Body lineage: Conceptualizing the transmission of traditional Asian martial arts (in the West)

This paper presents some recent developments in an ongoing qualitative research project exploring Eastern movement forms as body-self transforming practice in the West. In particular, the article documents our preliminary conceptual explorations of the nature, function and process of body lineage in traditional martial arts cultures. The nature of transmission in the martial arts follows Shilling (2003) who concludes, that one of the few certainties about our bodies is that they will eventually die, and along with the passing of our bodies will be the passing of embodied knowledge, so painstakingly developed over a lifetime. The preoccupation with constructing "family trees" or "body" lineage maps in traditional martial art communities in order to illustrate the intergenerational connection between the Master teachers from successive generations is indicative of these concerns. Secondly, we consider how body lineage appears to have three overarching functions, 1) to legitimately articulate the succession of the Masters of a given martial art; 2) These successors will be charged with either preserving or conserving distinctiveness of the art and the illusio of its value; 3) to provide a distinctive collective identity for the art. Thirdly we address the idea of body lineages as a social process. Within this we address the practice of body lineage and the language of body lineage.