Martial Arts America

This broad survey of martial arts traditions and their evolution to modern Western practice challenging the purpose and effectiveness of many martial arts activities and training methods used in the U.S. today. By focusing on the most effective and relevant way for Americans to pursue the various martial arts, Orlando's useful insights penetrate a subject too often shrouded in mysticism and marketing hype. 30 photos. 79 illustrations.

271 pages filled with hundreds and hundreds rare photos of everyone who has made an impact on American martial arts since it started in 1905 with Judo lessons being taught in the White House to Teddy Roosevelt. Names like Bruce Lee, Ed Parker, Peter Urban, Richard Kim, HIdetaka Nishiyama, Funakoshi, Kano, Wallace, Lewis, Urquidez, Smith Jackson Blanks and so many more. Each photo has a short description beside it written by America's historian Emil Farkas.

"Covers the development of the arts of karate and tae kwon do in the United States"--Provided by publisher.

In the spring of 1959, eighteen-year-old Bruce Lee returned to San Francisco, the city of his birth. Although the martial arts were widely unknown in America, Bruce encountered a robust fight culture in the Bay Area, populated with talented and trailblazing practitioners such as Lau Bun, Chinatown’s aging kung fu patriarch; Wally Jay, the innovative Hawaiian jujitsu master; and James Lee, the Oakland street fighter. Regarded by some as a brash loudmouth and by others as a dynamic visionary, Bruce spent his first few years back in America advocating for a modern approach to the martial arts, and showing little regard for the damaged egos left in his wake. The year of 1964 would be an eventful one for Bruce, in which he would broadcast his dissenting worldview before the first great international martial arts gathering, and then defend it by facing down Wong Jack Man—Chinatown’s young kung fu ace—in a legendary behind-closed-doors showdown. These events were a catalyst to the dawn of martial arts in America and a prelude to an icon. Based on over one hundred original interviews, Striking Distance chronicles Bruce Lee’s formative days amid the heated martial arts proving ground that thrived on San Francisco Bay in the early 1960s.

"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"--

Drawing from personally conducted interviews by the author, Antonio Aloia, as well as secondary sources, Aikido Comes to America places several early US practitioners in the context of the art's arrival and dissemination amidst American popular culture, spanning from the Beat Movement of the 1950s to the Japanese film craze of the 1980s and early 1990s. This book discusses aikido pioneers including Rodney Grantham, Thomas "Doc" Walker, Sam Combes, Steven Seagal, Lisa Tomoleoni, and George Kennedy among others. Aikido Comes to America also compares additional prominent American martial artists of the time, including Jujitsu's George Kirby, American Kenpo Karate founder Edmund Parker, Bruce Lee, and Robert Trias of Shuri-ryu Karate, giving a broader picture of how martial arts were developing during the time frame.

The history and philosophy of the various martial arts and how they have evolved to today's practice.

Covers the history of karate in America from the 1960s through the 1980s as presented in Official karate magazine, offering excerpts and reprints from magazine issues

The history of mixed martial arts as a sport in the United States.

This is an analysis of the martial arts as socio-cultural and symbolic phenomena. As Americans search for a sense of purpose, belonging, and structure in life, they have chosen an Asian cultural tradition and changed it to suit the needs of contemporary American society. A brief historical summary of the development of martial arts in Japan sets the scene for the reinterpretation of the role of these arts by American mass media. Donohue, an anthropologist with a black belt in karate, explores the important role that the martial arts play in the American psyche. As a means of developing personal power, self-defense systems are aesthetic and spiritual practices as well as statements of urban paranoia reacting against street violence and life-threatening situations. Martial arts organizations are seen as symbolic vehicles for enmeshing participants in constellations of actions and philosophies that create a sense of self and community.