what is the point behind these martial arts?

Question

Hello friends, ive studied both sport combat and traditional MAs I understand the philosophy of combat and Martial arts for the most parts, but there is afiew martial arts I just can't seem to find the use for,
Aikido
White Crane kung fu
Hopkido
Silate
And Hwa Rang Do
If there are any practitioners of these arts I apologize if you take my comments tge the wrong way, but im genuinely curious about all martial arts and id like to understand the philosophy involved in these styles.

Answer 1

What, no lousy video links supposedly pointing out how bad these arts are?



Not for a minute do I believe that this question is here because you want to learn anything about the arts you are basically attacking here. This is not the first time that you have posted questions that read as if you are not trying to offend anyone, but yet the whole theme of the question is attacking in that it puts a negative tone on the question and attracts several other members that have the same beliefs and negative useless answers here. I am suspicious of your motives for posting this and your identity. It would not surprise me at all to find that this account is just another troll account by one of the other know trolls.



You can't possibly have any amount of proof that any of these arts are not legitimate styles. There are many schools that do water down their classes and teach garbage. but that is certainly limited to a specific list of arts and certainly not these. for the MMA fanboys their own schools are rapidly becoming riddled with bad schools. A year and a half ago a martial arts school here in Georgia changed over to a school teaching BJJ and MMA. It closed a few months ago. I'm told by several people that are into that sort of training that the school was terrible and the instructor not qualified. i say these things not to attack BJJ or MMA. Only to show that those pointing their finger and trashing other arts as being all bogus need to look at their own styles or sports and recognize that no martial arts or martial sport is immune to the wholesale selling off of standards and qualifications for the purpose of making a buck cheating students. What is even more sad is that many of the instructors ripping off the public think themselves well trained when in fact they are not even close to being well trained.





Now that we have established the real world of martial arts, lets talk about Hapkido and Aikido. I mention them because I have had some dealing with them. In both cases as all other arts there are some schools that teach a really effective method while others do not. It is the people involved, not the effectiveness of the arts themselves.





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Answer 2

You understand hitting hard which can be the philosophy of combat and is a good philosophy but it is not the philosophy of martial arts. There is a huge difference. When you understand the difference then you will understand such arts as Aikido and White Crane Kung Fu. To understand you have to first find a good teacher and then actually train in those arts. Watching just videos of any martial arts when you don't understand will give you a very distorted view as you are trying to interpret something you have no experience in. I used to do the same thing when I was a beginner to martial art. Only the martial art I actually trained in made sense. It was a very limited view I had at that time.

Ask a police officer about Aiki sometime and see if he has no use for it. It's all what you train.

Answer 3

I'd say read their history, you'll find out their context of creation. Though their context of creation has NOTHING to do with their context for today. The school today, decides the type of point behind them, some may take it as light exercise and a way to chill and let people enjoy themselves as well as earning some cash for the school, some may be really strict on SD to allow you escape from a situation, some may be on fighting and combat that's just you downing the guy. It all depends on school. Plus some of the arts have different branches that branched off due to different purposes.



E.g. Aikido has Ki Federation, devoted solely to pursuit of Ueshiba's works, while Yoshinkan is a hard aikido style that many other smaller organizations will dispute with their context. Silat refer to too many Indochinese, Filipino, Malaysian, Indonesian, styles with no clear history.



Just because someone founded a martial art then hammered a purpose into it centuries ago doesn't mean someone can't hammer something else into it.



Some of these arts may be having more than one philosophy that it's hard to sum it in sentences.

Answer 4

"Can't seem to find the use for"? Are you serious?



The martial arts isn't a "philosophy", like imparting obscure and archaic wisdom to mull over for a few minutes. Martial arts is about self defense. If you no idea how each of these arts train, then find a school and watch it for yourself. The "point" is the same any other martial art style out there. Why would these specifically be any different?



And you misspelled Hapkido. No wonder you can't find anything about it. You must think it's a jumping style.

Answer 5

I’m going to share my opinion and I’m not claiming it to be the absolute truth, but here is how I see things.

Most of the styles you mentioned I think suffers from a long lineage. It’s like a game of telephone. A master passes on a poem to a student. The student tries to memorize the poem the best he can, but he’ll mess up one or two words. Go down the line far enough and the poem is all jumbled up and makes no sense, but people assume that there is hidden meaning in the non-sense and some does discover weird new meaning in the poem and pass on those newly invented meaning with few new mistakes. Some of those new meanings are actually enlightening and some of those new meanings are just in the clouds and bare no use for practical life. And continue this for generations. The poem becomes a mess, but if you had enough of those innovative masters who inserted the good new meaning then you have a pretty good style.(Hell sometimes you get a amazing master who takes the jumbled mess and completely rewrites a new but perfect poem.) But then you have styles that weren’t so lucky and gets jumbled mess with not enough good innovations. Also you might have just met a master who jumbled up the poem a lot more than the rest of the same style as well.

With that said, Aikido is a special animal in my book. It was an attempt to pacify a skill of violence and that in itself is a contradiction. I think it’s an ongoing experiment to achieve this, but I don’t think Aikidokas thinks of it that way. They see it as something that’s complete and requires no change. So I guess it’s not an ongoing experiment… I contradict myself, and that feels fitting when talking about this art.(mind you I have much love for the philosophy of the art.)

