Pellissippi State’s ‘poet-warrior’ featured in British kung fu magazine
When you think of English professors, what comes to mind: tweed jackets and wire-rimmed glasses?
As Pellissippi State’s writer-in-residence, Ed Francisco is the epitome of the mild-mannered, bookish professor. But he has another persona that’s quite contradictory—or so it appears at first glance.
On the one hand, Francisco writes poetry. On the other, he talks of gouging, ripping, tearing, striking and kneeing the opponent in bando-style karate.
He’s presented his research on language at the Oxford Round Table in England, yet he wields a double-headed axe in kung fu demonstrations.
Francisco is a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of several novels and books of poetry. He is also a martial arts expert, an instructor in the isshinryu and bando styles of karate, as well as in the tiger, eagle and snow leopard styles of kung fu.
How does he integrate the duality, the yin and yang, of a life so physical, yet so philosophical? The answer begins to unfold within Britain’s online martial arts magazine Jissen. The English professor graces the cover of the latest issue, and a lengthy interview follows.
“I see teaching, writing and the martial arts as a form of ‘active meditation,’” when the mind and body are working in concert, Francisco said. In fact, he says, he takes a martial arts approach in teaching creative writing and composition.
“If you stop and think about it, kung fu acts like a grammar of movement. Just as I’m interested in the written language and its grammar, I’m interested in martial arts as a medium of movement.
“I tell my students that their pens are like bokken [wooden swords used in training]: they slash away verbiage and half-truths.”
Although kung fu makes use of weapons—the logging chain, samurai sword, kukri (a curved knife) and double-headed axe—he says such weapons are used only for demonstrations.
“Most practitioners try to get to a place where they harness the internal power of the art,” he said. “You’re harnessing a power called chi that yokes mind and body together.”
In the Jissen interview, he explains: “I’ve worked hard to cultivate the warrior spirit in everything I do. Warriors, I believe, fight to preserve authentic human possibilities…. Each day I try to deepen my devotion to enduring ideas: faith, hope, charity, fortitude, patience, and magnanimity, or generosity of spirit. It’s a lifetime’s work for which martial arts have helped prepare me.”
To read more about Francisco’s views on the martial arts and self-defense and his life as a poet-warrior, go to www.jissenmag.com and read the June 2009 interview.
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