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The purpose of Martial Arts in the Modern World

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Martial Arts have always been a niche skill. In the middle ages only Nobles and the wealthy could afford to dedicate any time to martial pursuits. The common foot-soldier or mercenary just made do with some on-the-job training, and were often completely outclassed by Knights or Nobles on the field.  It's difficult to generalise, because there were many different environments and situations in history. It is easy to point out situations in which common folk or groups (like monks) took up arms and dedicated themselves to martial skills for some goal or another, but this is a different situation from today.  In the modern world, close combat skills are idealised in media, but are taboo in society. Even raising a fist, or threatening to do so, could ruin someones life with legal proceedings and fees. We have come to a point in society where people with good jobs and reputations are better off being physically beaten without fighting back and going to to hospital, than...
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Questions and Answers... maybe

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Andre asked me about the Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu schools and whether I teach them. The answer is yes. The 9 schools of the Bujinkan are akin to martial arts university courses, there is a great deal of prerequisite martial arts knowledge before the kata of the individual schools can even be attempted. In simple terms, as I demonstrated last night, if the attacker (uke) can't attack effectively, the one completing the technique doesn't need to go out of his way to do the kata, because he can do something simpler. Before I joined the Bujinkan, I had 10 years of Judo under my belt. You will find with many of the older Bujinkan members that they had significant martial arts training already, which served as a solid foundation. The issue with this is, if I only allowed well trained martial artists to join I wouldn't have any students. Realistically, 90% of people who want to train will have no training, and that is something I need to work with. Unfortunately, throwing people w...
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Martial 'style' is a handicap

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I've mentioned this before, but it came to my attention again when I heard an interesting allegory; martial 'style' is a handicap. In Chess, when playing against a weaker player, one side can choose to take a handicap by reducing the number of pieces they have access too. This is analogous to tying one hand behind the back in martial arts terms. Having less pieces makes it much more difficult to win, but an accomplished Chess player can still pull out a victory.  In martial arts, 'style' has become a brand. In some cases for good reason. Judo and Tae Kwon Do for instance are Olympic sports and have a set list of rules and guidelines for competition that everyone follows to keep things fair. In other cases like Karate or Wing Chun, 'style' is only maintained to ensure the integrity of the brand. If Karate suddenly started adding weapons it wouldn't be Karate (空手 - empty hand) anymore. The issue with maintaining a style for the sake of branding is th...
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