Author: Thomas A. Green
Publisher: Praeger
Published: 2003-11-30
Total Pages: 346
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Martial arts, once restricted to a few specific locations and practiced by small groups of devotees, have truly spread throughout the world. The plethora of tae kwando and karate dojos in U.S. shopping malls attests to the popularity of various kinds of martial arts in this country. Though generally perceived and advertised as means of self-defense, body sculpting, and self-discipline, martial arts are actually social tools that respond to altered physical, social, and psychological environments. This book examines how practitioners have responded to stimuli such as feminism, globalism, imperialism, militarism, nationalism, slavery, and the commercialization of sport. In a series of chapters devoted to Asian, African, and European systems of the late 19th to early 21st centuries, the authors examine the forces and philosophies that shaped fighting arts in diverse cultural settings. Because of political, social, and economic factors, this period witnessed the spread of martial arts to areas outside of their original contexts. Some of these arts flourished in their new environments, but others did not. The authors demonstrate that martial arts are not the conservative strongholds of tradition posited by conventional wisdom, but are instead responsive and mutable barometers of change. This book is essential for students of multicultural dialogues and devotees of martial arts performance and practice.
Author: Jamesy Lee
Publisher: C F W Enterprises
Published: 1990-04-01
Total Pages: 115
ISBN-13: 9780317028393
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Brian Gray
Publisher:
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 100
ISBN-13: 9780865681460
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Brian Gray, one of the world's foremost authorities on iron palm philosophy and technique, takes you through every phase of this method. Learn conditioning techniques, breathing exercises and actual iron palm strikes. He'll also show you how to tell the difference between the legitimate iron palm practitioner and the fraud who uses gimmicks and sleight-of-hand to perform breaking feats. After studying this book, Gray promises you'll be able to slap through concrete with the center of your palm.
Author: Eric Oram
Publisher: Black Belt Communications Incorporated
Published: 2011-12-01
Total Pages: 247
ISBN-13: 9780897502030
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Using a three-part perspective on the traditional art, this guide illustrates how wing chun kung fu is still deadly and effective in the context of modern combat. The first part addresses fundamentals such as the history, life benefits, concepts, principles, and basic training—including footwork, kicks, arm movements, and reflexes—that characterize the art. Bridging the gap between wing chun and other fighting styles, the second portion explains how a wing chun artist is able to exploit the vulnerabilities in defensive and offensive systems such as kickboxing, grappling, and karate. The third and final section discusses how this particular brand of kung fu is highly effective in street combat—both empty-handed and with weapons—as well as against single and multiple opponents.
Author: Forrest E. Morgan
Publisher:
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 324
ISBN-13: 9780942637762
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A step-by-step aooroiach to applying the Japanese warriors mind set to martial training and daily life.
Author: Bruce Lee
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Published: 2015-09-08
Total Pages: 200
ISBN-13: 1462917887
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In the months leading up to his death, Bruce Lee was working on this definitive study of the Chinese martial arts—collectively known as Kung Fu or Gung Fu. This book has now been edited and is published here for the first time in its entirety. Bruce Lee totally revolutionized the practice of martial arts and brought them into the modern world—by promoting the idea that students have the right to pick and choose those techniques and training regimens which suit their own personal needs and fighting styles. He developed a new style of his own called Jeet Kune Do—combining many elements from different masters and different traditions. This was considered heretical at the time within martial arts circles, where one was expected to study with only a single master—and Lee was the first martial artist to attempt this. Today he is revered as the "father" of martial arts practice around the world—including Mixed Martial Arts. In addition to presenting the fundamental techniques, mindset and training methods of traditional Chinese martial arts, this marial art treatise explores such esoteric topics as Taoism and Zen as applied to Gung Fu, Eastern and Western fitness regimens and self-defense techniques. Also included is a Gung Fu "scrapbook" of Bruce Lee's own personal anecdotes regarding the history and traditions of the martial arts of China. After Lee's death, his manuscript was completed and edited by martial arts expert John Little in cooperation with the Bruce Lee Estate. This book features an introduction by his wife, Linda Lee Cadwell and a foreword from his close friend and student, Taky Kimura. This Bruce Lee Book is part of the Bruce Lee Library which also features: Bruce Lee: Striking Thoughts Bruce Lee: The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragon Bruce Lee: Artist of Life Bruce Lee: Letters of the Dragon Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body Bruce Lee: Jeet Kune Do
Author: Charles Russo
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 2019-11-01
Total Pages: 268
ISBN-13: 1496217063
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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.
Author: Ted Mancuso
Publisher: Black Belt Communications
Published: 1982
Total Pages: 100
ISBN-13: 9780897500791
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Traces the history of kung fu and explains some of the various exercises, stances, kicks, hand positions, and self-defense techniques involved in its practice.