Born in Guangzhou, China, Bow-sim Mark started seriously training in Wushu during high school, specializing in Tai Chi and Northern Shaolin. At the time, women who studied martial arts were almost unheard of. However, her talents caught the attention of the Great Grandmaster Fu Wing Way, one of the most decorated martial artists in China and founder of Fu Style Tai Chi. He ended up taking her in as his private student.
In 1984, Mark won a gold medal at the first International Tournament of T’ai chi ch’uan in Wuhan City. In 1995, she was named Black Belt magazine’s Kung-Fu artist of the year. Before Mark immigrated to the U.S., she was already famous all over China not just because she was a talented female martial artist, but because she was also better than most men in her craft.
“Everything is harder for a woman,” Mark told NextShark with some help in translating from her daughter Chris Yen. “If a man has to work at 100% to excel, a woman must work at 150%! Not just in martial arts but in any field in order to be taken seriously.”
Mark with Donnie Yen and his sister, Chris Yen.
After teaching at her master’s school for 10 years, she emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1975 where she became one of the first people to introduce Wushu to the West.
“There were only a few Chinese kung-fu schools in Chinatown and mostly karate schools around the suburbs,” Mark said. “My school was the first Chinese ‘Wushu’ school and at the time, Wushu was not known yet in the West.”
As a successful martial arts master who’s had students open up schools themselves, Sifu Mark broke down what makes a good teacher. She notes that while there are many styles of Tai Chi, all tai chi can be judged by six characteristics and six requirements:
“The characteristics are that the movement should be circular, relaxed, calm, continuous, and done with intent and energy. The requirements are that the spine is naturally straight, the shoulders and elbows are sunk, the chest is empty, the movement originates in the waist, the pelvis is at a natural angle, and yin and yang are clear.”
Watch an interview with Bow-sim Mark here.
