Matching Items (5)
Description
Bullying impacts as many as one in three children (or more in some studies). The impact of bullying on children is similar to other forms of abuse like sexual abuse or physical abuse, far-reaching and potentially long term. The impact isn't solely on the child who is being bullied, it also impacts the child who is doing the bullying. It may have short and long term consequences as well. Martial arts has often been suggested to reduce bullying behaviors (and sometimes suggested as increasing bullying behaviors) but there has been limited research on this level of violence between kids and martial arts as an intervention. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of martial arts (in particular the Karate for KidsTM program) on bullying behaviors. 223 children were given a standardized questionnaire (the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire) and their parents/guardians were given a short parent survey to measure bullying behaviors in beginner, intermediate and advanced martial arts students. Results showed significant differences between the groups and indicated a reduction in the incidence of children being bullied and a strong indication in a reduction in the child's tendency to bully others after extended martial arts training. These findings suggest that parents, guardians or other child professionals who are interested in reducing bullying behaviors should consider martial arts classes for children.
ContributorsMoody, Gregory Harold (Author) / Digangi, Sam (Thesis advisor) / Zucker, Stan (Committee member) / Mathur, Sarup (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The global spread of body techniques, such as Yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, Qigong, and non-competitive martial arts have been diffusing into socio-cultural spaces and institutions outside of their native contexts. Despite the ubiquity of cultural borrowing and mixing, the much needed conceptualization and theorization of cultural appropriation is nearly absent within intercultural communication studies. This ethnographic study examines one community of martial artists who practice Aikido, a martial art originating from Japan, in the United States to explore how members negotiate and appropriate its cultural elements in their practice, how the practice binds the dojo community, and how the practice cultivates an embodied dialogic practice. The study takes an ethnographic approach that uses qualitative methods (e.g. participant-observation and interviews). It is also an experiment with methodology comprised of two moment: the first taking an informative and a communicative view of ethnography, and the second, a performative approach. The ethnographic account transposes the Aikido technique - 1) attack, 2) evasion, 3) centralization, and 4) neutralization - onto the chapters as a way to co-produce the world textually rather than extract representations from it. At the dojo Shining Energy, corporeal, material and semiotic components coexist to produce both defined and latent relationalities that open fields and spaces not predetermined by meaning, law, and authority. The transmission of skill takes places through the relational openings in the rich structured environment during practice that each member helps to generate regardless of their skill level. Aikido practice cultivates a latent form of coping strategy where practitioners learn to flourish in midst of hostile situations while maintaining their own presence and identity. Practitioners persist in the practice of Aikido to submit themselves to the processes to engage their sinews, senses and neural paths to keep up with the particulars of situations so that perception, control, and action to run together like the "flash of lightening" to open up inert reality into a process. The practice of Aikido points to a space and time beyond the movement forms to intimate and reveal new ways of not only moving in the world, but also moving the world!
ContributorsKong, Jie-Young (Author) / Broome, Benjamin J. (Thesis advisor) / Tracy, Sarah J. (Committee member) / Ballestero Salaverry, Andrea (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Tai Chi Chuan is an internal Chinese martial arts that practitioners believe provide will provide health benefits. This thesis attempts to summarize and analyze scientific studies that test Tai Chi Chuan as a therapeutic exercise. Systemic reviews and meta-analysis were included were based on the following criteria: studied Tai Chi Chuan in context of a specific disease, must include random control trials, and statistical analysis. Overall, Tai Chi Chuan studies portray the martial art as a low intensity exercise with numerous health benefits in pain management, emotional health, fall prevention, cardiopulmonary and cognitive function.
ContributorsTsai, Andrew Roy (Author) / Capco, David (Thesis director) / Tillman, Hoyt (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of a four-week martial arts program implemented once a week on children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) between the ages of four and seven. This was a single group, pre- and post-intervention assessment pilot study. The total sample of the study was four children (n=4) and the martial arts classes were based on the Duke Kenpo Little Tiger Program by Jonathan Duke of Mesa, Arizona. Change was measured using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, 2nd edition (BRIEF-2) parental form and participants were encouraged to record at-home practice. Data were collected pre-intervention and four weeks afterwards. Limitations included small sample size, measurement limitation (e.g., ceiling effect), data based on parental report, a short intervention period, potential instructor bias, and uneven gender distribution. Given the small sample size (n=4), this study did not complete statistical analysis and alternatively described the changing patterns of the participant's ADHD symptoms from BRIEF-2 measures pre and post intervention. The results of this study could not generate the power to detect significance to state significant implications. However, the trends suggested that some participants declined in executive function in certain areas (e.g., task-monitoring and planning) and improved in other areas (e.g., working memory and organization of materials). All participants demonstrated improvement within the cognitive (CRI) scale of the BRIEF-2 and future studies may explore the potential for martial arts interventions in children under seven as a means to improve the cognitive aspect of executive function development. In addition, future studies may consider exploring the role of frequency versus time for at-home martial arts practice for children with ADHD under the age of seven.
ContributorsNaylor, Takara (Author) / Larkey, Linda (Thesis director) / Noah, Aggie (Committee member) / Arizona State University. College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
Previous literature on synchronization to music using finger tapping tasks in a laboratory or otherwise controlled setting has led to some invaluable, albeit dated, theories about time and synchronization. In an effort to modernize some of the approaches utilized in research on music synchronization, this study applies established theories of music entrainment to a fieldwork study. Specifically, this study focuses on the extent to which participants of Capoeira, a Brazilian martial art disguised as a dance, synchronize to external timekeepers by analyzing icti in several types of movements and comparing them to musical rhythmic beats.
Sports psychology studies have shown that the presence of music can have involuntary effects on exercise. For example, walkers and runners will spontaneously synchronize gait to auditory signals. However, runners do not normally focus on choreology, acrobatics, and environmental stimuli while exercising. This study contributes to this field of research by adding observations and analyzing degrees of synchronization in a martial art, which may be more cognitively demanding than running.
In Capoeira, participants are still expected to attend to music. The degree of synchronization that occurs in a Capoeira class can then be compared with synchronization in martial arts that have music solely as a background component. These future studies would be analyzing music entrainment in real-life environments with physical activities that are more cognitively complex than running. Moreover, these future studies can help to confirm or challenge current theories of attention and music entrainment and synchronization.
Sports psychology studies have shown that the presence of music can have involuntary effects on exercise. For example, walkers and runners will spontaneously synchronize gait to auditory signals. However, runners do not normally focus on choreology, acrobatics, and environmental stimuli while exercising. This study contributes to this field of research by adding observations and analyzing degrees of synchronization in a martial art, which may be more cognitively demanding than running.
In Capoeira, participants are still expected to attend to music. The degree of synchronization that occurs in a Capoeira class can then be compared with synchronization in martial arts that have music solely as a background component. These future studies would be analyzing music entrainment in real-life environments with physical activities that are more cognitively complex than running. Moreover, these future studies can help to confirm or challenge current theories of attention and music entrainment and synchronization.
ContributorsRossi, Alex (Author) / Norton, Kay (Thesis advisor) / Knowles, Kristina (Thesis advisor) / Fossum, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020