Why a martial "art"?

[sgoss1]

What are the reasons for considering this endeavor--the practice of a fighting system--an art?

Of course I have my own ideas but I’m interested to know what others think about this.

I posed this question to a couple of my students the other night, and their responses were pretty much the same. In the interest of brevity, their points boiled down to these: The effort of sequentially controlling groups of muscles to achieve a desired result, and the history associated with the practice. Of course, they cited the conceptual changes that occur (read: the “spiritual” aspect) as well.

But doesn’t a professional baseball player, or any athlete, do the same thing? At what point does a system of kempo, or jutsu, become an art? Does calling it an art simply make it more palatable for some who just cannot come to terms practicing a fighting system?

SG

[eric235u]

i remember reading somewhere at fightingarts.com about the history of the term "martial art". i came away with the feeling of a marketing ploy by circus preformers and thugs in china. but who knows. sport and art overlap and you draw your line. i think...

[benzocaine]

I think the word art comes into play when you consider that every person's interpretation of a movement will be different than the next. Just like Music is art.... especially classical piano, or another that had no othe way of being heard again but by written notes. People of taday can never hear how Chopin played piano. We'll never know what parts of the song he played more pasionately than the next, or how hard he hit the keys.

This is very much the same when we study an ancient combat system's forms. We will never know what Kanbun's Kata looked like when he studied it in China, nor willwe know what Shushiwa's looked like. All we have are kata passed along from person to person.

It's upto us to emphasize certain parts of the kata over others. And it willlook different every time we do it. It changes day to day.

[IJ]

Isn't there a fair amount of art involved in the more traditional martial arts? A lot of them are fascinating to watch, and are done artfully. There's a bunch of ceremony, tradition, and philosophy as well. Recently there have been some fighters in the mixed martial arts who refer to their "XXX fighting system." They seem to be pretty result oriented and look at the fighting as a science or a means to an end rather than an end in itself. When they call it an "Art" it seems to be more because that term is in common use rather than the word as a special designation.

[Bruise* Lee]

I was told, and it makes sense to me that martial arts originally are practiced by one of 3 groups : thugs, police or military. These are the people that have a reason to learn how to hurt someone else.

Often during times of peace, or when the trained person gets older and wants to make a livign with what they learned - they teach it to the intellectuals, the aristocrats (read: sissy wanting to be tough), and other pansys. To make it palatable they give it all sorts of spiritual or artistic accessories. A punch in the face becomes "pink flamingo shakes its neck", kicking a man into unconsciousness becomes "tired tiger plays in the daffodils" and kneeing a man in the stomach becomes "precocious cat vomits a hairball".

[sgoss1]

I like that one! Now we're getting down to the core of it!

SG

[Bill Glasheen]

My two thoughts have been articulated.

Way back whenever, my first (Japanese) karate instructor taught what he considered sacred ways. By lineage he was samurai class, and he most definitely was one of those 2 percenters who you might send off to special forces training. He had that attitude that you just can't teach. I see it in a few others like Rory.

What Rory teaches his prison guard and what Rich's Marines teach the boys going to Iraq is serious business. In maximum security facilities, they play for keeps. Those boys would put a shiv in Rory's back in a New York second, and then go eat a cheeseburger. Blowing up Marines for al qaeda videos is big stuff for the religious whackos looking to recruit more religious whackos. That's the real deal. That's life-and-death stuff.

There are lesser uses of deadly force. These boys and LEOs have to understand and employ the force continuum. That means that a LEO or Marine must know that someone with a video cell phone or CNN may be watching, and they can't just off some mouthy citizen looking to pick a fight. They must use the amount of force required to get the job done. And they must be skilled at going to exactly the level that is required at any one point in time.

And then the soldier must deal with the psychological barriers against killing that is bred into our DNA. They must be able to do what is necessary, and deal for a lifetime with the psychological aftereffects.

Meanwhile...

A hundred generations away from a great war and tough times, it would be good to know what techniques were used by these warriors. We can call a punch a punch and a choke-out a choke-out. But it might be nice to extract the essence of human movement from the serious context that few choose to engage in. I personally don't need to or want to get my ass blown up by an IED in Iraq. I'm 51 years old and have 2 kids in school. But I do like to live a bit of the warrior way, and I do like it that I've indirectly influenced the training of troops and law officers who must do this for a living. What I do is encapsulated in an art. We keep it serious because it is serious business. We teach human movement, and teach people how spontaneously to express that movement in a freeform environment. We may even teach them to perform these movements under serious stress so they learn about the Survival Stress Response and all the capabilities/limitations associated with it. But I have no intention of going off to war or becoming a police officer. I can, have, and will protect myself and my family, and even traverse the force continuum by training with and owning weapons. But my life isn't about killing or fighting or keeping the peace. I am warrior scientist - not a warrior. I am who I am, and I love what I do.

