The first martial art?

So I was wondering if we could make a family tree of martial arts? Linking back to the first martial art.

So far I have

Kalarippayattu is the father of kung fu.

 

This likely far more complicated than you're thinking. There is so much interweaving amongst martial arts that the parent-child relationships can go in circles sometimes. But we can still try. I know Jujutsu gave rise to Aikido, Judo, and BJJ. Karate I believed developed in Okinawa. Both Jujutsu and Karate most likely had influence from mainland Asia, and a number of mainland Asian martial arts probly had influences from Japanese arts. Kenjutsu by definition was born after the sword but I'm not sure when an organized version of it formed. Kenjutsu was likely influenced by swordsmanship from other countries. Kenjutsu gave rise to kendo and is a subset of ninjutsu. Ninjutsu can be considered a martial art made up of other martial arts. but ninjas existed before any organized ninjutsu did. Ninjutsu either gave rise to and/or was construced from (yay circles) boujutsu, soujutsu, naginatajutsu, kusarigamajutsu, and shurikenjutsu.

If you're looking for the first martial art in existence, it's probly impossible to track it down. But if you consider how humans instictively fight, it would probly be something similar to the lines of kickboxing.

 

Personally I don't think there is a "first" martial art. I think many evolved independently of each other as needs arose. I'm pretty sure there have *always* been predators and always been those who would seek to protect themselves and others from these predators. From this martial arts training would naturally evolve in any community.

That's my personal opinion, though. I could be wrong.

One thing I know with absolute certainty, though, is this: the roots of martial arts predate any sort of recorded history that can be verified today so no one will ever be able to decisively answer this. Pick your theory and go with it. It's as good as anyone else's.

Mike

 

The family tree of martial arts goes back to the time when our ancestors lived in one. And they've taught each other how to fight ever since. Ancient Harrapan seals and early-dynasty Egyptian paintings show people fighting systematically. Ancient cuneiform inscriptions describe wrestling practice.

The oldest martial art is probably Olduvai Ryu taught by Lucy's uncle to her brothers. It includes techniques like "Hit Thag on Head With Big Rock" and "Hit Big Rock with Thag's Head".

 

Ogg walk out of cave, mad at Huk.
Ogg pick up rock, drop rock on Huk's head.
Fight over, Ogg win. Get all Huk's stuff.
Ogg think, "I need get good at that."

From Ogg's line, all martial arts were born.

 

Taekwondo. At least I was TOLD that it's 1000's of years old! It MUST be the first, right????????????????










and i'm kidding. I wouldn't be surprised if the first art never even had a name and is gone forever from human memory.

 

Lemme play around with some chart making....

UPDATE:

This the kind of thing that you want? Quickly thrown together.....We can fine tune it later...

 

What about the Indian arts that had so much influence on the Chinese arts? Where's the influence that Chinese arts had on Te? Traditional Korean arts? Modern Japanese arts that came from Okinawan arts? Modern Korean arts that came from the modern Japanese arts that came from Okinawan arts? Indonesian arts? Filipino arts? Mongolian arts? Medieval European arts? Middle Eastern arts? African arts? Native American arts?

and so on...

My point is really that this is a topic that is far too broad and deep to cover in an Internet web discussion forum, trying to answer it with a simple GIF flow chart is a waste of time. Years of academic research has gone into questions like this one, and even questions that are more finely focused have answers that would fill a 50 page JAMA (the martial arts journal, not the medical journal) academic article and still be filled with things like "our best guess is... but another likely possibility is..."

 

Cave Man Fu?

 

c'mon guys! it's a toss-up between stick-fu vs rock-jitsu.

 

I'm pretty sure, whatever it was it involved weapons. Saying that though, warriors like to test themselves and something like wrestling or boxing was possibly created early on when tribes were formed in order for the warriors to compete without people getting killed everytime there was a grudge.

Homer talks about this when Odyssius returns home and his son is challenged to a fight by one of the suitors. Thats a pretty early record of non lethal conflict resolution. Also, in the Illiad, they have a wrestling and boxing competition as well as chariot racing and running when they take a break from fighting.

Ninjutsu was created when a caveman snuck up behind his enemy and hit him on the head with a rock instead of meeting him face to face. Probably didn't take long to figure that out! :.)

 

Good book on this topic: Combat Sports in the Ancient World by Michael Poliakoff. Talks about the practices of boxing, wrestling, pankration, stickfighting, and other combat sports in Rome, Greece, and Egypt. Including their relation to actual warfare. Very interesting stuff.

As for the OP, I'm with various other posters. It's impossible to build a meaningful family tree for martial arts as a whole. Due to lack of documentation, a proliferation of good marketing falsely attributing the founding of things to various people, and so on. But more than all that, without arriving at a concrete definition of "martial art" (which nobody ever seems able to do), you can't really determine which one started which other.

Take your example of kalari. What role do you expect that had on organized fighting methods among the people of Western Europe? Or the Americas? If you say "none," then one of three things has to be true. 1) They weren't fighting. 2) They were fighting, but in a completely random and unsystematic manner. 3) Fighting methods spring up in multiple locations as the need arises (and the need ALWAYS arises).

Which seems most plausible?


Stuart

 

There is really no "1st" martial art. All cultures to some extent had some form of wrestling or in some places, boxing ...so in a sense wrestling/grappling in the most general since could be considered the world's oldest martial art.

As far as other arts being directly descended from each other like the popular myths that Chinese Martial arts came from Indian derivatives or Japanese arts came from China are just that...myths. There is little evidence in records, or forms these arts take that would suggest that they are related.

An excellent example of this would be the fact that Shuai Jiao( a chinese martial art very closely related to Mongolian wrestling and Taiji) predates the earliest recordings of anything martial coming out of India. Not only that, but it is more similar in function to Judo than to any form of Kalahari. On the other hand others have tried to place Shuai Jiao as the progenitor of Judo...which is not true at all.

 

Going back to the Chinese martial arts, I believe one would also have to do some research on the influence of Yoga as related to kung fu.

 

To be honest it depends what you call a martial art. If you consider it to be a formal system of fighting then there are many candidates originating from China first and then around that time Mongolia and eventually Japan.

As for martial art as in a martial pursuit - that kind of goes back to when humanity were beating eachtoerh silly, whenever that began.

 

What else would a martial art be as it is understood in the general sense ? The point is that the vast majority of systematized schools of combat are largely indigenous to the lands in which they are practiced. Some are more similar to others as a result of parallel evolution rather than being a direct derivative of an art practiced in a nearby nation.

The only exceptions to this rule would be modern martial arts like Taekwondo and BJJ. They are both examples of direct derivatives...but this was largely possible do to modern travel and ability readily communicate with and eager to share what they knew to foreigners.

 

Outside of some breathing exercises and energy circulation theory-(which are not from the Indian,but rather the Chinese tradition,hence not Yogic)- there isn't any,contrary to legends starring Boddhidharma and/or Shaolin temple.

 

i'm sure i saw the 1st martial art in a film, 2001 i think it ws called

 

I m frm kerala and training in kalaripayat. I realising that a kalari trained person can easily learn any other martial art. Bcz kalari is a base form of al martial arts. Marma adi( beat presure point) is a littl known fragmentation of southern kalari. Plz watch youtube video ' nokumarmam by prakasan gurukal'

 

No man . All asian martial arts are associated with budhism. Budhism originated in india. History says that kerala before 2000 years was budhist .it can be seen today also. Later kerala people converted to hinduism. If u visit any hindu templ u can see striking similarity of budhist pagodas. So i think kalaripayat is practising atleast 2500 years in kerala. May be 5000 years in india