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 located roughly west of Downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages. The city borders Boston to the northeast and southeast (via the neighborhoods of ...

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

Donnie Yen Donnie Yen Chi-tan ( zh, c=甄子丹, p=Zhēn Zǐdān, j=, first=j; born 27 July 1963) is a Hongkongers, Hong Kong actor, filmmaker, martial artist, and action director. He is the recipient of various accolades, including three Golden Horse Fi ...

Training

Mark was born in

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

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) Wushu () (), or kung fu, is a competitive Chinese martial art. It integrates concepts and forms from various traditional and modern ...

training schools, specialising in

tai chi is a Chinese martial art. Initially developed for combat and self-defense, for most practitioners it has evolved into a sport and form of exercise. As an exercise, tai chi is performed as gentle, low-impact movement in which practitioners ...

and Northern Shaolin. Mark learned Fu-Style Wudangquan 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 Sty ...

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

Career

After living for years in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

, Mark emigrated to Brighton, Massachusetts in 1975, and founded the Chinese Wushu Research Institute in July 1976. She still teaches and performs in the

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

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

West West 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 Romance langu ...

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

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 tai chi 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 named her one of the most influential martial artists of the 20th century.

Personal life

Mark is married to the newspaper editor Klyster Yen. They have 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 Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...

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 Martial artists from Guangdong Martial artists from Boston American people of Chinese descent People from Newton, Massachusetts