bruce Lee, it is certain that he had a massive impact. Although many in the Western world had seen ‘Asian martial arts’ on TV and cinema screens more and more since the 1950s (most famously perhaps in the TV series The Avengers and the James Bond film, Dr No), the effect of Bruce Lee on many viewers was instant and transformative. More than one documentary about the impact of Bruce Lee contains newsreel footage showing children and young teenagers leaving cinemas and movie theatres in the UK and US and performing the cat-calls, poses and attempting to do the flashy moves and kicks of Bruce Lee (BBC4 2013). In fact this scenario has come to constitute something of a ‘creation scenario’ in stories about the birth of what has long since been referred to as the ‘kung fu craze’ that swept through the US, Europe and much of the rest of the world, starting in 1973 (Brown 1997).

This was the year of the box office release of Enter the Dragon – a film that is notable because it was the first Hollywood and Hong Kong co-production, the first Hollywood film explicitly framed as a ‘martial arts’ film, and perhaps the first ‘formal’ introduction of many Westerners to the imagined world of Asian martial arts (Bowman 2010). It is also the year that Bruce Lee died in obscure circumstances. In many countries news of Bruce Lee’s death came out shortly before the film was actually released (Hunt 2003). All of which immediately made both the film and the man extremely intriguing. It is true that this was not the first martial arts film that had been available to audiences in the West. Several Hong Kong martial arts films had been successful in the US before. Indeed, it was their increasing success that had given Hollywood producers the confidence that this venture could be successful in the first place. But Enter the Dragon is without a doubt the most important martial arts film of the period, precisely because of its mainstreaming of Asian martial arts.

There are perhaps no rigorously scientific ways of establishing ‘importance’, ‘effect’ or ‘influence’ in the realms of media and culture (Hall 1992), but it can be said (with the benefit of hindsight) that from the moment of the release of Enter the Dragon it was absolutely clear that Bruce Lee was not merely influential but actually epochal. The historian, philosopher and cultural critic Michel Foucault came up with the notion of a ‘founder of discursivity’ (Foucault 1991). For Foucault, a founder of discursivity is something or someone that generates a whole new discourse, or that radically transforms an ongoing discourse. Although not discussed by Michel Foucault, my contention is that Bruce Lee should definitely be accorded the status of founder of discursivity.

Robert Downey Jr. sporting a Bruce Lee T-shirt. Source: Business Insider.

The meaning of the term ‘discourse’ in this sense is quite precise. In the tradition of Foucault, a discourse is also but not only a conversation. Discourses in this sense also involve actions. For example, the discourse of architecture is not the conversations and arguments of architects, town planners, residents’ associations, lawyers, and so on. The discourse of architecture also refers to the processes, practices and results of these conversations and arguments: what buildings look like, how they are made, the changes in their styles and configurations, and so on. In Foucault’s sense, there are discourses in and of all things: law, religion, science, fashion, music, taste, you name it. So, a founder of discursivity may be identified in a person (for example, Elvis or Jimi Hendrix), or in a technological change (the electrification of music). The point is, we are dealing with an intervention that disrupts and transforms states of affairs. Bruce Lee was precisely such a disruption and transformation.

Let us return to the mythic scene of our origin story: the excited or excitable young viewers of a new Bruce Lee film, who have just left the cinema. They are not merely discussing the films. They make cat-calls. They try to throw kicks and punches in ways that two hours previously were completely unknown to them but to which they have just very recently been introduced and instantly become accustomed. What is there to say about this scene or situation?

Bruce Lee made only four and a half martial arts films before he died. He only used his signature screams and cat-calls for dramatic cinematic effect within those films. There is no evidence that he made his signature noises off-screen. Moreover, few cinematic or actual martial artists ever really followed Bruce Lee in using these kinds of noises in fight scenes, never mind in sparring or in competition. If and when such mimicry occurs, it is always in some sense what Judith Butler would call a ‘parodic performance’. And yet, to this day, when children in the playground strike improvised/invented ‘kung fu’ poses and throw what they think might be cool kung fu shapes, they still very often make the Bruce Lee cat-calls, screams and kiais – in performances that are in one sense parodic but in another sense completely sincere.

