Blog 6#- Combat Ideologies: Eastern Arts Vs Western Arts

What is the purpose of martial arts?

Some say it's to help the weak defend themselves against the strong. Some say it's for the strong to fight similarly strong opponents. Whether it's to increase one's health or to help one subdue another person, martial arts has always been seen as a way to fight another individual.

What I've realised after reading a lot of Wuxia, Xianxia and martial art novels in general is that people don't seem to understand the difference between eastern and western fighting ideologies.

What makes the difference between the two martial arts ideologies are the underlying meaning beneath the surface of the styles of martial arts originating from those areas.

Those of the east have deep meaning behind every movement right down to the quivering of a person's toe. Every attack has its use, every style has its meaning, and every technique requires discipline and constant repetition to master.

It's not as if western martial arts doesn't have meaning behind their moves or repetitive training but there's a distinct difference between a martial art like Tai Chi and Western Boxing.

Eastern Arts have an underlying meaning that goes deep into one's philosophy and etc. That's not to say that eastern martial arts is all about having deep meaning behind every move but most martial arts of the east have distinct history to them throughout their development and have been perfected overtime through various masters.

Western martial arts on the other hand focus more on effectiveness than anything else. Hybrid styles that keep the underlying purpose of the martial style while changing movements through mix and matching are more common than enlightenment.

Some say that western martial arts sucks and that they don't have originality of their own which is a completely false statement in itself.

The Half-Sword technique and Fencing techniques of western martial arts are comparable to eastern sword styles. They aren't inferior, just less varied since they give a higher focus on what exactly is useful in fighting and throwing out what's not.

'Who cares? As long as it works.' Is what they think.

Not only that but martial arts in general didn't need to split up into 'styles' for westerners because they are more 'logical' in way. Think of westerners the kind of people who would spam out the same move in a fighting game if it was effective enough to defeat their opponent easily.

A great way to summarise western ideologies on martial arts is looking at Boxing of western origin.

Each individual move is broken up into their effectiveness and not into what deep meaning they have behind them.

Hooks have more power but are slower.

Jabs are fast but have less power.

Each and every move is like another component which is put together to form a perfect machine for combat. I personally like western ideology better because I'm a westerner myself.

Eastern ideology isn't bad nor is their martial arts worse than western ones.

In fact, the reason western martial arts stagnated in the first place was due to this very same reason. If guns exist then what's the point of researching deeper into the intricacies of close-combat?

Regardless though, the two ideologies are very distinct in my opinion and are worth digging deep into when planning to write a story about these ideologies.

However, in the end. There are many factors that would take all day to write down when judging if a martial art is 'suitable' to practice for a battlefield or not since reality is just that cruel.

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If a Knight and Samurai of equal skill were to fight, then I'd place my bets on the knight because he has a shield (plus westerners had better blacksmith techniques back in the old days).

To me, western martial arts is a Gun nicely put together while eastern martial arts is a Sword.

Even though a Sword is cool, I'd rather go for the more fast and effective Gun so then I could easily shoot my foe in the head (Though sometimes I'd choose the Sword if it was an enclosed space)!

😜 If there's anyone who disagrees then please comment and share this so that I can get a lot of hate from Iaido fans.