Is competition fighting a martial art?

R

R.Lewis

1
Ok, now this is a touchy question so every please stay calm.

I’d like to know what you guys think of competition fighting. Personally I don’t think that it should be classed as a martial art. Yes I do spar in Karate, but only as a means to improve reflexes and learn about the opponents body movements.

By spending all your time training to win points I feel you are loosing the true element of the martial arts. Most martial arts have been developed to kill or incapacitate as quickly and safely as possible.

I am not against fighting sports in any way, I just disagree that they are referred to as martial arts. Boxing is not a martial art.
 
I think point sparring is a part of martial arts, which i do on occasion (I can't help it, im good at it) but most of my sparring isn't point, its general fighting. I think anyone who only preforms one step sparring and/or point sparring is seriously handicapped in a real fight situation.

I find its easy for me to take what I learn in a sparring session and transfer it into a point sparring match, but its not easy to do it the other way, people who tend to point spar seem to want to stop when an exchange happens.
 
I think boxing is very much a martial art. I also think that we have two variations of the martial arts-the art side and the application or the Jitsu/Jutsu and the Do.

I'd argue that Judo and BJJ are very much martial arts but are very competition heavy. I practice a bit of Kendo here and there and it's completely competition oriented and I'd argue against anyone that said it wasn't a martial art.

I'd also call MMA fighters martial artists and they're competition guys.

I just look at it as different courses for different horses...which is the beauty of martial arts, there's so many outlets that you can take.
 
I see where your coming from and understand that is probably the view of 90% of people.
My point is, can you really call it a martial art if your not looking to hurt someone.

I would consider army style fighting as a martial art. Many of the "old school" martial artists I have trained with do not even consider judo, bjj or even western karate as a martial art, but as a past-time.

But then if we take the term "martial art" literaly it mean the way to police someone, or to "keep them in check" as we would say, so that would include sports.

I believe that nomatter what system you train in, if you are training to hurt or kill its a martial art and if you are trining to score a point or win a match then it is a sport.
 
This issue is similar to hunting. If you use the same skills and the same weapons to hunt for sport or just hunt to eat, then are you not still doing the same thing? But to apply it to reality-- point sparring=useless. Things like grappling are different because in order to learn grappling, you need a partner. Competition follows naturally. However, when practicing "deadly techniques" or just really painful ones, like eye gouging, throat punching, groin striking; there is a fine line that appears, and is easily differentiable from competition/grappling/etc.

To conclude it...I would say...martial arts is whatever you make it. If what drives you to lift weights is that you want to kill someone with your powerful glutes, then according to your definition, weight lifting is a martial art. And yet, so few people have that kind of motivation.

Gong fu is gong fu. It's a dicipline in anything. Homework takes gong fu. Baking a cake takes gong fu. And I'll leave it up to the reader to decide if they want to equate martial arts with gong fu.
 
the way i see it is that point fighting (sparing) is good for any martial artist no matter what their style is and learn from experiance of the punches thrown and being able to move in on your oponent quicker and react quicker the works. Also what really is important isnt points its just experiance. he who can last the longest and get the most hits in and blocking dont forget blocking as well as perrying and avoiding hits.
 
From the standpoint of street/application of fighting, then "lasting the longest" is more of a destructive rather than a constructive ability. Point fighting is useless in this sense, but I see your point, so to speak, in how it helps in that sense. However, there are better ways to go about this. Regular sparring, for example, or even a lesser evolved form-- simple drilling.

Getting hit for points, in my mind, remains incredulous.
 
Kent,

Out of curiousity...if you see that training to hurt someone is a martial art...wouldn't you call boxing and MMA a martial art?

I'd be hard pressed to not view Judo and the grappling arts as a martial art.

I guess it all boils down to a subjective view of martial arts. I think most schools carry with it both the self defense and the sparring training. Now, even though I think olympic TKD sucks, I still call the guys that practice it martial artists even though what they do out there could be a lot more effective.

But let's face it...not everyone wants to train to learn how to kill, main, and annihiliate.:)
 
I wouldn't call competition or point sparring a martial art on its own, but rather an aspect of martial arts.

