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How would one define martial arts?
What constitutes martial arts? Only the styles that originated in Asia, for they are the ones that have been overly popularized as of late, or also including the traditional European styles, such as Fiore Dei Liberi's hand to hand, Lichtenhauer's longsword, Talhoffer's poleaxe of Saviolo's sword and dagger?
So ,where does the definition of martial arts begin? As any form of combattive training? Formalized training? Someone claiming that he knows a better way to kick somone's arse up between his ears?
And where does the definition end? When weapons are drawn, which would contradict Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings or Johannes Lichtenhauer's verses? When armies are involved, which would contradict Sun Tzu and Musashi? Or when firearms are involved, which would draw flak from any serious shooter out there?
I define Martial Arts as ANY form of ORGANIZED armed or unarmed combat, as anything that increases one's ability to defend themselves whether it's a Traditional Martial Art such as Tang Soo Do, Wing Chun, or Goju-Ryu, Hybrid Martial Art such as Jeet Kune Do, Chip Koon Do, etc, or Modern Combat such as Krav Maga.
I would also include any weapons or sword fighting techniques that are PRE-gunpowder era. because I don't consider using a gun as a fighting tactic other than it's accuracy drills for proper use of the weapon, whereas Archery (which some disciplines such as Ninjitsu employed in earlier times) uses a little more skill for proper accuracy.
Not to trash any firearms experts, because there is a certain degree of learned skill involved to execute proper technique, but I don't believe firearms training could be included in Martial Arts.
As many Martial Artists that know the true meaning, Martial Arts, especialy most of the authors of the books you mentioned were fighters or Martial Artists that it is a way of life, and finds it's way into All aspects of an individual's life who trains in any of the disciplines. Even when such groups such as Armies have been trained, because it helps the individuals in those groups to work together in becoming a cohesive team.
So I don't think the definition of Martial Arts ends anywhere in an individual's life, because it's a continuing process throughout one's life.
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