146 Fun Facts About Martial Arts

What is the long, curved sword carried by Japan's samurai called?

The katana was worn edge-up through the belt, paired with a shorter sword as the mark of a samurai, until an 1876 edict barred almost everyone from carrying swords in public and ended the privilege.

Which future UFC champion became the first American woman to win an Olympic judo medal, with bronze in 2008?

Ronda Rousey began judo at 11 under her mother, the first American to win a world judo title; she then carried judo's armbar into MMA, ending fight after fight with it inside a minute.

In Taekwondo, what does the term 'Tae' refer to?

'Tae' means foot or kick, 'kwon' fist and 'do' the way; Choi Hong-hi pushed the name in 1955, swapping 'su' (hand) for 'kwon' in the rival label Tae Soo Do, and other school heads were slow to adopt it.

Krav Maga was originally developed for the armed forces of which country?

Imi Lichtenfeld, who defended Jewish neighbourhoods in Bratislava in the 1930s, emigrated to Palestine and developed Krav Maga for the Israel Defense Forces after Israel's founding in 1948.

What is the loose jacket-and-trousers uniform worn for karate and judo called?

The gi, short for keikogi, began as judo's uniform; Okinawans practised karate in everyday clothes until the 1920s, when its teachers copied the judo outfit to help sell the art on the Japanese mainland.

Which term for Chinese martial arts originally meant any skill earned through long, hard practice?

Kung Fu, or gongfu, covers any skill built through hard work in Chinese, even brewing tea, as in the gongfu tea ceremony; the word came to mean fighting arts only in the late 20th century.

What is the samurai code of honour called, a name meaning 'the way of the warrior'?

Bushido reached the wider world through a book written in English for Western readers: Nitobe Inazō's Bushido: The Soul of Japan, published in the United States at the turn of the 20th century.

Morihei Ueshiba founded which Japanese martial art focused on harmonious energy and fluid movement?

Aikido took shape in the 1920s and 1930s as Morihei Ueshiba fused the older arts he had studied; he wanted a defence that blends with an attack and redirects it while also protecting the attacker from injury.

In English, what are the communal houses where sumo wrestlers live and train called?

Stables rule every part of a wrestler's day, from meals to dress; in the 1900s one stable flooded with recruits swapped individual meals for a shared hotpot, chankonabe, and the dish became standard fare across the sport.

In feudal Japan, what was a samurai with no lord or master called?

A rōnin had lost his lord to death or disgrace; the most famous, a band of 47, avenged their dead master in 1703, after which the authorities ordered all but one of them to take their own lives.

Capoeira, part fight, part dance, part music, originated in which country?

Brazil's enslaved Africans developed capoeira, which scholars link to Angolan combat games; the 1890 penal code made it a crime, but in 1937 the state licensed Mestre Bimba's school and began promoting it as national culture.

Which Chinese martial art of slow, flowing movements is often practised for health?

Tai Chi Chuan began as a fighting art, and its slow forms can still be drilled at combat speed; in 1956 China's sports committee had a panel of masters boil it down to a 24-movement routine for public health.

What did Bruce Lee call the hybrid martial arts philosophy he founded?

Jeet Kune Do, 'the way of the intercepting fist', grew out of a 1964 duel with Wong Jack-man that convinced Lee fixed styles were too rigid; he resisted giving his approach a name until 1967.

In Japanese martial arts, what is the term for a training hall?

Dojo means 'place of the Way'; many schools begin or end each class with soji, a ritual cleaning of the hall by the students themselves, a reminder that the place is theirs to look after.

Which martial art, called the 'Gentle Art', focuses on leverage and submission holds?

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu grew from the judo that Mitsuyo Maeda brought over from Japan in 1914; a Rio family who learned it reworked it around ground fighting, where leverage lets a smaller fighter beat a bigger one.

Karate made its Olympic debut at which Summer Games?

Karate debuted at Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021) as one of five sports added for that edition, alongside surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing and baseball/softball, and was dropped for Paris 2024.

Bruce Lee grew up in Hong Kong but was born in which American city during his father's opera tour?

San Francisco's Chinatown was hosting his father's Cantonese opera tour when Lee was born in 1940; the family sailed home within months, but the birth made him a US citizen, and he moved back at 18.

'Father of Modern Karate' Gichin Funakoshi is credited with systematizing which style?

Shotokan means 'Shoto's hall': Shoto, 'pine waves', was the pen name Funakoshi used for his poems, and his students put it on a sign over the entrance of his Tokyo training hall, opened in 1936.

In Japanese martial arts, what is the short shout uttered when performing an attack called?

Kiai tightens the core muscles against a blow, sets the breathing for the strike and is meant to startle or intimidate an opponent; in kendo a strike scores only when a convincing shout comes with it.

Which martial art of Soviet origin takes its name from an acronym meaning 'self-defence without weapons'?

Sambo was developed for the Red Army in the 1920s; one of its founders, Vasili Oshchepkov, had trained at judo's headquarters in Tokyo, and in Stalin's 1937 purge he was arrested as a Japanese spy and died in prison.

Which substance do sumo wrestlers toss into the ring before a bout, a purification rite inherited from Shinto?

Salt purifies the dohyō in a ritual inherited from Shinto; wrestlers also rinse their mouths with 'power water' before fighting.

When a yokozuna loses to a lower-ranked wrestler, what do fans traditionally hurl into the ring?

Cushions are the zabuton that spectators sit on; flinging them at the ring when a grand champion is upset is officially prohibited, yet crowds have long done it anyway.

Hakuhō, who retired with a record 45 top-division sumo titles, was born in which country?

Mongolia-born Hakuhō reached Japan at 15 so slight that no sumo house would take him, until an older Mongolian wrestler pleaded his case and one coach gave in, right at the end of his two-month stay.

Akebono, the first foreign-born yokozuna, grew up in which US state?

Hawaii was home: born Chad Rowan in Waimānalo, he went to college on a basketball scholarship before a fellow Hawaiian, the former wrestler Takamiyama, took him on as a sumo trainee in 1988.

At Tokyo 1964, judo's Olympic debut, Anton Geesink beat Japan's champion to win the open class for which country?

Netherlands: Geesink, from Utrecht, pinned Akio Kaminaga in the open-class final at the purpose-built Nippon Budokan, denying the hosts a clean sweep of judo's four gold medals.

Karate master Mas Oyama was famed for bare-handed demonstrations against which animal?

His students claimed he fought 52 bulls in his lifetime, earning him the nickname 'Godhand'.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination as Mr. Miyagi, the karate mentor named after Gōjū-ryū founder Chōjun Miyagi?

Pat Morita was first turned down as too closely tied to stand-up comedy and his Happy Days role; he tested five times before the producer who had resisted him offered him the part.

Which boxing champion fought wrestler Antonio Inoki in Tokyo in 1976, a bout seen as a forerunner of MMA?

Muhammad Ali spent most of the bout dodging Inoki, who lay on his back kicking at the boxer's legs under rules agreed shortly before the fight; it was scored a draw.

Chuck Norris played a villain opposite Bruce Lee in which 1972 film?

The Way of the Dragon, which Lee also directed, sets him against Norris's hired fighter Colt in a duel at Rome's Colosseum; Lee's hero wins and kills him only after Colt refuses an offer of mercy.

Glíma, a folk wrestling said to date back to the Vikings, is the national sport of which Nordic country?

Glíma is Iceland's national folk wrestling, brought by Norse settlers; wrestlers originally gripped each other's trousers, and a belt was introduced in 1905 to give a better hold.

Ancient Greek pankration had just two rules: no biting and no what?

Pankration banned only biting and eye gouging, and Sparta reportedly allowed even those; the event joined the ancient Olympic Games in 648 BC.

Which wrestling style bans all holds below the waist?

Greco-Roman wrestling is neither Greek nor Roman: it grew out of a 19th-century French style whose rules barred holds below the waist, and it was named to suggest the wrestling of the ancient world.

What does the name 'Krav Maga' literally mean?

Contact combat is the literal sense: 'krav' is combat or battle and 'maga' contact; Imi Lichtenfeld built the system on the boxing and wrestling he used in 1930s street fights against fascist gangs in Bratislava.

Bruce Lee played the sidekick Kato in which 1960s American TV series?

The Green Hornet ran for a single season on ABC in 1966–67, with Lee as the masked chauffeur Kato; he was so popular in Hong Kong that the series was marketed there as The Kato Show.

Which 7ft 2in basketball star, once a student of Bruce Lee, fights him in a film released in 1978?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar trained under Lee in Los Angeles and played the towering final guardian in Lee's unfinished last film, shot in 1972 and released five years after his death.

Jackie Chan learned his acrobatics as a child at what kind of school?

A Peking opera school took him in when his father left to cook at the American embassy in Australia; he trained there for a decade beside Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, each under a stage name taken from their master, Yuen.

Which comedian played LAPD detective James Carter opposite Jackie Chan in Rush Hour (1998)?

Chris Tucker won a part that Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and Chris Rock had all been considered for; Chan has said he did not like the film, yet it led to two sequels.

Who won the eight-man tournament at UFC 1 in 1993?

Royce Gracie choked out Gerard Gordeau in the final to take the $50,000 prize; his brother Rorion, who co-created the event, had picked him for his slight build, to show that technique could beat size.

What trademarked name does the UFC give its chain-link fighting cage?

The Octagon debuted at UFC 1 in 1993; the organisers wanted a setting that looked brutal on television and chose a fenced cage over a roped ring, though accounts differ on who first proposed its eight sides.

The 'Kimura' armlock is named for Masahiko Kimura's 1951 win in Rio de Janeiro over which Gracie patriarch?

Kimura caught Hélio in a reverse arm lock at the Maracanã stadium and, when Hélio would not give up, broke his arm; his corner threw in the towel, and the lock has carried the winner's name ever since.

Which French judoka lit the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron with Marie-José Pérec?

Teddy Riner, born in Guadeloupe like Pérec, lit the balloon-borne cauldron in the Tuileries Garden, then went on at those Games to win his third individual Olympic title and a second mixed-team gold.

Which wrestler, who upset Aleksandr Karelin at the 2000 Olympics, later kept his own frostbitten toe in a jar?

Rulon Gardner lost the toe in 2002, when a snowmobile trip left him stranded for 18 hours after he plunged into a freezing river; he kept it in formaldehyde in his fridge as a reminder of his mortality.

Kyūdō, one of Japan's traditional martial 'ways', is the art of what?

Archery in the Japanese style uses an asymmetrical bow more than two metres long, gripped below its centre; a German professor's 1948 account of studying it, Zen in the Art of Archery, is credited with introducing Zen to Western readers.

Mijaín López, the first athlete to win five straight Olympic golds in one individual event, wrestled for which country?

Cuba's giant won his super-heavyweight class at five Games running, from Beijing 2008 to Paris 2024, then left his wrestling shoes in the centre of the mat to signal his retirement.

A kendo shinai practice sword is made from which material?

Bamboo, split into four slats bound with leather, lets a shinai flex on impact; it was developed so that swordsmen could strike at full force without the injuries that hard wooden swords had caused.

Which Chinese martial art is named in legend after a woman trained by a Shaolin nun?

Wing Chun's best-known origin tale has the nun Ng Mui teach a young woman, Yim Wing-chun, who used it to defend herself and gave the art her name; other lineages tell it differently, and both women are figures of legend.

Arnis, also called eskrima or kali, is the national martial art of which country?

The Philippines made arnis its national martial art and sport by law; its other name, eskrima, comes from esgrima, the Spanish word for fencing, a mark of the long Spanish influence on the art.

Kalaripayattu originated in which Indian state?

Kerala's own legend credits the art to the warrior-sage Parashurama, who is said to have learned it from Shiva and taught it to the first settlers after raising their land from the sea with a throw of his axe.

The name of French kickboxing art savate translates to what?

Savate is an old French word for a worn-out shoe or boot; Michel Casseux codified the Paris street-fighting style in the 1820s, while Marseille sailors called their kicking game 'chausson', after their slippers.

Which strike gives bareknuckle Lethwei its name 'Art of Nine Limbs'?

The headbutt is legal in Lethwei alongside punches, kicks, elbows and knees, and under traditional rules a knockout need not end the fight: each corner may call one time-out to revive its fighter and send him back in.

In The Karate Kid (1984), Daniel wins the tournament final with a kick named after which bird?

Crane is the one-legged stance Daniel copies after watching Mr. Miyagi practise it; the kick was devised for the film by martial artist Darryl Vidal, who also appears on screen as a beaten semi-finalist.

Which Indian monk, legend says, founded Chan (Zen) Buddhism at the Shaolin Temple?

Bodhidharma is said to have sat facing a wall near the temple for nine years; the popular claim that he also founded its fighting arts took hold only in the 20th century and rests on a 17th-century text.

The Kukkiwon, known as the World Taekwondo Headquarters, stands in which district of Seoul?

