A brief History of Martial Arts

[kickcatcher]

A Brief History of Martial Arts
A short essay by an Armchair Strategist.

Few things are as controversial in martial arts as history, with so much emphasis on linage and so much attributated to myths and legends, it is sometimes difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. In recent times much of the alleged histories of many oriental arts have come in for ridicule - is TaeKwonDo really 2000 years old and in any way related to the Hwrang warriors of Silla? Which style of Kung Fu can claim to be the main influence on Okinawan Karate? Just how many of the Shaolin arts really did come from the Shaolin temple? Well, these are arguments we're going to leave behind here. You see, martial arts is not only an Eastern happening nor is it as recent as the popular styles we train today.


Where it all begun
Everywhere and anywhere in pre-historic times is the safest guess. History shows that combat is inherent to the human condition and it is a safe bet that on numerous instances throughout time someone has sat down and attempted to systemise fighting methods to gain an advantage.

Probably the earliest hard evidence of evolved fighting methods dates from around 2000b.c. and is in the form of a wall painting in an Egyptian tomb:
http://www.attikai.com/attjack/about/5mid.jpg
There you go, Kimura, Double-leg, Ouchi-gari etc etc -all 4000 years ago.

Next in line are the Minoans. Historians date this mosaic to 1650b.c.

They appear to be wearing one glove each implying a sportive setting.


Pankration and the Hellenic world
The one that you've probably heard of is Pankration. The Ancient Greeks loved sports and regularly engaged in boxing and wrestling matches. After time these were combined in Pankration -the champions of which were considered superior to either boxers or wrestlers. The mass of artistic evidence from this period suggests that it resembled MMA albeit with eye gouging, groin shots etc.

Many historians believe that when Alexander the Great conquered much of Western Asia he took with him Pankration which influenced the local arts it touched. Key amongst these local arts are Kalari Pyatt and Simhanada Vajramukti of India. Simhanada Vajramukti later spread, through Buddhism to Tibet where it became the art of the Lama. With the spread of Buddhism in China it becomes sensible to consider that Indian martial arts influenced indigenous combat systems -as is commonly claimed in the Bodhidharma legend.

The West
Here we leave oriental martial arts and return to Europe. The Romans refined the Greek taste for sportive combat and ultimately created the Gladiatorial format -probably the most extreme of all sport martial arts. With the decline of the Roman empire we enter the dark ages where as the name suggests, we have relatively few records of European culture and history until the middle ages. That is not to suggest that martial arts weren't taking place but the evidence points to military application. In the middle ages we begin to find more historical texts describing how to fight -most relate to weaponry such as sword and buckler (as small hand-shield used much like a sword-break). The earliest known fechtbuch, I.33 (pronounced "one-thirty-three"), a German sword and buckler manual dating from 1295. At this time contact between East and West was minimal. I.33:


From that point on we have quite a few surviving manuals on Western fighting. At around 1500 we get the beginning of a more sportive setting returning. Whilst many MAists are retecent to consider their arts sportive, this is significant because it is where the familiar unarmed combat returns. At around this time the Rapier become popular and many manual exist on the evolution from medieval swordplay towards modern fencing.

An interesting text from this period is Das Ringersbuch by Hans Wurm, c. 1505. Ringersburch means wrestler's book in German and implies a sportive setting rather than the earlier Ringkampf (equivalent battlefield wrestling).

As you can see (above) it is not dissimilar to grappling methods of today.

By 1600s some of the surviving manuals relate to self-defence showing a shift from warfare. Most still relate to rapier (et al) but some are for unarmed combat. Johann Georg Passchen's Ring-Buch (a dialectal deviation on Hans Wurm's Ringerbuch of 1505) of 1659 is a good example:

Many of the techniques are completely analogous with Eastern arts right down to the joint manipulations etc.

