American Martial Art.

[YODA]

Boxing

 

Fencing

 

Various formats of wrestling (Catch, Lancashire, Cumberland, Parisian

 

.... and more)

 

Savate (and it's brother Boxe Francais)

 

La Canne (French stickfighting)

 

I have a book that describes closing down ranges to get inside the opponents sword, different grips & clinches, trips & throws, headbutts, knees to the groin - and stomping on the opponent when he's down. The book was written by an Englishman, George Silver, in 1521. He also describes in detail the use of the short sword, sword & buckler, quarterstaff, forest bill, pike etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bitseach]

I agree with Taikudo-ka and the others who have pointed out that there are many European martial arts. How is boxing NOT a martial art?! German traditional martial arts included sword-duelling - in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was so popular in fact that it was considered attractive to have one or two small duelling scars on the face, especially in the aristocracy (the "Samurai" of the time?!).

 

England - archery, esp the longbow, required great skill, again duelling by sword or pistol was popular, going back further the quarterstaff (seeing any similarities with the Japanese "bo"?), the double-handed sword, jousting, drills for pike and lance - the list is endless.

 

It is bizarre to me to think that the Western martial arts are so scorned in favour of the Eastern, especially when they share so many! Perhaps it is just that the Eastern arts were practised more recently as they kept their feudal society for longer than the West? Perhaps it just seems more exotic to Westerners because it is foreign, especially when you add in some of the pseuo-religious aspects? It was further intriguing because Japan at least was a closed, isolationist semi-medieval society until very recently. The West's medieval history was longer ago; we've had renaissances and revolutions since then and it is not so current in the collective memory.

 

American traditional martial arts would have to include at least those used by your indigenous peoples - scouting skills, horsemanship, archery, etc.

[G95champ]

Would somehting like fencing or even archery be a form of Martial Arts. Considering both are weapons practice in the East.

 

Beinig a history teacher I would think the beiggest reason the west does not have what we consider Martial Arts is becasue it developed faster. Meaning they cam up with things like construction, navigation, guns (not gun power), printting press, and other tools of development. Thus more was put on learing science and not on a art.

 

Also the West was united and much longer. Rome brought togeter a lot of defferant people (Saxons aka English, Gaul aka France, the Hun aka Germany, all the mid-east and north africia. In other words they did not have to do all the resarch and they developed faster. China was just as large as Rome but it did not defeat or come in contact with anyone of differant backgrounds until Ginguas Khan in the 12th centruy.

[stonecrusher69]

Yes, I agree some raised the point that we used to have M.A. like short sword, quaterstaff, dualing with words and pistols but all these tradidions either died out or modified to become a sport like boxing.I have also an old book on boxing that used bare fists no gloves and they used to kick to the shin and knee as well but not anymore as you know.My point is countries like China,Japan ect. have a long line of development that is unbroken in the M.A. that is part of there culture that has value and has been preserved through the generations.We as Americans can not say that.

[G95champ]

Well that is the great thing about America our background is everyone else. We are not isolated to just one group but all groups came together to form us.

[Martial_Artist]

Us Westerners can surely say we have a long heritage of martial arts. Our martial arts, however, are more dynamic and evolutional in nature. What started out as bare knuckled boxing, fencing, archery, has changed to combat range shooting, tactical hand to hand, close quarters knife fighting and grappling. All of which have european roots. The europeans were practicing martial arts for centuries. To suggest they did not would be nonsense. A general does not command unrefined troops, with no skill in the weapon. A King does not raise a useless army in defense of his borders. Weapons and warfare developed on a totally different level in the West than they did in the east. Anciently, who's to say one was more effective than the other? History itself has shown neither hemisphere conquering the other. The western martial arts, have evolved, like the culture that created them. Warfare changed. From swords and bows, to guns and missiles. The art of old became a sport a new for spectacle purposes. The applicability being less effecitive with the advent of modern warfare. Heritage hasn't lost itself just taken a back seat to technology. The history is there, just obscure and rare. Each method of fighting in the West had their various schools(the most popular persisting even to this day is the history of fencing) Fencing had various styles, depending on the one who developed the form used. Every culture has had need and has had developed martial arts. To say only the East has is illogical not to mention inaccurate. We, the West, also have a long heritage of martial arts history.

 

The heritage you speak of that exists in China, etc., exists because many of those countries are still developing. Many people in China still live in bamboo huts. There are Japanese living in remote underdeveloped areas. Thailand, Korea, the Philippines. The lack of technology and development creates the necessity for the prolongment of their traditional martial arts. In the West the development of the missile almost completely removed that need in defense of national borders.

