Editorial: Martial arts, health, and society

<p> </p> <p>Martial arts have become the center of academic attention this century. Along with groundbreaking monographs, to date, scholars have developed edited books on women in combat sports (<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1032141/full#B1" target="_blank"><strong>Channon and Matthews, 2015</strong></a>) and on theoretical topics pertaining to habitus (<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1032141/full#B6" target="_blank"><strong>Sánchez-García and Spencer, 2013</strong></a>). Collections have focused on the martial arts of specific regions, cultures, and intangible cultural heritage (<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1032141/full#B3" target="_blank"><strong>Farrer and Whalen-Bridge, 2011</strong></a>; <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1032141/full#B5" target="_blank"><strong>Park and Ryu, 2020</strong></a>). Meanwhile, special issues in journals have focused on the relationship between martial arts and society from a qualitative sociological perspective (<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1032141/full#B7" target="_blank"><strong>Spencer and Hogeveen, 2014</strong></a>), and more recently, quantitative and biomedical perspectives on the impact of martial arts and combat sports on health (<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1032141/full#B2" target="_blank"><strong>Dopico et al., 2022</strong></a>).</p> <p>However, how martial activities might be health giving, dangerous or healing, therapeutic and rehabilitative, and how they connect with specific ideas on body and medicine remain underexplored. </p>