Category talk:Martial arts

Categorization scheme

Those looking for Karate, Kung Fu, or Taekwondo in Category:Martial arts should be able to find it!

When the average person thinks of martial arts, he probably thinks of Karate, Kung Fu, Taekwondo, and other martial arts of east Asia. He probably doesn't think of martial arts that were invented in Australia. If the prototypical martial arts Karate, Kung Fu, Taekwondo are not going to be directly listed on the Category:Martial arts page, it is very important that the average user not look at that page incredulously and wonder what kind of encyclopedia doesn't have Karate, Kung Fu, or Taekwondo listed, then, at the very least, he should notice Japanese martial arts, Korean martial arts, or Chinese martial arts as needed. It would be absolutely ridiculous to expect him to notice Martial arts by region and know what that means (I assumed it was Karate in the U.S. - or maybe some subdivision of the U.S., Karate in Japan, Karate in Singapore, etc.) and then expect him to dig down two levels to find Karate, Kung Fu, or Taekwondo! -DoctorW 02:57, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Shall we eliminate Category:Martial arts by region or rename it? I think that a category that breaks down every martial art in the world by regional origin can be helpful to interested readers, as long as such a category's title is clearly stated. Shawnc 07:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

It might be worth considering renaming it as you described it: "Martial arts by regional origin"; at least then it would be less ambiguous and not make people think it was "Martial arts by region (present location)," as I mentioned above (as in Yahoo's "regional" categories).

I agree that the "regional" category can be helpful; I don't think it's necessary to eliminate it and put all the regional entries on the main (Category:Martial arts) page. I think reasonable people would agree that when we talk about martial arts, most people think first about east Asia (Japan, China, Korea), so it's not necessary to put Australia and every other country on the Category:Martial arts page, as long as the countries that are far and away the most significant as countries of origin of the most well-known martial arts. We have to think about what readers coming to Wikipedia would reasonably expect to find. -DoctorW 08:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Good suggestion; "Category:Martial arts by region" has now been replaced by Category:Martial arts by regional origin. Shawnc 10:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. --Dangerous-Boy 09:09, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

How about reorganizing the "Martial arts by regional origin" as a subcategory of "Martial arts styles". This organization would mirror the "Martial arts practitioners" category, and have a listing of all of the styles (Karate, Jujutsu, etc.). These categories would further be broken down by origin. This way, someone looking for Jujutsu can find both Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Japanese Jujutsu, without having to know its countries of origin. All of the Karates and Jujutsus would be listed together. But the "Martial arts by regional origin" is still there to sort that way. So articles about a particular style would be only in the category "Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu" (always Origin-Style), but could be found by Martial arts->Martial arts styles->Jujutsu->Brazilian or Martial arts->Martial arts styles->Brazilian martial arts->Jiu-Jitsu. Because of the current structure of dividing martial arts by origin, there is no structural/category unity between different origins. Adding this additional structure should help to accomplish this. Right now, I am trying to clean up the Japanese martial arts category and separate out Okinawan styles, and adding this new scheme would help tremendously (such as separating Okinawan karate from Japanese karate). --Scott Alter 02:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

better family trees for styles

Since often one person is attributed for a creating a style, it would be nice to see the family tree, so to say so we know a little bit about what the style came from, what the originators formally training was in, etc.

Like, the Japanese that came from okinawan styles should have articles about what the parent style to this was, what this new creator saw could be changed/improved, and how this new style is different. This would assist people on choosing styles. Tkjazzer 06:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this would be nice, but it would be too complicated to have 1 big family tree (see [1] for an attempt with "modern karate"). There are 2 different types of trees that should be produced too - one that follows the style (showing origin), and another that follows the masters. Maybe each individual style could show its individual tree to trace its roots.

Another possibility is to create a somewhat standardized infobox for each style and master. The style infoboxes could contain something like "Derived from" and "Evolved into". The masters could similarly have "Student of" and "Notable disciples". Then, there is an easy way to trace lineages without searching the content of the articles. Creating this would also help create the data required to compile a large tree. --Scott Alter 21:03, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

If we look at different websites we may have some leads on certain style masters within say Okinawa Karate. For example, check out http://ihadojo.com/Origins/index.htm Tkjazzer 23:20, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

incorporate Shorin-ryu_Shido-kan in to main martial arts articles

Please help me incorporate this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorin-ryu_Shido-kan in to the other main martial arts articles. Tkjazzer 23:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Please don't cross-post the same points. See Shorin-ryu for my objection. --Scott Alter 00:31, 21 April 2007 (UTC)