What exactly qualifies as a Traditional Martial Art?

**Vieux Normand** · Posted On: 1/13/2013 5:21pm

IMHO, if I can deal with a workplace problem by oshi-dashi which expels some combative douche out the nightclub door, I'm not going to much care if it's centuries-old or of recent provenance.

Nor will I care if it's usually practised in a gi or shorts 'n' rashguard.

Its presence or absence in any kata will be entirely inconsequential.

Whether or not it worked on some pro bout on TV will be of no consequence to me.

I will not care if it hails from Brazil, Japan, Japan-via-Brazil, China or Hoboken NJ.

It can have a name coming from Korea, Moscow or Slough, UK.

As long as the asshole I'm dealing with has been shown the door via oshi-dashi, I'm happy to practise it and use it at need.

Ditto the rest of any MA.

But that's just me.

**Matt Phillips** · Posted On: 1/13/2013 7:49pm

Muaythai is younger than BJJ; Judo is the last TMA and the first non-TMA simultaneously.

**bigato** · Posted On: 1/14/2013 4:47am

If at least grandmaster Helio Gracie had grown a white beard, bjj could be considered a TMA.

**RWaggs** · Posted On: 1/14/2013 11:42am

Originally Posted by Omega Supreme

Kyokushin kai is not TMA

Tell that to the 60 or so Katas I'll need to know before my Shodan test, lol.

But seriously, I don't really consider it to be TMA either.

**RWaggs** · Posted On: 1/14/2013 5:40pm

It's weird...I left a comment earlier in response to Omega, and the YMAS main page says that I left the last comment on this thread, but it's not here.

*Edit...it appears this one is showing up. I don't get it.

**Permalost** · Posted On: 1/14/2013 5:48pm

Originally Posted by CrackFox

You seem to be talking about koryu styles, which is something different again. I was trying to give a working definition of that people mean when they say TMA - something that includes genuinely old styles, and the hundreds of kung-fu/karate/jujutsu/whatever styles that were developed last Tuesday, and which claim to be traditional and deadly.

Can't we just call the genuinely old styles Old Martial Arts?

**crappler** · Posted On: 1/14/2013 7:34pm

Here is my thoughts:

If it contains anything that is leftover from a bygone era and is totally worthless and stupid and done just because it has always been done, like forcing Jewish kids to eat Gefilte fish or Norwegian kids Lutefisk, it's traditional.

If it has nothing that is worthless, it's non-traditional.

**crappler** · Posted On: 1/14/2013 7:37pm

The defining line is one is interested in doing only what works and testing it, and the other is interested in doing what has always been done and repeating it.

**Vieux Normand** · Posted On: 1/14/2013 8:14pm

Tried posting this before, don't see it, maybe it got abducted, or maybe it's posted but I don't see it, in which case apologies for the double post:

Okay, so at work, some idiot in front of a buddy of his tries bottling the side of my head. I slip inside (not duck, parry or block--slip) get him in an standing arm triangle. I then quickly change to an ogoshi since my position allows me to use the momentum of the hip-throw to get him and the other idiot through the nearest exit by feeding them both into the doors' crashbars (fire-exits are common in such venues). Close the doors, write the incident report after closing time, go home to a quiet breakfast.

The little basic bread-and-butter combination I used may have been invented yesterday, or it may be millenia old, with weird stories and movies involving it.

It may be practised in a gi, street clothes or shorts 'n' rashguard.

Might have fancy linguistic terminology attached to it. Or not.

It may or may not be part of some kata or similar sequence somewhere.

It may or many not have ever been used with success in a ring, mat or octagon.

There may or may not be some army or LEO service that trains it.

Could be Western. Could be Eastern. Both. Neither.

It saved me from eating some glass at work, and got me paid for my work and back home to my wife.

Am I going to care whether or not it's 'traditional', or part of anything 'traditional'?

I'm just asking, 'cause the topic keeps resurfacing on this forum. To what useful end does this recurrence happen?

***jnp*** · Posted On: 1/14/2013 10:27pm

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

Really it seems that the term has little use in actual categorizing or grouping a bunch of arts together by any useful set of criteria. It could be considered taxonomically redundant as a term and perhaps a new term or new terms will spring up to replace it in time.

Perhaps one of the reasons that the 'Traditional' label has managed to survive, its memetic quality so to speak, is that it in conjures up an image of martial arts style that are of a similar mindset in the mind of the person using the term.

For example when people say traditional do they really mean that in their experience practitioners of the arts make appeals to authority style arguments when trying to justify the validity of their style, using the age of a technique or style (quite often falsely) or the fact that it has been done like that for generations, quoting masters and grand-masters, and placing time served as more important that technical ability, or making assumptions that time served equals technical ability. Instead of making they arguments based on sparring and competition.

It's about the only reason i can think of for the term still being in use, that it goes someway towards describing the typical practitioner, rather than actual describe the arts practiced.

Good lord, you're even more verbose than I am. That said, I agree. The term "traditional" is an outdated and imperfect description.

Originally Posted by Vieux Normand

I'm just asking, 'cause the topic keeps resurfacing on this forum. To what useful end does this recurrence happen?

Because members here like discussing both semantics and nomenclature. It's tied to the "need to classify everything" gene that seems prevalent in many ~~geeks~~ martial artists.