Original Martial Art

One of my core hypothesis about martial arts is there is one martial art, an original martial art, from whence the rest of martial arts sprang. That martial art would have been:

1. highly applicable to self defense, 
2. relevant to the battlefield, 
3. encouraged fighters to develop high levels of body strength, 
4. developed other attributes relevant to combat such as balance, reflexes, flexibility, and ring IQ,
5. relatively safe to practice in a wide range of environments with a minimum amount of safety equipment.
6. making so much sense that it would have been developed by different cultures at different times in history
7. leaving a number of examples still around today.

You have two fighters, no mats or other safety equipment. What rules can they fight with and still be relatively safe? Two fighters would try to score by:

1. Throwing each other on the ground, 
2. while staying on their own feet through the throw. 

These objectives make up the sport I call "The Original Martial Art." This art is appropriate for a large range of environments without safety equipment (slamming your body on the opponent in a throw adds greater risk of injury and thus a need for mats.) This art encourages the development of body strength and other desirable attributes in a fighter. This art is highly relevant to self defense (and on the battlefield) because no one wants to be prone when the opponent is still standing. This art is relevant to the battlefield because it helps you learn to push and pull around your opponent for strategic purposes:

"But weapons were sharp?" No, the consensus is that armor worked really well. The kind of Cold Steel Demo strike it would take to penetrate armor would be nearly impossible to land on a moving target. "But weapons weight 20+ lbs, so they would just crush anything inside the armor?" No, it is well documented most long swords were under 3 lbs, heavier weapons might have been 5 lbs.

If I am right, this Original Martial Art should still exist in many forms all over the world. Let's start with Iceland in 1325, with their art of Glima:

We can see a very slight variance from what I have described, where if both fighters go to the ground there can be a victory by getting up first, but clearly the objective is to put them on the ground without going to the ground yourself.

This is also the main objective of the grappling prescribed by German swordsmanship master Hans Talhoffer in 1459:

South of Europe, this art may be the basis of indigenous African wrestling:

Specifically Kokowa wrestling in Niger would be an expression of The Original Martial Art:

The Original Martial Art is also found in the indigenous grappling of Madagascar:

Though often starting from the knees like other Brazilian grappling styles, Brazilian indigenous grappling is focused on basically the same idea:

Though not always following through on their big throws (satisfied to pick up the opponent demonstrating they could have easily thrown them,) indigenous Cambodian wrestling seems to be another variation on The Original Martial Art:

Korean Wrestling could be another variation:

Mongolian Wrestling is probably the best example of The Original Martial Art:

Chinese wrestling adds a point system that favors staying on your feet, as well as the dynamic of scoring for getting your opponent out of the ring:

Tai Chi Push Hands fighting is the most common no-gi version of Chinese Wrestling, and is probably the most accessible form of The Original Martial Art:

From here, the Original Martial Art evolves in two different directions: a submission grappling direction, and a stand up striking direction. There are many other grappling styles that are similar to the ones above, but which emphasize staying on top of the opponent when you throw them. This is the beginning of submission grappling, with ground fighting techniques for manipulating the opponent into a pin. From there we add the submissions from the historical UK and Japan, and numerous submission grappling arts emerge, mostly sharing historical roots with Judo.

The striking direction this art evolves in adds basic hand strikes as an alternative way to take someone down, like Sumo:

Notice that the most popular form of African wrestling, Laamb, is very similar to Sumo in that it is this original martial art combined with hand strikes:

And the connection between Chinese Wrestling or Tai Chi Push Hands and Chinese Kickboxing is fairly obvious:

But good luck finding instruction in any of the above martial arts, as most of them are fairly exotic (for example Tai Chi classes that are serious about sparring are rare.) The most common combat sport that still values grappling take downs that allow the fighter to remain standing is Muay Thai:

Back in 8th Century, Sumo would have been much more like Muay Thai than what Sumo is like today, with virtually all strikes allowed. It is hard to imagine an Mongol Warrior complaining about another wrestler slipping in a knee strike, and Tai Chi contains numerous references to striking techniques often sparred with in the past. If you want to master the art of the ancient battlefield in today's world, the most important martial art for you to study is Muay Thai.

Martial Depth

As a martial arts instruction consumer, I have surveyed the martial arts world fairly well, and have earned a beginner level rank or had at least equivalent training in several different martial arts systems. The most important thing I have learned is that if you aren't sparring, you aren't learning martial arts. I recently posted commenting that I don't think people who are training without weapons really understand the context in which their martial arts techniques were developed. However it is important to understand that if you take all the martial arts there is to learn out there, and reduce it all to technique that can actually be used in a fight, the numbers are different than what most people would expect:

In general, 60% of all actionable martial arts knowledge is grappling (2/3 of that on the ground and 1/3 of that standing up,) 20% is unarmed striking technique and the other 20% is all of the weapon martial arts knowledge out there. Of the 20% that is weapon technique, half of that is technique that would work with a baton, 1/4 of it would require a longer reach weapon to work, and the last 1/4 would require other weapon features to work such as a sharp edge or hook on the end of it.

This is not a classification of martial arts, but only techniques that can be used in a fight. I don't know of ANY martial art school that teaches only 1 of the above categories. For example fencing technique would be a small subset of Baton and Other (a single handed weapon, but with certain features such as a hand guard and a sharp tip.) Get into a weapon martial art like Kali (FMA) that superficially appears to be a Baton fighting style, and you could see most of the above areas addressed in some way (knife, other, unarmed striking, and clinch grappling, if not also some staff and submission grappling.) Some Kung Fu styles which would appear to be mostly Unarmed Striking and Clinch Grappling spend most of their time at the higher levels working on every type of weapon technique imaginable, and even some Tae Kwon Do schools require their black belts to have some rudimentary knowledge of weapons.