Gangnam's Yeoksam neighbourhood is home to the Kukkiwon, which certifies taekwondo's black-belt ranks; the sport's world federation was founded at a meeting inside it in 1973.

Choi Hong-hi, who named 'Taekwon-Do' in 1955, controversially introduced it to which country?

North Korea welcomed Choi after he broke with Seoul and went into exile in Canada in 1972; he took his style of taekwondo there, died in Pyongyang in 2002 and was given a state funeral.

Karate was once written 'Tang hand', meaning Chinese hand; what has its first character meant since the 1930s?

Empty replaced 'Tang', a word for China, in the 1930s: both characters are read 'kara', so the sound stayed the same while the name dropped its reference to China in an era of rising Japanese militarism.

Which star of Kickboxer (1989) took up ballet at 16 and studied it for five years alongside his karate?

Jean-Claude Van Damme called ballet one of the most difficult sports; he had started karate at ten, and in 1982 he left Belgium for the United States, where a lead role six years later made him a star.

In karate, what is a makiwara?

A striking post is the heart of old Okinawan training: the makiwara, 'rolled straw', is a board fixed in the ground and topped with a straw pad, so that every punch and kick meets a target that pushes back.

Legend says Muay Thai hero Nai Khanom Tom beat a string of boxers from which land?

Burma's King Hsinbyushin, the story goes, set him against one champion after another, and when he had beaten them all the king himself praised his skill; 17 March is kept in his honour in Thailand.

Capoeira is played inside a ceremonial ring of people known as what?

Roda, Portuguese for 'wheel', is the ring of players who sing, clap and play percussion while two of them spar in the middle; the berimbau, a one-string musical bow, commands the pace and style of each game.

In Olympic judo, one fighter wears white and the other wears which colour?

Blue was first proposed in 1986 by Anton Geesink, the 1964 Olympic champion, so that referees, judges and spectators could tell the two fighters apart; white remains the traditional colour that many clubs prefer.

Which fighter became the first to hold UFC titles in two weight classes at the same time, in 2016?

Conor McGregor added the lightweight belt to his featherweight title by stopping Eddie Alvarez at Madison Square Garden, the UFC's first show in New York after the state lifted its ban on professional MMA.

As a nine-year-old in Dagestan, Khabib Nurmagomedov famously wrestled which animal?

A bear was one of his sparring partners at nine, a year after his father, a wrestling coach, began training him; he went on to retire from the UFC unbeaten, with 29 wins and no losses.

Who held the UFC middleweight title for a record 2,457 days?

Anderson Silva's reign ran from 2006 to July 2013, with ten straight title defences, and ended when he was caught taunting the unbeaten challenger Chris Weidman, who knocked him out.

Which Russian held Pride's heavyweight title from 2003 until the promotion closed in 2007?

Fedor Emelianenko took the belt from Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira in 2003 and never lost it; repeated talks with the UFC collapsed over his managers' demands, so the era's top-ranked heavyweight never fought there.

In The Karate Kid (1984), Daniel LaRusso moves to California from which state?

New Jersey is where Daniel starts out, in Newark, before the move to Reseda in Los Angeles; writer Robert Mark Kamen drew the bullying plot from his own beating by a gang after the 1964 New York World's Fair, which sent him to karate.

Cobra Kai first streamed in 2018 on which platform before moving to Netflix?

YouTube Red launched Cobra Kai in May 2018 and, renamed YouTube Premium, showed season two; a third season was made for YouTube, but the series moved to Netflix in 2020 before it aired and ran to six seasons.

In Kung Fu Panda, Po's adoptive father Mr. Ping is what kind of animal?

A goose, Mr. Ping runs the noodle shop where Po works; the first film never explains how a bird came to raise a panda, and only in the sequel does he reveal that he found the cub in a crate of radishes.

Which sword is stolen in Ang Lee's 2000 wuxia film with Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh?

The Green Destiny is the 400-year-old sword whose theft drives Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; neither Chow nor Yeoh spoke Mandarin as a first language, and Yeoh learned her lines phonetically.

The Ninja Turtles' sensei Splinter is a mutant version of which animal?

A rat, modelled by creators Eastman and Laird on Daredevil's mentor Stick as part of their 1984 comic parody; he is the Turtles' wise adoptive father.

Donnie Yen's 2008 film Ip Man is set mainly in which Chinese city?

Foshan in the 1930s is the setting, but the modern city's buildings no longer looked the part, so the filmmakers recreated its streets in Shanghai; the story ends with Ip escaping to Hong Kong.

