I respectfully disagree. If it is a "martial" art, it has something to do with a military.
A martial way is derrived from a martial art, and is generally practiced to preserve combative traditions and includes those nice little bennies you mentioned like health and fitness.
All the American sports and self defense systems really have nothing to do with TMA's other than they wear belts and "kiai."
Self defense really has nothing to do with the martial arts. But that is another thread, eh?
I want to muddy the waters even further. One of our members, Langenschwert, supplied the extremely interesting observation that
The first extant literary use of the term "Martial Art" in the English language refers to an Italian art, namely rapier fencing. The work is the 16th Century English rapier manual entitled "Pallas Armata" which refers to the "Noble Martial Art of Fencing". Please note that the term fencing refers to fighting in general, not the use of the sword alone. There's not much philosophy in a back-alley rapier fight, but it's certainly a martial art, and an exacting one at that.
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Note further that rapier duelling was not a characteristic battlefield tactic in the 16th century. I think this particular fact illustrates the general problem: we use the term 'martial art' because we've heard or read other people using the term, who in turn have heard/read other people using the term... and when you trace it back to the 'root' source, the use turns out to have been much more general than our
current conception of what
martial denotes.
In that sense, the way we use the term
martial art(s) can't be derived by combining what we currently mean by 'martial' and what we currently mean by 'art'. It sounds to me as though 'martial' basically meant 'fighting' in its 15th c. usage, and 'arts' certainly meant 'skills'. So the term we use originally meant 'fighting skills'—encompassing streetfighting, formal dueling , battlefield combat techs... the lot.
So, I guess the question begs...why do people find it necessary to water something down? I mean, if the goal is self defense, which I'd assume that anyone who trains, that should be the main goal, you would want to learn something effective, not something that has little chance of working.
My guess is, a lot of people who study martial arts cannot actually visualize themselves in the incredibly unpleasant situation of fighting for their lives, literally, physically. They go to classes, they train, but they want to be believe that the training itself will somehow make them invulnerable. The idea that they may actually have to
use this stuff triggers something that I would call denial if that word weren't so grossly overused these days. Assessing something as effective vs. ineffective requires however that you realistically picture yourself in a physically damaging violent conflict... so along with the rejection of that possibility goes the abandonment of any kind of appraisal of the tech for realistic effectiveness.