Download or read book The Historical Sociology of Japanese Martial Arts written by Raul Sanchez Garcia and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Norbert Elias Book Prize 2020 This is the first long-term analysis of the development of Japanese martial arts, connecting ancient martial traditions with the martial arts practised today. The Historical Sociology of Japanese Martial Arts captures the complexity of the emergence and development of martial traditions within the broader Japanese Civilising Process. The book traces the structured process in which warriors’ practices became systematised and expanded to the Japanese population and the world. Using the theoretical framework of Norbert Elias’s process-sociology and drawing on rich empirical data, the book also compares the development of combat practices in Japan, England, France and Germany, making a new contribution to our understanding of the socio-cultural dynamics of state formation. Throughout this analysis light is shed onto a gender blind spot, taking into account the neglected role of women in martial arts. The Historical Sociology of Japanese Martial Arts is important reading for students of Socio-Cultural Perspectives in Sport, Sociology of Physical Activity, Historical Development of Sport in Society, Asian Studies, Sociology and Philosophy of Sport, and Sports History and Culture. It is also a fascinating resource for scholars, researchers and practitioners interested in the historical and socio-cultural aspects of combat sport and martial arts.
Download or read book Martial Arts and Well being written by Carol Fuller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martial Arts and Well-Being explores how martial arts as a source of learning can contribute in important ways to health and well-being, as well as provide other broader social benefits. Using psychological and sociological theory related to behaviour, ritual, perception and reality construction, the book seeks to illustrate, with empirical data, how individuals make sense of and perceive the value of martial arts in their lives. This book draws on data from over 500 people, across all age ranges, and powerfully demonstrates that participating in martial arts can have a profound influence on the construction of behaviour patterns that are directly linked to lifestyle and health. Making individual connections regarding the benefits of practice, improvements to health and well-being – regardless of whether these improvements are ‘true’ in a medical sense – this book offers an important and original window into the importance of beliefs to health and well-being as well as the value of thinking about education as a process of life-long learning. This book will be of great interest to a range of audiences, including researchers, academics and postgraduate students interested in sports and exercise psychology, martial art studies and health and well-being. It should also be of interest to sociologists, social workers and martial arts practitioners. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315448084, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Download or read book Fighting Scholars written by Raúl Sánchez García and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2014-12-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Fighting Scholars’ offers the first book-length overview of the ethnographic study of martial arts and combat sports. The book’s main claim is that such activities represent privileged grounds to access different social dimensions, such as emotion, violence, pain, gender, ethnicity and religion. In order to explore these dimensions, the concept of ‘habitus’ is presented prominently as an epistemic remedy for the academic distant gaze of the effaced academic body. The book’s most innovative features are its empirical focus and theoretical orientation. While ethnographic research is a widespread and popular approach within the social sciences, combat sports and martial arts have yet to be sufficiently interrogated from an ethnographic standpoint. The different contributions of this volume are aligned within the same project that began to crystallize in Loïc Wacquant’s ‘Body and Soul’: the construction of a ‘carnal sociology’ that constitutes an exploration of the social world ‘from’ the body.
Download or read book Fighting As Real As It Gets written by Michael Staack and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Staack’s multi-year ethnography is the first and only comprehensive social-scientific analysis of the combat sport ‘Mixed Martial Arts’. Based on systematic training observations, the author meticulously analyses how Mixed Martial Arts practitioners conjointly create and immerse themselves into their own world of ultimate bodily combat. With his examination of concentrative technique demonstrations, cooperative technique train-ings, and chaotic sparring practices, Staack not only provides a sociological illumination of Mixed Martial Arts culture’s defining theme – the quest of ‘Fighting As Real As It Gets’. Rather further-more, he provides a compelling cultural-sociological case study on practical social constructions of ‘authenticity’.
Download or read book Martial Arts Studies written by Paul Bowman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phrase “martial arts studies” is increasingly circulating as a term to describe a new field of interest. But many academic fields including history, philosophy, anthropology, and Area studies already engage with martial arts in their own particular way. Therefore, is there really such a thing as a unique field of martial arts studies? Martial Arts Studies is the first book to engage directly with these questions. It assesses the multiplicity and heterogeneity of possible approaches to martial arts studies, exploring orientations and limitations of existing approaches. It makes a case for constructing the field of martial arts studies in terms of key coordinates from post-structuralism, cultural studies, media studies, and post-colonialism. By using these anti-disciplinary approaches to disrupt the approaches of other disciplines, Martial Arts Studies proposes a field that both emerges out of and differs from its many disciplinary locations.