Lastly, I’m Korean. Born in Korea and had my share of years in the country growing up. I hate Hwarangdo. I think it’s a complete BS art created to make money off of a name. Hell they make you learn another art that they created before you can even learn this art. If that doesn’t smell like a scam I don’t know what does. Not saying the techniques aren’t effective or anything, but the general back history they claim is not true and the name of Hwarang is being dragged through the mud by these goons. So much anger towards their marketing and money making scheme. I mean thinking hwarang had a shared martial art is like saying this is the martial art that US police department uses. No, each station has its own version of trainings and it did not get passed down a thousand years or so to make it to us today. Hell, Taekkyun a martial art that flourished even ‘til Josan barely made it down to us today. Bah~

Answer 6

What you mention here are martial arts, and good ones.

Aikido, hapkido, are very good martial arts.

You have some good answers here, especially the post by pugpaws2, so I won't reiterate.



Because the arts you mentioned here are often taught to military, and police.

If they were "useless", as some misinformed people claim, why would armys worldwide teach them?

But I think you should read this for a little perspective.



Believe me when I tell you, you will be very surprised by the arts you suspect of being less. I was young and had that very thing figured out, just like you. Then a young (I was still young then too) judo brown-belt beat the tar out of the parking lot with me! Smart-arsed karate guy couldn't get close to that guy without hitting the ground, and I thought judo was girlish and soft! I saw some tai-chi demos that left my jaw hanging from the POWER of their art, and I do shotokan. I saw a TKD guy simply chop down a muay thai guy with fearsome kicks the MT guy could not fathom. every time I disrespected some different art, it hurt when I found out the hard way. Your martial art is yours alone, when it comes time to use it, and you will make of it what it becomes, and you alone, no matter the art, you the practitioner must make it work.

Answer 7

You could simply look up each of these arts in Wikipedia, which would also encourage you to spell them properly.



Brief capsules. Aikido was developed by Morhei Ueshiba as a sort of spin-off from Judo. It is designed to be a defensive style that uses the opponent's force against him. There are many different styles, some "soft", some "hard".



Hapkido is a Korean style that combines striking elements with various locks, chokes, and grappling techniques, as well as some weapons sets. It's designed to be a practical defensive art...



Silat is an Indonesian art with a variety of unusual techniques designed to work well in heavy, jungle terrain. It is related to some degree to Filipino styles but has a variety of unique techniques and also employs the traditional Indonesian weapon, the Kris.



Hwarang Do is Korean and was developed during a period in feudal Korea as a complete art modeled somewhat after the Japanese bushido. The "hwarang" were elite warriors drawn from the nobility and they practiced a variety of war-oriented fighting techniques.

All of these things have their uses.... And simply fighting is not the only reason for studying a martial art.

Others include physical fitness and health, the mastery of a difficult skill, competition, camaraderie, self-confidence, and even spiritual advancement.

Answer 8

Each martial art does not have a definite difference from the other. They all have their spiritual qualities as well as their physical performance, tradition, and ideology. Maybe you shouldn't be so close minded and take a second look at what you seem to be so hastily passing up. You just might learn something interesting.

Answer 9

@Mark gave some good points on HapKiDo and HwaRrangDo. Which i can speak abt since they are related arts to Kuk Sool. HwaRangDo actually has a of of grappling taught at advanced and blackbelt level. All3 teach join-locks, grappling, leg techniques, strikes and weapons. HapKido is taught to the Korean police and there version of the secret service. HaKiDo is taught to the U.S. Secret Service Presidential Details. It is a very PRACTICAL UNARMED SELF DEFENSE martial art. It is even used by high profile body guards. HwaRangDo has more of a spiritual side to it. As well as as all three are heavy in technical aspect of techniques.



All the martial arts you listed are very good to study. Much harder to learn and understand if you don't get the concept and they are all very technical.

Maybe you need to get out in the real world and see them in application to understand.

@KW showing your lack of knowledge and ignorace again. You need to get out and see what these martial arts can really do. And the physical side of them. Some of their techniques can make MMA/BJJ look tame and foolish. You just haven't grown up and graduated to a higher level of understanding yet. It like your still in middle school, in terms of your martial art knowledge.

I am not knocking BJJ i do understand what it can and can't do. I also know some of its flaws. It seems KW you never grew up and it is obvious you never did any TMA like you claim.

Answer 10

Let me make this simple. They are pieces of the historical record of combat arts from different cultures. As to what they are used for? Fighting. Question answered properly.

Answer 11

I can speak for White Crane Fist.



It, and the Hakka styles, are the biggest influence in the development of Okinawan Karate.



Crane boxing develops explosive power generation as well as strong rooting foundation. It is believed to have been developed by a woman, so the techniques are made to help smaller people dominate larger with technique that causes loss of balance, so that Fajing can be utilized, causing loss of power, breath and even internal injury to the attacker.

Answer 12

You may need to be more specific. What is your question about any of these arts.





Basically they were all created for self defense.

Answer 13

This is what's wrong with the martial arts. Too much focus on the "soul" or "spirit" or "tradition" if you like those things, then hey, good for you, by keep it out of the martial arts. Some of us serious practitioners are trying to learn self-defense systems. The martial arts to mentioned are total BS, along with a few other like TKD, Karate, Wing Chun, Wushu, and Ninjitsu just to name a few.

Answer 14

i dont think you care or want to know the truth, just like taya dits who has no understanding of what martial arts is nor does he care neither do you. taya dits is a perfect example of people going no where in life as well as martial arts

Answer 15

Some martial arts just don't have a use. They've completely discarded the martial for the art, simple as that.