Asia has a long history of martial arts. Almost every country has at least one style, many of which have made it to the Western world. Attempting to cover a significant portion of all these styles would take an eternity, so this article will attempt to describe a few of the most well known ones from certain regions in Asia.
Kalaripayattu is a martial art from Southern India. There are several subsets of Kalaripayattu, all of them have their own techniques and emphasis. Training takes place in a kalari. A kalari contains altars, and students will perform rituals to ensure practice goes smoothly. Kalaripayattu has an emphasis on flexibility, often compared to a dance. The basics of Kalaripayattu are steps and postures. The postures are named after animals, and are meant to offer their own strengths and weaknesses compared to other postures. In addition to unarmed combat, Kalaripayattu also has weapons training. One of the unique weapons is the urumi, or whip-sword. It is a really big, flexible blade that is used like a whip/flail. Wielding this weapon involves a lot of care and spinning, which results in a considerable amount of danger to the wielder and the people around them.
Like India, China also has a staggering number of martial arts. A commonly used term is Kung fu 功夫-pronounced gong fu, which refers to acquiring skills through practice. The term martial arts itself is normally translated into wushu 武术. One of the largest martial arts schools is the Shaolin one 少林. Since its foundation in 495 AD, the Shaolin monks have a long history of being a martial order. Another well known martial art is Wing Chun, 咏春, probably most notably from the movie Ip Man or celebrity Bruce Lee, who was a student of the actual Ip man. According to legend, Wing Chun is named after its first practitioner, a woman who challenged a warlord to a duel after studying under a Shaolin monk. An interesting fact about Wing Chun is the concept of being uncommitted. The idea is that any move the user makes is an opening into another set of moves. This way the user is not vulnerable to counterattacks and can have many options to continue attacking.
Japan has a wide variety of martial arts, each emphasizing a different approach to combat/self-defense. Iaido is one that involves a sword. Forms always begin and end with the sword in the sheathe. The idea is that one learns to react quickly, draw the sword, strike, clean and replace the blade. Aikido is a martial art that emphasizes defending oneself while also not harming the attacker. Practitioners focus on learning to use the attacker’s aggression to redirect their momentum, usually ending with a throw or lock of some sort, immobilizing the aggressor. Karate(空手) is a predominantly a striking art using punching, kicking, knee strikes, elbow strikes, and open-hand techniques. It was developed from the indigenous martial arts of Ryukyu Islands under the influence of Chinese martial arts, particularly Fujian White Crane. There are different approaches to Karate. Traditional karate places emphasis on self-development. Modern Japanese style emphasizes psychological elements such as perseverance, fearlessness, virtue, and leadership skills. Sport karate emphasizes exercise and competition.
The most renowned Korean martial art is Taekwondo (태권도). It incorporates elements of indigenous Korean martial arts tradition such as Taekkyeon(택견) and Gwonbeop(권법). The curriculum is divided into three major components: forms, sparring, and breaking. Forms are detailed choreographed patterns of movements practiced either solo or in group. Sparring has variations such as free-sparring(competitors spar without interruption for several minutes) and point-sparring(sparring is interrupted and then resumed after each point is scored). The breaking of boards is used for testing, training, and demonstration. Demonstrations often incorporate bricks, tiles, and blocks of other materials. Taekwondo is characterized by its use of kicking-including kicks at head height, and even spinning/jumping kicks. The result is a martial art that places heavy emphasis on speed/agility. Taekwondo was born out of a movement among Korea’s martial art schools-kwans-to unify their styles. It is one of the two Asian martial arts that is an Olympic sport, the other being judo(a Japanese martial art).
