what is the main root of MA

[Manny]

I was wondering, we have chinesse MA, Japanese MA, Korean MA,Vietnamese MA, etc,etc. but waht's the real main root of the martial arts, I mean where it comes from?

Manny

 

[Monadnock]

I've read India as a main source. I'm not sure of man's pre-historic migration patterns, but there is credit given to one dude from India who taugh the Chinese, and China has had influence on Japan, Korea and Okinawa. Not that there were no indiginous systems in those parts -- fighting styles seem to just develop rather naturally no matter where you are. But there are traceable roots from India, like Chuan Fa > Gung fu > Kempo. That's skipping a lot of generations, but hopefully that helps.

 

[WMKS Shogun]

This should be posted in General Martial Arts discussion, not in Korean Martial arts. However, I will give an answer as well since I am not a Moderator and cannot move this to the appropriate forum.
Many martial arts developed out of necessity WHERE EVER they were needed. Each culture has its own martial arts. Eastern Martial arts tend to be more codified and standardized, but any country or land that has ever existed where people were forced to defend themselves has had some sort of martial arts. Eastern Martial arts seem to have come to China via India (according to the legends) and then spread from China to Okinawa, Korea, and Japan, (Vietnam, Thailand, etc.) where they mixed with the native fighting methods and became the arts we know today. This is a massive oversimplification, but it should help shed some light.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I was wondering, we have chinesse MA, Japanese MA, Korean MA,Vietnamese MA, etc,etc. but waht's the real main root of the martial arts, I mean where it comes from?

Manny

It depends on the MA you are talking about but from the list you have given it would be China.

Example
Sumo is indigenous to Japan.

Shuaijiao originated in China no Indian influence.

Likely Taiji, Bagua and Xingyi indigenous to China.

Part of the historical definition of Internal and External Chinese martial arts is whether it came from inside China or outside of China. Shaolin allegedly comes from Da Mo who was from India.

 

[exile]

The problem is, how much plausibility do you want? We have enormous amounts of evidence that legendary history comports very poorly with real history, but you don't need illustrations of this kind to see just how little credibility we can put in oft-told tales about what happened thousands of years ago. Just ask yourself, exactly what were the different Kwans teaching in Korea in the mid-1950s? What were their training methods, what was their attitude towards hyungs, what kind of sparring did they do? We know almost nothing about answers to these questions, in fact, a point emphasized in Doug Cooks new book on TKD. So even as recently as 50 years back, we're still in the dark about the content of the KMAs. Or take lineages: check out some of the various threads in the Kempo or Ninjutsu fora to get some idea of just how tangled and controversial some of the lineage claims made by various individuals in those MAs is. And again, we're talking about events in living memory! Now extrapolate that uncertainty back of scores of generations, bearing in mind that legends, as the folklorists tell us, are usually charters intended to back up current social arrangements or claims to legitimacy, and I think it's pretty clear that where you don't have secure documentation, you can't claim even plausibility, let along knowledge.

As far as the legend of Bhoddhidharma is concerned, for example, we can't be sure that the dude even existed in the first place. What to make of the story that he removed his own eyelids to keep himself from falling asleep while meditating:

Another more dramatic story attributes the origin of tea to the founder of Zen Buddhism Bhodhidharma. Bhodhidharma traveled to China from India to teach Buddhism. When he arrived he went straight to a Shao-lin temple and sat in front of a wall to meditate on the best way to pass on his teachings in this unfamiliar culture. According to legend, he remained there for nine years. However, in the sixth year he became drowsy and fell momentarily asleep. Upon awakening, to ensure that this did not happen again, he cut off his own eyelids so his eyes could no longer close. Where his eyelids fell the Chinese goddess, Quan Yin, caused tea trees to sprout.

(http://www.immortalitea.com/tea history.htm)

Do you believe that? Or even that he meditated for nine years nonstop in front of a wall? Do we know that he visited the Shaolin Temple on that famous occasion? Much less the martial content of what he supposedly taught the monks? There is no documentation for any of this. So, in view of the examples I gave earlier, what is the likelihood that some piece of esoteric historical information survived, accurate and intact, two millenia?

The question, `Where did MAs originate', seems to me to be like the question, `Where did language originate'. Language is a human cognitive ability based on very unique neural wiring that no other species possesses. Is it likely that our ancestors who developed this wiring in the course of their evolution were sitting around, mute, maybe communicating by gestures—their biological capacity for language in place, all dressed up but with nowhere to go until some single ancestral language that was actually spoken `moved in' from one particular place in the world and got all those loaded cortexes firing? A single point of origin for MA is just as unlikely. People fight. Over time, and a lot of fighting, they discover what works better and what worse. A body of knowledge begins to accumulate, and you get fighting systems as parts of cultural knowledge. Contact with other groups leads to modifications, exchanges of information, adaptations. It's like that with everything. Why would we expect the MAs to be any different? The bottom line is, there isn't a single shred of evidence for any particular place being the origin of `the martial arts'. It's hard enough to provide historically reliable account about how they got started where we find them!

 

[tellner]

People have been fighting since before we came down out of the trees. They've been practicing it for about as long. There has been systematized wrestling and training in the use of weapons as far back as we have records. The Vedas speak of training in archery. Old Cretan, Egyptian and Sumerian pictures and writing refer to military training and wrestling with what appears to be coaching.

Martial arts are universal. There is no single source unless you're willing to include the Olduvai Gorge.

"OK, Ook. Pick up big rock. Hit Thag with big rock. No let Thag hit you with pointy stick."

