Martial Arts: Traditional vs The New and The New Views on The Traditional

[Master Necromancer]

Closer Topic: Are the new traditional Martial Arts just that Arts and do the new views on traditional ones corrupt and leave them meaningless?

Debaters:

Me and Copperknickers II

My stance is on the side of the Traditional martial arts and traditional views on them and that the today's views on them have completely corrupted the original ideas and philosophies that where behind them.

For this argument I won't of course go through every single martial art and explain how was it ruined today by most but I will take one rather extreme of one that is ruined beyond repair at this point by decades of corruption by the new views on martial arts. I speak of course of shotokan karate.

Now when someone and anyone say they are training karate, you can be 80% sure that it is shotokan karate. And it is IMHO no longer a martial art or deserves to be called so, shotokan karate has been turned in to a pure sport. There is practically no real guard, after a punch they start going backwards with a kiai which serves no real purpose and looks ridiculous, titles(belts) are handed to people like candy (a black belt in shotokan has no real understanding of any kind of fighting outside his fellow sportists at least not any I met and I have met many), not to mention it has NO practical use. Now anyone that has been in martial arts will tell you the same except shotokan karatists. And this is not the only one, this "sport" way of looking at Martial Arts has already a huge grip on Aikido and Judo, and has seeds in all todays martial arts that hold competitions outside Asia and that is almost ALL of them.

Now I also believe that the new martial arts hold not greater meaning or philosophy as the old ones do. Do not get me wrong I believe that most of them are very good self defence techniques but non of them is a Martial Art. For this argument I will take the new Israeli martial art Krav Maga.

Now again I believe that Krav Maga is an extremely effective self defence technique but in no case is it a Martial Art. I have been on a few trainings in Krav Maga and spoke to many people that practice it. While it has borrowed moves from godjuryu and a few more martial arts it has moves like "Get a brick and knock his teeth out!" or "Wear Martin boots and jump on his nether region", I you not these are some official Krav Maga moves and I for one can not call this a martial ART!

I leave the word to my respected opponent.

[Copperknickers II]

I leave the word to my respected opponent.

Thank you, Master.

I will start by informing readers what I have told you already: I will be arguing from the position of Devil's Advocate here, as I'm very interested in traditional martial arts myself. I think it was the traditional aspect that made them popular in the West in the first place, and it is probably the reason that I practice karate rather than one of the Western martial arts such as boxing or MMA.

So, first of all, you will notice that I referred to the above systems as 'martial arts'. This was deliberate: you seem to separate self-defense systems into sports and martial arts, but as you know, pretty much every popular martial art apart from Tai Chi has an arm dedicated to sport. Karate, for example, can be divided into 4 major parts: kihon (basic moves), kata (learned sequences), bunkai (interpretation and application of moves) and kumite (competitive fighting). Kumite is a necessary part of karate, because the combination of those four schools, usually taught in that order when joining a club for the first time, is necessary for a mastery of karate. Kumite is usually part of the grading syllabus especially for the higher grades, and rightly so, because it is the best demonstration of the skills you have learned in action, without actually fighting someone to incapacitate them.

It was a natural development, therefore, for this to develop into competition, when karate became more standardised and organised. I'm sure that I have your agreement, when I say that the fact that martial arts have an element of sport need not take away from the karate itself, any more than essay competitions take away from the art of writing, or fashion shows take away from the art of stitching: on the contrary, they complement each other perfectly, by providing a way of using the skills you have learned in a controlled setting, as well as improving those skills by competing.

That is my basic premise, now on to your points.

Now when someone says they are training karate, you can be 80% sure that it is shotokan karate. And it is IMHO no longer a martial art or deserves to be called so, shotokan karate has been turned in to a pure sport.

Let's get one thing straight: shotokan karate is a style. It is not a single organisation with any kind of standardising body. There are lots of different organisations which have completely different ways of teaching. I have trained with 4 different organisations all teaching shotokan karate, and they were each completely different from one another.

One of them was a local organisation made up of only 10 clubs or so, and focussed almost exclusively on kumite and bunkai. We started doing kumite in gradings instead of turn-based technique demonstrations (step-sparring) after only a couple of belts, and there was a lot of focus on power and kiais in the basics and kata, with blind eyes turned to stances and technique. It is true to say they treated karate as a fighting technique more than a traditional art, but on the other hand I recieved easily the best applicable self-defence advice from them, battle hardened Glaswegians who knew a thing or two about street fighting (one of the senseis told us a great story about how, a couple of years previous, he had been cornered by a gang of three football hooligans who had been trying to rob his car. The last thing he remembered was getting into a kumite stance and readying for a gyaku-zuki punch, when he woke up in hospital a few hours later after some considerable surgery. He later met the same people trying to mug someone one night when he was coming back from the pub, and proceeded to throw a plant pot at them and then beat the other two to a pulp, absent any sort of karate techniques except the muscle he had accumulated while training. But sorry, I digress .)

Another organisation was an international organisation based in Japan. They, in contrast, focussed very strongly on technique: they don't even do kumite for the black belt grading, just semi-free sparring. There was a lot more traditional stuff: one of the Japanese senseis made me do a karate-kid style jumping kick whilst holding a tray of full glasses of water, and there was a lot more of the bowing and meditation that would be found in Japan. It was a great experience, and they were a lot tougher on technique and traditional ideas, but there was not much actual self-defence.

