Building Men on the Mat. Traditional “Manly Arts” and the Asian Martial Arts in America

Authors

  • Geoffrey Wingard Independent researcher

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18002/rama.v4i2.210

Keywords:

Martial arts, combat sports, manly arts

Abstract

The following article, “Building Men on the Mat,” reviews the historic relationship between American popular culture and combat arts. The article utilizes archival material from the 18th through the 20th centuries, as well as analyses from relevant social science literature, to demonstrate that the martial arts are integral to American society and are not ad hoc additions to contemporary popular culture. Specific fighting arts discussed include practices such as fencing, cudgel fighting, wrestling, bare-knuckle boxing and judo.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Métricas alternativas

References

BARTON-WRIGHT, E.W. (1902). Ju-jitsu and Ju-do. Transactions and proceedings of the Japan Society, London 5: 261-264.

BLACKWELL, E. (1734). A compleat system of fencing: Or, the art of defence. Williamsburg: William Parks.

Bowen, R. (1999). Origins of the British Judo Association, the European Judo Union & the International Judo Federation. Journal of Asian Martial Arts, 8(3): 43-53.

BURDICK, D. (1999). The American way of fighting: Unarmed defense in the United States, 1845-1945. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Indiana.

BURNS, M. (1913). Jiu Jitsu–Self defense and their relation to wrestling: Lesson XII (Book VI). Omaha: Farmer Burns School of Wrestling.

CARR, K. (1993). Making way: War, philosophy and sport in Japanese judo. Journal of Sport History, 20(2): 167-188.

CASS, E. (1930). The book of fencing. Boston: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, Co.

DONOVAN, M. (1909). The Roosevelt that I know: Ten years of boxing with the president – and other memories of famous men. New York: B.W. Dodge and Co.

DRAEGER, D. (1996). Modern bujutsu and budo: The martial arts and ways of Japan. New York: Weatherhill.

DRAEGER, D. & R. SMITH. (1980). Comprehensive Asian fighting arts. New York: Kodansha International.

DYKHUIZEN, J. (2000): Culture, training and perception of the martial arts: Aikido’s example. Journal of Asian Martial Arts, 9(3): 9-31.

FRIDAY, K. (1997). Legacies of the sword: The Kashima-Shinryu and samurai martial culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

FUNAKOSHI, G. (1975). Karate-do, my way of life. New York: Kodansha International.

GORN, E. (1985). Gouge and bite, pull hair and scratch: The social significance of fighting in the southern backcountry. American Historical Quarterly, 90(1): 18-43.

GRAY, W. RUSSELL. (1987). For whom the bell tolled: The decline of British prize fighting in the Victorian era. Journal of Popular Culture, 21(2): 53-64.

GUTTMANN, A. (1978). From ritual to record: The nature of modern sports. New York: Columbia University Press.

HOLLIMAN, J. (1975). American sports 1785-1835. No. 34 of Perspectives in American History. Philadelphia: Porcupine Press.

HOLT, R. (1989). Sport and the British: A modern history. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

HARDY, S. (1990). Entrepreneurs, structures and sportgeist. In Essays on Sport History and Sport Mythology, edited by Donald Kyle and Gary Stark. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.

JACKSON-LEARS, T. (1981). No place of grace: Anti-modernism and the transformation of American culture 1880-1920. New York: Pantheon Books.

JONES, H. (1943). Judo, jiu-jitsu, and hand-to-hand fighting: A list of references. Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress Division of Bibliography.

LINDSAY, T. & J. KANO (1889). Jiujutsu the old samurai art of fighting without weapons, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 16: 192-205.

LUSCHEN, G. (1981). The system of sport—Problems of methodology, conflict and social stratification. In Handbook of the Social Science of Sport, edited by Gunther Luschen and George Sage. Champaign, IL: Stipes Publishing Co.

MANDELL, R. (1984). Sport: A cultural history. New York: Columbia University Press.

MATSUDAIRA, T. (1910). Sports and physical training in modern Japan. Transactions and proceedings of the Japan Society, London, 8: 114-134.

MILLER, T., G. LAWRENCE, J. MCCAY & D. ROWE. (2001). Globalization and sport: Playing the world. London: Sage Publications.

NADI, A. (1943). On fencing. New York: G.P Putnam’s Son.

NITOBE, I. (1905). Bushido. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

NORMAN, F. (1905). The righting man of Japan, the training and exercises of the samurai. London: Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd.

PITTMAN, A. (1999). Combat wrestling: Geoghan’s blend from East and West. Journal of Asian Martial Arts, 8(4): 48-57.

SANSONE, D. (1988). Greek athletics and the genesis of sport. Berkeley: University of California Press.

SKIDMORE, M. (1995). Oriental contributions to Western popular culture: The martial arts. Journal of Popular Culture, 25(1): 129-148.

SMITH, R. (1996). The masters contest of 1926: An epiphany in judo history. Journal of Asian Martial Arts, 5(3): 60-65.

WINGARD, G. (2003). Sport, industrialism and the Japanese gentle way: Judo in late Victorian England. Journal of Asian Martial Arts, 12(2): 16-25.

WOLF, T. (2000). An introduction to the Journal of Manly Arts. Electronic Journals of Martial Arts and Sciences: Journal of Manly Arts, http://ejmas.com/jmanly/jmanlymission.htm (17 de febrero de 2003).

YUASA, Y. (1993). The body, self-cultivation, and ki energy. New York: State University of New York Press.

Published

2012-07-16

How to Cite

Wingard, G. (2012). Building Men on the Mat. Traditional “Manly Arts” and the Asian Martial Arts in America. Revista de Artes Marciales Asiáticas, 4(2), 8–21. https://doi.org/10.18002/rama.v4i2.210

Issue

Section

Articles