re
:
think
Spring 2014
4
WHEN kung-fu master Bruce Lee hit the
big screen in the 1970s, he did more than
beat up bad guys and astound audiences with
his lightning fast reflexes.
According to Associate Professor Robert
Rinehart from the Faculty of Education’s
Sport and Leisure Studies Department at the
University of Waikato, Lee also empowered
Chinese men, helped develop a Chinese
national identity, bridged Eastern and
Western worldviews and provided a vehicle
to redress social injustices.
Associate Professor Rinehart and
Associate Professor John Wong from
Washington State University collaborated
in a project to analyse Lee’s influence on
martial arts along with the effect his physical
prowess and pride in his body had on a sense
of national identity in China at a time when
relations between China and the west were at
a critical point in history.
Their work, first published in Sports
History Review in November 2013, explains
how Lee – who died in 1973 aged just 32
– made just five movies as an adult but
they played a significant role in raising the
awareness and appreciation of martial arts
throughout the Western world.
The movies also radically changed the
entrenched – and stereotypical – view of
Asian men as either weak and insignificant
or sinister. “One of the ways Bruce Lee tried
to reflect change positively ... is through
the use of his body image,” they say. "Lee
deliberately used his powerful body to
reflect a stronger image of the Chinese male
– and he did it through popular culture,"
says Dr Rinehart.
The pair analysed Lee’s first three movies,
The Big Boss,
Fist of Fury
and
Way of the
Dragon
and found Lee’s contribution to the
construction of national identity was based
on the male Chinese body. He understood
how his body image was able to have a
positive impact on Chinese people both in
Hong Kong and other countries.
Dr Rinehart says his co-author Dr Wong
grew up in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Dr
Wong had the idea for looking at Bruce Lee's
work in terms of the so-called rapprochement
of the East and the West, having watched
the movies when they first came out and
recognising their impact on popular culture.
In the movies, Lee “portrayed a new
conception of the male (Chinese) body and
physical prowess to Chinese, but also to
North American audiences”.
He was able to combine both Eastern
andWestern worldviews, providing a cultural
bridge that served to increase both Western
and Eastern audiences – but also to create
shared understandings between two widely-
diverse cultures.
“Lee consciously worked to create a sense
of pride and, through the action sequences,
his films work holistically to balance the
physical with the cognitive or spiritual.”
They say Lee saw the media – and movies
in particular – as a good way to spread the
word about martial arts and to overcome
stereotypes. While the movie plots were
“fairly formulaic”, it was Lee’s physical
prowess that captivated audiences and
made inroads to “a new perception of
Chinese identity”.
Drs Rinehart and Wong claim Lee, like
most successful actors, “tacitly understood
his relationship to audience and his ‘power’
to embody something more than simply a
singular actor for the cameras”.
At the time, US-China diplomacy
was still in its infancy and Lee offered the
physical embodiment of Chinese strength
and pride, but it came with a Western
connection, making it more palatable to a
Western audience.
It was Lee’s work that opened the way for
“less stereotypical opportunities” for other
Asian actors, such as Jacky Chan and Jet Li.
“In three popular films, Lee’s impact was
great and there are still cults surrounding Lee
that celebrate his impact upon the raising
the status of Hong Kong and Chinese
nationals and émigrés throughout the
world,” Dr Rinehart says.
Assessing the Dragon
Knowing how people learn
THINK how it’s possible to hit a golf ball perfectly,
until you start thinking about it. Sure as eggs, the
next shot will be a shocker.
“That’s caused by having too much access to
explicit knowledge about your movements,” says
Professor Rich Masters. “But what if you learnt
without that knowledge?”
Professor Masters is an expert in the ways people
learn and perform skills, with his research focusing
on implicit motor learning, the acquisition of skills
without conscious awareness of the knowledge that
underpins their performance.
As the acknowledged leader in implicit motor
learning, Professor Masters says it’s a far more diverse
field than simply sports.
