martial art | Definition, History, Types, & Facts | Britannica

 Martial arts can be divided into the armed and unarmed arts. The former include archery, spearmanship, and swordsmanship; the latter, which originated in China, emphasize striking with the feet and hands or grappling. In Japan, traditionally a warrior’s training emphasized archery, swordsmanship, unarmed combat, and swimming in armour. Members of other classes interested in combat concentrated on arts using the staff, everyday work implements (such as thrashing flails, sickles, and knives), and unarmed combat. Perhaps the most versatile practice was ninjutsu, which was developed for military spies in feudal Japan and also included training in disguise, escape, concealment, geography, meteorology, medicine, and explosives. In modern times, derivatives of some of the armed martial arts, such as kendō (fencing) and kyūdō (archery), are practiced as sports. Derivatives of the unarmed forms of combat, such as judo, sumo, karate, and tae kwon do, are practiced, as are self-defense forms, such as aikido, hapkido, and kung fu. Simplified forms of tai chi chuan (taijiquan), a Chinese form of unarmed combat, are popular as healthful exercise, quite divorced from martial origins. Derivatives of many of the armed and unarmed forms are practiced as a means of spiritual development.

People in a gym in martial arts training exercising Taekwondo, the trainer has a black belt.

BRITANNICA QUIZ

Quick Quiz: Martial Arts

Where did tae kwon do originate? Which martial art means “empty hand” in Japanese? Get your team—or just yourself—ready to compete in this martial arts quiz.

The primary unifying aspect of the East Asian martial arts, which sets them apart from other martial arts, is the influence of Daoism and Zen Buddhism. This influence has resulted in a strong emphasis on the mental and spiritual state of the practitioner, a state in which the rationalizing and calculating functions of the mind are suspended so that the mind and body can react immediately as a unit, reflecting the changing situation around the combatant. When this state is perfected, the everyday experience of the dualism of subject and object vanishes. Since this mental and physical state is also central to Daoism and Zen, and must be experienced to be grasped, many of their adherents practice the martial arts as a part of their philosophical and spiritual training. Conversely, numerous practitioners of the martial arts take up the practice of these philosophies.

small thistle New from Britannica

ONE GOOD FACT

Unlike real gold, fool’s gold will emit sparks when struck by metal. Its scientific name, pyrite, comes from the Greek pyr meaning “fire.”

See All Good Facts

The 20th century witnessed a significant growth in the popularity of East Asian martial arts in the West, and both judo (1964) and tae kwon do (2000) were added to the Olympic Games as full medal sports. By the early 21st century a syncretic discipline known as mixed martial arts, which incorporated fighting techniques from various cultural traditions, had also achieved prominence.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.

tournament

Introduction

Fast Facts

Facts & Related Content

Media

Images

More

More Articles On This Topic

Contributors

Article History

Home

Sports & Recreation

Olympic Sports

tournament

medieval military games

    

Alternate titles: tourney

By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica • Edit History

jousting tournament

jousting tournament

See all media

Related Topics: Middle Ages joust mêlée

tournament, also called tourney, series of military exercises, probably of medieval French origin and confined to western Europe, in which knights fought one another to display their skill and courage. Tournaments had become more pageantry than combat by the end of the 16th century, and the term is still used somewhat in this sense—for instance, in the Royal Tournament, an annual naval and military display held in London, and the New Year’s Day Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena, California.

In the early 20th century, the word tournament also came to be applied to certain methods of conducting sports competitions. In the most common modern tournament, the contestants are matched in pairs, with the losers in each test eliminated and the winners paired anew until only one remains as the champion of the tournament. In some tournaments, called double-elimination tournaments, the contestant is not eliminated until defeated a second time. In a third form, called a round robin, each contestant opposes every other contestant and the one with the highest percentage of victories is declared the champion.

The tournament in its earliest form apparently originated in France about the middle of the 11th century. Several chroniclers credit a French baron, Geoffroi de Preully, with having invented tournaments.

The early tournament was a mock battle between two bodies of armed horsemen and was called the mêlée. (This term is also