Wu Liu

Summary:Where competitive ice skating and Kung Fu intersect, there is blood on the ice.

I’ll admit it, I know nothing about this one, but the idea of this sport is extremely evocative. The central sport in the young adult series “Peasprout Chen” by Henry Lein. A martial art based around figure skating, a sport that’s fast, graceful, dreamlike, and involves metal blades on your feet…the main character describes it as a “beautiful but deadly” art form. Both art forms reward balance and flexibility over strength. In a few interviews author Henry Lein describes it as both a feminist martial form and a LGBT-queer friendly one…the latter in part as it’s “campy but ferocious and deadly stylish.”

At some point, I’ll read the books and get a better idea of the art and sport of Wu Liu.

In an article from “Dive Into Worldbuilding” Lien talks about the intense competition of both figure skating and kung fu: “each is intense, lyrical, and punishing,” with lots of high-stakes emotion and quick devastating take-downs (such as an olympic skater training four years for a three minute performance, and then missing a turn).

Culture/History: One look at the homeworld of Wu Liu, “Pearl,” says a lot about the city built from “a lustrous pearlish substance, dry and smooth to the touch, the entire city is ornately carved and can be skated on.” A culture that learns to skate as soon as they can walk. A city that makes skating as accessible as, say, parkour, and is largely devoid of male influence after the males were wiped out during a recent war. The art of Wu Liu was once a defensive art, but now is more of a performance art, sometimes used in opera. (Henry Lien, Quidditch, Lightsabers, and Feminist Sport)

If anyone’s read this and can shed more light on the art form of Wu Liu, I’d be grateful!