Portal:Martial arts

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from P:ma)

The Martial Arts Portal

United States Marine practicing martial arts, 2008

Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defence; military and law enforcement applications; competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; and the preservation of a nation's intangible cultural heritage. (Full article...)

Although the earliest evidence of martial arts goes back millennia, the true roots are difficult to reconstruct. Inherent patterns of human aggression which inspire practice of mock combat (in particular wrestling) and optimization of serious close combat as cultural universals are doubtlessly inherited from the pre-human stage and were made into an "art" from the earliest emergence of that concept. Indeed, many universals of martial art are fixed by the specifics of human physiology and not dependent on a specific tradition or era.

Specific martial traditions become identifiable in Classical Antiquity, with disciplines such as shuai jiao, Greek wrestling or those described in the Indian epics or the Spring and Autumn Annals of China. (Full article...)

Selected articles

Selected biography

Morihei Ueshiba at his Ayabe dojo in 1921.
Morihei Ueshiba (植芝 盛平, Ueshiba Morihei, December 14, 1883 – April 26, 1969) was a Japanese martial artist and founder of the martial art of aikido. He is often referred to as "the founder" Kaiso (開祖) or Ōsensei (大先生/翁先生), "Great Teacher".

The son of a landowner from Tanabe, Ueshiba studied a number of martial arts in his youth, and served in the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War. After being discharged in 1907, he moved to Hokkaidō as the head of a pioneer settlement; here he met and studied with Takeda Sōkaku, the headmaster of Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu. On leaving Hokkaido in 1919, Ueshiba joined the Ōmoto-kyō movement, a Shinto sect, in Ayabe, where he served as a martial arts instructor and opened his first dojo. He accompanied the head of the Ōmoto-kyō group, Onisaburo Deguchi, on an expedition to Mongolia in 1924, where they were captured by Chinese troops and returned to Japan. The following year, he had a profound spiritual experience, stating that, "a golden spirit sprang up from the ground, veiled my body, and changed my body into a golden one." After this experience, his martial arts technique became gentler, with a greater emphasis on the control of ki.

Ueshiba moved to Tokyo in 1926, where he set up what would become the Aikikai Hombu Dojo. By this point he was comparatively famous in martial arts circles, and taught at this dojo and others around Japan, including in several military academies. In the aftermath of World War II the Hombu dojo was temporarily closed, but Ueshiba had by this point left Tokyo and retired to Iwama, and he continued training at the dojo he had set up there. From the end of the war until the 1960s, he worked to promote aikido throughout Japan and abroad. He died from liver cancer in 1969.

After Ueshiba's death, aikido continued to be promulgated by his students (many of whom became noted martial artists in their own right). It is now practiced around the world. (Full article...)


Selected entertainment

Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito, billed as "The Battle", was a professional boxing match between WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto and former IBF and WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito. The WBA welterweight title bout took place on July 26, 2008, at the MGM Grand in Paradise, Nevada, and resulted in an eleventh round technical knockout victory for Margarito.

Both men had previously fought on April 12 and emerged victorious, thus clearing the way for a July 26 match between the two boxers. It was Cotto's first fight in Las Vegas since December 2004. According to promoter Bob Arum, the bout took place in Las Vegas to promote Cotto to a new audience while also appealing to Margarito's Mexican American fans in California. Cotto entered the fight as The Ring magazine's #1 ranked boxer in the welterweight division and #6 in their pound-for-pound rankings. Margarito entered the match as The Ring magazine's #4 ranked welterweight. Press conferences were held in Mexico, Los Angeles, New York City, and Puerto Rico to promote the world title bout.

Cotto and Margarito's aggressive boxing styles led to much praise from multiple boxing writers. Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports named it the third-best boxing match of 2008 and the fight generated 450,000 pay-per-view buys, the third-highest in 2008 for a boxing match. Margarito was later suspected of cheating in this bout after controversy arose over his use of hand wraps after his bout with Shane Mosley.


Sports portals

Selected image


Right, a bearded white man wearing a yellow loin-cloth wrestles with a black man, left, who is on one knee. Rich green background.
Right, a bearded white man wearing a yellow loin-cloth wrestles with a black man, left, who is on one knee. Rich green background.
Credit: York Museums Trust staff

The Wrestlers is an oil painting on millboard by English artist William Etty, painted around 1840 and currently in the York Art Gallery, in York, England. It depicts a wrestling match between a black man and a white man, both glistening with sweat and under an intense light emphasising their curves and musculature. While little documentation of the painting exists prior to 1947, it is likely that it was painted over a period of three evenings at the life class of the Royal Academy. (Full article...)


The following are images from various martial arts-related articles on Wikipedia.

Selected quote


There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.


Topics


Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

Things you can do

See the list on the right of Martial art related projects who organise work on these articles. You can also add your self to the list of Wikipedians by martial art

Talk page tagging

If you come across a martial arts related article, adding the project template {{WikiProject Martial arts}} to the talk page will help identify them for improvement and linking to related articles. For Boxing, Fencing, Mixed martial arts and Sumo. Use {{WikiProject Boxing}}, {{WikiProject Fencing}}, {{WikiProject Mixed martial arts}} and {{WikiProject Sumo}} respectively.

Assessment
If possible please assess articles you tag using guidelines (Boxing, Mixed martial arts and Sumo).

Deletions

Monitor and contribute to deletion debates (Boxing).

Find images

Wikipedia requested images of martial artists, mixed martial artists and boxers.

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals