Popular misconceptions about martial arts?

[Supereem]

But the overwhelming majority of arts practiced today besides a few are off shoots of styles the ancient chinese had.

lol k. Guess Greece isnt real.

 

[Supereem]

My god so many of you can't grasp the English language to save your lives.
Go back and ready my posts SLOWLY before you start rambling off.

Then stuff like knight martial arts,
Uh...Knights are not unique to the western world. Many non western countries had their equivalent.


My post or the ones i were addressing had NOTHING to do with modern warfare. It was speaking soley on ancient Arts and their history.



Oooookaaaay......


Yes it's absurd to note one of the oldest civilizations in the world that has rich arhaeological evidence of martial arts dating back before many others did was the focal point for hand to hand combat.



Lol???????

Last time i checked the two most popular arts today originated in the orient.
MT has a Chinese and Indian heritage and Bjj has a Japanese one.




Again i was referring to martal practices in the ancient world not today. How much of your post did you waste arguing against a point no one was making?

:icon_chee

First recorded martial arts were of middle eastern origin, first major competitions were Greek wrestling/boxing/pankration and many classical historians think that the pankration troupe Alexander brought to India had a huge influence on Asian martial arts.

Also most Chinese martial arts trace their origins to India, just like Buddhism.

 

[Supereem]

San da isn't effective? how Chinese wrestling?
you also realize Muay thai is believed to have a chinese origin dont you?

Sanda/Sanshou isn't REALLY Chinese, its basically a cheap ripoff to Muay Thai, like most other modern Asian kickboxing styles. None of the Wushu styles are effective anymore, they have other purposes than fighting, such as meditation or story telling.

Monks of the Shoalin temple defended themselves with weapons, not retarded kicks. Sanshou was only created for nationalistic reasons, just like MODERN Pankration in Greece, which was made for Karate guys to feel nationalistic and awesome!

 

[LEGS MAHONEY]

lol k. Guess Greece isnt real.

The Greeks had a form of wrestling like everyone else did. So what?

 

[LEGS MAHONEY]

First recorded martial arts were of middle eastern origin, first major competitions were Greek wrestling/boxing/pankration and many classical historians think that the pankration troupe Alexander brought to India had a huge influence on Asian martial arts.

Also most Chinese martial arts trace their origins to India, just like Buddhism.

I already posted the links showing their is no historical evidence of this. Feel free to go back and look at them rather than drudging up the same debate.

 

[LEGS MAHONEY]

Sanda/Sanshou isn't REALLY Chinese, its basically a cheap ripoff to Muay Thai,

Thanks for bringing that up their is another misconception albeit a less popular one.

 

[Payak]

did the shaolin ever really have reason to defend themselves, have they ever really fought in battle.
not saying they cannot but history is very shady.

 

[LEGS MAHONEY]

Yeah there are actually quite a few historical records of the monks being used for battle.

 

[Payak]

defending the emperor i here, however why would he use a hand full of monks when he had thousands of troops.
sounds strange.

 

[LEGS MAHONEY]

I don't believe the emperors used them soley rather they were used as additional troops for battles.

They had to fend off bandits quite frequently as well who were trying to rob the temples

 

[shera]

When I go to a karate class, I don't give a flying fuck about discipline or morals. I want to learn how to brutally KTFO someone or snap their arm in half.

...and you chose karate for this?

 

[chshogun**]

did the shaolin ever really have reason to defend themselves, have they ever really fought in battle.
not saying they cannot but history is very shady.

Monks were badass. Watch the Chinese monk episode of Deadliest Warrior.

All I was trying to say earlier is that Chinese martial arts have to deal with weapons, etc. so they're not a focal point of modern martial arts since modern martial arts are considered to be hand-to-hand. I could be wrong but there hasn't been a hand-to-hand martial art to come out of China recently like BJJ or Muay Thai.

