Malaysian academic Dr Solehah Yaacob, who drew public scrutiny over claims that ancient Malays could fly and had taught the Chinese flying kung fu, is no longer associated with the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM).Dr Solehah is challenging her termination and plans to take IIUM to the Industrial Court, accusing the university of acting unprofessionally in its decision, Free Malaysia...
It’s not necessary that ever possible opinion, no matter how unfounded, is represented in academia. That just fucks the signal/noise ratio even further. If that’s all you want, you could replace a professor with a poorly trained LLM and not know the difference.
But a hypothesis isn’t just something someone has pulled out of their ass: it’s an interpretation of facts.
And as a long-time martial arts practicioner (including one of the internal arts) I can confidently assert that trained martial artists can do some surprising things, but flying isn’t one of them. The ancient martial artists put out a lot of woo-woo to obscure their real teaching and skills. It’s never wise do disclose your full capabilities and limitations.
A seemingly magic phenomenon I’ve personally experienced is getting taken down with minimal application of force. In the middle of fighting, the person winds up on the floor and wonders how they got there. It’s like slipping on ice. But that’s the result of astute application of physics, not magic. I’ve been taught the technique. If you know where to nudge, someone’s polar moments of inertia will do most of the work for you.
And, in less controlled situations, you can also simply smack them in the face.