What Is Jiu Jitsu?

'What Is Jiu Jitsu? The Martial Arts And How To Understand Them' is a book that considers first and foremost the Japanese feudal discipline of Jiu Jitsu, its life and lineage. From linguistics to its relationships with the martial arts of its immediate family, the offspring of that family and their characteristics are all regarded. The forces that shaped these martial arts are identified in an attempt to create a perspective of the parent discipline itself and the distance it has traveled to reach its present state. It is placed in historical context and considered for its role in the life of the Samurai, the eras that changed it, until finally its role today in the wider world.

In close conjunction with the exploration of Jiu Jitsu and its survival of the turbulent eras from which it came is also the consideration of other martial practices from other parts of the globe that also survived, as well as those that didn't. In the later parts of the work the underlying theory of function for a martial art is simplified to create some small illumination for the processes that govern the operation of the martial sciences.