I'm reading a really good historical, critical account of Taekwando, mostly because I think it is important to understand the history of other martial arts and sports, how politics, economics and culture shape them, if we are going to understand and help the preservation of the Muay Thai of Thailand. This passage I'm posting here was particularly interesting, because it details the winding history of many of our conceptions of what a martial art is, much of that focused through Japanese Karate.