About the Project

Exploring Martial Arts and Wellness

For my senior honors thesis project, I, Cora Conatser, created this project to investigate the interconnectedness of martial arts with the five areas of health: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and intellectual. By creating a digital platform, I hope to provide my fellow Karate-Ka with both a database of Shuri-Ryu martial arts curriculum as well as an educational space for increased wellness using a holistic, mind-body-spirit approach. The purpose of this project is to both increase my understanding of the martial arts as a student, but most importantly to give back to my martial arts community at Sheridan's Martial Arts Center. I wish for this to be a gift to my martial arts family, a community filled with exceptional people who have nurtured my growth and success in an immeasurable way.

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Aside from my passion related to martial arts, I also have a passion for medicine, specifically osteopathic medicine. As most of my dojo family knows, I was recently accepted into medical school at Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Osteopathic medicine, in particular, focuses on the mind, body, and spirit to treat a patient holistically. In addition to the standard medical school curriculum, I will learn osteopathic manipulative medicine which are hands-on techniques that alleviate pain, restore motion, and support the body's natural functions by focusing on structure influencing function and the body's innate ability to heal itself. Given my interests in martial arts and osteopathic medicine, I wanted to create a project that combines similar philosophies of mind, body, and spirit engagement when reaching high levels of wellness. 

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As you navigate this website, you will find a menu bar at the top of this home screen that has various tabs related to the areas of wellness. The "Standards" tab includes all Shodan qualifications for kihons, ippons, taezus, and katas. This tab serves as the physical wellness portion of the project. When you click on the "Standards" tab, you will find additional tabs labelled according to the technique which you may click on to navigate to the specific standard you wish to learn or review. Next on the menu bar is the "Wellness Blogs" tab which will take you to several personally written blogs about intellectual, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being while practicing the martial arts. The "Commendations" tab includes my thankfulness and gratitude to the special people who have made up my dojo family and who have helped me create this project. Finally, the "About the Author" tab explains a little bit about me and my martial arts journey. As you explore the website, you will come across many photos, which you can hover over to read captions.