Ergonomics Update

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Ergonomics Update

I wrote a book and I'm working on the next two books now. This work involves a lot of reading. It also involves a lot of working on my laptop computer. How do I do all this and still have the greatest Kung Fu on earth? The answer is I practice all the time, even in my sleep. 

To help you get there, I'm recommending these two awesome products. One of them is new and unusual, the other is very common. 

This thing below is fantastic.

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New Book Review Category

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I added a new book review category called Chinese Religion in Practice--Defining the Subject. If you haven't bought books from my recommended reading list yet, you are missing out!  Read my entire list and you will be one of the top ten most informed Chinese martial arts history and culture experts in the world. I've decided to embrace my identity as the greatest salesman of all time. Also my book recommendations are awesome.

Modern Chinese Opera Shoe Review

/ North Star Martial Arts/
Modern Chinese Opera Shoe Review

I do product reviews a few times a year when I find something good. Martial artist's need good shoes.

I require shoes to have these two qualities:

  • Zero-drop. That means they are level, they don't have any raised heal. I don't want a heal messing with my balance or my structure.
  • Large Toe Box. Space for my toes to spread or curl. 
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Re-Evolution and the Action of Biting

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Re-Evolution and the Action of Biting

A subject I've been wanting to address is one of the universal problems humans have. The two biggest problems humans have are that we walk on two feet and we use our arms to carry things. These two problems lead to walking on "sticks" and "disconnecting" the arms from the liquid mass of the torso, respectively. The problem I want to address today is a smaller threat to human de-evolution, yet it is no less universal. 

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Seventy-Five Paintings from 1590

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Seventy-Five Paintings from 1590

Check out these amazing paintings from around 1590 in the Boxer Codex.  They are in the public domain so let's share them a lot. I've been studying this period and the commercial, smuggling, and pirate culture of the South China Sea for my forthcoming book on Tai Chi.  Douglas Wile in his book The Lost Tai Chi Classics, pointed to the literati (shi) influence of that era, but the merchant influence appears to be equally important. The combination of these two groups shaped the way theater, and thus martial arts, was produced and disseminated.  The 1590s saw an explosion in travel related books

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Guan Dao Hui

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Here is some amazing fieldwork by Steven Frost, who hopefully will be presenting the whole film at this year's International Daoist Studies Conference in Paris (May 17-19, 2017).  His website has a few articles and some images too.  http://stevenqfrost.net/main.html

A documentary film about the survival of religious traditions in a rural area of central Guizhou Province. Directed by Steven Frost.

Intimate Portrait Shanxi Daoist Family

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This intimate 80-minute portrait film explores the life of eighth-generation household Daoist Li Manshan (b.1946), leader of a group of ritual specialists in the poor countryside of Yanggao county in north Shanxi, China.

A film by Stephen Jones; edited by Michele Banal, with funding from the ANR Shifu project (Paris Nanterre). 
The film complements Stephen Jones' new book "Daoist priests of the Li family: ritual life in village China" (Three Pines, 2016).

Obviously they don't allow embedding, perhaps that is so that they can monitor comments. But you can click the link to watch it on Vimeo.  Very cool, neat music, can't wait to read the book and meet the author in Paris at the next Daoist Studies International Conference.