Why is Western Boxing not considered to be a "True" Martial Art?

[Boxing Master]

I believe it is a combination of everything.

Why do you guys think about this subject. Please speak freely. Practitioners of all arts are welcome to reply.

[Tom Yum]

Ditto. I've trained in traditional Korean martial arts as a teen. In the past 3 years, I've been involved in boxing, muay thai and grappling.

I quoted a site a while ago that promoted traditional japanese karate. The site said that most karateka could not handle the speed and intensity of boxers punches. On the flip side, they said that boxing doesn't include deadly non glove strikes like the spear hand, knife hand and kicks.

Punching with an unprotected fist could break knuckles, but it can cause a mild fracture on the opponent's skull as well. The spear and knife hand strikes are aimed at body cavities and soft spots. Even if they do land on a hard part, the hand is protected by a layer of flat bone and dense muscle (knife hand or palm heel).

I think its also the ritualistic/spiritual aspects of traditional asian martial arts that differ from boxing. Bowing to one's sensei/sifu, things like meditation and asian philiosophies.

Its also the perception. The public eye, no matter how informed, sees boxing as two guys hitting each other for KO, but sees pre-arranged fight sequences backed by asian traditions as honorable. They don't understand why boxing is called the sweet science; instead they jump to the illusions of Mike Tyson and Johnny Tapia yet never pay attention to the Lou Savarese's and George Foreman's (minus the grill).

[ddrive]

Martial Art = Learned Skill

Personally I feel that boxing is a martial art... If you really break down "martial art" all it means is "learned skill", and you learn a variety of skills no matter where you're from. It's true on the fact that boxing doesn't offer the tools such as knife hands, but the training i received from boxing has heightened my endurance greatly, and allowed me to get into range of my opponent to unleashed the tools that i've learned from wing chun, muay thai, etc.

If anyone feels different, please let me know!

[shadowkiller]

I would to agree with Ddrive. I tend to think of boxing as an MA as well. Not really sure why people dont. Its sorta restrictive I guess but I dont think there is a better art for punching.

[darrianation]

Unfortunately most Martial arts as we undrstand them are far more art then they are martial.

Karate is mostly exercise and sport. TKD is mostly exercise and sport, so on and so on, and etc. The question should be why are most MAs today considered to be Martial arts? Or what is a martial art?

[guy incognito]

I think a lot of european MAs are not though of as such not just boxing.The use of broadswords,axes,spears etc in the eruopean sense are are all not considered MAs for some reason.I also think that the simplicity of boxing also is a factor.

[sherwinc]

Unfortunately most Martial arts as we undrstand them are far more art then they are martial.

Karate is mostly exercise and sport. TKD is mostly exercise and sport, so on and so on, and etc. The question should be why are most MAs today considered to be Martial arts? Or what is a martial art?

how about kungfu????? is it a sport too?????

speaking of kungfu - fist/hand attacks is not the first thing that comes to my mind.....

speaking of kungfu... to me..... i first imagine broadsword, twin short double edged knife with tassles, etc..... so, kungfu is not considered as a sport, ok?????

[ddrive]

Martial Art = Sport

Personally, I feel that there are a lot of disciplines that still possess those deadly techniques that keep the martial in martial art, but in order to compete, they have teach students stuff that they use in sport. Does that help any one?

[shadowkiller]

how about kungfu????? is it a sport too?????

speaking of kungfu - fist/hand attacks is not the first thing that comes to my mind.....

speaking of kungfu... to me..... i first imagine broadsword, twin short double edged knife with tassles, etc..... so, kungfu is not considered as a sport, ok?????

No kung fu isnt a sport. Its a dance.....

[BrotherD]

