Martial Arts Odyssey is an American martial arts travel themed web TV show, created and hosted by Antonio Graceffo

Antonio Graceffo

Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia. He is also the host of the web TV show, Martial Arts Odyssey, which traces his ongoing journey through Asia learning martial arts in various countries. Graceffo is largely credited with revitalizing the lost Khmer art of...

. The series has run more than 180 episodes shot in Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, Malaysia, Laos

Laos

Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...

, Burma, and Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

. Martial arts featured on the show include: Muay Thai

Muay Thai

Muay Thai is a combat sport from Thailand that uses stand-up striking along with various clinching techniques. It is similar to other Indochinese kickboxing systems, namely pradal serey from Cambodia, tomoi from Malaysia, lethwei from Myanmar and muay Lao from Laos...

, Muay Chaiya, Pradal Serey

Pradal Serey

Pradal serey is an unarmed martial art from Cambodia. In Khmer the word pradal means fighting or boxing and serey means free. Originally used for warfare, pradal serey is now one of Cambodia's national sports...

 (Khmer boxing), Bokator

Bokator

Bokator, or more formally, Labokkatao is a Cambodian martial art that includes close hand-to-hand combat, ground techniques and weapons. Possibly the oldest existing fighting system in Cambodia, oral tradition indicates that bokator or an early form thereof was the close quarter combat system used...

, Filipino

Filipino people

The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....

 Kuntaw, Mixed Martial Arts

Mixed martial arts

Mixed Martial Arts is a full contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques, both standing and on the ground, including boxing, wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, muay Thai, kickboxing, karate, judo and other styles. The roots of modern mixed martial arts can be...

 (MMA), Kung Fu, Silat Kalam, Silat Melayu, Silat Tomoi, boxing

Boxing

Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

, Muay Lao, Ziyou Bodji, urban combat, Lai Tai, Muay Boran

Muay Boran

Muay boran is an umbrella term for the unarmed martial arts of Thailand prior to the introduction of modern equipment and rules in the 1930s.It is thus the direct ancestor of modern Muay Thai....

, military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

 hand-to-hand combat, Silambam

Silambam

Silambam or silambattam is a weapon-based Dravidian martial art from Tamil Nadu in south India but also practised by the Tamil community of Sri Lanka and Malaysia. In Tamil, the word silambam refers to the bamboo staff which is the main weapon used in this style...

, and others.

Format

Each episode opens with Antonio standing next to an instructor while delvering his standard greeting: “Hey, I’m Antonio Graceffo. And this is Martial Arts Odyssey. Today we are in (name of the location). And we are learning (name of martial art). With me today is (name of instructor).” Every episode includes training sequences, some involving Antonio sparring with different martial artists. In addition, the show contains interviews with practitioners of a profiled martial art, as well as details of local cultures and history. Antonio describes himself as a martial arts

Martial arts

Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....

 anthropologist.

In various episodes Antonio can be heard speaking with his guests in a number of languages, such as Thai

Thai language

Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

, Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

, Khmer

Khmer language

Khmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language , with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, and Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

. In total, Antonio speaks nine languages.

The show is produced on a low budget and is shot with a single video camera and edited on free software. The show has no sponsors.

Unique aspects

Martial Arts Odyssey seems to be the first, if not the only martial arts-related reality travel show which appears on YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 and which is privately funded, without the support of commercial sponsors. It has run more episodes than any other martial arts documentary series. Episodes have been shot in countries and features arts not featured on major networks, such as Muay Lao, Lai Tai, and Silat Kalam.

The show has been credited with having revived a number of lost and nearly lost martial arts, including Bokator

Bokator

Bokator, or more formally, Labokkatao is a Cambodian martial art that includes close hand-to-hand combat, ground techniques and weapons. Possibly the oldest existing fighting system in Cambodia, oral tradition indicates that bokator or an early form thereof was the close quarter combat system used...

, Lai Tai, Silat Kalam and Kuntaw.

Reception

The first episode was shot in Manila

Manila

Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

in 2007. While Martial Arts Odyssey appears primarily on YouTube, episodes have been rented to various other media outlets. Raw footage has also been loaned to other producers and has appeared in more professional shows. The show has had over one million views on YouTube to date.