Is Boxing a Martial Art?

yessiree!!! that is the God's truth! amen!

 

REALLY?????



Me neither then I mean aside fromt eh one holding up my pants.

 

It's both isn't it?

This might get a bit muddled but I have many opinions on this!
1eople have been conditioned into accepting martial arts to be associated with asia, well the west and europe have long been practitioners of martial arts. For example, savate developed in isolation from the east, backhold wrestling, capoeira, la canne, systema,fencing (rapier,epee,sabre), irish stickfighting, english stave, longsword, boxing,wrestling, hawaian lua, african ahati kilindi iyi, indian kalaripappayit....thats just a few off the top of my head! There are only so many ways the human body can move and behave, people will develop similar methods regardlesss of where they come from! I have studied medieval english wrestling and boxing and some of the techniques look similar to jujitsu, get the point? where do you think reverse punches came from? very similar to crosses, just heavily adapted. The ancient egyptians even had which was probably the world's first systemised art-based on boxing and wrestling, the greeks were great boxers and wrestlers, the romans developed pankration, none of them asian.
2efinition of "martial art" the martial refers to a system of combat, it has a prescribed set of blows to defeat an attacker! The "art" merely is the application of the fighters mind and creativity, what makes a painter an artist? Their mind being creative, their own interpretation and vision! Exactly what a boxer does when they train, finding the best way to throw a punch, or work round a defence, expressing THEIR INTERPRETATION of the system, just like the painter (artist) who has to use his oils in a certain way for the to be effective.
I hope I've made my point.

 

Boxing is not a martial art, Fact.
Defintion of martial art: 'A human art consisting of spiritual and self defence activities.' (This defintion was the same in different martial arts books)

Boxing is not a martial art - It is strictly a sport. That's like saying Football is the same as Rugby. They may seem similar but they are very different.

 

Letting your dictionary do your thinking for you is a bad idea, Fact.

The people who write the dictionary know a hell of a lot less about martial arts than the people here.

 

Boxing is a martial art. So there. It exercises your artistic faculties, such as judgement and creativity, and it's definetly martial. I hate the idiots who want so badly to make sport and MA two seperate issues. They're losers who won't accept that they're losers and do something about it. They prefer to criticise serious martial artists for their supposed 'immaturity'

 

really? let'sbreak it down shall we:

1) martial- the act of/ state of combat

2) art- way or system.

bud, you've gotten thing muddled. just because some of the keepers of the flames/ teachings were monks (wudan, shaolin, shinto priests, the babaylan, the sufis, etc.) and in fact infused spirituality into it, the bare basics is that martial arts is a system of combat.

i was told by an anthropologist that the spiritual aspect was infused to conquer the fear aspect of dying in combat. ingerently, the fear of getting hurt or killed is within all of us. the way out of that fear is to behold something greater than pain or death.

boxing is a sport now because of the rules that limit/ govern it's application in tournaments. but have no illusion, boxing can and does hold it's own outside of the ring.

 

Anyone interested in the early development of boxing before rules changed it into today's 'sports' based system, can find details in a new MAP article which gives a basic overview of the boxers (men and women) who trained and fought using both armed & unarmed combat techniques:
http://www.martialartsplanet.com/magazine/styles/pugilism.htm

Louie

 

oh, i also forgot to mention that the originators of boxing, the greeks, used to hold boxing matches in relation to religious ceremonies to praise their gods.

 

Boxing was created as a sport and should stay as one, it is not efficient enough to be used as a real life combative art form. But some of its techniques and footwork were worth noticing so that's why Kickboxing was developed, it is the martial arts of Boxing.

 

No Munky, most boxers will break you in half without missing a beat.

Although boxing has a "limited" number of techniques, it is fast aggressive powerful and destructive. In short, an excellent "self-defence" system that, in my very humble opinion, is more effective than many of the more esoteric arts that flow from the orient.

Boxing has always been as much about self-defence as sport. James Figg used to teach boxing alongside staff fighting hundreds of years ago. And kickboxing was around for many years before what we now call boxing (i.e. Muay Thai, Savate). Modern kickboxing comes more from those arts and elements of karate rather than boxing. Your grasp of martial history leaves something to be desired

 

YAM
You Are Mistaken

 

NIN

No I'm Not

 

YYA

Yes You Are

 

Enough!!!

Enough of these stupid childish posts! If your going to debate this point, then do so. The last three posts are pointless. Munkey_Boxer, fill out your profile fully please so that I can treat your miss-informed posts with the level of concern that they require.

FACT: Modern kickboxing originated in the USA around about the 60's because disgruntled Karateka just wanted to spar and fight (not really a problem).

FACT: The boxing that the greeks had in their olymipcs was a sport yes, then when the romans got their hands on it, it became life or death fighting.

If your going to cite Kickboxing as an MA because it has kicks, then by the converse of your previous arguement Kickboxing is also a sport and not a Martial Art!

Thanks,

Colin S

 

I was trying to!

I have always had a soft spot for the pre-glove era when kicks, trips and throws were quite common. Boxing had the "cross buttock" throw, which bears an uncanny resemblance to a hip throw.

Speaking of pre-glove boxing. what was the historical error made at the beginning of Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp"?

Kudos and big superior grin to anyone else who knows!

 

WDYASU

Why Dont You All Shut Up?!

I still think that Boxing is not a MA, what are you going to do, shoot me?

 

Munky how old are you exactly?

Try and debate with me rather than simply posting idiotic acronyms.

Apologies for retreading old ground but boxing is a martial art as much as any others out there. The fact that it is principally tested and viewed within the confines of a sporting arena does not change that. If it did, muay thai, judo, bjj, MMA etc would all similarly be dismissed as not being martial arts.

Panaktukan is a form of boxing too yet I suspect that that would meet your criteria. Merley because something is occidental and sport focused does not mean it cannot be a martial art.

Now. please feel free to discuss and counterpoint.

 

I asked you nicely not to do this again as it is childish and pointless.

 

Right Col, over to you!