Where did Martial Arts originate from?

[boxingking]

Asking who invented martial arts is like asking who invented relationships and such.

I blieve as long as humans have been around so was martial arts. i mean if you look at it people of the old age wrestled with aligators and animals and from wrestling they probably threw couple of punches and kicks to subdue the animal.

ofcourse weapon was used againts prehistoric monsters and people I blieve lived in tribes so they had there own system of self-defense for there time and enviorment which is a martial art, albet the art of it might not be very evolved and artistic.

But other then that the popluar answer which is the traditional sense is, ofcourse the legend of the yogi who came in to shaolin temple and we all know the rest...

[DoctorQui]

of course weapon was used againts prehistoric monsters...

I love this post! Its got to be quote of the month surely!

I agree though, while modern and traditional martial arts we know today originated in the orient martial arts has been around since early man could pummel his fellow early man with his fists, feet or a large bone!!

Refined MA though, I agree with Dobbers, probably started in some of the first civilisations and probably dates back 4-5000 BC in the middle east at the very least.

[Harkon72]

With civilization came organised Warriorship. The security of society from the threat of other humans gave man a new way of thinking as he prepared for war.

[shango]

With civilization came organised Warriorship. The security of society from the threat of other humans gave man a new way of thinking as he prepared for war.

Soceities developed martial arts based on need...The word civilization is used too often to know exactly what each individual using that term means by it. Micronesians developed Bwang, but would not have a society which took the path some would accept as a civilization. Bwang, according to the works of William Lessa, was a highly evolved Micronesian martial art which survives throughout the various Micronesian atolls to this day (such as in Truk).

That's just one example. We may have to change our current, often outdated views relative to how and why our species developed (and continue to develope) the cultural practices we have so far documented.

[Harkon72]

I suppose once humans felt they had any assets, or something to lose, they trained in order to protect it.

[Dobbersky]

Awesome, just re-read the thread, some excellent well researched posts, thank you everyone

So from what I can see, and its something that has been stated many times, as long as there has been human life there has been martial arts, its stated in the Old Testiment and in the Quran and other religious scripts so there's our evidence

OSU

[Himokiri Karate]

Awesome, just re-read the thread, some excellent well researched posts, thank you everyone

So from what I can see, and its something that has been stated many times, as long as there has been human life there has been martial arts, its stated in the Old Testiment and in the Quran and other religious scripts so there's our evidence

OSU

I would like to add to that as a guy who is a student of chinese martial arts and has stdudied judo, I would say that shuia jaio and judo are kind of like a long lost brothers as are chin-na is to Aikido.

Aside from boxing, when Im practicing various forms of chinese martial arts, it amazes me how similar shuai jaio is to judo and my sifu said that despite cultural difference as well as the way you intiate the moves, the end result of both the arts are to perform a "throw" and that the human body can twist,bend so many way.

So inconclusion two different masters from two different culture from two different parts of the world can come up with the same technique based on the limitation of the human anatomy.

[Narchie96]

We see the most popular Martial Art sport on TV called Mixed Martial Arts. We consider Bruce Lee the father of MMA, but the ancestor of modern MMA goes back to the land Kush (modern-day Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Kenya) called Pan Kau Ra Shen translated as Fighting with the Spirit of Ra. Ra is Egypt’s deity, God of the Sun. The Greeks were the first Europeans to encounter the Africans and learned the system from the Kushites and brought it back to Greece and renamed the Pankration (all force, all powers), and they took with them Kemet’s and Kush’s deities and renamed them Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Ares, Apollo, Dionysus, Aphrodite etc. So Pan Kau Ra Shen is the actual original Mixed Martial Art and the Kushites are the forefathers of MMA

Via:

https://africanbloodsiblings.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/origins-of-martial-arts-the-real-history-by-jonathan-bynoe/

[sensei8]

We see the most popular Martial Art sport on TV called Mixed Martial Arts. We consider Bruce Lee the father of MMA, but the ancestor of modern MMA goes back to the land Kush (modern-day Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Kenya) called Pan Kau Ra Shen translated as Fighting with the Spirit of Ra. Ra is Egypt’s deity, God of the Sun. The Greeks were the first Europeans to encounter the Africans and learned the system from the Kushites and brought it back to Greece and renamed the Pankration (all force, all powers), and they took with them Kemet’s and Kush’s deities and renamed them Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Ares, Apollo, Dionysus, Aphrodite etc. So Pan Kau Ra Shen is the actual original Mixed Martial Art and the Kushites are the forefathers of MMA

Via:

https://africanbloodsiblings.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/origins-of-martial-arts-the-real-history-by-jonathan-bynoe/

Welcome to KF; glad that you're here!!

Solid post!!

Aren't we humans a curious creation? We've got to know about everything, and this is good for us!! Interesting points, and the link supported that.

[guird]

millions of years ago, when animals evolved the instinct to playfight. The human branch of learning to fight is just a continuation of that. If you don't want to classify animals improving their fighting abillities as martial ats, it was when the first creatures that could be called human became old enough to wrestle.