i have been reserching diffrent martial arts lately and have concluded that other than the imidiate link there is a more rooted link to a martial art and the scociety it originated from i am currently focusing on a investigation between art,fighting styles,biulding styles and goverment forms in south and east asia what are your feelings or thourghts on this matter? if you have any please e-mail me with any perticular points or post them here ... thanks ous
Capoeira is agood example of society and martial art, as with architecture this changed alongside MA in Japan as it became all peaceful (look at Edo times) Karatedo in okinowa because weapons ban was imposed etc.
I would have thought that all styles reflect the culture and society they were developed in, as well as the physiology of the people involve. For example, the differences between northern and southern kung fu styles. Or the fact that you don't get deep stances in European arts. You always have to take this into account if you are evaluating a style for modern self defence needs - how much will you have to adapt it. More examples - it's not customary to see a lot of ground fighting in Chinese styles - it just wasn't the done thing for gentlemen to roll around on the floor. Some Japanese styles work a lot from the kneeling position - something quite normal for them. Rules of engagement may also differ considerably from culture to culture. To be honest there's very few martial arts I've seen that would prepare one for a footbal match type punch up. I also saw a poor guy get knocked out outside a pub when he jumped into a karate stance - the other guy just chinned him. Different rules.
Agreed, although academically evidence of parallel changes is needed, when comparing changes in different artforms (such as architecture, MA, music etc) with the culture surrounding them, the examples i mentioned have evidence of this easily obtainable. Capoeira changed with its surrounding culture at the same time as music, karate(do) with the political status of okinowa Theres a great series on National Geo called 'Deadly arts' I've only seen a few, but they covered capa and savate/ boxe francois (canes and all) shaolin as it is now loads, its on about 10 at night and its not just about the movement it covers the society they came from, why, how all that. fightauthority is a good wbsite too And as for MA in a 'real' fight such as a football field: Let's see.... footballer: Some fairly decent kicks, good coordination, fairly fit MA guy : Trained in a system developed over centuries for combat The guy outside the pub must have been really drunk or really poor at karate, I'd suggest to him to go to a better dojo M is for martial A is for art it speaks for itself really. Although most MA now are arts to help learn physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing, not just increase your ability to fight.
I agree, here is how I was told about nation and martial arts. India: birthplace of martial arts, practiced for physical fitness China: practiced for the art aspect and mental and physical fitness Japan: because of feudal wars in mainland Japan, Samurai styles were created for life and death warfare and duals (in which most involved weaponry.) The same story goes for the Ryukyu islands, but they used their hands and farm tools because weapons were banned,a modern interpritation of their training would be traditional Karate Korearacticed for sport, but based off of some Okinawan styles Thailandracticed for intense sports, but based off of military war training Indonesiaracticed for intence sport and fitness Phillippinesracticed for life and death guerilla warfare situations, but uses mainly weapons because no law banned bladed weapons If you look at these countries' histories, and cultures you can notice a pattern
Here's something interesting i've observed: Almost no "primitive" people (usually non agriculteral) ever developed anything like a martial art. They almost always went the combat sport route. This is why there are no native american martial arts but plenty of native american combat sports.
As in "Descendants of people who crossed over the bering land bridge sometime in the paleolithic era".
-Actuallly, most so-called "primitive" cultures had at least a tribal form of combat training or martial arts. From the reading and research I've done, many Native American tribes, espescially several Plains tribes had formalized training that could easily fot the category of a tribal martial art. Tribal arts are the local, less organized form that usually is blended with (in Asia, at least) Temple, or Royal Court systems to give birth to most of the systems we are more familiar with today. -It should be noted that many scholars feel that early pankration was brought to India by Alexander the Great and that it blended with native tribal systems. This was brought to China and blended with many already existing tribal systems. This was later imported by the Okinawans to blend with their native tribal system Te/Tode to become Ryukyu kempo jitsu which Itosu and later Funakoshi modified into karate-do. This in turn influenced Koreans who blended it with elements of their native subak and taekyon. ect. -Interesting sidenote the European connection comes full circle when you come to the FMA. The Spanish, who had conquered much of the world, including so many cultures on so many different terrains (when you think about it, this is a much greater feat than at first glance) brought a strong influence to the FMA's sword and blade work. Also of note, in the Old Testament of the Bible, there is quite a strong case for a native Israeli tribal art (or at least warrior training) predating modern Krav Maga by thousands of years.
Interesting post. I'm actually going back to school to study the Social Sciences and I've been considering this as a possible thesis topic. Couple things before we go too far: False. This myth dates back to a poor translation of some historical documents. There was no documented weapons ban ever imposed on the Okinawans. The reason that they didn't have swords was because there was a very limited supply of metal on the Island. Additionally by all historical accounts the Islanders had a pretty good relationship with their government. Thigns were pretty peaceful. They didn't need a large number of weapons. Plus on top of all of that, most of them were poor so weapons were considered a luxuary item. False. Martial Arts existed in almost all indiginous cultures in Asia prior to Boddidarhma's trip to China. The most accurate thing would be to say that India's contribution was the yogic breathing concepts that were intergrated in Chinese Martial Arts and spread from there. False. Many of the warring Korean Martial arts came from China and were used to fend of Japanese invasions. Eventually fell out of social favor and at best went underground (at worst, went all but extinct). Japan took over Korea and brought with it Karate and the Aiki arts. Japan looses control of Korea. Shotokan renamed TKD and evolved. Attempts are made to legitimize modern Korean arts by claiming unbroken thousand year old lineage. False/Kinda True. In Indonesia's case the arts were practiced for warfare and fighting off occupying forces. In the Phillipines the arts are weapon based because you don't fight wars open handed. Period. Ok, now that all is off my chest... To support Kwan Jang's case the fact is every organized culture had some form of basic military art/structured military training. Period. I'll go though my library to dig up the research on this. What makes them different was the level of formality given to the arts. The fact is, when you're fighting for a living, you don't need a lot of ridged stucture (take this a dojo, not military. See the Filipino arts, overall they have an extremly laid back general structure. But at the same time they train extremely intensivly. The reason, you're focused on what your doing because you either do it well or you die). The naming of arts (and the survival of those names) is tied into cultural values and issues. Let's face it, the Chinese love naming things (thuse we have over 1000 different systems/subsystems of CMA). Naming was not as important an aspect to Native American Culture. When things don't have names, or are specific to a tribe or group, they tend not to be remembered (hence all the Kali styles that died out as the tribes that practiced them died out). Back to Afro's orginial question, God, what aspect of culture isn't reflecting in it's fighting arts? Seriously. I've tried to pack in different ideas to my comments above to give some basic ideas. We haven't even started to address things like - Naming - Altering/hiding of technique in order to practice under colonization - Oral vs Written transmission - Climate and environment The list goes on and on. As far as places to start reading, picture up the Journal of the Asian Martial Arts (religously). Some of Don Dragger and Robert Smith's work is worth looking at (though take it with a grain of salt... some of it's good, some of it's been disproven). Hope this helps, - Matt
