To browse Academia. Journal of Martial Arts Anthropology. The theoretical perspective for this paper is provided by the Humanistic Theory of Martial Arts, which contains an explanation of how the movement developed.
Human health should be holistically analysed within the broad social context and as a process conditioned by a series of systemic relationships. Material and Method. Qualitative sociological methodology has been used in this study. Results and Conclusions.
The results show that transmission of this knowledge is an example of dialogue between the Far East China, India, Japan The dynamic relationships between "martial arts", society and health remain unclear, particularly due to research that typically views health in a purely biomedical and compartmentalized way. Martial arts and combat sports MACS offer a diversity of disciplines with their own intended training outcomes and techne. Adopting a structurationist framework, this article explores the connections between three distinct philosophies of health and TCMAs, institutions spreading such discourse, and the personal narratives of transformation and self-cultivation through these embodied art forms.
Taking a perspective starting from the practitioners themselves, I explore the interplay between discourse and narrative as applied in everyday British society. Following detailed qualitative analysis, "Western scientific", "contemporary Daoist" and "New Age" health philosophies are identified as explored via three detailed, reflexive cases of long-term practitioner-instructors, their schools and documents that connect them to international exponents across time.
This article thus contributes to sociological knowledge on MACS and health, while considering the connections between health philosophies, discourse and narrative. Such techniques, although originally devised for combat and military situations, might be adapted for health research and clinical applications. The steps, leaps, stances, strikes and blocks, as individual components of fighting systems, can form the building blocks of creative research that adopts a cautious and pragmatic approach.