 

[Xue Sheng]

People have been fighting since before we came down out of the trees. They've been practicing it for about as long. There has been systematized wrestling and training in the use of weapons as far back as we have records. The Vedas speak of training in archery. Old Cretan, Egyptian and Sumerian pictures and writing refer to military training and wrestling with what appears to be coaching.

Martial arts are universal. There is no single source unless you're willing to include the Olduvai Gorge.

"OK, Ook. Pick up big rock. Hit Thag with big rock. No let Thag hit you with pointy stick."

um... it wasn't ook it was og and ook was who og hit Thag was the name og gave his rock and you had the birth of Thag style.... Sheesh...for crying out loud.... get it right :uhyeah:

 

[Andrew Green]

Fighting is a natural skill, its always been there. There was no one day when someone suddenly realised, "Hey! I can hurt things, I should make a system!"

Trying to track the first martial art would be like trying to track the first language. There is no start date, there was cross over, influence, independent development and a gradual progression of ups and downs to where we are now.

 

[JBrainard]

For some strange reason I thought that the HEROIC Cynical Curmudgeons would gravitate to this thread.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

Tellner, you know as well as anybody that Ook is traditionally practiced only by Orangutans....

Martial arts probably developed like language, music and religion. They're universal, part of our nature as humans. Now, in some societies they were developed more formally and/or given more significance (which is why Asian martial arts have a more stylized and ritualized tradition as opposed to, say, boxing or savate). But you'll find fighting styles/arts/sciences developed all over the place.

To be fair, though, I think the OP was asking about what most people mean when they say 'martial arts'. They're not thinking about boxing, or n'golo or aborigine bush spearfighting techniques. They're talking about smallish yellow men in funny pajamas. I've always understood that this particular set of traditions came out of India, through China and thus to the rest of the world.

But that's hard to prove and most of the details are likely to be apocryphal, outright propaganda, or both.

 

[Kacey]

Attention all users:

Thread moved to General Martial Arts Talk to generate more responses.

-Karen Cohn
-MT Senior Administrator

 

[chinto01]

I know I will just be repeating what others have said but every society has had some sort of fighting arts since the beginning. All societies have also codified them and passed them on in several different ways. Wether it be folk dances, or actual training drills. The asian arts can be traced back to Turkey, India, China, Korea, Okinawa, and Japan. if you could be more specific in your inquiry it would help.

In the spirit of bushido!

Rob

 

[Andrew Green]

I've always understood that this particular set of traditions came out of India, through China and thus to the rest of the world.

But isn't there also some evidence that India may have had a good deal of influence from Greece in this regard, from when Alexander invaded and brought Greek boxing, wrestling and pankration?

 

[terryl965]

But isn't there also some evidence that India may have had a good deal of influence from Greece in this regard, from when Alexander invaded and brought Greek boxing, wrestling and pankration?

Andrew I beleive you are right with this.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I was wondering, we have chinesse MA, Japanese MA, Korean MA,Vietnamese MA, etc,etc. but waht's the real main root of the martial arts, I mean where it comes from?

Manny

There is no source. Put two dogs in a cage and you have a war. As long as there have been people, they have had War. The experienced teach the inexperienced. While India may be old, it ain't that old. There have been other civilizations before it, and it would stand to reason they had martial arts.
Sean

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

Martial Arts, as in fighting systems, evolved wherever there was fighting.
Martial Arts, in there modern format, evolved wherever there was profit.

 

[Last Fearner]

waht's the real main root of the martial arts, I mean where it comes from?

I'll answer this, but it probably won't be the answer you were looking for.

My answer is that it comes from the heart. Techniques come from the head, and experience in combat. The will to succeed in combat and in self defense comes from the spirit - - the warriors spirit. Warriors have existed for hundreds of thousands of years in virtually every culture that has survived, and most that have not.

However, the Martial Art began when the ability to fight and destroy your enemy was joined with the desire not to. There is nothing unique about fighting, and the ability to win in battle is merely a blend of enhanced skill, fortunate timing, and perhaps some luck. The warriors of old were concerned with death, and killing their enemy. The Martial Artist became unique because of the value placed on life, and the preference to preserve rather than destroy life. Justice, honor, honesty, integrity, and self control became the defining qualities of the Martial Art. Without them, all you have is Martial Combat - - Mortal Combat - - fighting.

There is no one place, time, or person to precisely identify its origin, but I will say that to simply identify the nature of humans to survive, fight, or become aggressive and conquer others is a very crude, basic, and inaccurate interpretation which is not different and unique enough to say this was, or is the Martial ART! This is my definition. Reject it if you will, but anyone can fight, and those who win consistently are nothing more than good fighters. A Martial Artist controls himself first, and then others through wisdom more than might.

CM D.J. Eisenhart

 

[Cirdan]

There is nothing unique about fighting, and the ability to win in battle is merely a blend of enhanced skill, fortunate timing, and perhaps some luck. The warriors of old were concerned with death, and killing their enemy.

hmm.. The Art of War anyone?

 

[LawDog]

The martial arts of today has evolved from the basic human instinct to survive. This comes not from anyone location but from all.

 

[Adept]

to simply identify the nature of humans to survive, fight, or become aggressive and conquer others is a very crude, basic, and inaccurate interpretation which is not different and unique enough to say this was, or is the Martial ART! This is my definition.

Well, as you say this is your definition. However, I don't think it is the most common, nor most accurate one. I could define an apple as a low platform with four legs, arm rests and back support (otherwise known as a chair), but that wouldn't make it a good definition.

anyone can fight, and those who win consistently are nothing more than good fighters.

I would define the martial arts as any codified collection of fighting techniques, bound by an overiding strategy. As such, they would have begun with the very first human conflicts.