A question for all that do a Martial Art

[terryl965]

What is a true Martial Art nowadays? This question was ask of me just moments ago and after thinking about it I had no right answer for this gentleman. So my question is a complex one, what is a true Martial Art today?
How do we know it is a true Art or not?
How do you know who is real and who is not?


Looking forward to some replys because I had none for him.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

A true martial art is an art the has the ability to protect you in all cases. It also should allow for personal growth and self understanding through self training. A person who represents as a real martial art should reflect a knowledge of being able to protect themselves or adapt to a situation as well as foster an inner being of goodness for society
anyway just my thoughts

 

[Touch Of Death]

What is a true Martial Art nowadays? This question was ask of me just moments ago and after thinking about it I had no right answer for this gentleman. So my question is a complex one, what is a true Martial Art today?
How do we know it is a true Art or not?
How do you know who is real and who is not?


Looking forward to some replys because I had none for him.

You won't find truth. You will find a truth relative to that art.
Sean

 

[terryl965]

You won't find truth. You will find a truth relative to that art.
Sean

I guess that is agreat answer but what is truth in the Arts?

 

[Touch Of Death]

I guess that is agreat answer but what is truth in the Arts?

Each art was designed for the concerns of the day. Those concerns may be gone now, but there are universal concepts of balance, mobility, and stability which are either usefull or unusefull for new concerns.
Sean

 

[terryl965]

Each art was designed for the concerns of the day. Those concerns may be gone now, but there are universal concepts of balance, mobility, and stability which are either usefull or unusefull for new concerns.
Sean

I like that answer thank you Sean

 

[exile]

A true martial art is an art the has the ability to protect you in all cases. It also should allow for personal growth and self understanding through self training. A person who represents as a real martial art should reflect a knowledge of being able to protect themselves or adapt to a situation as well as foster an inner being of goodness for society
anyway just my thoughts

From my own perspective, the bolded parts in JCA's post say it all. A martial art is a systematic fighting method which provides a coherent set of techniques—techniques that work together, that is—which, if practiced diligently and applied efficiently, provide the practitioner with all the resources they need to counter a violent threat of a particular kind. (The last bit is important because not all martial arts equip you to handle every kind of thread; the karate-based arts, for example, equip you to handle empty-handed attacks, but defense against a knife or sword probably require you to be similarly armed, and my own take on that situation is, you are looking at a somewhat different technique set in each such case.) A true martial art, so far as I can see, is nothing more or less than a carefully designed system of structured violence that provides the defender with ample and effective resources to walk away from a physical attack, possibly leaving the attacker unable to do so.

But I frankly cannot see how the bits in red are relevant in any way to something being a 'true' martial art. Why should fighting skills necessarily do anything but improve your survival odds? Where did this view come from in the first place?? Chotoku Kyan and Choki Motobu were connoisseurs of violence—both of them deliberately sought out violent confrontations to experiment with technique—and the samurai who engaged in kakedemishi duels for no higher purpose than establishing the supremacy of their style or school were martial artists of the highest calibre, virtue be damned. I look in a dozen dictionaries and see nothing about virtuous application in the definitions of 'martial art'. Why do MAs impose a litmus test of 'virtuous application' and character development any more than slalom skiing does?

 

[newGuy12]

Why do MAs impose a litmus test of 'virtuous application' and character development any more than slalom skiing does?

Because if your village is overrun by Bad People, the slalom skiiers are not typically the first poeple that you go to for help. You go to the Dojang and ask them (historically).

Now, if one of the students gets hit by one of these Bad People, the other students immediately have the thought "I am going to bust your head." They have a very strong bond to each other. At one time, who could make Bad People go away? The police? There was no freaking police -- the TKD students were the ones.

I think that this may be one of the reasons why TKD is different from any other sport. There was a day when whole communities of people relied on the TKD school to keep them safe.

 

[newGuy12]

Oh my! My apologies -- I thought this was in the TKD thread. I am not paying good attention, and I saw that terryl965 made the post.

The difference between gansters (and thugs and all) and the Complete Martial Art is this emphasis on developing a superior personality. If people band together to only practice the techniques, with no respect for what modern day (Gen Choi) Teachers have infused this practice with -- then we are much like the gangsters.

How do you suppose that TKD would become bigger and bigger if that were the case? We would be held in low esteem by people! We would be regarded as nothing but redneck thugs.

 

[exile]

Because if your village is overrun by Bad People, the slalom skiiers are not typically the first poeple that you go to for help. You go to the Dojang and ask them (historically).

Now, if one of the students gets hit by one of these Bad People, the other students immediately have the thought "I am going to bust your head." They have a very strong bond to each other. At one time, who could make Bad People go away? The police? There was no freaking police -- the TKD students were the ones.

