The triviality of martial arts studies

Abstract

Eyebrows raise. Sometimes there are sniggers. Glances are exchanged. Some people look confused. Some say, ‘What?’ People seem surprised. ‘Martial arts?’, they ask, incredulously. ‘Why?’ Or even, ‘Martial arts studies? What is that?’ These kinds of reactions come from all sorts of people – whether academics or not. No one ever just nods and says, ‘Oh, ok’, the way they would if you had just said Romantic poetry or urban planning or philosophy or music or fluid dynamics, or the way they might even if you’d just said that you ‘do’ one of the many obscure and often peculiarly named branches of modern science (whether neuroparasitology, nutrigenomics, cliodynamics, or something even more unexpected). Sometimes there is surprise and delight. Sometimes there is shock. A lot of it – whether shock, delight, dismay, concern, or confusion – should, on reflection, be unsurprising. On the one hand, people are used to hearing about the familiar subjects of the arts, humanities, and social sciences – the old, traditional fields. On the other hand, when it comes to the sciences, people almost expect to hear of new and unintelligible fields with exotic Latinate names, involving odd prefixes combined with all kinds of ‘ologies’, ‘ographies’, ‘omatics’, ‘otics’, ‘amics’, and ‘omics’. We measure our social progress through this ever-rising spiral of technical specialization. But martial arts as a field of academic study? Martial arts studies? This kind of thing sounds highly dubious to most ears. It doesn’t seem to need explanation as much as it needs justification. What reason could there be for the existence of something so...so what? Words come out of the woodwork: iffy, dodgy, nerdy, niche, weird, boyish, hobbyist, or – of course – trivial. What triviality is martial arts studies? What indulgence? What narcissism, navel gazing, nothingness, even naughtiness is this? These questions may seem hyperbolical. But recall a rhetorical question posed by Stuart Hall about