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Several martial arts I know of presents their history in, what seems like, a deliberately false way. Why is this, do you think? Did the founders and inheritors of these systems believe that they couldn't stand on their own as combat arts in their own right? Or did they in fact believe the easily falsifiable stories they presented? Other theories?

Here's two examples.

TaeKwonDo:
The official story presented by the World TaeKwonDo federation(and before that, the Korean TaeKwonDo Association) for decades, has been that TaeKwonDo is an ancient korean martial art, with over a thousand year history. This is "documented" by some old cave paintings where something somewhat resembling martial art techniques are shown. However, a little digging into the backgrounds of the founders of the original Kwans(schools), and what they actually taught at these, show that TaeKwonDo for the most part is a deriviate of Japanese Karate, with some kicks added from the korean kicking game Taekyon(which can only trace its own history back a few hundred years at most) and some additional kicks developed later by some of the founders, such as Nam Tae Hi of the Oh Do Kwan (Source: "A Killing Art" by Alex Gills). Looking at the original forms of Tae Kwon Do shows that they were identical to the forms presented in various Karate styles, mostly Shotokan, and all the later Korean forms have been created from the 1950s and onwards (The popular Taegeuk forms were created in the 1970s). The Pyung Ahn forms taught in several of the original kwans are almost identical to the Pinan/heian forms, for example.

This is somewhat understandable in the time after WW2, because of the huge anti-Japanese resentment in Korea after decades of brutal occupation, but why are these lies still retold almost 70 years after the end of japanese occupation of Korea?

Gracie Jiu Jitsu:
The official stort presented by the Gracie Academy for years (Including the person often presented as the founder of BJJ, Helio Gracie) is that his brother Carlos Gracie was shown secret Japanese Jiu Jitsu techniques by Mitsuyo Maeda, and that the Japanese invented the lesser effective Judo to hide "the real" jiu jitsu from the world (Source: Gracie Jiu Jitsu in Action DVDs). On top of this, Helio Gracie has on several occations claimed to have been"improving" these techniques by incorporating a higher degree of leverage into them, as he was weak and frail and needed to modify the techniques in order to be able to perform them(Source: Ultimate Royce Gracie DVD). However, allmost all of the groundfighting techniues the original Gracie Academy curriculums included, has been documented to already being present in Judo and Japanese Jiu Jitsu systems such as Fusen-Ryu before the prominence of BJJ, and the techniques is for the most part also already present in jiu jitsu books published before the Gracie Academy was founded in 1925, and was also captured on film at around the same time as the founding of the Gracie Academy.

Also, Mitsuyo Maeda was primarily a Kodokan Judo representative (No, he was not a Kosen Judo representative, as Kosen Judo was never a style in it's own right, but simply a competition ruleset for high school judo competitions), and what he taught Carlos Gracie was mostly Kodokan Judo groundfighting combined with his own theory of distancing/phases of a fight, and a fighting gameplan for vale tudo developed on the basis of fighting his way trough Europe the Americas in dance hall events for money. Not to take anything away from the developments of the Gracie Family, as their systematization and evolution of their art was a valid development, but the claims that they more or less invented the use of leverage, is an outright lie.

It is important to point out that far from all members of the Gracie family continue to present this false history of their art, and others, for example Renzo Gracie (in his book "Mastering Ju Jitsu"), presents a far more balanced and historically verifiable version of history.

The Gracie Academy in Torrance California however, continue to present the myth of Helio Gracie as the "creator" of BJJ, and that what he modified was Japanese Jiu Jitsu techniques, not Kodokan Judo, despite accumulating evidence to the contrary.

This is somewhat understandable in the time after WW2, because of the huge anti-Japanese resentment in Korea after decades of brutal occupation, but why are these lies still retold almost 70 years after the end of japanese occupation of Korea?

Because people are still pissed?

This is somewhat understandable in the time after WW2, because of the huge anti-Japanese resentment in Korea after decades of brutal occupation, but why are these lies still retold almost 70 years after the end of Japanese occupation of Korea?

Because people are still pissed?

That wouldn't surprise me, but keep in mind that the Eastern martial arts have been around for a long time. The history is rather murky, though it is generally accepted that martial arts originated in India and China and spread from there. I've always taken "who really invented what?" with a grain of salt.

I'm more concerned at how North Americans tend to over-empathise kicking Taekwondo, as if that's the only thing that matters. Yes, kicking is an important aspect, but there is a reason why "kwon" (to strike or break with the fist) is in the name. It's gotten to the point where even in the Olympics I rarely see hand techniques. Finding an instructor who balances the two is very hard over here in Toronto.

Back when I was fooling around with karate (only got up to a green belt in IKCA, this was late 90s ish), some people were fairly critical of TKD as being largely a for-show martial art where big air was more important than actually hitting people in a realistic fashion. Kung fu also gets a heavy dose of the bollocks-meter given that a good deal of it (in the less reputable traditions) is mostly some variety of mysticism taken up to eleven.

