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!
Warning: This post is a bit gruesome.
The emphasis on "applications" in martial arts training has long seemed contrived to me. When you are training more than five hours a day, every day, as I did in my early twenties, you quickly learn that techniques are as common as blades of grass and not very important to the overall skill set. But also that some techniques are simpler and more important than others.
Read MoreI just want to get this idea in print, maybe get some feedback on it.
I have been saying for less than a year that perhaps translating Neijia as "internal school" is limiting. Perhaps it should be translated "inward school." That would make Waijia the "outward school." Why? because I think once we truly discard the idea of cultivating power, or storing up power, the idea of using outward moving force seems unnecessary. Outward moving force, by definition, breaks whole body unity. Basically I'm talking about the habit of pushing. By pushing I mean specifically having a hand on the opponent and a foot on the ground and using force to increase the distance between the foot and the hand.
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Teaching huajin (continuous changing power) in Israel.
Facebook and Twitter are better mediums for posting news articles. But occasionally I have a few articles that go together and could benefit from a little commentary.
The most interesting is this one on Lao She, a fiction writer from the 1920s-30s. I came across it because I was looking for his writings on martial arts in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion. Like so many Chinese intellectuals and performers he was tortured to death. Just a note for careful readers, anytime they say he was tortured and then committed suicide, that is just a creepy attempt to make "the event" sound tragic instead of the perpetrators sounding evil.
Here is a review of Ian Johnson's book about religious renewal in China. It includes a history of Christianity in China and a lot of first-person accounts of what it is like to be religious in China.
And then there is this weird one. Actually it is weird because it isn't weird. A Lesbian Daoist's Daughter makes a Film. As Laozi asks, "How long has it been since normal seemed normal."
The gongs and the wind instruments all vibrate. A particular property of high pitched vibrations is that they can be aimed around a space, they move and bounce especially if the musicians are moving them intentionally. That is a huge part of Daoist music, and a property which I never noticed listening to recordings. The first part of the concert was a procession that twisted around campus and the second part was in a room that held about 100 people. This music is spatial, it interacts with the space. It also has some strange properties live that I never noticed in recordings. The faster pieces kept putting me in a hypnotic state, I kept falling asleep. At the same time they were frenetic. The rhythms are not dance music as far as I know, but if you were to try and move to this music you would be shaking, jumping and flailing, it is a bit like punk rock. It reminded me of
Read MoreA review of my book and images of Boxer Rebel flags from Paris!
Read MoreAs I pick myself up and head to Paris for the 11th International Daoist Studies Conference, definitions of religion are even harder to get at. We have this net called Daoism which stretches or shrinks depending on who is using it, it even splits sometimes. Especially problematic is trying to place Daoism inside of, or outside of, culture. Often posed as—is it still Daoism when it moves to a new culture? Many would say it can’t move, because it is too complex, deeply intertwined, and embedded to make the jump.
Read MoreBen Judkins over at Kungfu Tea-Martial Arts Studies Blog asked me to do a more complete examination of the YMCA Consensus which separated theater, martial skills, and religion. So I put together an extended essay with citations and references, and Ben added a few awesome photos from his collection. It looks really good. I hope this will inspire some conversations which are valuable to the (soon to be fully unified?) fields of theater, martial arts, and religious studies.
Check it out!
Professor Lee Fong-mao is one of the greatest living experts on Daoism. He is speaking in Boulder, Colorado tomorrow. This is going to be so awesome!
CAS Speaker Series
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
5:00 p.m., HUMN 1B50
Prof. Lee Fong-mao, a founding figure in the study of Daoism in Taiwan, will present a public lecture on his research into the development of China's indigenous organized religion. Prof. Fong-mao is Professor Emeritus at National Chengchi University and former Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Prof. Liu Yuan-ju, Research Fellow at Academia Sinica, will assist as translator for the talk.
(Sorry for the late notice, I just found out myself.)
This is some great old 35mm film. Notice at the beginning that a few of the basket holders are carrying baskets solo on a stick, as I suggested the name Single Whip implies in my "Cracking the Code Tai Chi" Video linked above.
The capacity to improvise is up at the top of the skills I advocate developing. If you read Keith Johnstone's book Impro, Improvisation for the Theater, you will notice that he is acutely aware of the process of conditioning. That is because improvisation is in the category of things that happen too fast for analysis. If you are making choices you are not improvising. If you are consulting a voice in your head you are actually experiencing a type of "freeze," your pre-frontal cortex is suppressing action. Improvisors leap before they look.
Read MoreA place to train and learn about traditional Chinese martial arts, which are a form of religious theater combined with martial skills.
