Talk:Martial arts/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

BEST

whats the BEST?

THE BEST IS OBJECTIVE (IE, EVERYTHING THAT WORKS IN A GIVEN SITUATION). THE BEST DEPENDS ENTIRELY ON SITUATION.

THE BEST ON PAPER IS SUBJECTIVE (IE, IT DEPENDS ON OPINION OF THE WRITER).

New Content Goes At the Bottom, please

I have moved a recent addition to the bottom of the page. Please, in the future, add new topics to the bottom. Otherwise the people who need to see them may ignore them. P0M 23:03, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No talk page?!

There's no talk page for Martial Arts?! What cruel neglect is this! :(

-- Eco

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Apparently the big conversation is happening over on the Ninjutsu page. -- Dante Alighieri

"Full contact?"

Are you sure there is a martial art system called "Full contact"?

No, there is no such martial art. Full contact is just a category of competitive fighting as opposed to semi-contact, etc.

A PERSON MAY ELECT TO NAME HIS SCHOOL WHAT EVER THEY LIKE, REGARDLESS OF THE ACCURACY OF SUCH STATEMENT. SO CAN COMPETITIONS. EGOTISITCAL NAMES SUCH AS 'COMBAT JUJUTSU', OR ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP. PEOPLE TEND TO USE NAMES AS A SELLING POINT RATHER THAN AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF WHAT THEY ARE SELLING. IN A SIMILAR WAY, I CAPITALIZE MY TYPE TO DESTIGUISH IT FROM THE OTHER OPINION. ITS BIGGER, BUT ITS STILL ONLY AN OPINION.

Splitting page

What about splitting this page: one article "Martial Arts by Country" one article "Martial Arts Weapons" ... and so on.

Ok, I know, I must be bold, so I'd better just do it - but I can still do it on Monday ;-)

-- zeno

I believe in sorting the different martial arts by countries, like you said. We could simply do like this:

• Russian martial arts
  • Chinese martial arts
  • Japanese martial arts
  • Korean martial arts
  • Filipino martial arts

etc...
I think this would make it easier to update and keep track of the list of martial arts styles. It would also make the Martial arts page and the list of styles much smaller and easier to read.

I'm coming up with some major updates to the Wushu and Kung Fu sections, and will probably direct readers to Chinese martial arts for further information about the many Chinese martial arts styles.

Please tell me if you have any other ideas or plans.

-- Wintran 01:25 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

Ok. Sounds good. Just go ahead. I am fine with every scheme, as long it is kind of consistent and easy to read.

We just need to find people who are competent enough to write such articles ;-).

--zeno 03:23 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

I think the celebrity martial artists list needs to be split off. JJL 19:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Spliting page: Martial Artist Practicioners of Note

Should this be its own seperate page? Musicians have a list page and it would be appropriate to move it out. Clausewitz01

Agreed. It should be moved. JJL 02:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Multiple spellings of the same thing

Please do not include different spellings like "Kuntao" and "Kun Tao" to the lists. It does not really help to have the same thing listed four times ;-). --zeno 17:31, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

EASY SOLUTION GUYS, HAVE A PAGE OF CONVENTIONS SO EVERYBODY KNOWS WHAT IS AGREED AS STANDARD

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Are Thai Kickboxing, Thaiboxing and Muay Thai different styles? They don't seem to be as they all redirect to Muay thai, so why put them as seperate list items?

- Wintran 14:27, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

made a series of major edits last night

It's a bit rough, but, holler. Zhongyi 01:34, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

All three are alternate terms for the same style. The proper term is muay Thai.

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In the spirit of what Zeno said back on 26 Sep, I've removed the six or so variant spellings of jujitsu which are dead links.

I think I'll take a shot at expanding the article on Judo, but perhaps first I'll finish adjusting the BJJ article, which has serious NPOV problems and seems to be written by a thug...

Bkalafut 31 Oct 2003

[P0M:] BJJ? What is that. Could we have a link, please? P0M 04:39, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

BJJ is the acronym for Brazilian jiu jitsu. Speaking of that article, it does need some NPOV work. I can see that, and I train exclusively in BJJ myself.

Aesopian 17:15, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Overemphasis on Bruce Lee

Why the huge section on Bruce Lee? Shouldn't that be put in a Bruce Lee or Jeetkunedo section? The large amount of attention of Bruce Lee seems unnecessary here.

Edededed 03:35, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

THE WHOLE PAGE HAS OVEREMPHASIS ON IT. TOO MUCH ON MARTIAL ART COMPETITION WHEN THERE IS ALREADY LOTS OF PAGES ON THESE MATTERS. A PAGE ON MARTIAL ARTS SHOULD NOT DWELL ON ONE SYSTEM OR COMPETITION TOO MUCH.

Internal/external arts are only Chinese

The division of arts into internal and external, only holds true for Chinese arts. Soft does not equeal internal, hard does not equal external. IMHO this paragraph could simply be omitted. Habj 21:30, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In fact it doesn't even really work for Chinese martial arts; it's essentially a bogus distinction. Unfortunately many many people believe in it, so it sort of has to be mentioned somehow (or else people will keep putting it in). Andrew 22:30, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

I now lots of neija practitioners who will not agree with you on that. It is certainly in wide use. Habj 06:33, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I know lots of people who believe it too, and I sure don't try to convince them otherwise. But it wouldn't hurt if the entry made it clear that this stuff is really hard to pin down. Andrew 06:43, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] I agree that "internal" and "external" are hard to pin down, and also that there are good reasons for making the distinction. It seems to me that there is a continuum between the external (which is where people almost invariably start) and the internal because the naive fighter is very much object directed. For instance, seeing a reasonably competent karateka punch a circular hole through a page of a newspaper suspended from a clothesline, a person without much training may also succeed in punching through the paper -- but at the cost of directing whole-body momentum toward (and through) the paper, which in a real combat situation would amount to giving himself away to an opponent who was prepared to redirect his force. The beginner sees only the objective of striking some target and sees neither the ideal way to generate the striking force nor the potential way that the forces that are generated can be used to the advantage of the person who has been targeted.

[P0M:] In learning to strike with power, a practitioner in an external style cannot help but make some improvement on internal components, but the focus of training has not centered on the whole-body dynamics yet. P0M 04:39, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. Here we get into nebulous territory. By most definitions I've seen fro "external", some of the classes I've taken have been purely external. No mention of Qi or meditation or mental attitudes at all. Whole-body body mechanics, on the other hand, were central to the teaching. Feet needed to be planted just so, balance thus, and the body needed to be physically relaxed. In any case, I don't really want to argue about this. We can't remove the discussion anyway, but we can ensure that it goes where it's most relevant. Which I think is on the Chinese martial arts page (which does not yet exist; it should perhaps be redirected to one of wushu or kung fu or made up by taking the common pieces of those pages. --Andrew 05:46, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

History of Asian martial arts popularization

This page really needs a history of the popularization of Asian martial arts. As I understand it, it began with Judo, which was systematically created to be a sport that could be taught in schools. Or perhaps it was karate that was first taught, in modified form, in schools. In any case, many martial arts are now on the curricula of high schools (TKD in Korea, for example). Also the story of belts being derived from Judo and the custom of wearing gi and training barefoot in many asian arts should get some mention. Unfortunately, I don't really know enough about this to write it. Andrew 23:01, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Martial art is a wide concept, and if we are to deal with the history of all the arts here the article would be huge. An idea could be to deal with the history of the Japanese arts, koryu, gendai, belts, teaching in high schools etc. under budo and history of Chinese styles under Chinese martial arts/Kung Fu/Wushu, whatever will be the main article. Habj 06:33, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You're quite right; I think histories of individual arts are out of place on this page. What I'd like to see is some more history for why so many people with no real use for these arts (such as myself) are doing them. Some of it is there; martial arts reached into the West through martial arts movies, and in recent years there's been a big search for "exotic" martial arts from previously obscure cultures. But I know there's a concrete part of the story that is missing: how did it come about that judo and karate were taught in schools in Asia? What made the transition between family traditions and widespread teaching? The detailed answers belong in those articles, as you say, with references from here, but I think at least an overview would be nice. Andrew 06:43, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] In Japan, I believe, the various ryu were powerful organizations, and gaining membership was not a matter of course. Funakoshi Gichin brought his "China hand" (kara te) from Okinawa and demonstrated it publically in Japan. He was invited to remain there and to teach his style, which he renamed "open hand" (kara te) and (kara te do) or "the way to spiritual attainment that proceeds through open-hand fighting". He was opposed to ryu, which is why Shotokan karate takes its name from the name of his "studio." But other schools of karate soon called themselves ryu, and the divisive tendencies of ryu came into the world of karate do. That part of the story is fairly clear to me, at least in the sense that the Shotokan people, including Funakoshi Gichin himself, tell the story in a consistent way. What is not very clear to me is what else may have been going on at the same time or soon after Funakoshi Gichin made his appearance in Japan.

[P0M:] One important part of the story of the transmission of martial arts from Japan to the U.S. and other parts of the world has not been told on these pages, as far as I know. Before Bruce Lee made a big impression in the U.S., right after the end of World War II, many U.S. and other Allied servicemen stationed in Japan invited prominent Japanese martial artists to give demonstrations on military bases and almost immediately began finding opportunities to study with them. Some of those people became quite proficient and returned to their native countries to teach. P0M 04:54, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, even earlier than that, was the transmission of martial arts from Asia abroad by way of immigrants in general who came during the Chinese/Asian Exclusion period, either recruited, possibly, by tongs or other associations as enforcers, or who came abroad to work in laundries and restaurants regardless of affiliation, and I have no doubt there were parallel experiences among the Japanese among their kenjinkai and the Filipino manongs and maybe even the pensionados. For instance, Joe Svinth self-published a book on judo in the nikkei communities, 1900-1950, knowing him, probably fairly well documented. Zhongyi 03:48, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ah, this is very good stuff. I've heard vague allusions to this elsewhere, but it should definitely be included. --Andrew 05:46, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

I think teaching in schools is a quite different thing in China and Japan, for instance. What could be of relevance maybe is more related to how MA spread in the West. Habj 07:39, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Japanese budo originally was military arts, karate being the exception here, while this is not true in the same way in China. I do think we must distinguish between the two, and not lump the origin on "Asian" MA together. OK for an overview, but probably you'll need to handle Japan, China, Korea separately - and focus on what is of relevance for MA in the West.Habj 07:45, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

WHATS REALLY OBVIOUS FROM READING THESE COMMENTS IS THAT MOST OF THE CONTRIBUTORS DON'T KNOW ALOT ABOUT MARTIAL ARTS HISTORY AND ESPECIALLY THE VOCABULARY AND SYNONYMS USED IN THE PAST. I WOULD PROPOSE THAT RATHER THAN HAVING ALOT OF MADE UP SPECULATION, IT WOULD BE BETTER TO SIMPLY COMPILE A READING LIST SO THAT IF ANYONE REALLY WANTS TO KNOW WHAT IS CORRECT AND LEARNED, THEY HAVE A RESOURCE LIST. WIKIPEDIA HAS ONE MAJOR FLAW IN THAT OPEN EDITING LEADS TO MORE RUBBISH THAN FACT.

FOR INSTANCE, TERMS LIKE BU-DO AND BU-JUTSU, KNOWBODY KNOWS WHEN TO USE THEM AND WHY. IN FACT, THERE IS CRAS DISTINCTION BETWEEN CIVILIAN JUJUTSU, AND SAMURAI JUJUTSU. PEOPLE FORGET THAT THE JAPANESE DID NOT HAVE 'THE MILITARY', AS THE SAMURAI WERE THE MILITARY, THE POLICE, ETC.

THE OTHER MAJOR MISTAKE IS THAT PEOPLE ASERT THAT JUJUTSU IS UNARMED COMBAT. JUJUTSU IS AN UMBRELLA TERM COVERING UNARMED AND ARMED COMBAT. IE. JUJUTSU

        BU-JUTSU +UNARMED COMBAT
              KENJUTSU, IAI, HOJO-JUTSU, (AND WITHOUT NAMING THEM ALL, OTHER FORMS OF WEAPONRY).

ITS LUDICRES THAT PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND THE STRATIFICATIONS.

THE SUFFIX JUTSU MEANS ART THE SUFFIX DO MEANS THE WAY.

THE SUFFIX JUTSU WAS USED PRIOR MEIJI REFORMATION IN JAPAN THE SUFFIX DO WAS USED POST MEIJI REFORMATION

I'M NOT EVEN SURE THAT WHAT I'M WRITING ISN'T A CRAS GENERALIZATION. BUT THE POINT IS, WHY ARGUE ABOUT IT. SOMEBODY READ THE DAMN HISTORY BOOKS, AND CORRECT IT. THEN STOP THAT SECTION FROM BEING CHANGERBLE.

Sorry for POV!

I'm afraid this last edit may not be as NPOV as we would all like; I can't really figure out how to remove my own biases, though, so we kind of need someone to go through and tidy up some of my changes. Sorry! Andrew 06:43, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

THIS ARTICLE IS TOO FULL OF OPINION. THATS MY OPINION

Sidebar

Should we have some kind of sidebar or move the lists up so that people don't get annoyed their favorite art isn't mentioned on this page? In particular, there are a few things that look at first sight like lists of martial arts which might seem like favoritism. Andrew 06:43, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

I think I've resolved this issue by mentioning the list in boldface early on. --Andrew 05:46, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

Martial Arts Project

In the interest of tidying up, I've created Wikipedia:WikiProject Martial Arts. Please contribute (even if it's "this is trash, do that instead"). --Andrew 02:35, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

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I've done some tidying up. I think there should be a "martial arts for health" or "martial arts as exercise/fitness training" paragraph as well. More later...Fire Star 13:23, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Removal of advertisement link

The link to "ROSS" is link to an advertisement page, completely irrelevant. It should probabbly be removed!

By all means remove such content. If it is advertising there is not reason to discuss chopping it out first. P0M 23:03, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

List of martial arts

Why does the "see also" section contain both List of martial arts and a list of martial arts (and generic categories, also represented in List of martial arts)?

I'm tempted to unilaterally move the lot to the list page. Andrew 06:51, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

I also think this extra list of martial arts is redundant and unfair to those styles not listed here. Please feel free to merge the doublicated list to List of martial arts and remove it from this article. / Wintran 09:07, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Done. I think we need a more permanent solution, though; it's currently a pain to find anything about a particular martial art from here. I like the idea of organizing them info "families" which are linked from here. Andrew 20:59, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Martial arts battle, Best martial art/artist, etc

korea best martial art movie http://www.kwansunmu.or.kr/movie/kwansunmu.WMV

A dumb childlike curiosity question this, but if, say, the world champions of all the world's (non-weaponed) martial arts had a theoretical battle to death, who would win? This question has been bugging me for years. I'd imagine the wrestlers, boxers and judoers of the world would get their asses kicked by the kung fuers and those Buddhist monk people who spend their childhood since age 5 learning how to fight (although that is for self-defence). Theories are more than welcome, and if there's been any books or films dealing with this I'd be intrigued to know --Thewayforward 15:52, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To say that there is a best martial art is niave. However, if the masters of all the different arts did partake in a deathmatch you must consider several views. Is the art all inclusive? Is the practicioner all inclusive? Is the art still a combat art? Which oppenent is better physically conditioned? In a controlled enviroment where the only variable is the art practiced,(meaning the contests are all exact clones with exact experiance, etc., etc.) I would venture that ninjutsu would be the winning art. This is not biased. I have researched the other martial arts and ninjutsu is the one that I belive to have supremecy. You may want to try your own research however. I have viewed many lists with the same, or different criteria, and ninjutsu is always ranked number one, or the only one that has 4 stars in all areas, etc., etc. I hope I have shed some light on this illusive subject. --unsigned

For some martial arts the main goal in a man to man fight is NOT to defeat the opponent. In Vovinam, for example, we learn to find out (within a split second) how serious an attack is. Someone can eg. on a rock concert grab your neck "just kidding" but unexpected for you. No need to kill this stupid guy. On the other hand, while you are walking a dark road, a foreigner can grab your neck in order to kill you so he can steal your money. In this case it is OK to at least break his arms. How to find out the difference ? Well, for example by the force the person uses when grabing or hitting.

In other martial arts you learn how to kill as fast as posible. Praying Mantis Kung Fu say, as far as I know: make the fight a short fight. Go directly to the vital points. Other martial arts created for real war purpose also need to deal with vital situations ...

