OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts

[Omnirizon]

I'd have a problem such a strong statement as "the Spartans gave birth to the first martial art", since as you pointed out these are dark points in history, and there is evidence of even the Native Americans developing open-handed styles of personal combat.

I'm more concerned with Middle Ages era of martial arts. It is at this point that we have specific styles developed for warfare (not just personal fulfillment or sport) in both East and West. Yet while the east developed a consistent style for each weapon or even multiple styles for one weapon, sometimes depending only on how you wore it on your belt, the West had a much more general focus; so while the east have specific terms for each style related to a weapon, the West has the more general term "fencing". Western styles are limited to the schools they came from, and typically when the teacher of a school died his style died with him. Eastern styles are focused on the weapon itself, and many schools would teach the same style with some variation. We just didn't see this in the west.

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

I don't understand the point of this question in game terms.

So I guess the answer is - it doesn't matter. However you want.

Edit: I know quite a lot about Chinese martial arts, but not their history. No idea if that will help you at all, but feel free to ask.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

French and English boxing are really nothing more than informal styles evolved from street fighting. The German and Italian schools may have focused on a weapon (two-handed sword, side sword, rapier) but none of them were tied explicitly to one weapon, and all trained in the use of several weapons or shields and armors, generally as a companion to their favored weapon.

Asian martial arts evolved from street fighting just as much as western arts. By this I mean that the fights might have been fought in streets, or a forest or in a field or at your front door against hostile people trying to kill or rob you, and winning was to be achieved by any means necessary.

I also don't know any Asian martial art that would be explicitly tied to a single weapon that don't have comparable western equivalents, e.g. kendo - sport fencing. Most martial arts seem to teach both unarmed techniques and usage of many different weapons, or only unarmed techniques, or only usage of a single weapon.

Eastern martial arts seem to be tied explicitly to a single weapon or style, with a history for that style extending for hundreds and hundreds of years. I think this is why we today link the word "martial arts" to "Eastern martial arts".

In Asia, martial arts have stayed important for far longer than in the West, and the martial culture has been stronger and more secretive. At least in China, many martial arts are only passed down a single family line and to close family friends, and furthermore, people have remembered who taught who before their time. These charts and family lines go back several hundred years when there's that much history, but people often deviate from what they were thought, or learned from several masters, or weren't tought everything so they improvised the rest.

As for the reason many people don't think the Western martial arts are important, well, the reason is there have already been many generations who thought the same. Majority of the Western martial arts have been forgotten.

also, any thoughts on why so many specific styles were developed in the East but never in the West?

See above. Secretive families, and perhaps also the fact that the arts get fancier names in the east. "East-London Fencing School Style" probably doesn't live that long...

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

there is evidence of even the Native Americans developing open-handed styles of personal combat.

They fought, so of course they had a way of fighting! It's not about the style so much as the methods of teaching it, and for the systems used for that. They might have lacked the systematic methods of teaching that would transform a personal fighting style into a martial art, but surely they had something which they taught to friends and family.

I'm more concerned with Middle Ages era of martial arts. It is at this point that we have specific styles developed for warfare... ...while the east have specific terms for each style related to a weapon, the West has the more general term "fencing".

Terms are necessary for teaching the use of weapon. If weapons aren't used, the terms will be forgotten. See link to Silver's Paradoxes of Defence for some weird terms.

Western styles are limited to the schools they came from, and typically when the teacher of a school died his style died with him. Eastern styles are focused on the weapon itself, and many schools would teach the same style with some variation. We just didn't see this in the west.

"Eastern styles are limited to the families they came from, and typically when the sons of the school didn't learn it the style died with the master. Western styles focused on the school itself, and many students would spread the teachings around with some variation."

It goes both ways.


For anyone interested, I tried to learn about Western martial arts myself, few years back. Here are some useful links.

Paradoxes of Defence, George Silver, 1599
It gets interesting after the half-way point, when he starts telling why the (French) rapier is bad and polearms, including the British shortstaff, are good. It's interesting because he mentions so many ways to fight with the various weapons.

British Quarterstaff Association videos

A Brief History of the Quarterstaff

Irish stick fighting (shillelagh/bata)

Also, here's an Indian martial art. It's much less known than other Asian MAs, so I thought to post it here.
http://www.kalari.in/kalari_videos1.html

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

How the LEARNING should be represented? That's a very good question. I guess it hasn't been asked often enough, because this is how it is represented in most games:

"Okay, you hold the sword like this, with your hand on the grip, between handguard and the pommel. That's good, now, the main thing is, you stick it to your enemies. Let me show you..."

