The Martial Arts Is Dead!?!

[sensei8]

From time to time I'll read/hear someone spout their disdainful feelings about the MA. This scornful person usually gets nothing from me in the term of an argument because for the most part my words would only fall on deaf ears; a tree is a tree for a good reason.

"The martial arts is dead!"

Really?

Courts say that the next kin must be notified, and I'm the next kin and nobody notified me. Where's the death certificate?

If the MA is dead, then what is it that lives within me that keeps changing me one technique at a time!!

The MA is dead...uh...no it's not. The MA is alive and well!!

[Wastelander]

I usually hear this as "traditional martial arts are dead" which just makes me chuckle a little. I think that the martial arts are evolving, but they were always intended to evolve.

The people who tend to say that martial arts or traditional martial arts are "dead" are usually the same people who have never trained in traditional martial arts, or if they have it was usually for a few months when they were 12, and so they are looking down on something they know nothing about.

[Dobbersky]

Totally agree the "Gamers" or those who study "Sofa fu"

I love it when the audience boo wrestling, UFC or similar but they're predominantly supporting a 40+ BMI

[vantheman]

Tradition is a relative term in my opinion. What may be considered tradition today may seem absurd in 50-100 years. What people are criticizing for being to "modern" may be the tradition of the future. In the end (as long as you are not a professional fighter), as long as you can defend yourself, you are okay. As for martial arts being dead– it's not – end of story

[MasterPain]

I can just imagine Nietzsche's madman yelling in the streets that Karate is dead and that we are it's murderers. What are these dojos if not the tombs and sepulchers of Karate?

I'm afraid his time is not yet come. We can't accept it. Even a Chuck Norris roundhouse takes time.

[evergrey]

My little dojo's ADULT class is so full that we barely manage to fit on the mat for a lot of drills, and kumite when the whole class is doing it at once gets pretty crazy!

I think we'd be pretty surprised to find out that we're "dead."

[IcemanSK]

I think there's an ebb & flow to what is "in" with atheltics or training or MA. So, folks remember the popularity of X, or Y & say, "since it's not like it was, X is dead." Heck, it can simply be, "since it's not like I REMEMBER IT, it must be dead."

Living in Southern California, what's hot is minute to minute. There's lots of nostaglia, but little sense of history. Here we have guys like Benny Urquidez & "Judo" Gene LeBell. Even Gene was considered by some to be "outdated" or a "has been" until he started coaching Ronda Roussey. Now, he's a genius & contemporary.....again.

It will come around again.

[still kicking]

Quoting Wastelander:

The people who tend to say that martial arts or traditional martial arts are "dead" are usually the same people who have never trained in traditional martial arts, or if they have it was usually for a few months when they were 12, and so they are looking down on something they know nothing about.

I agree completely. In the words of Bob Dylan, "don't criticize what you can't understand".

[Zaine]

If Martial Arts are dead, why are there still so many movies based around it? Why do they still make money? Those who say that the Martial Arts are dead are often taught that by someone who, at one point, took it and thought it was stupid because of all the work that went into it so there was no instant gratification, or by someone who encountered a white belt who got cocky and then they beat them up because they didn't know what they were doing. Martial Arts are very much alive, you can't kill something that many people still flock to, it's as much of a way of life as it is a way of defending yourself and you don't hear anyone yelling out how other ways of life are dead. Others yell that it is outdated, but that is false as well. As Martial Artists we sometimes learn life lessons that help us strive and move past our peers in the personal. And professional worlds that those who didn't take Martial Arts could never had hoped for.

[Drew]

From time to time I'll read/hear someone spout their disdainful feelings about the MA. This scornful person usually gets nothing from me in the term of an argument because for the most part my words would only fall on deaf ears; a tree is a tree for a good reason.

"The martial arts is dead!"

Really?

Courts say that the next kin must be notified, and I'm the next kin and nobody notified me. Where's the death certificate?

If the MA is dead, then what is it that lives within me that keeps changing me one technique at a time!!

The MA is dead...uh...no it's not. The MA is alive and well!!

If those people are any clue, proper grammar is dead.