Evidence for this claim is anecdotal, of course. But I often observed it personally at my own children’s primary school, four decades after Bruce Lee’s death. At the same time, people from both my own and other countries have recounted the same observation to me. Of course, there may be various kinds of confirmation bias at play here. I may actually only be remembering a highly select few instances, and blowing them up, out of all proportion, while forgetting or ignoring cases where children’s martial arts play is not accompanied by Bruce Lee sounds. Similarly, my interlocutors may be telling me what they think I want to hear. But, unlike trying to establish ‘influence’ and ‘effect’ directly, perhaps a research project could be constructed that could explore what children ‘do’ when they strike ‘martial artsy’ poses. And my hypothesis would remain that they very often make noises that can directly and unequivocally be traced back to no one other than Bruce Lee. The fact that few such children are likely to have any conscious knowledge or awareness of Bruce Lee makes this even more interesting. But, in such a situation, are we still dealing with a cult? And what is the relation of any such conscious or unconscious cult with ‘cult film’?

Bruce Lee’s films constituted an intervention, definitely. A transformation, certainly. In the realms of film, Bruce Lee’s fight choreography changed things, raised the bar, set new ideals in film fight staging. But this remains in the realm of what we might call ‘film discourse’ or ‘film intertextuality’, relating as it does to the ‘internal conversations’ and changing practices and conventions within, across and among films. But we are not yet really dealing with the effects of these films on actual people – or at least actual people other than film fight choreographers.

To turn our attention to ‘real people’, we might refer back to our creation scenario one more time, and ask what happened to all of those impressionable and impressed boys and girls who left the cinema with a newly inculcated desire for this new ‘ancient’ thing called kung fu. As a range of commentators and historians have remarked, the scarcity and rarity of Chinese martial arts schools in Europe and the US forced people who desired to learn kung fu ‘like Bruce Lee’ to take up the much more readily available arts of judo and karate. There were comparatively more judo and karate clubs in Europe and the US than kung fu clubs. This disparity has geopolitical and historical causes that are too complex to cover adequately here. Suffice it to say that kung fu clubs gradually emerged in response to the demand. But the first big explosion in participation in Asian martial arts in the wake of the ‘kung fu craze’ was an uptake of judo, karate, and taekwondo, not kung fu. The films that inspired the interest came from Hong Kong, but the Asian martial arts on offer in the West came from Korea and Japan, generally via some connection to the military.

Over time, more was learned about Bruce Lee’s art. He had trained in wing chun kung fu as a teenager in Hong Kong. Wing chun is a close range fighting art with short punches, locks, grapples, and a preference for low kicks. When he moved to the USA at the age of 18, he was definitely a competent martial artist, and apparently blessed with incredible speed and grace of movement. His speed reputedly impressed even very senior and well established Chinese martial artists. Famously, however, his iconoclasm didn’t (Russo 2016).

Stories about and studies of Bruce Lee’s iconoclasm, irreverence and various fights and tussles abound. Rather than recounting them here, the point to be emphasised in this context is that when Bruce Lee gradually began to enter into the TV and movie business, first as a trainer, then choreographer, and supporting actor, he clearly knew that what mattered most on screen was drama. Hence, his screen fights always involved high kicks, jumps, and big movements. Everything was exaggerated and amplified (although those closest to him have claimed that he really struggled to move slow enough to enable the camera to capture his techniques).

Because of the complexity of this chiasmus, Bruce Lee can be said to have always sent his ‘followers’ moving in one of two or more directions. First, his Chinese kung fu sent people flocking into Japanese and Korean style dojos and dojangs. Second, Bruce Lee publicly disavowed formal stylistic training – first claiming to have abandoned wing chun, then naming his approach ‘jeet kune do’, then coming to regret giving it a name at all (Inosanto 1994; Tom 2005). Nonetheless, fans flocked to find wing chun classes. Others sought jeet kune do classes. Others took his message of ‘liberate yourself from styles’ or ‘escape from the classical mess’ to mean that one should reject any and all formal or systematic teaching and work out how to ‘honestly express yourself’, as Lee was fond of saying (Lee 1971).

Furthermore, within the jeet kune do community itself, a sharp divide appeared immediately after Lee’s death. Some of his students felt that they should continue to practice and teach exactly what Bruce Lee had practiced and taught with them. Others felt that the spirit of his jeet kune do was one of innovation, experimentation and constant transformation, and that what needed to be done, therefore, was to continue to innovate and experiment in line with certain principles or concepts. Hence a rift emerged among Lee’s closest friends and longest students. It continues to this day.