The later would allways win such a death-or-life-battle, under the mentioned equal-situation-circumstances of course.

But that does not tell "the best" martial art. Different criteria, different goals. How good a martial art is ALLWAYS depends on what you need it for. And that is NOT allways killing other people. ...--Thomas 21:12, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

The question of who would beat who in a fight is asked often. If killing people by any means necessary makes the best martial art, then this guy or this guy have got to be pretty good martial artists, and also the folks with toys like this thing. But I assume the topic is usually about unarmed one-on-one fighting in a street brawl fashion, maybe without having to kill the other guy. Unfortunately, as a totally hypothetical question it wouldn't be much different from asking whether Superman can beat up Batman (fine, yes, but let's not go there). There have been many people in every fighting system who began studying their art at a young age and maybe thought of themselves as the toughest in the world, when in reality they might not even be the best in their own system internationally. The system itself might not be as useful as one may believe either. Still, people who are interested in evidence as opposed to McDojo theories can watch the early MMA matches: *Possible Spoilers* The typical boxers, karatekas, and kungfu guys looked very cool, that is until they got taken down by a BJJer or submission wrestler, then controlled from there and forced to give up to a basic choke or joint lock. The pure strikers realized they didn't know enough/anything about groundfighting, so they started learning BJJ. The BJJers were happy until they fought some guy who could do submissions plus striking better than them. Guys like that however would then get beaten up repeatedly by stronger, gorilla-man-type people. This demonstrated that size matters after all in fighting. Finally, after hundreds of fights, some heavyweight cyborg-like creature ruled above all.*/End Spoilers* So, the answer so far seems to be that the most physically dominant and technically knowledeable, complete, energetic, well-rounded, experienced, combat-honed and slightly lucky fighter will win -- until they inevitably get beaten by someone better who comes along, or retire before that. Well, duh. Shawnc 07:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Martialist

I've seen more and more use of the term "martialist", meaning "martial artist". Perhaps it could be mentioned. --Sy 02:19, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is a case of "Bennifer". There is no such word. It was created for the convenience of lazy people. As you said, it should be martial artist. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually became a real word.

Actually it's a term popularized by Phil Elmore who's a minor personality in the Reality Based Self Defense "scene". He operates a small forum for a handful of people who agree with him. The notability of the term with regards to the Martial Arts, however, is highly dubious. --Phrost 23:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Martialist by itself comes up with 18,600 Google hits. Martialist and Elmore don't quite get 600, to be sure. It is an obsolete term meaning "soldier". So, perhaps a disambiguation page may be necessary, as 600 hits really doesn't establish notability in itself. --Fire Star 01:56, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

spelling conventions

I just noticed that someone had changed "armoured" to "armored." The Wiki standard appears to be that any single article either follows English spelling conventions or follows American spelling conventions. Australians are left out in the cold, I guess. Anyway, the deal is supposedly that if an article starts out using English spellings then people who add to it should follow the English conventions. I have no idea how this article started, and whether it uses English conventions in other places where they would be expected, or whether the article originally used American rules and someone came on the scene later and added an English spelling. P0M 22:01, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Martial arts and dance

There's been a certain amount of activity on the "Martial arts and dance" section. I'm a little concerned that it may be becoming very Western-centric (although of course I am Western too, so I find it hard to judge). In particular, the notion that dancing is effeminate rather than macho is by no means universal.

It's also worth pointing out that dance is not necessarily a performance art - it may serve another purpsoe entirely, such as, well, martial arts training (for example, many Filipino tribes have traditional dances that teach the footwork used in their Eskrima systems; by the time a boy began training in Eskrima, he would already be perfectly comforatble with the footwork, having danced it for many years). Dances can also be games and competitions. --Andrew 01:53, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

Problems with History on-line

Martial Arts in China and India

Through my readings of martial arts history, I discovered a disturbing trend. Many nationalistic Indians are trying to lay claim that martial arts and kung fu, karate, and all of the East Asian Martial arts originated from India along with the transmittal of Buddhism. Unfortunately, India today in terms of written historical text, is in a state of flux. For the last few decades after the end of British colonial rule, the Hindu nationalistic political parties have been distorting historical texts and in general the history of India to "reclaim" its history (see the debate on the origins of the Taj Mahal and whether it is a Muslim or Hindu temple, and the "Institute for Rewriting Indian History"). Many of these distortions have engendered their way into the internet age on websites and have been self propagating especially with Indian writers. The result of this is that parts of the history of India in present time, has been distorted in some way as to make it difficult to separate fact from fiction. The purpose of this article is to dispel the myths that are currently being propagated by Nationalistic Indians online. In this article, Kung Fu will relate to Chinese martial arts, and Shaolin Kung Fu relates to the Kung Fu style originating in the Shaolin temples after 500 A.D.

To begin with, very few historians believe that martial arts originated from one place and spread throughout the world. Most historians believed that human beings created some form of systemic defense system as an improvement over random punching, hacking, and kicking. Most military powers in their history have invented some form of martial arts, such as wrestling and self-defense in ancient Egypt, Sparta, and Greece. Most historians believe that many of the martial arts even in Japan (lost in legend with oldest accounts possibly 27B.C.), Korea (Silla Kingdom 57 B.C.), Southeast Asia, and South Asia developed independently to some degree and perhaps mutually influenced each other centuries after their invention. Most of these martial arts share similarities possibly through influences on each other, but most likely secondary to the fact that armed or unarmed combat by human beings employs similar principles and the human body is similar. The reason why the East Asian Martial Arts are so popular today is due to the fact that they have been so well codified, their ease of use and effectiveness in self-defense and especially the popular media.

The oldest evidence of Kung Fu, or Chinese martial arts, as it is practiced by the military goes back to the Zhou dynasty (1111-255 BC). The first written history of Chinese martial arts comes attributes it to the legendary reign of Huangdi of the Zhou Dynasty (1122-255 BC). Records attribute Huangdi with being the founder of China’s oldest known martial art – chang quan (long fist). The oldest reference to institutionalized wrestling in China dates to 700 B.C. Further, the Taoist monks were practicing physical exercises that resembles Tai Chi (or a soft form of Kung fu) at least during the 500B.C. era. There are texts referring to qigong like exercises from at least the 5th century B.C. During the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Periods (770 - 221BC), a method called Daoyin was evolved to promote health. Further, during the Warring States Period (770-221B.C.), various poetry was written down attributed to Yuh Niuy describing philosphical approaches to sword play that is read to this day by wushu practitioners. As well, there are a few statues of unarmed soldiers from the first Qin Emperor's terra cotta army that are in distinctly martial "kung fu" poses that date from the third century B.C. In 39-92 A.D. , the "Six Chapters of Hand Fighting", in the Han Book of Arms were written by Pan Kuo. Also, Hua To developed the "Five Animals Play" - tiger, deer, monkey, bear, and bird for self defense during 220 A.D. As stated earlier, the Kung Fu that is practiced today developed over the centuries and many of the later additions of Kung Fu, such as the Shaolin Kung Fu style, later animal forms and the drunken style were incorporated from various martial arts forms existing later on in China or have accurate historical data relating to their inventor.

The Indian belief that India is the origin of Kung Fu (Chinese Martial arts) and most Eastern martial artists is initially incorrect as the Shaolin style is connected in popular media with Chinese Martial arts and thus the general public thinks that it is the oldest and only martial arts in China. The belief further centers on the contention that Bodhidharma (Pu Tai Ta Mo in Chinese or Daruma Daishi in Japanese) the creator of Zen Buddhism came from India, notably south India, and spread Zen Buddhism along with martial arts from India to China sometime in 450 AD. To begin with, history does not know the origins of Bodhidharma, as most of the biography relating to him has been lost in legend. Bodhidharma has also been associated with the discovery of tea (unlikely as the Chinese have historical records of tea use predating the birth of Buddhism and even an ancient encyclopedia stating that they have been drinking tea since 200 B.C. or so) and that he could bore a hole into a wall by looking at it. Further, no historical efforts have accurately shown where he originated from, and many accounts differ. Some suggest India, others suggest Central Asia and perhaps Tibet. The earliest record existing in China suggest Persia, which is dubious.

Secondly, historical records suggest that Bodhidharma might have taught the Shaolin monks meditation exercises in 500A.D.; however, historical evidence has shown that the Shaolin monks during this time and before this time (the Shaolin temple predates Bodhidharma) harbored retired soldiers, who taught the monks self defense styles that they had learned during military training and that were preexisting in China. Not only that, various meditation exercises such as those within Taoism and Tai Chi that simulate martial arts, existed before this time that predates Bodhidharma by a millenia, and were being practiced by the monks previous to 500A.D. The Shaolin monks, in order to protect themselves from bandits and criminals around 500A.D, began to codify what they learned into a "Shaolin" Kung-Fu style; however, the development of Kung Fu (or general martial arts in China) goes back centuries before this.

Third, unfortunately, there is very little historical evidence to lay claim to the Indian contention that their various martial arts predates East Asian martial arts. Mythology does exist in India going back a few thousand years, but mythology exists in every culture even Persian culture relating to the origins of martial arts going back a few thousand years. Mythology does not equate historical evidence. The earliest written reference to kalapriyyattu goes back only to the 16th century A.D. by the Portuguese in British India. During that time they noted that it was a form of dance/martial arts practiced by citizens of Kerala and that the citizens had perhaps been practicing it since the 13th century A.D. During the 18th-19th century A.D., the British outlawed it in Kerala and the practice decreased substantially. In fact, the various Indian martial arts, especially Kalaripayattu, had very few practitioners before the advent of the modern age and especially the "Bruce Lee" era. With the worldwide interest in the Eastern Martial Arts, the Indian Martial arts began flowering once again. Contemporary Indians in India were just as fascinated with Kung Fu as regular Americans in America were. Very little historical evidence suggests that Indians were practicing their martial arts as it is in its current form even two centuries ago. What historical evidence exists suggests that the East Asian martial arts predates the current Indian martial arts. Whatever similarities exist are either due to the innate requirements that the human body requires in order to defend itself, or were additions to the Indian martial arts, possibly through Mongol or Muslim conquest later on or within the last century with international trade.

The first historical interpretation of the origin of the Kalari system was given by Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai. He points out that this fighting art emerged during the 12th century from the military exigency of the "Hundred Years War" between the Cheras and the Cholas. This theory was reiterated by later writers without question. Today, as the concept of Hundred Years War has been questioned and rejected, the theory of the origin of Kalari during this War, has lost its ground. Moreover, it is unlikely that a martial system will emerge suddenly from a war. As stated earlier, the oldest suggested existence of Kalarippayyattu date back to the 13th centuries A.D. The earliest recorded evidence of kalarippayyattu date from Portuguese descriptions during the latter 16th-17th centuries and dying off after the British outlawed it during the 18th and 19th centuries A.D. It has only been recently reinvigorated in the last few decades due to the general worldwide interest in martial arts. . It is more likely that the Chinese martial arts greatly influenced Kalarippayyattu after the incursion of the Mongols from China into India during the 13th and 14th century A.D. or the incursion of the Muslims.

Another interesting concept is the idea of "chi" or life force energy. Many Indian historians contend that they invented this concept with their ideas of "prana." However, historical evidence suggests that various cultures have a similar concept, even within SouthEast Asia and South America. Historically, "Chi" in China developed from Taoism and Lao Tse Tung from concepts that predate 500B.C., and this invention predates that of Buddhism's introduction introduction to China. Further, Tai Chi, which is the soft form of martial arts exercise developed with Taoism also predates Buddhisms introduction to China, and historical books related to its breathing exercises go back to at least 500 B.C. Finally, Indian contention that Karate and Kalarippayattu share common ancestry due to their similar sound is doubtful as both words are Anglicized constructions for English speaking people of multiple Japanese and Indian words, both of which have totally unrelated meaning. Kara-Te in Japanese means "Empty Hand." In India, "Kalari" is an arena for combat; "payat" stands for a system of combat.

However, it is a long stretch of the imagination to believe that all of the East Asian Martial Arts or even Chinese martial arts had their origins in India through some legendary traveling pacifistic monk. The historical inaccuracies are dangerous for India, as the Indian martial arts should be a source of cultural pride for Indians. However, by stretching the truth, at times fabricating the truth, and making fallacies of reasoning, nationalistic Indians today are lending doubt to the whole history of Indian martial arts.

-Kenneth Tennyson, Ph.D

Well, as with so many other areas of history, there is just no way to really know at this point on this issue with the current state of historical knowledge. There is a lot of evidence, as you say, that systematic Chinese martial arts predate the introduction of Buddhism. There is also some archaeological evidence that acupuncture techniques were known in early bronze age Europe (see Ötzi the Iceman). Personally, I believe that a lot of such things were indeed aspects of larger, general human culture handed down since prehistory, and that some cultures preserved some of the information (and perhaps even refined it) and others didn't, for whatever reason. To say that one culture "invented" something subsequently practised by another without a clear, documented and verifiable evidence chain (as is the case with Buddhism itself, for example) won't stand in a Wikipedia article, at any rate. One can say that certain parties publish such-and-such claims, but the claims shouldn't be reported as fact. Fire Star 01:01, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I generally agree, although there are problems in what you have said with things like "Huang Di." The "Yellow Emperor" was a legendary emperor whose reign is listed before the Zhou dynasty, not to mention the intervening Xia and Shang dynasties. Or, if you are thinking of the other characters that are pronounced the same way, and whose meaning is simply "emperor," there were no emperors before Qin Shi Huang Di, and he came immediately after the Zhou dynasty.

"Qin Shi Huang Di", means "Qin (dynasty) first emperor"... (constantly amazed how people don't bother to look at other wiki articles).

There are many problems pertaining to the early Chinese texts. Some are now generally regarded as very early works falsely attributed to even earlier authors, some are genuine and their dates are not controversial, and some are genuine but there is no consensus regarding the time they were actually written down.

If we are to have a serious article we really need to work on citations. There are all kinds of "authoritative" pronouncements and "things that every martial arts student knows" floating around. What we need is, e.g., a claim from somebody who has reasonable credentials to the effect that such-and-such is asserted in the 23rd chapter of the Nan Jing. We need to cite that, and, ideally, we need to check out the Nan Jing also. _-P0M 01:17, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)~

Reply to Kenneth Tennyson

You've just touched on a subject most people are ignorant about, which annoys me all the time. I don't know what's your occupation but the sources of your "readings of martial arts history" obviously aren't very reliable. You may have impressed the fools who replied with some irrelevant comments but you obviously don't know enough to "dispel the myths propagated by nationalistic Indians".

There were a few things you got right. Martial arts DIDN'T originate in one place. This should have been obvious but most people actually think otherwise. I never heard any complaints about the baseless theories that all martial arts originated in Greece or Egypt, just because these countries have early evidence of fighting systems. We also know that the word karate has no relation to kalari. Claims like these are made by shameless Indian martial artists to lend credibility to their styles. But just as many kung fu practitioners pretended to have certain abilities, you cannot judge the majority based on them. Everyone knows that these sorts should be avoided but you apparently can't tell the difference.

As for the case of Bodhidharma, I'll have to debunk some of YOUR myths. First of all, most historians agree that he DID exist and came to China from India. No real evidence implies any other country. What is being debated is when he came to China (evidence suggests he might have arrived one hundred years earlier) and whether or not he knew martial arts. The story of him inventing tea is probably false but keep in mind that some people say it was Buddha or some other monk. Secondly, most genuine martial art masters admit that Bodhidharma probably didn't invent kung fu but he just institutionalized it so it could be passed on from master to pupil. Before that, kung fu was created by the individual. He also taught the Eighteen Lohan Hands. You might still find this hard to believe but there are enough imperial records, temple documents and architectural evidence to show that there must be some truth to the story of Bodhidharma. The tale was also believed by some of Asia's most intelligent monks and officials. It is seriously insulting to say that they have all been fooled.

Even those historians who don't believe the story of Bodhidharma agree that it proves what they've long known: Indian martial arts influenced Chinese martial arts. I'm NOT saying that kung fu, silat, bando, karate or any other Indian-influenced style actually comes from India. I'm just saying that they were influenced by Indian martial arts which has alredy been proven beyond any doubt by archeaologists and other scholars. Westerners like you find this hard to believe not because of historical evidence but because of racism. In your ignorant minds, countries like China, Japan and Korea (and their martial arts) are considered more or less the same while India is a part of the middle east. That's why you frequently used the conveniant term East Asia and compared India to Persia. I've seen it everywhere in popular media. The song Kung Fu Fighting has been misused countless times. Crouching <something> Hidden <something> has been used as a joke when talking about Japanese people. Then there's the millions of times that a Chinese actor has been cast in a Japanese role (and vice-versa). It's really impossible to count the number of times you've confused the various Asian communities.

