Would you consider SCA heavy weapons fighting a Martial Art?

Question

Here is a link to a demonstration page: http://www.scademo.com/demo.fighting.php
These men and women study Western European medieval combat, and have full contact, unscripted, unchoreographed tournaments to determine who is the better fighter that day. Oh, and they don't have judges. The combatants are honor bound to stop using an arm if the arm gets hit, or fall over 'dead' if a sufficiently forceful blow lands on the torso or head. Would you consider it a Martial Art, like Kempo or something?

Answer 1

Personally, I would because it definitely takes skill and practice to learn to do it properly. There is an honor code that goes along with it much like true "martial arts" so it would seem to fit into that classification. Whether it truly is considered a martial art though, I'm not sure.

Answer 2

Well, the martial arts is not limited to Asia only. So yes, it is a martial art like Chinese or Japanese weapons fighting arts like Wushu or Kendo and Budo. I believe there also used to be a Scandinavian martial art called Stav way back in the 90s that taught the weapons fighting arts of the early Vikings, but I haven't heard anything about them since.

Answer 3

Martial means fighting. So it's fighting art. So definitely.