Many people send us emails inquiring about the best martial art

so we decided to write an article about the best martial art in

our opinion.

It is a very difficult task to determine which is the best

martial art so first of all let’s take a look what a martial

art exactly 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 following

lines 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 or connected 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 the

ways of the warrior.

Art on the other hand gives the following definition:

1. Human effort to imitate, supplements, alters, or counteract

the work of nature.

a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors,

forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects

the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the

beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.

b. The study of these activities.

c. The product of these activities; human works of beauty

considered as a group.

3. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works

of beauty; aesthetic value.

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

literature.

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

arts.

a. A system of principles and methods employed in the

performance of a set of activities: the art of building.

b. A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles

and methods: the art of the lexicographer.

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).

a. arts Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks.

b. Artful contrivance; cunning.

So combining the two gives us A system of war principles and

war methods employed in the performance of a set of warlike

activities 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 completely

because most martial arts nowadays are not martial arts as

defined by the term above. War is not defined by rules,

competition or divisions. War has only one goal; the

destruction of the opponent by all necessary means in the

shortest time possible.

The moment a martial art acquires rules of competition,

divisions, and rules of engagement or protection the martial

part of martial arts is lost and the martial art in question

becomes a completely different thing.

Now I am not going to write about the sports derived from

martial arts because the question in this article is “What is

the best martial art”

In my opinion the best martial art is the one that gives you

most options of survival in a true case of life and dead

struggle with a professional opponent.

This means that the martial art must be prepared and give the

practitioner the possibility and means to deal with both armed

as well as unarmed opponents, single or multiple attacks and so

on.

This is not only done by techniques because techniques and the

human capacity to perform them in the short period of time

(seconds) of a true case and in constantly changing

environments, situations and against different opponents makes

it virtually impossible to use only techniques overcome all

kinds of attacks.

This is where the martial methods in Japan became an art. Being

aware of the limitations of training (limited time and physical

capacity) the Japanese bushi started to study the underlying

principles of war. They found out that all human beings have

similar reactions when they are to be found in similar

situations.

Let me give you an example to make this clear: When someone

touches a hot stove his hand automatically recoils without even

having to think about pulling your hand back. Or when your head

is pulled down, your body automatically will follow and to

prevent falling to the floor you will resist pulling to the

opposite side of the force pulling you down.

Knowing and understanding these concepts gave the boshi in

ancient Japan an enormous advantage over his adversaries. It

increased by no small amount his capacity to deal with life

threatening situations.

Today this is still useful and I think it will always because

humans today are the same as the ones of 600 years ago. We

still share the same fears and instinctive reflexes and the

principles of war have not changed, only the means by which we

engage in war.

So if you want to practice the best martial art first of all

you must be prepared to do a lot of hard physical training (did

you ever see a warrior with an overweight of 50 pounds ?) to

prepare your body, next explore your fears and instinctive

reactions and adapt or change them to fit your needs as a

warrior so you will be able to use them in true combat and

finally learn to understand your opponent and use his fears and

instinctive reactions against him.

This will give you the best martial art.