In Ong-Bak (2003), Tony Jaa's hero goes to Bangkok to recover the stolen head of what?

A Buddha statue named Ong-Bak loses its head to thieves, and Ting, a villager trained in Muay Thai, goes to Bangkok to bring it back; Jaa's fight scenes drew notice for using no wires or computer effects.

The Indonesian action film The Raid (2011) was directed by Gareth Evans, a filmmaker from which country?

Wales is home for Evans, who grew up in Hirwaun; hired to make a documentary on Indonesia's pencak silat, he met Iko Uwais, then a driver for a phone company, and cast him as his leading man.

Bloodsport (1988) was based on the disputed claims of which martial artist?

Frank Dux said he had won a secret 60-round tournament, the Kumite, in 1975; the film cast its star as Dux himself, but a Los Angeles Times reporter later found a receipt suggesting he had bought the trophy at a local shop.

Martial-arts star Michelle Yeoh won which beauty title in 1983?

Yeoh, born in Ipoh, won Miss Malaysia in 1983 after training as a ballet dancer in England; the title led to a Hong Kong commercial with Jackie Chan and her action career.

Which US president asked 11-year-old wushu prodigy Jet Li to be his personal bodyguard?

On a 1974 White House visit with China's wushu team, 11-year-old Jet Li was asked by President Richard Nixon to be his bodyguard; Li replied that he wanted to protect his one billion Chinese countrymen.

Donnie Yen played the blind warrior Chirrut Îmwe in which Star Wars film?

Rogue One nearly went ahead without Yen: he was reluctant to spend five months filming in Britain away from his family before he agreed to play the blind warrior Chirrut Îmwe.

In the 1970s TV series Kung Fu, what nickname did Master Po give young Caine?

Master Po called young Caine 'Grasshopper' after the boy failed to hear the insect at his feet; David Carradine's Kwai Chang Caine then wandered the Old West armed only with Shaolin training.

Bokator, whose name means 'pounding the lion', is the ancient battlefield art of which country?

Bokator is Cambodia's ancient battlefield art, shown in Angkor-era bas-reliefs; its origin myth tells of a warrior killing an attacking lion with a single knee strike, and UNESCO listed it in 2022.

Dambe, a boxing art whose cord-wrapped striking fist is called the 'spear', comes from the Hausa people of which country?

Nigeria's Hausa butchers and fishermen took Dambe from village to village at harvest time; bouts last three rounds, the open lead hand is the 'shield', and knocking an opponent down is called a 'kill'.

Which Korean martial art of fluid, dance-like movements joined UNESCO's heritage list in 2011?

Taekkyon was almost wiped out when it was suppressed under Japanese occupation, and it was revived afterwards from the teaching of the one master left, Song Deok-gi.

Unlike kendo's armoured sparring, which Japanese art centres on drawing a sword and cutting in one smooth motion?

Iaido grew from the need to answer a sudden attack with the sword still sheathed; it is practised mostly alone, in set forms against imagined opponents that begin and end with the blade in its scabbard.

Baguazhang practitioners are famous for training by walking in what pattern?

A circle is walked in low stances around its rim, with sudden changes of direction; the art's name means 'eight-trigram palm', and its founder, Dong Haichuan, is said to have drawn on a Taoist walking practice.

Tai chi's Chen, Yang, Wu and Sun styles are each named after what?

Families gave the styles their names: Chen came first, in Chen Village, and Yang Luchan studied there in the early 1800s before teaching his own form, so 'Yang' is a surname, not the yang of yin and yang.

Jackie Chan's Drunken Master and Jet Li's Once Upon a Time in China both portray which real-life Chinese folk hero?

Wong Fei-hung, a physician and martial artist, was played by Kwan Tak-hing in at least 77 films; Drunken Master recast the folk hero as an irreverent young troublemaker.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) was produced by which Hong Kong studio?

Shaw Brothers produced the film, with Gordon Liu as the monk San Te; the Wu-Tang Clan later borrowed its title for the subtitle of their debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

Which Hong Kong choreographer staged the wire-fu fights in The Matrix?

Yuen Woo-ping was hired because the Wachowskis admired his Hong Kong fight scenes; he put the cast through four months of training and grew worried when he saw how unfit they were.

The Bride's yellow tracksuit in Kill Bill is a nod to the hero's outfit in which 1970s martial-arts film?

