Martial Arts are for Fighting, Right? 

"Every martial art isn't obligated to counter other martial arts".

Awesome video. But same problem everywhere. Only 256 people including me liked it! I hope you keep up the great job. Thanks for sharing!

As weird as it is, I think Baki manga made a nice commentary on this issue in Musashi Miyamoto Arc and current running Baki Rahen

This whole "martial arts are fighting" thing makes me feel like maybe martial artists are a little insecure about their hobbies.

This is more related to the aikido videos than this one, but do you get the sense that people would have a higher opinion of aikido if they took a combat sport up first? The thing I've noticed is that while aikido initially managed to get a dedicated following of experienced martial artists, and still seems to have a lot of bouncers swear by it, most of the negative stories about aikido are always in the opposite direction where an aikido sandan or whatever does a bjj class and is completely overwhelmed. And looking online it's pretty rare to get the perspective of someone taking up aikido after having experience with a combat sport. It's almost entirely just stories of people leaving aikido for bjj/judo/MMA etc.

There is a lot to take in here; or comment on. 1) I think you're straying from the path in general. 2) One of your major arguments for self-defence training is overemphasized (environment and laws). 3) This video essay is a revisiting of past material. 4) I *feel* like you've obscured the context of historical violence by focusing on the battlefield stats; there is a lot going on in the layman's mind, and historical violence needs to be sorted out detail by detail (this includes local belligerence, feuds, and policing). 5) How do we adapt to the contextlessness of modern martial arts? It is unrealistic to expect a modern person to integrate with old culture and context. Even within the last 50 years there has been a huge change on the norms of fighting (kicking, ground fighting, weapons, women and intergender)

Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza In his 1589 text “De la Filosofia de las Armas y de su Destreza y la Aggression y Defensa Cristiana” began a swordsmanship tradition that endure for 300 years. In it, he explicitly discusses swordsmanship training as a means of improving the bodies and character of young men, and complains that most teachers teach in a way intended to drag out instruction so they get paid for longer, flatter rather than challenge students, and give them a false confidence and ego that ultimately gets them killed.

Martial arts are arts and incorporate all elements of a creative process, including learning of techniques, applying the techniques and incorporating that into a dopamine generative creative flow.

I'm only a few minutes in, and I'm sure you'll mention it, but what always gets me about the whole "it's for war" argument is that war is fought with weapons, and the longer the weapon the better. There's a reason bows, slings, and spears were so common, only an idiot would want to get in close proximity to their enemy to have a protracted 1v1 hand-to-hand fight. The same thing happens with modern military combatives like krav maga or MCMAP: people love to play it up as this hardcore deadly way of fighting, but in reality you'll maybe get an hour a day of training it over 13 weeks because using a gun from several hundred meters away is always going to be the better answer. The most effective and reliable form of self-defense today is pepper spray, not training several times a week for years.

For the first 20-25 years of my training, I was searching for answers. Then it seemed to me that I had found them and it was time to share them with others. Then came the internet, RU-vid, and so on... In recent years, I've been trying to position myself in all this chaos and explain my insights to young people (and some older ones). It seems to me that after this channel, I don't need to write or say anything anymore. You have said it all. This is so smart, so well-argued, so fair, so balanced - I am humbled!

I read Phillips’ book. It has a compelling thesis that changed my view of Chinese martial arts history and evolution. 👍

To touch on what you’ve said about modern militaries, in my experience being in the American military some people do get really into combatives. However, that’s usually so they can become a combatives trainer because it looks good when they are trying to promote, they are already a martial arts nerd and are doing other martial arts on the side already, or they just enjoy the environment of combatives. For everyone else it’s an annual training at most and if you are rear line you probably won’t even do that. For my MOS it’s verrrry rear line but we still do rifle and machine gun qualification courses and trainings a few times a year but we haven’t touched combatives since basic training.

