martial arts

martial arts The martial, or fighting arts are among humankind's oldest avocations. The urge to fight and compete, whether between individuals or groups, arises with every new generation, and becomes channelled or sublimated in various ways in different cultures. In earliest times tribes fought with each other, invading and defending territories; individuals within tribes fought for leadership, prestige, goods, and mates. As societies became larger and more complex, the importance of warriors and military effectiveness increased. Children mimicked martial heroes (just as in modern times children's games have included cowboys, cops and robbers, spies, space warriors, computer combat, and so forth), and successful warriors often went on to become kings or nobles.

Martial arts also lie at the root of competitive sports, whether sanitized by erecting a barrier between players to eliminate physical contact while hitting a ball as a substitute for pummelling blows (tennis, volleyball, baseball), or intellectualized in a game like chess in which the armies of two kingdoms seek to kill each other until ‘checkmate’, — an Anglicization of the Arabic sheikh mat (‘the sheik is dead’). As in war, success in sports requires strategy and tactics. The very same skills that can mean the difference between life and death in combat — speed, agility, strength, determination, reflexes, stamina, timing, vigorous training, and surprise — spell success in sports.

Outside today's military, martial arts are still cultivated for physical and even spiritual improvement. Martial competitions have become sporting events, where one puts one's body and sometimes even one's life on the line, though there have been many attempts to transform sports such as boxing, wrestling, judo, and karate into safer events where points, rather than lasting bodily damage, determine the winner. The Japanese, for example, differentiate between jutsu and do, the former designating a fighting art, such as ju-jutsu, and the latter its modification into a sport form, such as ju-do. In modern Chinese the term for martial arts, ‘wushu’, implies demonstrations of movements, often closer to dance or gymnastics than fighting.

Many ancient cultures extolled martial arts, whether in epics (the Iliad or Mahåbharåta) or in artifacts (Egyptian tomb paintings or the vast life-sized terracotta army buried with China's first Emperor, Shi Huangdi, in the third century bce. From India's warrior caste arose such spiritual progenitors as the Buddha and Mahåvira (putative founder of Jainism) and the mythical Arjuna, hero of the Bhagavad Gitå. The warrior's existential proximity to death could engender deep philosophical and religious reflections on the meaning of life. Hence the most prominent patrons of Zen Buddhism, when it was imported to Japan, were the samurai, primarily due to the fearlessness toward life or death displayed by many Zen masters.

The origins of East Asian martial arts are murky. The ancient Chinese produced an extensive literary tradition of martial classics on strategy and tactics, the most famous work being Sunzi (Sun Tzu), attributed to a military genius of the sixth to fifth centuries bce. It applied principles similar to those found in early Daoist works, such as the Laozi (Lao Tzu), to military matters like the deployment of troops, adapting to terrain, using spies, how a smaller force can overcome a larger force, and so on. Daoist notions, such as the soft or gentle overcoming the hard, became foundational martial principles. They underly the judo axiom, ‘use the opponent's force to overcome him’, or the Taijiquan axiom, ‘four ounces overcomes a thousand pounds.’

Chinese martial arts apparently disseminated elsewhere into Asia during the Tang dynasty (649–712) since an early Korean martial art is called Tang Su do (Way of Tang Boxing). Another Korean style, Tae Kwon Do, with some of the most powerful kicks of any martial art, developed later. Tang Su was introduced to Okinawa, where the Chinese characters were pronounced Kara-te (kara = Tang; te = su: ‘hand, fist, boxing’), which meant ‘Chinese boxing’. In 1922, in an effort to nationalize the art and strip it of its Chinese origins, the Japanese substituted another character, also pronounced kara, meaning ‘empty’, so that Karate came to mean ‘empty fist’ rather than ‘Tang hand’ (or boxing). Many Japanese karate katas, or sets of practice movements, still resemble those used in Tang Su do. In Japan the newly nationalized Karate was one of several new sport forms: judo and aikido (grappling and locks) developed from ju-jutsu (holds and throws) in 1882 and 1925 respectively. Kendo, a sport version of ken-jutsu (swordsmanship), began roughly a century earlier, swords often being called the soul of the samurai and the soul of Japan. Sumo wrestling and a host of weapon jutsus (halberd, staff, etc.) have an older history, many going back to the tenth century. In Asian cultures, where martial arts have long been considered national, even religious treasures, demonstrations of martial art prowess by individuals, groups, and children are often integral parts of religious and national festivals. Chinese customs such as lion dances, in which one or more people perform acrobatically while shrouded in a lion costume, were originally martial displays.

In the first half of the twentieth century, Westerners became aware of Asian fighting arts, mostly in their Japanese forms, as popularized by the ju-jutsu in Mr Moto movies (starring Peter Lorre) and the fierce karate techniques of Japanese soldiers during World War II. Breaking boards and bricks with bare hands seemed impressive, almost magical. Sailors brought kick-boxing techniques back to Mediterranean ports, labelling the ‘new’ sport Savate. It was not until the 1970s, with the international stardom of Bruce Lee, that Westerners gained an appreciation for the Chinese martial arts. Today many Asian styles of martial arts are practised in the West, including Thai boxing, Chinese Taijiquan, Burmese Bando, and even several rare arts from India, such as Binot. By the end of the twentieth century American Yokozunas (Sumo Grand Masters) — such as the Hawaiians, Akebono and Musashimaru — began to emerge: a shock to Japanese sensibilities since Sumo is intimately associated with the imperial prestige of the Emperor.

Dan Lusthaus

See also boxing; killing; sport; war; wrestling.