Game of Death gave Bruce Lee the yellow-and-black jumpsuit that the Bride's tracksuit copies; Tarantino also named his swordsmith Hattori Hanzō after a character Sonny Chiba, who plays him, had played on Japanese television.

Judo's Kodokan opened in 1882 with twelve mats inside what kind of building?

A Buddhist temple, Eishō-ji in Tokyo, lent Kano a twelve-mat room for his first nine students; today the Kodokan fills an eight-storey building with more than 1,200 mats across its training halls.

Edith Garrud trained the 'Bodyguard' unit of which movement in jujutsu?

The suffragettes formed the Bodyguard in 1913 to stop police re-arresting leaders freed under the 'Cat and Mouse Act'; Garrud taught its members jujutsu, and they also carried Indian clubs hidden in their clothes.

Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, the one in the orange mask, fights with a pair of nunchaku?

Michelangelo lost his nunchaku on British television, where scenes showing the weapon were cut; the cartoon's makers then dropped them altogether, giving him a grappling hook from the fourth season on.

In Olympic taekwondo, a kick to which target scores more points than a kick to the body?

The head outscores the body, and spinning kicks earn more still; after judging controversies at the 2008 Games, the sport brought in electronic scoring and video replays for London 2012.

Muay Thai fighters' pre-fight ritual, the wai khru ram muay, salutes whom?

Their teachers: 'khru' goes back to the Sanskrit guru, and the dance also thanks a fighter's parents; each camp teaches its own steps, so the ritual can show who trained him.

The dan ranking system behind martial-arts black belts was first devised for which game?

Go schools in Edo-period Japan ranked their players in dan grades, a system credited to the master Hon'inbō Dōsaku; Jigoro Kano borrowed it for judo in the 1880s, and black belts spread from there to other arts.

In judo, which score, awarded for a clean throw onto the back, wins the contest outright?

Ippon, 'one full point', ends the bout at once, so a fighter trailing on the scoreboard can still win with one clean throw in the final second; karate and kendo also award an ippon.

Shuriken are better known in English as what?

Throwing stars are only one kind: many shuriken were plain straight spikes, and all were back-up weapons, meant to distract an opponent rather than to replace the sword.

Which Okinawan weapon is a stick with a perpendicular handle set a third of the way along?

The tonfa, traditionally wielded in pairs, is the model for the side-handle police baton that US forces began adopting in 1972, best known as the PR-24; where the weapon itself first came from is still debated.

In Choi Kwang Do, a fifth-degree black belt brings which formal title, held until eighth degree?

Master is the title from fifth degree, with Grand Master reserved for eighth and ninth, and the ninth has been held only by Kwang Jo Choi.

What forced Kwang Jo Choi to leave Asia for North America in 1970, putting him on the path to Choi Kwang Do?

Training injuries from years of hard practice and demonstrations sent him looking for doctors, but he chose to rehabilitate himself and rebuilt his technique instead.

Choi Kwang Do has belts, uniforms and gradings, but which staple of most martial arts does it deliberately leave out?

Tournaments are out: the art describes itself as noncontact and noncompetitive, so students measure progress against their own past milestones instead of chasing trophies.

At a Choi Kwang Do promotion test, what do students break in the 'power test', often with a protector on the hand?

A board is broken as a confidence builder, not a pass mark, and the art's rule is that nobody fails a test simply for leaving it intact.

Choi Kwang Do's motto, 'Pil Sung', is borrowed from a South Korean army salute that literally means what?

Certain victory is the literal meaning, but the art reads it gently: never giving up until a goal is reached, rather than beating someone else.

Kwang Jo Choi based his Choi Kwang Do organisation in the suburbs of which city in the American South?

Atlanta: the headquarters sits in suburban Kennesaw, Georgia, and Choi has also taught his art to the state's law enforcement officers and to US Rangers.

In Choi Kwang Do, what does a black stripe running along the centre of a coloured belt signify?

A senior grade: every colour comes twice, first as a plain belt and then with the stripe, before a student moves on to the next colour.

Choi Kwang Do's six principles run from humility to an 'unbreakable' what, the quality listed last?

Spirit completes the list as 'unbreakable spirit', Bool-gool in Korean, after humility, honesty, gentleness, perseverance and self-control.

Which unusual belt colour comes third in Choi Kwang Do's ranking, straight after white and yellow?

Gold follows yellow, and it is also the rank at which a dedicated student can first certify as an assistant instructor.

