Martial Arts History

The history of martial arts is both long and universal. Martial arts likely existed in every culture, and at all classes and levels of society, from the family unit up to small communities, for instance, villages and even ethnic groups. One example is tantui, a northern Chinese kicking art, often said to be practiced among Chinese Muslims. Systems of fighting have likely been in development since learning became transferable among humans, along with the strategies of conflict and war. In some places, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, one can still see this plethora of village fighting systems.

Every martial arts system, and every martial arts school has its own history. This generally falls into two categories: recent history and ancient history.

Recent history, in this context, is relatively verifiable: who did the teacher learn from? Where did the teacher study? What other arts has the teacher studied, and how has the teacher incorporated them into their teaching? Was the teacher given permission to teach by their teacher? What are the teacher's goals in teaching the class?

This last question deserves some explanation. Some classes are taught primarily to teach students to become effective competitors in tournaments. Some classes are taught to attempt to teach the students to defend themselves effectively against some class of imagined situations. Some classes are taught to preserve an ancient tradition. The practical details of these distinct kinds of classes will be very different.

Ancient history, at least in the sense used here, is much more difficult. In fact, for most systems it is essentially a myth --- in the sense that it is propagated by word-of-mouth among students in the absence of verifiable evidence. This is not to say that it is not also true! But the importance of such a history does not depend on its truth: the effect of such a myth on shaping the development of a martial art is probably much greater than the effect of events two hundred years ago (at least five generations of passing the art on from teacher to student). So an art that is believed to be an art of warriors will focus on battlefield effectiveness and weapon use against highly skilled opponents, while an art that is believed to be for self-defense will focus on reactions to surprise attack and multiple opponents.

The history of martial arts around the world is therefore quite complex; on the one hand, most groups of people have had to defend themselves and have developed effective fighting techniques, but on the other hand, most of those techniques have been rendered militarily obsolete over the centuries. Even at an individual, rural level, the threat to the safety of a village is now more likely to come from warriors armed with automatic rifles than from men with swords. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to preserve a martial art; doing so requires many years of teaching at the hands of a good teacher to pass on the art for a single generation. So it is relatively rare that a martial art would survive and become popular in today's culture, and each art that has done so has a unique history. Some generalities can be said, though, and the next few sections will attempt to discuss the overall rise to popularity of some martial arts.

Martial Arts in Asia

The teaching of martial arts in Asia has historically followed the Confucian cultural tradition of teacher-disciple apprenticeship. Students are trained in a strictly hierarchical system by a master instructor: Sensei in Japanese (Pinyin ??, xia-n sheng); in Chinese ??, (Wade-Giles) Lao Shih, (Pinyin) la(o shi- (lit., old master); Cantonese Sifu; ?? Mandarin (Wade-Giles) Shih fu, (Pinyin) Shi- fù (lit., the master-father), ??? SaBumNim (Korean). The instructor is expected to directly supervise their students' training, and the students are expected to memorize and recite as closely as possible the rules and basic training routines of the school.

Open speculation about training methods or the instructor's motives and personality is generally not tolerated in juniors, as they aren't considered familiar enough with the basic requirements of their respective arts to make realistic distinctions. They are instead encouraged to repeatedly train applications of the forms and techniques that they've been shown in gradually more complex scenarios.

In this Confucian family-based hierarchy, those who enter instruction with the instructor before the student are considered older brothers and sisters; those after, younger brothers and sisters. The instructor's peers are considered aunts and uncles, etc. into other generations above and below. Such clearly delineated relationships, based on seniority, are designed to develop intangibles such as good character, patience and discipline in martial students.

As a matter of safety for the instructors, the student body and the individual student, before they are shown anything beyond the most basic conditioning exercises, students learn their place in the school hierarchy. Students should learn how and why to clearly demonstrate respect for others and how to follow the directions of their instructors properly. The traditional schools are said by this reasoning to provide thereby a level playing field for all students, providing a relatively fixed framework for interaction with one's seniors, peers and juniors, so that everyone, not just the physically gifted, can have an opportunity to benefit from the training provided in a martial art school.

Some method of certification can be involved, where one's skills would be tested for mastery before being allowed to study further; in some systems, especially in China, there are no such certifications, only years of close personal practice and evaluation under a master, much like an apprenticeship, until the master deems one's skills satisfactory. This pedagogy, while still preserved and respected in many traditional styles, has weakened to varying degrees in others and is even actively rejected by some schools, especially in the West.

Martial Arts in Europe

The peoples of Europe have had a thoroughly war-torn history, and the peoples that survived had highly effective martial arts. However, these martial arts mostly adapted to changing technology, so that while their descendants still exist, they are focused on things like flying helicopters and infantry tactics for riflemen. We generally do not call these martial arts.

Some traditional martial arts have been preserved in one form or another. For example, fencing was preserved by being made into a sport; of course this has changed the practice significantly. Some historical fencing has survived, and some groups have attempted to reconstruct old European martial arts from a few surviving combat manuals.

Some of the oldest written and illustrated material on the subject of European martial arts dates from the 15th and 16th centuries, and was written by notable teachers like Hans Talhoffer, Fiore dei Liberi and George Silver. Some transcripts of yet older texts have survived, the oldest being a manuscript going by the name of I.33 and dating from the late 13th century.

Fighting manuals such as those listed above have served as guides for attempted reconstructions of European martial arts. Another example of such historical martial arts reconstruction is Pankration, which comes from the Greek (pan, meaning all, kratos, meaning power or strength). Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to record the essential parts of a martial art in written form (or in fact in any form except the training of a body of master students) so these efforts are very difficult and require the practitioners to borrow techniques from living martial arts to fill in the gaps.

Unarmed European martial arts that have survived in active form include English boxing, Olympic wrestling, and French savate.

Other martial arts were made into sports that we no longer recognize as combative, such as some kinds of gymnastics, where the pommel horse is called a horse because it simulates a horse: the art comes from the necessity of a cavalryman to be able to change positions and fight effectively from a the back of a horse. Similar origins exist for the shot put and the javelin throw.

Martial Arts in North America

While the native peoples of North America certainly had their own effective martial arts, these, like much of their culture, have been almost completely lost. However, the European (and, later, Asian) colonists brought over their own martial arts such as boxing, fencing and wrestling. These have remained relatively rare sports.

In the last decades of the twentieth century, a number of martial arts movies, particularly those of Bruce Lee, caught the attention of the North American public, and tremendous interest in Asian martial arts appeared. Initially, only a few martial arts systems were available and popular, such as Karate and Taekwondo, but in the 1990s, students began to realize that there were many more choices of martial art, and a tremendous diversity in martial arts appeared.

Martial Arts elsewhere in the World

Every village and tribe around the world had a few trained fighters who passed on their knowledge; unfortunately, it is difficult to pass on a fighting system, so almost all of these have been lost as their practical relevance has declined. However, a few have survived for one reason or another, and a very few of those have seen a recent boom in popularity, perhaps related to the world music phenomenon.

Examples of this are Capoeira and some related arts in Cuba , Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago, which were preserved partly through their incorporation into Candomble, Santeria, Vodun, and other syncretic religions. Of these, only Capoeira has risen to worldwide prominence, and the others will probably die out.