Martial Arts

Form/Xing/Kata/Pattern Practice (Martial Arts)

This pedagogical device, best known by its Japanese name, kata ([1]; pronounced hyung in Korean, xing in Mandarin), represents the central methodology for teaching and learning the body of knowledge that constitutes a traditional school or system of martial art throughout much of East Asia. The standard English translation for kata is “form” or “forms,” […]

Gladiators (Martial Arts)

Although Rome deserves credit for developing much of what we know as Western society, many aspects of Roman life were brutal and harsh, even by contemporary standards. The great gladiatorial games, where participants, the gladiators (Latin; “sword men”), fought to the death in hand-to-hand combat, are the primary example of this brutality. The origin of […]

Gunfighters (Martial Arts)

Gunfighters, also known as gunslingers, shootists, pistoleers, or simply gunmen, were a fixture of the nineteenth-century American West. The term is applied generally to individuals who were celebrated for their proficiency with handguns and their willingness to use them in deadly confrontations. Because fights between men armed with “six-shooters” were common on the frontier, the […]

Hapkido (Martial Arts)

Hapkido (Way of Coordinated Power) is a Korean method of combat utilizing hand strikes, kicks, joint locks, throws, restraints, and chokes. In its most specific use the term Hapkido identifies that art transmitted to Ji Han-Jae by Choi Yong-Shul. In a broader sense, the term Hapkido has also come to identify Korean martial arts that […]

Heralds (Martial Arts)

Like most other warrior orders known to history, the knightly nobility of Latin Christendom that flourished from the later twelfth to the early seventeenth centuries developed a distinctive ideology reflective of its peculiar nature and traditions, and largely embodied in the cycles of quasi-historical romances centered on the courts of Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, or (most […]

Iaido (Martial Arts)

Iaido is the Japanese martial art of drawing and cutting in the same motion, or “attacking from the scabbard.” It dates from the mid-sixteenth century, when warriors began to wear the sword through the belt with the edge upward. Iaido is practiced solo with real blades, in set routines called kata. Some iaido styles also […]

India (Martial Arts)

Martial arts have existed on the South Asian subcontinent since antiquity. Two traditions have shaped the history, development, culture, and practice of extant South Asian martial arts—the Tamil (Dravidian) tradition and the Sanskrit Dhanur Veda tradition. The early Tamil Sangam “heroic” poetry informs us that between the fourth century B.C. and A.D. 600 a warlike, […]

Japan (Martial Arts)

The historical development and evolution of warfare in Japan are as old as Japanese civilization itself, over the centuries making warfare in Japan a distinct culture that significantly contributed to the shaping of Japanese society. The importance of martial traditions in Japan cannot be overstated, as warfare has always been an integral aspect of and […]

Japanese Martial Arts, Chinese Influences on

It is no surprise that Japan’s feudal society, with its samurai-dominated martial culture, spawned an abiding interest in martial arts. Although weapons techniques, primarily archery and swordsmanship, were the main traditional Japanese martial arts, today the first things that normally come to mind are judo and karate. These, however, are not traditional Japanese martial arts […]

Jeet Kune Do (Martial Arts)

Jeet Kune Do (the way of the intercepting fist) was founded by Bruce Lee in 1967. The most recognized martial artist in the world, Lee had an approach to martial arts that was simple, direct, and nonclassical, a sophisticated fighting style stripped to its essentials. However, his primary emphasis in Jeet Kune Do (JKD) was […]

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