Portal:Martial arts

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The Martial Arts Portal

A fighter preparing to throw his opponent from the lei tai, an elevated fighting area

Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; 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 founder 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 skill appeared to be greatly increased.

Ueshiba moved to Tokyo in 1926, where he set up what would become the Aikikai Hombu Dojo. By now 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

Mortal Kombat II is a fighting game originally produced by Midway for the arcades in 1993. It was later ported to multiple home systems, including MS-DOS, Amiga, Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, 32X, Sega Saturn, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and PlayStation only in Japan, mostly in licensed versions developed by Probe Entertainment and Sculptured Software and published by Acclaim Entertainment (currently distributed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment).

It is the second entry in the Mortal Kombat series and is the sequel to Mortal Kombat, improving the gameplay and expanding the mythos of the original Mortal Kombat, notably introducing more varied finishing moves (including several Fatalities per character and new finishers, such as Babality and Friendship) and several iconic characters, such as Kitana, Mileena, Kung Lao, Noob Saibot, and the series' recurring villain, Shao Kahn. The game's plot continues from the first game, featuring the next Mortal Kombat tournament set in the otherdimensional realm of Outworld, with the Outworld and Earthrealm representatives fighting each other on their way to challenge the evil emperor Shao Kahn.

The game was an unprecedented commercial success and was acclaimed by most critics, receiving many annual awards and having been featured in various top lists in the years and decades to come, and also caused a major video game controversy due to the series' continuous depiction of graphic violence. Its legacy includes spawning a spin-off game Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and having the greatest influence on the 2011 soft reboot game Mortal Kombat, as well as inspiring numerous video game clones. Non-canonical additions to the series, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Injustice: Gods Among Us also took place during Mortal Kombat II.


Sports portals

Selected image


A painting of water jousting.
Credit: Stadtarchiv Halle

Water jousting is a form of jousting where the adversaries, carrying a lance and protected only by a shield, stand on a platform on the stern of a boat. The aim of the sport is to send the adversary into the water whilst maintaining one's own balance on the platform. The boat is propelled by oarsmen or, in some cases, a motor may be used. The sport is practised principally in France and also Switzerland and Germany. (Full article...)


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

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Efficiency and smooth progress, prudence in all matters, recognizing true courage, recognizing different levels of morale, instilling confidence, and realizing what can and cannot be reasonably expected—such are the matters on the mind of the master carpenter. The principle of martial arts is like this.


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