 

[chshogun**]

My god so many of you can't grasp the English language to save your lives.
Go back and ready my posts SLOWLY before you start rambling off.

Then stuff like knight martial arts,
Uh...Knights are not unique to the western world. Many non western countries had their equivalent.


My post or the ones i were addressing had NOTHING to do with modern warfare. It was speaking soley on ancient Arts and their history.



Oooookaaaay......


Yes it's absurd to note one of the oldest civilizations in the world that has rich arhaeological evidence of martial arts dating back before many others did was the focal point for hand to hand combat.



Lol???????

Last time i checked the two most popular arts today originated in the orient.
MT has a Chinese and Indian heritage and Bjj has a Japanese one.

Again i was referring to martal practices in the ancient world not today. How much of your post did you waste arguing against a point no one was making?

:icon_chee

You think the Chinese fought wars with hundreds of guys in a line rushing to fight each other hand-to-hand with kung fu?

Chinese martial arts are heavily weapons-based for the weapons that the Chinese used. Every culture used different weapons.

China isn't a focal point of martial arts; everyone fights so everyone has their own martial arts. There is no focal point anywhere.

 

[chshogun**]

Last time i checked the two most popular arts today originated in the orient.
MT has a Chinese and Indian heritage and Bjj has a Japanese one.

And now a Dutch heritage since many muay thai fighters practice a boxing-focused style that guys like Dekkers introduced.

MT is now a melting-pot of cultures. That's the way most martial arts are. You think a guy in 1800 China is gonna go "dam that moves killer , it kills but it's not Chinese so I'm not using it."

Modern martial arts are concepts and not geographically-oriented. This is because modern communication is instantaneous. 2000 years ago, a Greek pankrationist couldn't exchange ideas with a guy in China so they ended up with different martial arts (of course following different rules).

Now, the Greek dude posts a video on the internet and the Chinese guy adaps the technique, and vice-versa. Then they hop a plane and fight each other in America or Japan. It's truly international.

What a lot of people don't know and is really cool is that Chinese towns used to have a fighting stage and people would travel over China challenging people to fight in each town. It was like a giant, unorganized MMA league. That's how Chinese hand-to-hand martial arts developed. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of that technique has been lost now but a lot of the weapons fighting techniques developed by monks and other warriors still exist.

The reason that we're having such a heated argument is because it's really hard to discuss Chinese martial arts. It's hard to discuss them because they're shrouded in mystery and mysticism. The mystery comes from a lot of knowledge being lost. After all, if the UFC died today and no one practiced MMA competitively on a large scale for 50 years, what do you think would happen to the technique (this is before the internet, video, etc. where techniques can be documented in real 100% detail). The mysticism comes from nerds thinking that kung fu movies are real.

 

[SAAMAG]

And now a Dutch heritage since many muay thai fighters practice a boxing-focused style that guys like Dekkers introduced.

MT is now a melting-pot of cultures. That's the way most martial arts are. You think a guy in 1800 China is gonna go "dam that moves killer , it kills but it's not Chinese so I'm not using it."

Modern martial arts are concepts and not geographically-oriented. This is because modern communication is instantaneous. 2000 years ago, a Greek pankrationist couldn't exchange ideas with a guy in China so they ended up with different martial arts (of course following different rules).

Now, the Greek dude posts a video on the internet and the Chinese guy adaps the technique, and vice-versa. Then they hop a plane and fight each other in America or Japan. It's truly international.

What a lot of people don't know and is really cool is that Chinese towns used to have a fighting stage and people would travel over China challenging people to fight in each town. It was like a giant, unorganized MMA league. That's how Chinese hand-to-hand martial arts developed. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of that technique has been lost now but a lot of the weapons fighting techniques developed by monks and other warriors still exist.

