What Can Martial Arts Teach Us About Being Human? Reflections from the Martial Arts Studies Association Annual Conference 2026

I’ve just returned from three intense and inspiring days at the Martial Arts Studies Association (MASA) 2026 Conference at the University of Brighton, where I had the opportunity not only to attend, listen, and learn, but also to present my own research.

If you’ve followed my work for a while, you probably already know that I have a particular belief:

Martial arts is a serious and fascinating subject for academic research.

This might sound obvious to anyone who trains. But outside the martial arts world, our practices are still too often dismissed as “just a hobby,” “just fighting,” or “just a sport.”

MASA is a wonderful reminder of just how far this perspective falls short.

Over three days, researchers from around the world explored martial arts through the lenses of philosophy, psychology, sociology, feminism, ethics, neuroscience, sport medicine, pedagogy, anthropology, trauma healing, the arts, and more.

And this is precisely what makes Martial Arts Studies so fascinating.

Martial arts can be a way of studying the body, the mind, society, culture, education, identity, violence, relationships, and human development. In other words, by studying martial arts, we can learn a great deal about being human.

Topic Difficult To Sit Through: Safeguarding

One of the most impactful sessions for me was the Safeguarding in Martial Arts panel. It was also one of the most difficult to listen to.

The panel included real interview excerpts and accounts of people's experiences within martial arts environments. Hearing these stories was uncomfortable, but that discomfort is precisely why these conversations need to happen.

Martial arts has enormous potential to positively influence people's lives. It can build confidence, discipline, physical literacy, social connections, and a sense of belonging.

But we also need to be willing to examine the darker sides of our communities.

Who is vulnerable?

How do power relationships between instructors and students work?

What happens when authority is abused?

How can clubs, organisations, and instructors create genuinely safe environments?

These aren't peripheral questions. They are fundamental to the future of martial arts.

I expect safeguarding to become an increasingly important area of research within Martial Arts Studies—and I think that is a very positive development.

Plato, Zhuangzi, Fascia and Traditional Chinese Medicine

Then there were the sessions that reminded me why I love being around martial arts researchers in the first place.

At one point, we were exploring the philosophical connections between Plato and Zhuangzi and their approaches to the relationship between mind and body.

Research was bringing together neuroscience, fascia, and concepts from traditional Chinese medicine.

These kinds of conversations are particularly exciting to me as someone who has spent decades practising traditional Chinese martial arts.

Martial Arts Is More Than Sport

One of the strongest impressions I took away from MASA 2026 was just how interdisciplinary the field has become.

Martial arts research isn't confined to sport science.

Researchers are studying:

• Philosophy

• Psychology

• Sociology

• Neuroscience

• Sport medicine

• Pedagogy

• Anthropology

• Feminism and gender

• Ethics

• Trauma and mental health

• Youth development

• Violence and aggression

• Culture and identity

• History and the arts

And these areas aren't isolated from each other.

A single martial arts practice can simultaneously be a physical activity, an educational environment, a cultural tradition, a social community, a philosophical practice, and a way of regulating emotion.

That complexity is precisely what makes it worth studying.

The Keynotes: Boxing, Youth Development and Social Impact

The conference featured two excellent keynote speakers.

Prof. Anne Tjønndal

Prof. Anne Tjønndal from Nord University spoke about research integrity and policy in boxing.

As a former high-level competitor herself, she brought something particularly valuable to the discussion: an understanding of the sport not only from the academic perspective, but also from the perspective of someone who has experienced competitive sport firsthand.

Her approach was what I would describe as “tough love.”

If we genuinely care about boxing and martial arts, we cannot be afraid to criticise them.

Sometimes meaningful improvement requires us to be strict, uncomfortable, and willing to challenge practices that have become normal simply because they have existed for a long time.

Prof. Marc Theeboom

Prof. Marc Theeboom from Vrije Universiteit Brussel was another highlight for me.

He discussed youth development and societal impact, including the pathway from training and skill acquisition towards self-development, social skills, and ultimately wider societal impact.

One of the important points was that this pathway isn't necessarily as straightforward as we might assume.

My Presentation: Regulating the “Inner Animal”

I also had the opportunity to present my recently published research paper:

“Regulating the ‘Animal’: Embodied Skill Acquisition, Aggression, and Mental Balance in Traditional Martial Arts.”

This research sits at the intersection of several things that have fascinated me for years: traditional Chinese martial arts, aggression, mental health, embodied learning, and pedagogy.

Traditional martial arts training creates structured environments in which practitioners learn to develop, regulate, and channel aggression or assertiveness. The important skill to learn is to learn the switch between being too aggressive and being too adaptive. The lack of this skill can be an answer to burnout or being asleep.

I'll be sharing the full recording of my presentation soon on the YouTube channel, so if this topic interests you, keep an eye out for that.

The People Behind the Field

Of course, conferences aren't only about presentations.

Some of the most valuable parts happen between sessions: conversations over coffee, discussions after presentations, arguments over dinner, and discovering that someone you've cited for years is actually sitting two chairs away from you.

It was wonderful to reconnect with Prof. Paul Bowman, who has been instrumental in developing the field of Martial Arts Studies, as well as the conference organisers Dr Alex Channon and Dr Emily Dobrich, who did a fantastic job bringing everyone together.

I also spent time with Dr George Jennings, whose recent research on Xilam, a Mexican martial art, is absolutely fascinating.

George and I previously co-authored a paper titled “The Kung Fu Family: A Metaphor of Belonging Across Time and Place.”

That paper explores the idea of martial arts lineages as families and how practitioners create a sense of belonging across generations and geographical distances.

If you're interested in the social and community aspects of martial arts, you can read our paper in my academic publications.

Why Should Martial Artists Care About Research?

You might be wondering why any of this matters if you're not an academic.

If you're a professional fighter, a traditional martial artist, a recreational practitioner, or one of my Kung Fu Scholars, I think it matters enormously.

Research helps us ask whether the things we believe about martial arts are actually true.

Does martial arts training improve mental health?

Under what conditions?

Does it develop discipline?

For whom?

Does training reduce aggression—or does it simply teach people to regulate aggression more effectively?

Can traditional martial arts contribute to trauma recovery?

What makes a martial arts environment safe?

What teaching methods actually produce the outcomes we promise?

These aren't abstract academic questions.

They affect what happens every day in martial arts schools.

They affect how instructors teach.

They affect how students train.

And ultimately, they affect the kind of martial arts communities we create.

Why I Love Martial Arts Studies

There is something rather unusual about the Martial Arts Studies community.

Many of us became practitioners long before we became researchers.

We spent years—or decades—training, sweating, competing, teaching, getting injured, failing, trying again, and becoming fascinated by questions that arose from our own practice. Then, eventually, we started asking those questions academically.

That combination of love for the discipline and hunger for answers is what drives much of this field forward.

And perhaps that's why, after years of training and years of research, I keep coming back to the same conclusion:

We are not simply learning how to fight.

We are learning what it means to be human.

And I can't think of many subjects more worthy of studying than that.