I was having a conversation with my Maori neighbour regarding MA. He has done a Japanese style and screams like a little girl when I apply wrestling holds (no, not really).
He said that he has never heard of Maori MA. I responded “What did you fight the British with hand-to-hand then?”
He said “The patau, the tei’aha…”
I said “The employment of a weapon or piece of anatomy in a systematic fashion IS an MA”.
The Maori around here have Mau (unarmed fighting) and Mau Rakau (armed fighting) classes around here, but why aren’t they listed in the Yellow Pages? I mean, the tei’aha lets you cut off heads, smash people roundhouse style AND cleave people down the middle. That’s clearly very cool.
Savate I’ll grant you is gaining popularity and kicks arse (very literally); wrestling of any sort is not favoured in Oz and BJJ is derived from an Asian style.
When you use the term ‘martial art’ in sweden usually people only think of the asian stuff. Boxing is just boxing to most people and if you are not wearing gi’s and coloured belts you are not doing MA.
Martial Arts always has that whole asian stigmata attatched to it for most. It doesnt help westers MA that one of the most well known westernized MA’s is tae bo…
jokes like that aside (yes its a joke) its games like tekken that surprisingly piqued my interest in MA’s out of asia, most noticably Krav Maga and Capoeria. I mean, cmon, if you ever wanna describe the latter to someone, you just say “that breakdancy-thing eddie from tekken does”
Brazilian Jiu Jutsu, though derived from asian style has the titular advantage, so im grouping it as westernized. (also because its most prominent representatives arent asian)
you also gotta remember that a lot of western martial arts, such as swordplay in medieval times and the martial arts learnt by ancient greek/roman troopers were just that, army oriented and therefore died out with their respective falls. If anything, you’d need a historian to learn them
Sadly, those medieval masters who taught hand to hand, as well as weapons, did not come up with catchy names for fighting. :pity: Like Deja-Fu, Sna-Fu, Okidoki etc. Wrestling is wrestling, boxing is boxing, savate comes from old shoe (booting). Ok pankration aside, but even that means “all-powers”. Nothing fancy like Plum Blossom Hayakudaki-Fu-Jitsu. Not much mystique, which people seem to expect from martial arts (read: bullshido).
I am not sure what you are asking…
I am sure there are many MA instructors of native MA in every country, they just don’t advertise for many reasons.
Commercially, I doubt they would do that good if they did, they would have to make a huge statement, ala the Garcies, to bring attention to their MA and very few MA instructors are up for a challenge like that.
I’d much rather my arts had stayed word-of-mouth. I hate that the Filipino martial arts are gaining a broader audience. My first FMA instructor was one of those “somebody who knows somebody”.
To be honest, I’m an INCREDIBLY SELFISH ASS. I don’t want more people to know about FMA. I want to be one of the select few who know about it. Same reason I enlisted in the Corps (and almost enlisted in the French Foreign Legion), I wanted to achieve something not everyone does. Plus, the less people know about FMA, the harder for them to defend against it. Same reason BJJ was unstoppable when it appeared on the mainstream scene back in '93. No one knew how to defend against it. As always, just my $.02.
Re. Maori MA - they are still widely taught in New Zealand and different tribes teach different styles, but they are usually considered to be tapu taonga (sacred cultural treasures) and are not often taught openly or to people outside particular families/tribes. There is at least one organisation that is trying to modernize the Maori systems and which will teach anyone who is serious about learning.
Re. historical European MA - there are now hundreds of schools around the world teaching systems of sword fighting, stick fighting, unarmed combat, dagger combat, etc. directly derived from fighting treatises produced between the 1300s-1900s. Try a Google search for “historical fencing”, “historical European martial arts”, etc. There is a huge amount of online information about these systems.
Re. “living lineage” European arts - again, many styles are still practiced. Boxing and savate are the best known examples, but you also have stick fighting systems such as Juego del Palo (Canary Islands), Jogo do Pau (Portugal), Paranza (Italy), la Canne de Combat (France), etc. as well as numerous wrestling systems - Icelandic Glima, Scottish back-hold, la lucha Canaria, Swedish Svingen, etc.
The only way I can see Non Asian MAs getting more popular, is if their practitioners start doing well in competitions, maybe movies or Saturday morning cartoons.
I almost think there is a backlash against western martial arts where I live - the only people that bring them up around me are 1) SCA spaz-dorks 2) Ren-‘faire’ spaz-dorks 3)AngrySpastic.