Download or read book Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge written by D. S. Farrer and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark work provides a wide-ranging scholarly consideration of the traditional Asian martial arts. Most of the contributors to the volume are practitioners of the martial arts, and all are keenly aware that these traditions now exist in a transnational context. The book's cutting-edge research includes ethnography and approaches from film, literature, performance, and theater studies. Three central aspects emerge from this book: martial arts as embodied fantasy, as a culturally embedded form of self-cultivation, and as a continuous process of identity formation. Contributors explore several popular and highbrow cultural considerations, including the career of Bruce Lee, Chinese wuxia films, and Don DeLillo's novel Running Dog. Ethnographies explored describe how the social body trains in martial arts and how martial arts are constructed in transnational training. Ultimately, this academic study of martial arts offers a focal point for new understandings of cultural and social beliefs and of practice and agency.
Download or read book Politics and Identity in Chinese Martial Arts written by Lu Zhouxiang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese martial arts is considered by many to symbolise the strength of the Chinese and their pride in their history, and has long been regarded as an important element of Chinese culture and national identity. Politics and Identity in Chinese Martial Arts comprehensively examines the development of Chinese martial arts in the context of history and politics, and highlights its role in nation building and identity construction over the past two centuries. This book explores how the development of Chinese martial arts was influenced by the ruling regimes’ political and military policies, as well as the social and economic environment. It also discusses the transformation of Chinese martial arts into its modern form as a competitive sport, a sport for all and a performing art, considering the effect of the rapid transformation of Chinese society in the 20th century and the influence of Western sports. The text concludes by examining the current prominence of Chinese martial arts on a global scale and the bright future of the sport as a unique cultural icon and national symbol of China in an era of globalisation. Politics and Identity in Chinese Martial Arts is important reading for researchers, students and scholars working in the areas of Chinese studies, Chinese history, political science and sports studies. It is also a valuable read for anyone with a special interest in Chinese martial arts.
Download or read book Firing Back written by Pierre Bourdieu and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this series of trenchant essays, Pierre Bourdieu continues the urgent project begun in Acts of Resistance. Dissecting the claims of neoliberalism, Bordieu calls for an international social movement capable of forming a counterforce to the project of capitalist globalisation.
Download or read book Introducing Sociology written by John Nagle and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2016-11-03 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sociology is interested in the ways people shape the society they live in, and the ways society shapes them. Simply, it is the study of what modern society is and how it functions. In the series' inimitable style, Introducing Sociology traces the origins of sociology from industrialization, revolution and the Enlightenment through to globalization, neoliberalism and the fear of nationalism – introducing you to key thinkers, movements and concepts along the way. You will develop insight into the world around you, as you engage your 'sociological imagination' and explore studies of the city, theories of power and knowledge, concepts of national, racial and sexual identity, and much more.
Download or read book Taekwondo written by Udo Moenig and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-10 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive overview of the historical, political, and technical evolution of taekwondo. Many of the supposedly ‘traditional’ and ‘ancient’ Korean cultural elements attached to taekwondo are, in fact, remnants of East Asia’s modernization drive, and largely inherited from the Japanese martial arts. The current historical portrayal has created an obstacle to a clear understanding of the history of taekwondo, and presents problems and contradictions in philosophy and training methodology. Using rich empirical data, including interviews with leading figures in the field, this book brings together martial arts philosophy with an analysis of the technical aspects and the development of taekwondo, and provides a detailed comparison of karate and taekwondo techniques. It debunks nationalistic mythology surrounding taekwondo to provide a reinterpretation of taekwondo’s evolution.
Download or read book The Inner Art of Karate written by Kenji Tokitsu and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Budo, the way of the martial arts, is at heart a path of spiritual cultivation and self-realization whose aim is to develop a strategic mind that makes combat unnecessary. Kenji Tokitsu explains the philosophy of karate as budo and looks deeply at the key concepts that are essential for developing the budo mind in karate practice. These concepts are: • distance and timing, • rhythm, anticipation, and intuition, • and the cultivation of explosive but focused energy. These concepts are difficult to teach, but mastering them is the ultimate goal of any true martial artist. Tokitsu expertly guides the reader through these elusive ideas with clarity and a practical view.
