Taxonomy: Properly Categorizing the Types of Martial Arts

[Shu2jack]

Suzie P. Soccercrotch decides to put her precious little pantynugget into Taekwondo because he's getting bullied and there's a school down the street. After all, all Martial Arts prepare you for self defense, don't they?

So she goes on the Internet to learn more about TKD and finds a style profile on Bullshido.COM that lists it as a low contact, sport style for the most part. Realizing that this might not going to keep Little Johnny from reverse digesting his underwear or spending time stuffed into lockers, she follows the link on there to Bullshido.ORG and reads about all our experiences with TKD and sees evidence of what happens when the tippy-tap approach to sparring gets pressure tested in real fights.

Realizing that a style that's primarily about playing foot tag probably won't be best to keep Johnny from having his ass cheeks taped together, she finds a local Judo school and saves herself thousands of dollars in belt testing fees that otherwise would have gone towards buying someone up the TKD pyramid a new Lexus.

The foundation of any positive change in society comes by defining the terms involved with honesty, and sweeping away entrenched misinformation, half-truths, and propaganda.

Wouldn't we then start screwing any schools of a particular style that actually do have merit?

[Coach Josh]

Realizing that a style that's primarily about playing foot tag probably won't be best to keep Johnny from having his ass cheeks taped together, she finds a local Judo school and saves herself thousands of dollars in belt testing fees that otherwise would have gone towards buying someone up the TKD pyramid a new Lexus.

The foundation of any positive change in society comes by defining the terms involved with honesty, and sweeping away entrenched misinformation, half-truths, and propaganda.

Thats is the most spot on statement about TKD and Mcdojos ever. That needs to be placed in a banner.

[PSanderson]

If we're looking at this from the perspective of a public-informative endeavor, I'd suggest that a few short paragraphs from honest practitioners would go farther than a chart, which might be overly relied upon. If anything, I might suggest using the five categories as structure for such summaries. Sort of like,

"So, you're interested in TKD? In terms of the aforementioned five categories...

(Blurb on sportfighting aspects of TKD; variations within TKD on sportfighting, etc.)
(Blurb on self-defense aspects of TKD...)
(And so on.)"

[Naszir]

Maybe using the categories previously discussed with a modifier of contact level. For instance, ARMA would be high contact historical recreation, SAMBO would be high contact sport fighting, etc.

Also a caveat stating there are exceptions to every rating but these are the characteristics generally found in that style's schools and an admonishment to check out the school for themselves may protect the innocent from being lumped in with crap.

[Phrost]

Wouldn't we then start screwing any schools of a particular style that actually do have merit?

Or maybe it would encourage certain styles to reflect on why they're categorized as X or Y and adjust their training accordingly.

[Tom Kagan]

So she goes on the Internet to learn more about TKD and finds a style profile on Bullshido.COM that lists it as a low contact, sport style for the most part. Realizing that this might not going to keep Little Johnny from reverse digesting his underwear or spending time stuffed into lockers, she follows the link on there to Bullshido.ORG and reads about all our experiences with TKD and sees evidence of what happens when the tippy-tap approach to sparring gets pressure tested in real fights.

You do realize there will also be a significant number of people who read the same information and will then consciously decide to put their kid into that "low contact" TKD class, right?

If your intent is to help people make a more informed decision, I don't think you would have a particular problem with this. However, that's not exactly the sentiment you express in your post.

[Shu2jack]

Or maybe it would encourage certain styles to reflect on why they're categorized as X or Y and adjust their training accordingly.

Slander a legimate instructor in a "crappy" art who IS trying to adjust the training in that style? That doesn't seem like a very good way to help those guys out.


Bullshido has a large number of posters. I think a better idea would be to have a brief description of each style, a database on various schools so consumers can look up schools, and a polite section of the bullshido community that can help point people in the right direction.

Seems like a better idea than saying "X instructor sucks because he teaches Y". That doesn't work in other areas of life, I don't think it should work for the martial arts. Let each school and person go by their individual merits.

[donoharm]

There's a lot of terrific thought on this thread, and my hat is off to you guys. I think the info you're assembling is potentially quite valuable.

[BFGalbraith]

A) I agree with all the comments about the problems around catagorization in general. With that said multiple catagorizations and gray scales IMHO are a good thing, especially considering the growth of less-than-professional contact competition (where for example a CMA might compete in a sport-jujitsu tournament.)

B) I still think it's neccesary in this case here on Bullshido, because we need to a vocabulary to communicate about martial arts clearly. Three examples of how this isn't happening now:
1) The constant use of "TMA" on threads, which means 4+ very-different things.
2) Certain obviously-not-alive CMA's being listed with 10 on Aliveness in the school reviews. (Before you say where your TKD school stands in aliveness generally, you should first know were TKD stands as a whole, so that you can make a comparason to other TKD schools rather than accidentally comparing yourself to serious MMA gyms. Like wise, how can I say "hey guys, I found a Tai Chi school with comparable aliveness and contact sparring to Judo" if I don't have a default definition of Tai Chi to make this statement relevant in the first place.)
3) The whole debate around whether or not any place other than Thailand ever developed effective striking techniques independently of Thailand could definitely use a little established vocabulary boost.

C) I tend to think of this as a balance between dance (or other conditioning exercises) and actual sparring within individual schools. (Case in point kickboxing vs. cardio kickboxing: fighting system vs. dance style. The line between the two is pretty clear: sparring, yes or no?)

[doninha]

I think this classification idea is great. I agree that it should be attached to a few modifiers, however. Here is one idea on how I would rank things:


Capoeira primarily a demonstration style
The following ratings are my opinion about the relevence concerning overlap into other classifications.

Scale of relevence from 1 to 10
Sportfighting:3
(Intended for competitive athletic events.)

Self Defense:3
(Intended for modern-day "real world" fighting, civilian or military)

Historical:6
(Traditions from non-modern-day settings, which would probably fall under one of the other four categories in their native setting.)

Demonstration:10
(Intended for aesthetic display)

Health and Fitness:8
(Intended for mental/physical conditioning and relaxation)

That's my take on a good system. Along the lines of the styles analysis already present for Ninjitsu and Muay Thai.

Doninha