So as you can see, it varies considerably depending on the organisation how much of a sport it is, and from what I hear, the same is true in arts such as judo and kung-fu. As there is generally a lot of choice as to what organisation you choose, unless you live in the forests of Siberia, I do not see how you can say that anyone is made to do a sport rather than a traditional martial art unless they want to.

There is practically no real guard, after a punch they start going backwards with a kiai which serves no real purpose and looks ridiculous,

That is competition kumite, which is specifically designed as a sport. And I think you'll find if there is no guard, it's because of poor technique, because it would leave them open to attack. Watch this video of a recent World Championship: most of the time, if they are going backwards it's simply to get out of the way of an opposing attack, and they don't put it up again immediately its because they are out of reach. I'm sure you are aware of the points system, in which case you know it is necessary to quickly get out as soon as you think you have scored, because as soon as you are caught up in a lock or a counter-attack then you lose the point. As for the kiai, it is an extremely traditional part of karate, it is part of good technique because it shows a well rounded strike that includes coordination of your breathing with the attack. Again, if they are doing that stupid extended kiai (aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh) it's usually just to intimidate, or part of the adrenalin.

titles(belts) are handed to people like candy (a black belt in shotokan has no real understanding of any kind of fighting outside his fellow sportists at least not any I met and I have met many)

Well I'm afraid this is just bad experience on your part. It's rather like school: if you go to a bad school with no good teachers, any subject becomes boring and useless. But if you have a good teacher, it can really do a lot for you. I have had some pretty dull senseis, but also some really inspiring ones (far better in fact than any school teacher I've had). It depends where you live and what club you go to really: I go to a somewhat rough club with ex-army, police and gang members turned-good, which means you get a lot of advice for real fighting (in fact a fight usually breaks out every couple of weeks after class ).

not to mention it has NO practical use. Now anyone that has been in martial arts will tell you the same except shotokan karatists. And this is not the only one, this "sport" way of looking at Martial Arts has already a huge grip on Aikido and Judo, and has seeds in all todays martial arts that hold competitions outside Asia and that is almost ALL of them.

I think the idea that all martial arts should be solely traditional is not very productive. As I said above, the sport element has always been present and is necessary. As for whether it is overtaking the traditional element, there will always be organisations upholding the traditional ones, and they are gaining ground in recent years: the JKA remains the largest organisation and it has a good middle ground between fighting competitions and tradition. I think it really all depends on the person: karate is advertised in a lot of ways; as exercise, as discipline for children, as personal development, as well as sport and mystical Eastern tradition. And it has elements of all of these. Even a sport-oriented class is still good exercise and discipline, and that's all some people are looking for. And indeed, some of the worst karate classes in the world are tradition-centric ones, where you have to go through a forest of plastic bamboo plants to find 'grand-master 11th dan black belt Fred' sitting there in a dark room with a kimino, meditating in front of a large picture of a samurai, and spend 2 hours getting beaten with a wooden rod like happens in Okinawa while memorising a load of Japanese phrases about inner peace.

Martial arts should always be focussed on self-betterment: they started off as 'martial arts' but though you complain at how the 'art' is being lost, I notice you don't mention the 'martial' part: I don't notice anyone going out and using karate against the Taleban. I think that continuing in the spirit of martial arts is the best way to uphold tradition, or you become like a religion that focusses on things from the distant past whilst ignoring the fact that times have moved on. Competition kumite can still be beautiful, watching them fight with perfect technique and form, and flawless flowing footwork. And judo and ju-jitsu were originally battlefield systems, afterall 'martial art' is a Western term. In their original language they are just called 'do' or the 'way': they were systems of self-development, of challenging yourself, and if for a given person that means perfect competition form, rather than endless hours of practicing a useless kata and writing essays about its traditional interpretation, then I think that is a better way of continuing the essence of these arts for his part.

Now I also believe that the new martial arts hold not greater meaning or philosophy as the old ones do. Do not get me wrong I believe that most of them are very good self defence techniques but non of them is a Martial Art. For this argument I will take the new Israeli martial art Krav Maga.

Now again I believe that Krav Maga is an extremely effective self defence technique but in no case is it a Martial Art. I have been on a few trainings in Krav Maga and spoke to many people that practice it. While it has borrowed moves from godjuryu and a few more martial arts it has moves like "Get a brick and knock his teeth out!" or "Wear Martin boots and jump on his nether region", I you not these are some official Krav Maga moves and I for one can not call this a martial ART!

Again, remember where the origins of martial arts lie: on the battlefield. Tae-kwon do and ju-jitsu were taken straight from military forms. Kung-fu, and by extension karate which is descended from it, came from Indian warriors spreading Buddhism, who taught their battle arts to Chinese monks as a way of defending their monasteries and keeping fit during years on end of religious activities. If you think that 'art' means it has to be tasteful and look pretty, then I agree, stay well away from krav-maga, but if you look at its dictionary definition:

'the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination; creative activity resulting in the production of paintings, drawings, or sculpture, or the acquisition of a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice'

then you see that art need not be beautiful. As long as it is expressive and creative, then it can be considered an art form. So if Krav-Maga finds it creatively expressive to smash a brick into someone's face, then it may well be considered artistic, since it is a set form of how to defeat an adversary using whatever can be found at the time. It is no different in that respect to any other martial art, look at kung-fu: its weapon forms developed from picking up any random object and incapacitating an opponent with it, and the reason they smash bricks on each others heads was, apart from being a method of controlling qi, is as a way of training to withstand the brutal physical assaults that they were often subjected to by the army during crackdowns on opposition.

And now it's over to you my friend (btw I will be away this week, so don't expect a reply until Friday or maybe Saturday).