Asian+Studies+Final+Alex+K

SPORTS- Development of Martial Arts & MMA



Introduction

In East Asia, there are distinct types of Martial Arts: Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, Yoo Do, Wushu, etc. The martial arts we see now is basically a developed form of the ancient martial arts that existed in the past. In fact, in modern society we live in today, these martial arts are actually combined and those martial arts combined basically created boxing, kick boxing, etc. Now that many people prefers more vigorous form of the "Martial Arts", MMA has became one of the most popular sport to watch not just in Asia, but all over the world. Still, the martial arts that existed in the past did not disappear. We can commonly see the martial arts through movies, TV shows, etc. Famous example of martial arts in movies can be seen through Jackie Chan who is exceptionally talented in Kung Fu. Now that mixed martial arts seems like it's gaining more attention, it is important for us to discover the development and the current state of martial arts.

**__Korea__**

__BACKGROUND __

Korean martial arts is very well known and is practiced in many different areas. Famous Korean martial arts included hapkido, and taekwondo. Not only that, archery and knife fighting that was usually held back in the history also made its stance as a proud martial art in Korea. MMA is very popular and famous in Korea. Korea contains many brilliant fighters which will be mentioned later. Apart from China’s Kung Fu where it was usually used against self defense, Korea’s very first history of martial arts began with ssireum which was mainly used to train soldiers but also for entertainment purposes among the villagers and sometimes, Korean people created ssireum contest to see who’s the strongest and gave a cow as an award. Taekkyeon is also an important form of martial arts in Korea which was handed down from Silla Kingdom where the hwarangs usually performed. Though practicing Taekkyeon was banned for awhile in 19th century, it resumed its appearance after 1945 when Korea gained its independence. Hapkido also started from Silla and Hapkido complemented Kuk Sool Won, Han Mu Do, and Hwarangedo which all played important role in Korean martial arts.


 * __MMA__**

Bascially there are many types of martial arts that existed in Korea until MMA became popular. MMA basically had a huge impact in Korea allowing people who used to be a ssireum champion to become the MMA champion in Korea. And... That famous champion in Korea is called Hong-man Choi. He is seven feet two inches tall and weighs hundred-sixty kilograms. He is a big person and his skills flourish with the advantage of having such a big body. His first match was in Seoul in 2005 fighting Kaoklai Kaennorsing in the finals and also in the final elimination the great Bob Sapp was defeated by Hong-man but his winning streak was stopped by Remy Bonjasky. His first debut basically showed the potential that Choi had which allowed him to beat many famous boxers later on. His appearance in MMA stage stopped when he had to serve in military. After he was exempted from his military service due to brain tumor, he went to Japan for a singing career and acting career. Though his appearance in MMA stage became rare, but he will be remembered as the “Techno Goliath”. Of course there were other famous boxers in Korea such as Duk Koo Kim, but due to the fact that kickboxing wasn't really popular in the time where Duk Koo was alived which was 1960s to 1980s, Koreans didn't realize the enjoyment in kickboxing until Hong-man made his debut in the MMA stage. Though we cannot remember kick boxers in the past, it is clear that people back then contributed greatly in allowing MMA to spread in Korea.

__**Videos**__

Videos of Tae Kwon Do Videos of Choi Hong-man

__**China**__



__Background __

China’s martial arts developed tremendously over pass centuries. In movies that Jackie Chan, a famous Chinese actor as well as a famous Kung Fu “master”, is in such as Rush Hour, Karate Kid, etc, people can commonly see the beauty and the purpose of the use of martial arts. China is the place where we can call the place of martial arts. Starting from having ancient form of martial arts, China’s martial arts developed and China eventually became applicable to join the modern version of martial arts in order to compete their martial arts all around the world which is the mixed martial arts (MMA). MMA is not really famous in China, because China had many influences of martial arts in the old days, but MMA gained some attention with the appearance of “The Art of War” in China. But first, it is important to know the development of martial arts in China. Once called wushu, it developed into Kung fu, and is still developing. All the creation of martial arts in China started in ancient China and the purpose of practicing the martial arts was for self-defense. Usually Chinese soldiers practiced martial arts. First used as a skill for self-defense, as it developed more and more in China, China’s used martial arts to pursue violence. Shoubo and Xiang Bo serves as the best example for ancient martial arts in China. Not only China had physical influences due to learning self-defense, there were philosophical influences involved such as Daoist influences. Eight Immortals describes the Daoist concepts the best, holding fighting techniques that are used by utilizing the characteristics of each immortals. Shaolin is part of styles of wushu and is the first insitutionalized Chinese martial arts. This style of wushu is not heard of world wide, but is the core of martial arts in China. Shaolin got its appearance mainly through literary genres of the late Ming. Now in the modern days, Chinese martial arts include Bagua, Drunken Boxing, Tai Chi Chuan, etc. Although these martial arts are gaining popularity, there was a huge time period where Chinese martial arts lost its fame. Chinese martial arts experienced dissemination by the end of the Chinese Civil war in 1949. As the result of martial artists escaping from PRC, Chinese martial arts were taught out of China, which gave different ethnic groups to experience China’s style of martial arts. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the traditional martial arts such as Kung Fu, or Wushu weren’t practiced as much. To avoid such discouragement, PRC replaced independent schools of martial arts with the sport of Wushu. Also, the encouragement of practicing martial arts was continued as Kuoshu which was a term meaning “the arts of the nation” replaced Gongfu (Kungfu) in which replacing the word Gongfu with Kuoshu gave more pride nationwide rather than individually. In order to train martial art in China, students needed to know the basics which contained the words “Train both internal and external (style).” Internal training required breathing and strength which is basically dealing with the internal force within oneself whereas external training require one to use the physical materials that they possess which are hands, eyes, etc.