So when I make absurd claims about martial arts like "The Walking Dead Got Aikido Right", I am not just trolling, I am looking at martial arts with through this sparring-oriented lense. I am not the only one noticing that some very large fraction of fighting technique from Aikido is weapon technique:

Of course a bunch of you couldn't care less about weapon technique, considering the fact that what you normally have to defend yourself with is your bare hands. Self Defense instructor Icy Mike mentioned what I think is a very similar phenomenon when it comes to comparing the learning curb between unarmed striking technique and grappling technique in the following video at around 1:13, where he points out that the depth of skill/training advantage you can get to in grappling seems to far exceed the depth of skill/training advantage you can get to in striking (at least in the first year anyhow):

This post makes no claims about what the best martial art is, or what martial art you should do next. This is just an observation about the world of martial arts generally: even though historically martial arts have mostly been developed for an armed context, most of the martial arts technique out there is grappling technique, and the most common striking weapon is your body.

Martial Context

I recently had some constructive disagreements with other fighters immediately after the last Tipon I attended. One of my unpopular assertions was this: "I don't think you can really understand Traditional Martial Arts scholars without learning to fight with a weapon. You don't understand the 'Book of Five Rings' with your bare fists."

In today's world when we talk about weapons we are talking about guns. But most people who talk guns don't carry them, and most of those who do carry them haven't done much pressure testing with those guns. But throughout most of martial arts history, affordable, safe-quality easily-portable firearms weren't available to most people with needs to defend themselves.

And let's be real about a few things here. First, if you are planning to attack someone and really be successful at it, are you going in WITHOUT a force multiplier, without a weapon? Of course not. If you are expecting trouble from someone with a weapon, are you going to arm yourself in some way to protect yourself against them? Of course you are.

The warriors of the ancient battlefields NEVER did the following: line up ready for battle, take off their boxing gloves unsheathing their bare fists, and then charge each other with their leaping side kicks demonstrating the power of their unarmed Karate technique in mass combat. ALL traditional martial arts have a context, and that is an armed context.

Knife defenses are popular in every traditional martial art because of the obvious reason that if you have to defend yourself, it will probably be against someone with a weapon. I think a very big part of why Aikido is so misunderstood is because modern practitioners forget that the Hakama part of their uniform speaks to the weapon side of their art, and that the founder of Aikido spent a tremendous amount of time training in and lecturing on weapon martial art technique. On the martial side of his art, he clearly intended weapons to be used for self defense - because he realized that was the best way to defend yourself - when getting attacked - because you will be attacked with a weapon.

But same goes for most other TMA. Why aren't Hun Gar or Choy Lay Fut simply considered styles of Chinese Kickboxing? Because a very great deal of time is spent in those arts teaching people how to fight with weapons:

Most cultures have some kind of weapon martial art, the most famous of which is Filipino Martial Arts:

But there are also several styles of African stick fighting:

And several styles of European stick fighting:

Not to mention South American "Cowboy Fencing":

And all the way up through the 90's it was a staple of law enforcement training in North America:

From a historical perspective, if you are doing martial arts without any weapons training, you are studying martial arts out of context.

MMA is Not a Martial Art

This is one of the age old internet questions about martial arts: is MMA a martial art? The answer, I have finally decided, is "no." I have argued that virtually any combat sport is automatically a martial art, and MMA (mixed martial arts) is a combat sport, so what makes MMA special? From the very beginning of the introduction of MMA in the United States in the early and mid 90's, MMA was for at least a few years billed as a competition to "see which martial art works the best." Now 25 years later, it is still a competition to see "which combinations of strategies and techniques work the best."

After the 2019 Pacific North West Warrior Tipon Tipon a bunch of us went to eat at a location next door to the event, a nice Italian/Greek restaurant. There I had some constructive disagreements with one of the more prominent fighters at that event (here's our fight from a few hours before):

He had a surprisingly negative view of MMA, while still having a generally positive view of combat sports and TMA (traditional martial arts.) When I pressed him on this issue, an important detail emerged: MMA uses other combat sports and martial arts as a resource to see what works best in reasonable-rules cage fighting. When you throw weapons like sticks and knives into the mix, you need to go back to the drawing board, using those same combat sports and TMA that MMA draws from. For example, spinning hook kicks and stepping side kicks would not be a staple technique for most MMA fighters, but in a Tipon, with all that range with a weapon in your hand, it makes a lot more sense:

Another way to look at this is that in some ways an MMA fight is more like a Tipon than it is like a boxing match. In a boxing match, your know what moves people are going to use. In an MMA fight you don't.

As a martial arts consumer I have found that most of the skills developed at MMA gyms are in specialized classes focused on more specific combat sports than MMA. When MMA classes are taught, it is typically focusing on the MMA techniques not specifically covered in those other combat sport classes. In this sense, from a martial arts consumer perspective, MMA is not something you can simply go take a class in. For example here's the class schedule from the most famous MMA gym in my area:

I don't doubt AMC produces great MMA fighters. I doubt that those MMA fighters develop most of their fighting skill in by training in one 75 minute class once per week.

But I have heard of some cases where that's exactly what they do, where supposedly they have an MMA specific program where most of the MMA skills are developed in those MMA classes. So I would guess there are probably a few dozen schools throughout the USA that teach legit MMA in straight up MMA classes, focusing on sparring and only moves known to be very consistently successful in MMA. So since they exist that must mean they are a martial art, right?

Wrong. They are going to be focusing on different strategies for success in the cage. What this means is each individual school is developing a unique martial art specifically for MMA completion. Mixing of other martial arts happens to be exactly how all individual martial arts get started. Therefore, MMA is the only combat sport that can not be considered a martial art unto itself.