On to modern times
The next big step was Boxing which evolved out of bare-knuckle pugilism in 18-19th century Britain. Over time it became ever less like general fighting and more like modern boxing -fists only. But contemporary to this was the shift towards sportive wrestling ultimately evolving into Catch and similar styles. By 1890s transmission of MA between East and West was truly beginning.... and that's where we'll leave it.

[slideyfoot]

Interesting. Have you checked out Kronos for further reading? Might find it useful.

Here are some of the bits I found intriguing from the 1860-1899 section:

1859:
Japanese wrestlers develop nokori ai, an early type of randori ("free practice") training. In it, the wrestlers practiced one series of techniques on a partner who could only counter with an agreed-upon series of techniques. Novel from a Japanese perspective, the procedure greatly improved players’ ability to adapt during free situations. (Japanese martial art training had previously relied almost exclusively on prearranged sets known as kata, or "forms." While the emphasis on forms made instruction easier and greatly reduced the risk of juniors embarrassing seniors, it also resulted in students having trouble reacting to novel situations -- such as actual combat. Although a decision that the Japanese wrestlers reached through trial-and-error, a century later US Navy study found that "a diversion of ten percent of the operational effort into carefully planned practice can increase the operational effectiveness by factors of two to four.")

1864:
A 57-year old Chinese boxer named Heung Chan begins teaching choy-li-fut ch’uan fa to Chinese immigrants living in San Francisco. (The style was named after Heung’s instructors, a Buddhist monk called Green Leaf and a pair of Shaolin boxers named Choy Ah-fok and Lee Yau-san.) Heung supported anti-government activities in China, and his system was notorious for teaching people how to kill using wooden benches, iron opium pipes, and assorted farm tools. Therefore, he was probably an enforcer for a gambling syndicate or prostitution ring rather than a priest or monk.

1867:
With the patronage of John Sholto Douglas, the eccentric eighth Marquess of Queensberry, new rules are promulgated for amateur boxing. These rules, which were probably written by John Graham Chambers in 1865, required fighters to wear gloves that were in good condition. They required a referee to move about inside the ring and all seconds to remain outside the ropes. They outlawed wrestling and hugging. They made rounds last three minutes each, with one minute between rounds. They gave fighters ten seconds to stand back up after having been knocked down. Finally, they banned boots having either springs or spikes.
Queensberry rules helped pugilism recover its lost popularity, as they reduced the visible injuries and subjected fighters to the whims of the clock, something important to working men who needed to catch the last streetcar home.

About 1880:
Korean urban males combine a popular kicking game called gakhui, or shuttlecock, with a hand-clapping game called subak. The result is a new activity called tae kyon. In tae kyon, the feet swept opponents who kicked too high or kept their balance too far forward, and the hands were used mainly for blocking and balance. Little movement was allowed, and the rules allowed players to move only one foot out of the starting position. Thus, for practical purposes, players took turns attacking and defending. The object of the game was to cause the opponent to fall. There were three ways this could be achieved. The least impressive was sweeping the opponent’s feet from underneath him. A more impressive method involved standing flat-footed and kicking the opponent in the chest or shoulder. The most impressive involved jumping up and kicking the opponent in the head. There was no great spiritual value attached to the activity, and spectators often bet on the outcome of matches. With its emphasis on high circular kicks, during the 1960s the game may have influenced the development of competitive taekwondo. That said, nineteenth century Korean farmers practiced another, much bloodier, combative sport called pakchiki. In this game, the competitors butted their foreheads together until one or the other became unconscious or quit.

