Ki (in Japanese) or Qi (in Chinese) is the key concept in Eastern medicine, Eastern philosophy, as well as in martial arts. We explain the philosophical and psychological background of Ki. We emphasize that the unique aspects of Eastern philosophy are 'non-linearity' and 'holistic' approach. We then present physics aspect of Ki. Our experiments demonstrated that a 'Ki-beam' carries 'entropy' (o...

BACKGROUND Martial arts studios for children market their services as providing mental health outcomes such as self-esteem, self-confidence, concentration, and self-discipline. It appears that many parents enroll their children in martial arts in hopes of obtaining such outcomes. The current study used the data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten class of 1998-1999, to ass...

There is substantial evidence that training in Martial Arts is associated with improvements in cognitive function in children; but little has been studied in healthy adults. Here, we studied the impact of extensive training in Martial Arts on cognitive control in adults. To do so, we used the Attention Network Test (ANT) to test two different groups of participants: with at least 2 years of Mar...

Purpose Martial arts have been practiced as a physical activity for health and fitness and are recommended as such by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Previous studies showed that most forms of martial arts had positive effects on health. However, there is no data on the effects of martial arts exercise (MAE) on quality of life. This study evaluated the effects of 12 weeks of ...

Nulty, Timothy J. 2017. ‘Gong and Fa in Chinese Martial Arts’, Martial Arts Studies 3, 51-64. Phenomenology, embodiment, Merleau-Ponty, taijiquan, skill, technique, martial arts 10.18573/j.2016.10064 The distinction between gong (skill) and fa (technique) is ubiquitous in Chinese martial arts. Utilizing Maurice MerleauPonty’s notion of ‘embodied intentionality’, I examine this distinction. I dr...

Different forms of martial arts are practiced worldwide, each with various intensities of physical activity. These disciplines are potentially an effective exercise therapy for metabolic diseases. Tai chi is the most well-studied style of martial arts and has shown evidence of its effect on metabolic diseases; however, little evidence is available regarding the association between other styles ...

PURPOSE To measure the time needed to teach a series of martial arts techniques to proficiency. METHODS Fifteen volunteer subjects without any prior martial arts or self-defense experience were recruited. A panel of martial arts experts selected 21 different techniques including defensive stances, arm blocks, elbow strikes, palm strikes, thumbs to eyes, instep kicks and a carotid neck restrai...

Studies that have verified the use of yells in force production are inconclusive. Martial arts practitioners enhanced their force production during handgrips when the yell was performed [8], and trained subjects produced higher force when performing elbow flexion during the repetition with the yell [9]. However, during the performance of deadlifts by experienced and inexperienced subjects, no d...

The cognitive and neural mechanisms for recognizing and categorizing behavior are not well understood in non-human animals. In the current experiments, pigeons and humans learned to categorize two non-repeating, complex human behaviors ("martial arts" vs. "Indian dance"). Using multiple video exemplars of a digital human model, pigeons discriminated these behaviors in a go/no-go task and humans...