Spreading the Gospel of Kung Fu: Print Media and the Popularization of Wing Chun
pt. 2
The Earliest Western Works on the Traditional Chinese Martial Arts
The Chinese martial arts seem to have been subjected to uneven media coverage and discussion in the western world. For a few years after the Boxer Uprising (ca. 1900) nefarious martial artists and fanatical anti-western cultists seemed to dominate popular discussions of China. While those stereotypes never fully died away (indeed, they actually proceeded the rebellion by at least 50 years) certain things did seem to fade from the public consciousness. Popular publications from the 1940s and 1950s are full of references to Japanese Judo, yet there seems to be little remaining cultural memory in the west that there were ever martial artists in China at all.
Japanese Judo was widely recognized as a combat sport par excellence from WWII onward. It became increasingly popular with returning GIs and young people after 1945 both in North America and in Europe. In fact, if one reviews the magazine articles and ephemera on the martial arts that was available to the general public from the middle of the 1950s to the middle of the 1960s it is clear that Judo absolutely dominated the public consciousness of what the martial arts were and should be. It is little wonder that this was the first Asian sport to be adopted by the Olympic Games.
This position of dominance was not to last. I have always suspected that Judo may have been a victim of its own success. It generated so much enthusiasm and popularized the martial arts so effectively within certain circles that it left individuals asking very understandable questions. Is this all there is to the martial arts? What about other forms of Jujitus? How about serious sword training? What about Karate? And if so many of these arts publicly trace their roots back to China (something American martial artists in the 1960s were well aware of), why are there no Chinese martial arts teachers?
It is important to note that all of this is happening a decade or more prior to the explosion of interest in the Chinese martial arts that would be unleashed in 1973. Yet contemporary publications (particularly Black Belt Magazine in America) make it clear that by the 1960s there was a general enthusiasm for new and exotic martial arts. The growth of Karate and later Tae Kwon Do (often referred to as “Korean Karate” in the early publications) led this new movement. But the Chinese styles also became a fashionable subject, particularly when they could be tied to the various “striking arts” that seemed to represent a viable stylistic alternative to Judo.
Sophia Delza was one of the first early pioneers of the Chinese martial arts in the USA. A dance professor and Wu style Taiji Quan student who had studied in Communist occupied Shanghai, she actively attempted to popularize these methods of physical training through her ground breaking public demonstrations in the middle of the 1950s and with her 1961 book T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Mind and Body in Harmony, an ancient Chinese way of exercise to achieve health and tranquility. This volume was definitely the first English language publication on Taijiquan and it was probably the first book ever published on the Chinese martial arts in America.
Delza proved to be slightly ahead of her time. General interest in the TCMA among judo and karate practitioners began to noticeably increase in the middle of the 1960s. Initially this wave of interest was fed with magazine articles, and then Bruce Lee’s groundbreaking appearances in the “Green Hornet” and “Longstreet.” After that more specialized publications on the Chinese martial arts started to come out. Following the release of “Enter the Dragon” in 1973 the entire popular culture landscape changed for martial artists. Finding publishers willing to take on these exotic projects became much less of an issue.
-BENJUDKINS
*Photo:
Period photos of Delza leading a small Taiji Quan class at the UN. Popular Mechanics, October 1960.
