Tools of the Trade: The Use of Firearms and Traditional Weapons among the...
Introduction: The Evolving Relationship between Firearms and the Martial Arts. In a number of previous posts we have examined the complex, often hidden, relationship between the development of the...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (9): Swords, Knives and other Traditional Weapons...
Introduction: Practical Martial Arts in the Age of the Gun As I have mentioned elsewhere, when thinking about the traditional Chinese martial arts we have a tendency to assume that these systems were...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (8): Butterfly Swords, Dadaos and the Local Militias of...
Introduction: The Butterfly Swords and Southern Martial Arts Defend the Nation I recently ran across two photographs that I think students of the southern Chinese martial arts may find very...
View ArticleSong Ring Pommel Straight Dao and the Birth of Modern Chinese Martial Culture
Song Dynasty Soldier with Dao Shi Jin and Chinese Martial Arts It is axiomatic among martial arts studies scholars to assert that the fighting systems that people practice today are not the ancient...
View ArticleThe Woyao Dao and Regionalism in History and Martial Studies
LK Chen's Woyao Dao. Source: LKChensword.com Introduction A package containing two of LK Chen’s fine historical reproductions recently arrived at my door. So, of course, I find myself thinking about...
View ArticleA Life in Stone: Images of Weapons During the Han Dynasty
Silent Riddles Our discussion of the origins of modern martial arts is always haunted by twin specters. The first is the claim of great, almost unimageable, antiquity. The second is arguments from...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (67): Winter Training in Japanese Martial Arts
Group 1. Yonezawa Industrial School's Midwinter Training General Meeting. Winter Training In the "before times" some readers will remember that I ran a lightsaber combat club in Ithaca. To say that it...
View ArticleChinese Weapons and the Western Gaze
A Collection of Chinese Arms, Published in 1905, posted by Peter Dekker. Spring Cleaning I sat down this morning to work on a project looking at sword aficionados in China, their customers in the West,...
View ArticleSometimes a Cigar is Just a Lightsaber: Fetishism and Material Culture in...
“The lightsaber has become an important touchstone, both within the films and within our culture…They serve as a source of identification and identity. They are the ultimate commodity: a nonexistent...
View ArticleBringing the Hooked Buckler to Life: Two Views of the Gou-Rang
Mysteries In a post reviewing the portrayal of weaponry in Han Dynasty mortuary art I confessed that I really, really, want to assemble a recreation of the sorts of long, horizontal, weapons racks that...
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