North Star Martial Arts
In depth discussions of internal martial arts, theatricality, and Daoist ritual emptiness. Original martial arts ideas and Daoist education with a sense of humor and intelligence.
Books: TAI CHI, BAGUAZHANG AND THE GOLDEN ELIXIR, Internal Martial Arts Before the Boxer Uprising. By Scott Park Phillips. Paper ($30.00), Digital ($9.99)
Possible Origins, A Cultural History of Chinese Martial Arts, Theater and Religion, (2016) By Scott Park Phillips. Paper ($18.95), Digital ($9.99)
Watch Video: A Cultural History of Tai Chi
New Eastover Workshop, in Eastern Massachusetts, Italy, and France are in the works.
Daodejing Online - Learn Daoist Meditation through studying Daoism’s most sacred text Laozi’s Daodejing. You can join from anywhere in the world, $50. Email me if you are interesting in joining!
A few short paragraphs on the etymology the "martial arts." Excellent work.
Long time readers of this blog know that I've gone from ranting-and-raging to equanimity on the subject of Yoga overstreching and hypermobility. Finally the subject is getting some serious attention:
Read MoreI love practicing martial arts in the snow. There has been a lot of snow lately so I haven't had time to blog.
But here are some things I've dug up.
First off is a very straight story about Buddhist nun's practicing Kungfu. It seems so normal. That is what I like about the story. Kungfu Nuns!
Read MoreI've been watching the new AMC show Into the Badlands. I came across this article explaining how choreographer Dee Dee Ku works. He gave all the actors a crash course in martial arts, six hours a day for six weeks. During that period he had everyone doing wire-work and acrobatics too. He then started to choreograph for each actor based on their strengths and talents.
The article explains that it would be a disaster if the show was just martial arts with bad acting, and equally bad if it was just good acting with terrible martial arts. I wonder if it is occurring to anyone else that if you want to be in the movies these days, both acting and martial arts are a requirement.
Read MoreTeaching Circus Daoyin
We did three hours of intense animal Daoyin. It was good. People got so tired they naturally returned to stillness. Which is the point ofDaoyin, to discover and feel the spontaneous pull between movement and stillness. In that pull our form becomes pliable because it is freed from our story. And our story is freed from the limitation of our form. The movement is designed to push both sorts of boundaries. This type of class is a very positive experience for most people. It fully integrates strength, flexibility, body re-orientation, and locomotion.
Read MoreHere is a sample of the kind of secret Italian martial-dance that is slowly becoming available. This change in perceptions about the martial origins of dance, is a parallel-opposite of the transition happening in North Asian martial arts which are taking back their theatrical and religions roots.
Read MoreHere is the latest promo for my upcoming San Francisco Bay Area workshops Circus Daoyin and Dance as Self-Defense:
Check it out my new and improved descriptions! http://eepurl.com/bGNJKD
Because we are social animals, we tend to mistake the social activity of fighting with the self-defense mode of embodying our inner predator.
Read MorePlease come to my workshops in San Francisco/Oakland [Nov. 29th and Dec. 2nd] Read about them and sign up at the Soja website: sojamindbody.com/schedule/ (make sure to click on "Adult Workshops"). You can also see Anna Valdiserri's and Rory Miller's workshops there, I highly recommend them.
I would like to spend a little time pitching my workshops here. The copy text is challenging to write because I'm in uncharted territory. I'm a cowbody doing my own thing.
The Circus Daoyin class is my attempt to bust yoga people out of the "prison" of the yoga mat.
Read MoreThis wonderful publication is now out. It is free, and I have a review it. Check it out! Download it. Share it. A new field of study has come into existence.
The whole thing: The Journal of Martial Arts Studies
The Individual Articles
The martial arts connection to medicine is very weak unless we dive into specific religious notions of medicine and health. That view has long made me a polarizing teacher, some people love me, some hate me. As my regular readers are aware, connections between theater, religion and martial arts were severed at the beginning of the 20th Century. Because of this, few people can actually see the religious connections between medicine and martial arts. What we got, almost by a historical fluke, was the valorization of the martial arts school connected to the herbalist and the bone-setter. This connection is certainly real. The connections between ways of training the body and massage techniques (bodywork, tuina, etc) are strong in practice. That is why the Daoyin for bodyworkers program has been successful. But for this connection to be meaningful, the language has to be correct. Otherwise it just becomes laying theory on top of practice; an unnecessary burden.
Read MoreMonday is my day to post a blog. I failed to post on time this week because I was trying to come to terms with copyright law, use permissions, and the failed concept of public domain works of art. (I'm happy to report I'm that far along with both my high quality video productions and my book.)
Most of my readers are decent and upright citizens, and may not be aware of terms like copyright nazis. Consider this. If one were to re-record a recording of a piece of music by, for example, by putting a microphone in front of a speaker, most people would not consider this a new piece of art. It certainly wouldn't be copyrightable. But, in fact, if one takes a purely technical photograph of a photograph, that is considered a new work of art. Even if a photograph is very old, and is clearly now in the public domain, a person or a corporation, or a museum can take a new picture of it and restart the copyright. These works can be owned too, creating some incomprehensible process by which I, or you, can be required to pay for permission to use them. You need to be a lawyer to understand it.
Read MoreA place to train and learn about traditional Chinese martial arts, which are a form of religious theater combined with martial skills.