“It has relevance for many different domains in
which movement is important,” he says.
His work crosses discipline boundaries from
sports sciences to rehabilitation, surgery, speech
sciences, movement disorders, ageing, psychology
and developmental disorders and disabilities.
“It’s a fascinating topic that has significance for a
range of interests that are central to the New Zealand
way of life, one of which is high performance sport.
“I’m an experimental psychologist so I design
experiments based on psychological principles to
examine the way people learn and perform skills.”
Professor Masters is based in the Department
of Sport and Leisure Studies in the Faculty of
Education at the University of Waikato, returning
to New Zealand after 13 years in Hong Kong, where
he was first Assistant Director then Director of the
Institute of Human Performance at the University of
Hong Kong. Before that he lectured in the School
of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University
of Birmingham.
He’s returned to New Zealand to give his
family a Kiwi lifestyle and is impressed with his
new surroundings.
“This department at Waikato University wants
to go places. It’s interested in research, and wants to
strengthen its appeal to undergraduates by offering
something unique in New Zealand,” he says. “That’s
where I come in.”
AS I sat watching the
Commonwealth Games
I reflected on what such
events mean in the
hearts and minds of our
tamariki (children).
How many are
inspired to strive for the
glories – and the often
forgotten heartbreaks –
that elite athletes experience, especially when a gold
medal is hung around their necks and the national
anthem plays?
There is no doubt in my mind that such
achievements should be recognised and celebrated,
and the athletes and their support teams be
acknowledged for their persistence and dedication.
But standing on the sidelines of children’s sport in
schools, clubs and at representative level, sometimes
you might be fooled into thinking you too were in a
Commonwealth Games venue, as the endeavours of
the thousands of tamariki who engage in sport after
school and on Saturday mornings are presented as if
they are competing on the world stage.
You would think that many provincial primary
school-aged representative teams were heading to a
World Cup, not a national under-13 tournament.
It’s not the tamariki who make it such, it is the
parents and coaching staff who forget that it is
children’s sport, a place for children to learn about the
joy found in movement, to develop interpersonal and
self-management skills, to have fun, to make friends,
to explore, and experience the challenge of competing
against themselves and amongst others.
Instead we see cross-fit for pre-schoolers,
soccer and netball for tots, elite sports camps
for intermediate-aged children, tamaiti (child)
specialising in a particular sport before they have got
to high school, and thousands of dollars a year spent
on making sure your precious ‘elite’ tamaiti has all the
‘necessary’ equipment and coaching to give them the
best chance of achieving their dream (or should that
be their parents’ dream?).
We seem to be more and more fixated on
creating mini-adults, by training them in adult ways
and neglecting to keep it all in perspective.
When you are a world BMX champion at eight
years old, what does the future look like? Will he/she
be an Olympian, a Commonwealth Games athlete
or still be a world champion as an adult? Will they
be finely tuned athletes or physically and mentally
burnt out?
Will they be crippled not only by the chronic
injuries they picked up as an age group ‘elite’ athlete,
but also by the mental and social scars associated
with failing to maintain a world ranking or from the
missed opportunity to be a kid?
My hope is for a future where all tamariki have
opportunities to engage in multiple movement
activities (not just formalised sport) where they
experience the joy found in effort, pleasure in
moving, inclusive and supportive play and learning
environments, and success that is meaningful for them
and not determined by narrowly defined concepts
of what counts. For this to happen means parents,
coaches and administrators will need to rethink what
matters most when it comes to sport and other
movement experiences for children and youth.
- Dr Kirsten Petrie is the chairperson of the Sport
and Leisure Studies Department in the Faculty of
Education at the University of Waikato.
Let the children play-
It's not the world cup
COMMENT
DR KIRSTEN PETRIE
BY DR KIRSTEN PETRIE
BRUCE LEE: Empowered Chinese men.
DON'T THINK SO
HARD: Professor
Rich Masters, a
leader in implicit
motor learning.