As such, all different kinds of people with all different kinds of orientation believed and continue to believe that they are ‘following’ Bruce Lee, that they love him and honour him and respect him. Yet they are all doing very different things and adhering to very different images and ideas. For all of them, Bruce Lee was ‘The Man’. I use this term because I have heard these words – and words like them – in many countries and contexts, from many different kinds of people, the world over.

The most memorable occasion was in Hong Kong, after a kung fu class. The style we were practicing was choy lee fut kung fu. This is very different to the wing chun kung fu that Bruce Lee studied as a teenager in Hong Kong, and a world away from the jeet kune do style that he devised as an adult in the USA. In fact, choy lee fut is often positioned as wing chun’s nemesis. It is certainly the style that is mentioned most frequently in the various versions of mythical stories of the young Bruce Lee in Hong Kong. In these stories we are told that wing chun students and choy lee fut students would often have formal style-versus-style duels on the city’s rooftops. Sometimes in these stories Bruce Lee is depicted as the scourge of all rivals. In other versions, an innocent young Bruce Lee is depicted as starting his first rooftop fight and immediately recoiling in pain and shock, before being told to get back into the fray, doing so, and emerging victorious.

In all of the Hong Kong based wing chun kung fu stories about Bruce Lee, choy lee fut kung fu comes off badly. Perhaps this is the reason for the frequent animosity that exists between wing chun and other styles of kung fu in Hong Kong. I certainly witnessed some of this during a visit there in 2010. The sense among practitioners of other styles of kung fu seemed to be that wing chun kung fu only became famous because of Bruce Lee’s fame. In this sense, the global success of wing chun itself could be regarded as a kind of cult formation that is indebted to Bruce Lee (Bowman 2010; Judkins and Nielson 2015). Certainly, I was also told in Hong Kong that among the ‘traditional’ Chinese martial arts community of Hong Kong, wing chun was regarded as simply too new and too local to deserve the global fame it had achieved in the wake of Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee’s first apearance (of many) on the cover of Black Belt Magazine. October, 1967.

Knowing this is doubtless what made my choy lee fut colleague’s declaration that ‘Bruce Lee was the man’ so significant for me. On the one hand, Bruce Lee popularised a rival style of kung fu, and stories about his martial arts encounters often involved the disparagement of other styles (specifically choy lee fut). But on the other hand, for all who had eyes to see, Bruce Lee was unequivocally brilliant – amazing to watch, astonishing, inspiring, graceful, powerful, elegant. So, even practitioners of ‘rival’ styles, even traditionalists who may disparage either or both wing chun and jeet kune do, could easily concede Bruce Lee’s brilliance and their admiration for him.

Of course, some may say that none of the examples of influence and importance that I have so far given really fall into the category of ‘cult’ as it is normally used, either conversationally, colloquially or as technically conceived within film studies. Neither children parroting and copying moves after a cinema visit, nor an expansion of martial arts classes as part of an international boom, nor the elevation of a once obscure southern style martial art constitute evidence of a ‘cult’ – certainly not one organised by devotion to a personality or a celebrity. Nonetheless, my claim is that all such examples are ripples that attest to a significant and generative intervention.

For, in the end, Bruce Lee most often functions as a kind of muse (Morris 2001). People have been inspired by Bruce Lee in myriad ways: musicians, athletes, artists, thinkers, performers, dancers, and others, have all referenced Bruce Lee as an inspiration. In the realms of martial arts practice and film fight choreography, Bruce Lee arguably dropped a bomb, the effects of which are still being felt. But, being forever absent, forever image, forever a few frozen quotations, what we see are a diverse plurality of practices of citation.

The different ways in which bits and pieces of ‘Bruce Lee’ are picked up and used (and abused) attest to the nature of his intervention. Before Bruce Lee, one could dream of being any number of things – footballer, athlete, rock star, and so on. After Bruce Lee, one more gleaming new option was definitively out of the box, on the table, in the air, everywhere: martial artist. This is why the impact and importance of Bruce Lee has always exceeded the world of film, and seeped into so many aspects of so many lives. This is another way in which Bruce Lee can be said to be like water.

Bruce Lee statue in Hong Kong. Source: Wikimedia.

Works Cited

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[i] I have been told this numerous times by editors of martial arts magazines and bloggers, both UK, US, and transnational/online.

[ii] I discuss the ways in which the term ‘Bruce Lee’ organises a complex field of images, ideas, citations and allusions in Beyond Bruce Lee (Bowman 2013).