Kwang Jo Choi, who created Choi Kwang Do, was born in 1942 in which South Korean city?

Daegu-born Choi began martial arts at 12, learning Kwon Bup, a style his organisation describes as a form of Korean karate.

Since Choi Kwang Do forbids hitting a training partner, what do students strike at full power instead?

Pads and shields held by a partner take the blows, which lets students hit hard while working with each other, not against each other.

Choi Kwang Do was launched on 2 March 1987, a date that doubled as which personal milestone for Kwang Jo Choi?

His birthday: Kwang Jo Choi was born on 2 March 1942, so he unveiled his new system on the day he turned 45.

Which practice supplies Choi Kwang Do's stretching and breathing drills, despite the art's rejection of mysticism?

Yoga provides the stretches and breathing, sitting alongside drills that the art says are drawn from kinesiology, psychology and biomechanics.

Why did Kwang Jo Choi's father push him into martial arts at age 12, long before he devised Choi Kwang Do?

He was small and weak, and his father wanted him able to protect himself on the war-torn streets of 1950s Korea.

Which Filipina-Australian beauty queen, crowned Miss Universe in Thailand, holds a black belt in Choi Kwang Do?

Catriona Gray, born in Cairns, won the 2018 crown and also holds a music theory certificate from Berklee College of Music.

Which feature of traditional punches and kicks is banned in Choi Kwang Do in favour of fluid, sequential movement?

Locking the joints at full stretch overstresses them and risks hyperextension, so techniques use sequential movement, with energy passing from one body segment to the next.

Where on the uniform do Choi Kwang Do students wear the art's official patch, opposite a 'Pil Sung' badge?

Over the heart, on the left side, sits the official patch, while a Korean flag goes on the left sleeve whatever country the school is in.

Before each Choi Kwang Do class adults recite a pledge, while children recite a simpler version known as what?

The promise covers always doing your best, obeying parents and teachers, telling the truth, being polite and never misusing what is learned in class.

Choi Kwang Do traces its warrior code to which elite youth corps that helped unite ancient Korea's three kingdoms?

Hwarang means roughly 'flower of youth', and these warriors trained by climbing mountains and swimming rivers in the cold of winter.

Which longtime CNN Headline News anchor, also a deputy sheriff, holds a black belt in Choi Kwang Do?

Lynne Russell anchored CNN Headline News from 1983 to 2001 and has also worked as a bodyguard and a licensed private investigator.

Which hormone surges through the body in a threatening situation, powering the 'fight-or-flight' response?

Adrenaline boosts blood flow to the muscles, widens the pupils and raises blood sugar, readying a person to fight or run.

Pepper spray, a common self-defence tool, gets its burn from which chemical compound found in chilli peppers?

Capsaicin irritates the eyes with such burning pain that they clamp shut, leaving an attacker temporarily unable to see.

Which legal principle, named after a kind of fortress, lets people use force against an intruder in their own home?

Castle doctrine echoes the old English dictum that a man's home is his castle, and in some places it also covers an occupied car.

The Taser, a staple of police and personal defence, is named after which boy inventor from 1910s adventure novels?

Tom Swift was inventor Jack Cover's childhood hero, and Taser loosely abbreviates the title of a 1911 novel about the character's electric rifle.

English law permits self-defence only when the force used meets which one-word test, judged by the circumstances?

Reasonable is the test, and since 2013 a householder facing a burglar may even use disproportionate force, provided it is not grossly so.

Carrying pepper spray for self-defence is illegal in Britain under a 1968 Act regulating what?

Firearms law covers it because the Act bans any weapon designed to discharge a noxious liquid or gas, a category that also takes in CS gas.

American 'stand-your-ground' laws remove which traditional obligation before someone may use force in self-defence?

The duty to retreat means backing away from danger when that can safely be done; these laws drop it wherever a person is lawfully present.

The Kubotan, a grooved pocket stick taught to female Los Angeles police officers in the 1970s, doubles as what?

A keychain is the Kubotan's everyday disguise, and its name blends inventor Takayuki Kubota's surname with the word baton.

William Fairbairn built his Defendu hand-to-hand system while training the police force of which Asian port city?

Shanghai's Municipal Police were Fairbairn's first pupils, and an expanded version was later taught to Allied secret agents in the Second World War.

Krav Maga grew from Imi Lichtenfeld's 1930s street fights against fascist gangs in which European city?