On the other hand, Indians are also cast as Arabs. Arabesque buildings and music are the stereotype of Indian culture. Speaking of culture, you may think that you've come a long way in understanding other peoples of the world but I've seen proof against this. Even Discovery Channel once played fake Chinese music to represent Thailand. Fake music is made up of archetypal "Asian" sound bites strung into what you think is an Asian song. Games like Jade Empire also prove you know nothing about Asian mythology and traditional attire. All Chinese are fighters and all Indians are just a source of comic relief.

These ideas are all born out of what you think certain people should look like. To you, Chinese, Japanese and Koreans look the same with light yellow skin and slit eyes. Arabs and Indians have dark skin and black hair. Although I can often tell a Korean from a Chinese, there are many exceptions so I won't argue although you should know that it's very common to find a dark-skinned Chinese. Indians usually have dark skin but there are many (especially in Manipur) that have typically Mongoloid features. Arabs are Caucasoids who usually have fair skin and light brown hair. Blond hair and blue eyes are also fairly common. The distinction between India and the middle east has blurred slightly especially in Pakistan but this happened relatively recently. Yet, so great is America's influence that they can change how a country views itself thereby making their ideas true. In truth, India is just as much "Asian" as China, Japan, Korea or anything else you might think of.

But let's not stray off topic. The point is that if you knew just how similar China and India were, you might not be so bull-headed. Until China was attacked by Japanese pirates in the Ming dynasty, the average Chinese never heard of Japan. Largely in part to Buddhism, most Chinese knew about India since ancient times. In medieval times, one particular Chinese once said that India was "a familiar land with similar people and customs". Kung fu gained a toehold in India a little while before the "Bruce Lee era" during the "China-India brotherhood" of the 60s and 70s. Chi is not the imported concept of prana but proof of the two nations' similar philosophies. Your idea that kalaripayat was imported has been proven wrong decades ago. There is a lot of evidence showing that stylised martial arts were practiced in India as early as 5000 years ago. And if martial arts only came to India recently, it would have been dominated by cities. Most traditional styles are more common in villages. Of course, this DOESN'T mean that kung fu had no influence on India. Due to their close proximity (look at an atlas) they probably influenced each other.

The Indian influence on kung fu can be seen by the number of similarities between their arts. Kung fu actually more closely reembles martial arts fom India than Japan. To prove this, I've made a list of a few of the things that the Chinese boast is unique to kung fu. Little do they know that they're also in India. 1. The extensive techniques don't just focus on punching, kicking, throws or grabs but on all of them and more. 2. The Chinese boast about their "specialties" like the Iron Leg which usually go beyond simply breaking boards and punching stone. Many of these like the Cosmos Palm are also practiced in India. 3. Unlike some fighters whose competency decreases after their prime, kung fu uses internal training like qigong to delay the effects of age. Indian martial arts also use methods like yoga for this purpose. 4. Kung fu masters can treat injuries sustained during training using traditional medicine. As for India, ever heard of ayurveda? 5. Chinese and Indian martial arts expand the mind and strengthen the spirit through meditation. 6. Their philosophies often touch on issues modern science has only recently rediscovered. Many of these Buddhist philosophies came from India. This one would be better off explained by a scientist.

And it's not just the styles themselves that are similar but the culture surrounding the martial arts. For one, there's the old tradition of martial arts storytelling (wuxia in Chinese) which is unique to Asia. Then there's the relationship of martial arts and religion. In places like China and India, martial arts were often practiced in temples while this would have been unthinkable in some other parts of the world. Finally, there's the status of martial arts being more than just militaristic. At one time, parents would brag about their child's fighting skills. All of this began to decline in the modern age and especially in India after British colonisation.

As you said, martial arts should be a source of pride for Indians. They should be discouraged from jeopardizing their own reputation by stretching the truth. But this doesn't mean that ignorant people can make such an important part of Indian culture seem like a farce. I hope to see a revival of martial arts in India. Western countries should be doing the same for their own styles like Lua, Krav Maga, Danmye, Mau Rakau and Systema. Oh, and the Taj Mahal is a Muslim temple.

People shouldn't really claim that martial arts "moved" from one place to another. I think it's always been a case of influence only. I mean, look at the documented and well knon more recent transport of southern kung fu (white crane if I remember correctly) to Okinawa and into karate. We can see quite clearly that in only a couple of centuries there are very different. At the same time, I am sure Okinawa has some martial things that were and are it's own, the most obvious being its particular weaponry, eg the sai. I have no problem with the idea that martial arts in China were influenced by Indian practioners. Just as I have heard that the Indians martial arts were influenced by the invasion of Alexander the Great and his army. And I'e heard that Alexander the Great's armies martial arts were influenced by the Spartans. Maybe they were influenced by someone else?

I think a) nobody should be claiming anybody elses practices as their own, and b) who cares that much, as long as it is understood that these things are largely legend? Bihal 23:44, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I think there is a lot of exaggeration when it comes to the Greeks influencing Indian martial arts. Unfortunately none of the ancient Greek martial arts have survived but from what we know about them they don't seem to have much in common save for the most basic similarities. Besides, Alexander the Great only made it to the western edge of India and there isn't much evidence of his army having any influence on Indian culture. He didn't even spend that much time there. And, uh, isn't the Taj Mahal debate actually about which state it belongs to?

Capoeira and it's description

Capoeira is a Brazilian Martial Art very much like Break Dancing and involves a lot of flashy gymnastic moves. The fighting is very low to the ground and consists of mainly kicks, (armarda, hubjaheia). It was developed when Martial Arts were banned, forcing the Brazilian slaves to disguise their training as dancing.

  Capoeira is sometimes very much like Break Dancing and it does have flashy moves. If you've ever seen a real fight using Capoeira (not a game) then you won't find any flashy or acrobatic moves. Acrobatics are only done in a roda to show off and to show people that you have some control over the game.
  There are two different styles, Angola and Regional. Angola has almost no acrobatic moves while Regional is full of them.
  Regional was developed well after the slaves were freed and when Capoeira was made legal. Not all martial arts were banned at the time, it was just African-Brazilian things (including Capoeira) that were banned. Angola WAS infact disguised as a dance though. Regional was not.

I feel that the sentence should be changed to reflect Capoeira's true nature. What do others think of this?

As long as you Cite your sources, either here or in the article, changing it would be fine with me. People from a given school can often innocently write descriptive copy as if their school was the definitive version. They may not honestly know about other legitimate variations. What you propose sounds like a more balanced approach; list as many variations as can be documented and objectively describe (not saying one is better than another, for example) some of the differences. Fire Star 00:43, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

is this an encyclopedia article?

it does not seem so, some things you are saying are outright absurd! for example you are saying that in short range, sight becomes useless and people actually respond due to tactile stimuli, are you kidding? Consider Light Speed and Sound Speed. Sound is a mechanical wave, it is when air is the travelling medium the only thing that will generate any tactile stimuli, and it is WAY slower than light. Have you ever heard about Frames per second? The "refresh rate" of the human eye is higher that twenty FPS, and its far more sensible than the skin. This whole article is highly biased to the unrealistic! I would not only dispute the NPOV of this article but its factual accuracy also.

Ħ First, please sign your postings. You can do that, after your register, by just typing ~~~~.

Answer: nope, but i will try to reduce clashes in this article.

Ħ It doesn't cost you anything to register and it doesn't reveal your identity to anybody. I did it because otherwise I'd end up fighting with myself sooner or later. ;-)

Ħ Second, unless you have actually tried something yourself enough to know what the practitioners are talking about.

Answer: I agree, sometimes, other times i would ask the other person to deal with the burden of proof, especially when what it says strikes me as improbable (i do admit that some preconceptions made me mad while reading this article, but it seems either misleading or wrong to me).

ĦYou will need to leave a blank line between the stuff you insert and my stuff. Otherwise you really make me feel like I am fighting with myself. Indentation is also the custom.

Ħ I haven't done very much wrestling, but I've had it demonstrated to me that the guys who have can tell a great deal more than I can about how our bodies are tangled together.

Answer: Sometimes, and other times the person is confussed, propioceptivity is not reliable.

Ħ The guys I end up wrestling with do not stay confused for long enough that it makes any difference to the outcome for me. :-(

Ħ Somebody's hand on the back of my shoulder give me the same information at the same time about how much pressure he is applying in what direction.

Answer: Couldn't agree more, but let me quote:

1. Long-range unarmed fighting. In this situation, things happen relatively slowly (hundreds of milliseconds), giving participants time to react to visual stimuli. This allows powerful strikes as well as subtle feints to be performed.

1. Short-range unarmed fighting. In this situation reaction time is such an important factor that visual stimuli are not very useful, and practitioners must learn to react to tactile stimuli. Strikes are still possible but reactions must become reflexes, making feints more difficult.

1. Grappling. In this situation participants are holding each other too closely to permit effective striking. Leverage and physical strength become very important. If not forbidden by rules, biting, pinching and spitting can be very effective at this range.

Unless by short range you are meaning grappling (actual physical contact), something hard to beleive, read the quote with attention, you would be wrong. Tactile stimuli is useless until there is physical contact in fighting, you do not sense the air being pushed by the blow (that is how I interpret that sentence), if you sensed the air against the skin, it would have to be in a extremely calm room, waiting for the blow without moving and it would still be a slower stimuli, and much more diffuse. Reflexes are triggered by sight too. What is short range to you? if it is not grappling nor long range (full arm length to hit?, half arm length?)

Ħ I'm not sure who "you" is. It isn't me. I don't think the 3 points above are particularly well formulated. Let's see whether we can figure out how to say them correctly

Ħ Any lags that occur involve the lag between his subconscious "decision" to move and his conscious awareness of that decision and then the additional lag that may occur before actual contact pressure is changed, and the analogous steps in my mental processing. But those lags would occur the same way if somebody illuminated my chest with a targeting laser and I happened to be looking down at the time the red spot appeared.

Answer: subconscious decission? it is not a decission, you could trace the depolarization wave over the neuron membranes, the sinaptyc jumps, the whole chain of neurons (wich is part of the network) from the eye to the arm, no tactile stimuli unless a hit triggered this nor decission of any kind.

Ħ I'm not sure I follow your writing, but I'm guessing that we are saying almost exactly the same thing. I put scare quotes around "decision" because I didn't mean it is something that a figher puzzles out in words. Nevertheless, just as you outlined, some kind of processing takes place. My point was that the processing times are the same whether it's a sight, a sound, or a shove that the defender must react to. Those times are far longer than the lags between events as perceived by sound or by sight. It's kind of like the guy who believes that he can grab an arrow out of the air but he can't grab a bullet out of the air. If the shooter is ten feet away and using an 80 pound bow, it doesn't matter how many times slower the arrow is than the bullet. It's still going way faster than any human can react to. (Of course if the guy shoots an arrow from 100 yards away it may be so slow when it gets to the target that it doesn't need to be grabbed or deflected, whereas the rifle bullet will still be lethal.)

Ħ Sound waves don't make a "tactile" impression on you unless you're in church and the organ shakes the program in your hand.

Answer: Sound is a mechanical wave, read the Ear article, it should have diagrams by now. If you are talking about tactile stimuli you are taking about sound (yes, there is no soundless movement and before the blow strike it is the only thing you would have (you can sense mechanical waves on the skin, that is tact)). By now it seems to me that it was just that, confussion on my side, altough i beleive the article is misleading in that direction, if by short range it does not refer to actual contact, then you should explain what it does refer too, and what would the difference be with grappling if it does, aldo you should consider what i have just said about tactile stimuli, sound and reflexes, is common sense and basic biology.

Ħ Tactile is only one kind of sense reaction to physical force. Vision depends on a physical interaction, energy delivered to the retina. Hearing depends on a physical interaction, energy delivered to the eardrum. "Tactile" comes from the Latin word "tangere," to touch. It means awareness of something through the nerve endings in your fingers or other skin, awareness that you don't interpret as vision or sound but as touch.

Ħ The difference between the speed of sound and the speed of light is irrelevant unless it's a situation where you see the muzzle flash of a sniper before the sound of the shot (and the bullet) make it to your ear. Even if you only hear the gun go off your reaction time won't get you out of its way in time.

Answer: The difference does matter in a low density medium as air, because the shock wave of the blow won't go very far from the distance while the blow will be extremely slow compared to ligth bouncing on it, the difference does matter, you cannot count on tactile stimuli (unless we are talking of a starting situation of physical contact wich is never broken, because if it were and you could see the blow coming sigth would be muc faster than tactile stimuli).

Ħ If any martial artist sees and/or hears somebody swinging at him he doesn't wait until he gets a tactile stimulus to begin to react. The tactile stuff comes into play when you can't see what is going on either because its dark, its going on behind your back, somebody's put a hood over your head, the back of your head is in the guy's armpit and your nose is snuggling with his elbow joint...

Answer: no one would wait in that situation, i have yet to see someone dodging while blindfolded (really, it is far too easy to see through cloth) or by sound (without knowing the position of the attacker, that is, the dodger moving into the room while the attacker waits quietly without moving). By the way, i checked the speeds, sound travels a metre in a third of a millisecond, light does it in far less, it seems insignificant in that order of magnitude though. So maybe i was wrong about it and the difference in speeds does not matter, however, this mechanical wave is much more prone to be diturbed by wind or wathever. I hope this helps somehow to clarify the article, because i beleive by now that it is mostly a misinterpretation of a misleading and confusing part of the article and not a thing about factual accuracy.

Ħ The main problem here seems to be your interpretation of the word "tactile."

Ħ The original article stuff talked about "long range", "short range", and grappling, and the sense modalities that the writer thought are appropriate to each range.

Ħ I think I would put things in terms of "long range," "medium range," "short range," and "grappling." One of the things that the Dao De Jing and the Zhuang Zi (or Chuang Tzu if you prefer the antique Wade-Giles romanization) talk about, and also one of the things that Mas Ayoob talks about, is the ability to size up a mugger from a block away and take evasive action or do whatever you have to do to ensure your safety. That's mostly sight, possibly sound (if he's shouting threats or calling his corner boys), and you may have minutes to think about whether this is normal boisterous behavior in this neighborhood or among members of this ethnic group, or does it look more sinister?

Ħ When you move closer you will at some point cross a line between where you can kick him and/or he can kick you. (Of course if either of you is armed, that line gets moved way back.) At this point both vision and sound can be the tip-off. If the guy is coming up behind you, sound is more important than vision unless you walk around with a rear-view mirror stuck on your head or can see something in a shop window or something. At kicking distance you can have your opponents entire body in your peripheral vision, and you most likely will be able to see the back heel coming off the ground or whatever. Then you hope for "go no sen" -- getting there first even though you started second. Of course if you are really good you will see the attack forming in your opponent's eyes and get "sen no sen" -- getting going while he's still psyching himself up to attack. (That's bad in court. As Mas Ayoob says, it's better to call out loudly, "Don't hit me!" and let witnesses see the guy throw the first couple of punches while you dance around like a drunken duck, but sometimes that wouldn't be safe. Did you figure the guy out before you crossed that line?) That's what I would call "medium range." You can see everything, but you don't have the time to process information in words in your head.

Ħ At close range you can still see, but you're too close to see everything. (There may be brushing physical contact, e.g., opponent steps in to attack and puts his knee against the inside of my knee. I know what it's there for, but there is no point in my looking down to see whether it's only my imagination.) Suppose that somebody throws a left and a right at my head and my attention is drawn quite naturally to blocking the punches. But I can't actually see what he's doing with his feet, so its bap, bap, boom, and the "boom" is a kick. The sights and the sounds are both reaching me in such a short time that there is no perceptible gap between them. (If you don't believe the scenario, I've got a video of a match where that's exactly what happens. I think the winner was "Cat" Yamaguchi. I think the other guy was a "mere" fourth degree black belt.) If you're up against somebody who is capable of marshalling this kind of attack, what will save you? You've got to be able to read his entire body in real time and see the subtle shift of his upper body that occurs when he lifts his foot to kick, and you got to "just know" what that means and what you've got to do to avoid the kick. For me, once somebody got two quick-succession punches up for me to pick off I'd probably be done for.