*Ding! You have mastered Iaido! You can now use swords, katanas, sabres and two-handed swords!*

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

How the LEARNING should be represented? That's a very good question. I guess it hasn't been asked often enough, because this is how it is represented in most games:

"Okay, you hold the sword like this, with your hand on the grip, between handguard and the pommel. That's good, now, the main thing is, you stick it to your enemies. Let me show you..."

*Ding! You have mastered Iaido!*

I love you. That approach seemed so innovative, at the time.....

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Yes. The learning is exactly what I'm interested in and the point of my original question and why so many comments here MISS the point. The glibness of your comment has actually highlighted this. It's easy enough to model in a game the getting so many points of "skill" in using a sword and saying "oh that's training from one school or style or another." It could be training from a German school, a Japanese Sensei, or your pirate captain; it doesn't really matter. The game system can't really account for these nuances and most of them are superflous anyway, and I think this is actually the logical conclusion of most comments in this thread. I've no argument there.

The issue is that the learning doesn't happen in a vacuum and from the individual, not the historical point of view, there are significant differences in learning to fight with a Yari by practicing Sojutsu and learning to fight with a spear by practicing in some military school for Oliver Cromwell. The personal experience and affects between what are only two possible ways of learning to fight with a spear is significantly different. Because in my game the character is hopefully going off to adventure to their personal fulfillment, rather than die in an English Revolution, the experience and _affects_ of learning to fight with a spear in a military school for Oliver Cromwell should be different than practicing Sojutsu with some Master. Simply "learning to fight with a spear" isn't sufficient nor accurate; no one learns anything in a vacuum apart from the accumulation of other experiences. My question is coming from the angle that there is more involved in learning to use a spear than just how to fight with that weapon. "To fight with that weapon" cannot exist in the mind apart from other structures of the mind. What was placed in the mind in Cromwell's military schools versus what was placed in the mind by some sensei teaching sojutsu?

What should those differences be? I don't want martial arts to be simply the ability to swing a sword. For one reason they are a significant portion of "being Human" in my game, and for another they are so much more than that in history and real life too. We can never model the phenomenon of a Martial Art without doing a martial art, so creatively modeling their effects in a game is well within reason. There's no reason that some 'magical' effect modeling in game for martial arts is any different from any other way we might model the phenomenon of practicing and performing a martial art. I'm just asking for some ideas on what these effects may be; and how might I, for example, model the difference in personal affect from learning to fight with a spear in an English military school under Cromwwell to learning to fight with a Yari through practicing Sojutsu from some personal Master during a peaceful period in Japan. Or if you wish to not make any necessary split between West and East, how is there a difference between the Cromwell military school and learning to use a spear for the purpose of simply using a spear from, say, a French teacher in time of peace?

[sector24]

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

Eastern styles are focused on the weapon itself, and many schools would teach the same style with some variation. We just didn't see this in the west.

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

I don't think this is necessarily the case, at least not for the entirety of history. There's a lot of anecdotal information indicating that talented fighters in the east would create their own schools which would last for roughtly their lifetime plus a decade or two and then be absorbed into other schools. For instance, the famous story about Sasaki Kojiro vs. Miyamoto Musashi. Kojiro founded his own school and even had a signature move, the "tsubame-gaeshi" but it didn't save him from being killed by Musashi. The school isn't around anymore, but the move survived.

So in the above case, I would consider training under Sasaki Kojiro to be the same as studying under George Silver except for one very vital difference; George Silver and many other European swordsmen wrote combat manuals which survive. I think the reason we believe the East had some kind of homogenous school of thought lasting thousands of years is because we don't have a written record to prove otherwise. But that doesn't mean things didn't change over time, it just means that when the process was finally put to paper, the independent schools had been absorbed.

The next important question is why do eastern fighters master a single weapon type while western fighters learn sword, dagger, buckler, etc.? Again, I think this is a misconception based on the fact that our contact with the east occurred during a relatively peaceful time in their history. For instance, significant western contact with Japan occurred just before Tokugawa Ieyasu had unified Japan. During the Edo period all these professionally trained warriors had no wars to fight. This led to a devotion towards perfecting their art rather than a practical application of arms. I think if you compared an 13th century samurai with an 18th century samurai, the 13th century warrior would have extensive knowledge of both the bow, the sword, and possibly other weapons such as the yari, hachiwara, naginata, etc.

By contrast, Europe did not have the social stratification that prevented samurai from being anything else. There was also a fairly constant level of warfare somewhere in Europe during the Middle Ages so martial skills were always innovating. And they wrote everything down so we have a record of it.

From a game design standpoint, I would not differentiate between west and east. And I apologize if the above is overly Japan-centric and massively oversimplified.