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Akiyama Yoshitoki, a physician from Nagasaki was instrumental in the development of the Yoshin School of jujitsu in the 17th century. After studying medicine in China, he learned hakuda, a fighting style that mainly consists of striking and kicking techniques and applied his knowledge to his jujitsu. This allowed him to develop hundreds of ways to subdue an opponent, and to be able to revive those he rendered unconscious or heal those he had caused injury to.
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Picture taken on October 26, 1951, of the fight between the aging former champ, Joe Louis and a much younger up-and-coming fighter, Rocky Marciano. Louis had returned to the ring after retiring to clear his considerable debt to the IRS so when offered $300,000 to fight one of the hardest hitters around, it was too good to refuse.

Marciano, who grew up idolising Louis, demolished the former champion, knocking him to the floor in the eighth round before hitting him clean out of the ring, causin...
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Cheung Lai Chuen, (born around 1880) was a kung fu legend who mastered Lei Ga (Lee Style), Lung Ying (Southern Dragon Style), Lau Man Gaau (Vagabond or Wanderer's Style) and Pak Mei (White Eyebrow Style), which he adapted and took out of secrecy, popularizing the art in Hong Kong around the turn of the 20th century.

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Mzilikazi, meaning "The Great Road" (c. 1790 - 1868), was a king from South Africa who is famous for leading a massive tribe known as the Khumalo on an 800 km long journey from Zululand to Matabeleland (now SW Zimbabwe), where he founded the Matabele kingdom. Formally a lieutenant of the great Zulu king Shaka, he rebelled in 1823 and formed his own tribe. Along the way he conquered many other tribes, assimilating the survivors into citizens of his own kingdom showing him to be both a great ge...
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This image depicts the moment of inspiration for the invention of the art of Tai Chi Chuan, at least according to some sources. Chang Sanfeng is thought to have watched a fight between a snake and a bird in the 15th century and got the idea to build a style of fighting around his extensive knowledge of Taoist philosophy and internal energy.
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Sun Lu-t'ang (or Sun Lutang) was a master of the internal arts and was instrumental in the invention of the syncretic art of Sun-style t'ai chi ch'uan. Born in 1860, he was also an expert in Neo-Confucian and Taoist scholarly pursuits and was a master at two other internal martial arts; xingyiquan (hsing-i ch'uan) and baguazhang (pa-kua chang). He came to t’ai chi relatively late in life but mastered it very quickly and spent much of his later career teaching t’ai chi to members of the pu...
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Yang Lu-ch'an also known as Yang Fu-k'ui or Yang Fukui (1799-1872), was an influential master of t'ai chi ch'uan during the 19th century who founded the Yang-style. After a modest upbringing, Yang was hired by the Imperial family in 1850 to teach them and several of their élite Manchu Imperial Guards Brigade units martial arts.

At this time, he taught the Taijiquan style and is credited with spreading it throughout China, being named by four of the five Taijiquan families as having transmitt...
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Henri de St. Didier was a fencing legend who came from France and was very influencial in the 16th century. In 1573 he became the first master of his country to write a treaties on fencing and acknowledged that the Italian style was the best. The main lessons he gave to the fencing world was how to counter-attack effectively and instruction on disarming an opponent.

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Giacomo di Grassi was an Italian master from the 16th century who had a great influence on the development of fencing right up to the modern day. He is often credited with inventing the modern parry and through his best known work, ‘His True Arte of Defence’, taught fighters from his day to think more about defence than had previously been the norm.

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Chen Fake practicing Xin Jai

Chen Fake (1887–1957) was a master of t’ai chi ch’uan who was instrumental in the spread of his style, Chen-style taijiquan, when he took it from his home in the Henan Province in 1928 and started teaching it in Beijing. As the style is largely based on internal energies, Chen Fake feared its subtle properties may be lost to future generations so he created an external form known as Xin Jia (New Frame) to add a visual framework to the internal movements.
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George Silver was a late 16th, early 17th century English teacher of defence who wrote two major works, "Paradoxes of Defence" and "Brief Instructions on my Paradoxes of Defence", in which he promoted the use of small-swords and staves in favour of the rapier, a weapon which he strongly criticised. He believed that the rapier was dangerous, and was concerned with the number of duels that were happening in his time and worried that too many arguments were being settle that way. According to Si...
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Wu Quanyou (1834–1902), or Wu Ch'uan-yu as he was also known was a t’ai chi ch’uan  master from China. He taught many great exponents of the art including his son, Wu Chien-ch'uan who created the Wudang style of t'ai chi ch'uan, and Maozhai who was the creator of the Northern Wu Style Wang. Wu Quanyou is believed to have had great abilities; in particular he excelled in skills that involved neutralizing hard external energy and developing the flow of soft internal energy (chi).

