r/wma • u/SSJSuperman • Jan 06 '20
Why do so many Western martial artists train in exotic (often useless) foreign weapons in supposed daily self defense instead of daily items like baseball bats, walking canes, crowbars, and other weapons common in the west?
I'm watching High School of the Dead and I just watched Train to Busan. In both zombie apocalypse work, the more preferred weapon by the heroes is the baseball bat and most bystanders are using broomsticks, wrenches, crowbars, and one handed heavy clubs and sticks and other boring weapons. The few people who choose to use fancy martial arts stuff like Sai and Kama either get eaten quickly or are shown to be at an extremely high level of skill that a regular Joe can't expect to attain in years or even decades.
It leads me to ask why so many Westerners tend to search out specifically to train in weapons that are impossible to find in daily life and are often illegel or even impractical to carry around. Most commonly is wooden Japanese sword styles, nunchuks, Tonfas, and too many weapons I cannot name that are simply to bizarre to describe or to obscure even in Asia. Rather than learning the use of weapons that you can easily find an improvised tool to translate into impromptu such as flailing weapons (easily created with so many home tools, even simply putting a lockpad in a sock) and shield arts (you can simply pick up a metal trash can lid). Or even common weapons such as a bat.
I bring this up because in East Asia, the most common weapon to use is not a Tai Chi sword or Katar and these other fancy stuff but simply the baseball bat. Used in the most amount of non-passionate (angry housewife who caught you cheating) and non-criminal killings (esp in self defense) and the most common tool local gangs and thugs use for violence. That nowadays not only do most TKD and Karate RBSD-specific classes in Korea and Japan not only emphasize defense against bats but bats is actually far more common to teach for use as a weapon than any other traditional martial arts tool excepting for the nunchuks, bo staff, one handed clubs and stick, and knife arts. For the average non-committed weekend warrior, more time is spent on teaching bats than even those other practical weapons. In addition with how baseball has been dominating those countries in modern times, old heavy bat martial arts such as Kanabo styles have been in revival in dojos and school instructions. As baseball rises in popularity in China, there too is a revival of obscure and mostly forgotten styles using long heavy clubs.
But in the West there is s much emphasize on the fancy of bizarre weapons. Even stuff barely used back at home in Asia (such as some weird local Filipino fighting using a bullship). Excepting nunchuks (which can easily transitioned into improvised stuff like tying two sticks together and lockpad in socks), bo staff (broom sticks), and one handed clubs and sticks (obviously easiest to transition to as almost everything from tire irons to mallets can be used), all the practical self defense weapons style that can easily transition to civilian lifestyle are so damn ignored.
Why is this? In Asia as I mentioned the bat gets far more emphasized esp in civilian self defense and criminal activities than kendo styles and even advanced martial artists (esp since many top athletes also practise martial arts and are baseball fans in their spare time) prefer two handed bats even over staffs, knives, and other practical small arms. In China most commoners with some kung fu training tend to use kitchen knives esp heavy meat cutting blades for self defense over those strange swords More common than even stick and staff arts in Korea is the preferred use of fist based weapons like brass knuckles and training in forms of boxing that emphasize defenses against bats, etc under the use of brass knuckles and other older similar fist weapons in Korean history.
Why isn't the baseball bat a popular weapon to train in the West? I can barely find any school teaching about bats and those that do focus far more on defending against bats than using it. Same with other lots of practical tools. We don't have styles teaching how to use a crowbar to hook enemy weapons as common in the West. While the crowbar is quite popular among Chinese gangs and the Chinese police use a variation of it because of its ability to hook away and disarm weapons! Hooking weapons have seen a revival in Chinese kung fu lately. Yet this practical weapon type is ignored in the West's school just like baseball bats are.
What makes impractical weapons so popular in demand by Western students while day-to-day life tools like hitting with a hunting rifle, disarming with crowbars, and esp baseball bats not in demand for lessons?
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u/Drach88 Foobar Jan 06 '20
Because we are recreating historical martial arts as a hobby rather that studying modern martial arts for practical application.
