Khusrua and Shirin Playing Polo (ca. 1370-1507) The image depicts a polo match between the Sasanian Prince Khusrau and Shirin. In The Art of Contest chapter on polo, “Polo: the Emperor of Games,” the author describes the significance of the depiction as “the story of the Sasanian prince Khusrau, who falls in love with his Armenian wife Shirin when he…

This week’s readings were an enjoyable break from the usual topics of both board and video games. Being able to relate more to sports, it was intriguing to read about the shift from religious connotations about sports, such as mountaineering, to a notion of “mountain conquering” that aims at satisfying personal thirst for accomplishment. Similarly,…

A common thread of this week’s readings was the connection of sports and human bodies to the modern nation in some way. Morris and Brownell depicted how martial arts represented either a backwards tradition that contributed to China’s defeat at the hands of the Western powers or a valuable, uniquely Chinese tradition that was still…

So China is still pretty crazy, is just about what I got from this book. It looks like we’re still delving into how imperialism, the West, and otherwise Modern influences helped to remake China into a weird, scary place. Especially in that modern movements pushed China towards viewing bodies, and especially women’s bodies, as devices…

This week we had two readings that dealt with games or activities with a distinctly martial focus. The first of these was the rise and tradition of martial arts in China. This looked at the earlier existence of calisthenic programs and their evolution into a codified martial arts system, driven by the cultural shift to…

I definitely enjoyed the portion of “Training the Body for China” that we read this week. The reading included many interesting facts about China that I was unaware of. The fact that the Qing dynasty banned martial arts was pretty mind blowing. I have always been under the impression that martial arts have always been…