About 1883:
Kano Jigoro decides to divide his judo students into two separate groups,
ungraded (mudansha) and graded (yudansha). The first students to achieve graded rank (shodan, or first step) were Tomita Tsunejiro and Saigo Shiro. Around 1886 or 1887, Kano’s ungraded judoka began wearing white belts while his graded judoka began wearing black belts. Although Kano apparently left no explanations for why he chose these two colors, perhaps it was color symbolism, as in Japanese metaphysics white represents base metals (e.g., raw materials) while black represents steel (e.g., a relatively finished product). Another possibility is that it was based on the way that Japanese teachers distinguished advanced and beginning athletes in their physical education classes. Or it might simply have been that white belts and colorfast black dye were cheap at the
time. In any case, Kano’s ranking system was innovative, as previously Japanese martial art schools had awarded rank using scrolls (menkyo) rather than colored belts. Kano’s precise reasons for introducing belts that did more than keep a jacket shut are also unknown. Possible motivations, however, could have included German sport pedagogy, which urged educators to classify athletes by ability and achievement, and the Japanese honorific language, which does not allow people to easily talk to one another without previously knowing each other’s exact rank and social status. Also, regardless of motivations, the use of color belts in a
Japanese setting encouraged wa, or mutual cooperation, as it allowed players to learn and experiment without risking much loss of face. (Explained historian Carlin Barton aptly, although in a different context, "The more anxiously competitive the situation, the more importance attached to victory, the more likelihood of collusion -- of those who risk a loss of status -- in the formation of elaborate status differentiations. The average athlete, for instance, is willing to put the extraordinary one ‘in a class by himself.’ The third-grader is willing and happy to be ‘outclassed’ by the sixth-grader against whom he or she would otherwise be compelled to compete. The more fierce the
competition, the more numerous the statuses accepted voluntarily. Clear and distinct differences in class and category can be a relief, allowing one to remove oneself, without loss of face, from an unhappy comparison of skills.")

1887:
According to Ring historian Nat Fleischer, wrestler William Muldoon body-slams boxer John L. Sullivan, thus settling the old argument about who would win a fight between a boxer and a wrestler. Although there is scholarly debate about whether this match ever occurred outside Fleischer’s imagination, the outcome is plausible. For instance, Martin "Farmer" Burns pinned Billy Papke in 1910. Ray Steele pinned Kingfish Levinsky (real name: Hershel Krakow) in 1935. And Nature
Boy Buddy Rogers pinned Jersey Joe Walcott in 1956. "Which proves," said Charles B. Roth in a related article in the June 1949 Esquire, "if it proves anything -- that boxing, far from being the best system of self-defense, is actually the worst."

About 1890:
An Okinawan rice-basket maker named Higashionna Kanryo establishes the Shorei, or "Enlightened Spirit" school of karate at Naha. This is important because Higashionna’s instruction provided the basis for the subsequent Goju Ryu and Shito Ryu karate styles, and is responsible for popularizing the breathing kata called sanchin (literally, "Three Straight," but usually translated as "Three Battles"). Higashionna’s emphasis on physical conditioning probably owes something to the techniques of Chinese rice-basket making, which required enormously strong fingers and wrists. Still, this emphasis on extraordinary muscular tension may have led some subsequent karate students down the wrong path. First, extraordinary muscular tension has been linked to hypertension and
hemorrhoids. Furthermore, medical studies done during the 1920s by the United States physician Edmund Jacobson showed that people whose muscles were tensed were less responsive to unexpected stimuli than were people whose muscles were relaxed.

1899:
An English engineer named Edward W. Barton-Wright publishes an article called "The New Art of Self Defence" in Pearson’s Magazine. Barton-Wright had studied jujutsu while living in Japan, and his "New Art," which he immodestly called "Bartitsu," combined jujutsu with boxing and savate. Yet, while Barton-Wright was a good enough rough-and-tumble wrestler, he was no master of Japanese wrestling. This is hardly unusual in itself, but what was unusual was that Barton-Wright was honest enough to admit it, and to hire better-qualified teachers including Tani Yukio and Uyenishi Sadakazu as his instructors. That said, Sherlock Holmes was Bartitsu’s most famous practitioner. In "The Adventure of the Empty House," published in Strand Magazine in October 1903, the Great Detective told Dr. Watson that, on the brink of a Swiss waterfall in 1894, the evil Moriarty "rushed at me and threw his arms around me. He knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We tottered together on the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu [sic], or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went."

