JOMEC Journal Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies Dialogue: Conquest of Reality: Response to Paul Bowman’s ‘Instituting Reality in Martial Arts Practice’ Kyle Barrowman The University of Chicago Email: [email protected] A discussion in response to Paul Bowman's article ‘Instituting Reality in Martial Arts Practice' Abstract In this Dialogue, Kyle Barrowman responds to Paul Bowman’s article ‘Instituting Reality in Martial Arts Practice' and poses questions pertinent to future development of martial arts studies. Contributor Note Kyle Barrowman is a postgraduate student at The University of Chicago. He has previously published essays in Offscreen, The International Journal of Žižek Studies, and Senses of Cinema, on subjects ranging from Michael Mann and Alfred Hitchcock to Bruce Lee and Steven Seagal. cf.ac.uk/Jomec/Jomecjournal/5-june2014/Barrowman_Response.pdf Introduction not least so that he would be able to facilitate the conversation and elaborate, As excited and honored as I was to be clarify, and/or counter some of my able to contribute an essay to this Martial comments in ways that will hopefully Arts Studies issue of the JOMEC Journal, enrich the work currently being done in the greatest thrill for me regarding the this exciting new endeavor. whole experience was being able to establish a line of communication with Paul Bowman. From when I initially 1. The Problem of Institutionalization submitted my essay for this issue in December of 2012 to when the issue was Given the title of Paul Bowman’s essay, it published this past June, my e-mail seems only natural to begin by broaching correspondence with Dr. Bowman what he frames as the ‘problem’ of produced a number of interesting institutionalization in martial arts practice. conversations wherein we batted around In his essay, Bowman outlines this different ideas about the martial arts, the problem in the following manner: movies, and the academy, many of which helped to enrich my contribution and all If one really is concerned with of which helped to enrich my thinking on questions of violence and reality, Martial Arts Studies. then the decision to commit to one style of martial arts as opposed to Considering how generous and helpful Dr. any other involves a leap of faith … Bowman was with his criticisms, insights, [T]he hope is that the training will and encouragement regarding my own prove adequate in reality, if and essay, I felt only too fortunate to have the when required [while] the fear is opportunity to try to repay in some small that one is deluding oneself, or measure his generosity by offering a few being satisfied with simulations. The observations regarding his essay problem is that, in any eventuality, ‘Instituting Reality in Martial Arts Practice’. I all roads are leading to originally sent Dr. Bowman a rough institutionalization. This is because numbered list featuring some questions ways of training become styles and concerns in response to what I felt (institutions) – disciplines that were key moments in his argument. Some produce the [requisite] bodily of what I mentioned has already been propensities, reflexes and dealt with by him in the essay featured in dispositions.… [I]f we understand this issue and has therefore not been bodily training like this, the other included in the present response essay. side of ‘emancipation’ is always However, it was Dr. Bowman’s opinion that going to be ‘stultification’ (Rancière the issues I brought up that were not 1991). This means that … liberation taken up directly in his essay were worth or emancipation from style, on the placing in the wider conversation within one hand, and stultification by style, the growing field of Martial Arts Studies, on the other, seem to emerge 2 www.cf.ac.uk/JOMECjournal @JOMECjournal reciprocally and to be opposite who view the failure of Bruce Lee’s sides of the same coin. Put ‘evangelical’ ideas of emancipation and differently: even if it may be the liberation as something like the ‘fall’ into case that at some level the desire to institutionalization) as his way of ‘master reality’ is what prompts registering this unavoidable process of such activities as martial arts disciplining/institutionalizing (I hesitate to training in the first place, the end say the right way, even though I do believe result is always a kind of disciplining Bowman is correct). and hence institutionalization. (Bowman 2014: 5) This ‘problem’ also seems related to the ‘problem’ of repetition in martial arts This passage is characteristic of Bowman’s practice being both enabling and limiting scholarship in that there are myriad – something which, once registered as a provocative formulations here that could paradox, no longer seems like an actual easily support entire essays – from the problem inasmuch as it is at once notion of the ‘decision’ (significantly inevitable and necessary. My response to italicized in his text) to ‘commit’ (curiously this portion of Dr. Bowman’s essay not