Martial History Team

  Just who are these gentlemen? Introduction This post documents my investigation of the men in the photo above. It is a version of the cover of a 2020 book by Marc Lawrence titled  The Scientific Study of the Shanghai Municipal Police Methods Manual . The cover presumes to show two famous proponents of combatives, namely Captains Fairbairn and Sykes, plus two men who were their instructors -- professors Okada and Tsai. The former specialed in jujutsu and the latter in Chinese boxing. This article offers a few details. The cover as shown at Amazon appears below. The Scientific Study of the Shanghai Municipal Police Methods Manual , Marc Lawrence, 2020 The problem with this photo is that half of the labels are demonstrably false . Fairbairn? First, the gentleman labelled William E. Fairbairn is actually Harold Peck.  The original photo can be found in the Historical Photographs of China collection as "Harold Peck with three men."  We can identify the man as Harold P...

   Did Miyamoto Musashi Say "There is more than one path to the top of the mountain."? Introduction I came across this quote in one of my martial arts Facebook groups. I am completing a survey of books by and about Miyamoto Musashi (1582-1645), and I did not recall reading this phrase. The sentiment also appeared to be completely opposite to what Musashi thought, as he is very direct and precise about how to live. I decided to research this quote. The Source The Martial Artist's Book of Five Rings, 1994 The source of this saying is easy enough to find. It appears in the book first published by Tuttle in 1994 as  The Martial Artist's Book of Five Rings , by Steve Kaufman. The subtitle says "The definitive interpretation of Miyamoto Musashi's classic book of strategy." Since 2004, Tuttle has sold it as  Musashi's Book of Five Rings . I already described why this book has nothing to do with what Miyamoto Musashi actually said. Please see my post  Did Mi...

  Where can one find reputable Bruce Lee quotes?  Introduction  It's common to find quotes by Bruce Lee throughout social media. A fair number of these quotes are just plain fakes. There's so many false "quotes" on the Internet that I (Richard) occasionally research them for a dedicated affiliated blog called Sourcing Bruce Lee .  If there are so many fakes around, how does one find reputable Bruce Lee quotes? This post will introduce several sets of resources, starting with Tuttle's Bruce Lee Library. These books, especially those in the Library, are the sources social media users will find as the most accurate and fruitful repositories of Bruce Lee material. The Bruce Lee Library: "Tier Zero" Sources Tier Zero Sources: The Bruce Lee Library, volumes 1-8 The Bruce Lee Library is a series of 8 books originally produced by Tuttle Publishing  between 1997 and 2000. They are mainly written by John Little. His LinkedIn page states that he was the literary e...

How do I (Richard) plan to spend my reading time for the rest of 2020 and the first half of 2021? Overview  My personal martial arts library consists of several collections: print books, digital books, digital papers and articles, and digital media (instructionals, videos, and the like). One of my goals for Martial History Team is to review this material and produce recommended reading (or watching) lists, at least for the topics for which I have coverage and which personally interest me. In doing so I hope to encourage others, whether part of MHT or not, to do the same, thereby making it easier for martial arts researchers and enthusiasts to recognize quality sources and avoid less reliable material. Thus far I have been reading in an ad-hoc manner, depending on whatever interests I might have at the moment. This weekend I decided to formalize my reading plan such that I could cover certain materials and topics within a defined period of time. Focus Areas My current focus is on pr...

Did Socrates really say "I swear it upon Zeus, an outstanding runner cannot be the equal of an average wrestler"? TL;DR: The image says it all. For the research, and what Socrates and others really said about wrestlers and runners, read on! Introduction Recently I debunked a quote falsely attributed to a Japanese thinker and warrior , so I thought it was time to do the same for a Greek thinker and warrior -- Socrates. First, some background. Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived from approximately 470 BC to 399 BC. He did not write anything on his own, or at least nothing he wrote survives to this day. Everything we know about him comes from his students and biographers. Chief among these are students Plato and Xenophon, and biographers Plutarch (46 AD to about 119 AD) and Diogenes Laërtius (third century AD) and Plutarch.  To see if Socrates said anything like the quote attributed above, I queried many sources online, and then I reviewed the following works. Each initia...

I am not a life coach! Introduction Aside from sourcing so-called "Bruce Lee quotes,"  I usually don't pay much attention to other sayings attributed to martial artists. I ran into this quote yesterday, however, and it triggered my radar: "There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself." The quote is attributed to Miyamoto Musashi, the famous Japanese swordsman who was the topic of the first official Martial History Team podcast episode . The question is, did he say anything like this? The Source The Martial Artist's Book of Five Rings, 1994 The source of this saying is easy enough to find. It appears in the book first published by Tuttle in 1994 as The Martial Artist's Book of Five Rings , by Steve Kaufman. The subtitle says "The definitive interpretation of Miyamoto Musashi's clas...