I think that this may be one of the reasons why TKD is different from any other sport. There was a day when whole communities of people relied on the TKD school to keep them safe.

But typically, in the early post-occupation era in Korea, the major application of this MA 'virtue' on the part of the Kwans was against other kwans—'settling differences', I think someone called it on a previous thread. Look at the memoirs of Gm. Kim Byung-Soo in the January Black Belt for a typical illustration.

What you're talking about is no different from the fact that the art–in the sense of 'skill'–of gunfighting could be applied virtuously (by lawmen against Bad Guys) or nonvirtuously (Bad Guys against Good Guys, or against each other). A well-executed counter to a roundhouse punch, trapping the attacker's punching arm, converting the trap into a pin while executing a strike to the throat, does not become an instance of a martial art just in case the attacker was a Bad Guy and the defender was a Good Guy. A skill set is a skill set; our value judgments on the moral characteristics of the participants don't seem to me to be relevant to characterizing the skill set itself. The fact that a martial art can be recruited on behalf of virtue doesn't in itself logically entail that only something so applied is actually a martial art, does it?

If people band together to only practice the techniques, with no respect for what modern day (Gen Choi) Teachers have infused this practice with -- then we are much like the gangsters.

How do you suppose that TKD would become bigger and bigger if that were the case? We would be held in low esteem by people! We would be regarded as nothing but redneck thugs.

But that wasn't the question. The question was, what makes something a true martial art? Terry wasn't asking how our use of martial arts leads others to think of us. The question was, what makes a particular set of skills a martial art? I don't see how virtue, or otherwise, comes into the answer to that question. Note the OP:

What is a true Martial Art nowadays?... what is a true Martial Art today?
How do we know it is a true Art or not?
How do you know who is real and who is not?

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

tial art'. Why do MAs impose a litmus test of 'virtuous application' and character development any more than slalom skiing does?

I believe it is every human's wish to live in peace of some sort.
I truly believe martial arts are a vessel to cultivate oneself into the highest being they can be. When Egocentric idea are fanned out and threating natures are subdued who is there to fight and what reasons are there to fight. But that is how I look at martial arts and why I train so I may help others and cultivate myself your training and experience and perception with be as you see fit that is all I have to say on this.

 

[Steel Tiger]

True Martial Art? That is a tough question and I can understand why Terry had no answer. Is a true martial art just a method of defending oneself, many modern practitioners think so. But to a Chinese or Japanese practitioner from 100 or more years ago that would only be half of a true martial art. And yet to an ancient Greek a martial art was a very pragmatic method for killing enemies and nothing more.

A more cynical modern take would be to say a true martial art is one with history and substance, some might even use such a view to say TKD is not a true martial art because it doesn't have enough history, but that's not right.

The funny thing is all of us with some little experience can look at a system and tell if it is a true art or not, but we find it very difficult to express why we can do this.

There is something in the systems, the methods of teaching, the approach of the teacher, and the experience of the founder which gives us the insight into the genuineness of the art. But ask us to tell you what that is and we cannot give an answer.

Maybe Lao Tse was right when he wrote

He who speaks does not know
He who knows does not speak

 

[newGuy12]

The fact that a martial art can be recruited on behalf of virtue doesn't in itself logically entail that only something so applied is actually a martial art, does it?

You are absolutely right. Now I understand. I have subscribed to this thread and await someone to settle this. When they answer, I will read the answer.

 

[Steel Tiger]

You are absolutely right. Now I understand. I have subscribed to this thread and await someone to settle this. When they answer, I will read the answer.

It may be a very long wait.

Good Luck!

 

[exile]

True Martial Art? That is a tough question and I can understand why Terry had no answer. Is a true martial art just a method of defending oneself, many modern practitioners think so. But to a Chinese or Japanese practitioner from 100 or more years ago that would only be half of a true martial art. And yet to an ancient Greek a martial art was a very pragmatic method for killing enemies and nothing more.

A more cynical modern take would be to say a true martial art is one with history and substance, some might even use such a view to say TKD is not a true martial art because it doesn't have enough history, but that's not right.

The funny thing is all of us with some little experience can look at a system and tell if it is a true art or not, but we find it very difficult to express why we can do this.


There is something in the systems, the methods of teaching, the approach of the teacher, and the experience of the founder which gives us the insight into the genuineness of the art. But ask us to tell you what that is and we cannot give an answer.

Yes, exactly; we can see something, some specific set of qualities, in what it is that we practice that we think makes it a true MA, and in what others practice that we would describe in those terms. The point is, we can see it knowing nothing about the moral biography of the practitioners. I think it's a category error to conflate the system with the individual who practices the system; what Terry is asking about is, basically, what is there that makes a certain body of knowledge a true martial art, as opposed to... something else.

