An Illustrated History of Martial Arts in America
Title | An Illustrated History of Martial Arts in America PDF eBook |
Author | Emil Farkas |
Publisher | |
Pages | 282 |
Release | 2008-03 |
Genre | Sports & Recreation |
ISBN | 9781897307908 |
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.
Striking Distance
Title | Striking Distance PDF eBook |
Author | Charles Russo |
Publisher | U of Nebraska Press |
Pages | 269 |
Release | 2016-07 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0803290519 |
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.
Martial Arts America
Title | Martial Arts America PDF eBook |
Author | Bob Orlando |
Publisher | Frog Books |
Pages | 228 |
Release | 1997 |
Genre | Sports & Recreation |
ISBN | 9781883319670 |
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.
Aikido Comes to America
Title | Aikido Comes to America PDF eBook |
Author | Antonio Aloia |
Publisher | |
Pages | 203 |
Release | 2020-08 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781943155330 |
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 Invention of Martial Arts
Title | The Invention of Martial Arts PDF eBook |
Author | Paul Bowman |
Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
Pages | 281 |
Release | 2021 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 0197540333 |
"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"--
Black Belt Patriotism
Title | Black Belt Patriotism PDF eBook |
Author | Chuck Norris |
Publisher | B&H Publishing Group |
Pages | 298 |
Release | 2009-12 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 0805464360 |
The "New York Times" bestseller by actor, activist, and martial arts expert Norris urges Americans to recapture a national spirit of faith, freedom, and respect for tradition, history, and human life.
Street Fighting
Title | Street Fighting PDF eBook |
Author | George Carpenter |
Publisher | |
Pages | 113 |
Release | 1979 |
Genre | Self-defense |
ISBN | 9780879474287 |