Martial Arts in Asia

Martial Arts in Asia PDF Author: Fan Hong
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781351167802
Category : Asia
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"The reawakening of Asian martial arts is a distinct example of cultural hybridity in a global setting. This book deals with history of Asian martial arts in the contexts of tradition, religion, philosophy, politics and culture. It attempts to deepen the study of martial arts studies in their transformation from traditional to modern sports. It is also important that thisbook explores how Asian martial arts, including Shaolin martial arts and Taekwondo, have worked as tools for national advocate of identities among Asians in order to overcome various national hardships and to promote nationalism in the modern eras. The Asian martial arts certainly have been transformed in both nature and content into unique modern sports and they have contributed to establishing cultural homogeneity in Asia. This phenomenon can be applied to the global community. ?The chapters in this book wereoriginally published as a special issue in the International Journal of the History of Sport."--Provided by publisher.

The Invention of Martial Arts

The Invention of Martial Arts PDF Author: Paul Bowman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0197540333
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
"The Invention of Martial Arts examines the media history of what we now call 'martial arts' and argues that martial arts is a cultural construction that was born in film, TV and other media. It argues that 'martial arts' exploded into popular consciousness entirely thanks to the work of media. Of course, the book does not deny the existence of real, material histories and non-media dimensions in martial arts practices. But it thoroughly recasts the status of such histories, combining recent myth-busting findings in historical martial arts research with important insights into the discontinuous character of history, the widespread 'invention of tradition', the orientalism and imagined geographies that animate many ideas about history, and the frequent manipulation of history for reasons of status, cultural capital, private or public power, politics, and/or financial gain. In doing so, The Invention of Martial Arts argues for the primacy of media representation as key player in the emergence and spread of martial arts. This argument overturns the dominant belief that 'real practices' are primary, while representations are secondary. The book makes its case via historical analysis of the British media history of such Eastern and Western martial arts as Bartitsu, jujutsu, judo, karate, tai chi and MMA across a range of media, from newspapers, comics and books to cartoon, film and TV series, as well as television adverts and music videos, focusing on key but often overlooked texts such as adverts for 'Hai Karate', the 1970s disco hit 'Kung Fu Fighting', and many other mainstream and marginal media texts"--

Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan

Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan PDF Author: Denis Gainty
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135069905
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
In 1895, the newly formed Greater Japan Martial Virtue Association (Dainippon Butokukai) held its first annual Martial Virtue Festival (butokusai) in the ancient capital of Kyoto. The Festival marked the arrival of a new iteration of modern Japan, as the Butokukai’s efforts to define and popularise Japanese martial arts became an important medium through which the bodies of millions of Japanese citizens would experience, draw on, and even shape the Japanese nation and state. This book shows how the notion and practice of Japanese martial arts in the late Meiji period brought Japanese bodies, Japanese nationalisms, and the Japanese state into sustained contact and dynamic engagement with one another. Using a range of disciplinary approaches, Denis Gainty shows how the metaphor of a national body and the cultural and historical meanings of martial arts were celebrated and appropriated by modern Japanese at all levels of society, allowing them to participate powerfully in shaping the modern Japanese nation and state. While recent works have cast modern Japanese and their bodies as subject to state domination and elite control, this book argues that having a body – being a body, and through that body experiencing and shaping social, political, and even cosmic realities – is an important and underexamined aspect of the late Meiji period. Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan is an important contribution to debates in Japanese and Asian social sciences, theories of the body and its role in modern historiography, and related questions of power and agency by suggesting a new and dramatic role for human bodies in the shaping of modern states and societies. As such, it will be valuable to students and scholars of Japanese studies, Japanese history, modern nations and nationalisms, and sport and leisure studies, as well as those interested in the body more broadly.

Martial Arts in Asia

Martial Arts in Asia PDF Author: Fan Hong
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351167782
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
The reawakening of Asian martial arts is a distinct example of cultural hybridity in a global setting. This book deals with history of Asian martial arts in the contexts of tradition, religion, philosophy, politics and culture. It attempts to deepen the study of martial arts studies in their transformation from traditional to modern sports. It is also important that this book explores how Asian martial arts, including Shaolin martial arts and Taekwondo, have worked as tools for national advocate of identities among Asians in order to overcome various national hardships and to promote nationalism in the modern eras. The Asian martial arts certainly have been transformed in both nature and content into unique modern sports and they have contributed to establishing cultural homogeneity in Asia. This phenomenon can be applied to the global community. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Armed Martial Arts of Japan

