Where do you see Martial Arts going over the next few year??

[craknek]

I think the Martial Arts will stay where its at, or go down, here in the United States at least. I mainly think like this because for the most part we have alot of Lazy people here. I know of a lot of kids who go to classes, and we might only see them once a week, or they may just drop out. Its pitiful. I go to other schools and observe there workouts, to see if I can get any ideas (always trying to better myself) and when I watch the kids do there warmups and exercise, they just lay there on the mat, and these are supposed to be brown and black belts They would rather be at home watching cartoons or something, which i cant blame them.

 

Most adults that I know, can not always find the time needed to give to Martial Arts. I know I get very very fustrated when I can not find time to do what I need to do, because I have to work late, or my wife needs me to do something.... I can not dedicate the 2-3 hours I would like to it each night or day.

 

Besides that, I think alot of the people I have met along the way, only want to get black belt to boast about it, so they can think there a regular Johnny Be Badas.s, and they dont take the art seriously, which means they dont attend regular training sessions,they dont help out new people etc etc.

 

Hopefully, I am wrong and MA will take off to new heights... or maybe we will see a new movements in MA, where you see more and more people who train themselves in a Vale Tudo or JKD kinda concept for real world use and MMA tourneys.

 

The other thing is, I think alot of people dont understand the MA, and when they see people doing Katas or Poosmes or whatever, they think "I dont wanna do that stuff", looking at it as to much work, to complicated, or something they dont see themselves doing. I think thats why alot of people have decided to go to a more real world approach of combat and self defense, which is why BJJ, Boxing, Vale Tudo, even some forms of street fighting have become very popular. If the MA's do stay alive, I believe it will be because of the more in your face arts.

 

Nick

[Withers M.A.A.]

craknek those are some very good points. I couldn't agree with you more. Forms are great because of their historic value and can help develop certain techniques and are great for demos and stuff but people nowadays want to learn real world techniques.

[monkeygirl]

In MA entertainment, you can't watch TV for an hour without seeing SOMETHING. Think of all the shows: Alias, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and others. Plus then there's commercials...PowerAde, women's deodorant, even men's hair replacement commercials (when the men bow, you can see their full head of hair)! Heck, my Health textbook for school has a picture of a blackbelt in white gi doing a sidekick (nice form, too)...it's under Stress Management

 

Martial Arts are everywhere you turn. The face of MA movies seem to be changing into more comedy-based (Shanghai Noon/Knights, other Jackie Chan films, plus a new one with that guy from "Dude, Where's My Car?") films... the "buddy movies" seem to very popular right now. I haven't seen a Bruce Lee style "betrayal of the Shaolin Temple" or "going to a tournament held by evil people" movie in a long time.

 

MA is even going to be in television (more so than now, anyway)...I have heard rumors of a show called "The Black Sash" about a Mr. Miyagi-type Sensei teaching his students moral values as well as butt-whooping skills. Unfortunately, the show has been given a terrible time slot: Sundays @ 9:00 on the WB. (Starts Sunday, March 30th!) That means it's goin directly head-to-head with Alias. This is silly, because the WB tried to run Angel on the same time slot, but then switched it to Wendesday. At least I have a VCR!

 

Finally, there's Black Belt TV. This should get a major boom in the MA industry.

 

That's entertainment-wise, anyway.

[craknek]

Monkeygirl,

 

You are right, every where you turn, there is MA... but that is also a bad thing. Your probably wondering, How?? Its giving alot of exporsure to MA??

 

Problem is, when you watch shows with MA in it or movies, the moves they do are fantastic.. and it would take people many meany years to get to that skill level. So people watch these movies with Jackie Chan, they play there lil video games with ninjas, they watch Alias do some kicks and flips.. etc etc.. they go and sign up for MA.. thinking that stuff is soooo awesome looking!!. Then reality sets in. They find out that to even learn all the basics of the MA, they have to become a Black Belt, they find out that the real advanced stuff dont come till after you make BB, they find out that there style of MA doesnt teach them what they saw on TV, they get there butt kicked by someone because they thought they could fight 10 guys like Jackie Chan can, etc etc, the list is endless.