Ħ At grappling range your field of vision is even more restricted. Sound is not likely to be helpful. It may be dark. You may be bleeding so much that you can't see. Awareness has got to be mostly via feel. But the range of attacks is greater than indicated in the paragraph quoted above. One technique I was taught, for instance, is a punch to be delivered to the attacker's throat when he's got you in a bear hug. If your arms are not pinned, you've got elbow strikes and knee strikes not to mention using your forehead to crush the guy's nose. But the first order of business is to be aware of where your opponent is and what he's doing. That's where the sticky-hands training etc., etc. comes into play.

ĦDoes the above treatment sound reasonable? P0M 03:11, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

European History

The European history section seems to be a bit long and seems to have more headings than the other history sections and reads in part more as a history of martial art literature. I've changed the first para and added a link to Pankration. Given that I don't have many edits yet, I've not deleted the Middle ages section but I feel that it doesn't add much value. MLA 10:28, 3 August 2005 (UTC) I've been more bold and re-written the European section. I've taken out the Martial Arts Literature history - that seems to warrant a separate page rather than this one. I've tidied some things up inculding taking out a comment that track and field is based on war as this seems unlikely to me to be factually true - hunting surely is more likely. I've left in the Canary Islands line though I'm not convinced that they are European as they are geographically closer to Africa than Europe.MLA 12:03, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Small Brazilian Jiu Jitsu issue

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu refers to a type of Jiu Jitsu that comes from Brazil. Gracie Jiu Jitsu should be referrd to as a style of BJJ, not another name for it, since there are now other BJJ schools coming out of Brazil. Even if they do all share a common start point, I think it's misleading.

Bihal 03:00, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree and thought that myself previously, I've edited it. I've also edited Ronin-Do a little as it read like an advert though I'm not sure whether I should have deleted it instead McDojo? 195.92.40.49 12:55, 9 August 2005 (UTC) MLA 12:57, 9 August 2005 (UTC) (didn't realise I had been logged out)

I would recommend to edit individual schools out of the main article unless they were clearly internationally famous, like the Gracies. The martial arts articles in general are spam-magnets, which many see as vehicles for free advertising. If a school, even though it may not be big, has an interesting website that provides good, detailed information or history on their martial art style (not the usual self-promoting puffery), then it can be safely included in the external links section. Fire Star 15:47, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I Googled Ronin-Do and it's just a single school. I've removed it from the list of martial arts.MLA 13:07, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Martial Arts may focus on... section

I have partially reverted an edit by an anon user with no contribution history though I agree with some of their points so I have not fully reverted it. The edit appeared to focus on a more rounded group of arts to include more modern and non-Asian arts and I think that this is a reasonable suggestion. I've put a couple of what I consider to be the more well-known Asian arts back in as well as fixed some links that had been broken. The edit also removed a section on the popularising of Martial Arts in the West through media, I've put it back in though a little further down so it flows more naturally into the history section. MLA 09:36, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

WHO GAVE YOU THE AUTHORITY TO REMOVE RONIN-DO? I SUGGEST YOU DO SOME MORE RESEARCH PRIOR TO YOUR EDITING AND/OR DELETING...I SUGGEST YOU GO TO MY WEB SITE: http://www.ronindo.homestead.com

and http://mararts.org FOR INQUIRY OF RONIN-DO.

RESPECTFULLY, RUSSELL G. CARTER, JR.- JUDAN, RONIN-DO

Russell, it is generally decided by how well known a particular martial art is as to whether or not we include it in the web page. You can imagine that if we tried to include every martial art (let alone style) that everyone in the world had invented we

a) would run out of room and

b) turn into a web directory, and not an encylopedia.

To illustrate my point, here are some comparative google search results.

"Ronin-do" - 1430 Results

"Goju Ryu Karate-do" - 63,500 Results

"Goju Ryu" - 392,000 Results

"Karate" - 7,870,000 Results

Until your martial art is more significant in terms of the entire world, I'm afraid it is inapproriate to include it. Bihal 00:38, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Russell it is not sufficient to simply assert your case and there must be some evidence of notability as to why Ronin-Do should be included. I deleted it on the grounds that it is not sufficiently notable and Bihal's above set of data is part of the evidence that supports this action. I did not delete immediately, I had not heard of it so I posted here to see whether anyone could provide further info and when that was not forthcoming, I engaged in my own research and found that Ronin-Do is neither well-known nor widespread. On the specific point about authority, I suggest that you may want to research the wikipedia project and its purpose. The deletion does not suggest that your art is without merit, it suggests that your art is without notability and these two properties are different. MLA 12:36, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Muay Thai

Muay Thai is not listed in the martial art styles. Besides that, Muay Thai actually has a lot of influence on Japanese "kickboxing". I thinky ou guys should put more details about Muay Thai. Muay Thai is not even mentioned in the Asian Martial Arts.

What is Japanese "kick boxing?" Bihal 20:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Is there some kind of basis for the statement that most styles of kick boxing come from Muay Thai? Bihal 21:13, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, "kickboxing" was first used to describe Muay Thai in English. For a martial art in the West to be called "kickboxing" it should at least resemble Muay Thai. It may have other ingredients in this day of mixed martial arts, but it will cover the same ground as Muay Thai, for the most part. Fire Star 22:01, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but you're talking about the name. I'm talking about the actual style.

From Kickboxing "Kickboxing, as a deriviative of Muay Thai, Karate as well as other styles, was created to compete effectively against these martial arts. The initial development of the styles (as well as the name) was in Japan. However there were also similar influences taking hold in the United States, and martial artists from many disciplines toured both areas allowing the development of a common kickboxing standard." I suggest we just remove the bit about it being the progenitor of most kick boxin. It sounds a little POV to me. Bihal 22:55, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

A year later and I'll make the edit. Bihal 05:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Stop deleting

I have been trying for months to make some corrections to this idiotic article but someone always changes it back. Just now I spent hours trying to add in a few things but you'll never see it because it's gone! What corrections have I made? I tried to fix some of the racial stereotypes which none of you would notice. Some styles are over-emphasised while others are unfairly neglected. Besides that, I can tell you that muay Thai is NOT based on kicking and praying mantis kungfu is NOT based on just strikes. I don't care who you are but if I can't make these changes, this site is leading a pointless existence.

You had removed a lot of material without explanation, and replaced examples of well known styles from many countries with obscure styles from one or two places. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Also, as we say in the disclaimer that you see every time you edit here: If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it. Fire Star 17:50, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

In about a day or so I'm planning on reverting the large, unexplained changes by this user, since most of them are biased POV or incorrect, or just ignorant. I have given him the opportunity to justify them and have gotten no response. My apologies to people who have edited since, and I urge you to check you edits so that they can be re-edited if needed. Bihal 02:55, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Good, fine with me. I've already changed a few things he'd done. The guy seemed interested in pushing a POV that marginalised the most popular Japanese and Chinese styles in favour of some strange random theories. Fire Star 04:08, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Problem?

Why people are so stubborn about new, genuine content added to the article? I wonder what's wrong with them, or are they insecure that people will come to know about new things? DD007

To what exactly are you referring? You need to be more specific. Also, new comments go either under their section, or in a new section at the bottom of the page.

Poor Quality Article

This article is too wordy and meandering. I am not an expert on the subject so I don't wish to edit it; but those of you who are, please can you have a look at condensing some of the material and GETTING TO THE POINT a little quicker! 144.178.184.134 12:13, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, it is the way it is because many different stylists have had some input, and it reflects therefore their different philosophies, and also the more subtle influence of years of drive-by editors. At the beginning, we have to go into that the term itself means many different things to different people, not necessarily what the public would think about Chinese or Japanese martial arts, and what follows is basically a list of approaches to the concept. That has an effect on focus. Can it be improved? Absolutely. But we have to remember the effect of: if you don't want your writing to be edited and redistributed by others, please don't submit it. --Fire Star 15:11, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

POV

The Martial Arts as Self Defense section is hopelessly POV. I tried to edit out the POV and off topic comments, but there were so many of them it was hard to delete them without deleting much of the real content. Someone with a high level of knowledge on the subject (not me) needs to erase the current version and just start all over.--198.93.113.49 19:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Jujutsu, Judo and BJJ

I´ve changed some of the definitions for these. I thought they were a very inaccurate. Jujutsu is much like Wushu, a broader term defining japanese unmarmed/"litle" armed martial arts. BJJ is based on Judo (Mitsuyo Maeda, who taugh the Gracie´s was a Kodokan Judoka). It was an early Judo that was taught to the Gracies, so it is much more like some ancient Jujutsu schools than sport judo today. And Judo DOES have striking, it is just not allowed in competition. Since my english is not that strong (I´m brazillian), could someone please copy-edit my posts and make changes if there is anything that is not elegant in english? Regards Loudenvier 20:18, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Ice Hockey stuff..

Do you guys really think it is worth to keep such nonsense info in an article about Martial Arts?

Quoting the article: Martial Arts have also found their way into Western Sports not commonly associated with martial arts. The most famous of these is the Fighting in ice hockey, or "Hockey Fight," which is similar to boxing. The process starts when two hockey players take off their protective gloves and helmets, grab each other and throw punches with their dominant hand. While these actions are not considered true martial arts, they are complex and unique fighting style that has been studied as an art form.

This brawling that happens now and then in Ice Hockey has nothing to do with martial arts. Perhaps it´s only my opinion... that´s why I´m posting this in the talk page and not removing it from the article right away. My vote is to remove, does anyone disagree? Loudenvier 02:07, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, get rid of it. Bihal 03:58, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Concur, fighting and martial arts are not the same thing. MLA 07:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, this is one of many such examples I've seen here.

I´ve just removed it! Loudenvier 12:39, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Self-Defense

Just noted the self-defense situation because of the last edit. That last edit needs editing itself but the entire section is POV, not sourced and not wiki-linked. I'm tempted to scrap it all but I thought I'd post here to see if anyone thought they could turn it into a more appropriate section. MLA 19:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The whole self defense section is completely biased. Nothing in it has any factual basis. I say scrub it. Tobyk777 05:42, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Took the entire section out, was pretty much entirely original supposition without any supporting facts. MLA 12:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

While I agree that the Self Defense section was very poorly written, and subject to personal bias, I think it is necessary to have something about Self Defense. Let´s try to add something important on the subject, since many martial arts have specific trainnings on Self Defense (Judo, BJJ, Krav Maga, etc.) Loudenvier 12:55, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I went ahead and did my job: I´ve borrowed some text from the Self-defense article, and added some text relating self-defense and martial arts. Perhaps now the Self-defense section has some meaning in the context of the Martial Art article. By the way, I can think of many different ways to "uplift" this section: list some martial arts with specific self-defense techniques; history of self-defense in martial arts; relevance of self-defense nowadays (firearms, gangs, etc.) Loudenvier 13:27, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Marial arts category for Wikipedians

A new category for those interested in martial arts has been created at Category:Wikipedians_interested_in_martial_arts. To add yourself, simply copy the following code to the bottom of your user page:

[[Category:Wikipedians interested in martial arts|{{subst:PAGENAME}}]]

Shawnc 11:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Was this intended to replace the Category: Wikipedian martial artists?

Jaerom Darkwind (Talk) 21:38, 16 November 2005 (MST)

I was not aware of that category. However, the term "martial artist" seems to imply some level of competence or practice, whereas the new category is modeled in the fashion of Category:Wikipedians by fields of interest. Notes have been added to differentiate between these, but if anyone prefers one category over another, we can delete one of them. Shawnc 15:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Martial arts practitioners categorization

Comments are welcome at Category talk:Martial arts practitioners. Shawnc 05:58, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

External links

The section was a collection of advertisements that are not really related to the overall topic of martial arts. I kept only the rec.martial-arts FAQ. If anyone feels that certain links should be included please comment here. Shawnc 16:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I have no comment on what links should not have been removed, just to say that its quite a bold edit. I am on more than one page trimming links so happy to see some cuts so long as its appropriate. MLA 17:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Please refer to Wikipedia:External links for a guide on what should be included. Shawnc 09:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I've added a link to MAP in the external links section, and hope that a discussion forum fits the general requirements for such a link. MAP contains a lot of discussion and information on martial arts, including numerous perspectives on history, teaching methods, new styles, etc. If this forum is an unacceptable link, then I apologise for wasting the time of whoever needs to edit it back out again!

• Today, I'm removing ALL the external links. Even the rec.martial-arts FAQ is not worth having if having it will invite this many spam links; if the external link section is totally removed, then hopefully this problem will be easier to control. Mangojuice 20:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Striking Power Study

What about a study/discussion on the measurement of striking power, or the ability to measure it. I added some calculations on the Iron Palm article and it was deleted as a pseudo-science. I would like to have such a discussion page where I can read feedback from other martial artist and how they measure power.

I know the old saying, "get in the ring and then ask you sparring partner if you hit hard?" I would really like to see input as to accurated measure striking power from a variety of martial artist. jbutera 18:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)The Warrior

You have brought up an interesting question. I thought that perhaps Lester Ingber's Karate kinematics and dynamics would have some information relevant to your suggestion, but no such luck.

One of the things that can now be easily measured, if you can afford the equipment, is the speed with which one's fist hits the target. But that measurement will not give the total answer that you want because what one wants to know is how great an effect a blow will have on a target. A blow with one's fingertip could be made to occur much more rapidly than a jab or a punch, but the effective mass involved in the colision would be very small. Up to the point where one couldn't make the technique at all, the looser one could make one's body, the faster one could move one's finger tip. But then you only connect with an effective mass that is around the mass of the finger that you hit with. On the other hand, you could cause a much heavier weight, let's say several hundred pounds,to gradually encounter the target. The momentum exchanged when a linebacker hits me at top speed might be greater than the momented exchanged when a .22 caliber bullet hits me, but the damage done by a bullet into the brain would be greater. So you've got to consider a number of things.

One could devise an instrument that would measure the velocity with which a blow accelerates a target pad of a certain mass (weight). That would be a more relevant measure because being pushed by a locomotive moving at 1 mph is not harmful, but being pushed by a bullet moving at greater than the speed of sound will tend to leave the target in place and penetrate into and through the target. But if we are thinking about the damage that can be done by a punch or a kick, then we also have to consider the area of contact. One of the things that people may not think about when considering the abilities of children to defend themselves against attackers is that their mass may be half that of an adult, but the contact area of their fist is much smaller (more like being hit with a bullet than being hit with a softball) and their speed may be greater than that of an adult.

As if those factors were not enough, one also has to consider that one kind of damage that can be done by a blow is the entry force of a blow, and that is mainly what one would see in the case of a bullet wound. Another kind of effect, however, is analogous to what might happen in a head-on car crash. When the cars crash together, the driver continues forward and collides with the steering wheel and/or the dashboard and/or the windshield. But that collision results in the individual's rebounding in the direction of the seat, either resulting in whiplash or resulting in hard contact with the seat and the headrest. In a blow delivered to the rib cage, the desired outcome might be to penetrate and snap some of the ribs. But in a blow delivered to the abdomen the desired outcome might be for a compression wave to be generated, travel through the abdomen, be reflected and then compress some internal organ between the reflected compression wave and the fist and intervening tissues it forces inward. That kind of destructive effect would be more difficult to measure with a simple mechanical device. My understanding is that people usually demonstrate that kind of destructive effect by trying to break the middle tile in a pile of tiles. I suppose it would be possible to quantize such an effect by measuring the compressive forces needed to break a single block.

There are easy experiments that can be performed to demonstrate some of these ideas. It is relatively easy to penetrate a freely hanging piece of newspaper with a spear hand (finger tips) blow, and quite a bit more difficult to penetrate it with a fist.

One of the things that happens with contests done between heavily padded combatants is that the pads have to be compressed before force is delivered. The result is that the actual effects felt are more what I would call pushing forces. Large individuals can use their body mass to easily push lighter combattants around, but pushing someone does not easily equate to damaging someone.

One of the things that has to be remembered when talking about the effectiveness of blows is that exchange of momentum does not occur instantaneously. It takes a small but non-zero amount of time for two physical systems such as we are discussing to exchange momenta. If a fighter contacts his/her target and then whips his/her hand back as though it were bouncing off the target, then little damage will be done. That's one reason that people training in board breaking are taught to visualize their fist going completely through the target. It's similar to the difference between hitting a nail with a loosely held hammer that is permitted to rebound from the head of the nail, and hitting the nail with a firmly held hammer that is not permitted to rebound from the nailhead.