Armed Martial Arts of Japan PDF Author: G Hurst I
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300116748
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This unique history of Japanese armed martial arts--the only comprehensive treatment of the subject in English--focuses on traditions of swordsmanship and archery from ancient times to the present. G. Cameron Hurst III provides an overview of martial arts in Japanese history and culture, then closely examines the transformation of these fighting skills into sports. He discusses the influence of the Western athletic tradition on the armed martial arts as well as the ways the martial arts have remained distinctly Japanese. During the Tokugawa era (1600-1867), swordsmanship and archery developed from fighting systems into martial arts, transformed by the powerful social forces of peace, urbanization, literacy, and professionalized instruction in art forms. Hurst investigates the changes that occurred as military skills that were no longer necessary took on new purposes: physical fitness, spiritual composure, character development, and sport. He also considers Western misperceptions of Japanese traditional martial arts and argues that, contrary to common views in the West, Zen Buddhism is associated with the martial arts in only a limited way. The author concludes by exploring the modern organization, teaching, ritual, and philosophy of archery and swordsmanship; relating these martial arts to other art forms and placing them in the broader context of Japanese culture.

Chinese Martial Arts

Chinese Martial Arts PDF Author: Peter A. Lorge
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521878810
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
In the global world of the twenty-first century, martial arts are practised for self-defense and sporting purposes only. However, for thousands of years, they were a central feature of military practice in China and essential for the smooth functioning of society. This book, which opens with an intriguing account of the very first female martial artist, charts the history of combat and fighting techniques in China from the Bronze Age to the present. This broad panorama affords fascinating glimpses into the transformation of martial skills, techniques and weaponry against the background of Chinese history, the rise and fall of empires, their governments and their armies. Quotations from literature and poetry, and the stories of individual warriors, infuse the narrative, offering personal reflections on prowess in the battlefield and techniques of engagement. This is an engaging and readable introduction to the authentic history of Chinese martial arts.

Warrior Odyssey

Warrior Odyssey PDF Author: Antonio Graceffo
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780897501903
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Following the author’s landmark decision to quit his job on Wall Street and become a martial arts student, this chronicle captures one man’s ongoing adventure across the Far East. Beginning in Taiwan, this autobiography documents how the protagonist learned the Chinese language, kung fu, and twe so, then journeyed on to the Shaolin Temple in mainland China. His next trek found him studying at the last Muay Thai temple in Thailand. Reflecting on a decade of travel, this recollection illustrates a perpetual quest as the author continues to voyage and practice both familiar and obscure fighting styles. Tracing his expeditions through 10 countries altogether, the odyssey also ventures through Hong Kong, Cambodia, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, and Burma.

Stateless Subjects

Stateless Subjects PDF Author: Petrus Liu
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1933947756
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description


KunTao

KunTao PDF Author: David Seiwert
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781502861788
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book gives an overview of the history of KunTao, explaining the Hakka culture as well as how KunTao came into being. After tracing the history back several thousand years Mr. Seiwert goes on to examine the roots of KunTao and the martial arts styles that evolved into this highly effective fighting system. He then discusses the basic principals while demonstrating the tools and weapons used in KunTao, in addition to showing basic training drills as well as combative scenarios and applications using over 350 photos. Free eBook with purchase of Paperback copy through Amazon Matchbook program.

The Monk from Brooklyn

The Monk from Brooklyn PDF Author: Antonio Graceffo
Publisher: Gom Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 1932966102
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
The Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of Kung Fu and modern Chinese Buddhism, is the oldest and most mysterious Kung Fu school in the world. It is an exotic and mythical destination of daydreams to millions of people. In the history of the temple, very few foreigners have ever had a chance to study there. Foreigners have been allowed to study in many of the Shaolin schools, near the temple, which have taken the Shaolin name as a marketing ploy, but less than fifty foreigners have studied at the original Shaolin Temple. Antonio Graceffo was lucky enough to be one of the few, and this is the chronicle of his experience. Antonio has twenty-five years of experience with martial arts, so it is with a knowing eye that he observed the training at the temple. But it is his background that gives him a very unique perspective. An Italian-American from Brooklyn, New York, and a former investment banker, Antonio was educated in some of the best universities that Europe and Asia had to offer. His articles are informative, humorous, and irreverent. He doesn't pull any punches writing about the filthy conditions and the diminished mental capacities of people who spent a lifetime learning to kick, but never bothered to learn to read and write. The title says it all. Put a Chinese-speaking Italian-American, from Brooklyn in the holiest of Buddhist temples, and watch the racial harmony flow.