The Best Martial Art

By Peter Vermeeren

Many people send us emails inquiring about the best martial artso we decided to write an article about the best martial art inour opinion.

It is a very difficult task to determine which is the bestmartial art so first of all let’s take a look what a martial artexactly is and what not.

The word “martial art” consists of 2 parts; “martial” and “art”both of them are very important as you will see in the followinglines in the determination of what a martial art exactly is.

According to the dictionary the word martial means:

1. Of, relating to, or suggestive of war. 2. Relating to orconnected with the armed forces or the profession of arms. 3.Characteristic of or befitting a warrior.

As you can see , martial has everything to do with war and theways of the warrior.

Art on the other hand gives the following definition:

1. Human effort to imitate, supplements, alters, or counteractthe work of nature.

2. a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors,forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects thesense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful ina graphic or plastic medium.

b. The study of these activities.

c. The product of these activities; human works of beautyconsidered as a group.

3. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works ofbeauty; aesthetic value.

4. A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, orliterature.

5. A non-scientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.

6. a. A system of principles and methods employed in theperformance of a set of activities: the art of building.

b. A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles andmethods: the art of the lexicographer.

7. a. Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation:the art of the baker; the blacksmith's art.

b. Skill arising from the exercise of intuitive faculties:“Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice”(Joyce Carol Oates).

8. a. arts Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks. b. Artfulcontrivance; cunning.

So combining the two gives us A system



of war principles and warmethods employed in the performance of a set of warlikeactivities as a useful definition for martial art.

In short; “the training of the methods and principles of war”

This is very important that we understand this completelybecause most martial arts nowadays are not martial arts asdefined by the term above. War is not defined by rules,competition or divisions. War has only one goal; the destructionof the opponent by all necessary means in the shortest timepossible.

The moment a martial art acquires rules of competition,divisions, and rules of engagement or protection the martialpart of martial arts is lost and the martial art in questionbecomes a completely different thing.

Now I am not going to write about the sports derived frommartial arts because the question in this article is “What isthe best martial art”

In my opinion the best martial art is the one that gives youmost options of survival in a true case of life and deadstruggle with a professional opponent.

This means that the martial art must be prepared and give thepractitioner the possibility and means to deal with both armedas well as unarmed opponents, single or multiple attacks and soon.

This is not only done by techniques because techniques and thehuman capacity to perform them in the short period of time(seconds) of a true case and in constantly changingenvironments, situations and against different opponents makesit virtually impossible to use only techniques overcome allkinds of attacks.

This is where the martial methods in Japan became an art. Beingaware of the limitations of training (limited time and physicalcapacity) the Japanese bushi started to study the underlyingprinciples of war. They found out that all human beings havesimilar reactions when they are to be found in similarsituations.

Let me give you an example to make this clear: When someonetouches a hot stove his hand automatically recoils without evenhaving to think about pulling your hand back. Or when your headis pulled down, your body automatically will follow and toprevent falling to the floor you will resist pulling to theopposite side of the force pulling you down.

Knowing and understanding these concepts gave the boshi inancient Japan an enormous advantage over his adversaries. Itincreased by no small amount his capacity to deal with lifethreatening situations.

Today this is still useful and I think it will always becausehumans today are the same as the ones of 600 years ago. We stillshare the same fears and instinctive reflexes and the principlesof war have not changed, only the means by which we engage inwar.

So if you want to practice the best martial art first of all youmust be prepared to do a lot of hard physical training (did youever see a warrior with an overweight of 50 pounds ?) to prepareyour body, next explore your fears and instinctive reactions andadapt or change them to fit your needs as a warrior so you willbe able to use them in true combat and finally learn tounderstand your opponent and use his fears and instinctivereactions against him.

This will give you the best martial art.

About the author:Peter Vermeeren is a traditional martial arts teacher for over30 year. His websites can be found here: http://www.takaharudojo.organd http://www.kamikaze-portal.com