Learning to Let Go: Charisma, Habitus, and the Semiotic Battery in a Chicago Kung Fu School

An exploration of the construction of a semiotic battery at a Chicago Kung Fu school, how it comes to be and to what ends the practitioners turn it. This essay argues that a charismatic-traditional mode of attraction has helped a community form and sustain itself at the cruces of individualism and community, past and present, Hong Kong and Chicago.