In terms of damaging things, I believe that it is the rate of change of momentum that needs to be measured, not just the change of momentum.

Another thing that needs to be kept in mind is whether the blow is accurately controlled so that it not only contacts one's opponent but also contacts one's opponent at the most advantageous point. If one can regularly connect with blows to one's opponent's clavicle no great amount of force need be generated to disable him/her. P0M 22:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Great analyst on striking power POM. I am glad that I am not the only that thinks about power like that. You should probably write the page.

I think what you stated was completely accurate, and in boxing it has been proven when Mike Tyson (at the beginning of his career) was able to knockout everyone in the Super Heavy Weight Division with short arms, small hands, and the least amount of weight for his weight class. I am not a cheerleader for what Mike Tyson became in later years, but what he was able to do with his size was admirable as an experiment on size, power, and mass.

I have heard that those punching power measurement gages were not that accurate since they either measure power based on pushing power or speed. I never tried one, so I don't know how I would fair on one.

I would like to get input from people like yourself and others how how to measure power. I only know that one company that makes rebreakable martial art boards has tested their product on a press and it required 366 psi to break it. Then you can compare that to a cheekbone and figure out how that relates.

Some people will say, "Why do you need to know, or way do you care?" We are not talking IQ test here. Power developes self-confidence. If you could actually measure your punching power you could set goals and gain confidence in your techiques. Maybe you develope the power to crush a skull, then need your self-defence skills and freeze up and get knockout by a thug half your size. But it is still a topic I am interested in.jbutera 00:12, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I once made something for myself that beeped and then counted the number of hundredths of seconds until the target was hit. That's one parameter. However, the crucial difference in reaction time is probably not accurately measured by this device because the stimulus is artificial. What one needs to develop is the "body going into action before discursive processes of mind catch up" or the "arrow shoots itself" ability (See Zen Buddhism in Archery.)

The ability to mobilize speed is probably best trained by the newspaper test. You can decrease the challenge to the point where you can get some successes and get a training effect by starting with a spear hand attack and/or starting with a step-and-punch. Then go to the kind of "fist there just the second joints of your fingers are folded, then go to a full fist, etc. When you get good you should theoretically be able to chop out a circle of paper rather than just breaking the paper, but when the paper is suspended from the top your fist breaks the paper at the top and you end up with the bottom of the circle still attached. Shifting from a gyakuzuki or reverse punch to a jab increases the difficulty greatly and when you do that you may have to go back to a spear hand attack and work up again since the jab may be a 5" punch rather than a 2.4 foot punch. And relax, relax, relax. Also, be kind to yourself and get some Tiger Balm for your forearm muscles. One of the things that this exercise gives you feedback on is whether your wrist is properly supported. Your body will take care of the forearm by itself as a result of the training effect, which is why you have to start with something you can succeed at and then make it more difficult. Newspapers are lots cheaper than fancy electronics.

Another thing -- the ability to actually hit what you want to hit is more important than exactly how hard you hit. (Punching through suspended rings, punching at swinging targets, fast bags, etc. are all good training when used in moderation. Sparring with a friend who is considerably better than you are is the best because it's really the ability to adapt to a moving target and have your moves come out of nowhen, i.e. completely untelegraphed, that is crucial. Of course you have to have the ability to focus and not damage your sparring partner. (I lose more sparring partners that way. ;-) )

I've seen measurement devices advertised in places like AWMA, but I've never tried or even seen the real thing. If I were to design something, I think I'd want it to measure both how far something like a makiwari pad moved, and also how fast it moved, and then compute some kind of a composite result of the two measurements. I'd have to go back to my physics textbook to see how to get a reasonable figure.

The idea of assigning meaning to a measurement by such a mechanical device reminds me of some research I read about a dozen or so years ago. To improve the performance of U.S. Olympic swimmers they decided to use high-speed motion pictures to study how the best swimmers got the extra speed "out of nowhere" (since everybody was measuring about the same in general physical conditioning). They found out that the very best swimmers were putting an unexpected little curve in the way their hands moved in the water. All the coaches had been insisting to swimmers that they move their hands "efficiently" in absolutely straight lines. If they'd just kept their expectations and had managed to teach all their swimmers to swim the "right" way, then they'd have dulled the edge on their best swimmers.

What I'm thinking of is that learning to move in such a way as to maximize "punching power" when working with a machine might actually train you to do something wrong. I can actually think of a related example.

I have one technique that I was successfully using against an upper belt. He was frustrated by it, but instead of getting angry he just watched more carefully. He told me that as he would come in for an attack I would "break the rules" by fading back with the upper part of my body, at which time he would break the verticality of his own body in an attempt to still get his already in-motion blow to connect, and then I would "fade forward" and send him flying. The rule is that you don't want to let your center of gravity get in front of your supporting knee in front (and getting behind your supporting knee in back would be even worse), but I was tempting him by breaking the rule a little and he was reacting to the temptation by trying to out-do me in the same way. Even so, he wasn't badly out of verticality, but he was advancing on me as fast as he could, so I had plenty of his momentum to redirect and he didn't have his front foot where it would have needed to be in order to successfully resist. I wasn't doing the "fading" intentionally, i.e., I didn't know I was doing it even though I was doing it consistently. It was something that had grown out of my sparring practice just as the better swimmers had developed a "wrong" technique due to their constant interaction with the water in their pools. The water can be a better swimming instructor than the best swimming coach in some situations, it would seem. So I wouldn't want to make a measurement device the ultimate judge of punching technique. Boards, makiwari, and newspapers don't move. Live opponents move a lot. P0M 01:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

What you did was to accidently teach yourself the rock-a-bye boxing techique of moving your upper body back enough to invade the attack and trust forward with an attack of your own. That is an advanced boxing technique. You also were giving your opponent a target that he really did not have which is another advanced boxing principle. I say "advanced" because the basic boxing principle are jab, cross, stance, and footwork. The uppercut and hook are considered advanced, as well as bobbing and weaving, and your rock-a-bye movement. Most beginning boxers are not relaxed enough in their early training to move the upper body. That has been my experience with boxing and boxing teachers.

You brought up some very interesting training methods that I am going to take note of. I appreciate the feedback that you have provided. You are correct that objects do not move, which goes to show that the hardest hards in the world will do you no good if you do not have the proper technique to position you to strike your opponent. jbutera 05:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)User:jbutera

Renaming "martial art" main entry to "martial arts" and subsuming "martial arts" category within it

Very few people (relatively speaking) get to see this page,which is a pity as on the whole it is very informative. The main problem is that most people look for "martial arts" and not "martial art" on google, and consequently this page does not come up among the highest rankings. I assume that boosting traffic is desirable. Perhaps this was suggested before, but could I suggest renaming the entry "martial art" to "martial arts" and then subsuming the material under the category "martial arts" within it? I know that there is a lexical argument for calling this section "martial art," but there are excellent arguments for calling it "martial arts," including the virtual absence of the term "martial art" in common usage and many dictionaries. Another major reason is the pragmatic one mentioned above. Don't we want more people reading this stuff? Kim

Greetings. There is a redirect from martial arts to this article, as you can see if you click on the martial arts link. There are presumable several other such terms that link here. We are in the process of trying to unify our various martial art related articles, a huge job though, perhaps you would be interested creating a user account and helping with that? Kung fu, Wushu, etc., some here want to merge all those articles, as you've mentioned. Regards, --Fire Star 19:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Quick comment: Google seems to shun the "martial arts" page too, probably as the title has "category" in front of it, and google takes titles quite seriously. That's why the two entries could have a marriage of convenience (and some love too?) Kim 19:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Modified proposal (please see above discussion)

Rename "martial art" main entry to "martial arts" and rename "martial arts" category to "martial arts directory" or "martial arts: taxonomy and organizations" (or something else if anyone has a better suggestion). This would enable us to have a main entry capable of drawing much more traffic (few people look for the term "martial art"), and free us from the formidable task of subsuming martial arts related entries within the "martial art" entry. Kim 03:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Please become a registered user. Somebody copied in your IP identification so you would be in some greater sense identifiable, I guess. I don't know why you removed it. It really doesn't matter either way.

People who search for "martial arts" are redirected to "martial art" automatically. I am not clear why you want to change the category name. Anything that is tagged with that category can be dug up by looking under that category. P0M 04:44, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The reason that this Wikipedia article is lower on Google's list when searching for "martial arts" instead of "martial art" has nothing to do with the article's name, as martial art redirects here and is therefore indexed by Google after this article's content. The reason is that "martial arts" is a more common term, and this article can not yet compete with the top sites on this term within the PageRank system that Google uses to detirmine which sites are to be ranked higher. The more Wikipedia grows and the larger number of sites that links to this article, the higher up in the list this article will be. I think we all hope it'll continue to climb, but we can't adopt the content to rank it higher. Rather, we can improve it, so that more sites wants to use it as a reference.

- Wintran 05:02, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. I'm not quite sure I understood what you meant by "martial art redirects" in your opening sentence. Do you mean "martial arts redirects"?

Perhaps I can clarify my argument: We should change the title because

(1) the term "martial arts" is lexically valid.

(2) It is much more popular in common usage. Why be pedantic?

(3) We should try to render our content as accessible as possible for the convenience of our readers. I think that's a perfectly acceptable goal if it means we are still preserving the integrity of the English language. Most specialists on google will tell you that the title tag plays a very big role in the ranking, as much as the references to the keyword in the text. The page on "martial arts" contains no keywords. It is merely used to redirect. So we have no page on wiki which can attract traffic for "martial arts". One of the pages does not have the optimum title, and the other does not have the keywords in the text.

Any more opinions?

Kim

In principle I agree with you. There are many topics where limitation to singular number is awkward. Some groups with enough power to make it stick has ordered a "singular only" policy. The decision must be recorded, somewhere. It won't work to challenge it on a case by case basis, so if you want to change it then you will have to backtrack to the source and try to get it changed there. I think there is no use arguing with the contributors to this article or related articles. P0M 18:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Wintran is correct about Google searches. Try searching for:

bugei "martial arts" Giles

and you will get the right article. So it isn't a matter of it not being indexed. Google determines how often each site is visited, and that factor is what puts a site at the top of their list, no? P0M 18:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

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Da Mo and Martial Arts

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It says somewhere in here that Boddidharma (is my spelling correct?), or Da Mo, as we Chinese call him, created martial arts. I thought all the time that this was fake, in fact, martial arts existed long before then. I always thought that martial arts were originated in India, later China and Japan, but that Boddhidarmo only created a style of qigong for the Chinese Shaolin Masters, not a style of MA! Please explain this in full detail. Thanks. -- --Shenshuai 18:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)Shenshuai

The article should not say that Boddhidharma created martial arts. I agree with you that martial arts existed long before his arrival in China. There are many indications of this fact. There are teaching stories in the Zhuang Zi that are appropriate to martial arts training. There are terracotta warriors in the tomb of Qin shi huang di that are modeled on men whose stances are Asian martial arts stances. There are biographies of xia2 (as in wu3 xia2) in the Shi3 Ji4.

To get a historically verifiable account of what Boddhidharma taught might be very difficult. There is no reason to accept the assertion of somebody who lived after Boddhidharma's lifetime and after the lifetime of his monks. To know what he taught we would need accounts written in his own time. The books have to have their own history, e.g., titles appearing in the book lists of libraries or collections of that time, quotations in books that have come down from near that time, etc. Whatever his real contributions were, it should be easy to find well attested citations in the Buddhist encyclopedia (tripitaka in its Chinese language form that is).

India definitely has its own martial arts tradition, but there is no reason that I know of to believe that the Chinese system is derivitive. Even if some influences or ideas came into China, they wouldn't very likely have come in at any time before the early Han dynasty, and they would have met a native tradition of martial arts. At that point there may have been some hybridization -- but look what happens when Americans get ahold of Chinese, Okinawan, and Japanese MA. They start changing things almost right away. It doesn't seem likely to me that somebody could have come from India and set up a business teaching a complete body of knowledge about Indian martial arts. If it had happened, surely somebody would have written about this "reverse flow" of cultural influence. P0M 05:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I just checked my Fo2 Xue2 Da4 Ci2 Dian3. It had a fairly long piece of Boddhidharma, but nothing about teaching his monks anything with regard to physical culture. P0M 05:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I checked the article. Previous to Shenshuai's note I hadn't noticed that somebody snuck in a claim that contradicted a couple paragraphs of detailed information written above it. I changed the article a little to make it clear that Chinese martial arts originated very early, and deleted the part about everything coming from India. The question of foreign origins of Chinese culture has been thrashed over very carefully by archaeologists such as Zhang Kuang-zhi because some people thought that the Shang rulers were outsiders who brought Western chariots and Western bronze technology to China. The result of archaeological researches did not support that hypothesis because Shang artifacts have cultural continuity with earlier stone age artifacts, pottery of neolithic farming people, etc., not with Western cultural design features. I've never seen anything that suggests that people from India were involved in any of this kind of transmission of material culture, and ideas that their religious or other ideas came into China seamlessly at some early time do not jibe with the very unseamless way that Buddhism worked its way into China over the course of a couple centuries or more. People had been standing in zenkutsudachi (forward stance) for a long time before the first Buddhist made it to China, anyway. Check out statues in India, the Middle East, and Europe from those early days. Does the Buddha or any Indian, Muslim, Greek, Roman, ..., figure stand with a good karate forward stance? Then check out the terra-cota tomb figures. P0M 02:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Could you please post some good external links to reliable websites with such images? I've never seen any such images, but I am interested. Also, could you explain (to less MA-experienced readers of Wikipedia) that zenkutsudachi or forward stance is similar to ma bu, xu bu, and hu bu (horse, cat and tiger stances) in Chinese MA? That would be good. Thanks! -- --Shenshuai 18:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)Shenshuai 1636 HRS ZONE EST 2136 ZULU

Sorry for the jargon. Zenkutsudachi is called "forward stance" in English. It was the first thing my crane style teacher taught me, but I don't think he had a Chinese name for it. Step forward as though walking. Side-to-side, feet should be about a shoulder's width apart. From front foot to rear foot the distance should be about 1.5 times. About 60% of your weight should be on the front foot. (There are variations that depend on the direction the front foot is pointed in, proportion of weight on the front food, etc.) This is a good stance for empty-hand fighting, but it is also a good stance for stability while shooting a bow and arrow or a pistol. I'll look for photos of the Qin dynasty stuff.P0M 15:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty clear historically that Bodhidharma did not "create" the Chinese martial arts. He was, however, very likely of the Brahmin class of the (I forget the Sanskrit word for warrior) caste, and probably trained in Kalirripattu. This system has strong ties to the asana and pranayama aspect of ashtanga Yoga.

If one has cross-knowledge of chi kung, nei kung, bhastrika, kung-fu wu-su, etc., there is pretty clear mechanical connection between the whole of the physical practices of Yoga, the Taoist Yogas, and the martial arts. I suspect, given that a fair number of the residents at Shaolin were military refugees, they saw some interesting stuff, and incorporated it into establsihed practices.

Either way, I was always taught, and have sort of confirmed through my own practices that what makes Shaolin an allegedly superior set of arts is the breathing, and internal conditioning...most of which looks suspiciously like Yoga. --Seriphim 16:08, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The Indian warrior class is called Kesatria.

San Shou and Tui Shou: Sparring systems of CMA/Wushu

I am interested to know the similarities of San Shou and Tui Shou, which I hear (and one know about) to be two forms of sparring commonly used by CMA and wushu practitioners. Please elaborate (either in reply to this post or as a part of the article) on San Shou, Tui Shou, Zhi Shou, and other sparring and spar training methods please. Thanks a lot! Also, I would be interested to know whether san shou, tui shou, and zhi shou are similar or completely different (I know each has its good and bad points, what I want to know are their characteristic similarities and symbolic onesa as well...) if you could post one on that, that'll be fine. Thanks! --Shenshuai (not logged in) 1700 HRS ZONE EST 1700 HRS ZULU 31 JAN 2006 CE.

