What would the Marshal do?: Historical heroes as role models in contemporary martial arts

George Jennings; Sara Delamont

doi:10.18002/rama.v19i1.2408

Authors

George Jennings Cardiff Metropolitan University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3781-568X
Sara Delamont School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5683-2311

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18002/rama.v19i1.2408

Keywords:

Martial arts, combat sports, ethnography, historical European martial arts, HEMA, heroes, ethics

Agencies:

The authors received no funding for this work.

Abstract

Many martial arts systems have their own revered heroes, such as mythical founders and leaders of notable schools. The paper draws on ethnographic research conducted on The Blade Academy, an expanding historical European martial arts (HEMA) school in the United Kingdom. Among pedagogic strategies used by the lead instructors and their core followers are narratives about historic figures whose heroic beliefs and deeds should be respected and even emulated by practitioners. This article explores the case study of 12-13^th century Norman-English knight William Marshal, who is used as a principal model for leadership, martial valour, economic success and moral activity by the lead instructor. We examine idealised models of chivalry that such modern martial artists aspire to follow despite them living within very different societies and value systems. We conclude by considering the merits of revisiting historical figures who might act as role models for modern teachers and their students.

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Author Biographies

George Jennings, Cardiff Metropolitan University

George Jennings (UK) is Senior Lecturer in Sport Sociology at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales, UK, where he teaches qualitative research methods, research skills and social theory. George is Programme Director of the MA Sport, Ethics and Society course while also leading the MRes pathway in Critical Social Science for Sport, Education and Health. He is primarily interested in martial arts cultures, pedagogies and philosophies and the ways in which they have been reconstructed in modern society. George’s first book Reinventing the martial arts in the 21^st century (Peter Lang, 2023) follows ethnographic studies of Wing Chun, Taijiquan, Xilam and HEMA along with numerous collaborative projects over the last 20 years. E-mail: gbjennings@cardiffmet.ac.uk

Sara Delamont, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University

Sara Delamont (UK) is Reader Emerita at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales, UK. Her background is in anthropology and sociology, with interests uniting under ethnography as a discipline in its own right. Sara has conducted numerous ethnographies of education over the decades, turning her attention to capoeira in savate since 2004. Her co-authored monograph Embodying Brazil: An ethnography of diasporic capoeira (Delamont, Stephens & Campos, 2017, Routledge) is a culmination of her ongoing study of the African-Brazilian fight-dance-game. Sara is a well-known methodologist who, with Paul Atkinson, founded the journal Qualitative Research. E-mail: JonesRB1@cardiff.ac.uk

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