Author: Graham Barlow

#37 XingYi Part 9

Four_Generals_of_Song
General Zhang Jun (left). From The “Four Generals of Zhongxing” painted by Liu Songnian during the Southern Song Dynasty.
In this episode we discuss the role of General Zhang Jun in the survival of Yue Fei’s tradition, as well as in the survival of members of Yue Fei’s extended family. We also discuss how Zhang Jun managed to protect himself from the purges carried out by Qin Hui.

 

#36 Heraclitus (Part A and Part B)

Heraclito(1).jpg

In this episode we explore Heraclitus, an ancient Greek who was more Chinese than the Chinese. There are not just parallels between this remarkable man’s essential worldview and ancient Daoism – more than that, he was more fundamentally Daoist in outlook than are many contemporary Daoists today.

Listen to “#36 Heraclitus (Part A and Part B)” on Spreaker.

Categories: Greeks Taoism

Tags: , ,

#35 Thales and the Milesian School

portrait_of_thales-676x500.jpg
We head at last to Ancient Greece, and look at the attempts of Thales to challenge the miasma of his time.
We also discuss how he agreed with (or perhaps even originated the ideas of) Genesis in a way that modern Christians generally don’t.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/9404101/34-the-heretics-bible-genesis-3

Listen to “#34 The Heretics Bible: Genesis 3” on Spreaker.

#33 Dead Sea Scrolls

(Image of the cave where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in Qumran, via BBC.)

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed that Jesus and Christianity were much less unique developments than previously thought. In this episode we start to explore these ancient documents and what they can tell us about the origins of both Christianity and Judaism. https://www.spreaker.com/user/9404101/dead-sea-scrolls

Listen to “#33 Dead Sea Scrolls” on Spreaker.

#30 Xing Yi (part 8) – short version

Here’s part 8 of the series, which looks at armour in the Song Dynasty, but also talks about XingYi fighting tactics in relation to armour and how the armour influences the way the art works – stepping, continuous movement, minimal movement, twisting the fist in Tzuann, etc…

There are two versions of part 8, the first is for public consumption, available here:

Listen to “#30 Xing Yi (part 8) – short version” on Spreaker.

https://www.spreaker.com/user/9404101/30-xing-yi-part-8-short-version

We got into some controversial topics at the end of the episode, so the full version is reserved for our Heretics/Woven Energy Patreons ($5 and up):

https://www.patreon.com/wovenenergy/posts

Here’s some nice Song Dynasty-style armour a Google search turned up

Image Credit: Dragons Armory
http://dragonsarmory.blogspot.com/2017/07/heavy-song-dynasty-armor.html

Like Damon says, you could show that to a ‘normal’ person and tell them it’s Samurai armour and they would probably believe you 🙂

#28 Kublai and Mongke (Kublai Khan part 2)

Möngke Khan. 4th Khagan of the Mongol Empire
(Supreme Khan of the Mongols) King of Kings
By Unknown – http://old.news.mn/r/276459, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72784270

In this episode we examine how Kublai and his older brother Mongke built the Mongol Empire to the point where it was ready to do what the Jin Empire hadn’t been able to – overthrow the Song Dynasty.

Podcast link.

Listen to “#28 Kublai and Mongke (Kublai Khan part 2)” on Spreaker.