Good one as always! ❤🥋✌️

I was us army infantry. We did combatives in basic, then after that we did it for physical training until higher ups put a stop to that. However what we did do was near constant platoon wide grappling brawls. Teams vs teams, squads vs squads, even platoon vs platoon. Nobody got hurt because we were just grappling and it was the most fun thing. If that's all it was I'd still be in. I had so much fun with that stuff that when I got out I started formally training BJJ.

Martial arts, self defense, sport fighting and military situations where one is unarmed are not the same although they have techniques that overlap. The main culprit that causes the most confusion is martial arts because there is some choreography associated with it which may or may not actually have usefulness in other domains i just mentioned at the beginning. Does a iaijutsu kata have application with a Edo period samurai? I think so but the kata does not explain to the samurai why exactly its being done. In one kata you are kneeling and draw the sword with your right hand and strike between the tricep and shoulder to eliminate the opponents arm from drawing and then lift the sword up and strike the head. What is the context? Are you on guard duty in a castle? Are you in a public setting? Are you a police officer trying to arrest someone and have to go to a lethal response? In any of those situations there is a sequence of events and authorized actions at each sequence. How did you get to that point? There is not one dojo that teaches the context analysis of sequence of events because the scientific method was not known in the east until after some of the oldest dojos were established and the scientific method was established in the modern period rather late as well. There are evidence of elements of the scientific method in the ancient world but not as succinct as the present method.

I always cringe when mma folk tell people "tma is a waste of time, you've wasted 20 years of your life learning stuff that doesn't work" ... then comes along this Mikey Musumeci punk who spent training bjj his whole life and aside from making pizza or pasta hasn't done anything else beyond bjj ... then I'm like "WHAT ABOUT THAT CLOWN THEN, WHY DOES HE KEEP WASTING HIS TIME DOING SOMETHING THAT TAKES BLUE BELT LEVEL - 2 YEARS TOPS - TO MASTER ... all the other useful skills in life he could've learnt instead ... years even decades worth of training down the drain, flushed away, thrown out of the window ..."

whatever anyone likes to learn and practice is up to them,it's mostly a free world. What I don;t like is the theft of the name Ju jitsu by practitioners of mma style grappling ( BJJ- derived from Judo which is derived from Ju jitsu). Every time I question the use of the name Ju jitsu for just floor based grappling the mega aggressive mma guys start to say what they do is better and it;s what Ju jitsu has become. If it's better is down to the individual and circumstance, That it is what Ju jitsu has become, that is BULL. If their practice doesn't involve lethal strikes,throws that are bannned by sporting affiliations ,locks intended to break limbs and joints,eye gauges fish hooks, it's not Ju jitsu.

I can’t agree more with your video. I’m a college teacher of Ancient Greek-Roman history, one of my works is about the gear and tactics of the Oplites, their training and their most famous battles. What stands out is that all commanders considered wrestling useless in a battle and good only as a sport and to stay fit. Since every male had to serve in the army, of course there were wrestlers, boxers (Greek boxing was very similar to Muay Thai) and pankration practitioners, even pro athletes in those disciplines, but it was almost impossible in a phalanx to perform martial arts techniques because of the heavy bronze armours that limited movement and became super hot under the sun preventing from striking and grappling.

Driving at 70 mph through a street school is not a martial art because not enough people have partaken in the activity to develop strategies, driving techniques to maximize damage and counter techniques for people trying to save themselves from the speeding car. Just saying.

I appreciate your honesty and common sense in your discussions. After helping my parents through end of life illnesses and having a career as a truck driver who sits 9 hours a day self defense for me is movement, memorization and social interaction in an art that I liked since seeing my first Chuck Norris movie in the 1970’s.