And I know just enough to be able to pass "the real deal" on to a next generation that may become involved in World War III. I preserve a piece of history with my art, and do so in a way that it can be used in context when and only when needed.

- Bill

[gmattson]

We do what we have to do.

Right now, we can be peaceful warriors and preserve the nasty stuff for whenever we must become what the art was originally created for!

Make no mistake, the "nasty" is in the art!

[sgoss1]

"the "nasty" is in the art!"

Another good one!

Or is it…the art is in the nasty………..

In pondering Bill's post, one may come to the conclusion that practicing what we do "in the abstract" (my words, not Bill's) sets it apart from application, at least as far as a label is concerned. Would the actual application be called something else than what we do under controlled conditions? For example, is it art when practiced in the abstract and pure fighting when applied?

According to the Busbishi, the formalized fighting systems were practiced by the sub-class of samurai (I forget the term now)—who worked as police. I doubt it was considered art at that time.

Based on my poor knowledge of martial arts history, I’m under the (mis?)understanding that the concept of “do”, belt ranks and gi, were a Japanese contribution to the practice of karate. So, when Funakoshi left Okinawa to introduce karate to the masses, was the idea changed to one of a more holistic (for lack of a better term) approach with emphasis placed on the mind/body/spirit thing? If so, why?

As Buise*Lee points out, did the focus of attention veer away from a pure fighting system to the idea of a “way of, or “do”, so the sissies and pansies could practice without getting their hands dirty?

SG

[Oldfist]

Here's a very thoughtful and thought provoking article that I liked very much.

The Meaning of the Martial Arts: Some Reflections Along the Way
by Diane Skoss

http://www.koryubooks.com/library/dskoss6.html

It's pretty long, so I'll include only a few passages here below:

<snip>

"One important thing I've discovered since my return to the U.S. after more than a decade in Japan is that the English term 'martial arts' is not at all equivalent to either standard Japanese term, 'budo' or 'bujutsu.' We have here in the States a 'martial arts industry,' much of which appears to me to be a grotesque, almost farcical, distortion of what I believe to be most valuable about these arts. Catering to 'clients' is a topic of serious discussion among some instructors, and 'Kardio Kick-boxing' is all the rage. "

<snip>

"So, instead, I'm trying to remember to reply, 'Oh, I study Japanese budo.' This is more likely to lead to reasonable questions by the uninitiated, and gives me a chance to explain that Japanese martial arts are not necessarily similar to media portrayals in the West. "

"But, if I tell a fellow Japanese martial artist that I practice budo, a whole new set of misunderstandings arise. Donn Draeger, who paved the way for all of us who pursue the classical arts, oversimplified some of his definitions. He was one of the first to write systematically about Japanese martial arts, in his Martial Arts and Ways of Japan series, and many take his dichotomy of budo and bujutsu (further divided into classical and modern) as gospel. We learn, when we read Draeger, that budo is translated 'martial way.' Arts whose names end in the suffix -do are modern developments with a fair degree of emphasis on character building and "spiritual forging." (The notion of 'michi' or "do" is an important part of Japanese culture and like most other ideas in Japan, everyone there shares a similar understanding of what it means to be a 'follower of the way.' This is less immediately understood in the West.) Bujutsu, on the other hand, is 'martial technique or skill'; arts whose names end in -jutsu are the 'real' fighting arts that gave rise to the more civilized (others say weaker) budo. Values have come to be attached to the terms--some view bujutsu as barbaric and crude, while others see budo as emasculated shadows of noble predecessors. "

