The purpose of Fighting styles

This is a piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago, All the information is based on a article written by Scott Langley Sensei in his kensusei reports. Very thought invoking and extremely interesting. Enjoy. 


When people think of martial arts the automatic assumption is that they belong to eastern cultures (Japan, China, Korea, Etc). However martial arts or indeed fighting styles in general, have a long history spreading across the globe, and have also had a strong influence on the west (Europe and America) as much as they have on the east. 

Within this short paper the aim will be place on the way in which social, political and power changes have evolved international fighting styles. Fighting styles are not just simply affected by great masters that study rare and unique exercises, the arts are affected greatly from the world surrounding them, and the best way to look at this is by looking at the differences between the changes in eastern arts and western arts and the ways that have been evolved. The origin of fighting arts is not important in this analysis, it could even be said that many arts had similar styles. “For example, the British based Knight Templar is reported to have had strong connection with the fighting monks of the Chinese Shaolin Monasteries” (Scott Langley, 2002). Fighting styles did have some level of similarity when it came to style, but they had different social forces that changed and adapted these arts.

It can be seen that eastern fighting styles are seen as dominant over western fighting styles, and indeed they have even become apart of our society, but why has the east dominated, when there were similarities? One possible answer can be said to be with the way that society has gone through early modernity and become more ‘civilised’.

 One main difference is that the UK has had a sustainable government for nearly a thousand years. “It was the first democracy in the world, the first to stop the feudal system, it had the first industrial revolution and it was the first country to franchise its whole population” (Scott Langley, 2002). British society quickly and rapidly produced a level of equality within a hierarchy that gave people both citizenship rights, such as that of voting and the right to a fair democracy. This changed the face of British traditional fighting styles. These styles would have initially been created so that people or groups had the ability to battle. They, like eastern arts, produced great warriors by training and by looking rationally around the way the body works. But as government grew stronger and people gained more rights, when laws and moral codes were created these styles lost their initial purpose, resulting in them withering away. Instead people used ‘formal’ and ‘civilised’ ways to deal with problems and quarrels.

Eastern societies, like Japan, only experienced this sort of social change only recently, with the Meiji Restoration not even two hundred years ago. In these society people were forbidden to carry weapons, only those within a gentry’s class were allowed, so there was still a need for people to protect themselves from deviance from society. This is where martial arts were still used and practised, as they taught people how to protect themselves in and affective way. It can be said that it is due to the traditional culture of fighting styles that have embedded them into the Japanese culture, with many still practising these arts.

But what was produced by these changes?

Well, the British adapted and borrowed aspects from its martial arts and used them to create sports, as there was still a need for competition between groups, regions etc. These sports, similar to British fighting styles, allowed people to still show superior skill and gave the fighting styles new functions. Boxing is the prime example of how traditional fighting styles were adapted “In the 17^th Century the British Aristocrat, the Marques of Queensbury, created the first rules for boxing, most of which are still used today.” (Scott Langley, 2002). From the British passion for competition and the need for sports it can be seen that the majority of team sports were created and flourished within Britain. Rounders evolved into baseball. And American football was adapted from British rugby.

The Japanese have taken this in a different view, within many Japanese styles of sport and indeed within Japanese marital arts the function of sports is not to satisfy a need for competition or pleasure. Instead the Japanese look to sport for character building, to produce well rounded people, in which focus, dedication and determination is embedded into their self image. Japanese Baseball, for example, houses entirely different reasons compared to American Baseball. To the Americans professional base ball can be seen as a job, they train lightly and reward individualism. Whereas in its Japanese counter-part baseball is a lifestyle, like martial arts, where individualism is not tolerated and training is hard, long and rigorous. (Whitting, 1990)

To conclude, societies change into civilisation has had a profound effect upon the way in which fighting styles and martial arts have been viewed. The birth of government and citizenship has found new platforms for people to settle differences, politics has created a place for people to argue and debate. Battle fields and ‘the way of the warrior’ are no longer a key function in our daily lives. That is not to say that marital arts are dead across the world, the traditional fighting styles from across the globe can still be seen in full swing. In the east martial arts still have a key function to there culture and society, due to their long need for fighting styles. Whereas in the west martial arts can be seen within sports such like boxing and wrestling. But it is the differences in our civilisation process that has allowed for these changes. If it were to have happened that the east gained government and citizenship earlier than the west, then British fighting styles may have the same affect that eastern martial arts does today.

All the information in this post comes from:

-Langley, Scott. 2002. “Kenshusei Reports” – Part 5: What is the difference between western and eastern fighting styles?. From www.scott.thejks.com/article_kensusei2 accessed on 21/06/2011

-Whiting, Robert. 1989. “You Gotta Have Wa”. Macmillan, New York.