And just as you can't say that one MA is a better fighting system than another—isn't one of the standard conclusions that emerges from such threads that it's the fighters, not the systems, that are better or worse than others?—you can't say that the moral perspectives or ethical values of the practitioner make the system s/he is carrying out a MA or not. But as ST says, we can look at a system, as implemented by an experienced exponent of that system, and tell if if it's an MA or not, even though we know nothing about the person or people we're seeing practicing that system. That's the crucial point, I think, and also the crucial question: what is it that we're seeing that says, this is a true MA?

I don't think it's 'venerability'. How old is karate, for example—a century, a century and a half? How old is Krav Maga? How old is Hapkido? And where is the book in which the minimum age of a fighting system to be a true martial art is written down, come to think of it?

My guess is that a true martial art has three necessary properties: (i) it's systematic (its component skills connect to each other consistently), (ii) it's comprehensive (it covers a very large range of self-defense situations), and (iii) it's effective (it leaves you standing and the other guy... not so much :EG. There's probably more, but those three criteria are I think the sine qua non of a true martial art... in the sense that we wouldn't describe any system that lacks them as a true MA....

 

[Blindside]

How do we know it is a true Art or not?
How do you know who is real and who is not?

Fundamentally martial arts are about learning how to kick *** and take names. In challenging yourself to learn that art you may learn about yourself, but you could do the same in any activity. If you can't fight, really how "martial" are you? If the students of a particular instructor can't fight, it should be a huge neon flashing sign that this probably isn't "real."

Lamont

 

[Xue Sheng]

True Martial Art? That is a tough question and I can understand why Terry had no answer. Is a true martial art just a method of defending oneself, many modern practitioners think so. But to a Chinese or Japanese practitioner from 100 or more years ago that would only be half of a true martial art. And yet to an ancient Greek a martial art was a very pragmatic method for killing enemies and nothing more.

A more cynical modern take would be to say a true martial art is one with history and substance, some might even use such a view to say TKD is not a true martial art because it doesn't have enough history, but that's not right.

The funny thing is all of us with some little experience can look at a system and tell if it is a true art or not, but we find it very difficult to express why we can do this.

There is something in the systems, the methods of teaching, the approach of the teacher, and the experience of the founder which gives us the insight into the genuineness of the art. But ask us to tell you what that is and we cannot give an answer.

Maybe Lao Tse was right when he wrote

He who speaks does not know
He who knows does not speak

BINGO!!

It all depends on your perspective.

 

[TheOriginalName]

Perhaps we are asking the wrong question here - should we not be asking what is a true martial artist?

Let's face it, there are hundreds of different martial arts these days. Some are traditional and can trace their roots back hundreds of years. Others are relatively young, and then there are those that are a combination of a number.

On the weekend i was at a grading and my head instructor told a story of how one of the young girls who was grading had saved her friends life. She had removed a bee from the arm of her friend who is allergic to them, in the process she was stung a number of times. She still went to the dojo that night and did her grading.
That, in my opinion, is a true martial artist. It would not matter what style she trained in the spirit she demonstrated shows that she has the heart of a warrior.

So in my humble opinion, it's not about they style or the history - it's about the spirit it creates in you.

However as this discussion has shown it all comes down to opinions.....and at the end of the day their is only one opinion that should matter to you.....

 

[YoungMan]

To me, a martial art is a system that synthesizes a set of martial (read: military or warlike) techniques with a definite philosophy and sense of what is beautiful. To this end, martial arts have a code of ethics, philosophy that may or may not be centuries old, and sense of what is aesthetically pleasing or beautiful.
If all you are concerned about is technique to hurt or kill, then you may be a fighting style but you are not a martial art.
By this definition, most martial arts are of recent origin, for it was only until recently (within 100 years mostly) that styles were concerned with anything other than fighting and killing.
Tae Kwon Do may be one of the few exceptions, as its precursors developed philosophy based on Buddhist principles that were specifically designed to teach students how to be better people.

 

[Blindside]

To this end, martial arts have a code of ethics, philosophy that may or may not be centuries old, and sense of what is aesthetically pleasing or beautiful.
If all you are concerned about is technique to hurt or kill, then you may be a fighting style but you are not a martial art.
By this definition, most martial arts are of recent origin, for it was only until recently (within 100 years mostly) that styles were concerned with anything other than fighting and killing.

What is aesthetically beautiful about a man being gutted by a sword?

What is aesthetically pleasing about pummelling a person until they are unable to continue?

THAT is what you are studying, remember that. We may dress up in our costumes, admire the pure white of our gis, the smooth lines of a bohi, the swish of a hakama, the apparently effortless motions of a perfectly timed throw, but if something is done for purely aesthetic reasons, the art has lost its purpose. It becomes a hobby with the combat effectiveness of discus, potentially useful, but sort of silly.

If that is what a martial art is, you can have it, I'll proudly keep studying a mere "fighting art."

Lamont