Scott Park Phillips's Blog, page 4
March 9, 2020
Is Learning a Martial Art like Learning a Language?
Last night my Ghanaian Dance group got an infusion of new dancers at the same time as two master drummers returned to the group. The new dancers were from Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Brazil. They are attending an interpreters educational immersion school here in Boulder. The group is spectacularly fun, energetic, positive, and deep.
It got me thinking, I am a kind of dance-movement interpreter. Learning a new culture’s movement system, whether we dub it dance or martial art, is like learning a...
March 2, 2020
Was Bruce Lee a Transcendentalist?
February 24, 2020
Elite Sports Punching Mitts
Check out these cool punching mitts, $23 at Elite Sports. Well made and comfortable. They are about the same hardness as one of those blue a yoga blocks. Great price too.
February 23, 2020
Akuzawa -- Aunkai
Hi Everybody. Quick post I enjoyed. Read the first part by Ellis Amdur, but the response by Rob John at the end is gold. This about Aunkai and its inventor Akuzawa. I wrote about my visit to his school in Japan in 2011. I think his approach is awesome. We are doing similar work.
Akuzawa -- Anukai
Hi Everybody. Quick post I enjoyed. Read the first part by Ellis Amdur, but the response by Rob John at the end is gold. This about Anukai and its inventor Akuzawa. I wrote about my visit to his school in Japan in 2011. I think his approach is awesome. We are doing similar work.
February 17, 2020
Chinese Martial Ritual Groups in the Mid-Twentieth Century
Chinese Martial Arts Ritual Groups in the Mid-Twentieth Century: an interview with Yupeng Jiao.
Yupeng Jiao is a Ph.D candidate in Modern Chinese History. His forthcoming dissertation is the subject of this interview. He researches Chinese religiosity, Christianity in China, Global Christianity and Chinese Modernism. He holds a B.A. in...
February 5, 2020
My Response to Ben Judkins’ Review of my Book
By Scott Park Phillips My friend Ben Judkins recently reviewed my new book Tai Chi, Baguazhang and The Golden Elixir, Internal Martial Arts Before the Boxer Uprising. Unfortunately, I believe he misunderstood it. The crux of his misunderstanding is with a theory I developed called the YMCA Consensus. I assemble the work of dozens of scholars to show that there was a consensus to separate martial skills from theatricality and religion. This consensus began taking shape immediately after the...
February 3, 2020
The Good at Forgetting Village
I saw this movie on Amazon Prime called “The Village of No Return,” in Chinese that’s 健忘村 Jiànwàng Cūn. It should have been translated more literally as “The Good at Forgetting Village.” I thought the movie was great. It is weird and crazy too. It is a dark comedy from Taiwan.
The plot is that a Daoist magician shows up in this small town with a device that can erase memories. The iconography of the device is from the epic play Canonization of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi). The device fits on...
January 29, 2020
More Evidence that Healing is Mysterious
This is a fun article about meat cleaver massage.
It doesn’t need commentary, but I would like to point out that Chinese martial arts lore is full of this stuff, and it makes for great theater!
January 27, 2020
Hiding from the News
Next time someone gets a bee in their bonnet about Chinese martial arts being all about real fighting, and not theatrical, make them watch this:
One of the hardest things for YMCA Consensus people, also known as pure-martial-artists, to accept is the comedic nature of Chinese martial arts. Yes, there has always been a snuff-out-your-enemy part of martial arts. And yes, there has always been a blood-sport-honor element. And also a deep spiritual transformative element, that’s what Kung Fu means...