 * __Famous Boxer__**

China was able to engage in the world wide famous form of martial arts, boxing starting from a 26 years old guy named Zou Shiming. He won the silver Medal at the 2003 ALBA World Amateur Boxing Championships, and was able to take the third place at the Athens Olympic Games. Despite the fact that Boxing was banned on 1980s in China, Zou successfully became Chinese Boxer which allowed him to gain a gold medal in 1990 Beijing Asian Games and fifth place in the 1996 Olympic Games that was held in Atlanta. Since boxing gained its attention in China, it's a matter of time when a profound Chinese MMA fighter suddenly shows up and surprises the whole world.

__**Videos**__

Jackie Chan Using Kung Fu Video Zou Shiming's fight video

__**Japan**__

__Background __

Japan, without an exception, contains various types of martial arts. Many might be new to people who did not have interest in Japan that much. To fulfill that curiosity, I will explain about the development of Japan’s martial arts and how Japan came to the point where they arrived in front of the door of MMA. Japan’s origin of martial arts basically started from the period where samurais were commonly seen. Japanese martial arts was divided into koryu and gendai budo which puts Meiji Restoration in as the center of focus and koryu is the one that came prior to the Meiji Restoration and gendai Budo came after the Meiji Restoration. Koryu means traditional school and this style represents traditional. Koryu was used mainly in war. Sumo is Japan’s national sport and the competitors try to put each other on the ground. Winner was put in the list called banzuke. There are many type of jutsus. Jujutsu, Kenjusu, Battojutsu, Ninjutsu, etc. These jutsus, can be seen is Japanese manga called Naruto. Though it might sound weird, not only that martial arts in Japan is present through actual people competing against each other, we can see some of martial arts in modern comic book, Naruto. This shows that not only that Japanese martial arts is still shown through history book, it is also shown through fun comic books that people of young age could enjoy. Jutsus are basically used by shinobis who are commonly referred to as assassins, spies, etc. All these basically came before Meiji Restoration and are part of Koryu. Gendai Budo is commonly referred to as modern martial way. Gendai Budo includes Judo, Kendo, Aikido, Kyudo, and Karate. Talking about one of these, Aikido is probably the one that is considered the most famous. Aikido contains different methods of self defense and also contains extremely vigorous techniques that could allow one to silence his opponent.



__**MMA**__

It is evident that without these martial arts existing in Japan, their understandings of MMA would’ve been more difficult. Japan has a very own MMA fighter who is actually a Korean but has the Japanese nationality. This guy’s name is Yoshihiro Akiyama in Japanese and Choo Seung Hoon in Korean. Akiyama had his career in Judo and MMA. Through 2001-2003 he focused on Judo gaining Gold medal at the 2001 Asian Champion ships and another GOld in 2002. In his MMA K-1 career, he fought many fighters and he won against Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Taiei Kin, Melvin Manhoef who are all great performers in MMA. He did make a mistake in one game using bunch of lotion to make his body to make his body slippery which resulted him in the suspension of his prize money. Though that mistake was made, Akiyama will be perceived as one of the best MMA fighters in Japanese history.

__**Videos**__

Aikido Video Choo Sung Hoon (Yoshihiro Akiyama) Video

__**Comparison**__



There are many differences and many similarities between the three countries. One obvious difference between the three country is probably the popularity of MMA or possibly the way how the martial arts developed in each countries. In China, MMA isn’t really popular yet while in Korea and Japan, MMA already made its boom in the country and is still regarded as a popular sport. In Korea and Japan profound fighter has already been discovered while in China, it has a long way to go until they discover their brilliant fighter. Clearly, similarities are more easy to spot. Sumo and ssireum basically share similar purpose and objectives. Also, kung fu, taekwondo, aikido are probably what represents each countries which shows that there are special types of martial arts that each countries have. In order for these three countries to reach the point where they meet MMA, different martial arts in each of the countries made huge contributions in allowing MMA to enter in their countries and to understand MMA better. Overall, all countries definitely contains a long history of their martial arts.

**Asian Studies Final Project Self-Evaluation**

What did you contribute specifically to your project?

In my project, I specifically contributed in writing all the information and getting all the informations. I also did my best to get all the pictures that are fit for my writings and videos that serves as an example for what I wrote. I especially worked on getting the right videos to show since it was important for the viewers to see the best examples that could see.

How successful do you think you conveyed your research to your audience?

I think I was not that successful in conveying my research to my audience due to the lack of basic information about MMA, but I think I somehow gave the audience an idea of what I was trying to do by stating all the examples of martial arts and relating that to mixed martial arts.

What would have made your presentation more successful? To be honest, I think better videos, or possibly better writing skills would’ve made my presentation more successful. I think I lack ability to write well therefore I need to keep working on writing better just for the sake of the reader’s comfortableness with my writing.

How successful do you think your technology-based materials were in conveying your research?

My technology-based materials were pretty much okay since I included many videos and pictures and tried to find the best possible videos I could fin. I also thought it was a good idea for me to make a separate video section since loading my page would be a pain if I just put all the videos in one page.

What would have made your technology-based materials more successful?

It would’ve been better if I took more time on making my own video about MMA and the person’s profile but since I didn’t really have time I had to use videos from youtube as an example and I couldn’t really create the “original” video to show people.

What did you learn from this project? Submit any other comments after this question.

From this project, I basically learned everything about martial arts in China, Japan, and Korea. As I was researching I didn’t even know my own country’s martial arts history, types, etc. Since I barely knew my country’s martial arts, I didn’t expect myself to know China’s or Japan’s. As I expected, Kung Fu and Sumo were the only terms I knew from those countries. Everything was new to me. How each martial arts were originated was probably the best thing I learned since it’s always good to know the origin of something. I basically learned nearly 95% of what I wrote in this project.

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