what are the roots of martial arts?

Question

when i say this i mean did it start from an Asian religion, a sport, an excercise? HELP!

(also, does it have to do with some kind of "spirituality"? If so, does it involve that with all MA fighting styles?)

Answer 1

The great debate. Chinese Gung Fu styles came from India in 500AD. Indian Martial arts (from India) have litterature dating back to 2000 bc. However it is only based in sotries writen much later. No actual artifacts or depictions have been found to prove when they started.
The worlds oldest recognised combat system is Pankration. A form of wrestling created in Greace. There has been documentation and proof dating it back to 500 BC. But there is also some writings that date it back longer with no proof however.
As stated by a previous answerer Martial Arts simply describes any form of hand to hand combat. So it is safe to say that although specific names of styles were not created until 2500 years ago and some are only 10 years old. Martial Arts have been in existance since the begining of Man when one cave man had to fight another to secure land or fire. And I guess if you're religeous and believe in the Adam and Eve theory. Well maybe Martial arts started over who was going to do the dishes...
Martial Arts are not religion based however the Monks of China, the Samarai of Japan and the Hindus of India often used there dojos as shrines or their temples as dojos. So no more spiritual than a Modern day soldier praying to god as he goes off to war. There is just more pagentry, symbolism and ritual involved in the eastern religions compared to Catholasism and Christianity.

Answer 2

martial arts, means military art, it started from armies and needing to train soldiers how to fight. Almost every country with an army has had military training for its soldiers. Different styles of fighting comes from many parts of the globe. They did not all come from asia.

But it really got popular for the public when bruce lee made his movies. It used to be a closely guarded secret only for the military until bruce made it popular in the movies, now everybody knows what it is and is familiar with the martial arts.

Some of the most popular styles are thai kickboxing, jiu jitsu, judo, karate, kung fu, wing chun, jeet kune do, tae kwon do, boxing, kendo, fencing, wrestling, capoeira

and there are a ton of others as well

just search and you can find the origin for these arts and fighting styles on the internet, and then search for a local dojo to train

good luck

Answer 3

well....there are many roots for the different types of martial arts in the world, and not all of them were for military purposes.

Shaolin was started by a monk who invented basic exercises to improve the quality of health for the monks in china.

Capoeira was started by slaves who trained in secret to escape to freedom.

Most of the martail arts that were non-military based did have spiritual components to them. CApoeria is about having fun and developing your own style, while connecting to a community.

ki-aikido is about moving with a co-ordinated mind and body in an effort to become one with the universe, not killing someone.

Shaolin is a discipline that also involved uniting your mind and body. The body was used as a meditative tool. Of course, the monks and other practitioners would gladly take up arms to defend their homes from invaders, and such.


As for mma, I'm not sure about whether they have an incorporated spirituality. I hope they do have one that is focused around good sportsman ship and having fun

Answer 4

If you trace back the history of mankind you'll see where martial arts originated. Personally I believe it was the in the Middle East.

Answer 5

Two monkeys disliked each other and started to punch. Boxing was born.

Seriously though, Greeks were practicing MA like boxing and pankration way before it came to Asia. MA means war oriented combat, and considering Greek, Vedic, Assyrian, Egyptian, Sumerian, Jewish, and Sumerian Empires had been warring with each other way before Boddhidharma came to China, it's pretty likely that war is the root of martial arts. China had martial arts before kung fu as well... it was basically combatives for the battlefield.