Do Martial Arts need to include philosophy

Do Martial Arts need to include philosophy or some sort of ethical code, or is this just bull **** and gets in the way of learning how to fight?

So what are your thoughts? Is it necessary? Is it an important part? Do you enjoy it? Have you benefited by it?

 

I think philosophy plays a very important part. They teach you a right way to live

 

if you have no ethics/philosophy you have no thought of the consequences of your actions and that seems about as smart as giving a child a machine gun

 

Every martial art has a philosophy, it cannot be avoided. Mostly it lay in the history of that style's development, the background of the founders, the political environment in which it was developed, etc. One should look deeply to appreciate the philosophy of the art they are studying.

Although I appreciate it, I was never really big on say, kickboxing. But truth be told there's nothing really wrong with it. I just wanted something different.
To be fair kickboxing (and every socially accepted fighting sport) has an ethic, mind you.

 

Not unique to the martial arts, it's just common sense.

Training with friends is ok.

Going out and beating people up is not, trained or not trained.

Same for machine guns. Shooting targets is ok. GOing to the mall and shooting shoppers is not. Trained or not.

Most of the time it is just pumped up for marketing purposes.

 

Learning to fight is a conscious decision, so any fighting art has to have a philosophy. Your philosophy could be "fight without reason, morals or conscience" but that's still a philosophy - i.e. you have thought of the options and chosen to adopt a certain set of principles to learning how to fight.

Army fighting styles are still martial arts, but even with the most extreme arts there are rules as to what degree you fight in different circumstances (even if you forego any ethics on a battlefield/mission). If you don't have at least that much ethical constraint, you'd be a psychopath/serial killer.

 

Absolutely necessary for me. If it was just about fighting, it would not hold my interest.

Remember: No physical altercation exists outside of a moral context.

 

Is it necessary to learn. Well No, however I feel that in order to understand the focus of the art the phylosophy of it must be embraced.

It would be like getting dressed for a party and then standing outside and listneing to the music.

 

OK, can I then summarise by saying that we all study within the confines of some sort of rules, and all arts have a degree of ethics within them?

Can I then ask you, if you have found value in them? Do they mean more than just words? How have they shaped your lives?

 

For the sake of increasing raw fighting ability, no, it is unnecessary. But, it is still important. If people are not taught to use wisely the things good martial arts training places at their disposal, then you might as well hand a sword to a child and tell them to have fun.

 

. . . not to be contentious, or anything, but I would say that for some arts, actually, most arts, the philosophy is requisite to increasing your raw fighting power.

 

Mike Tyson just strike me as the sort of guy who waxes philosophical on the side. Do you wanna fight him? I don't either.

 

I’m sure Mike has a philosophy at some level that he trains by. Is it a useful lifestyle philosophy though? Results speak louder than words in his case. He may have won some battles through out his life, but he is on the ropes now, you could even say down for the count.

 

i have my own moral and ethical codes, i don't need anyone else to tell me to change them.

 

Personally, I think the philosophical element (along with the element of physical expression), is what makes a martial art an 'art'. Without the philosophy, a "martial art" merely becomes a method of fighting.

Western Boxing, for example, has no philosophical element as part of its training - it simply presented as a sport for someone to practice and compete. For this reason, I would define it as a "Fighting Sport", not a martial art. Its exponents are sportsmen, not martial artists.

Other styles, such as Gung Fu, Karate, Muay Thai, Capoeira etc can be classed as "martial arts", as they all have a deeply ingrained philosophical and spiritual component to them which is essential to their proper training. For example, one cannot fully study and completely understand Shaolin Gung Fu without also studying the philosophy behind it, because it was invented as a form of spiritual practice, not just a method of fighting. Also, the styles I have mentioned above are NOT focused purely around competition. The practice and perfection of them comes first, and sports competition is merely an optional extra.

 

practice and perfection is an integral part of boxing, as much so as any of the styles you mentioned, and competition is an optional extra.

i feel that there is art in combat. morality and philosophy are not what makes it art, so much as the utilization of the human body as a weapon.

 

Yep. The moral and philosophical and moral things are just on the side. They don't make martial art martial art, and they certainly don't determine how well you progress, unless your teacher is the sort who will do what they can to examine your character and not allow you to stay if they disapprove of it.

 

Here we go, what is a martial art? As mentioned in some other treads Martial Arts are a very broad term. In Japan they don’t have this concept; you are studying budo, bujutsu, bugei or Kakutogi. If you’re studying budo, then you are studying a form of combat that has a philosophical side to it. If its bujutsu, well then no. While if you are boxing it would be kakutogi, or if you hang around street corners breaking stuff with your hands and bending spears with your throat then it would be bugei.

Personally I will only teach under the concept of budo. This is because I have a morale obligation towards my community. Once I teach a technique I can’t take it back, therefore I want some feeling of trust between me and who ever I teach. I get this by spending time with them, discussing subjects like ethics, watching how they behave under stressful circumstances and trying to prime their thoughts so that they look at wider issues, that they may not have considered before.

I have the luxury of doing this because I don’t teach for economic gain, but rather the belief in the benefit of my chosen art. Commerciality is not a factor in how I teach, or the measurement of my success. This gives me more control over my student’s progression. Please don’t confuse this as knocking those that teach as a profession, it is not my intent. I’m sure Martial Arts are big enough to accept all of us; I just thought I would throw something in from a personal perspective.

 

Thats great, but martial art without the morals and philosophy is still martial art. The art is still there, as is the martial. I'm not advocating teaching people regardless of the character (or lack thereof) they display, only that those who do teach these people are not suddenly doing something that isn't martial art. Japanese terminology has zero effect on it. Bottom line, the philosophy isn't necessary to increase raw fighting ability, but it is to keep martial arts out of the hands of people who can't use their abilities responsibly. Simple as that.

 

The point I was trying to get across is that we have a diverse understanding of the term martial art. That is why I prefer to describe what I teach as budo, by doing this there is no misconception. I teach an intergrated package; just as there is no separation of juho and goho, there is no separation between ken and zen; they are all part of a whole. The mind and body are not separate, if you doubt this look at the effects of mental stress to the body or look at the effect of a positive mind set on physical illness.

Further to this is how you go about defending yourself. Philosophy will determine what it is you will do, and the extant to witch you will go to do it. If we take raw fighting ability and view it as a weapon like a gun, it is useless until someone picks it up and forms a concept of how and when they should use it.

For me the philosophy that I have studied with Shorinji Kempo has proven to be more beneficial to me than the self defence techniques. I suppose it could be a matter of viewpoint. When does the battle begin?