Martial arts

Martial arts are organized systems and traditions of combat. People practice them for many reasons. Some learn them to protect themselves, to fight on the street, for military service, or for law enforcement work. Others practice for exercise without violence, for ceremonies, or for competition. Many people practice martial arts to grow physically, mentally, and spiritually, or simply for entertainment. Some practice them to keep alive the intangible cultural heritage of a nation.

The term "martial arts" was first used to describe the traditions of East Asia. Over time, it has also been applied to other fighting practices that began outside that region.

Etymology

According to John Clements, the term martial arts comes from an older Latin word meaning the "arts of Mars," named after the Roman god of war. It was used to describe the combat systems of Europe as early as the 1550s.

The term martial arts became popular in mainstream popular culture during the 1960s and 1970s, especially through Hong Kong martial arts films and martial artists such as Bruce Lee, during the so-called "chopsocky" wave of the early 1970s. Until the 1970s, the term martial science or martial sciences was commonly used for Asian martial arts, and Chinese boxing was used for Chinese martial arts. Some authors have argued that fighting arts or fighting systems would be a more fitting term, since many martial arts were never "martial" in the sense of being used or created by professional warriors.

Variation and scope

Martial arts can be sorted in several ways. Some are folk wrestling and other older traditions, while others are newer hybrid martial arts. They can also be split into unarmed and armed styles, and armed styles can focus on a weapon such as swordsmanship or stick fighting. Unarmed arts may focus on striking, such as Boxing, Wing Chun, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, and Karate, or on grappling, such as Judo, Wrestling, Aikido, Jujutsu, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Some arts, like Taekwondo, Capoeira, Savate, Kung Fu, Taekyyon, Bokator, Lethwei, Pencak Silat, Taijiquan, and Vovinam, use a mix of kicks, strikes, and other moves. Martial arts are also practiced for self-defense, combat sport, choreography, physical fitness, and meditation.

Many armed traditions use weapons such as bladed weapons and polearms, including eskrima, silat, Kalaripayattu, kobudo, and historical European martial arts from the Italian Renaissance. Some Japanese martial arts focus on one weapon, such as kenjutsu, kendo, bojutsu, and kyūdō. Korean martial arts such as Taekkyon, taekwondo, and Hapkido often focus on "inner peace," which is said to come through meditation and training, and Japanese martial arts are called "Budō," meaning "way" or "path." In Iran, UNESCO recognizes the Persian art of varzesh-e pahlavāni, a traditional system first used to train warriors in Iran and given its current name and form during the Safavid era.

History

Main article: History of martial arts

Human warfare dates back to very early times. The oldest works of art showing battle are cave paintings from eastern Spain, made between 10,000 and 6,000 BCE, which show organized groups fighting with bows and arrows. Wrestling is the oldest combat sport, and it has existed in many parts of the world for thousands of years. Martial arts also developed in Asia, such as Shaolinquan in China and Kalaripayattu in India. In Europe, the earliest traditions date to Ancient Greece, where boxing and wrestling were part of the Ancient Olympic Games. Many combat manuals have survived from the European Middle Ages.

Over time, many martial arts became sports, such as judo, karate, and kendo, which were developed in Japan in the late 1800s. Kano Jigoro founded the Kodokan school of judo in 1882. In the 1900s, martial arts spread around the world, and many were used for self-defense and military training, such as Krav Maga. Famous films, like The Karate Kid, and movie stars like Jackie Chan helped make martial arts popular. Newer styles, such as muay Thai, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and mixed martial arts, have also become well known. In 2011, Taekkyon was added to UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Testing and competition

Testing, or evaluation, is important to many martial artists who want to know how they are progressing and what their skill level is. Students often take part in periodic testing and grading by their own teacher, which helps them move to a higher level of recognized achievement, such as a different belt color or title. The type of testing varies between systems but may include forms or sparring.

Forms and sparring are often used in exhibitions and tournaments, and some competitions bring together practitioners of different styles under one set of rules, called mixed martial arts competitions. Sparring is usually divided into light-contact, medium-contact, and full-contact types, based on how much force is used on an opponent. In light and medium-contact sparring, the force is limited, so the aim is not to knock out the opponent, and points are used to score. Referees watch for fouls and control the match, while judges score it. Full-contact sparring uses full force, and the aim is to knock out the opponent or make them submit. Nearly all mixed martial arts groups, such as UFC, Pancrase, and Shooto, use full-contact rules, as do professional boxing groups and K-1. In Kyokushin karate, advanced students fight bare-knuckled, with a mouthguard and groin guard required for men and a chest guard for females. World Taekwondo competitions require Headgear and padded vests, and a win by knockout is possible. Kyokushin's ultimate challenge is the 100-man kumite, in which only 30 people have completed 100 continuous rounds.