"Naturally, neither view is true, and the dichotomy (with or without the values) is not so simple. While the do/jutsu contrast certainly describes aspects of different approaches to any given Japanese art, it simply is not used to neatly categorize and characterize the arts in Japan. Yagyu Nobuharu, headmaster of the venerable Yagyu Shinkage-ryu tradition of heiho, sometimes refers to his art as kendo, even though it is quite clearly classical kenjutsu and not at all related to modern kendo. The two most respected organizations in Japan devoted to the promotion of the remaining classical Japanese traditions (koryu bujutsu) are the Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, and the Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai. No 'jutsu' in either name, yet the membership is comprised virtually exclusively of classical warrior traditions, with names ending in -jutsu. And if one were to use the distinction that jutsu arts are practiced 'for real' while the do arts are practiced for self-perfection, you'd find that, in Japan at least, only the police and the military are practicing jutsu. The rest of us, no matter what we might like to think, are actually practicing a "way," since we have no opportunity to face an armor-clad sword-wielding opponent in real life. And some "ways" (whether do or jutsu) include practical methods of "real" fighting. "

"In my opinion, almost all Japanese martial arts contain within them aspects of jutsu and aspects of do. Different teachers may well emphasize one or the other. One of my teachers has taught me that you enter the do through the vehicle of the jutsu. In other (my) words, one uses the perfecting of killing techniques to progress along the way of perfecting one's life. There's danger, in my opinion, in striving too directly for spiritual enlightenment, without the tempering of striking to kill and being struck at to be killed (even when the blows are stopped just short of the target). It is often far too easy in these situations for the movements to lose their inherent 'truth' as valid fighting techniques and to degenerate into little more than a choreographed dance sequence. Learning to give and receive the combative intention is vital. Yet, there's equal danger in concentrating merely on learning to disable and kill without transforming the techniques into a confrontation with the soul. "

"I simply no longer bother making the distinction when I describe my training as budo, even though most of the arts I practice have names that end in -jutsu. Instead of the do/jutsu distinction, I've found it more useful to characterize arts based on when they were founded, by whom, and for what purposes. I make one large general distinction between classical (koryu = old traditions) and modern (gendai = present-day generation) arts. The gendai budo in Japan are officially listed by the Ministry of Education, and include judo, kendo/iaido/jodo, kyudo, sumo, karatedo, aikido, Shorinji kempo, atarashii naginata, and jukendo/tankendo (you may wonder why a few arts are lumped together; this is because they are officially administered by a single organization). Beginning in the Meiji period, these arts (except sumo, which has a very ancient history indeed) were distilled from earlier fighting arts (the koryu bujutsu) and were designed largely to promote physical and moral education. Most include instructional methods and curricula that can be used with larger groups. Formalized competition was also developed in most of these modern arts as a training method to test the mettle of the trainee and the efficacy of technique. Unfortunately, several arts--for example, judo, jukendo, and competitive aikido--are in danger of becoming indistinguishable from sports, where rules, points and winning are important considerations during training."

"At the opposite end of the continuum from the gendai budo and martial-based sports are the koryu bujutsu, or classical martial traditions of the Japanese warrior. Strictly speaking these are the arts that were developed by Japanese warriors for use on the battlefield, and they trace their origins to before the beginning of the Tokugawa era. Maniwa Nen-ryu, Katori Shinto-ryu, and Takenouchi-ryu are among the few traditions from this period that still survive. During the peaceful Edo period, arts continued to evolve or be created by the warrior bureaucracy, these 'warrior arts' are apt to contain a more obvious spiritual component and often focus on one portion of the overall martial curriculum, specializing in one weapon, for example. Most classical schools of sword-drawing arose in this period, and a number of arts were refined from earlier battlefield traditions to answer the needs of training the peacetime warrior in the use of his weapons. But the Japanese warrior remained a man-at-arms, his status announced by the two swords (daisho) he carried."


<snip>

"Finally, to get back to the goal of training in the martial arts. It is, to me at this particular point in my training, a simple one.The late Ueshiba Kisshomaru summed it up in a comment to my husband. "If you train every day, by the time you reach the end of your life, you'll be able to look back and say, 'I trained.' That's really all there is to it." In Japan I learned from my teachers and dojo mates that the meaning of martial arts was simply training, week after week, year after year. Insights quietly blossom, are nurtured, to sprout further understandings. Training is the way."

[sgoss1]

John,

Interesting and enlightening.

But then, this is reflective of Japanese attitudes. At the point the systems of Okinawa were being spread throughout the world, is this what the Okinawan intent was? Of course, I have no way of knowing......and most likely will never know.

So it comes down to a personal understanding--how an individual sees his or her own take on the practice of martial arts. It's very clear how the author of the piece felt. But how do we all feel as individuals? We come from a very different type of culture, yet we practice something devised by a culture that looks at the world in very different ways than we do. Try as we might, the Western mind has a hard time wrapping itself around Eastern attitudes.

