top of page
Search
Writer's pictureSensei

What are the Martial Arts?

Updated: Mar 29, 2021

Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced methods for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; and the preservation of a nation's intangible cultural heritiage.

However numerous are confuse as to what is a martial art.


A topic comes into discussion as numerous are confuse. MMA


MMA is said to be a Mixtutre of martial arts enthrall into one. It focuses predominantly on combat. You can forget the spiritual and mental cultivation here. So what is MMA?

Martial Arts Experts would rather call it 'an agreement between two gentlemen to pulvarise each other'


The very first UFC saw martial arts individuals entered the octagon. The first few contest was dominated by a brazilian jiu jitsu discipline who took opponents to the floor and won via a choke submission arm joint lock.

Due to the UFC realism in actual real world fights the martial arts trend has switched to learning MMA and BJJ. However many experts believe neither to be a martial art.


Brazilian JiuJitsu not a martial art?

Why?

A martial art is first and foremost a discipline endeavor. Though numerous take up martial art tuition for the primary goal of self defence fighting has very little to do with the martial arts. In all forms of martial arts the word 'Do' is a suffix.

It means the way. A path of learning not just physical, but mental and spiritual training.

One cannot exist without the other.

Since the mind commands and the body behaves if you do not learn how to control the mind what can you control?

If you focus on the physical and not the mental you are a danger to yourself and to others.

Yet combat forms focus mainly on the physical and claim to be a martial art.

In Brazil numerous streetfights are reported and that claims 90% of the involvement are with pratitioners of BJJ.

MMA on the other hand is more concerning because many adolescent and teenagers are taking up the sport without fully knowing the risk.

Studies concluded that rates of getting knocked out or having a referee stop a fight (TKO) are higher in MMA than any other combat sport.

Despite adding rules since the sports birth there are clear levels of danger mostly in terms of coup and contrecoup injuries that are associated with cerebral contusion a traumatic brain injury in which the brainis bruised.

The American FBI openly reported on the dangers to the public by 'street thugs' knowing the use of chokes 'ground and pound' and other techniques associated with MMA and the Media's UFC bouts


The problem lies where the sport can be of good use in a self defence scenario however unlike traditional martial art MMA lacks the virtues of the true martial art.


Fighting is not a martial art. Both BJJ and MMA emphasize on purely winning in fights. If fighting is a martial art should we call 'street fighting' a martial art?

Street fights do not adhere to any rules. It has no form or style. It applies strikes takedown grappling biting etc. So should we refer to Street fighting as MMA?


Brazilian Jiu Jitsu however claim that all fights end upon the floor. Thus its training methods are 99% ground fighting.

Jiu Jitsu is a Japanese martial art used by the samurai. It focused on strikes joint locks throws chokes and grappling.

BJJ places pure emphasis on ground fighting yet the name Jiu Jitsu is attached.

If one uses only evasive maneuvers and no punching in boxing should it still be calked boxing?


Jiu Jitsu encompasses a wide variety of techniques. From strikes to locks to grappling, and throws but its not label a MMA.


So what is a martial art?

A sport?

A fighting form?

Or a discipline set of morals that emphasis not fighting is the highest victory of all.


13 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet

Add a rating
bottom of page