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...