Ep 1: Daniel Mroz on defining Chinese martial arts.

What is the relationship between Chinese martial arts and Chinese theatre, religion, mime, serious leisure activities, fighting and military tactics? How do all these factors intermingle and produce the arts we have today? In this wide-ranging discussion between Graham Barlow of The Tai Chi Notebook and Daniel Mroz, Professor of Theatre at the University of Ottawa we tackle all these subjects and more. As well as being a professor of theatre, Daniel is also a Choy Li Fut and Tai Chi Chuan practitioner, and has lectured at the Martial Arts Studies conference.  He writes books and contributes articles to various journals including the Martial Arts Studies journal. 

Podcast Notes and links

1) Daniel Mroz quote in full:

By ‘Chinese martial arts’, I refer to folkways that began to assume their present forms from the mid 19th to the early 20th centuries, at the end of the Imperial, and the beginning of the Republican periods of Chinese history. These arts train credible fighting abilities through exacting physical conditioning; through partnered, combative drills and games; and through the practice of prearranged movement patterns called tàolù  套路 (Mroz, 2017 & 2020). For millennia, up end of the Imperial period in 1912, China explicitly understood itself as a religious state (Lagerwey 2010). Communities across China not only used their martial arts to defend themselves, they performed them as theatrical acts of religious self-consecration, communal blessing, and entertainment in an annual calendar of sacred festivals (Ward, 1978; Sutton, 2003; Boretz, 2010; Amos, 2021). Modernization, and secularization at the end of the Imperial period removed the original context of these practices. The Chinese martial arts were transformed over the course of the 20th century by both their worldwide spread, and by their ideological appropriation by the Chinese Republic of 1912, and the Communist state that succeeded it in 1949 (Morris, 2004). Their religious heritage forgotten in many social, and cultural contexts within greater China, and internationally, the arts we practice today combine a legacy of pragmatic combat skill, religious enaction, participatory recreation, competitive athleticism, and performed entertainment.

2) THE STRENUOUS LIFE PODCAST WITH STEPHAN KESTING

334 - Ten Guru Warning Signs with Dr Dr Chris Kavanagh

https://kesting.libsyn.com/334-ten-guru-warning-signs-with-dr-dr-chris-kavanagh

3) Peter Johnsson

http://www.peterjohnsson.com/higher-understanding-and-deeper-reckoning/

Peter Johnsson - long video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6N3x_4gOtw&list=PLvIylNOaOkiZxaCtKkEVlVP3gQGXHpgSG

Peter Johnsson - short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiSoLMx3v0I

4) Cung Le Sao Choy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRQkV0DWjlE

5) Daniel Mroz

Tàolù – The Mastery of Space: https://mas.cardiffuniversitypress.org/articles/abstract/10.18573/mas.111/

Academic page: https://dmroz.academia.edu

6) China: A Religious State, John Lagerwey

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Music by lesfm from Pixabay