Jose kenpô stylist called Black Militant Ohm, a ringside an-
nouncer invents the term kickboxing.
1974 Mike Anderson, a taekwondo instructor from Texas, introduces
brightly colored uniforms to North American tournament
karate, so as to add visual excitement to the sport; previously
karate uniforms were black, white, or a combination of black
and white.
1980 Stephen Hayes introduces the Tôgakure-ryû Ninjutsuof Hat-
sumi Masaaki into the United States. While Tôgakure-ryû is a
relatively mainstream Japanese martial art, its popularity in the
United States is owed mainly to the unrelated (but nearly simul-
taneous) publication of The Ninja,a novel by fantasy writer
Eric van Lustbader that portrays the ninja as bulletproof,
black-clad sadists.
1981 Due to the commercial success of chop-socky movies, the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China repairs the damage to the exterior of
the Shaolin Temple at Changzhou and replaces its four aged
monks with dozens of politically reliable martial art teachers.
From a commercial standpoint, the move was wildly successful,
and by 1996, there were nearly 10,000 Chinese and foreign
students attending wushuacademies in the Shaolin valley
(Smith 1996, A1, A16).
1981 Park Jung Tae, a senior instructor of the International Tae-
kwondo Federation living in Canada, introduces taekwondo
into North Korea. The South Korean government is outraged.
1986 In Tokyo, the Ministry of Education proposes allowing kendô
and jûdô to be termed budô(native Japanese techniques that con-
stitute martial ways) rather than kakugi(combative technique).
1991 In California and New York, “karate aerobics” and “executive
boxing” become the rage among working women looking for a
new form of aerobic exercise.
1993 New York music promoter Robert Meyrowitz organizes a pay-
per-view Ultimate Fighting Championship™ (UFC) in which
competitors are free to punch, kick, or wrestle their opponents.
At first, most participants were trained in styles that empha-
sized either striking (e.g., punching or kicking) or grappling but
not both, and during such contests, Gracie Jiu-jitsu, which em-
phasized groundwork, proved most successful. Then both strik-
ers and grapplers began cross-training, and within a few years
champions had to be competent at both striking and grappling.
Joseph R. Svinth
Excerpted from Kronos: A Chronological History of the Martial Arts and Com-
bative Sports,http://ejmas.com/kronos/index.html. Copyright © Joseph R. Svinth
2000–2001. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
Select Bibliography
Alcock, Leslie. 1980. Arthur’s Britain: History and Archaeology, AD367–634.New
York: Penguin Books.
Alford, Violet. 1962. Sword Dance and Drama. London: Merlin.
Almeida, Ubirajara G. 1986. Capoeira: A Brazilian Art Form.2d ed. Berkeley, CA:
North Atlantic Books.
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