Individuals tend to think of martial arts as being oriental, Kung Fu type fighting. However, the word 'martial' comes from the Latin word 'mars, martis', who was the Roman god of war. 'Martial', therefore, means 'to do with war or fighting'.
As a result, martial can refer to Western ways of fighting too such as boxing and wrestling.
These martial fifgting arts have been in existence for thousands of years at least and originated on the battlefield where one's competency in fighting was literally a question of life and death. Wrestling was in the Olympic Games over 2,000 years ago.
Likewise, lots of the oriental martial arts are equally old and came into existence because peasants were not allowed to keep arms in the social structures of the times.
In spite of the age of these martial arts, they did not get popular in the Developed world until Bruce Lee made them popular with his Kung Fu films in the early Seventies.
It is a little known fact that when Lee was sent to America at the age of 18 to avoid the anger of a local Hong Kong mafia chief, he hoped to teach traditional martial arts, but was forbidden permission by the local Chinese community.
There was an accepted rule that non-Chinese were not to be taught Chinese martial arts. Lee ignored the rule, and he claimed to have received death threats from powerful Chinese gangland leaders from America and Hong Kong.
Lee taught martial arts to a select group of famous Caucasians and even developed his own style called Jeet Kune Do.
Jeet Kune Do used Lee's astonishing speed and power in its moves. Three of Lee's showcase moves were:
The Power Side Kick: with one kick, he could kick a 300 pound sack to hit a regular ceiling
The One Inch Punch: he could knock a trained fighter over with a punch that had travelled only one inch
The Lightning Snatch: with his arm by his side, he could snatch a nickel from an open palm three feet away and leave a penny behind in 5/100 ths of a second.
People wished to be able to do the same. However, there are many different kinds of fighting arts and many countries have their own individual style of fighting.China has Judo and Kung Fu; Japan has Karate; Brazil has Brazilian Jiu Jitsu; Thailand has Muay Thai.. There are numerous other, mostly oriental styles, as well, like Tae Kwando and Aikido but also French Kick Boxing.
Some fighting arts are more defensive in nature, but others are definitely belligerent: Judo and Aikido are examples of defensive styles and Karate and boxing are a lot more belligerent in nature.
However, all martial arts teach self-control and the students develop more self-confidence. Fighting arts are experiencing a resurgence in popularity at the moment, largely due to UFC fights or mixed martial arts.
You might not approve of the violence of mixed martial arts, but it cannot be denied that numerous kids are learning a couple of martial arts, Western and Oriental, because of these well-liked TV fights.
Automatic blog by iAutoblog
No comments:
Post a Comment