Sport: Context and Elitism in Martial Arts

     A term I've come to learn to hate when discussing martial arts is 'sport.' The term 'sport' has grown a few new synonyms in the TMA community and that's limited and inferior. When discussing systems like MMA, and arts like BJJ, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Boxing, , etc..a sentence that typically follows is that they are "just sports." From this I've come to learn that 'sport' is an elitist title dubbed by the traditionalist community to separate themselves from, and create a false sense of superiority to more modern systems. It's a meaningless word. This is not to say that these arts don't have sports applications. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise. But sport in this sense is just being used to demean arts.
     As I stated earlier, 'sport' is a meaningless word. Why? Members of the traditional community say you have to train in self-defense in order to be able to defend oneself? Why exactly though? As discussed in earlier posts, muscle memory is one of the key traits in learning to fight. Muscle memory are neural pathways that are created from doing a repeated action over and over again, similar to how one would develop muscle memory in pulling out a phone when your bored, or learning to type on a keyboard. It becomes instinctual, as you make no conscious effort to perform the action. Traditionalists claim you have to train within a self-defense context, but your body will react the same way when conflict arises. It doesn't matter if you trained for an opponent across the ring, or for a mugger. The bottom line is:

"The context in which you train doesn't matter. What matters is how we train."

And how we train is important. When we develop muscle memory, we are training correctly. When we participate in full contact sparring, and training in aliveness, we are training correctly. When we live in delusion by limiting our main training tools to kata's and other dead, scripted drills, and we dismiss sparring as mere "sports apparatuses," that's when we are training incorrectly. 

    The next logical argument would be that 'sport' arts don't train in weapons. This is a fair point. However I take issue with arts that train in nunchakus, bo staff's, sai, etc..it's funny at this point that these arts have anything worthwhile to say at all. Hypocrisy runs deep in these arts. They quibble at the fact that 'sport' arts don't train for self-defense, but then you have guys training with bo staffs that say they are. Unless you plan on carrying said bo staff around with your ninja fanny pack of goodies, then you aren't training for self-defense either. You're participating in LARP'ing (Live Action Role Playing). 

The only logical weapons training is with firearms and knives. I'll often encounter hardcore Kali/Escrima practitioners, that pride themselves on the hardened level of training. If they're not beating the shit out of each other with sticks, they're regularly utilizing shock knives into their training, that can produce a 7500 volt shock, to mimic the burn you'd feel from being cut by a knife. So what's not to be scared of? It's gotta be legit at that point. People that have been in knife fights would probably disagree. They know that there are no winners in a knife fight. One person is just internally bleeding a little less than the other guy. Knife training is fictional. And if a gun is introduced, by a guy that know's how to use it, no amount of martial arts training will save you. I don't care if you hold two heavyweight Champion titles, you aren't walking away without a new hole in your body. 

     Speaking of the hypocrisy from earlier, it's convenient when arts, like Tae Kwon Do, Karate, and Judo, are almost always looked over, when discussing "sport" arts. For some reason, since these arts fall under the traditional banner, they are frequently given a pass and improperly labeled "self-defense." Well if we're playing fair, then they're "just sports," since Karateka's regularly trains for tournaments and Judo and TKD are regularly featured in the Olympics. That's about as 'sport' as you get. BJJ/MMA have yet to be watered down from their former selves, as a result of being placed in the Olympics.
    But at the end of the day, arts have a sports and a self-defense application to them, whether you like it or not. Some train it with the intention of doing one over the other, but regardless that muscle memory is still hardwired into our bodies. Like pop issues in the media, silly titles are put there to distract us from the important things that matter. When we start focusing on substance, accountability and the manners in which we train, instead of silly titles, perhaps then we can begin to eradicate the fat and bullshit that have plagued the martial arts community for too long.