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Chinese Martial Arts in 19th century China

The following are English language accounts of Chinese martial arts practice in 1800s China.

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Kung Fu Tricks & Other Fakery

Breaking stones with heads or hands, tearing phone books, performing amazing feats of strength and the like go waaaaaay back. The earliest accounts of martial art tricks/stunts I recall go back to the days of the Roman gladiators...

Asides

• Failure is not an option, it's a fact of life. The challenge, of course, is how the inevitable is faced. J. D. Roth, of Get Rich Slowly, recently put together a piece called Failure is Okay, which examines how successful people move forward when things don't go as planned. It might seem odd to (more...) #
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• Weston, of facetious memory, having borrowed on note the sum of five pounds, and failing in payment, the gentlman who had lent the money took occasion to talk of it in a public coffee-house, which caused Weston to send him a challenge. Being in the field, the gentleman, a little tender in point of courage, offered him the note to make it up, to which our hero readily consented, and had the note delivered. "But now," said the gentleman, "if we should return without fighting, our companions will laugh at us; therefore let us give one another a slight scratch and say we wounded each other." "With all my heart," says Weston; "come, I'll wound you first." So drawing his sword, he whipped it through the fleshy part of his antagonist's arm, till he brought the very tears into his eyes. This done, and the wound tied up with a handkerchief, "Come," said the gentleman, "where shall I wound you?" Weston, putting himself in a posture of defence, replied, "Where you can, sir; where you can." The Field of Honor (1884) #
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