The work you presented brings up a lot of questions, though; questions that prompted me to ask in the first place.

Steve

[TSDguy]

What are the reasons for considering this endeavor--the practice of a fighting system--an art?

Art: A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building.

[sgoss1]

Miriam Webster says something like: The application of knowlege, experience and skill.

By definition, what we do is art.

But my question remains...do we see it as art because of dictionary definitions? To all of us, the term "art" has different meanings. So the question was unfair to begin with. The term refers to an intrinsic concept--it is not concrete--something for which we all have varying definitions; we can't really point to it and say, "there it is"...

To me, the idea of art goes beyond those definitions found in a dictionary. Personally, yes, I believe we practice an art, because, for me, it is more than the sum of its parts. All of us can parrot movements and, by experience and skill, profess to practice an art.

It is the fundamental understanding of what we are doing. That is, understanding how the body works, the self-discovery of efficient movement, the endeavor to distill these movements into economy of motion, and then, beyond that, the effort of trying to understand the essence of the movements themselves--there lies the art.

A formal system presents us with movements, to be sure. But it is in the effort to understand the lessons underlying the movements that create something beyond the just the movements.

I wonder if we need the rest of the dressing to justify what we do (not literally, of course--we do what we do).

Sometimes I think that it is not enough for some to look at it as a significant physical endeavor that will eventually change how one looks at oneself...Does it change how we look at the world around us?

SG

[Oldfist]

Miriam Webster says something like: The application of knowlege, experience and skill.

By definition, what we do is art.

But my question remains...do we see it as art because of dictionary definitions? To all of us, the term "art" has different meanings. So the question was unfair to begin with. The term refers to an intrinsic concept--it is not concrete--something for which we all have varying definitions; we can't really point to it and say, "there it is"...

To me, the idea of art goes beyond those definitions found in a dictionary. Personally, yes, I believe we practice an art, because, for me, it is more than the sum of its parts. All of us can parrot movements and, by experience and skill, profess to practice an art.

It is the fundamental understanding of what we are doing. That is, understanding how the body works, the self-discovery of efficient movement, the endeavor to distill these movements into economy of motion, and then, beyond that, the effort of trying to understand the essence of the movements themselves--there lies the art.

A formal system presents us with movements, to be sure. But it is in the effort to understand the lessons underlying the movements that create something beyond the just the movements.

I wonder if we need the rest of the dressing to justify what we do (not literally, of course--we do what we do).

Sometimes I think that it is not enough for some to look at it as a significant physical endeavor that will eventually change how one looks at oneself...Does it change how we look at the world around us?

SG

Steve, interesting observations and hard questions. For me the term 'art' implies not a rigid formal system that requires and permits only exact and precise recipes for movement in the role of martial attack and defense, which may seem contradictory in that the transmission of the tradition of kata and forms is always very rigid in how each stance, strike, kick, and the connecting flow must be performed.

But isn't this just the starting point for variation and individual creativity? Isn't this where the 'artful' creation occurs with the freedom of expression in creating our own personalized fighting concepts, techniques, and flavor in training and in each personal, individual performance? Martial art is a performance art, and so isn't it in the acts of training and ultimate use where the artistic expression or work of art occurs? Isn't this what Bruce meant by saying something like for him "the goal of martial art was to become really free?"

[sgoss1]

Oldfist,

Good points. Very much parallel to how I think.

_______________________________________________________________
may seem contradictory in that the transmission of the tradition of kata and forms is always very rigid in how each stance, strike, kick, and the connecting flow must be performed.
_______________________________________________________________

Personally, I've felt for a long time that kata is movement presented in its general form. They present the "big" picture and all the movements within movements are the lessons.

We all may agree in a general sense on how a kata is supposed to look, but, as benzocaine points out, each individual has--or should have--a personal interpretation.

In watching kata performed, I tend to see different things based on an individual's experience. That may seem like stating the obvious, but I've seen people who have practiced for quite a while yet I don't see any any real understanding of what they are doing. Conversely, I've seen people who have practicing for less time, yet I can see depth of understanding.

For me, it is the depth of understanding, or at least the effort of understanding, that makes it art. That's what takes it out of the realm of a simple fighting system and makes it something more.

That's why I practice a "traditional" system as opposed to ring arts. While I feel strongly that Uechi-ryu in particular is an effective system--that is, I feel it gives me a big edge in prevailing should it ever have to be applied (and it has)--it also gives me a structure, full of subtle intricacies, that has kept me interested for quite some time.

SG