Geography of the MA

[Geoff]

I am a geography teacher in a fairly large high school. Because I am male and was, in a previous career, in law enforcement I get a variety of the so-called "tough" kids in my classes. By and large I find that these kids are good students once you get them excited about the subject. One thing I am trying this year is introducung instruction in the cultural geography of East Asia through the martial arts. Since kids are familiar (or at least think they are) with the MA and boys in particular get excited about this stuff I have what I think is a pretty decent plan to get kids working on cultural geography.

The students will, among other things, adopt a martial art and find out a little about the history and culture of a particular style and a lot (hopefully) about the geography of different regions of East Asia (e.g. Karate in the Ryukyus, Wing Chun in Southern China, TKD in contemporary Korea, Kendo in central Japan, etc.). They will then, through a series of exercises, share these regional geographies with each other.

I have identified a number of text and web sources for the students to use in this project. My school library has purchased the ABC-CLIO Encyclopedia of the MA and I have secured a grant to buy extra copies of Draeger and Smith, etc.

What other sources would list members recomend? They should be comparative, accurate and above all, not propagandist garbage. I am looking for both text and web sources.

Thanks,

Geoff

[Harry Cook]

Dear Geoff, you might find a work I helped to write of some use. Unfortunately it has been out of print for some time but The Fighting Arts Choosing the Way, David Scott and Mick Pappas Rider & Co., 1985 ISBN 0 7126 1085 5, contains a general overview of combat systems from both the east and the west. The methods are divided for convenience into three types: 1. kicking and punching systems, 2 grappling systems, 3. weapons sytems, but of course some methods make use of all three approaches. The book received a very favourable review in the journal of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.
Yours,
Harry Cook

[Geoff]

Thanks Harry,

I will do a search for the book on some websites for out of print media.

Geoff

[Rogier]

Geoff..

I suggest you send a personal message to Joseph Svinth (that's also his nickname) he will most likely be able to help you.

[Rog]

The Fighting Arts. Choosing the Way -

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookSearchPL?an=&tn=The%20Fighting%20Arts%20Choosing%20the%20Way&ph=2&sn=&imageField.y=9&imageField.x=40

[Kendall]

Note that this can also be done for Western martial arts in European countries as well - English, Scot, German, Italian, Spanish, etc. styles differed/differ quite a bit...

As just one example reference book, see "The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe,"
by Sydney Anglo.