The question above is my one-line distillation of the abstract provided by Douglas Farrier for his article called “Captivation, false connection and secret societies in Singapore“, which appears in the journal Martial Arts Studies. You can download the PDF of the article from that link.

The simple question, “are forms any use for fighting?” is one that will plague Chinese Martial Arts until the end of time. In true academic style, this article “adds to the conversation”, plus it’s got some great stories in there of traditional Choy Lee Fut training. In fact, the one time I met D. Farrier he was telling the exact story that is in this article. I asked him at the time what “the face” was. He gave me a serious look and said “I’ll have to show you later”. Our group split in different directions and he didn’t in the end. After reading the article I’m kind of glad about that…

(Don’t be put off that it’s in an academic journal as it’s not written in academic language, and is quite readable 🙂 )