Very well said, I fully agree and try to reflect the many benefits of martial arts in my own RU-vid content. I love to spar and share content with pressure testing, but I do so both in a more pragmatic self defense like manner, as well as dressing like a Ninja Turtle and sparring like an action movie, exploring various rules, weapons etc... but moving for the sake of fun, or as a means of self imrprovement or meditation are just as legitimate reasons... when I spin and twirl my guan dao it is not because I'm preparing to do so if I get teleported to an ancient battlefield and have to defend myself using the guandao. :p

I applaud you for the effort on your video & it's high quality! I also admit that my initial post probably wasn't as clear on what my actual point was, which I hope I've rectified in my other comments. But I do agree with what you are saying in general to be clear. Again thank you for replying & laying it out. (yes I know this video isn't 100% about my initial comment but my comment was sort of the catalyst)

😂 That was my comment. For future reference you can have used my channel name if quoting me. I haven't gotten but a few seconds in but wanted to say no offense taken regardless of what you say. I'm not easily offended & just because I hold an opinion doesn't mean it's fact for all. I do appreciate you actually responding with a full video! That's more effort that I'd have expected, so thank you! I'll comment more if after watching I have anything worth adding.

49:30 absolutely sent me 😂

I love this video and especially how you chose to end it. We spend so much time just worrying about what others are doing. Its dissapointing seeing practioners get hate over their passion when it just doesnt check someone else's box. Super well done video as always

The video thesis misconstrues "martial art" to only refer to the contemporary concept of one-on-one melee sports. Perhaps that's unfair, as it seems to just be using the contemporary definition. As pointed out in the video, humans have predominantly fought armed and in groups since before history. Unit drill during line infantry days was a martial art. Learning horse archery and the Parthian shot was a martial art. Greek militias performing phalanx drills was a martial art. They're regimens that teach groups to operate in combat as it would have been conducted at the time. By that understanding, rugby, American football, and maybe even soccer would be more applicable as martial arts. One-on-one melee sports might be better labeled as dueling arts or striking sports, rather than martial arts, and something different entirely for sports with no direct opponent, like archery or target shooting. But, we don't get to arbitrarily change definitions, and people generally like simplified concepts. So, striking sports naturally became synonymous with the idea of "martial."

This may be a bit semantic but saying Martial Arts didn't originate on the battlefield because grappling wasn't common there is misunderstanding the use of Martial Art. Musketey, archery, soldiers fighting with pikes formation, etc are all arts of war thus Martial Arts. Not in the original use denoting knightly arts but in the spread of the term to other related & similar arts. Hand to hand fighting styles, especially in the modern usage, are martial arts but that is a very narrow use ofvthe term. Samurai & Mongols often used horse born archery, archery is martial art. Japanese & European pike & musket formation fighting are martial arts styles that while not really practiced in modern times doesn't exclude them.

Martial arts primarily for fighting, not necessarily war but interpersonal combat, where weapons are banned or uncommon. This especially true of Europe and nomadic tribes (f.e. Mongols) But because fighting is so widespread and enjoyable among men, we applied it another way, and love to bond through them

For your next video topic, can you please do a discussion on why "Styles vs Styles" in martial arts is kind of overrated and silly. This kind of thing bothers me greatly, especially when it comes to MMA vs Boxing. There is no real logical reason for these two sport to be feuding with each other. Asking why boxers do not want to compete in MMA makes about as much sense as asking why tennis players don't want to challenge football players.

Aside from those, Rough and Tumble and Hema and Medieval wrestling also had sparring and wrestling.

The vast majority of military combatives programs are about either getting enough space to get access to weapons or to develop aggression to close with the enemy and attack them.

Nothing to be said. Only to be listened. Awesome video. Thank you.

Well, I've learned it to defend myself better and it worked wonders, but it took looooooong before I took that as a decision. When I no longer needed I kinda stopped. But there were people in the dojo who trained for health or sport too. So I guess everyone trains for different reasons.

As the one quoted let my clarify a bit. I'm not saying Martial Arts are only for fighting, I'm saying that is the original intent behind the TERM itself as a description; in other words the term Martial Arts was meant to be a description for arts of war. I am saying that if in history arts like folk wrestling for sport or target archery had been called Martial Sports it would have made this whole point mute. But that's not how things were designated so the modern use of Martial Arts had become more of an umbrella term than it's original use intended. The term gets applied to self-defense arts armed & unarmed fairly early on and although it's arguable that the term self defense is a better fit for self defense that simply isn't how language evolved. My whole point is that if more & more specific terms had been used it would beneficial in what an art is used for. Yes there will always be the overlap & grey areas (MMA is definitely a sport but it takes little modification to use as a martial art. The same can be said of HEMA as a practitioner who grabbed a sharp sword certainly could use it as an effective weapon) But for examples: if the following terms had become common centuries ago we would not need to have this conversation. Martial Arts would be for war (or older styles of war) Self Defense would be civilian arts designed to keep one safe on the streets. Martial Sports would be Martial Arts made safer by rule sets and used for competition; prise fighting or just friendly competition. Spiritual Arts would be meditative forms using aspects of Martial Arts for self development; especially of mind.

