Why I Classify There: Martial Art, Sport, Combat, and Self-defense

Agree to disagree, after I have been practicing martial arts for over four decades, I come to classify of what so-called martial art into four classes. Taking a liberty I subjectively define the four classes according to own interpretation on each of the classes.

Let’s start with Self Defense. Although Martial Arts, Sport and Combat can become Self Defense, but rather Self Defense can be one of the first three. Because the simplicity of Self Defense practices. Self Defense very likely has no form or pattern. The main objective of Self Defense is defending oneself and get away from the dangerous situations immediately. The practices involve any action or maneuver. That does not have to be pretty or impressive. Self Defense is more to the instinctive actions. As previously said, martial art skill can be used for self defense but self defense is not necessarily a martial art.

The only part of the self defense to be effective is the participants to grow the sensitivity with a sense of danger or be vigilant, breathing control and panic management. There is no need of long term training, either for strength or speed or agility, or others. Although doing such training from time to time is advisable. No need for fancy moves, no need for locking and grappling techniques as many instructors teach, one or two sessions is enough for anyone to know how to defense oneself. Be aware and creative of the surrounding objects that can be used as defensive weapons.

In a rape attempt, a victim could use her/his knee to the groin that becomes a weapon of mass destruction to the perpetrator. The idea of self defense is very private to each individual. Knowing what kind of moves can help a person getting out of a dangerous situation. The goal of self defense is enabling a person to circumvent and survives, against any threatening perp, a bigger stronger person or even a martial art expert. Self defense mechanism is not designed for long encounter, it is effective for the matter of seconds. Longer than those seconds, self defense is no longer effective, especially against the bigger or stronger perps or more in number, and so on.

Any method or attempt made in a self defense situation is unique and unforeseeable, intuition is the best in self defense. The first seconds are critical, the longer the wait renders a person without long training either in real martial art, sport or combat, ineffective.

Now, let’s talk about the sport classification that sometimes confused as a martial art. Can some kind of sport activities in a gym exercised with a pulsating music, throwing not event proper clenched fist and wrong way of kicking considered a martial art? Or theatrical and impressive acrobatic moves, jump and roll over in the air several times before landing a punch or kick considered as a martial art? Maybe. Or the skill and techniques of landing punches powerfully with well-trained footwork like boxing is considered as a martial art? Depends. Just like boxing although boxing is effective for self defense but most of the time boxing is considered as a sport. Yes, martial art also considered as a sport, but martial art is beyond just sport. I will explain more detail about my thoughts about martial art classification. Can Capoeira considered as a martial art? Per a Maxim magazine article and there are martial art practitioners also claim Capoeira is the least effective form of martial art, some even do not recognize it as a martial art at all other than sport art. I might consider it as a martial art or a sport. It is a beautiful form, undeniably.

And what is combat? In my opinion, combat is a form of aggressive fighting system. It does not take meditation form to practice, a deep philosophy maybe there is no philosophy at all to study, all required is agility, speed, certain amount of strength, weapons used in the practice most of the time. Combat was made for offense in nature not for defense. Can it be used for self defense, sure. It is more complex and rigorous practice. It takes over a period of time of training to master the combat skill. We know some practices we all probably agree to classify them as combat art, Krav Maga (קרב מגע) is one of them, Russian Systema (Система) is another. I agree one martial art form can cover the grounds of sport and combat as well.

Finally, martial art. Looking back to the history of martial art in the ancient Asia, China is a great example. The time of martial art development is the era where weapons were prohibited and even when they were available they are limited in number and form. Common people must defend themselves against bandits and wild beasts while weapons were prohibited by the government out of the fear of rebellion. At one time, a village was only allowed one cleaver to cut vegetables and meats, placed in front of the town hall. The commoners practiced martial art using bare hands or some daily objects used as a weapon. The monks at the temple practiced martial arts to keep their body and mind balanced. It is difficult to look at martial art and define what the martial art is without referring to Asia regions, especially China like the mecca of martial arts.

There are martial arts that ineffective as a combat form but sport activity. It benefits for health causes, promotes good blood circulation, helps calming the anxiety through its breathing techniques, strengthening body parts and muscles, building a better stamina and so forth. The unfortunate thing is movies create an illusory image of this type of martial art as if it is lethal, effective and extravagant. In reality, they are far from the portrayal in kung fu action movies. Anyway, movies do some good, they offer free marketing for such martial art form to be known by the larger population.

In my conclusion, martial art is more than a practice of self-defense, it transfigures into a lifestyle, a life harmony, a meaning of life for some. People practice martial arts all over the world beyond the abilities of the body, even the speed has diminished along with the age, the strength lessened, the precision offed by the dimmed sight. Acrobatic jumps are a nostalgic moment, muscular body turned into wrinkled skin, and other perceivable physical phenomenon is no longer serving best yet the mind and soul still strong as a young ox. Martial art has fused into the persons, and they are still deemed “armed and dangerous”. If a martial art solely counts on acrobatic stunts, aggressive stands, speed, strength and precision, it is out of of the martial art scope by its definition.

Again, this is my two cents on the classification. I welcome an honest discussion or even a different opinion about the topic. Thank you for spending your time reading this article.

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