How do you personally define if a MA is good or not?

Why should a martial art make someone "good" at fighting? Why not "better at fighting than they would be had they not learnt the martial art"?

Why should fighting even be the measure of a martial art? What do we mean by "fighting"? Is Olympic TKD more or less legitimate than boxing and why?

Martial arts are a lot of things to a lot of people, so much so that there is plenty of debate about the definition of "martial art" and what can be called as one. The recent development of lightsaber combat as a modern sport/martial art for example, has gotten some knickers in a twist.

When faced with the sort of question that this thread poses, I somehow find that I can only respond with more questions. :dunno:

 

If the art I'm training in is adding any kind of value to my life then it's good. If other arts add value to other peoples lives then those arts are good as well.

 

I like that one, thanks.

 

martial arts are just a training program, if the training program can reliable deliver what its stated aims are then its a good 'art'.

Generally MMA is the loosest ruleset available with large numbers of participants, so if an art says it teaches how to fight unarmed, it should definatly be able to provide an example of itself performing in MMA as evidence of this claim.

MMA is just a good rough (not perfect however) measuring stick.

 

Wasnt that the thread made by someone who had never been to a BJJ gym, and was basing it purely on his family when he made his son fight his cousin, and his son always lost.

And none of the other posters thought the way he did.

 

MA training can be for

- fighting,
- fun,
- health,
- performance,
- self-cultivation (???),
- inner peace (???),
- ...

The problem is when someone attacks you and kills you in the street, all your other MA benefit will be gone.

Someone said that MA training has 3 stages:

- physical stage,
- mental stage,
- spiritual stage.

After 60 years of MA training, I'm still at the physical stage. My IQ is not low. But I have no idea what "sell-cultivation", "inner peace", "mental stage", and "spiritual stage" should have anything to do with MA training.

A friend of mine told me that when she trained Taiji, her soul could separate away from her body, floated in the air, and looked down on her physical body. I admire those people who can do that. I just don't know how.

 

Yeah. As far as I'm comcerned you can train for a lot of reasons, but if there's not a functional, combative element to it which allows you to physically impose your will on another human being then what you're doing may be art, but it's not martial. Which is best at developing the martial qualities an art claims to, and which elements are most important is a another debate entirely but without that martial aspect, whether that's what you're training for or not, you may as well be doing Pilates. As has been pointed out many times those same benefits can be had from arts which demonstrably teach people great fighting skills.

I don't define if martial arts are good or not, I define my combatives goals and ask whether and how well the art will help me achieve those goals.

 

When you are 70 and you can still handle a 20 years old challenger, you will need to put in a lot of training time through your entire live. When you have done that, you will get all those other benefit for free.

 

Physical aspects include balance, coordination, stamina, strength, power, speed, flexibility, accuracy, and sensitivity. Mental aspects include discipline, knowledge, wisdom, morality, concentration, confidence, awareness, and attitude. The spiritual aspect of martial arts is not a religious or supernatural concept. It is a combination of the mental and physical aspects; an overall state of being.

Balancing the mental and physical to achieve harmony between them develops the martial arts spirit.