Rejoining the Tao (retired)

Have you seen this chart, or have you heard about the topic it describes? (Scroll to the very bottom of the post for TL;DR if you like!) From "On Combat", as rendered by Amazon.com. Not for commercial use. In brief, as I have heard it taught and as this chart explains, the higher your heart rate, the worse your physical performance. This idea has implications for anyone in a physical confrontation, where an increased heart rate seems to mean an inability to perform self defense actions. When I first encountered this concept, it did not make sense to me. In my teens I was a high school cross country and track runner, and I frequently elevated my heart rate over 200 bpm. I did not encounter these symptoms. In my twenties and thirties I played men's league ice hockey and managed to perform complex motor skills such as skating, puck handling, and shooting, all while my heart was racing.  Now, encountering this chart and its ideas as a martial artist, I'm ...

I'm reading Kendo: Culture of the Sword by Alexander C. Bennett. I started reading it to better understand the history of Kendo, which I've mentioned a bit here. As you might imagine, Kendo started as a battlefield practice. It was one manifestation of the combat art employed by sword-wielding Japanese warriors. Over time, as the leaders of Japan sought to reduce bloodshed, sword combat became less common. Swords were used in warfare, but as Japan became more peaceful, the numbers of "sword battle veterans" diminished. Various parties sough to continue to infuse the spirit of sword fighting in certain elements of the citizenry, leading to the development of Kendo and its sport elements. I'm currently reading the part of the book that deals with the re-militarization of Kendo, due to the wars Japan fought in the first half of the twentieth century. This is a fascinating phenomenon which I have not encountered (yet) with other martial arts. Following World W...

Martial artists, especially those in Asian systems, are likely to hear about Sun Tzu and his so-called "Art of War" manuscript. Beginning with the 1989 movie Wall Street , it's been fashionable for leaders of all types to quote the general and his most famous book. What do scholars of Chinese history have to say about it? I learned several answers to this question last year at the first Sun Tzu conference , organized by Thomas Huynh. I enjoyed the event, but in this post I want to share my notes from the talk by Peter Lorge . Dr Lorge is the author of the incomparable Chinese Martial Arts history text, probably the best academic book ever written on the subject. (See Ben Judkins' review .) Peter made many statements about Sun Tzu and his text which did not sit well with the audience, so they make for interesting reading here! First, Peter does not believe Sun Tzu existed as a discrete individual. He doesn't believe Lao Tzu, author of the Tao Te Ching, exi...