Bow-sim Mark (born 1942) is a Chinese martial arts grandmaster who lives in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...

, US. She is the mother of martial arts film star,

Donnie Yen Donnie Yen Chi-tan (; born 27 July 1963) is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, and action director. Yen is one of Hong Kong's top action stars. Yen is widely credited for bringing mixed martial arts (MMA) into the mainstream Asian cinema by cho ...

Training

Mark was born in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong ...

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northea ...

in 1942. She began studying martial arts at elementary school, training seriously in high school and then at

Wushu Wushu may refer to: Martial arts * Chinese martial arts, the various martial arts of China * Wushu (sport), a modern exhibition of traditional Chinese martial arts * Wushu stances, five key stances utilized in both contemporary wushu and traditio ...

training schools, specialising in

t'ai chi ch'uan Tai chi (), short for Tai chi ch'üan ( zh, s=太极拳, t=太極拳, first=t, p=Tàijíquán, labels=no), sometimes called " shadowboxing", is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for defense training, health benefits and meditation. ...

and

Northern Shaolin In its broadest sense, Northern Shaolin () is the external (as opposed to internal) martial arts of Northern China, referring to those styles from the Northern Shaolin Monastery in Henan and specifically to the style practice by ''Gù Rǔzhā ...

. Mark learned Fu Style

Wudangquan Wudang quan () is a class of Chinese martial arts. In contemporary China, Chinese martial arts styles are generally classified into two major groups: Wudang (Wutang), named after the Wudang Mountains; and Shaolin, named after the Shaolin Monast ...

by training under Fu Wing Fay for 10 years; Wing Fay was the eldest son and top student of Grandmaster

Fu Chen Sung Fu Zhensong (; 1872–1953), also known by his courtesy name Fu Qiankun, was a grandmaster of Wudangquan martial arts. He was best known as one of the famed "Five Northern Tigers," and a third-generation master of Baguazhang who founded Fu St ...

. She was an instructor at Wing Fay's school from 1968 to 1974.

Career

After living for years in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

, Mark emigrated to

Brighton, Massachusetts Brighton is a former town and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, located in the northwestern corner of the city. It is named after the English city of Brighton. Initially Brighton was part of Cambridge, and known as ...

in 1975, and founded the

Chinese Wushu Research Institute Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

in July 1976. She still teaches and performs in the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

area. She was one of the first to provide Chinese wushu instruction in the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

and is credited with popularizing the term Wushu outside of China. She gave the first demonstration of Combined

Tai Chi Chuan Tai chi (), short for Tai chi ch'üan ( zh, s=太极拳, t=太極拳, first=t, p=Tàijíquán, labels=no), sometimes called "shadowboxing", is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for defense training, health benefits and meditation. Ta ...

in the United States, and published the first description of the technique in 1975. Mark won a gold medal at the first International Tournament of T'ai chi ch'uan in Wuhan City in 1984. She was named '' Black Belt'' magazine's Kung-Fu artist of the year for 1995. One of her specialities is her Wudang sword dance. She played the part of a 'kung fu diva' in a play, Mum and Shah at the Lyric Stage theater in Boston in 1995.

Black Belt Magazine ''Black Belt'' is an American magazine covering martial arts and combat sports. The magazine is based in Valencia, California, and is one of the oldest titles dedicated to martial arts in the United States. History and profile The magazine wa ...

named her one of the most influential martial artists of the 20th Century.

Personal life

Mark is married to the newspaper editor Klyster Yen and has two children, a son, martial arts movie star

, and a daughter, Chris Yen, who placed All-round Third division in the First International Wushu tournament in 1986 as the youngest competitor, and who has also joined the film industry.

References

External links

Profile from the Chinese Wushu Research Institute
(

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and s ...

copy)
Bookfinder.com's catalog of Bow Sim Mark titlesProfile from Mass. Culture Council
including a video of her performance.
Instructors – United Martial Arts Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mark, Bow-Sim 1942 births Chinese tai chi practitioners Hong Kong emigrants to the United States Living people Sportspeople from Guangzhou Sportspeople from Boston American people of Chinese descent People from Newton, Massachusetts