You bringing up the examples of how hand-to-hand combat was not very useful on the battlefield by and large actually reinforces my initial point. As I was only saying the term Martial Arts was originally applied to war arts. The term was origionally coined to describe knightly fighting arts. Knights tended to not fight with ranged weapons. But as the term MA began to include soldier formation fighting & civilian self defense & eventually civilian arts... Well the muddying of initial intent was done. Again I'm not in any way trying to devalue arts that are practiced as sports, spiritual paths or whatever. My point was simply that the intent behind the term Martial Arts was to denote arts of war and that if people in the past chose different terms for arts with different intents behind them it would be easier to clarify & discuss things without arguing/debating.

okay but have you considered this: nuh-uh, you're wrong

Great video / talk. A few metrics I remind myself about street fighting; no matter how good I am at anything there are others who are better at some things some times, I wasn't an elite rugby player in my youth, I didn't grow up in occupied Saigon & no amount of training will guarantee you survive hand to hand with Mike Tyson. No Injuries, Train Hard & Have Fun.

As much as I know, if you translate the word "martial art" from English to Chinese, it's 武术. The word 武 "Wu" ( martial ) , if anyone here study this letter ideogrammic compound and graphical origin, it means "to stop violence" The word is a combination and rearrangement of other 2 words: 戈 (“blade”) + 止 (“to stop”) >>> Stop the blade >>> Stop violence. Yes, fighting is just a piece of martial art

No, that's not true. Even in Classical Swordsmanship most had only sword forms and only two systems Destreza and The Italian School of Swordsmanship had sparring and competing aside from Olympic Fencing. With Irish Standown, Travelers Boxing, Bare Knuckle Boxing, Catch Wrestling and Free Style wrestling and Greco Roman wrestling and Boxing had sparring and competing with an honorable mention of Folk style wrestling or Scholastic wrestling or Collegiate wrestling.

Also Savate, Pankration, Dutch kickboxing, American kickboxing and Japanese kickboxing.

in fairness to the comment being adressed in the opening, they don't seem opposed to martial arts being broad in scope as much as they are being pedantically opposed to the usage of the word usage in describing the broadened scope.

you fail to understand "Might makes right", might makes right because its the Mighty who create whats "right", not the conquered. The "Mighty" care not what the weak consider "Immoral".

The arts are an eclectic practice. A true practitioner knows everything is kung-fu.

"I do care when an art says it is martial and then it clearly is not" 45:26 sort of defeats your whole 'argument' 🤓

The reason close combat skills were trained by samurai was because when fighting with armoured opponent, you can't cut or stab him. if you get closer than spear range, you take out your sword or dagger, and then try stab in the openings of the armour. This will get you in such close range, that throws etc. are feasible. Kendo also used to involve throws, as they were part of sword skills of many sword schools. If the battle was already over or moved further away, instead of stabbing, you could dislocate opponents arms and take him as a prisoner. Of course these arresting techniques were used, when capturing common criminals, spies, smugglers, etc.. outside battle field. Later in late Edo and Meiji they became popular both as competitive art and as self defense.

A wonderful video!! A great way to frame the discussion around why we train martial arts

The physical can lead to the mental which can lead to the spiritual.

I made mention of firearms and projectiles in a scholagladitoria video that referenced modern day and was called an idiot by the actual content creator himself😂

Also Sumo spars and competes too and so does Huka Huka.