More leg...
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A diagram from Agrippa's Treatise - See more

Camillo Agrippa is a legend of fencing who is widely considered to be one of the greatest fencing theorists of all time. He invented the four positions of fencing, (prime, seconde, tierce, and quarte) and suggested that the sword should be held in front of the body rather than behind. Through the use of common sense and geometric theory, Agrippa’s work, Treatise on the Science of Arms with Philosophical Dialogue (1553), changed the art of fencing ...
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Major Nam Tae Hi with some of his students from the Vietnamese Army in the early 1960's

Nam Tae Hi is a modern day Taekwondo Legend who was instrumental in the formation of the art in its current form. Born in Seoul, Korea in 1929 he began his martial arts training as a school boy. After demonstrating the art to the President of South Korea (Syngman Rhee) in 1954, it was introduced to the military and five years later, Nam and a team took Taekwondo oversees for the first time when they demonst...
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An interesting look at Muay Thai boxing through the eyes of a 1920s Englishman. Siamese boxing (as it was known in the West) had begun to grow in popularity by this time, having first being taken to Europe during the First World War. Note that the fight takes place to music, much like the Brazilian martial art Capoeira.
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Song Duk Ki demonstrating his art in Seoul in 1964

Song Duk Ki was a master of taek kyon, (a precursor of taekwondo), who was instrumental in preserving Korean martial arts in the first half of the 20th century. Taek kyon and soo bak were the main forms of art being practice at the time and they would later go on to be blended together along with moves from karate and kung fu, to help create modern taekwondo.

However this would have been impossible without a group of masters, led by Song Duk K...
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Prince Narusuan was a key figure in the development of the martial arts in Thailand (formerly Siam). In c. 1585, Narusuan succeeded in reorganizing a defeated Thai army. He made sure his men all learned martial arts leading to successful campaigns against the Burmese soldiers who had occupied the country since 1568.

Then, in a dramatic final showdown, he faced the leader of the Burmese army in open battle, both on the backs of war elephants. After a violent fight, Narusuan’s martial arts sk...
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During the Yi dynasty (1392 – 1910), interest in learning martial arts in Korea faded considerably, partly as a result of a growing emphasis on classical learning on subjects such as music, art, literature and poetry, as opposed to physical pursuits that were favoured in earlier periods.

By 1790, the martial art forms that would later develop into Taekwondo were at risk of dying out so in a bid to retain their knowledge, King Chong Jo ordered Lee Duk Mu, one of his generals and a martial ...
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Nai Khanom Tom is a Muay Thai boxing legend of the highest calibre. Known as the ‘Father of Muay Thai’, Nai Khanom Tom was taken prisoner along with thousands of his countrymen when the capital Ayutthaya fell in 1767 to the Burmese. In 1774, a great festival was held by the King of Burma and as part of the celebrations, Nai Khanom Tom, still a prisoner of war, was to fight ten of the king’s men in a row.

After dispatching each of them, the Thai boxer became a legend and was rewarded wi...
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One of the earliest influences on taekwondo history and philosophy was the twenty-fourth King of Silla, Chin Heung. He organised a special fighting unit for his army who were well trained, elite warriors known as the HwaRang who were prolific with weapons as well as an unarmed combat system called SooBak.

They became taekwondo history legends because their whole lives were dedicated to protecting their realm. They were also taught spiritual matters and they were expected to live by an honou...

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King Prachao Sua, A.K.A The Tiger King (1662 – 1709) loved Muay Thai so much that he would often sneak off in disguise and enter tournaments. He is remembered for his bravery in the ring and fought many notable fighters from nearby villages who, had they known who he really was, would have never have fought him. The Tiger King helped popularize Thai Boxing amongst his subjects and formally made it a part of the army’s training. He influenced the fighting styles, equipment and the martial ...
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