the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Bao wrote:I don't understand why his background should be a problem. Everyone has different backgrounds and different interests. He seems to have been around and met many people and had several different teachers. He has read a lot and follows discussions and forums (you can bet that he is lurking around here as well.) From what I've read in his blog, I don't believe that his knowledge is very deep. He writes as someone who is looking on things from the outside, not as one who has the experience himself. That could have an impact on his views and ideas, but I don't think it's a big problem. He has a lot of different ideas and thoughts and mostly present them without judging too much and without trying to teach everyone how things should be. What I can sense is that he sometimes makes up his own conclusions, sometimes generalising a bit too much and sometimes is too extreme with his ideas. But I would not blame him, as it's probably all about marketing and branding. If you want to make your voice heard you need to present something different and unique. If you want to sell books or a brand, that is what you need to do. If he manages to get the discussions going in a forum like this, then he has already done pretty well, far better than most of us here.
...Heck, no one ever shows interest in me.

ballet based on fencing postures

Contrary to popular belief, ballet did not begin at the court of King Louis XIV, nor did it begin in 17th-century France; it actually began 200 years earlier in 15th-century Italy, where it originated from the social dancing of the aristocratic society. It was the Italian Queen of France, Catherine de’ Medici who introduced ballet to the French court after she married King Henry II of France. Queen Catherine de’ Medici was a patron of the arts because she brought with her many traditions and entertainment cultures from her native Italy and it was from these traditions that the Ballet de cour (Court ballet) was developed, with what has been considered the very first ballet de cour – “Le Balet comique de la Royne” – premièring in 1581 during the reign of Catherine’s son, King Henry III. The ballet de cour was performed during the reigns of succeeding kings, including Henry IV and Louis XIII, usually at royal events like weddings and festivals, but it was during Louis XIV’s reign that the art form reached its climax and he founded the first official ballet school – the Academie Royale de Danse in 1660. Also, I haven’t read anything about fencing ever having an influence on ballet’s origins, which I think is very unlikely since ballet developed from Italian social dancing, not sport practised in the Royal French court. If it did have any influence, then I’m yet to find a source that confirms this.

Trick wrote:Has he a background as a dancer, maybe that’s why he want Taijiquan to be a dance/theatrical performance..if that is what he want to come to a conclusion with his book ??……I remember during the 90’s in my hometown in Sweden quite a few dancers took up taiji practice, something that probably has happened elsewhere too....nothing wrong with dance performances, but Taijiquan is not such

I'll let the academics argue about which came first, ballet or fencing, but they were both aristocratic pursuits and the aristocrats were obsessed with duelling, well before the Court of King Louis. Either way, the influence seems undeniable to me:

Bao wrote:There might be things that classical fencing and ballet have in common.