 

This is one of the major reasons why sooo many people quit the MA's, or quit after they get there BB. My friend went to a 9th Degree Grandmaster in TKD not to long ago (Name is Sun Tok Choe, located in lakeland, Florida.) he actually asked him if he could teach him the buddhiusts Palm, the iron palm, if he could teach him nerve blocks, etc etc.. because he sees all this stuff on TV. When the Grandmaster told him No, and when I told him No, he decided to forget it, and not even take MA... Due to the hype and over-exposure of the media and entertainment, people have an unrealistic Mindset when it comes to practing the Art. Shame...

 

Nick

[monkeygirl]

Good point, craknek. There's the original question again: where do we go from here? MA has such a huge popularity right now, can it only go downhill? My sincere hope is that MA become as common as football, baseball, basketball, hockey, you name it. I hope that people order martial arts fights (of all disciplines) on Pay-Per-View, not just UFC fights. Perhaps they alread do, I'm not familiar with PPV.

 

I want to see MA have a "season" like other sports...practiced all year long, but competition having a television season. I want to see a competition on NBC every week, like Monday Night Football. I want to see College Leagues! I think it would be incredible to have the sport aspect of martial arts be just as common as other televised sports.

 

Unfortunately, that means calling martial arts "sports" instead of ways of life. It would be hard to keep them seperate. For example: my school does many things that aren't used in competition, that aren't measured in any tournament. Still we keep them because that's part of the art. Will professional martial artists be reduced to doing nothing but competitive training; i.e. breaking, point sparring, forms, tournament self-defense, etc.? Or will we see more kinds of competition springing up, to encompass the whole of martial arts training? It would be difficult, but where there's a will there's a way, right?

[craknek]

I understand what you are saying. ALot of people dont want to have the ART taken out of there martial art... but in all honesty, I still consider what I do an Art. Even then we do not focus that much on Forms and what have you, in our TKD class, just learning it to me is an art. Learning how to do the kicks, the breaks,throws, and yes even breaking boards.

 

The forms and Katas, are just one side of many of Martial Arts, and people should not think of it as just 'sport'. For many Football players, playing is a Way of life for them, even though it is a sport, for many boxers, it is a way of life for them, even though they fight for sport. Fighting for sport is great, as it gives you a chance to show what you and your ART can do against others. Kinda like the Iron Chef lol they get out there once a week, and they have a cook off, to show what they and there STYLE or ART of cooking can do =).

 

Nick

[crash]

I want to see MA have a "season" like other sports...practiced all year long, but competition having a television season. I want to see a competition on NBC every week, like Monday Night Football. I want to see College Leagues! I think it would be incredible to have the sport aspect of martial arts be just as common as other televised sports.

 

this has been tried before, starting in the early to mid 80's by the P.K.A., sad that it basically turned into nothing but a boxing type event. and the rules were easily worked around, contestants could even be just boxers as long as they threw at least 8 kicks per round., and we have to face the fact that point fighting, forms and weapons comps. will never be exciting enough for the general public to be made into a professional sport type event. thats why most tournament dont get a huge spectator base from the general public.

[Withers M.A.A.]

Crash you have some good points but I somewhat disagree on one thing. YOu stated "we have to face the fact that point fighting, forms and weapons comps. will never be exciting enough for the general public to be made into a professional sport type event" and I agree with the point fighting side of this. But, the forms and weapons side with the way we include acrobatics and fast techniques the general public is somewhat starting to relate. There was a show 60 seconds of fame where 3 kids did a synchronized form (open style) and they won the competition. They had the crowd on their feet. Maybe this is only one case in point but if more exposure was brought to this type of competition who knows where things might lead.

 

Pete

[BKJ1216]

Well it seems intresting because there are currently 90 people in all 3 beggining adult classes at my dojo.

[crash]

Withers M.A.A, true I've seen some demo teams who could really get a crowd excited, and I personally love to see demo's such as this, but I dont see it becoming a professional sporting type event with a huge following. it would probably be turned into more a cheerleading/aerobics comp. type thing. which may or maynot be a bad thing, what do you think? if it were something like this would ppl train more for just show or would self defence still be a primary reason for training.?