Drawing on interview data, this paper explores how Western practitioners of Eastern martial arts articulate this difference, principally by examining the place of martial artistry in British men’s narratives of masculinity. In this regard, such martial arts are considered significant because they are not ‘sports’, but rather disciplines with fairly different connotations for practitioners. However, it is also suggested that Eastern martial arts hold special significance in the West for their seemingly esoteric nature. Particularly, the ‘sportisation’ of Eastern styles, where combat-centred arts based upon moral philosophies have transformed more or less into competitive activities following Western models of rationalised sport, has been an important theme. Previous Western sociological research on Eastern martial arts has identified a tension between ‘traditional’ Eastern forms of practice and ‘modernised’ Western methods of training and competition.
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