EC
And all you’d have to do is stand there…
Yuan,
That’s why such a discipline is needed. There is far too much incestuous nonsense in TCMA. Any academic discipline needs time to develop. I’d put Donn F Draegger amd maybe R.W.Smith amongst the pioneers of martial arts anthropology. However flawed it is better than the political desication and cultish nonsense that passes for truth in many TCMA circles.
If a martial art has good teachers and practitioners it is better(IMO) to go into that world,
leaving the dead ones to the chi chat of anthropologists and their under-developed discipline(s). They have no reliable method, a cacaphony of opinions, little quality control
and volumes of superficial publications that no
one pays attention to outside of their field
and often not by themselves. Draeger and Smith did good work for their times. They are hardly relevant to many arts that they did not know about. Even on taichi few good ones pay attention to Smith anymore. He has some good opinions and is on sounder ground when he draws on his early wrestling/judo background. His kung fu knowledge is mostly Taiwan based. Zilch from PRC and little from HK and none from wing chun.
That does not mean there isnt nonsense in discusiions of TCMA. Not an easy journey to separate the
chaff from the wheat.
You’ve every right to your opinion and to express it. After all, such ‘beliefs’ are part of anthropology/psychological research. Some of us within martial arts anthropology are also long-term time served martial artists at the very heart of TCMA. Despite my own position as a disciple and nominated co-successor to a Chinese Hakka Grandmaster, I (and he) have absolutely no difficulty in working towards the objective study of martial arts. Bigotry is a sad fact of TCMA in a large number of people (not all by any means).
Academic study as an oponnent of fundamentalist tendencies, is bound to draw a ceratin kind of flack from people with only a subjective stall to set out. ‘Book burners’ and there ilk are to be found everywhere. So be it, it’s a BIG martial arts world with room enough for all.
I am not a book burner. Just careful about reading good books. Very few on wing chun.Wong chun literature is
full of junk. Yip Man had the right idea- didnt write much-just did wing chun.