If you’ve ever even heard of an MMA fight, if you’ve seen films like “The Karate Kid”, you know that martial arts aren’t just controlled violence. Martial arts are unique sports that bring communities together and demonstrate the cultures they come from.
As with every sport, martial arts have a history where it evolved from entertainment, ritual or exercise to become a practice guided by rules and followed by fans. How these fighting forms became the sports we love today is a story almost as old as human civilisation itself.
The origins of martial arts
Martial arts have been laying out systems for fighting as long as humans have recorded them. Ancient Egyptian carvings show a martial arts style from more than 4,000 years ago — the oldest recorded, though it seems likely there are other precursors. While martial arts were originally for warfare, they quickly became sports as well. Some of the earliest Olympic games were martial arts. The Greeks practiced a style of wrestling called Pankration, a multi-disciplinary type of fighting we could recognise as an early analogue to today’s mixed martial arts (MMA).
Martial arts styles have developed all over the world. Some of these have incredibly long traditions to go with them. For example, the Indian fighting method of Kalaripayattu is more than 3,000 years old; unlike Egypt’s forgotten martial art, Kalaripayattu is still practiced today and is considered the world’s oldest continuous martial arts practice.
The rebirth of martial arts
While many martial arts have millennia of history behind them, others are surprisingly new. Many of the martial arts we think of today, such as Karate and Jiu-Jitsu, are relatively new. While they emerged from older traditions, they only became the arts we recognise in the 1800s or even early 1900s.
Jiu-Jitsu is based on a samurai art that trained the Japanese warriors to keep fighting even when they had no weapon. In the 1880s, Kano Jigoro took this practice and refined it, creating the art we now call Judo.
Other martial arts were even more recent. Muay Thai and Taekwondo, which both have roots in the historical martial arts of Thailand and Korea, respectively, only became standardised in the 1900s. Global trade brought global interest, and so new techniques and rules were developed to meet the demand. With this new era of world-spanning travel and trade, the arts themselves took on more global appearances.
One of the most popular styles of fighting in the world is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This style was created when Japanese students of Kano Jigoro moved to Brazil, taking their style with them. There, the discipline was picked up by others who added their own style to the original. From this style, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was born and would go on to spark a new age of martial arts.
Martial arts in the modern age
Many of the fighting styles created since 1900 have focused on practicality rather than style. Bruce Lee developed his own method, Jeet Kune Do, which takes elements from all types of fighting, including boxing and Wing Chun kung fu. By doing this, its practitioners can adapt to new scenarios in fights rather than using rigid techniques.
In the same way, MMA has focused on using the best parts of all disciplines. Mixed martial arts was originally a way to test the various techniques against each other. In 1993 at the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter won the tournament and introduced the school to the world.
Since then, MMA has become a powerhouse of the sports world, growing into an entertainment behemoth all over the globe. Millions tune in to pay-per-view fights and even participate in online betting. The upcoming 10 April middleweight fight between Darren Till and Marvin Vettori is one bout sure to attract this kind of attention, with the odds being +120 on number 5-ranked Till with Betway.
How will martial arts continue to evolve?
Martial arts are sure to keep evolving as fighters travel the world, learn new disciplines, and meet others who share their passions. But even as new martial arts develop and spread, the oldest will remain as historical practices, reminding us of the way we’ve practiced sports for generations. Much like Pankration more than 2,000 years ago — and others well before that — fighting as a sport holds a place on the world stage. The Olympics and world tournaments remind us that martial arts are part of our global athletic tradition.
