This week on Sinica, Jeremy Goldkorn and David Moser are pleased to be joined by Sascha Matuszak, a Chengdu-based expert on Chinese martial arts and the producer of a new documentary on Chinese MMA, a competitive tournament series where competitors combine different styles from varying schools of combat in a frenzied quest to pummel their opponents into submission.Enjoy Sinica? If you'd prefer to have new episodes of Sinica stream to your computer automatically as they're released, subscribe to our special RSS feed using iTunes. Alternately, you can get into the spirit of Daoism and download our shows week-by-week as we release them: this podcast is available for download right here as a standalone mp3 file. We also welcome feedback on our shows as well as suggestions for future guests or topics by email directly to Kaiser and Jeremy at sinica@popupchinese.com.
sbaker
said on October 11, 2014
Since leaving Beijing, listening to Sinica is the only thing that makes me happy. A podcast on the Stars Group(星星)/the lives of artists post cultural revolution, would be really cool.
jlemien
said on October 15, 2014
Thanks for another great podcast you guys. I especially enjoy the ones that focus on how traditional Chinese practices are adapting to the modern world. This was was great, and the podcast on Chinese medicine was one of my favorites.Keep up the good work!
stevebchinese
said on October 17, 2014
A great documentary to watch about early MMA and jiu jitsu is "Choke (Rickson Gracie)".The original UFC events were put on by the Gracies to showcase the effectiveness of jiu jitsu. They entered the smaller younger brother Hoyce (not Rickson) because of this reason.The Gracies would fight anyone that came to their gym to challenge them in whatever fight style the visitor trained in. Rickson had hundreds of fights on the beach in Rio.
stevebchinese
said on October 17, 2014
I can't wait to see how China effects modern MMA, MMA with Chinese characteristics.
kyserkess
said on November 9, 2014
Hey Guys, I love your podcasts. I don't have a free minute in the day, but I had to write in about this one. I love Kung Fu and I have to say that your guest had no business talking on behalf of Kung Fu. I worked with a dozen masters and put a lot of effort into studying Kung Fu. When the guy said he was going to focus on only the last 100 years of Kung Fu, I nearly fell out of my Chair. Then as he begin to talk about MMA and later mentioned that he's never competed as a fighter, I wondered how the hell this guy got on your show. Clearly he is a friend of someone there. He would turn into a sage if he knew the reason people compete in MMA? Sinca always has highly intellectual people on and I was really disappointed in this one. I had the sense that Jeremy was also. It seems to me that the guest went to the Shaolin Temple to watch someone teach people there BJJ and then decided he has the authority to speak about traditional Chinese Martial Arts. Fundamentally, the introduction of Kung Fu is of Hard and Soft styles, Internal and External. Not the three categories he decided to label. This guy didn't even know what Krav Maga is, one of the most popular martial arts being practiced. Man! I really hope, for the sake of the quality of your podcasts, you get a real expert on to talk about this subject again. MMA in China will not relates to Kung Fu as Gymnastics relates to Yoga. Please consider giving this topic justice in the future because it is possibly China's greatest gem.
