peer reviewed journal?

[Will Adamson]

Is there such a thing as a peer reviewed journal on the order of academic journals for Med/Ren martial arts?

I used to read The Journal of Asian Martial Arts. It was far and away better than Black Belt or Taekwondo Times. Of course such a thing would always end up being at the mercy of the politics of the editor, and even if said editor put issues like that aside, there would always be the accusations as such when a paper was refused.

[Jaron Bernstein]

Is there such a thing as a peer reviewed journal on the order of academic journals for Med/Ren martial arts?

I used to read The Journal of Asian Martial Arts. It was far and away better than Black Belt or Taekwondo Times. Of course such a thing would always end up being at the mercy of the politics of the editor, and even if said editor put issues like that aside, there would always be the accusations as such when a paper was refused.

Some years ago the JAMA did a decent article on historical fencing. I have it at home and can give you the issue if you are interested. It might make sense just to submit an article to them.

[JeffGentry]

Actualy there was some talk on the Schola Gladitoria forum a few week's back about starting an e-zine on HEMA/WMA, I think Nigel Plum a Schola member is working on it, i'm not positive that is who is working on, someone is though.


Jeff

[J. F. McBrayer]

There's a discussion thread on both SFI and the Schola forum about whether published interpretations are becoming obsolete because of the increasing availability of translations of primary sources, and the proliferation of researchers and seminars. I think published interpretations have a big role to play, but a peer-reviewed journal would do a lot to fill the gap between seminar chatter and published books.

[Jeffrey Hull]

Firstly, let me state that your question is valid, asked in good will, and with desire to see improvement of the field. That is cool by me.

That stated and understood, I should like to pose my own question relevant to the issue, which is addressed in general to the WMA "community":

Just who then are the true "peers"?

I think that is a valid question regarding the other issue.

For example, certain WMA "peer journals" which do exist currently have shown me that most of the contributors do not deserve to be called the peers of anyone outside the given clique publishing said "peer journal". In other words, due to the material dispensed, and the practices eapoused by them, it seemed apparent that the contributors were not worthy to be called peers of true martial artists.

Those are my true thoughts regarding the subject, I hope that anyone who shall reply understands this is meant to open the dialogue and not turn it into a rage-fest.

[Randall Pleasant]

Jeffrey

Extremely good point and very well stated.

[Will Adamson]

I only used the term "peer reviewed" just because that is the accepted term for the journals that academic papers are published in. Academic communities have many of the same issues because of various differences in research technique, agenda, personality, etc., etc.

The big sticking point I can see in whatever body of supposed peers reviews submissions would be in what they would consider proper research or experimentation procedure. Purely academic work on medieval/renaissance history already has journals, but they aren't necessarily martial artists. Some of these folks do train, and I'm sure they frequent this forum. But when it comes to actual interpretaion and application of techniques type of work, there begs the question of the old question of were they conducting their experiments with proper intent with the proper tools while wearing proper clothing on appropriate terrain...the list could go on depending on what the subject matter was.

For something like this to work there would need to be a pretty broad assortment of practitioners/researchers/instructors/students. I know there is much disagreement on just about everything between all the folks who I would consider the authorities in the field. But then, that is no less the case in other academic circles.

The key is to have an academic mindset like JAMA as opposed to a commercial and entertainment one like Black Belt Magazine and Taekwondo Times.

[James Sterrett]

Note the lead item on this article:

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/news/uofcpub ... nerationR/

Carolyn Willekes, studying Alexander's cavalry, went out and tested assertions by acquiring the necessary kit and trying it out on horseback.


Sadly, I've failed to find any link to the thesis.


But, it's clearly possible to put together and complete a Master's degree at a good university in which a substantive part of the research is done through direct testing of WMA.

On the other hand, the article also suggests she did a good job of answering the critical question: "So what?" Failing to answer this question -- failing to put the experience into a wider context -- is where I'd expect a martial-arts-centered journal to fail in academic eyes. The "So what" in a martial-arts journal is self-evident: the martial art is a goal of itself. For historical research, though, the "so what" is answered by explaining what your research result tells us about related topics and thus how it widens our understanding of history as a whole. Neither approach is intrinsically wrong, but the "self-evident" approach is drilled out of academics from an early age.

[Will Adamson]

Good point about the "so what" factor. In my years doing undergrad research in archaeology circles it seemed that the purpose of many folks' studies was to lead to funding other studies. It was kind of like the informant who always has a little more information for a little more money.

I had a long talk with my wife about how the whole journal system worked in Biology. I kind of figured it was this way, but I wanted the insight of a person who dealt with them on an almost daily basis.

So the "peers" are established by the editors of any journal. The editor in chief of the journal farms out submitted papers to other editors of sub-fields within the scope of the publication. Those editors determine who the best people they know in the relevant area will review the submission. The quality of the work published ultimately determines the relevance and prestige of the journal. Thus it works much like market forces are supposed to. If you put out a good product that has enough demand, you will succeed.

Papers usually then go through the ringer with others in said field writing thier own critique of someone else's work.

[david welch]

Will,

first, I don't think we know enough to worry about having our findings "peer reviewed", published, and set in stone.

Second, the very nature of our process in ARMA is peer review.