Some one who is very good at point sparring is very likely good at real combat as well. They have learned tactics, how to set up an opponent and take advantage of opportunities. Point sparring is like chess, you HAVE to think, plan, and react with precision. If you can do these things while being restricted to certain targets, think how those skills will apply to actual combat.
 
I agree crazy, like I said before, I'm good at point sparring even though we don't necessarily practice it. During sparring sessions we put on our gear and spar until we are told to break by our instructor. However in a point sparring only environment, I think most of the arguement against it derives from the whole "ok I scored with a punch, i'll stop now" theory when someone gets in a real fight.

IMO, point sparring is an extension of regular old jiyu kumite, therefore is an extension of martial arts. I tend to look at the term "martial arts" at face value. To me, its the art of combat, plain and simple. Could I stop an opponent with my skills I've learned in point sparring? I think so, I've learned how to get inside an opponents defenses and strike quickly with technique and not so much just wailing and flailing. I'm sure everyone in this thread could, as we seem to be dedicated to our specific arts. I'm also smart enough (as everyone here) to know that in a real fight, I'm not gonna be restricted to the rules of point sparring, and I'm not gonna stop because there isn't gonna be someone there yelling "break" or "yame".

On the other hand though, I do think that those who practice point sparring all the time will have problems. They are trained to pull punches and kicks regularly where we are not. We know we need to pull them in a match because we don't want DQed, its more the exception that the rule for us.
 
speaking of point fighting i need to work on it some more well i can get in the hits but theyre just slight taps

quote from the movie kickboxer "damn it kid how many times i gotta tell ya, ya dont win with that tip tap ****"

i need to work on my power and if i havent alread ymentioned it my self confidense

i dont know why its just i have to admit i get afraid of fights but not as much as i use to i can stand up for myself better then i ever was able to its just that i blank out sometimes oh well thats personal stuff i guess
 
The 1-step sparring where the fight is stopped after a point, I agree, is useless past the beginner stage. It gives people the feel of having a fist flying at them, and vise versa. In TKD, there is no stopping for points, unless there is a knockout, or a ring-out. We are encouraged to use knockout power with every strike, or you do not get a point. In Hapkido, there are no points, since it is far too dangerous for competition. Our sparring always ends with a tap-out or knock out. Tap-out is preferable of course, since we are all friends in class. A broken bone or seperated joint is not uncommon. There should be a fine line between true sparring and a street fight. Otherwise, what is the point?
 
Eh, I am not so sure that point sparring is the best way to train a fighter. If you limit yourself to certain areas only when sparring, and thus when learning to fight, you might be making reenforcing bad habits. I haven't tested this out, so I could be wrong, but as far as fight training goes, training as real as realistically possible is a general rule of thumb.
 
LeiYunFat said:
Eh, I am not so sure that point sparring is the best way to train a fighter. If you limit yourself to certain areas only when sparring, and thus when learning to fight, you might be making reenforcing bad habits. I haven't tested this out, so I could be wrong, but as far as fight training goes, training as real as realistically possible is a general rule of thumb.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more with this...

People who point spar and point spar/one step spar only are really hindering themselves in a fight. I feel it would be easier to learn to fight realistic as possible then limit myself in a point match rather than to learn to fight in a point match then have to go outside of my "comfort zone" (for a lack of a better term) when I have to defend myself for real. It is sad however, and I think most will agree with me, that the martial arts (karate and TKD especially) have become very competition oriented and its a shame.
 
Hi, back from my week off and Im glad my topic has grown without squabble.

I wrote my 1st 2 post with that view to see how people would react to that sort of view. (and it is the view of many hardcore Japanese martial artists)

In the words of Lei yun fat "Baking a cake takes gong fu."
I thort that was a great quote. you should use it in your footer.

Martial arts is in everything we do. we use our martial arts every day, not just when your fighting. We use martial arts to enlighten us, clear the mind, adapt to any situation or goal, this could include learning a language, riding a horse, learning a new form of martial art painting a picture of using a computer (im glad I learned patience from my training!!!)

Martial art is something everyone does in one way or another. I really enjoyed lei's post about hunting. They talk about the hunting applications of martial arts in many of the book my sensei read from, I had forgotten about that until now.
 
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