Sunday 23 August 2020

Globalisation and the 'Internal Alchemy' in Chinese Martial Arts: The Transmission of Taijiquan to Great Britain

 The title of this post is a Research article by Alexandra Ryan published in Easts (East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal. It is dated 2008.

An interesting read and but it doesn't mention John Kells (1940-2016) who established the British T'ai Chi Ch'uan Association in the late 1970s. This was London centric and never really took off in the way the title suggests although some of his students went on to teach and set up their own associations/groups in Bristol and Wales. John Kells taught numerous classes, 5 days a week and weekend sessions with hundreds of new students enrolling each year until the late 1980s.

Although he was my teacher I would say this is a startling omission when the article can reference Paul Crompton and Gerda Geddes and John Kells predates many later figures in the development of T'ai Chi Ch'uan in the UK. John Kells was an early pioneer in the teaching of T'ai Chi Ch'uan in the UK and should be recognised as such. 

The article is based on the author's PHD thesis so it may be that John Kells is included in that. I couldn't find an open access for it. It is entitled 'Our only uniform is the spirit' : embodiment, tradition and spirituality in British Taijiquan , Lancaster University, 2002.

The article can be read here:https://read.dukeupress.edu/easts/article/2/4/525/25984/Globalisation-and-the-Internal-Alchemy-In-Chinese?fbclid=IwAR13F9PGDsv0-d2sL455gS97Ddj9eM9KZXY4GkWMjnmwJwbcsgpUTubcI9Q




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