---

may need action

Some unregistered editor has replaced a reference to ninjutsu with kombato], The addition of "kombato" may be questionable. There is a stub for this syncretic school, but there is no reason I can see why the editor should have removed ninjutsu. I'm not sure what should be done, and as soon as somebody else makes an edit the notice of a change having occurred at this point will disappear, so I'm making a note of the change here. P0M 14:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Edit points

I've just proofed the article (05/02/06 at 0050 hours GMT - my session expired, so it's not under my username), fixing basic punctuation mistakes and such. There are a couple of points I think need raising:

1. The article is starting to become long. I propose a couple of solutions to this:

• Moving the 'notable styles of martial arts' list to a seperate page. This would allow greater explanation of why they are notable, perhaps. I was wary of doing it myself, as I don't know the usefulness of such a list outside of this page. I was also tempted to chop it down a bit, but I would likely be accused of bias (despite the fact that my main style would be removed).
• The 'Martial arts in Asia' section now seems long enough to warrant its own article; the 'Martial arts in x' at least does. Inversely, more info is needed for the 'Martial arts in North America' section.

2. I think that more pictures are required. Thus far, it has two from sport martial arts, and I personally believe that a broader representation of the martial arts is necessary. I'm not saying that sport martial arts are 'dull' or 'not martial arts', or any such opinion. I merely believe that with something so varied as the martial arts, there is easily enough material for more illustrations to add to the article.

Also, I believe someone needs to go through the article, editing it properly to help it 'flow' better. As it stands, I can see numerous different writing styles, from cumbersome to brief, and it just seems too disparate to me.

-- Sasuke Sarutobi 02:18, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The word for a Korean master is sabeom (pronounced "sah-bum"), sabeomnim has the -nim honorific that is applied to those about you, but a master above him would call him sabeom, and if a junior was speaking about the master to that masters senior, he would refer to him as sabeom. If anyone has any idea of Japanese honorifics then this should ring a bell because it's very similar. Also, in Korea you are not allowed to refer to yourself as sabeomnim, only as sabeom.

Dannyp 07:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Categorization of Fighting Ranges

I find it odd (and highly inaccurate) that there are seperate categories for "Strkiking" and "Kicking" in the article as kicking is a form of striking. Following the current format, it should be "Punching" and "Kicking". However, to be even more accurate, it should be recategorized as "Striking (punching/kicking/etc)", "Grappling (locks/throws/wrestling/etc)", and "Weapons (sticks/blades/firearms?)".

That would make much more sense and be easier to understand to the average person reading the article. --Phrost 19:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The striking/grappling/weapon art division lines are much cleaner than the line between arts focusing on punches and the ones focusing on kicks (boxing and TKD notwithstanding). --Ashenai 19:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

War Dance

I'm not saying this article shouldn't include a section on war dance, but I think that war dance should be an article unto itself. In short, I object to the redirection from "war dance" to "martial arts". B1986 04:56, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Why was War Dance redirected here? It doesn't make sense to me either. Was there an article on "War Dance" before? P0M 06:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The Term "Art"

More thought can be applied to the question of why we call this subject "Martial Arts. Is it from the Japanese jutsu/do split? And what does this mean to a martial artist?

I think it came from the term jitsu. In japanese Jitsu means an art,

and occupation. Jiu-Jitsu (ju-jutsu doesn´t matter) is the art of overcoming an enemy with litle force (this is a metaphor, of course, because Ju means soft or something like that). There is the jitsu of the tea for example. The art of serving tea. The jitsu of forging weapons. The japanese used to collective call their arts (fighting inclued) as jitsu. Miyamoto Musashi always said a samurai must learn every jitsu (art) to really become great, that´s why he is a painter, sculpter, carpenter, etc. When translating this to other languages, I think art to be the most appropriate term for the fighting "arts" Loudenvier 16:49, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The correct Japanese is "jutsu".

Sorry, the ancient Chinese term was Wǔ yì, and if you translate those two Chinese characters one by one you get "martial arts." An "art" is an acquired skill, e.g., the art of sleight of hand, the art of spinning the bad press your pol would otherwise get, etc. It's related to words like "artifact" (something made by humans, not an oddly shaped rock or whatever).

"Art" is frequently distinguished from "science" on the theory that arts include elements of learned response that are not germain to science. There is a physics of skiing, but just knowing the physics won't get you down the hill without falling.

Martial arts are things that can't entirely be reduced to a science. The reason is not that there is anything perticularly arcane about what one does in a fight, but because it would take forever to do all the physics, comprehend and take account of all the neurophysiology, etc., etc. --and there just isn't time for that kind of thing in the midst of a fight. We can do some general things that apply to everybody in a general way. I can say, "Get 60% of your weight on your front foot, and I can get one person to do that by saying, "Move your front foot 14 inches farther forward." But the next student I teach may have an entirely different body type, and I'll have to figure out a new set of equations for him/her -- or maybe put a scale out for the person's front foot to rest on -- or maybe just adjust the person's stance to what looks right and then try pushing and pulling on the person until s/he adjusts position to where it is about as stable as can be in that stance. The science part says "60% on the forward foot gives acceptable stability for handling thrusts in the forward-aft direction, and 40% on the rear foot gives acceptable mobility for moving when the time comes," and even though those numbers are currently provisional approximations we could make experiments and do lots of averaging to make the numbers more accurate. But even if we someday decided that the numbers really should be 59% and 41%, those numbers would still apply only to the average karateka. Getting those numbers converted to "how it feels" for a certain individual, and readjusting them afterwards to make allowances for how that person is built, how that person moves, how flexible that person is, etc., etc., are the "art" part. It's like telegraph operators in the old days who sent Morse code using a kind of switch called a "telegraph key." Each person sent the same code, but each person's accomodation of body to telegraph key was so characteristic that experienced telegraph operators could recognize each other by their "hand." Or consider equitation lessons. Maybe somebody hopes to compete in the Olympics someday. The amount of information that can be communicated from teacher to student is very sparse. Except for being warned by the teacher not to commit certain "bonehead mistakes," most of the learning occurs between the seat of the rider and the back of the horse. In order words, the human body learns to accomodate itself to the motions of the horse -- from the relatively simple task of not bouncing off when the horse trots to the incredibly difficult task of staying mounted when a spirited horse makes a 110 degree course correction in one stride. That's almost all "art," and very, very little "science." P0M 06:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Fraud in Martial Arts

I looked everywhere, but I didn't really find an article where an article or the the discussion of fraud w/i the martial arts could take place. I know there's a McDojo page, and there's some information about the website Bullshido, which dedicates itself to exposing the martial arts frauds and Internet ninjas. Any martial artist can probably tell you all about some good ol' martial arts BS - whether it's from personal experience or from second-hand knowledge. The trouble is, I don't know if we could have a section on it here, or if we'd need an seperate article, or if the McDojo article could be expanded to discuss all MA fraud, or if there IS an article/discussion and I missed it. But I WOULD like to see it addressed. Rattlerbrat 12:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There was an effort to have a distinct page before Bullshido got merged into McDojo. I also believe that there is enough topical information for there to be separate pages, particularly since the terms are frequently (and incorrectly) interchanged. McDojo makes no value judgment on martial efficacy; only business practices. Bullshido refers directly to fradulent or ineffective martial techniques.

Scb steve 16:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The biggest problem, from a Wikipedia point of view, is stating a value judgment. A typical example is the Ashida Kim article. The guy is one of the most blatant MA charlatans in the world (IMO), but we still can't say definitively in our article that he is. We can say that other people say he is, and document where (with a link to bullshido.net for starters), but WP isn't in a position to make that call itself. So it gets tricky to start having articles about this or that BS school or system, they probably wouldn't survive here for long. In the style I teach, fraud is rampant, perhaps more so than any other system, and there are WP articles about groups about whom I happen to know personally couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag (and are proud of that!), but I am restrained from actually saying that myself by our NPOV and no original research policies. What I can do is report the publicly stated opinions of the T'ai Chi Ch'uan family members who still train martially of non-martial schools. --Fire Star 17:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

So is the issue "making definitive claims?" That if a Bullshido article were started that made reference to articles or journalistic sources rather than original research, it'd be ok? As in, references are made that people could conclude as such, but the article itself makes no conclusions? (sorry for slightly editing your comment, FS, but it's .net, not bullshido.org) --Scb steve 18:57, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Right, us saying that "all ninjas are living in a fantasy world" or "so-and-so Grand Celestial Do school are frauds" or "so-and-so T'ai Chi school are a load of hippies" is out. To put in a critical link from Bullshido on any given martial artist's, school's or style's page would be OK, to my mind. To create an article just to "out" a group works both ways, though, because their claims would be reported just as dispassionately. No prob over the edit, I knew for sure that it wasn't bullshido.com, so I just guessed, thanks for catching it. --Fire Star 21:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

There will probably always be people who are not good teachers and there will probably also always be people who are in it for the money and teach anything and any way that will keep their schools full of paying members. Personally, I've never yet been in a school that didn't have a few people that could whip me well and true, but maybe my luck has just been good. Anyway, I think the useful thing for people who are interested in martial arts would be information on how to avoid the bad places and find the good places (there is a big middle ground, by the way). My personal rule is, if they say that they won't let just anybody come in off the street and watch them practice, if they say that beginners have to sign a contract to pay X amount/month for several months, if they say "We have the secret of the ages," or if I get a look at a practice session or two and see seniors deliberately intimidating juniors (rather than training them in a responsible way), I hear the "Walk on by!" theme playing in the background. On the other hand, if I come to a place and the teacher asks me what I've trained in before, and then says, "Well, we do some other things. But come on by. You can train with us, and I won't take your money," then I'm immediately impressed. First, the teacher is treating me as a member of a community of seekers, not as a mark. Second, the teacher is not trying to snow me or add me to his list of converts. Third, he's leaving it up to me to decide whether I could get something out of what he has to offer to his students. I've never been disappointed by any of those teacher; I've often just wished that I could hang around for another few years and continue to train with them. On the other hand, I've found the occasional egocentric super-jock (who, given his size and age definitely ought to be able to wipe the floor with me) among members of my own organization.

So I think the thing that will be helpful to the general public are some of the above general considerations of what to look for and what to watch out for. I think Nicol has some applicable stories in Moving Zen, and Donn Draeger also has some reminiscences of his early training in Japan that indicate some signs of the good schools and the good teachers. P0M 06:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

History of Martial Arts

There are plenty of documents which show the progression of martial arts from Ancient Egypt through India to China and of course we all know they went from there to Japan. The availability of source material is not at issue. The only question is whether or no such an article is to be created in History of Martial Arts or on this page. Also what about something on Martial Arts in Militaries? It is my understanding that at least a few of the East Asian nations have adapted traditional martial arts for military style close combat. The use and prevalence of martial arts in the militaries around the world is assumed without question. These are my suggestions for either stand-alone articles or sections within this article. A penny for your thoughts. 64.31.188.26 17:28, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Ta' Chi change

I changed the last sentence of the first paragraph because it was relatively useless. What martial art does not bring better health? But some forms of Tai Chi are also combat effective, granting that they are much rarer, so I changed the emphasis of the sentence to "some forms of arts" instead of "some arts"

Liastnir 19:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

RE: Martial Art History and Korea/Tae Kwon Do

(Please note: This was originally added to the section preceeding it. I took the liberty of removing it and putting it in its own heading as I think it should be --- Liastnir)

I don't want to edit (change or add) anything on the original work, which I thought was very well written. BUT...I must mention that U.S. Servicemen didn't have time to practice any martial arts being taught locally during the Korean War. They did partake of other available recreational activities, which I don't have to mention. OK, perhaps there may have been a few that had the opportunity to train with a Korean Instructor but nothing in the records indicate that they did anything with the knowledge afterward. The name "Tae Kwon Do" was first used in 1964, when it was changed from the Korean Tae Soo Do Association. The latter association was created the year before. Hwang Kee introduced the U.S. Army to Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan in 1957. The martial arts being taught at that time were: Yudo (Judo), Kong Soo Do (Karate do), Tang Soo Do (China Hand Way). There were a number of different schools (styles) of the last two but I've said too much already. SooUpJa@adelphia.net

If you are in a trench freezing your toes off while burning your fingers on the hot barrel of a machine gun you probably don't have time forr sex or martial arts practice. But how do you know how the average UN soldier spent his time when he was not in direct combat?

Call girls are call girls, but I doubt that many were available by whistling from a trench in sub-zero weather. On the other hand, one can practice martial arts in one's head whenever it is not essential to have your attention fully directed to the environment. And, when I was in Taiwan in the 60s I was taught a breathing technique as part of the first lessons in crane style that turned out to be a good way to restore body core temperature quickly and with relatively little expenditure of energy. It has turned out to be very useful for overnight stays in snow caves, when dumped from a sailboat in the cold waters of a large Nebraska lake in late spring, and many less dramatic situations when other people were made sinking a little to close to hypothermia. When you practice that technique to warm up your body core you are also practicing the martial arts technique--and there is bio-feedback involved because the better you do the technique the better you warm up.

You don't need a dojo and a teacher with a blackbelt to learn martial arts. You profit from having somebody who can teach you something, and generally you need a few square feet to move around in. I asked Mr. Dahlke how he developed his excellent side-thrust kicks and he told me that every time in the army when he had to stand in line waiting for a bus or something he just did side kicks.

Korean people make generous friends, so I doubt that someone who sincerely wanted to learn could have been unable to make progress in whatever "off" time he had in Korea. P0M 18:48, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Martial Arists

The large portion of the article on qualities of a martial artist, being Integrity, Courtesy etc. is contradictory to other parts of the article as it CONTRAST the "martial arts" with boxing and wrestling, which elsewhere are described as being martial arts within the definition of the article. The idealised zen-like philosphy propounded is hardly NPOV. Many martial artist regard it as an athletic pusuit and have little consideration of "respecting all of nature". This section either need major revision or deletionin my view. Epeeist smudge 10:59, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a look at that part. There are some fairly major divisions between Chinese and Japanese martial art teaching/learning traditions, and there are further differences when Western arts like boxing are brought into consideration. Sport boxing as codified by the Marquis of Queensbury is much more "decent and honorable" than either Chinese or Japanese martial arts. For instance, kicking somebody (not to mention kicking the guy in the balls or poking fingers in his eyes) is thought totally dishonorable -- even in a schoolyard brawl. But to the extent that there is deference to teachers in that tradition, I suspect it depends on dynamics such as, "You lip off to me one more time like that and I'll take you down a peg or two, see if I won't!" There has been relatively little insistence on automatic deference in the West. It's there, but kids tend to look up to the student who will talk back to the teacher. Even the teacher will respect it if it doesn't involve outright insubordination. But that kind of thing won't fly very well in either China or Japan.

While the West mixes "honor bright" standards of fair and foul in fighting with a kind of respect for the teacher and anybody else who can knock one's block off, the martial arts tradition of traditional China involved fights between rival teachers over God knows what imagined or real insults or other issues. Those fights could be deadly and they could involve deception. Wei Xiao-tang told his praying mantis students that one holds one's chopsticks so that one eats from the side of them (rather than having them point straight toward one's mouth) because sometimes one teacher might invite another teacher to dinner and then if the opportunity presented itself he would jam the chopsticks down into the other guy's throat in a sincere attempt to kill him. (He had other stories too...) There is nothing that cannot be taken as a target, and one is advised to be particularly protective of the four spheroids. Deference is expected. During one class we had a visitor, a twenty-something young man who had learned some kind of MA from another teacher. After a few sessions he made the remark, "Teacher Wei doesn't have anything [to teach me]." I was a little alarmed because some of the larger and senior members of the class offered the opinion that they themselves had plenty to teach him. Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed and the guy went his way. But if he had done, as I occasionally did, and said that he thought a teaching was wrong or ineffective, then Mr. Wei would not have gotten angry. He may have given me flying lesssons on occasion, but not with any ill will or ego or anger being involved.

Chinese MA classes in Taiwan are remarkably egalitarian. We had no belts, but you very quickly figured out who knew more than you did. I never heard anybody say, as I heard in a U.S. karate class, "You just never critique a senior's kata, even if he humbly begs everybody for their observations!"; that kind of demand of conformity is a very clearly stated part of the traditional Japanese approach. "The nail that sticks up above the level of the floor gets pounded flat." Fights between schools are nowadays political rather than physical, at least as far as I know. In traditional Japan, however, it seems that there was a touchiness that could set off sword fights to the death over what most people would consider trivial events. I studied kendo with a very well qualified gentleman from Great Britain for a while, and he claimed that swordsmen almost had to keep one hand at their sword side all of the time to avoid having their scabbard accidentally clash with the scabbard of some other samurai walking along the same street. Apparently that was like slapping somebody in the face with your glove. I can't believe it, as it seems like a better society would have figured some way around that problem.