Let's say you and I are working out of one of the manules and stumble over a major new way to do something. We drill it and it works. We spar with intent and it works better "for real" than the old way we were doing it. Then the next time we train with Jake he sees it and picks it up. He shows it to JC. The senior students start passing it around and teaching it.

The other way: you and I are working out of one of the manules and stumble over a major new way to do something. We drill it and it doesn't work. We spar with intent and it works a lot less better "for real" than the old way we were doing it. Then the next time we train with Jake he sees it picks apart our interpretation.

I know how this sound to the "non-ARMA" people that read our forum and I don't mean this to be insulting, but the only people I really give a damn about as "peers" judging anything I come up with are the ARMA members I train and discuss training with. I have sparred a lot with Jake, have worked way too little with Shane, and I have seen JC florish and spar and have talked to the people that he has sparred with. Their, and the ARMA people they vouch for's, opinion means infinitely more to me than an acedemic or someone from another group writing a peer review paper.

One of the things that makes ARMA special, and very different from some other groups, is the complete lack of "dogma". Some of the ARMA people's complaints about others is that after we have given what we feel is solid proof of our position they still hang on to wrong ideas.

In ARMA, everything that is taught is open to being challenged. Now, if you did, you will have to prove your new interpretation, different idea, historic finding, etc... but once you did ARMA would change what is was doing as soon as the new information could be gotten out. I once had a really good phone conversation with JC about this very point.

How much more "peer reviewed" than that could you want?

[JeffGentry]

David, Will, James, All

One other thing also is that when we have a "new" thought we can go to Jake, JC, Jaron, Stew, Shane, Gene, any other ARMA member and ask, tell, discuss/demonstrate new idea's/insight's or try thing's in sparring and get feedback even when thing's don't work maybe it will give someone an insight to something that was troubling them and together you figure thing's out or are shown a mistake in your execution, and in the end it is an improvement for everyone.

The thing is when doing "peer" review we need to be open and honest with ourselve's and each other and not take criticism good or bad personaly, which is hard to do when it is someone you know little lone a total stranger.

I have gone to Jake on a few occasion's about thing's in Meyer and we have had soem good discussion's and i think we have educated each other and Jake has been studying Meyer alot longer than me and i feel we have had a few enlightening discussion for both of us to me that is the way peer review should be.

Jeff

[Will Adamson]

Well the way a journal is supposed to work is that it is not set in stone, but being put out to whatever field to stir discussion and open up new avenues for research. Many times in academia you will state something like, "Based on the finding of Smith (1947) we assumed that A was true. So if that is the case then we should be able to perform B and get result C." Then the experiment is run, results measured, then interpreted and prepared for publication in order to get proper credit and to expose others to said research.

Martial arts are a bit different because of the nature of guarding information since many times this information could save someone's life and mean death to another, especially in judicial combat and honor duel situations. So it's a slippery slope, fortunately we don't have to guard information for those reasons, but others have come up.

If you don't like the stuff that gets published in whatever journal, just don't subscribe, maybe others will do the same, and it'll go away for lack of interest because nobody wants to read the nonsense. Then again, many folks in this field like the nonsense.

I agree with you David that I would put more credence behind something that went through the ARMA ringer, and there are those out there who would attack those findings just because it was us. If we had a journal just within the organization it would be great, but I doubt it would be appreciated outside of ARMA, and would be exposing information that we usually keep on the member pages.

What ARMA does with essays, both on the public site and the members pages, amounts to the same sorts of things that appear in a journal, just without the level of citation academia requires. I try to read as many of these as I can, but personally I like to be able to read off of paper much better than read off of a computer screen.

I understand many of the problems, but I'd just really like some bathroom reading besides The Economist. Plus the published books can get pretty pricey and take forever to come out. *cough* Fiore *cough*

[JeffGentry]

Hey Will

I know ARMA has a pretty good relation/association with Schola Gladitoria in Europe and it is one of there member's who is working on an e-zine so who know's, He may get something decent going before to long that doesn't have alot of the politic's he seem's very open at this point to article submission's because he is trying to keep it free/cheap, We'll just have to wait and see i guess.

Hopefuly it will be a plesant surprise.


Jeff

[James Sterrett]

Jeff: I agree ARMA does well in both a serious approach to the available sources, and in having a collegial approach to learning - both of which attracted Corinne and me to ARMA in the first place!

[Nigel Plum]

Actualy there was some talk on the Schola Gladitoria forum a few week's back about starting an e-zine on HEMA/WMA, I think Nigel Plum a Schola member is working on it, i'm not positive that is who is working on, someone is though.


Jeff

Guilty as charged. The new e-zine is called The Pell, www.thepell.net I plan to publish quarterly. If anybody wants to send me articles I'd be more than happy to have them. They don't need to be war & peace, 1000 - 1500 words preferably with some illustration.

I'm going to try to be as non-political & International as possible. So articles from the other side of the pond are particularly welcome in order to counter balance all the people I plan to bully into writing over here.

I also plan to have a free listing of all the WMA / HEMA groups I can find. I'm still compiling this. When I've finished I'll be contacting groups to confirm details. So ARMA study group leaders you'll be getting an e-mail in a few days.

Have a look at the website (not that there is much there at the moment), What else would you like to see?

Cheers, Nigel Plum