Martial Arts Evolution

I hypothesize there have been two main stages of Martial Arts Evolution so far (1.0 and 2.0,) and we are now moving into a 3rd stage (3.0.) First understand that children wrestle and swing sticks at each other in mock battles naturally without adult supervision. Free sparring is fun and natural and anthropologically speaking probably predates formal martial arts training. Martial arts that do NOT have free sparring have degenerated into incomplete (0.?) martial arts. These incomplete martial arts are usually based on older arts that did have free sparring. 

Martial Arts 1.0: Traditional Martial Arts

Martial Arts that have been around a long time and have a systematized form of free sparring are what I would call the first generation of complete martial arts, or Martial Arts 1.0. This includes Fencing, Wrestling, and many Eastern Martial Arts. These Traditional Martial Arts have curriculum driven by two main factors: 

1. Tradition - often based on drills taught to soldiers for life and death combat, techniques continue to be studied even when considered obsolete by modern soldiers. 
2. What works in free sparring with other people studying the same martial art.

The most common martial art in the world, Tai Chi, is an example of a Traditional Martial Art:

Martial Arts 2.0: Mixed Martial Arts

In the 80's and 90's people experimented with full contact competition rules that would work for different Traditional Martial Arts to compete against each other. The Martial Arts that competed in these kind of competitions were influenced by other styles, and new Martial Arts formed based on that mindset of training. Examples of these kind of competition formats and styles include Combat Sambo, San Shou, Pankration, etc.

Martial Arts 2.0 curriculum is based on two main factors:

1. The strategies inherited from the multiple Traditional Martial Arts that the individual Martial Art 2.0 was based on.
2. What works when competing against other styles of martial arts.

A great example of Martial Arts 2.0 is Kudo (Judo augmented with Karate):

Martial Arts 3.0: Evolved Self Defense

We are now in an era of the evolution of martial arts where Martial Arts 2.0 has been around a while. Thanks to social media like Facebook and YouTube, martial arts consumers are able to learn a lot about the downsides of martial arts training before they get involved. In fact there seem to be Seven Deadly Sins of martial arts including:

1. Neglecting Beginners: is failing to get real skill into the hands of new students quickly enough. This is often giving beginners too much to practice, so that they don't get good enough at any one skill set to use in self defense while still beginners.
2. Over Specializing: is focusing on one specific type of self defense technique while neglecting other import types of self defense training. For example some styles focus almost exclusively on high kicks while neglecting other strikes, take down defense, knife attacks and situational awareness.
3. Neglecting Sparring: is not having enough free sparring. Usually being Evolved Self Defense will require a martial art to have multiple forms of free sparring instead of focusing on sparring with only one set of rules.
4. Over Training: is putting performance ahead of safety. Combat sports for example are notorious for seriously injuring people while preparing for fights or while fighting in fights.
5. Ignoring Consequences: is ignorance of legal needs of today's martial arts consumer. Just because ground-and-pound is a good idea in the cage doesn't mean that it is a good way to stay out of prison.
6. Assuming Enforcement: is misapplying strategies for police, security and military to civilian martial arts consumers. Most martial arts consumers need to focus on personal safety rather than enforcing rules.
7. Neglecting Weapons: failure to train for dealing with improvised weapons (especially knives.) Contrary to what you see in the movies, knives and other improvised weapons present both a self defense opportunity and personal safety threat to most martial arts consumers much more often than firearms.

It doesn't take long for the potential martial arts student to figure out what is available to them could take too long to learn to be worth their time, make their life a lot worse through training related injury, not actually work at all, potentially land them in prison, give them bad habits for a real self defense situation or ignore basic self defense scenarios people are likely to encounter such as a knife attack. As time goes on, Martial Arts 3.0 curriculum is likely to be based on:

1. Techniques and strategies from Martial Arts 1.0 and Martial Arts 2.0.
2. Fixing the above Seven Deadly Sins with the martial arts training already available.

Christopher Hein teaches a form of Aikido augmented by his experiences in other internal martial arts, training in MMA, participation in Dog Brothers, and careful examination of what his Aikido students really needed. Hein's Dojo (Fresno Aikido) appears to be teaching a form of Martial Arts 3.0, Evolved Self Defense:

It's time for martial arts consumers to think deeply about what we do and do not want out of martial arts training. One possible exercise is to think about what changes a martial art would need to make in order to become Evolved Self Defense. For example I did such a thought experiment with Brazillian Jiu Jitsu here: https://bfgalbraith.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-to-fix-bjj.html