Further information: Full-contact

Martial arts have become sports when sparring turns competitive, such as western fencing. The Summer Olympic Games include judo, taekwondo, and fencing, while Chinese wushu recently failed in its bid to be included. Some artists, such as those in kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, train for sport matches, while aikido practitioners generally avoid them. Inter-style competitions led to the first Ultimate Fighting Championship tournament (later renamed UFC 1: The Beginning), inspired by the Brazilian Vale tudo tradition. Along with other minimal-rule events, such as Shooto and Pancrase from Japan, these have grown into the combat sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Some martial artists compete in non-sparring events such as breaking, poomse, kata, aka, or tricking. Governments have also pushed martial arts toward sport, and the People's Republic of China turned Chinese martial arts into wushu partly to suppress what it saw as subversive aspects of martial training.

Health and fitness benefits

Martial arts training aims to bring several benefits to trainees, such as to their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.

Through regular practice, a person's physical fitness may improve, including strength, stamina, speed, flexibility and movement coordination, because the whole body is exercised. Martial arts training also helps mental health, supporting self-esteem, self-control, and emotional and spiritual well-being. For this reason, some martial arts schools focus only on these healthy benefits and no longer emphasize self-defense or combat from history.

Bruce Lee saw martial arts as an art form. He said it involves not only physical skill but also emotional and mental expression. Through smooth movement, balance and quick reactions, martial artists can communicate feelings, turning combat into a personal and expressive form of communication.

Self-defense, military and law enforcement applications

Main articles: Hand-to-hand combat and Self-defense

Some traditional martial arts ideas are now used in modern military training. A recent example is point shooting, which uses muscle memory to help people use a firearm in awkward situations, much as an iaidoka masters movements with a sword. During World War II, William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes were asked by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to teach their martial art of Defendu, which drew on Western boxing and Jujutsu, along with pistol shooting. They taught it to special forces from the UK, US, and Canada. The book Kill or Get Killed, written by Colonel Rex Applegate, was based on the Defendu taught by Sykes and Fairbairn.

In 1942, unarmed dagger defenses from the manual of Fiore dei Liberi and the Codex Wallerstein were built into the U.S. Army's training manuals. Traditional hand-to-hand, knife, and spear techniques still appear in combined systems made for today's wars. These include European Unifight, the US Army's Combatives system developed by Matt Larsen, the Israeli army's KAPAP and Krav Maga, and the US Marine Corps's Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP). Older systems such as eskrima and silat also continue to influence them. The rifle-mounted bayonet, which started from the spear, was used by the United States Army, the United States Marine Corps, and the British Army as recently as the Iraq War. Many martial arts are also used in police hand-to-hand training, such as the Tokyo Riot Police's use of aikido.

Martial arts industry

Since the 1970s, martial arts have become a significant industry, part of the wider sport industry, which includes cinema and sports television. Hundreds of millions of people around the world practice some form of martial art. Web Japan, sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claims there are 50 million karate practitioners worldwide. In 2009, the South Korean government estimated that 70 million people in 190 countries practice taekwondo. In the United States, the wholesale value of martial arts sporting equipment shipped was estimated at US$314 million in 2007, and participation was estimated at 6.9 million people aged 6 or older that year. R. A. Court, CEO of Martial Arts Channel, stated that the total revenue of the US martial arts industry was US$40 billion, and that there were 30 million US practitioners in 2003. Martial arts equipment can include items used for conditioning, protection and weapons. Specialized conditioning equipment can include breaking boards, dummy partners such as the wooden dummy, and targets such as punching bags and the makiwara. Protective equipment for sparring and competition includes boxing gloves, headgear and mouthguards.

Asian martial arts became very popular in the West during the 1970s. The rising demand led to many low-quality or fraudulent schools. Fueled by fictional depictions in martial arts movies, this led to the ninja craze of the 1980s in the United States. Fraudulent ads for martial arts training programs were also placed in comic books in the 1960s and 1970s, which were mainly read by teenage boys. In the 1970s, lower ranks (Kyū) began to be shown with colorful belts to mark progress. This proved commercially successful, and colored-belt systems were adopted by many martial arts schools. This also led to exploitation in many degree mills (also known as McDojos and belt factories), which used it to make extra money. This was covered in the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! episode "Martial Arts" (June 2010). Fraudulent martial arts practitioners are still common around the world. Fraudsters will often run their classes with a cult-like mentality. They often teach techniques that are ineffective and potentially dangerous, and that may give students a false sense of security. Some claim supernatural abilities, such as the "no-touch K.O's." Instructors of "McDojos" often make outlandish claims about their own success or, in many cases, promote themselves without the background to support such claims.