[Jamie_Clubb]

Great posts, perhaps we might consider them for the articles section.

Keeping within the 19th century period, I'd like to bring up an old topic of mine on the mysterious English art of Baritsu. This is the art Sherlock Holmes mentioned in the story "The Empty House" that he had used to defeat Professor Moriarty. It was described as "Japanese Wrestling" and many think it was just a mispelling of Ju Jutsu. Was this really the case?

I read in a recent MAI article (last issue or the one before) by Dave Turton that "Baritsu" was created by the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who combined western wrestling with Ju Jutsu. This is the first time ever I have heard about this. I have a biography on Doyle and all the canonised Holmes stories. Doyle was a keen boxer and even wrote a novel about a boxer, "Rodney Stone" http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/sco ... /index.asp
He was coming out of the period (1880s onwards) when boxing had been an all-in sport and not just the punching art we know today, so we can assume he would have known a bit about wrestling.

Jujutsu was, of course, being popularised in the west towards the end of the 19th century by a Japanese fighter who was wrestling all oncomers and stooges at music hall venues around UK. There were self-defence manuals soon being published around the turn of the century describing Baritsu as a gentleman's system of self-defence.

Here's my Google to links to the word Baritsu.


Baritsu is the art that
http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/ ... 01440.html

[kickcatcher]

Yeah, Dave T is the only person who I can think of who is an authority in early 20th Century UK MA scene.

[slideyfoot]

Great posts, perhaps we might consider them for the articles section.

Just to re-emphasise in case anyone misreads that, my post is a direct quotation from the Kronos website, which I would strongly recommend to anyone interested in MA history. I'm not sure about the veracity, but it sounds plausible, and I think they have a links page for their bibliography, or something along those lines.

They also have a load of legal spiel on the front page (hence I feel the need to doubly cover my arse ) - I think its ok to quote them, as long as you post the link.

[drunken monkey]

just to point out,
you refered to 2000 BC in reference to recorded evidence of fighting 'style' in ancient egypt.

well, it was about this time that chinese cultures started to 'record' their history.
(started to record doesn't mean it was when they first got 'smart')
this was after a period where there was a lot of fighting after which the first emporer/dynasty of sorts was established.
(there are some bits of evidence that correlate to some legends and such of an earlier dynasty but even the chinese don't believe because it sounds too much like the typical chinese myths and legends)
from what i recall, all signs point to the fighting involved being more than just random get together mobs and bash type thing.

i have to say though, from the evidence and records that do exist, egypt has records of organised (peasant) army training before china did.

[kickcatcher]

just to point out,
you refered to 2000 BC in reference to recorded evidence of fighting 'style' in ancient egypt.

well, it was about this time that chinese cultures started to 'record' their history.
(started to record doesn't mean it was when they first got 'smart')
this was after a period where there was a lot of fighting after which the first emporer/dynasty of sorts was established.

Can you provide any historical references?

It is wholly plausible that systemised fighting took place long before Egypt and I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

There is a difficult distinctyion between battlefield fighting and what we consider martial arts. It is a fuzzy distinction which is on the one hand useful, on the other self-serving.

[drunken monkey]

....i'm looking.
most of it is just 'what the records say happened'
(about the fights/wars/what ever you want to call it).
personally, i doubt it was anything that would be called 'sophisticated fighting system' but i just wanted to throw out something about what was going on at a similar time period in china.

[kickcatcher]

Interesting stuff DM,

Some MAists seem to want to be able to say that their art is oldest -well so what. Others seek a single original source of all MA -highly implausible.

But the sticking point is at what point battlefield methods become a "MARTIAL ART". I'd prefer to avoid limiting criterea -leave it a fuzzy distinction.

