Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

on Ireland, and the victors were describing how it was being
done, since in the earliest forms of the story, Cu Chulainn’s
martial art instructors included a woman known as Scathach
(Shadowy). At any rate, the military training described included
lessons in breath control, charioteering, chess, sword dancing,
tightrope walking, and wrestling. At advanced levels, the training
also included fencing games, in which the goal was to chop
off locks of hair without drawing blood, and dodging wellthrown
rocks and spears.
About 1130 An Indian text describes the nature of wrestling patronage in
the kingdom of Chaulukya.
1132 A Chinese text describes a firearm made using a bamboo tube
reinforced on the inside with clay and on the outside with iron
bands. The invention is attributed to a soldier named Gui Chen,
the commander of a Southern Song garrison in Hebei province.
1135–1147 A Welsh cleric named Geoffrey of Monmouth writes a Latin
manuscript called Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of
the Kings of Britain). In it, Geoffrey makes Arthur a king nobler
than Charlemagne, transforms Merlin from a slightly batty
poet into a powerful warlock, and introduces the characters of
Uther Pendragon, Gawain, Mordred, and Kay. In other words,
he codified the entire Arthurian legend.
About 1140 A bas-relief at Ankor Wat shows Thai mercenaries parading before
King Suryavarman II. Cambodian war-magic of the era included
ingesting human livers.
1155 An Anglo-Norman scholar named Wace dedicates a French
poem named Brut to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Brut tells the story
of Britain’s Trojan founder (a myth borrowed from Virgil) and
introduces Round Tables and other Celtic myths into the
Arthurian legend.
About 1160 Southern Chinese philosophers (including the neo-Confucian
scholar Zhu Xi) begin arguing that the elixir of life is not found
through magic spells or elixirs, but in directed meditation. The
same sources also introduced the Greco-Indian concepts of the
Three Treasures (jing, semen in men, and life energy in the universe;
qi, breath in people and cosmic energies in the universe;
and shen, consciousness in people and the Dao [Tao] in the universe)
into Chinese exercise routines.
1170 Tametomo, a minor retainer associated with the Minamoto
clan, becomes the first Japanese samurai honored for slitting
his belly open with his dagger rather than surrendering. (Before
that, Japanese warriors had often changed sides if it seemed expedient,
but the Minamoto stressed loyalty more than had their
predecessors.)
1184 Minamoto soldiers kill a Taira general named Yoshinaka and
his wife. Subsequent Japanese accounts portray the woman, Tomoe
Gozen, as a mighty warrior.
About 1190 “During the holydays in the summer,” writes the English traveler
William Fitzstephen, “the young men [of London] exercise
themselves in the sports of leaping, archery, wrestling, stone
throwing, slinging javelins beyond a mark, and also fighting
with bucklers” (Carter 1992, 59).
Chronological History of the Martial Arts 799