Jeff Shaw: BJJ History Class
Starting in Winter 2026, I’ll be teaching a course that at the Honors College at Western Washington University in Bellingham. The class, “This is Why We Fight:An Interdisciplinary History of Modern Martial Arts, 1600-Present,” will cover how the combative and self defense arts of Japan were transmitted worldwide, evolved locally and were integrated into global culture.
The way a culture fights is closely entwined with its historical context and the identities of the people who train. This class explores the distribution of modern martial arts throughout the world, starting in 1600, and covers the way those arts transform the world and are transformed by it. We will discuss how a nation’s fighting arts can transform that nation’s economic life, social atmosphere and even foreign policy. We will examine martial arts as tools for self defense, liberation, and popular entertainment. I will post course material, including guest lectures, here -- along with interesting historical finds.
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