A number of months ago, a good friend and fellow martial artist - Jonathan Bluestein passed me a draft of his magnum opus called "Research of Martial Arts" for review. This few months being quite a busy time, I asked him if I could postpone posting the review until after the book became available for purchase by the general public and kind enough to agree for me to do so.
Now that the book is finally available for purchase I no longer have any excuse not to put finger to keyboard. And I would very much encourage all who have an interest in martial arts to go out and obtain a copy of this work as it provides a succinct and lucid introduction to the current state of the science underlying the martial arts, attempting to provide answers for many of the questions that have been debated on the major martial arts forums in the past decade and a half (or longer). For novices and people new to the current debates in martial arts circles, it provides enough of a primer so that they can formulate their own views without being shouted down for raising the same issues and asking the old questions.
The book essentially approaches the whole endeavor of martial arts from the viewpoint of structure (which I believe really has been the major shift in framing thinking on marital arts in the last two decades) and how the whole martial arts project revolves around building a combat viable body structure to overcome an opponent. By doing this he anchors the discussion in a science based approach, avoiding much of the mysticism that permeates the usual discussions.
Obviously, across the range of styles, there is a whole range of approaches to training the body structure as Jonathan highlights in his book - from the "absence" of structure in a Krav Maga approach to the extreme emphasis on structure and the frame in Yiquan, to a point where combat techniques are seen as almost superfluous. He then weaves this into his take on the internal versus external approach to martial arts, which forms the first section of his book.
Obviously, across the range of styles, there is a whole range of approaches to training the body structure as Jonathan highlights in his book - from the "absence" of structure in a Krav Maga approach to the extreme emphasis on structure and the frame in Yiquan, to a point where combat techniques are seen as almost superfluous. He then weaves this into his take on the internal versus external approach to martial arts, which forms the first section of his book.
In terms of the external approach to training structure, he defines the main component of to be an emphasis on strong muscular development and toughening different parts of the body through specialized training. He uses the examples from Karate, BJJ, and Hung Kuen to illustrate his theory. However the book does not limit itself to these particular arts.
Within this broad approach he touches on many sub areas such as speed, endurance, stretching and warmups all within the context of the martial arts, weaving in his own experience as well as information culled from books and articles and martial arts such as boxing and Capoeira. However the interesting thing is how he always brings the argument back to a discussion on structure - and by extension physiology and the science behind it.
For internal arts he contrasts the development of body to the externalist approach by defining it as "holisitic", which means that it encompasses traditional Chinese medicine principles and health, with the development of the whole body and importance of understanding the underlying principles of movement over training individual techniques. Although the definition is a little fuzzy, he does go on to describe the internal arts in a way that this makes sense.
The book goes on to address a number of other important topics usually discussed when dealing internal arts such as how to issue power, the theory of Flow and the benefit of slow controlled movements. There is also an important chapter on the dantian, which I would encourage my readers to read, as it summarizes the latest western thinking on the subject. Other topics touched upon when dealing with the internal arts include investing in loss, the six harmonies, and an important chapter on tensegrity which summarized the latest thinking on the subject and its relation to peng jin in Taiji as well an introduction to the concept of fasciae (connective tissue in the body) which has recently become the hot topic in alternative medicine and research. There has been a tendency to overstate the role of fascia in the body, but Jonathan has managed to restrict discussions to what has some degree of support in the scientific community and not oversell the concept.
It is hard to do justice to the breadth of topics covered in this review but suffice to say there is something here for everyone and I welcomed the copious footnotes and references that he provided as a guide for further reading and research.
It has been very easy for many of the traditional treatises to stray into the area of Qi and to his credit, Jonathan has refrained from any detailed discussion of Qi, humbly acknowledging that it would require a much larger book and chapter to do it justice. Although there is an important discussion of the use of intention and the differences between Qigong and Zhan zhuang in the book.
It is hard to do justice to the breadth of topics covered in this review but suffice to say there is something here for everyone and I welcomed the copious footnotes and references that he provided as a guide for further reading and research.
It has been very easy for many of the traditional treatises to stray into the area of Qi and to his credit, Jonathan has refrained from any detailed discussion of Qi, humbly acknowledging that it would require a much larger book and chapter to do it justice. Although there is an important discussion of the use of intention and the differences between Qigong and Zhan zhuang in the book.
When I first read through his work, I faulted him for hewing to the old internal versus external paradigm and not proposing a new way to look at the science of martial arts but upon closer reading for this review, I have found that the analysis is more nuanced than I originally gave him credit for. He balances his theory by including a chapter on "combination approaches" and also spends some time addressing alternative theories such as what he terms as "martial utilitarianism" and "same, but different". As to the definition of these terms, I leave it to the readers of the book to look them up.
The quality of the writing is excellent and clear throughout, and to a large extent avoids jargon and where it does becomes quite technical, Jonathan attempts to define the terms clearly. Indeed for the first part of the book I find it difficult to fault his presentation, (kudos to his editing team) and any disagreements that I have are purely due to having a different take on his definitions and theories and a deep personal distaste for the use of simplified Chinese characters when discussing martial theory (but that is another post).
The second half of the book shifts in tone and is presented as a series of short essays or entries and is called - Contemplations on Controlled violence - these include his own thoughts, experiences and musings on martial arts and his own martial arts autobiography. There is some similarity here to the work of David Lowry. There are also a number of guest essays from luminaries such as Chen Zhonghua and my friend Robert Jay Arnold as well as number interviews of with several well known martial artists. I highly enjoyed reading this part of the book but the quality of the entries was rather uneven, so this is a section one can pick and choose from but it was still rewarding reading.
I rarely unhesitatingly recommend a work (and this is not just because Jonathan is a friend), but this one fills a demand for MA books that deal more with theories, science and principles than history or applications. It is one of the blessings of the era that we are living in that we have access to people who willing and able to help us synthesize all the information that is out there in books, articles and the internet in a well presented and easily digestible format - Five Stars!
Sifu Jonathan Bluestein(LLB) is an martial arts teacher and author hailing from Israel. He is the founder of the Tianjin Martial Arts Academy, where he teaches the traditional martial arts of Xingyi Quan and Piguazhang.
The book can be purchased here:
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