Banned arts?

[Existence_is _suffering]

Are there any (Predominately empty-handed) martial arts that have been banned in any country? By Banned I mean the training of the art has been banned for any reason?

[The BB of C]

I heard in China when the communists took over they banned a lot of martial arts and replaced it with performance Wushu. I heard they even hunted down and killed a lot of the old masters.

[NightOwl]

Totalitarian regimes tend to ban martial arts. This has led many times to irreversible damage to local martial arts culture. For example:

China- Masters killed, put in camps, etc. Most left the country for Hong Kong, Japan, USA, etc. Many documents were also destroyed by roving groups of youths following the call to 'cleanse' China of all old culture. Mao kicked the bucket, however martial arts culture in a lot of mainland china now equals contemporary wushu and sanshao.

Korea- Japanese occupation stamped out local martial arts that already had undergone a long period of reduced popularity. The martial arts you see today are mostly Japanese in origin.

Cambodia- The local martial art of Pradal Serey almost died along with a good portion of the masters. It is now a revival art, however it seems to be almost identical to MT which makes how much of the original art was preserved unclear.

Japan- Yeah, Japan. After defeat in WWII the Allies wanted to get rid of the martial culture that had been heavily promoted during the war. Thus they decided to ban martial arts.

Russia- I'm a bit hazy on Russian MAs, but needless to say I believe that even the guys who developed sambo for Russia where eventually killed in gulags.

[Johnlogic121]

That's an excellant message post. It was a pleasure to read and very informative on the question that started the thread. The only thing that I could add is that modern Bujinkan Ninjutsu was even banned in certain Asian countries because the officials thought that the art of the Ninja would be teaching people how to do assassinations. That set of skills really isn't a part of the general Budo Taijutsu curriculum, even though some ancient Ninja did use stealth to annihilate single targets and thus avoid mass conflicts. I overheard a high level Bujinkan instructor named Phil LeGare talk about this banning problem, but I never got a chance to ask him about what country or countries were imposing the banning. Ninjutsu is common throughout most of the free world, however. -JL.

[FortuneCookie]

Totalitarian regimes tend to ban martial arts. This has led many times to irreversible damage to local martial arts culture. For example:

China- Masters killed, put in camps, etc. Most left the country for Hong Kong, Japan, USA, etc. Many documents were also destroyed by roving groups of youths following the call to 'cleanse' China of all old culture. Mao kicked the bucket, however martial arts culture in a lot of mainland china now equals contemporary wushu and sanshao.

Korea- Japanese occupation stamped out local martial arts that already had undergone a long period of reduced popularity. The martial arts you see today are mostly Japanese in origin.

Cambodia- The local martial art of Pradal Serey almost died along with a good portion of the masters. It is now a revival art, however it seems to be almost identical to MT which makes how much of the original art was preserved unclear.

Japan- Yeah, Japan. After defeat in WWII the Allies wanted to get rid of the martial culture that had been heavily promoted during the war. Thus they decided to ban martial arts.

Russia- I'm a bit hazy on Russian MAs, but needless to say I believe that even the guys who developed sambo for Russia where eventually killed in gulags.

I doubt that last one. Sambo was one of the only legal arts in the Sovjet Union. It was the official replacement of the other arts.

[Wolfman08]

I'm pretty sure the founders of Sambo were killed in the gulags. I don't think the reason had anything to do with them founding Sambo though.

[JusticeZero]

Capoeira was illegalized in Brazil for quite some time, since it was generally practiced by people who, due to institutional racism, were unemployable and thus prone to turn to crime. It was being used in combat by the wrong element too much, so it was banned. It was only made legal after Mestre Bimba sold the government on his repackaged, sanitized methodology and curriculum that was re-marketed for the upper class populace and police; after that form had gained acceptance, other practitioners were able to come out and be accepted within that framework.

[isshinryu5toforever]

KMAs were dead before the Japanese ban. The ban wasn't really all that effective anyways. Korea is extremely mountainous, and the ban could only really be policed in big cities.

In China also, I think most of the masters had already fled during their war with Japan. That was a much longer period than we study in school in the US.

Then again, the person just asked when martial arts were banned, not the details I suppose.

[Thoop]

Japan- Yeah, Japan. After defeat in WWII the Allies wanted to get rid of the martial culture that had been heavily promoted during the war. Thus they decided to ban martial arts.

The ban during the U.S. occupation hardly did anything to Japanese Martial arts, people still practiced them, just as Capoeira continued to be practiced by people after it was banned, and how the Japanese ban on Korean martial arts practice didn't prevent the Koreans from doing what they wanted.

The really sad thing was the complete annihilation of Okinawa during the Typhoon of Steel. In addition to some 142000 civilians alone dying, ninety percent of the buildings were destroyed. I suspect that along with the people and the buildings and the books more knowledge was lost about the origins and practical side of karate than any government has ever been able to accomplish with a law.

[isshinryu5toforever]

That's the thing about a ban on something like martial arts, it's incredibly hard to carry out. There is just too much area to cover. Too many people.