Cool Chinese Weapons and Instruments
/You can blow it up and look at the fine details at the source.
Internal martial arts, theatricality, Chinese religion, and The Golden Elixir.
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!
Darth Vader Breathing
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A single lineage can have both Jedi Knights and Sith Lords. A quick way to spot a Sith is the breathing. If you can hear the breathing on the exhale, it is a Sith technique. The internal schools have to be able to separate the breath from the movement or they can not achieve speed. The big confusion happens because Sith are seduced by power.
Read MoreShrimp Soldiers and Crab Generals
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"Shrimp Soldiers and Crab Generals" is one of the Chinese Four-Character Sayings which in this case means: Ineffective, or Numerous Underlings. Shrimp Soldiers and Crab Generals make appearances in numerous Chinese plays, like Journey to the East, which is about the Eight Immortals. But these creatures came to my attention because I have been studying Nezha, who fights shrimps and crabs in Fengshenyanyi (the Canonization of the Gods), which was one of the most popular plays for performance. It was also probably the most important source of the general public's knowledge about Daoism.
Read MoreHappy Lunar New Year 2018
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I should be telling you about the upcoming Earth Dog Year which starts on February 15th. But what is there to tell? Train your puppy carefully in the first few months, and it should be a smooth and uneventful year. Loyalty pays off big time in an Earth Dog Year. Make new friends and be bold in relying on old ones. Get plenty of exercise, and learn some new tricks. If you do not have a clear plan for the year already established, there is a danger of getting distracted. So discipline is a must--especially for artists and scientists. Balance more responsibility with more play.
Hunyuan in Toulouse
/Just wanted to give a shout out to my friends in the French speaking world. My dear friend and Professor of Chinese Anthropology Georges Favraud is working on a Chinese Studies Degree that focuses on the body. He is also giving classes locally that I recommend checking out if you are in the area.
Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole
/I just did my first awesome podcast with the guys from Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole.
I talk about my book, and the latest research I've been doing. The interviewers are into trance and possession from a cross-cultural point of view so we talked about that too. Enjoy!
Let me know if you think this is a good format for 'going deeper' in general.
Take Peterson’s Big Five Personality Test
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I just took the Big Five Personality Test on Jordan B. Peterson’s website and the first thing I learned is that my wife is a saint.
I guess I knew that I had some unusual dimensions to my personality, but I did not know I was extreme in 4 out of 5 categories.
What an interesting mirror to gaze into.
Read MoreFrom Our Endless Video Library
/This video shows the links to Lotus Hands from North Indian Classical Dance (Kathak), as well as liuhexinyi.
This next video shows the tight connection between history, Chinese opera, film, and martial arts. Wong Fei Hung was real person who is credited with ending opium addiction in South China, among other things, he became a mythic kungfu hero. Numerous films have been made about him. And to top it all off, his wife, his real wife, is doing kungfu in the video below, in an opera costume on a movie set. Hat Tip to Practical Hung Kyun
Reversing Shaolin
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Here is a superb scholarly description of jindan. It is a preview of an essay by the dearly departed queen of Daoist studies Isabelle Robinet (very thoughtfully translated by Fabrizio Pregadio).
As you can see, internal martial arts are simply the application of jindan to martial skills. I am using different language than Robinet to say the same thing. Basically, once you create the correct order of perception-action then you start reversing things.
Here is a list of some of the things we might think about reversing.
Read MoreFour Elements of Pure Internal Martial Arts
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Having studied for so many years with George Xu, he has had an influence on me. He is constantly come up with new lists defining Internal Martial Arts. These lists are sometimes things to practice, sometimes definitional concepts, sometimes just weird.
Anyway, at the moment I have a clear vision of what defines Internal Martial Arts so I am sharing it.
Read More