 

Also, in the '70's the flare ignited from the martial arts craze has carried to this day. Eastern martial arts are more camera worthy than western.

 

Also, about eastern countries placing value on the martial arts as a part of their heritage, I have lived in the Far East, the SouthEast, and today only a handful of people(aside from China which would like to promote Wushu as an olympic event) don't place too high a value on traditional martial arts. In Manila, for example, there are only a few schools of the martial arts. But there are hundreds of IT schools. Also, in film, only a handful of martial artists. My point is, to the Westerner the East has a long and flourishing history and continuing hertiage of the traditional martial arts. But the average Easterner, it is something for movies, or a part of history. They don't view it(for the most part) in the light that we do. They preserve because a handful still do it, and every year a young one gets hooked on movies and takes classes.

 

Western society has preserved and given life to eastern martial arts. It is our thirst for the new and curious that develops this. It is our Hollywood that fuels new interest and keeps it alive.

 

Think about it. Without movies who would know or care about the eastern martial arts? Just like before the martial arts craze in the '70's, only a handful of people would. Prior to that everyone was wrestling, fencing, boxing, and shooting. Think 1950's the average fight was a boxing match, that, believe me, involved much more than what we see in modern boxing events.

 

I have ran on about this, but I hope I haven't lost anyone in my ramblings.

[Jade_Lotus]

I mostly agree with Martial_Artist, he's right on many aspects of the question. I think the answer to it, is a simple one. Lets take a look at how America was founded. When America was founded, we came over from England and other parts of Europe, already a civilized people. Our means of defense were the sword and gun. The far eastern countries weren't founded by an already civilized people, they evolved and developed themselves(still in the process btw). Starting off with only their bare hand, and some sticks and stones. They had a need to learn, hand to hand combat, in a more in depth manner. It was their means of defense from bandits and attacking nations. The didn't have the technology that we had, so hand to hand combat(aka martial arts) was there primary and only means of warfare and defence. Until of course the invention of more advanced weaponry for example, swords and bows, and spears, etc.. Too many to mention them all. But that's the basic answer, add some philosphy and religion and there you have the martial arts. So that's why we don't have our "own" martial arts. We just didn't have a need for it. Well, i didn't want to get too deep into history, but that's just a brief explanation. aka "new world" not "old world"

 

[ This Message was edited by: Jade_Lotus on 2002-05-04 21:45 ]

[bustr]

Jeez Crusher

 

Most of the technical material of Eastern Martial arts comes from Savate, Boxing and folk wrestling, backhold and purring. Traditional Eastern MA used techniques that are universal like shin kicks to the groin and front puch kicks. The only thing unique were the side snap kicks. The side thrusts, round kicks and spins were adopted from Kapwara and Savate. They are not an original part of Eastern MA.

 

This is what old Oriental arts looked like:

 

http://www.usmta.com/Old-Modern-Muay-Thai-Frame.htm

 

http://www.fightingarts.com/content02/bubishi_enter_1.shtml

 

And here are some samples of Western arts:

 

http://ejmas.com/jwma/jwmaart_wolf_0500.html

 

http://www.bridgemansavate.com/html/quotes1.htm

 

The boxing texts on this page look very similar to things I've seen in Shaolin styles.

 

http://keith.martialartsman.com/bowie/bowieMain.html

 

This may look like wild flailing but there are always preferred methods (styles) in any fighting tradition. The problem is that alot of arts never made an effort to distinguish themselves from sport boxing and wrestling and were thus absorbed into those traditions or simply died out when America was domesticated.

 

http://ejmas.com/jmanly/jmanlyart_gorn_0401.htm

[Ai Hate]

Originally posted by Martial_Artist:

 

Also, about eastern countries placing value on the martial arts as a part of their heritage, I have lived in the Far East, the SouthEast, and today only a handful of people(aside from China which would like to promote Wushu as an olympic event) don't place too high a value on traditional martial arts. In Manila, for example, there are only a few schools of the martial arts. But there are hundreds of IT schools

 

my 2 cents on this point: who would want to study MA nowadays if they can't even feed themselves properly!

 

if you really want to compare, japan and america would be a better pair than america and the philippines or thailand.

 

but then again, certain MA in japan (say karate, judo, kendo, sumo) are so popular that your point wouldn't be valid.

 

[MMoudry]

Well native americans (indians) had a lot of martial arts. Tomahawk, bow and arrows etc.

 

American as it is now is only 200 years old and when it was created we already had guns, so why bother?