Video clip survey: How to define Martial Arts and Combat Sports?

Hello,
I am currently working on a scientific article which deals with the question:

How to define martial arts and combat sports?

For this, I set up a study. Participants are asked to evaluate fifty very short (around 15 seconds each) fighting videos. Trust me: It is really fun to do and it will make you reflect about your own about martial arts definition.
It would be excellent if you could participate! Please share!
Link:(Deleted)

Best regards,
Dr. Martin Meyer, University of Vechta

 

The issue is one of linguistics, not science. The definition seems straightforward to me: do you perform your martial art under a competitive ruleset? If so, it is a martial art and a combat sport. It can be both things. A bit like how Ben & Jerry's is both ice cream and a dessert.

 

@Van Zandt The questionnaire allows to rate a clip both a martial art and a combat sport. Thank you for your explanation! Though competitive rulesets also apply to fights in hockey, is it therefore a combat sport?

 

Partially yes, hockey is a combat sport. As the fights have an effect on the outcome of the matches.

 

Worth a read:

Fighting in ice hockey - Wikipedia

Fighting in ice hockey is unlike fighting in any other sport.

 

The guy actually checks out as a real dr at a real university, who is actually conducting a real study, he's not selling anything!

 

@aaradia I have to excuse myself for posting the survey. You are right that this is my first thread in this forum. I hope that it doesn't contradict the MAP guidelines for this. But to execute (non-commercial) scientific research, I have to bring my study from university into the public.
I understood it that way that the "survey" section of MAP had been created to discuss and present scientific studies.

 

^ if you could pm me the link, I'll take part, and then write about the experience on here.

Unless that's against the TOS too?

 

PM me the link too, I'll take the survey. Gonna have to agree with Dead Pool here, fighting is definitely part of the sport of hockey and has been for eons. Yes, it's technically against the rules, but also married to the sport until the end of time. I know a lot of European folks don't follow hockey but it's way more brutal than rugby. Hockey is like playing rugby wearing fiberglass shielding, armed with a wooden halberd, fighting over a projectile weapon in the hopes of launching it a warp speed into the teeth of a heavily armored goal tender. There is no sport on earth as "martial" as hockey. It's a battle on ice.

Fighting in hockey is like fouling in basketball or even soccer. There are definitely strategic and tactical reasons for purposeful fouls, even knowing there might be a penalty. In hockey, it's just known as "the code".

 

It's interesting to have been lectured by a moderator with three external urls in his signature alone about creating off-site traffic.
It is outlandish to recommend to do the survey on this site - which is not equipped for this and of course isn't limited to MAP. May I am too free-minded to understand this policy.
Nevertheless, we would have had a lot of people talking about the study, as the ongoing discussion illustrates, which should be in the interest of MAP moderators, but ...

 

Well that was a really good selection of clips, for the real life violence sections, I didn't say it was a combat sport, because in my mind, the sport isn't being done, but the martial art behind it, so for exame boxing is a combat sport and a martial art, when it's done outside the ring, it's not a sport any longer.... But that's a debatable and nuonced position.

What did everyone else think of it?

 

Just taken it. Some of it was easy some of it had my head scratching because the context wasnt apparent, some of it I would have had a different answer if I actually dint know in depth waht was being shown.

But generally

1) No Referees? Not a Combat Sport. No possibility of /winning/losing directly against an opponent? Not a combat sport ....but wushu... see later..

2) Problems arise when there were performative instances. For example the lightsabre performance could have been Ludosport which is a lightsabre inspired combat sport. But in this instance I knew it was a performative demonstration prior to a FIE fencing championship so definitely not a competition. The Hakka like performance dance at the rugby game. Could be martial, i have no idea if what being shown were traditional systemic techniques but not a combat sport, unlike say capoeira where I know enough that what being shown are genuine techniques.

3) Another performative one with asian women in long clothes and swords had me foxed. I couldn't see any referees but it could easily have been a wushu competition, so yes a somewhat a martial art it but it also could have been made up garbage. I couldn't tell. Similar to Pro wrestling: are they individuals who have a direct line to Catch Wrestling or are they just making stuff up? Again i know know enough.

4) Olympic combat sport/bjj/mma all got somewhat a martial art and totally a combat sport, recognizing that the art may be truncated skill wise for safety and rule reasons, but totally a combat sport against a resisting opponent . Olympic pistol shooting had me though. It is a martial art? well technically like horse riding or archery or gunnery it is, and has a long history in europe, but it was marksmanship target hitting rather than against a resisting opponent....

5) Street Fights. Tricky. The man who fight crowd clearly used boxing or some combat sport derivative, but the police officer? I don't know enough about BJJ/Judo to know if he was just winging it or genuinely had skill. In these instances reading body language of a non stylised combat sport is key.

6) Folk games were interesting. Turkish wrestling has a long long tradition of being a combat sport with rules and has enough elements to be considered a martial art, but shin kicking? Don't know enough weather it grew out of a folk traditions like singlestick/backhold wrestling. In the case of the woman twirling swords definitely not a combat sport, but to my knowledge there is no surviving Eastern European/cossack fighting system, unless its the last vestiges of a village folk system turned into a peformance

7) The animals grudgingly. Bull fighting is definitely not a Combat sport, as no-one has to my knowledge explained the bull the rules. But despite myself I had to grit my teeth and admit that bullfighting is somewhat a martial art. It has despite everything a long lived systemic training system, a series of cultural expectations relevant to developing the individual, and in the instances they don't pump the poor bull full of drugs, techniques against a live resisting opponent, including if I were to use fencing terminology, time thrusts and body displacement techniques. (this is gonna get me flamed i know it...)

 

@Botta Dritta @Grond @Dead_pool I have not forgotten you, guys, but until tomorrow I am on vacation and will reply ASAP

 

I took the survey.
This really got me thinking about my definitions of martial arts. (Combat sport was somewhat easier, IMO, but also had a few new thoughts about that.)

For martial arts, I have some sort of divide in my mind between 'performing techniques for entertainment/aesthetics' and 'practicing/performing techniques to be used in a martial context'.
E.g., doing a really flashy sword kata with techniques that you probably wouldn't want to use if you were fighting someone with the sword (whether or not the opponent is armed), is different in my mind from doing a set of sword kata that would be applicable in a martial context.
I guess I think of the entertainment/flashy ones as more akin to dance/performance art that happens to use techniques or props (weapons) that are drawn from martial arts, vs actually practicing/performing techniques empty handed or with weapons in a way that is intended to be applicable in a combat situation.

But, that isn't as clear cut as I may have sounded above. E.g., the videos of Tai Chi where the motions tend to be slow; I consider that a martial art. But flashily spinning swords or fans or staffs/etc around in a way you wouldn't do if in combat, I don't really consider a martial art.
Maybe the difference to me is that the first is just a matter of speed/way of applying the techniques, whereas the latter techniques would mostly not be viable in/adaptable to a combat situation.

For combat sports, I had a bit of trouble with my definition as well. I consider shooting a bow and arrow with attention to accuracy as a martial art. But is a tournament for most accurate shooter a combat sport?
It is clear in my mind that when two or more people are engaging each other in some form of combat, under some ruleset with a referee, that is a combat sport. I don't think I'd consider two boxers taking turns hitting a manequinn set up to indicate accuracy/power of hits to various locations (liver shot, hook to the jaw, etc) to be a combat sport.
Two people facing off against each other, firing arrows at each other with bows under some ruleset, I would consider a combat sport.
Yet I am uncomfortable saying definitively that a group of archers taking turns shooting arrows at a target (or marksmen shooting guns, etc) and comparing accuracy against each other isn't a combat sport...