👏👏👏

But for Eastern Martial Arts, 13 styles of Kung Fu out of 400 styles and 7 styles of Karate out of 50 styles, 4 styles of Taekwondo and Muay Thai, Lethwei, Muay Lao, Bokator, Vovinam, Pencheck Silat and Sanda spar. Sanda, Two styles of Taijiquan and Shuijao and Bohk do spar and compete along with Dambe and Zulu Stick fighting and Kodokan Judo and Kosen Judo and Naginata Do and Kendo and Tomiki Aikido and Daito Ryu Aikijujitsu and Gracie Jiujitsu and Machado Jiujitsu also spar and compete.

You sound like Iain Abernethy with the crime statistics and self defence things. I guess great minds think alike lol

I am 5 minutes in go this vid, so forgive me if you address this later on. But is this also addressing Armchair Violence’s video on judo?

It's not complicated it's actually simple Chinese martial arts been existing for 5000 years and it was actually meant for self defense or attack,to develop human body skill and for fighting in ancient military but later they starting to add discipline,morality,honor,humanity,respect etc. because fighting without discipline and morality lead to violence.

what are the twelve other things martial arts are good for besides fighting?

You say that spirituality has been part of martial arts from the very start when referring to Asian Arts. The problem with this statement is that the term martial arts is European and was originally coined specifically to your fur to the problem with this statement is that the term martial arts is European and was originally coined specifically to your fur to European the problem with this statement is that the term martial arts is European and was originally coined specifically to your fur to European the problem with this statement is that the term martial arts is European and was originally coined specifically to refer to European martial arts meaning that Asian fighting styles only get called martial arts later. I'm not saying it's erroneous to nowadays call the martial arts what I am saying is that what the term martial art originally referred to was specifically nightly fighting Arts which did not contain the spiritual element prevalent in many Asian fighting systems. If you doubt my point on that keep in mind no one in Asia worshiped Mars the Romans did. Clearly by that fact Asian Arts could not have been called martial arts and told the term was imported there and applied to indigenous Asian systems. Again I'm not saying it's erroneous to call them that now I am simply saying that in the original use of the term anything Asian was not considered.

your ideas are simple too, and attempts at 'clean categories' too despite your 'forensic archeology' haha, and you are another internet guy believing whatever the hell he wants, you speak condescendingly as if you are some sort of gOD of thinking, you aren't, I listened to your entire list of grievances peppered with 'facts' often generalized to the point of meaninglessness, not that you're not a nice guy, probably you are, and sure, no has to listen (although I wish I had my 50 minutes back now), just that when people disagree with you it doesn't necessarily mean they are wrong!

Hot take: martial arts are a rubbish tool for self improvement. Study, reflection, facing personal challenges are tools for self improvement. Learning to kill a guy with a sword is just swordfighting.

"SELF DEFENSE is about recovery from stupidity or bad luck, from finding yourself in a position you would have given almost anything to prevent. It is better to avoid than to run; better to run than to de-escalate; better to de-escalate than to fight; better to fight than to die. The very essence of self-defense is a thin list of things that might get you out alive when you are already screwed." Miller, R. (2008). Meditations on Violence. YMAA Publication Center.

And traditional martial arts are actually based on reality martial arts we just don't take these martial arts seriously anymore and not training the way they used to do. Nowadays we're just doing forms and kata, doing unrealistic technique,doing it the wrong way and not testing it and fake masters. Modern combat sports like boxing and mma are not realistic at all if you think about it. They wore gloves and wraps to protect their hands. If they don't when they throw punch they can break their wrist and you can't block with your back hand in bare knuckle and going on the ground in self defense situation will get you killed. Traditional martial is effective if done properly.

Kia ora bro from Kiwi Bagua. Chur. I use rugby.

flat earthers think the earth is round too, to be fair

Kinda wack to say boxing, which consists of .5/3 of the ranges of fighting, a fight but not call submission wrestling a fight. If you’re going to sit here and tell me a boxer would beat a submission wrestler in a fight to the death then I’m not interested in anything else you have to say. News flash, slamming someone on their head is more effective than a punch