How do you modernize the martial arts?

So I am wondering how you guys would modernize the martial arts to attract new people and to make sure the art still works in our modern world?

One thing I see is get ride of the sword and staff routines and such. The person would be free to practice them if they want but it wouldn't be something we stressed. We would focus on some knife techniques. But mostly empty hand and stuff like gun disarm self defense and such. The empty hand techniques we would make sure worked and abandon any that didn't work or were meant to be done in armor and such. Any who those are some ideas on how I would modernize martial arts in general. what do you guys think? You guys got any ideas?

 

i mean thats pretty close to right. The word modern is kinda broad so I guess it all depends. Plus different arts would require different changes.
One of the best changes a martial art wishing to go more modern could make is to change its atmosphere, training methods and principles, and equipment to fit the modern approach to training.

The technique question is a bit more difficult to handle though, the TMA systems shouldnt throw out techniques, its kinda like tearing pages out of an antique book, its just wrong.
Emerging systems should really consider fully embraceing the modern approach in my opnion. The world has enough TMA and TMA knock offs. Lets start to see Kick boxing and Boxing as our platform for strikeing and stop bogging students down with kata.

 

The Hyper program has a huge success rate for increasing uptake and retention rates, I think at least partly because of its focus on modernising forms and weapons practice (great with kids and adults alike):

www.hypermartialarts.com

 

the martial arts do not need to be modernized, they need to be taught with more than π brain cells

 

Translation: "We don't need Krav Maga."

 

To be fair though, kata needs to be examined. Why do a solo choreographed routine when you can be doing something functionally useful like partner drills or pad work?

Spending 30 minutes of a 1.5 hour class doing kata is a waste. Kata will not teach you to fight. Doing application work to kata is a whole different story though. Still how many regular places actually do effective application of kata?

Look at most TKD, alot do not do application of kata. They have seperate step sparring and that hosinsul. Which sometimes can vaguely resemble movements in kata.
Arts like TKD would likely be better served if they removed all forms and just kept its training to drills and sparring of all flavors. Less time spent on non functional things.

TKD as a whole would probably be better off with out it. They go so far to distance them selves from the Japanese after liberation, yet when they created their art, they kept all the Japanese training methods. line drills in horse stance punching air, super formal step sparring and solo kata.. Yep thats the way to distance from your oppressors!

I think that is what arts should be doing, spending less time on non immediately functional training.

 

Because martial arts aren't just about fighting.

 

Modernizing as in "this has nothing to do with fighting, therefore is a proper waste of your time?"

 

If learning defence against a knife attack, do you also get taught how to use a knife to attack someone ?

 

i do most of my self training using kata and kihon. i've crossed hands a bit with a few mappers and while i'm no killing machine, i think they can vouch that my body mechanics are not too shabby as a result (now if i had a few training slaves so i could improve more...)

 

Fish, what does cross hands mean? Spar?

 

spar, train, drill, just a figure of speech

 

This is funny.

I was having this discussion with my sensei outside of class playing board game. He is from France and still stays in contact with a lot of people he has trained with over the years. A few of his friends had to close down their schools due to the lack of interest in traditional MA. One particular individual had a judo dojo and has been seeing the numbers dwindling gradually. Most of his students are opting out to join MMA gyms. ( I guess that could be seen as the answer to your question. MMA is the modernization of MA)

The discussion continued and my sensei remembers when he was younger, late teens and doing Ju do the same thing was happening with JJJ. Judo was the new cool kid on the block and people (including a lot of my senseis friends where leaving JJJ in favor of judo to the point where judo got insanely popular and finding a JJJ dojo became increasing harder.

Honestly don't necessarily think the issue is modernization of traditional arts to be the problem but preserving the traditional arts as best we can. I for one love Katas. I think the problem with katas don't necessarily ly with the katas them selves but with the lack of understanding. I think the purpose of katas have been forgotten over time and maybe lost in translation? As for weapons. I think my weapons training translates very well to a baseball bat or a broom stick.

Anyways just my two cents based off the conversation I had with my sensei.

 

This may be a weird spin on things due to that I'm a Kajukenbo practitioner and the founders did a lot of the modernization for us. They "took out" many of the traditional weapon techniques that many of the systems they studied used. They used eskrima for our weapon techniques because they translate best into knife and stick/club. They in a sense also took out what they didn't feel worked and were proven to not work in a self defense situation. *look up how Kajukenbo founders threw out impractical moves* They kept the kata though.

On a personal note, I love kata. It's a great way to learn the system and practice on your own. The only problem I really see with kata is how it is taught and unappreciated by most people. A lot of people view the kata as something that should be thrown out because it doesn't give results now. It isn't, it should be something studied and learned for a duration of time in order for it to be appreciated to the fullest extent. I guess the Koreans didn't want to throw out the kata even though they tried to distance themselves from their Japanese oppressors because they believed it worked. Why would they inhibit themselves by throwing out something that works just because their oppressors did it. I like using traditional weapons because they're something new and interesting. Martial arts today is suffering from a lack of quality, but isn't it telling that most of these crummy styles are surviving because people don't need to use them. When the Kajukenbo founders threw out many techniques, their reasoning was to create a style that would make them "invincible on the streets". While the questions of invincibility are arguable, there is no question that these guys were amazing fighters who had the skills necessary and ability to use them without hesitation or reservations to get home safely. The reason these founders "modernized" their new found art was because of the necessity of a strong, practical art in their area because they lived in a very unsafe part of the neighborhood. Guns were around but they weren't available to everybody and their mother so it was still a hand to hand defensive art that they created.

I just think that we shouldn't be so caught up in modernization of an art because we'd probably only end up with boxing or kick boxing if we water it down too much. Cause if you really want true practicality, being able to punch and kick, and being able to withstand a hard punch and a kick are enough for many circumstances. We can study martial arts for pleasure, which many people do, and I'm assuming all of us here on MAP like what we study otherwise we wouldn't have studied it, or still be studying it. It doesn't matter really what the art is, if you love it, you'll gain the body mechanics and muscle to use whatever you learn.

 

Study of HAOV.

Legal issues.

Force continuum.

First aid.

Active listening

Verbal skills and de-escalation.

Also don't think that armour based waza are now redundant.

Another thing to consider is that while anachronistic weapons may not be directly applicable the methods of studying them can provide a number of benefits. The ability to judge the reactionary gap and combative interval of an approaching opponent is one that springs to mind.

One danger with wanting to modernise is that you have to ensure you understand the material you wish to keep or discard.

 

Isn't the difference between ninjutsu and aikido..the weapons training? As in ninjutsu is far superior to aikido in weapons?

 

Again it's about the way you train.

In theory "Ninjutsu", which I assume you mean Takamatsuden, will have specific weapons training whereas Aikido tends to use sword and staff as an auxiliary skill through which you develop your empty hand.

Again though you can have the best waza in the world but if the methodology you train them under is substandard then it doesn't really matter, you'll suck.