The reason that we're having such a heated argument is because it's really hard to discuss Chinese martial arts. It's hard to discuss them because they're shrouded in mystery and mysticism. The mystery comes from a lot of knowledge being lost. After all, if the UFC died today and no one practiced MMA competitively on a large scale for 50 years, what do you think would happen to the technique (this is before the internet, video, etc. where techniques can be documented in real 100% detail). The mysticism comes from nerds thinking that kung fu movies are real.

Um...no. The boxing style Dekkers used wasn't introducing anything. There aren't a bunch of nak muay running around trying to emulate Dekkers either.

 

[jerunk]

San da isn't effective? how Chinese wrestling?
you also realize Muay thai is believed to have a chinese origin dont you?

Seriously get off of China's dick man. China is NOT the focal point or origin of the majority of today's Martial arts. Like it has been said SEVERAL TIMES in this thread, civilizations have been practicing Martial arts long before China. Your obvious bias makes your posts look retarded.

 

[jerunk]

I already posted the links showing their is no historical evidence of this. Feel free to go back and look at them rather than drudging up the same debate.

You must be young and naive or just have no idea what a credible source is. Protip, wiki is NOT one.

 

[contumacious]

that wing chun is martial art

anything that makes you a worse fighter shouldn't fall under this category

 

[hurr2323]

Yeah, I want to say one more thing about the whole Greece-India-China martial arts connection.

First off, I posted earlier about every culture/region developing its own martial arts and there being no one birthplace of the arts since the dawn of man. I believe that. But that doesn't mean one region's arts can't influence another. Especially in times of war.

Look at America and Japan. We've had a military presence in japan since world war 2. Soldiers stationed there study karate and bring it back with them to the states. It gestates here, changes into something different than it was in japan, becomes unique. In japan you have all these stories about traditional fighters facing american boxers in exhibition matches. They have to adapt their techniques to meet shallow stances and quick foot work. Exchange goes both ways.

I could go on and on all day about the impact catch wrestling had on Japanese martial arts and pro-wrestling. See kano and kata guruma.

The belgian Karl gotch is the father of Japanese pro-wrestling, which eventually turned into shoot fighting.

So, to say that Greek pankration didn't influence Indian martial arts...well, I don't buy it. Greeks didn't bring it all to India, but they influenced it. As did many other cultures in the region. There was probably a similar transmission from India to China. Two cultures in that proximity, even over such rugged terrain, can't help but influence each other. And the influence continues.

It's impossible to point a finger and say this started here, or this is 100 percent Chinese/Japanese/Brazilian. Martial arts are organic and the culmination of a billion human events throughout the world. Might as well just say that martial arts are human. So much simpler.

*Also, do you really expect there to be some written record of an Indian soldier learning a little pankration 2000 years ago? The absence of proof is not the proof of absence.*

 

[val_lixembeau]

What a lot of people don't know and is really cool is that Chinese towns used to have a fighting stage and people would travel over China challenging people to fight in each town. It was like a giant, unorganized MMA league. That's how Chinese hand-to-hand martial arts developed. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of that technique has been lost now but a lot of the weapons fighting techniques developed by monks and other warriors still exist.

Yes, and I think that is why ground fighting is not generally emphasized in kung fu (since you lose if you are knocked off the platform). Another great example of the rules influencing the form of an art.

The reason that we're having such a heated argument is because it's really hard to discuss Chinese martial arts. It's hard to discuss them because they're shrouded in mystery and mysticism. The mystery comes from a lot of knowledge being lost. After all, if the UFC died today and no one practiced MMA competitively on a large scale for 50 years, what do you think would happen to the technique (this is before the internet, video, etc. where techniques can be documented in real 100% detail). The mysticism comes from nerds thinking that kung fu movies are real.

I think you are partly right that a lot of knowledge was lost because of time, and because of secrecy, but I think a lot of what people think of as mysticism is just viewing the east through a western focus.

I think in the west, the split between art and philosophy and science, or between science and technology happened a long time ago, while they were all blended together in the east until recently. This is why in kung fu movies you sometimes see things like people recognize another's swordsmanship by observing their penmanship.