Portal:Martial arts

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The Martial Arts Portal

United States Marine practicing martial arts, 2008

Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defence; military and law enforcement applications; competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; and the preservation of a nation's intangible cultural heritage. (Full article...)

Although the earliest evidence of martial arts goes back millennia, the true roots are difficult to reconstruct. Inherent patterns of human aggression which inspire practice of mock combat (in particular wrestling) and optimization of serious close combat as cultural universals are doubtlessly inherited from the pre-human stage and were made into an "art" from the earliest emergence of that concept. Indeed, many universals of martial art are fixed by the specifics of human physiology and not dependent on a specific tradition or era.

Specific martial traditions become identifiable in Classical Antiquity, with disciplines such as shuai jiao, Greek wrestling or those described in the Indian epics or the Spring and Autumn Annals of China. (Full article...)

Selected articles

Selected biography

Painting of Zhou Tong
Zhou Tong (Chinese: 周同 and 周侗; pinyin: Zhōu Tóng) (died late 1121 CE) was the archery teacher and second military arts tutor of famous Song dynasty general Yue Fei. Originally a local hero from Henan, he was hired to continue Yue Fei's military training in archery after the boy had rapidly mastered spearplay under his first teacher. In addition to the future general, Zhou accepted other children as archery pupils. During his tutelage, Zhou taught the children all of his skills and even rewarded Yue with his two favorite bows because he was his best pupil. After Zhou's death, Yue would regularly visit his tomb twice a month and perform unorthodox sacrifices that far surpassed that done for even beloved tutors. Yue later taught what he had learned from Zhou to his soldiers and they were successful in battle.

With the publishing of Yue Fei's 17th folklore biography, The Story of Yue Fei (1684), a new, fictional Zhou Tong emerged, who differed greatly from his historical persona. Not only was he now from Shaanxi, but he was Yue's adopted father, a learned scholar with knowledge of the eighteen weapons of war, and his personal name was spelled with a different, yet related, Chinese character. The novel's author portrayed him as an elderly widower and military arts tutor who counted Lin Chong and Lu Junyi, two of the fictional 108 outlaws on which the Water Margin is based, among his former pupils. A later republican era folktale by noted Yangzhou storyteller Wang Shaotang not only adds Wu Song to this list, but represents Zhou as a knight-errant with supreme swordsmanship. The tale also gives him the nickname "Iron Arm", which he shares with the executioner-turned-outlaw Cai Fu, and makes the outlaw Lu Zhishen his sworn brother. Because of his association with the outlaws, he is often confused with the similarly named outlaw Zhou Tong. (Full article...)


Selected entertainment

13 Assassins (Japanese: 十三人の刺客, Hepburn: Jūsannin no Shikaku) is a 2010 samurai film directed by Takashi Miike, and starring Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Sōsuke Takaoka, Hiroki Matsukata, Kazuki Namioka and Gorō Inagaki. A remake of Eiichi Kudo's 1963 Japanese period drama film 13 Assassins, it is set in 1844 toward the end of the Edo period in which a group of thirteen assassins—comprising twelve samurai and a hunter—secretly plot to assassinate Lord Matsudaira Naritsugu, the murderous leader of the Akashi clan, to thwart his appointment to the powerful Shogunate Council.

The film marks the third collaboration in which Yamada and Takaoka co-starred, the first two being Crows Zero and Crows Zero 2, both directed by Miike. Principal photography took place over two months, from July to September 2009, in Tsuruoka, Yamagata, in northern Japan. The film opened in Japan on 25 September 2010 and in the United States on 29 April 2011. It received critical acclaim from western critics, who compared it favourably to Akira Kurosawa's oeuvre.


Sports portals

Selected image


Hungary's Áron Szilágyi (L) fences against Russia's Nikolay Kovalev (R) in the men's sabre semi-finals of the 2013 World Fencing Championships at Syma Hall in Budapest, 10 August 2013.
Hungary's Áron Szilágyi (L) fences against Russia's Nikolay Kovalev (R) in the men's sabre semi-finals of the 2013 World Fencing Championships at Syma Hall in Budapest, 10 August 2013.
Credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen

Fencing is a combat sport that features sword fighting. The three disciplines of modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also saber); each discipline uses a different kind of blade, which shares the same name, and employs its own rules. Most competitive fencers specialise in one discipline. The modern sport gained prominence near the end of the 19th century and is based on the traditional skill set of swordsmanship. The Italian school altered the historical European martial art of classical fencing, and the French school later refined that system. Scoring points in a fencing competition is done by making contact with an opponent. (Full article...)


The following are images from various martial arts-related articles on Wikipedia.

Selected quote


Rarely does anger avail. When you lose your temper, you lose yourself—on the mat as well as in life.
Joe Hyams, Zen in the Martial Arts


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See the list on the right of Martial art related projects who organise work on these articles. You can also add your self to the list of Wikipedians by martial art

Talk page tagging

If you come across a martial arts related article, adding the project template {{WikiProject Martial arts}} to the talk page will help identify them for improvement and linking to related articles. For Boxing, Fencing, Mixed martial arts and Sumo. Use {{WikiProject Boxing}}, {{WikiProject Fencing}}, {{WikiProject Mixed martial arts}} and {{WikiProject Sumo}} respectively.

Assessment
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Monitor and contribute to deletion debates (Boxing).

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