What do modern martial arts practised in Asia have in common? by Kontinentalist

This story looks into the world of martial arts and the difference between its portrayals in the media versus its reality. We produced this story in hopes of cultivating greater and more nuanced understanding of martial arts as well as its cultural significance and role in Asian societies beyond the mediascape.

The article elaborates on the styles and families of martial art practices, and how it differs across cultures.To pull together the data and material for this story, we looked into journal articles, desk research, and books. We used the characteristics outlined by Irena Martinkova and Jim Parry to categorise the martial arts into five martial categories for the flowchart: close combat, warrior arts, martial arts, martial paths, and martial sports.

This story features a number of data visualisations and infographics. The first is a dot plot of martial art media tropes, categorised by the type of martial art. We then have detailed infographics, categorising and describing different martial art styles in detail. The radar charts show the number of techniques, by category, for each art style. Lastly, we also have a set of illustrations visualising and annotating martial art uniforms and what their different features represent.