Bratislava is where the champion wrestler and gymnast defended his Jewish neighbourhood and learned that sport had little in common with a real fight.

Southern kung fu's classic Five Animals are the tiger, crane, leopard, snake and which mythical beast?

Dragon completes the set as its only mythical animal; the five are tied above all to the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.

In Chinese the term 'kung fu' is not limited to fighting; what does it actually refer to?

Any practised skill counts, whether or not it involves fighting; kung fu is a Cantonese loanword, while the Mandarin term for martial arts is wushu.

Which actor played the wandering monk Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s Western series Kung Fu?

David Carradine's Caine, the orphaned son of an American father and a Chinese mother, roamed the Old West relying on his temple training.

Which Chinese uprising of 1899 to 1901 got its English name from the kung fu drills its fighters practised?

Boxer Rebellion fighters belonged to the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, and Westerners of the day called Chinese martial arts 'Chinese boxing'.

Kung fu students address their teacher by which Cantonese title, also a respectful word for skilled tradespeople?

Sifu, as a martial arts title, is written with characters meaning 'teacher' and 'father', implying an instructor who cares for pupils as a parent would.

Which Jamaican-born singer scored a worldwide 1974 disco smash with the novelty single Kung Fu Fighting?

Carl Douglas recorded it in the last minutes of a session as a B-side, yet it went on to sell eleven million copies around the world.

Which training tool, called muk yan jong in Cantonese, do Wing Chun students use to drill close-range strikes?

A wooden dummy stands in for an opponent, its arms and leg arranged so that strikes, blocks and footwork can be drilled together.

Which Hong Kong comedian directed and starred in the 2004 action comedy Kung Fu Hustle, featuring the Axe Gang?

Stephen Chow also produced and co-wrote the film, which became the highest-grossing foreign-language release in the United States in 2005.

Chinese martial arts revere the jian as the 'gentleman of weapons'; what kind of weapon is it?

A straight sword with two cutting edges, the jian appears in Chinese records as far back as the 7th century BCE, when it was cast in bronze.

Traditional kung fu challenge matches, some of them fatal, were fought on which raised platform without railings?

Lei tai bouts were overseen by a referee standing on the platform itself, and the second word of the name simply means stage.

Which New York hip-hop group sold the single existing copy of its album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for $2 million?

Wu-Tang Clan even owe their name to a kung fu film, Shaolin and Wu Tang, a title picked by members RZA and Ol' Dirty Bastard.

Which hero of the first Mortal Kombat, released in 1992, is a Shaolin monk modelled on Bruce Lee?

Liu Kang lost his shaved head when the actor playing him refused the razor, so the character was restyled as a renegade monk who grew his hair back.

Shaolin Monastery is honoured as the birthplace of Chan Buddhism, the school known by which name in Japanese?

Zen is the Japanese reading of Chan; the same teaching also travelled to Vietnam as Thiền and to Korea as Seon before taking root in Japan in the 13th century.

Ming-dynasty writers said Shaolin's monks were famous above all for fighting with which weapon?

The staff was their forte, and the earliest surviving Shaolin manual, published in 1621, is a treatise on how to fight with one.

Shaolin's Pagoda Forest holds about 250 small stone towers built over the centuries for what purpose?

Burying monks is their job: the ashes of the dead were placed in or beneath each tower, making the forest the temple's main cemetery.

The name Shaolin combines Mount Shaoshi's first syllable with 'lin', a Chinese word meaning what?

Grove fits the setting: the monastery was built among ancient woods at the foot of Mount Shaoshi, in the hinterland of the Song range.

Who set fire to Shaolin Monastery in 1928, destroying some of its ancient towers and halls?

A warlord's army torched the temple because it had served as headquarters for a rival general who had trained there as a boy.

In the 1550s China's Ming government conscripted Shaolin monks to fight in at least four battles against whom?

Coastal pirates known as wokou were raiding on an unprecedented scale, and monk fighters met them at Hangzhou Bay and in the Huangpu River delta.

Shaolin monks all take which one-syllable surname, drawn from the Chinese name of the Buddha Shakyamuni?

Shi is short for Shijiamouni, the Chinese rendering of Shakyamuni, and Vietnamese monks follow the same custom with the surname Thích.

Which colour is the final belt a Choi Kwang Do student wears before testing for a first-degree black belt?

Brown is the ninth and last colour, a rung that generally takes at least two months of practice to move beyond.