Download or read book Philosophy and the Martial Arts written by Graham Priest and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-19 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first substantial academic book to lay out the philosophical terrain within the study of the martial arts and to explore the significance of this fascinating subject for contemporary philosophy. The book is divided into three sections. The first section concerns what philosophical reflection can teach us about the martial arts, and especially the nature and value of its practice. The second section deals with the other direction of the dialectical interplay between philosophy and the martial arts: how the martial arts can inform philosophical issues important in their own right. Finally, because many of the notable martial arts are of Asian origin, there are particularly close links between the arts and Asian philosophies – and Buddhism in particular – and therefore the last section is devoted to this topic. The essays in this collection deal with a wide range of philosophical issues: normative ethics, meta-ethics, aesthetics, phenomenology, the philosophy of mind, Ancient Greek and Buddhist thought. By demonstrating the very real nature of the engagement between the martial arts and philosophy, this book is essential reading for any serious student or scholar with an interest in the martial arts, Eastern philosophy, the philosophy of sport, or the study of physical culture.
Download or read book Risk Failure Play written by Janet O'Shea and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Risk, Failure, Play illuminates the many ways in which competitive martial arts differentiate themselves from violence. Presented from the perspective of a dancer and writer, this book takes readers through the politics of everyday life as experienced through training in a range of martial arts practices such as jeet kune do, Brazilian jiu jitsu, kickboxing, Filipino martial arts, and empowerment self-defense. Author Janet O Shea shows how play gives us the ability to manage difficult realities with intelligence and demonstrates that physical play, with its immediacy and heightened risk, is particularly effective at accomplishing this task. Risk, Failure, Play also demonstrates the many ways in which physical recreation allows us to manage the complexities of our current social reality. Risk, Failure, Play intertwines personal experience with phenomenology, social psychology, dance studies, performance studies, as well as theories of play and competition in order to produce insights on pleasure, mastery, vulnerability, pain, agency, individual identity, and society. Ultimately, this book suggests that play allows us to rehearse other ways to live than the ones we see before us and challenges us to reimagine our social reality.
Download or read book Science of Science and Reflexivity written by Pierre Bourdieu and published by Polity. This book was released on 2004 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adressing a range of issues and debates in the natural and social sciences, this work provides a sociological analysis of science which enables readers to understand the social mechanisms which shape scientific practice.
Download or read book Ki and the Way of the Martial Arts written by Kenji Tokitsu and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2003-08-12 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While technical prowess and physical power are essential characteristics of a martial artist, true mastery of the art comes by cultivating one's inner strength. Here, Kenji Tokitsu—an authority on Japanese and Chinese combat arts and a respected karate teacher—shows how cultivating ki (life force) and understanding the principles of budo (the martial path of self-development) can make training in martial arts more meaningful, effective, and personally and spiritually rewarding. Tokitsu emphasizes the mental aspects of martial arts practice including: • The importance of ki development • Seme, or capturing your opponent's mind • Understanding ma, the spatial relationship in combat Studying these concepts, he explains, gives martial artists the tools to train for a lifetime and at the very highest level. Tokitsu also gives a historical and cultural survey of budo, and explains how the Western view of budo training is different than the Japanese—a perspective rarely available to Western martial artists.
Download or read book Contemporary Issues in Sociology of Sport written by Andrew Yiannakis and published by Human Kinetics. This book was released on 2001 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Melnick, PhD, Contemporary Issues in Sociology of Sport includes: an exploration of topics and themes that have received limited attention in other sociology of sport texts but have been long-standing social concerns; a review of the attitudes toward female athletes and the anti-homosexual phobias present in sport; an in-depth look at the impoverishment of children's games in America; an overview of high school sport participation; a study of the challenges and benefits of the big-time collegiate sport experience; a critique of television's impact on sport and its portrayal of gender and race, and a review of sport and globalization. Unit I provides the reader with a historical background on the development of sociology of sport and addresses several critical issues about the relationship between sociology, physical education, and sociology of sport.
Download or read book On Television Large Print 16pt written by Pierre Bourdieu and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-11-12 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Television exposes the invisible mechanisms of manipulation and censorship that determine what appears on the small screen. Bourdieu shows how the ratings game has transformed journalism - and hence politics - and even such seemingly removed fields as law' science' art' and philosophy. Bourdieu had long been concerned with the role of television in cultural and political life when he bypassed the political and commercial control of the television networks and addressed his country's viewers from the television station of the College de France. On Television' which expands on that lecture' not only describes the limiting and distorting effect of television on journalism and the world of ideas' but offers the blueprint for a counterattack.
