What is this word, “martial art” and what does it mean? The word martial art stands for many different hand to hand fighting philosophies (schools of war – martial thought). These art forms come out of just about every country on this planet. Every country has their own martial art that has helped preserve their peoples’ survival throughout the centuries.
When martial arts were first used back in the early times of civilization, people just did what came natural to them. They would just pick up a rock or a stick and whack their enemy over the head as hard as they possibly could. Once their opponent had fallen they continued to pound them until they perished. There was really no pre-practice of martial art technique or system per-say. You just responded to whatever your emotions were telling you to do in order for you to survive a deadly encounter and to live on through another day.
Over time certain people developed reputations of surviving many life and death encounters during rough battles. As people’s intellect begin to grow they figured out really quick when they had to join forces along side of other people who were going off to war to help defend their village from other groups of people who had bad reputation for killing entire towns or villages. They wanted and needed an edge, a step up over their enemies. They wanted something that would help them to not just survive the deadly encounters, but to also give them the upper hand, an edge, over whoever was trying to kill off their people or family, and wipe out and destroy their entire village and way of culture.
So they would seek out these individuals, season warriors with good reputations for killing large groups of villains by themselves and surviving every battle they have thus far encountered.
When they did find such individuals they first needed a way to figure out how they would approach this killing machine of a human being without getting killed by him/her, they had to first get on their good side and make friends with this individual. Once this was accomplished they needed to offer this person a gift (money) to help convince this killing machine that they are doing the right thing by helping them out and joining their cause.
Sometimes they would hire these people to fight for them and to do their killing for them and sometimes they would even ask these seasoned warriors to teach them their art of warfare (martial art) and how to become a more efficient and effective fighter on the battle field so that they (the village people)-and not the village people from New York that sang that song – Y.M.C.A.-can become just as an effective fighter as the hired warrior.
Some of these old time warriors were not good teachers even though they were awesome killing machines. They would whack you hard to teach you how to deal with an attack through the use of pain as a teaching tool or method of getting you to understand why certain things had to be done in the order or in the fashion they were learning in.
Now you would not die from this type of training, but you could have become crippled if you were not paying attention and some have become crippled during rough training sessions like this, example they may have lost an eye or breaking of a limb. And this was just during a training session or practice session.
Over time martial techniques were invented to recreate battle scenes or attacks on your person so that you could now practice some kind of self defense methods against these prearranged attacks. This was done so the inventor (martial arts master) could watch how you would respond to different levels of attacks that he/she may have been through in previous wars or battles and now they are putting you through it. But without the dangers of a real fight or encounter. They can now showcase to the student what they are trying to get across to that student, so that the student can learn to grasp the concepts and principles of their fighting philosophy through a series of prearrange techniques that were actually made up right there on the spot. This of course became their particular style of (bu-jutsu) martial art like ju-jutsu, aiki-justu or ken-jutsu, so-jutsu etc.
From your response from that mock attack, your new master would know how to correct your mistakes and how to modify what he/she has taught to you or where else you may need improvement to strengthen your skills or your weak spots, openings in your defenses. From these drills, new techniques were born and developed. You see back in the day when martial arts were first invented, there were no memorized techniques or belt system. Just ideas (concepts) and certain rules of engagement (principles) that made sense to these martial art masters which made them such great fighters of those times. Times change and so should your martial art methods to cope with how people of today now attack you out on the streets.
They really didn’t have x amount of memorized techniques back then nor a syllabus that they would have to remember or practice. They would just do what worked best for them out on those battle fields throughout time by listening to their gut feelings (their inner knowing). They would have someone attack them from any angle without notice and no prearrange – round punch – straight punch – side kick etc. they would just respond or reflex to meet and deal with any kind of attack from any unknown angle their practice partner would attack them on.
They didn’t have preplanned techniques like most schools have today. They would just reflex into action and out of harm’s way while countering the oncoming attack. This would happen automatically from a real life opponent bent on killing them or just practicing and teaching one of their students in the dojo (school). This is what worked for them back then and now this is what’s lacking today in a lot of different schools of martial arts that I have noticed. It is the creative defense plan that works in just about any situation from any unknown angle of attack.
Now this was a very difficult way or method to learn something or way to teach some body. Over a period of time to make things much easier, they invented these new prearranged martial art techniques and by doing this, they were able to hold onto larger amounts of students. They would now be able to pass their martial art system onward throughout the centuries of time to eventually reach myself and then onto you. What an honor to have something so old but yet so effective.
So a recap in the beginning of mans first hand to hand battles there were no prearrange known cataloged of techniques, a syllabus. Just concepts and principles which were done through gut feelings (flight or fight factor) which were natural reflexive human reactions. That is why it worked so well. There was nothing to remember or no magic pill or potion to take that would transform you into a serious fighting machine, just your reflexes (inner knowing or spirit training = emotional training).
In time the people who were learning from these great fighters (their students) were the ones who actually recorded what is known today as martial techniques onto ancient scrolls which turned into a martial system (martial art) or particular style.
Each system (style of martial art) had their own methods of self protection and hand-to-hand combat techniques that made their system or method so unique and so effective to that particular system or style (type or brand of martial art) from that part of the world.
Each style did have different ways or methods of getting the job done. They were all good and some were a little better than others. But it all depends on who the martial artist was rather how good the style was.
Over time these masters grew in age and begin to realize some thing very important. They realized if they were to die, their art form would die along side of them if they didn’t teach everything to one trust worthy person (like a senior student, the-Sempai) who could learn the entire method of Bu-Jutsu (martial art) well enough to pass it on to another person, who would keep up the good quality and high standards of their life’s work and development in which they have sweat and even bled over to develop their family methods of martial art.
For a system to be a martial art it needs to have a few things in it and these things are what separate it from a sport martial art.
First in a martial art there are no rules, everything goes and there is no such thing as dirty fighting but only surviving and winning. *Kill or be Killed* mentality. Spit in his eye and kick him where it counts – get the job done, fast!
In most martial art systems, which were Bugei/Bujutsu back in the day, they usually taught, but not limited to these things:
killing -crippling – controlling – martial science – anatomy – kyusho (vital points) – nutrition – cooking – history – weapons use and weapons defense – good manners – mental self control – strategy of war (the study of ancient battles and warfare) – yoga – physical conditioning.
Healing was also part of the Martial Arts systems. Each Country has their own forms or ways of healing through herbal remedies and energy work like Reiki or shiatsu – tsubo.
Other skills were, knowing how to read the weather just like the farmers can do today and outdoor survival (living off the land).
Religion was also a big part of the martial art as well and each country had their own to follow or practice.
I hope this gives you an overview of what makes up a martial art. Below are some books that I recommend you read to get your own understanding of martial arts.
- Karate-Do: My Way of Life
by Gichin Funakoshi
- Zen in the Martial Arts
by Joe Hyams
- Abundant Peace
by John Stevens
- Japan’s Ultimate Martial Art: Jujitsu Before 1882 the Classical Japanese Art of Self-Defense
by Darrell Max Craig
- Okinawan Karate: Teachers, Styles and Secret Techniques
by Mark Bishop
- Filipino Martial Culture (Martial Culture Series)
by Mark V. Wiley
- There Are No Secrets: Professor Cheng Man Ch’ing and His T’ai Chi Chuan
by Wolfe Lowenthal
- The Sword of No-Sword: Life of the Master Warrior Tesshu
by John Stevens
- The Book of Five Rings (Bushido–The Way of the Warrior)
by Musashi
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