So the cultural elements that are behind these various traditions seem to be different, and if properly framed it is surely worthwhile to explain what is going on. Epeeist smudge mentioned integrity and courtesy and seemed to want to contrast these values with the values implicit in an athletic pursuit. First we should note that honesty, integrity, and fairness are expected in athletic competitions, even in our present cultural situation. Their importance in the Asian martial arts tradition is twofold. For one thing, most people who teach MA have the goal of a better society somewhere in the back of their minds. If they did not they would turn their talents to a protection racket or some other more profitable way of life. But as far as day-to-day dojo affairs go, you can look at those values being inculcated as an indication that the teacher and the institution want to run a good operation, an operation that actually teacher even the 98-pound weakling who wanders in the door after being bullied all his life. The teacher does not want to have to deal with some jerk of a student who has learned for 6 months or a year and thinks s/he can take advantage of other people. Every time one enters the dojos in which I have spent any significant amount of time, one reiterates a basic contract just by the act of bowing before one enters the front door or before one crosses the dojo floor to get changed: "I am here to learn. I am here to treat other people fairly. I am here to teach people who know less than I to the best of my abilities. I am not here to go on an ego trip. I am not here to push other people around. I am here to help the goals of the teacher and the school, not to make problems for my teacher. (In the school I regard as my "home" school, if you forgot that for an instant you heard a roar that shook human frames even if it didn't shake windows.)" In China, the situation is in fact much the same, but China is a high context society. You get the message in a thousand little ways, and maybe never in something like a Dojo kun (official "contract" recited at the beginning of class).

Saying that "many martial artists regard it as an athletic pursuit" is surely true, although I don't know what the statistics of the matter are. If the statement were firmed up a little bit it would be easier to deal with: "Many martial artists regard MA as nothing but an athletic pursuit," we could probably do a survey that would get some useful statistics -- but even there the problem would be that just as golf is not simply a physical game, tennis is not simply a physical game, basketball is not simply a physical game (What is Michael Jordan doing "in the zone" if not "Moving Zen"?), so, too, what one is doing with one's mind is extremely important in a real fight, and the conditioning of the mind cannot be achieved by doing more push-ups, pounding the makiwari with more fury, or whatever. So the article should lay all of these aspects of the martial arts out for everyone to see clearly. P0M 19:43, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh god, no...

I quote: "In spite of the many different kinds of martial arts in existance [sic], almost all martial artists must possess similar core qualities." This is the beginning of something fantastically bad. First of all, no, not all "martial artists" necessarily *need* to possess much of anything in common other than reasonably decent physical conditioning, determination, consistent practice, and some occasional dumb luck. Second, the need to aggrandize a cultural "Other" (obviously in this case, asian folks) as having been the discoverers of some hidden universal truth (the universal traits of martial artists) is only slightly less offensive than the racist need to have an Other in the first place. In other words, I hear something like "Musashi was a zen master of swordsmanship", and all I hear is "chink chink chink chink chink". This is exactly the sort of thing that Edward Said was talking about with his criticism of Orientalism. Enough already.

To put it mildly, I doubt the objectivity of this article. I suggest that it either be rewritten or wiped out altogether.

It would be messed up for a guy to walk around a university campus wearing a judo gi because it is "oriental" and cool. On the other hand, it would be equally messed up to insist that people who grew up eating a diet of boiled peas (with salt if you so desire), mashed potatoes (with butter and salt), fried beef steak fresh from a greasy skillet, etc., etc. (Don't laugh, you'll be laughing at my mother's cooking.), and forbid ourselves from eating broiled mackerel, shredded cabbage with Bulldog sauce, garlic shrimp over brown rice... I've got to stop or I'll have to take a run to the nearest Chinese restaurant.

I think that we belittle ourselves when we assume that we already have all that we need to live our lives to their fullest. French cuisine is great, but you can't learn Chinese or Japanese or Korean techniques from someone who has only been trained in traditional French cooking. And on the other hand when I was in Taiwan in the 60s the only place you could get any kind of pie, french fries, pizza... was on a U.S. military base. If you want to learn how to give somebody an overhead airplane spin you could go to an Olympic (and later pro) wrestler like Vern Gagne. But you couldn't have learned how to counter a roundhouse punch and turn it into a ferris-wheel spin ending with a landing using the guy's nose for the rear wheel of a landing airplane and then convert that to an arm bar.

The term "chink" is blatantly offensive. I don't know what your use of it says about yourself. Suffice it to say that such terms do not belong here. You've avoided responsibility by not signing, but be aware that archived records are maintained of everything that appears here.

The statement, "Musashi was a zen master of swordsmanship," may be a tad flakey from a formal and historical point of view, but I would not say that it is incorrect or objectionable. He was a master of swordsmanship. Do you have a problem with that? I don't know of anyone in the West whose career could be compared to his. If there is such a person it would be very worthwhile to learn that individual's training methodology.

Mushishi is dead and long gone, and it does not make any practical difference to us who he was, what he did, what his religion was, etc. Most of us could be totally ignorant of his existence and get along quite well in the world. On the other hand, if he was using a training methodology that could turn an average run of the mill college basketball player into the next Michael Jordan, then maybe we should know something about him. It is believed, with a good deal of evidence to back it up if I remember correctly, that he was a practitioner of Zen meditation and was otherwise interested in that tradition. It is related in legend that he was a student of the Zen master called Takuan Soho. Maybe saying that is like saying that Joe Louis must have been taught by a Christian monk of one of the contemplative/meditative orders else he never could have done what he did. I don't know. But what does appear clear, and what is certainly present in the history of the Japanese samurai was that zen meditation played a significant part in their training methodology -- regardless of whether it did them any good.

If you object to saying that Musashi was a zen master, would you then object to descriptions of Michael Jordan's most characteristic performances on the basketball floor as occurring when he was, as he describes it, "in the zone"?

The objective way to present Western boxing, savate, karate, kenjutsu, Shaolin quan, or whatever, is to describe what their aims were, what their training methods were, what their accomplishments were, etc. What we have to avoid are assumptions that, e.g., we have everything in the West that we need, only the East has the answer to the problems of the ages, if you have faith you will have the strength of ten, you have to be a practitioner of Zen Buddhism to be a worthwhile martial artist. Each tradition should get a fair description at least. If it is possible to objectively state evaluations, then those can be added also. (I'm thinking of judgments like, "Western boxing teaches almost nothing about how to block a Chinese 'swipe kick' to the testicles." In a real fight that's a detriment, and I doubt that anybody would disagree.) P0M 20:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I took out the bit the unsigned fellow mentioned above. It was fatally general, redundant with other parts of the article and out of synch with a neutral presentation. While I don't disagree with it, personally, such assertions should be style-specific, IMO. --Fire Star 04:26, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think is a cool idea to share our feelings about the real meaning of Martial Arts. Karate Kid

Pic

The pic at the top of the page looks like one guy trying to grab another guys balls. It really needs to be changed. I suggest a Kung Fu pic simply because it is among the oldest martial arts. I do not take Kung Fu, and I'm trying not to be biased. If someone else has a different suggestion and a reason for it, please speak up. 142.161.182.141 05:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)Matt

Oh thank you. That's so much better. 207.161.2.8 02:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)Matt

Martial Arts On The Modern Battlefield

I forgot to log in when I created this new history sub-section.

The idea here is to identify existing and emerging systems in the continuing real life history of martial arts. Combatives is easy to acknowlage, having significat relation to traditional martial arts, but I'm worried some might have trouble with bayonet jousting and especialy point shooting. If you look at either, though, the training and application is almost identical to any system.

I definatly think this could be expanded. Or perhaps thrown under the umbrela of Modern Martial Arts, including the sporting side under a seperate sub-header.

What do you think?

Lucas.yamanishi 23:58, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Name

Why is it called Martial arts? Does it have anthing to do with marrige? The Republican 01:33, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe you are confusing Marital with Martial. Bihal 06:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

The great god Mars will strike those who ridicule him with his mighty mace and hammer. ;-) (I hear he wasn't good in bed.) P0M 02:25, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Anyone want to volunteer to ask Aphrodite (or was it Venus)? --Fire Star 火星 02:31, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

S.C.A.R.S. And Target Focus Training

I dont know much about it, but i would think there would be more on the military forms of martial arts and c.q.c. Such as Scars and tft. Anyone out there knowledgable on the subject?--Aequias 04:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "S.C.A.R.S.", "Target Focus Training" or "c.q.c.". Can you expand? Punanimal 00:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

breaking

Comments and corrections are welcome on the breaking page. Tony The Tiger 17:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Would this be good?

Do you guys think this would be good for the encyclopedia? It was in the article months ago. I'm not sure why it was removed, I missed the discussion. Maybe it just needs some modifications, or it could go in a different article, but it's certainly interesting.

While the techniques, origins and historys of the numerous martial arts vary, there are many core qualities that are customarily assosciated with martial artists. These core qualities include, but are not limited to, Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self Control, Respect, Indomitable Spirit, Honor, Discipline, and Humility. Compared to other fighters, such as boxers or wrestlers, a large portion of a martial artist's training is not physical. A major contribution to the lifestyle of a martial artist is deep concentration, mental focus and great knowledge. Core Qualities "Civilize the mind but make savage the body" -Chairman Mao

In spite of the many different kinds of martial arts in existance, almost all martial artists must possess similar core qualities. Simply memorizing techniques and practicing different moves and styles will not adequately classify one as a good practitioner of martial arts. It is in this belief that one must refine and mold their mind and spirit to be a true martial artist.

While many people believe that most martial artists look to fight, the exact opposite is true. Every martial art enforces these core qualities to avoid such confrontations. The point of martial arts training is to forge from the body a weapon of great power. The belief is that as this weapon gains power, the martial artist will gain more respect for it, thus limiting its use.

Courtesy- All martial artists must be courteous to not just his fellow practitioners but to all people and living things. A practitioner who is rude, selfish and inconsiderate is often times scoffed by other martial artists. Taking the time out to teach another student or practitioner a new skill they are struggling with is also part of the courtesy a martial artist must display.

Integrity- Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code is invaluable to a martial artist. Without integrity, it is easier to lose sight of the respect for the art that is being trained. Without respect and integrity, the martial art loses its meaning.

Perseverance- "1-2 out of every 100 students reach Black Belt and of those only 1 out of every 1,000 achieves his 2nd Dan." -Masutatsu Oyama in reference to Karate

Martial arts training is difficult, especially when learning new material. In all disciplines, without perseverance, it is impossible to progress. Many early practitioners drop out of their programs because of the perception that the art is too hard. In many martial arts, many practitioners will gain their first degree black belt then drop out of their program. A true martial artist's goal is to persevere and perfect their techniques throughout their lifetime.

Self Control- Self control to a martial artist is twofold. One must have a strong physical control over their own body. This physical self control is invaluable when practicing techniques that allow the martial artist to perform tasks including standard hand strikes, standard take downs, board breaking and even acrobatic back flips and jump kicks.

Also, a martial artist must have a strong mental self control. In practical danger situations, a martial artist strives to keep their mind clear and calm. In situations, such as a confrontation or fight, a martial artist trains to be calm and ready to apply the physical skills they have learned. Through repitition and practice, this becomes possible. For this reason, martial artists will find themselves more able to spare their opponent's life after a brutal fight due to the fact that their psychological state of mind was less altered than that of a person who had no physical or mental martial arts training.

Respect- Respect of all things living, dead and inanimate is a key aspect to all martial arts. In the Ninjitsu branch of martial arts, a practitioner believes "everything around you is a weapon, including the room itself." In this particular case, all things deserve respect, as they might provide you with the best method to defeat your enemy. More generally, in all branches of martial arts there is a strong demand for respect of not only the others that you train with but also of oneself. As training progresses, ones own body becomes a fatal weapon which must be respected as such. Also, one must regard and respect all other bodies with the same regard.

Indomitable Spirit- "Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely - lay your life before him." -Bruce Lee

A spirit that is incapable of being overcome, subdued, or vanquished is strongly linked to many other core qualities of a martial artist. Strongly linked to perseverance, it is necessary to have an indomitable spirit not only while fighting but also while training. One training in a martial art must have such a spirit to overcome the many failures and hardships that come along with the learning process. Martial artists must believe in themselves that with every defeat, a greater victory should arise from it. According to martial arts schools, a true martial artist will have a spirit that refuses to be conquered.

Honor- The Japanese, Chinese and Korean cultures all place a deep importance on the notion of honor and of one being honorable. This importance is reflected in martial arts and is taught to be a key component of being a successful martial artist.

Humility- Humility and the act of being humble is most often overlooked by many martial artists. With great skill in their respective art, many practitioners will become cocky and arrogant as their skill increases. However, in order to keep improving, martial arts trainers often stress the importance of being humble. When one is humble, it is believed, that their mind is kept open, thus allowing them to continue growing and learning. Once the student loses their humility, they lose their open mind, causing a great stunt in the growth of their skill.

Meditation- While often ignored by most Western schools, meditative practices are vital to many martial arts. Having a mind trained in clarity and meditation is crucial to understanding the full potential of any martial art. Most often misjudged is the massive mental acuity of many martial artists. Classical martial arts schools will teach that meditation helps to build and train this acuity and train the mind to remain calm in a panic situation.

SkeenaR 04:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

you can't use religious textbooks

you can't use religious textbooks to prove that a current martial arts exist ie. ancient indian martial arts. the religious textbooks that are being referred to only tell stories. ie. this and that god-king learned "wrestling" or "archery" and fought this and that other god-king. NO existing indian martial arts are mentioned in these religious texts either in name or given in a description. YOu can't infer that if the religious texts spoke of "wrestling" that the wrestling was pelwani unless there is evidence. If that were true, then Gilgamesh is the oldest martial arts book in the world because it talked about how gilgamesh fought with this and that person and wrestled. In regards to greco-roman wrestling or some forms of chinese wrestling, there were textbooks, drawings, and illustrations that show how they wrestled and how to fight an opponent and there was a name attached to the martial arts that is still in use today, hence you can state that the martial arts existed back to that earlier time period. Kennethtennyson 04:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Martial arts of Europe - Catch Wrestling?

What about catch wrestling? From England? that has been extremely influential on all well known forms of submission fighting. Judo, BJJ and Sambo.

Martial/Peasant Arts

It seems that all the combat disciplines here are listed as martial arts although many are not. Think of what the term martial means? Jujutsu is a martial art where Karate is a peasant art. The category depends on how the discipline was born - whether it was used to control; martial art, or overthrow/revolt; peasant art. If most people do not think this is the way to go then the title of the page should not be martial arts it should be combat disciplines.

Also another suggestion I think there should be a small amount of information for beginners looking for the "best" martial/peasant art. Some note about how comparing a discipline to another as comparing comic book superheros, and that each person interested should study and find out the discipline that suits them whether it be because of body size, strength, age, financial situation, philosophy etc or just plain preference.

