Nhất Nam
Nhất Nam is a martial art originating from Vietnam, formalised in Hanoi from 1983 onwards by Ngô Xuân Bính.
The name Nhất Nam derives from Sino-Vietnamese characters from "One Vietnam", and is to be distinguished from Nhật Nam, the Vietnamese name for the ancient Chinese Rinan Han commandery in northern Vietnam. The "One" expresses the "unification" of features of Vietnamese martial arts. Ngô Xuân Bính formalised these features in his book on the basics of this unified approach in “Nhất Nam căn bản” Volumes 1 and 2,
According to the English Nhất-Nam Federation's website "Nhất-Nam was mentioned for the first time in sources dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries." However Vietnamese sources generally refer that the techniques were recorded centuries earlier, but the specific "One-Nam" name dates the art to 1983.
Nhat Nam was established in Russia in the 1990s and is also practised in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Switzerland, and the UK.
Nhất Nam is mentioned in the novel The Zenith by Vietnamese author Duong Thu Huong.
