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While all the damages of the British occupation of Sri Lanka and elsewhere is terrible, I believe banning martial has been common the world over, especially bef

While all the damages of the British occupation of Sri Lanka and elsewhere is terrible, I believe banning martial has been common the world over, especially before the modern era. I think various Chinese rulers as well as the Maoist banned some martial arts, Russia banned everything but Sambo in the Soviet era, Capoeira was developed in Brazil as a "secret martial art", martial arts were banned in Okinawan at one point (home of Karate and related arts). Being an oral tradition, martial arts tend to be always fracturing and in danger of dying out. Source: lots of martial arts contacts plus I practice an art known seriously to only one other person I know of in the world.

ummonk 5y ago
Banning martial arts was a common practice. An equally common practice has been claiming your martial art was banned and suppressed in the past, to give it legitimacy and an aura of mystery. With any given martial art, it's hard to determine whether it was actually banned or not.
- satao 5y ago
  > An equally common practice has been claiming your martial art was banned and suppressed in the past, to give it legitimacy and an aura of mystery Do you have any source for this claim?
chakkepolja 5y ago
It's comparable to gun control, except that it kills the traditions of undocumented martial arts. But the people in power don't care about that.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  Yes, I was just going to add the similarity to gun control. But I'd also add that the urge for control isn't limited to states. When these arts were valuable, masters would be selective and kind of abusive, about who they let learn the secrets. The long, seemingly pointless exercises one had to go through to learn obscure art X were basically tests of loyalty and efforts to instill loyalty.
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
> martial arts tend to be always fracturing and in danger of dying out. Makes me wonder how many we’ve already lost that aren’t documented
- roel_v 5y ago
  The reality is that most "martial arts" are mostly performative, as the principles of actually useful hand to hand combat are fairly universal and anything that isn't effective and efficient "evolves" out quickly. E.g. wildly flaying weapons, static Bruce Lee style kicking/punching only h2h fighting styles, etc. - spectacular for movies and demonstrations, but little use in actual fighting. So anything that's "lost" is just as easily replaced by someone else coming up with another ritualized choreography. Take aikido. Why are there so many people doing that? It's not because it has anything to do with actual fighting. It's like why panda bears are still alive - if it were to be left to nature, they'd die out soon, the main reason we have so many is because they look cute to humans and we protect and encourage their existence.
  - BBC-vs-neolibs 5y ago
    Your last paragraph was incredibly funny! Pandas exist not because they have evolved in their ecological niche for millions of years, but because they are human pets? I assume a bit like toy poodles?
  - watwut 5y ago
    Bruce Lee thing was specifically designed for movies, so I dont think it is good example of traditional martial arts that might or might not be lost. It was modern adaptation literally for movie. Aikido is done a lot now, becauae it adapted to current world. What people do is modern variant where not useful pieces got removed and useful pieces are pushed up. Useful here being fun engaging exercise - and in our world being sedentary is more of risk then having to go on the offensive against ennemy clan.
    - roel_v 5y ago
      Right, and there is nothing wrong with spectacular fighting for movies, but it did give rise to the idea that this is what actual fighting looks like. Which it doesn't. Same with aikido - it's fine when people do it as a form of exercise, like lots of Chinese do tai chi, but let's not kid ourselves on the efficacy. I used to train at a place where there was an aikido group before us, and the teacher would always be talking about "do this or that because of this specific thing the samurai did on the battlefield". I wasn't going to be That Guy challenging him in front of his students, but please - you're literally standing there in what actual samurai wore as underwear under their plate armor when going to war, and now you're going to claim that they used some hand-wavy wrist lock to disarm another guy in full armor charging them with a 3 foot sword? To each their own, but at least be honest to yourself and your students. And it's usually these people who have the most self-aggrandazing ideas about "bushido" and how their hocus pocus is somehow morally superior. How are straight up lies and deceit morally superior? (I know you weren't claiming my last point, I'm just saying that those promoting their fight-like dance choreographies as "martial arts" need to be honest to be able to claim the moral high ground.)
ayepif 5y ago
Which art do you practice? If you don't mind me asking.

ummonk 5y ago

Banning martial arts was a common practice. An equally common practice has been claiming your martial art was banned and suppressed in the past, to give it legitimacy and an aura of mystery. With any given martial art, it's hard to determine whether it was actually banned or not.

satao 5y ago
> An equally common practice has been claiming your martial art was banned and suppressed in the past, to give it legitimacy and an aura of mystery Do you have any source for this claim?

chakkepolja 5y ago

It's comparable to gun control, except that it kills the traditions of undocumented martial arts. But the people in power don't care about that.

joe_the_user 5y ago
Yes, I was just going to add the similarity to gun control. But I'd also add that the urge for control isn't limited to states. When these arts were valuable, masters would be selective and kind of abusive, about who they let learn the secrets. The long, seemingly pointless exercises one had to go through to learn obscure art X were basically tests of loyalty and efforts to instill loyalty.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

> martial arts tend to be always fracturing and in danger of dying out. Makes me wonder how many we’ve already lost that aren’t documented

roel_v 5y ago
The reality is that most "martial arts" are mostly performative, as the principles of actually useful hand to hand combat are fairly universal and anything that isn't effective and efficient "evolves" out quickly. E.g. wildly flaying weapons, static Bruce Lee style kicking/punching only h2h fighting styles, etc. - spectacular for movies and demonstrations, but little use in actual fighting. So anything that's "lost" is just as easily replaced by someone else coming up with another ritualized choreography. Take aikido. Why are there so many people doing that? It's not because it has anything to do with actual fighting. It's like why panda bears are still alive - if it were to be left to nature, they'd die out soon, the main reason we have so many is because they look cute to humans and we protect and encourage their existence.
- BBC-vs-neolibs 5y ago
  Your last paragraph was incredibly funny! Pandas exist not because they have evolved in their ecological niche for millions of years, but because they are human pets? I assume a bit like toy poodles?
- watwut 5y ago
  Bruce Lee thing was specifically designed for movies, so I dont think it is good example of traditional martial arts that might or might not be lost. It was modern adaptation literally for movie. Aikido is done a lot now, becauae it adapted to current world. What people do is modern variant where not useful pieces got removed and useful pieces are pushed up. Useful here being fun engaging exercise - and in our world being sedentary is more of risk then having to go on the offensive against ennemy clan.
  - roel_v 5y ago
    Right, and there is nothing wrong with spectacular fighting for movies, but it did give rise to the idea that this is what actual fighting looks like. Which it doesn't. Same with aikido - it's fine when people do it as a form of exercise, like lots of Chinese do tai chi, but let's not kid ourselves on the efficacy. I used to train at a place where there was an aikido group before us, and the teacher would always be talking about "do this or that because of this specific thing the samurai did on the battlefield". I wasn't going to be That Guy challenging him in front of his students, but please - you're literally standing there in what actual samurai wore as underwear under their plate armor when going to war, and now you're going to claim that they used some hand-wavy wrist lock to disarm another guy in full armor charging them with a 3 foot sword? To each their own, but at least be honest to yourself and your students. And it's usually these people who have the most self-aggrandazing ideas about "bushido" and how their hocus pocus is somehow morally superior. How are straight up lies and deceit morally superior? (I know you weren't claiming my last point, I'm just saying that those promoting their fight-like dance choreographies as "martial arts" need to be honest to be able to claim the moral high ground.)

ayepif 5y ago

Which art do you practice? If you don't mind me asking.