Welcome to Terra Prime!

Greetings and Welcome!

Words of fighting! Words about fighting! Words that cause fights! The many words we use in the service of combat and martial arts are a code. Lets try to decode the mystery!

Fighting Words is primarily about language and the martial arts. But, this intersects a wide range of topics. We will be discussing language and how it affects our experience of our arts. We will be providing translations and analysis of old texts and martial arts writing. But also we will be looking into how these arts use language and communication to bring people together, create communities and survive into the future. We will discuss not only the real martial arts but the “hyper-real” world of fantasy and sci-fi which borrow from these traditions in many ways. Text and media will be working hand in hand an dI hope that it will become a good resource for people of all experience levels!

Welcome! Patience, practice, perseverance!  Happy Sabering!

  • Recreating the Han Ji pole arm 漢卜字鋼戟

    When LK Chen released his reproduction of an T shaped Han Ji (漢卜字鋼戟) blade and it’s hardware, my friend Ben Judkins was very happy. He had been reading about the weapons rediscovery and was keen to get a set of blades. I was not familiar with this style of Ji. My idea of the Ji……

  • A Festivus airing of grievances: 3 popular sword fights in Western media that I hate

    Hapy holidays everyone! Today is Festivus, and as such I decided to take one portion of the event and make it a post. The Airing of Grievances! For my part, I will take on some very popular and well loved sword fights from movies and talk about how I think they are awful. No doubt……

  • Frauds, Fools, and Fighting-the dark side of Qi in martial arts. 

    No touch knockouts. Pressure points fighting and Dim Mak. Sending a foe flying several feet back in the air with not so much as a flinch.  In the peeling back of he mysteries of Qi, let’s start with the low hanging fruit. The extraordinary claims of Qigong. Qigong (also spelled Chi Kung pronounced “Chee gong”)……

  • European and Asian Martial Culture: Free Download!

    Greetings all! It’s the holiday season here in the USA and this Thursday is Thanksgiving. Our national day of thanks and getting together with friends and family. This year, we martial artists have something to be very thankful for! The text of “Martial Culture and Historical Martial Arts in Europe and Asia” is a new……

  • Zombie killer #1: the Han Ji

    Happy Halloween everyone! It was asked of me a while ago, what my go to weapons for a zombie apocalypse. I thought it would be a nice piece for the Halloween season. So here we go. First off, this wile about cold weapons, not fire arms or other weapons like projectiles, bombs, and flame throwers.……

  • Do you believe in Qi? 

    This question has been the elephant in the room here for quite some time. I have not dared to address it in any real sense as talk of Qi tends to muddy the already confused waters. But, it is time to talk about the most controversial topic in Asian martial arts today; the existence of……