What is Martial Arts and Why Should You Learn it?

In a world where humans depend on technology to get by in their everyday lives, there is one thing a lot of people start to neglect: their physicality. Although education is strongly encouraged and enforced, it seems that exercising and self-defense is largely up to the individual to pursue. While a healthy mind is important, exercising and training one's own body to defend itself in situations are equally important. And what better way to do that than by practicing martial arts?

What is Martial Arts?

Martial arts are systems of combat practiced for a variety of reasons. Most people tend to start martial arts to learn how to defend themselves, for competition or for exercise. There are many different types of martial arts, each unique to the creator's style and country of origin. However, the amazing thing about martial arts is that each martial art is influenced in some way by other martial arts through the long history of human and cultural interaction. Back then, martial arts were taught for self-defense and to fight one another. Now, martial arts is a large part of society with big organizations such as UFC promoting the use of martial arts for competition and sport. This gives people more incentive to start their own martial arts journey.

Types of Martial Arts

There are three main categories of martial arts: striking, grappling and weaponry. Striking is the use of body parts to inflict damage to an opponent. These include punches, kicks, knees or elbows. Grappling is the use of grabbing the opponent to perform throws, trips, sweeps, clinching, ground fighting or submissions. These are usually full-contact as opposed to striking's standing hand-to-hand combat. Weaponry is the use of tools to inflict damage to an opponent. There are all types of weapons such as swords, knives, staffs, bows or firearms. Finally, there is mixed martial arts, which combines the art of striking and grappling. This is technically a combat sport made popular by organizations such as the UFC but as of now, I personally think it can be considered a martial art. This is because during mixed martial art's first inception, it was still in the experimental stage of finding out what works and what doesn't. Now, there is a reliable system on which moves from other martial arts are better for use in the ring and in the street, making it an effective martial arts system.

Why Should You Learn Martial Arts?

Like what I said before, in a world where we depend on technology, we also have to depend on our physicality to safely get through certain situations. Most situations involving fights can be avoided, however it is never a bad thing to know how to defend yourself. Here are some other reasons why you should learn martial arts.

1. It is a good form of exercise, which has a multitude of health benefits.

2. If you are a history buff, martial arts has a deep and rich history that has a treasure trove of knowledge from cultural to spiritual ideas. Kung fu is a great example of this.

3. Increased confidence because you have the knowledge and the capability to defend yourself and the people you care about. Strangely, once people learn martial arts they are less likely to get into fights because they know the harm they can do with martial arts.

4. Increased social skills because you train and interact with other people with the same passion as you and create long-lasting relationships.

5. Self-discipline is a key concept in martial arts and in life so that you have the discipline to do what you have to do to accomplish your goals.

6. Also, it is a great stress reliever because hitting the punching bag as hard as you can after a long day of work is just cathartic.

This is just a taste of what martial arts has to offer. Do you agree with the points I made in the article? Disagree? Let me know in the comments and feel free to add on to what I said! Thank you for reading.