[Jamie_Clubb]

Common sense dictates that every race/culture has a systemised type of fighting. Many different arts can be derived from a certain country or source, but at some period an original art will have been formed. Whether or not exists today is a different argument altogether.

Personally I am fascinated in reading about and discovering more about the lesser known martial arts of the world. Ghostrider started a great thread on this about a year ago, entitled "The Other Martial Arts."

I studied Zulu Stick Fighting in South Africa from a Zulu in 2000 (see my "Respecting the Root" article). Only the other day someone told me they'd seen Ethopians competing in a similar combat sport. It would appear that this is quite a popular African tradition.

[laugarkuen]

I was told once that morris dancing (shudder) come from an English martial art called Mori Mori sp? but I have never come across or heard referance to it since.

[drunken monkey]

...y'know, what....
i've looked and looked but can't for the life of me find the articles i read before.
the best i've found is reference to (domesticated) horse skeletons and mentions of horse drawn chariots (as means of warfare)
but not much on actual fighting methods.
so chances are, i must've gotten my dates wrong and mixed up my dynasties......

also, the horse thing was from a slightly later period anyway.

http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~baojie/histo ... rse.en.htm

they talk of the shang dynasty (1783bc-1134 bc) which is the one that they do have a lot of records from.
the shang records things that happened in the eariler periods but very little concrete proof of that dynasty exists.
the things from the oracle bones from the shang dynasty detail important events such as who took 'command', who killed who, who fought who etc etc.
there's mentions from theose same bone records of the 'emporer' using jade weapons but this is one of the things that even the chinese don't believe because it is too much like fantasy story telling....

no specific methods are mentioned.

i'll let you know how i get on.

i should point out though, that i wasn't looking for origins of martial arts when i was reading them sites originally.
i was looking for primitive building methods.

my real passion is the origins of 'architecture' and how they relate to the cultures from which they came from....
did you know, some early african huts had penis'... and that they actually 'peed' from them (rain and waste water of course...)?
fantastic stuff......

[lost-tiger]

Well, wouldn't systematized MAs start to develop in a society when they started to organize their military? So when they had enough resources and time to spend thinking and practicing about better ways to kill and harm each other so they could take the others land, food, etc etc was when there would be the shift to creating a MA in a society. When troops started to be trained a bit, other than mobs charging each other, would be the start of MAs training. So, I'm guessing that the techniques of riding in a chariot and piffing a spear through someone, or learning how to hack their head off before they can yours on the battlefield would all result in MAs being developed. Sure, they wouldn't be very spiritual or mystical, but they would be very martial.

[drunken monkey]

but that would be 'martial' in the purest use of the word;
for warfare.

in most cases, this is not like anything that we would equate to as martial arts
(hence my preference for use of 'fighting art'.. y'know, less ambiguity and has a certain honesty about it.....).

using a well know example.
the roman army is recoignised as one of the finest armies history has given us and they are often described as almost being a 'fighting machine'.
BUT
their fighting systems are hardly anything like 'normal' fighting and very far from being self defence.
the most famous fighting method they have was that you, as a soldier fighting as part of a unit, would defend directly in front of you with your shield, whilst attacking the guy that's in front of the soldier on your left (or was it on your right?).
highly effective but not 'street applicable'.... if you get what i mean.

y'know, actual warfare/war fighting methods tend to be vastly different to non-military fighting methods.

[kickcatcher]

I tend to use the fuzzy definition of martial art as "evolved fighting method" ie, implying the following charactrics:

Evolved -not natural -requires training and demonstrates insight.

Fighting -else it ain't martial. Battlefield or street are both valid contexts.

Method -systematic.

It's fuzzy but I find it useful. By that definition the Roman army's methods become a martial art at about the time gladiators where given charge of training them in weapons play -i.e. their actual fighting became evolved and methodic.

A relatively untrained guyt standing in a row with a shield and spear often fails the 'evolved' criterea.