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Traditional martial arts involve holistic training and physical patterning that have high cognitive demand.

Typically, martial arts are practiced in groups, creating a supportive social scenario.

The holistic nature of martial arts training provides an important set of stimuli to enhance healthy aging.

There's a common trope in martial arts movies that depicts a wizened and sage old master tutoring some young tiger on their way to defeat a bad person and thus support the cause of justice. What we don't see as often is the backstory of the old master beyond a brief training montage or flashback. We don't see much about how they actually got to where they are now, or explore what it was like to train with others for so many decades. The training didn't happen in a vacuum, but rather as a specific part of society.

Social Context of Punching and Kicking

As part of a broad interest in how martial arts affect health across the lifespan, Yong Jiang, Pengsong Li, Yulong Yang, Liqing Liu, Haibin Liu, Yan Zhu, Fengshan Gao, Yanze Li, Suheng Li, Junjie Wang, Qingyong Wang, and Shuye Yang from the School of Kinesiology and Health Promotion, Dalian University of Technology in China, summarized their perspective in a recent review published in Frontiers in Psychology.

While acknowledging the important role that physical activity plays in maintaining bodily health,........

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