italicized in his text despite being an ultimately boils down to wondering what equally if not even more interesting word he wants his readers to take away from choice) to a single martial arts style to the his reorientations of institutionalization idea that ways of training become styles – and repetition: A) Are they problems that however the point on which I found myself we need to solve or B) Are they focusing was whether or not institution- inevitabilities that should not be viewed as alization should even be framed as a problems? problem in the first place. If martial arts practice helps a person to be better prepared for a physical confrontation, and 2. Pedagogical Aesthetics in Martial Arts if martial arts practice necessarily leads to Cinema institutionalization, then institutionalization helped that person to be better prepared Moving on from the practice of martial for that physical confrontation. Can arts to the mediatization of martial arts, institutionalization really be (that big of) a Bowman anchors his essay with a problem if it helps martial arts practice consideration of the Keysi Fighting Method achieve (one of) its function(s)? (KFM), which was put on the martial arts map thanks to Christopher Nolan’s Dark At some points in his argument, I feel like Knight Trilogy (Batman Begins [2005], The this is exactly the point that Bowman is Dark Knight [2008], The Dark Knight Rises making. The fact that there is a residue of [2012]). Given that I come from a film uncertainty leads me to wonder if it is his studies background, it should come as no language throughout his essay which is surprise that I find Bowman’s thoughts on confusing for me; or his indulgence at the mediatization of martial arts times in the language of those martial arts exceedingly interesting. Not only that, I theorist-practitioners who are unaware of think the way he frames many of his these contradictions or paradoxes (and arguments on this front (both for the sake 3 www.cf.ac.uk/JOMECjournal @JOMECjournal of his discussion of the Dark Knight Trilogy was the first martial arts star to create a and the place therein of KFM from the new, post-Bruce Lee standard for essay presently under consideration as combative realism onscreen by well as for the sake of an earlier uncompromisingly showcasing the brutal discussion of the Bourne Trilogy [The efficiency of his martial arts skills Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne (Anderson 1998). Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)] and the place therein of Kali Additionally, in looking at the relationship [Bowman 2013a]) are very astute and can between martial arts pedagogy and the be of great use to scholars interested in cinema, Bowman acknowledges the fact analyzing martial arts cinema. Having said that nearly all martial arts have become this, my response to his discussion of KFM known (particularly in the West) through in the Dark Knight Trilogy is not so much a cinematic representations. In the case of critique as it is a desire to historically KFM in particular, though, Bowman argues contextualize and extend his comments that its mode of ‘Post-DVD Pedagogy’ beyond these three films. marks a break from previous modes. As he asserts: After setting the stage for KFM’s onscreen arrival, Bowman mentions how it ‘was ‘Knowledge’ of KFM was not employed as a way to help make the circulated in the same way that film[s] look excitingly “different”’, and he ‘knowledge’ about other martial arts posits as the key feature of the ‘visual had been circulated, prior to DVD difference’ of KFM as opposed to other and the Internet. With KFM, fans familiar modes of cinematic fight were not merely trying to mimic the choreography ‘the fact that KFM looked martial moves they’d seen in the rough, raw, and brutal, in ways that movie. Rather, the DVD extras Hollywood had not really explored or offered … a specific pedagogical exhausted before’ (Bowman 2014: 6). interpellative mode, which is a While I have no desire to combat his species or relative of – whilst characterization of KFM, I do feel the need remaining different from – either – especially within the context of what fiction film or documentary. Bowman frames as the ‘reality drive’ – to (Bowman 2014: 12-13) bring up in connection with this brief consideration of the history of martial arts I do not wish to dispute this assessment cinema the important place in that history of post-DVD pedagogy, as I believe these occupied by Steven Seagal. In his seminal observations regarding KFM and its analysis of Seagal’s Aikido aesthetics, particular pedagogical mode are accurate Aaron Anderson places Seagal on the and worth pursuing. However, I do think it most extreme realistic end of what he is necessary to elaborate the pedagogical calls the martial arts cinema ‘reality timeline of martial arts cinema beyond a spectrum’, and I think Seagal would make simple ‘Before KFM’ and ‘After KFM’ for a useful point of (specifically cinematic) division.