Martial Eras

From a Martial Arts consumer point of view, there have been 3 significant waves of martial arts in the USA. Each era has:

1. one dominant sport striking martial art,
2. one dominant sport grappling martial art, and
3. one dominant self-defense martial art.

These three arts have different needs for uniforms, safety gear, gym equipment, and training methodologies, which creates natural barriers between them. However in each era there are ALWAYS practitioners who commonly do any combination of the three arts of their era.

Globalization is the main evolutionary force that has caused one era to give way to the next.

THE OLD WEST ERA

Inherited from European culture, the Civil War and Old West, the first wave of martial arts for consumers was:

1. Boxing (the dominant sport striking martial art,)
2. Wrestling (the dominant sport grappling martial art,) and
3. Fencing (aka "Western Single Stick," the dominant self defense martial art.)

These arts are so deeply rooted in our history that it is hard to talk about martial arts at all without referencing these arts. These arts are quite literally part of the English language.

THE COLD WAR ERA

As the USA became exposed to its first non-European nation state enemy in World War 2, Japan, our military had to compete with a new way of looking at martial arts which they had not seen before. Beginning a decade or two after of the end of World War 2 and extending all the way up into the early 90's, the martial arts consumers were consuming the most were:

1.Karate (the dominant sport striking martial art. This includes numerous other Asian martial arts of various origins, but which conformed to Karate's competition rules.)

2. Judo (the dominant sport grappling martial art, now competing with submission holds,) and

3. Aikido (the dominant self defense martial art. This includes numerous other Samurai martial arts which involved too-dangerous-to-spar-with techniques, weapon kata or attempts to train to fight multiple attackers.)

These arts however between the early 60's and early 90's were watered down by the relentless materialism of the 80's, as instructors made compromises in order to sell more classes, or were influenced pacifistic agendas. At first Karate was what would now consider to be kickboxing:

But as sparring standards fell apart, so did Karate's reputation, to where it was something nerds would use to try (and fail) to fend off bullies with:

Judo, preserved as an Olympic Sport, fared much better than Karate, maintaining most of its value as a martial art. Aikido, thoroughly infected with pacifist ideology, fared far worse than Karate, to the point where it is now the laughing stock of the martial arts world.

Boxing, Wrestling and Fencing still managed to maintain a loyal following. Boxing seemed immune to the erosive forces destroying Karate and Aikido. In theory Professional Wrestling may have been an example of these forces having their way with Wrestling, but serious fighters still trained to complete in amateur wrestling. But ultimately style vs. style analysis were completely theoretical, with no actual proof as to what techniques were the most effective.

THE INTERNET ERA

Then in the mid 90's two important events transpired which reshuffled the deck for martial arts consumers in the USA again: the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which was the USA's first widely publicized and popularized Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) event, and more importantly the World Wide Web became a part of most people's lives in the USA, giving them global access to knowledge and communication. The 90's brought unlimited access to information, combined with a format to really test the value of different martial arts against each other.

By the mid 2000's, the dominant martial arts for consumers in the USA were:

1. Muay Thai Kickboxing (the dominant sport striking martial art, not in terms of professional pay scales but in terms of actual practitioners.) With Muay Thai's open ended rule set for striking and clinch fighting, it became the format for proving techniques from Karate, Boxing and traditional martial arts.

2. Brazillian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ, the dominant sport grappling martial art.) With BJJ's open ended rule set for take downs and submissions, it became to format for proving techniques from Wrestling, Judo and other grappling martial arts.

3. Kali (aka Arnis or Escrima, the dominant self defense martial art.) Though containing many too-deadly-to-spar-with techniques, training for fighting multiple attackers and weapon kata, the culture around these Filipino Martial Arts was very friendly towards fighting and sparring. FMA "Gatherings" (Tipons) are now the dominant format for testing techniques from Fencing, Aikido and other self defense or weapon oriented martial arts.

As mentioned above, besides being full of highly effective techniques that influence other martial arts, these three martial arts have open ended rule sets that naturally assimilate the techniques of other martial arts. Beyond that, these three arts are very friendly to beginners, the average martial arts consumer can get very good at these three martial arts without becoming an instructor or professional fighter because they have strong practices when it comes to free sparring at different levels of intensity:

MMA, fulfilling its role as the supreme fighting sport, doesn't make compromises for average martial arts consumers: as of 2019 there is still no universally accepted rule set for MMA-lite tournament, as there are for BJJ and Muay Thai. MMA was never some love child of Muay Thai and BJJ, instead MMA proved to consumers that Muay Thai and BJJ were the best styles of martial arts when it came to style vs. style competition.