Injury

This article has some statistics on injury rates associated with the practice of martial arts. Anyone wants to add this to the article? Shawnc 01:40, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Celebrities claiming to be martial artists

This isn't a pejorative section title, as Wikipedia shouldn't actually say that Sarah Michelle Gellar, for example, is remotely notable as a martial artist. She is a famous actress who happens to take MA classes. Does she teach them? Does she fight leitai? Has she ever won a shootfighting match? For us to say she is a martial artist in addition to her acting career makes Wikipedia her unpaid press agents. There is a slippery slope involved in calling everyone who ever took a self-defense class a noted martial artist. Some (very few) of the people on the list have a reputation for ability, or have won a few tournaments, but a lot of them are actors or children of actors most notable for their substance abuse problems. The entire thing is flawed, IMO. --Fire Star 火星 03:21, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I have suggested under the spliting page section that this portion be moved out to its own page and put under the Category:Martial arts practitioners Though the link doesnt seem to work, here is the hyperlink to that category: [1] page if someone really wants to keep it. Otherwise I say keep it gone from this page. Clausewitz01

Notable styles of martial arts

Should this section contain only styles with an existing article? Should we keep things like "Nonviolent Self-Defense" and "Combat Martial Arts"? Shawnc 15:27, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

• If they are viable and historically or modernly practiced martial arts. Whether or not they deserve their own page or not is questionable though. If the art is practiced only by a small closed informal group of 20-30 individuals and hasn't garnered any serious notoriety from the martial arts community, I'd say the [[]]'s should be removed. Similarly, I think the 'notable martial arts' section is asking for deletion. There is already a list of martial arts page. If an article is on that list, according to wikipedia standards, it is notable. Following, this section is not only redundant, but incomplete. Also, this page has lots of multiple interwiki links for the same topic (Capoeria, etc.). Perhaps this page should focus less on providing information in detail about specific arts (and trying to be the list of martial arts page) and focus more on the general types and elements of martial arts around the world, the general different approaches to martial spirit or intent (sport v. zen v. etc.), and the general different societal and cultural importance of the arts. Each martial art may (and some do) have sections specifying their own important historical members or a detailed description of how the art was intertwined with the culture. Just an idea to try and clean this up a bit. Please let me know what you all think? --Xiliquiern 19:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is very simple. If someone thinks the style is important enough they should take the time to write at least a stub. If the article survives (not deleted for lack of noteability) then great. For that reason I cleaned up the Japanese section of the List of martial arts and I think the same should be here also. Even some of the more archane additions with articles should be deleted - maybe the whole section should be replaced with the List of martial arts although the list is mentioned under further resources.Peter Rehse 03:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

OK I jumped the gun. There were only one or two instances so I did a general cleanup of dead links - I don't think anything was lost overall.Peter Rehse 06:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Peter Rehse has done a great job revising the List of martial arts article and weeding out the many dead links there. Now would be a fitting time, I believe, to remove this list of notable styles of martial arts from this page. In its place, I suggest we include a small paragraph explaining that literally hundreds of types of martial arts have evolved over time, and encompass all types of sport, faith, and actual martial elements, as well as a wikilink to the list of martial arts page. As it stands now, the list on this page is incomplete and, because it does not list all the arts found on the list of martial arts page, arguably biased. This would also shorten this already lengthy article, and remove redundant links (so many types of MA are linked already in the article)! Since the MA are a rather touchy topic, and this article has seen its fair share of debate, I didn't want to make this edit without consulting the community. Your thoughts, please. -- Xiliquiern 03:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - I also don't like that list of notable styles since many aren't that notable. There seems to have been little effort to describe a representative set. I agree that the list should be replaced by a wiki-link.Peter Rehse 03:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone else have an opinion on this they wish to express? If not, I will go forward with this edit. --Xiliquiern 04:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I have pressed on with my edit, per 1 vote of confidence and silence otherwise. -- Xiliquiern 15:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

European Martial Arts

• Sigh*. Once again, even in this article, I see either little-no mention of, or complete exclusion of European martial arts. May I ask why? Dude, where do you think fencing came from? Colonel Marksman 01:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

"Martial arts with historical roots in Europe do not exist to the same extent as in AsiaPeter Rehse 04:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC). Boxing as well as forms of wrestling have endured. European martial arts have mostly adapted to changing technology and are truer to the English meaning of that phrase, so that while their descendants still exist, martial arts are focused on things like flying helicopters and infantry tactics for riflemen. These are generally not referred to as martial arts."

-- This, at least, was a very rude peice of text and I'm sure very not true. Colonel Marksman 02:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that the European Martial Arts deserve a stronger place in this article. The history and substance behind it is as significant and more academic than any modern Asian martial art I have practiced (local Dojos in the US, etc). The statement that martial arts with historical roots do not exist - I am somewhat tepid on that statement because, indeed, many (if not all) direct line lineages of "masters" have been broken (I don't think a single current day Maestro has shown conclusive heraldry to prove it - I'm not saying its not possible, or not likely. I'm just saying it hasn't been proven factually and scientifically (that I am aware of), so I am wary of the statement.) However, the article itself is rather a mess - I am considering putting it up for "heavy revision" or "re-write". The history of the article seems to be individuals attemptingto put forth aspects of their individual martial art (promotion?) and knocking down elements of others. When many people did this and combined portions and deleted others, it started to get messy. Consequently, the current messy, confusing, repetitive, and rather encyclopedic article exists today. I stated this, earlier in the discussion:

"Perhaps this page should focus less on providing information in detail about specific arts (and trying to be the list of martial arts page) and focus more on the general types and elements of martial arts around the world, the general different approaches to martial spirit or intent (sport v. zen v. etc.), and the general different societal and cultural importance of the arts. Each martial art may (and some do) have sections specifying their own important historical members or a detailed description of how the art was intertwined with the culture. Just an idea to try and clean this up a bit. Please let me know what you all think?"

Almost every martial art has its own page - and there is a massive list of all of them. I don't see a reason to point out specifics from individual arts here, or focus on the history of a few of many. Instead, I would much rather see this article become a general look at the term "martial art" - what it meant (this leaves room for history and explanation) and what it means to a wide number of peoples all around the world - including Europe. -- Xiliquiern 13:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree here also. If we get caught up in the details the article will degenerate. I know its stating the obvious but the whole point of wikipedia is that you can follow links to more detail. It might be a good idea to have a link to the Historical European martial arts amd Western martial arts in the European section. Both articles could also be expanded.Peter Rehse 04:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I too support Xiliquiern's initiative. The redundant list in this article that was also one more chronic spam target. --Fire Star 火星 16:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Keep, Change, or Go?

In the section titled "Martial Arts in the Americas", a lone sentence pops up out of no where with no relevance to the rest of the paragraph: " Over 1.5 million Americans practice martial arts as of 2003. " Colonel Marksman 02:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

See if it can't be incorporated more fluidly into that specific section. -- Xiliquiern 02:09, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• Excellent suggestion! It fits perfectly at the end of the section as a conclusion. Colonel Marksman 18:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

odd changes

user Freedom skies had very odd change to the current article. he seem to be actively involved in removing sentences related to chinese martial arts and replacing them with reference to india.

Percussion vs. Striking

I find these descriptions to be uncommon and stilted. Martial artists talk about striking vs. grappling, not percussion vs. projection. The language is artificial and forced. JJL 04:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Total agreement. The repetition may mean rephrasing prior sections to have synonyms, but headings should use conventional terminology. --Scb steve 04:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

And just because the majority of americans say "where you at" instead of "where are you" doens't make it any more correct. This might sound artificial to those who have not grown up around the science of martial arts vs. other things. The trick to preserving an undeluted definition is to not give into the urge to stray from the truth with what's "popular". DruidArena 05:43, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If percussion and projected are such "undeluted", truthful definitions, then you should have no problem providing a source that supports their use in an encyclopedic article. You would be hard-pressed to find conventional usage beyond that of "Striking", "Grappling/Clinching", and "Groundfighting" to describe the most common ranges of combat. The only time there would be a legitimate deviance is if a term from another language was used to describe the range. For example, instead of groundfighting, a judoka would call it "ne-waza" (or ground technique). --Scb steve 06:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Off hand without going into tombs and trying to find someone with a scanner, here’s a start:

 Percussion: definition 1.1 / 2.2
 Projection: definition 1.7 / v3.2 / 6.11

• Percussion is defined the way it is due to the fact that at the scientific level, linear combat causes injury due to the vibration caused by the impact of one object onto another the same way injury is avoided in break falls by projecting the vibration in an outward direction instead of absorbing them. It is the same reason that coiled or whip energy used as percussion is more damaging than straight energy.
• Projection is used since the concept of all forms of throwing whether joint lock, unbalancing, or body, project an object in a mathematical direction usually resembling some sort or arc, sine, or cosine. Also, there is a distinct difference between the distances of projection vs. grappling as grappling is kumitsuki waza. Not to mention there is 4 distances of combat, not 3. (Must include weapon distance as separate from percussion distance)

…Unless you’d rather me use atemi and nage?

However, I will concede the use of striking and throwing in the face of popularity, since the impression I've been given is that is what rules here.

You know, this is really my first trip to wikipedia and I can already sense that there is a lot of negative vibes running around here, especially in the martial art area. Why is it do you think that everyone feels the need to hold on to what they're told is correct to such a degree that people will sit on here at all hours of the night like little internet warriors obsessing over correcting each other and playing the one-up game? The pursuit of knowledge I thought was supposed to be an open-minded positive adventure, but instead I'm finding dark corners everywhere with demons much like that told of in The Phantom Tollbooth. I don't think that attacking one another verbally and trying to belittle one's knowledge will win us many friends in the end. DruidArena 13:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, it may help to look at it more like a boisterous academic debate rather than to assume a quality of "negativity" in other editors. There is a pollicy of WP:Assume good faith that familiarity with will help you navigate the shoals of our discussions. People have strong opinions, but a well presented rigorous argument is a well presented argument and my experience here is that people can be convinced to another perspective (or at least convinced to include one in an article) by such an argument. There are other policies that will help formulate an argument that you should read, especially WP:REF and WP:OR. --Fire Star 火星 16:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Recent Major Edits

First of all, if a Wiki-admin could archive previous discussions so there's not so much stuff, that would be excellent.

Regarding edits, the edits being proposed by DruidArena (DA) serve to lengthen an already long article, attempt to enforce a vocabulary and convention not in wide usage, and provide a non-NPOV concerning the nature of martial arts.

In the intro paragraph, DA wishes to indicate that martial arts are primarily for war or combat, then divide them into "combative originative" systems. Then someone who practices martial arts is "sometimes" a martial artist. Let us be realistic - someone who practices martial arts is termed a martial artist. Further, DA's edits enforce an unconventional set of definitions. Within martial arts, there are martial arts practiced for sport, for military/combat, and so on. The paragraph as within my edit reflects this; within DA's, it does not.

Then DA proceeds to provide an unsourced claim about the original purpose of martial arts. This also goes along with an unsourced claim regarding conventions of styles, arts, systems, and such. With a source and evidence, such a paragraph could remain in, but at present time, isn't substantiated.

So then we move on to the areas where MA's focus on. I took the action of eliminating all but a handful of arts per section to reduce the article length. For example, the subheading of "grappling" has over 20 entried with DA's edits, and only 4 representative arts with mine. Also, I removed deliberate attempts by some editors to include mention of a fighting style as much as possible, like jujitsu; even if jujitsu does encompass everything from striking to weapon work, it serves no purpose to put it down for every category when there are other, equally legitimate arts that would not otherwise get mentioned. My edits were made based on the presence of the list of martial arts at the end that had brief descriptions. My opinion is that there should either be a restored list of MAs, or definitions/details provided on the "List of Martial Arts" page.

DA makes the extremely controversial edit that a martial art is no longer a martial art when practiced for sport. Such contentious edits have no place in an article, and the issue of sport martial arts is addressed further in the article.

My edits along with the elimination of the style listing at the end reduced the size of this article by 20%, and even then, it's still considered too long by WP standards, yet DA wishes to make the article even longer, more convoluted, and more biased against the practice of martial arts for sport or other non-military uses.

I see no bias in his edits against martial arts for sport or non-military use. All he did was differentiate from arts that have the "intent to kill" (useful in war at some point) versus those that have evolved with an "intent for sport". Because a "sport art" lacks this martial focus ("the intent to kill" is almost entirely removed, focused more on scoring points, etc) it doesn't really fit into the category "martial" art. I know many martial artists who make the distinction between in a similar manner (Both EMA and WMA). The information he provided does not say that sport arts do not contain martial information - many do. However, the learning, application, and training in these arts would not be anywhere sufficient for use in combat (at the time of the art), and it seems that many practitioners of these arts recognize that. In no way does this make a "sport art" any less worthy than a martial art (no bias) - it is just simply called something different because it is something different.

The only really contentious element of this, I believe, is the use of a common umbrella term in the vernacular. People understand that if it involves jumping, kicking, punching, and perhaps swinging a sword or other weapon about, its a martial art. I don't know if that's the case - is sport fencing a martial art, or a sport art? It has sport in its title, so I'd say sport art. That was simple. It gets more complicated when the EMA fields get involved and a centuries old 'martial art' has evolved today into primarily sport competition with strict regulations. Is it still a martial art because it has some martial technique? Or is it a sport art because its primary intent is sporting play, and many useful martial techniques have been forbidden use within it because of this? I would say sport, but I believe most of its practitioners would rabidly tell me otherwise, pointing primarily at the original martial art that existed some 300 or more years ago, but is now greatly changed. This, I think, is where people do not wish to face the reality of a situation because they personally view sport art as something less than martial art. It's nothing less, nothing more - its just different.

My best example of this is a field I am familiar with. Sport fencing and classical fencing. Sport fencing permits only forward and backward motion during the play, and, with foil (a rapier simulator), limits hits to certain areas of the body. The off-hand may not be used to displace thrusts. The foils are extremely specialized, designed for the specific use, differing in weight, design, flexibility, use from period swords. Classical fencing, on the other hand, uses, in many cases, real rapiers or replicas with a blunt on the tip (there's no need to actually kill someone, I think we all agree), the offhand as shown in period works describing the art of swordplay, and historical footwork that allows one to move easily about to avoid a strike. Now, rapiers were (very very) rarely used on the battlefield, but use in the civilian world was almost universal and they were indeed used primarily for the purpose of protecting oneself and killing another. Given these considerations, I would give sport fencing the title "sport art" and Classical fencing "martial art". There is certainly little wrong with sport fencing - it breeds good competition and provides physical exercise. Nor is there anything wrong with classical fencing - it attempts to recreate the fencing system of late renaissance Europe. The two are different in approach, though they deal with the same subject - fencing, and one is no greater than the other on an objective level. I hope my point is made - there is a distinction here, though not one commonly voiced but easily understandable. I hope that his post was not misinterpreted to be an attack on any art, sporting or martial in intent. -- Xiliquiern 14:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: There was a misquote of the examples list, I'd like to think a typo. Scb steve said "...like jujitsu; even if jujitsu does encompass everything from striking to weapon work..." When jujutsu was in there, there was no mention on the list of jujitsu. WP is all about fixing typos; therefore that doesn't make it rude.

Also, thank you Xiliquiern for seeing that I wasn't attacking civil arts, sport arts and martial sports. I also have spent much time with Classical fencing as a renfest performer/choreographer, so I'm right there with you.

So obviously, the terms aren't as uncommon as one might think. I'd like to see a compromise happen here although I agree that yes, the list was a bit long and I was keeping more of a list mindset which I apologies for, so I see Scb steve's point there. However, I think SOME distinction between sport art, martial art, civil art, and martial sport needs to be made, and I plan on making articles for the other 3 if there is anyone else who will help me out with that. Also, I'd like to hear more feedback about the distinction of style vs. system. I thought I was quite succinct and NPOV about it. The terms themselves I've heard used by others with the same distinction so to the best of my knowledge they’re commonly used terms. DruidArena 22:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone should seriously read through this article because a lot of it simply doesn't make sense. I can't go through it all right now but among the least of the mistakes is saying that master is sifu in Cantonese, shifu in Mandarin and lao shi in "Chinese". There is technically no such language as Chinese since it's divided into various dialects. Lao shi is Mandarin for teacher as in school teacher and not master or mentor. I'll try to edit out stuff like this later but it really seems embarrassing to think of those reading this who are new to martial arts.

I noted above that this article is indeed in poor shape. Part of it is just the process of 'edit creep' where one person writes something and it gets edited several times for slightly different meaning by several different individuals. Soon, it doesn't really make sense to anyone. Unfortunately, this article is more or less a patchwork of semi-complete statements than a congruent systematical representation of the topic. In my opinion, the article needs a major revision, something I may do over an upcoming holiday if there is support for such an action. Unfortunately, my understanding of martial arts is not as well rounded as I would like, and I know little of the specifics of most non-WMA. The specificity and technicalities of some asian martial arts escape me for the most part, so serious non-biased editing assistance would be necessary to check (and recheck) any changes I make to those areas. -- xiliquiern^talk 18:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I am ALL for that Xiliquiern, just let me know what you want help on and I would more than galdly help. I little "pet" revisions have to do with the style vs. system thing as well as the distinction of arts. Other than that, just ask me questions and I'll answer to the best of my ability, if I don't know I'll let you know that and then I'll go research it. Let's get this thing fixed! DruidArena 19:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

xiliquiern^talk's assessment of "edit creep" is quite correct, IMO. There are several articles like this on Wikipedia, and drive-by editors whose changes aren't noticed add up over time. The qi, acupuncture, qigong, yin and yang, etc., articles are other examples of the same thing. --Fire Star 火星 21:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)