Couple weeks ago, I had the chance to travel to Toronto for a few days and as I was preparing my trip, I thought I could squeeze in some training while in the city. I have been aware of the Big Spear (Da Qiang) training for a few years now after attending a competition in […]
By W. Acevedo In a previous post we presented a general overview of the introduction of different Asian martial arts to Latin America and the state of martial studies which has continue to evolve as new contributions towards our understanding of these and other fighting practices e.g. machete fighting, have being published in these countries. […]
Credit for the above footage goes to my father in law Kong C. in Hong Kong. By William A. & Mei C. In previous posts we have given a quick introduction to the practice of Chinese martial arts in the military during the republican period and the Sino Japanese War. English literature dealing with martial […]
Security forces training While the books used in our survey already discussed in part I were aimed to civilians a few had either the police or the army as target audience. One of the first comprehensive curriculums created in the early XXth Century was Ma Liang’s Zhonghua Xing Wushu (New Martial Arts of China) published […]
By William A., Mei C. special thanks to Dennis Rovere for his valuable insights and corrections Martial arts in general and Chinese martial arts in particular have been characterized by an aura of mystery on what a devoted practitioner can achieve after mastering a traditional style. Many of these misconceptions stemmed from novels, movies and […]
By William A. & Mei C. During the early XXth Century a recurring theme in the different introductions and articles written during this period refers to strengthening the nation through physical culture This thesis is explained by Mao Zedong (1893-1976), who became the leader of the Communist Party, in the article A Study on Physical […]
By William A. & Mei C. The Big Knife (Da Dao) is an iconic weapon that even today regularly appears in popular culture outlets such as TV drama series, movies, books, mail stamps, monuments, toys and even graphic novels available for the general public in China. It serves as a stark reminder of national resistance […]
Note: Abridged and modified version originally published in 2010 Bruce Lee is the father of Mixed Martial Arts (Webb, 2009) Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is an eclectic combat sport combining striking and grappling techniques extracted mainly from muay Thai, Brazilian jiu jitsu (BJJ), western wrestling and boxing, which through the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) banner, […]
By William A. & Mei C. During the Republican period (1912 to 1949) the proponents of the National Essence Movement sought not only to promote native martial practices but also its technical and theoretical study by applying modern western methodologies. Chinese martial arts have been described in different ways over the centuries, however it would […]
By William A. In 2007 we had the honour to interview professor Ma Mingda one of the foremost authorities on traditional Chinese martial arts, whose family has a long history that extends to the early Qing dynasty. Since then professor Ma Mingda has retired from university teaching, even though he lectures on special occasions and […]
Zhongguo Wu Xue 