But of course you'll get that with most varieties of martial arts, people want to think they're part of an ancient tradition or whatever. I suspect that's part of the reason people are attracted to MMA as well, they don't care for that particular brand of BS and just want to watch/participate in one dude hitting another dude, which is pretty much what it comes down to...

Tribble wrote: That wouldn't surprise me, but keep in mind that the Eastern martial arts have been around for a long time. The history is rather murky, though it is generally accepted that martial arts originated in India and China and spread from there.

Actually, it's not. I am aware of the myth of Bodhidharma, and how quite a few martial arts states him as the origin of martial arts, but his activities is generally placed in the 5th/6th century CE, and there are works of art dating back over 5000 years depicting scenes of hand to hand fighting(both striking based and grappling/wrestling) from Egypt and Sumer, the theory of a single place of origin (or a single person) for martial arts some place in China/India, is probably more a dream than a reality.

The Egyptian fresco depicting military training at Beni Hassan is the world's oldest known artistic representation of an organised fighting system:


In addition, over a thousand years before Bodhidharma, in 648 BC to be exact, the greeks introduced the combat sport of Pankration into the olympics, in which contestants were allowed to use almost any technique against each other in combat. As both forms of boxing and wrestling had already been introduced long before that, it is highly unlikely that systemised ways of fighting didn't develop as a result of this.

There are lots of pottery from ancient greece depicting pankration matches, which shows that this form of fighting included both striking and grappling.



In fact, considering that Alexander the Great reached India on his campaign in 326 BC, it is not unlikely that he brougt Greek fighting methods with him and introduced this to India (which probably already also had it's own fighting arts at the time).

Human bodies work the same all the world over. There are only so many ways to manipulate said body to effect upon another body. I think it can be safely given that various elements of unarmed combat have probably all existed at some point somewhere around the world, probably several areas simultaneously. The "thousands of years old" silliness we can probably chalk up to this. The only thing that really changes is what they call it back then and now.

The more pertinent question is when and where specific techniques that you can point to as being reasonably unique to certain specific arts were actually used, and that's probably near-impossible to trace in some parts of the world until fairly recently (past few hundred years or so).

Elheru Aran wrote:Back when I was fooling around with karate (only got up to a green belt in IKCA, this was late 90s ish), some people were fairly critical of TKD as being largely a for-show martial art where big air was more important than actually hitting people in a realistic fashion.

As with all arts, this depends on the school. I have been training TaeKwonDo since 1992(only 1st. degree black belt, as I don't believe giving money to the Kukkiwon every couple of years would be helpfull in making me become a better martial artist in any way), and you are quite right that the focus on demonstrations and stuff, as well as what a lot of people wants to learn when starting training, is showy acrobatic and impractical kicks. However, I did also train Wado Ryu Karate for a while, and both the training and the technichal aspects were similar enough that I have no problems accepting that TaeKwonDo is simply a korean form of Karate with emphasis on kicks.

Also, the competition format of Kukki TaeKwonDo (of which the WTF is the part responsible for the sportive aspect), do not help build a positive impression of TKD as a combat art, despite being knock down and full contact. I belive the current competition format was created mostly to make it look different from other martial arts(and mainly Karate), and not to build combat effectiveness. That being said, the basics of Tae Kwon Do is almost exactly the same as Shotokan Karate (which is not strange considering that most of the founders of Tae Kwon Do had backgrounds in this karate style), so if trained in a similar way, should be about the same level of effectiveness. Early forms of TaeKwonDo, incorporating for the most part what is considered basic TKD techniques were also used effectively in the battle of Yongmun mountain during the Korean War, where most of the combat happened at night time in almost complete darkness, and was for the most part of a close quarters character. However, as most TKD-schools today is more about the sportive aspect, as well as getting people to black belt in the shortest time possible(in order to enable participation in international competition), the actual combative aspects of TKD is seldom given focus.

Which is why I have also trained BJJ (blue belt), Judo (green belt), Hapkido (blue belt), Aikido(5th kyu), amateur boxing, WAKO kickboxing and MMA over the years. However, in northern Europe, or Norway at least, there seems to be a trend towards some chains (including the Mudo Institute and some members of the Traditional TaeKwonDo Union) training TaeKwonDo in a more combat effective way, in which one also do sparring similar to kickboxing (with boxing gloves and hits to the head), and also train some basic grappling in order to increase the consciousness of practitioners towards what they could meet in a self defense situation.

But this is somewhat off topic, so I'll stop here.

Point conceded. And as Elheru Aran stated, there is only so many ways a human body can move. The only real difference between styles is what being empathised. There is no "best style". The quality of the instructor and the student is what makes a good martial artist.

All this talk about martial arts is getting me excited! Just a couple more weeks and I'll be able to start coming to class again. I practice on my own sometimes, but it's not the same.

@Tribble
What martial art(s) do you practice btw. and have your instructor(s) spoken anything about the history of your art?