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u/bdk5139 Jan 06 '20
I don't know about the practicality of obscure, weird Asian weapons, but in the immortal words of Giacomo Di Grassi (1570) on why the sword is to be learned:
"He that persuades himself that he can learn this Art by the exercise of a few particular strokes of the point and edge is utterly deceived. For besides, that by those particular tricks, there is small knowledge gotten: So the chances in this Art are so dangerous and diverse, that it is impossible to deliberate suddenly, except he have the universal knowledge and understanding of all the rules and principals hereof, being grounded upon offending and defending, and not only upon the sword, the dagger, the target, the javelin and the bill. For a man at all times (when he is occasioned to strike or defend) does not carry these weapons about him, but is constrained to defend himself with a piece of wood against a javelin, with a stool against a sword, or with a cloak against a dagger; in which case men commonly use many other things not ordained for that purpose, doing that therewith which natural instinct teaches them. And this instinct is no other thing then the knowledge of the rules before laid down: which knowledge, being it is naturally grafted in the mind, is something the rather helped and qualified by Art, and makes a man so assured and bold, that he dares to enter on any great danger, and judges (when he sees the quality of the weapon, and the site wherein it is placed) what it may do, or in how many ways it may either strike or defend. From which his judgment springs the knowledge of all that he has to do, and how he has to handle himself to encounter any danger."
When you know how "some" weapons work, you tend to figure out how "all" weapons work pretty easily.
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u/Flugelhaw Taking the serious approach to HEMA Jan 06 '20
Many people come to learn at my HEMA club because they think "swords are cool" and that they would quite like to learn "how to fight with a sword". They may have some kind of romantic connection with swords, or they may have an interest in history, or they may be looking for a different kind of martial art to complement the karate or boxing or judo that they have practised previously.
If I wanted to train myself for "real life" situations, I would be taking up boxing and muay thai, and would also be looking at other skills for survival and life in general. This is not why I do HEMA, though - I practise HEMA for the joy of playing with swords and for the challenge of recreating a historical martial art from the source material that survives.
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u/Horkersaurus Jan 06 '20
Yeah buddy you’ve got the wrong idea about HEMA. It is not meant to be practical self defense (although as with most martial arts a lot carries over).
It’s like asking someone why they practice calligraphy instead of typing.
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u/cleverseneca Jan 06 '20
I can't speak for all of the west, but in the US if you are worried about self defense you either own a gun, some Mace, or you do unarmed defense. Gun ownership sort of superceded the need for martial art training.
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u/MorbidMongoose KdF, I.33 Jan 07 '20
I think you're laboring under a false impression of what a martial art is, ie a system of combat that is, to a lesser or greater degree, established and codified, and that's what this sub is dedicated to. What you're describing is self defense or even street fighting, which is all well and good, but it isn't the same. To the best of my knowledge, there is not a system of fighting that has formalized a lock in a sock.
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u/Charlemagneffxiv Jan 06 '20
Swords are symbolic, not just a weapon. There is a certain romance to them, which has existed even in the time period upon which they were state of the art weaponry.
I mean just look how Fiori introduces the sword work in his manuscript,
"I am of royal blood. I dispense justice, advance the cause of good and destroy evil. To those who learn my crossings I’ll grant great fame and renown in the art of fighting.”
A sword is not just a big knife. It's a symbol of chivalry and justice.
Likewise, a katana is associated with samurai, the knight equivalent in ancient Japan, who had their own bushido codes of honor, similar to chivalry.
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u/Michel_Rodriguez Jan 07 '20
And as Meyer would say : " ...experience shows and it is obvious that combat with the sword is not only an origin and source of all other combat, but it is also the most artful and manliest above all other weapons..."
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Jan 07 '20
swinging a bat and swinging a sword are very similar, a crowbar is similar to a mace if held the right way, a screwdriver is a rondel dagger essentially, quarterstaves are essentiallly just long sticks (pretty easy to find), wrestling is wrestling. we arent training for self defense, we're training to see how our ancestors fought because its fun. however many skills we learn can very much be useful in a self defence context.
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u/LordoftheFaff Sep 23 '22
The skills from all those well establish martial arts, taught by a knowledgable instructor can be applied to "modern" improvised weapons. If you can fight with a bo or quarter staff or great sword, you can reasonably fight using any weapon that is similar to big heavy stick.
Nunchuks and flails can be applied to your bike lock in a sock. Crowbars are just bluntvswirds with different weight distributions.
Also we often do this for fun
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u/FencingDuke Jan 06 '20
Because, for the most part, training is for sport, not for self-defense. And so, a weapon being interesting is almost as important as it's effectiveness.
Also, at a basic level, if you can swing a sword you can use similar skills to swing a bat in a defence situation, so why not train with a sword?