Boxing is a Martial Art

The foundation of an art form that began long before it was a sport. Why boxing is called the sweet science?
Buried in the root of the fight is the answer that you seek, I will only say that once you begin to complete the puzzle
It will all make since to some of you. Now let’s remove the gloves and that it back in the days of this country and what did we have. Rough N Tumble and Bare Knuckle Boxing, two sides of the same coin one was a fight for survival while the other became a fighting sport that was quickly modified. Basically Boxing was watered down so that gentle men could play fair, while the lower class fought with brutally. The function of Boxing is to prepare the warrior for combat in all ranges. Let me break this down starting with foot work. Footwork is the ability to move the whole body in and out and from side to side, why is it necessary for the whole to move with balance. Image: say you’re in a bar and a fight breaks out and some body starts throwing bottles or rocks, and maybe a knife or two. Without footwork and balance this types of projectiles would be hard to dodge, and leaving any part of your body open to a projectile say and knife or broken bottle would leave you in a bad situation. Now let’s add the other mechanic to the footwork slipping, bobbing, and weaving, dipping (a hood term combining slipping and bobbing). Throw in the pivots and you got a working flow while that puts the whole body in tune in a defenses motion. Image: (Pernell Whitaker vs. ODLH). The concept of this is to develop the ability to fight in a phone booth yet reduce or prevent the other cat from hitting you. Now what makes this range work (projectile and long range) timing (rhythm) the object of the boxing is to close on his opponent while eliminating his own risk. Next range is medium which is where the real fighting starts. This range says I can hit you and you can hit me, thus the previous training is a must before you can play here safely. Now let us look at the tools at this range, notice that I haven’t mention them before now. The reason for that was unless you have projectiles of your own or deploy some type of kicking the first two ranges are just phases that you move quickly through in order to get into hitting range (medium), here is where the body is more like a snake fighting a mongoose. Image: (Byrd vs. Holifield), or any of Tyson’s early fights. From here we move into close quarters (kill range) where every move counts for you or against you. You are quick to suppress, or absorb in this range (smother, tie-up, crash and bash, hook, spin, and clinching) you get the picture (Image: Tyson vs Holifield, Ali vs Forman on the ropes baby). Lastly we grapple to ensure the kill, wrestling= struggle as the fight progresses to this point most conventional weapons will be suppressed. So now you will need your re-enforced weapons head butts, elbows, and knees just a few of the things you can begin to deploy. Now keep in mind that this type of tactic was removed from the fight, as the sport began to grow. For those of you who also train in a Martial Art, just look at your weapons training, what type of weapons would fit into a boxers hands where he wouldn’t have to modify his fight. Every hand position or punch in boxing has multiple meanings to them we only need to look at the attributes of the fight to see clearly how powerful boxing is as a fight (MA). Not to mention it’s the only safe way to train the attributes of the weapons without serious injury.
Just my two cents
BrotherD IB

[sherwinc]

No kung fu isnt a sport. Its a dance.....

how about Muay Thai????? is it a Dance too????? cause they both dance before they fight

[ddrive]

Kung Fu isn't a Dance!

Kung Fu isn't a dance.. i think when you translate it right it means "hard work/effort". Form/Katas are designed as dances to hide a variety of techniques, but I think all you just see is kung fu practitioners work on forms/katas all the time assuming that that's all kung fu is about (and practicing forms all the time doesn't make you a better fighter)! The first teacher that I worked with was down in the basement and we did forms, but we drilled constantly to develop our forearms and knuckles in a way similar to boxing and karate schools..

[darrianation]

Ah…. what does it matter whether or not Kung Fu is a dance, a sport, or an old ladies tea party, because either way a good boxer will beat a good Kung Fu practitioner in weight class at least 80% or more of the time.

[shadowkiller]

how about Muay Thai????? is it a Dance too????? cause they both dance before they fight

Not really its a sport... I thought we already covered that...

My reasoning as to kung fu being a dance come from the fact of all the action stars. Almost all of them are from Kung fu, its a showy art and people like to watch two people dance around a screen.

[Broadsword2004]

Shadow, most of those Hong Kong guys are heavily trained in gymnastics and Chinese performance wushu; kung fu itself is NOT a flashy art, and to say that a good boxer will beat a good kung fu fighter 89% of the time I think is wrong. Boxing is a very good martial art, but it's too limited. A good kung fu fighter would be conditioned and prepared to take the punches of boxing. Footwork and speed are essential in decent Chinese martial arts as well. That's why in good schools they drill the horse stance so much, so you can have extremely strong legs. Up against a good kung fu fighter, the kung fu person is likely going to have strong forearms, strong as hell legs, and strong knuckles and arms, and they will likely be fast. Good boxers have all these attributes too, however, the boxer likely won't have the kicking ability of the kung fu person. Also, conventional boxing these days can be bad for real fighting, because if you train to punch with gloves on, you don't train right for a realistic fight. Punching without gloves on is different. No one can make a full fist with boxing gloves on, so how one punches without gloves is a bit different. Kung fu people, if they train correctly, train without gloves on except when maybe sparring to avoid injuries to each other. Unless you mean like combat boxing, which is different than the sport boxing. But a good kung fu person should be very capable of holding their own with a good boxer of approximately the same skill, fighting-wise.

And don't forget in a mean fight, a kung fu person would probably try to kick out the knees of the boxer. A good fighter who attempts that knows to protect their own legs as well. Boxing doesn't teach how to attack or protect the legs. Boxing is good for a fight if you're like, "Alright, let's have a go to see who is more skilled" but pure boxing against pure raw, hard-core kung fu, the boxer will lose if the kung fu person is determined to win (if the kung fu person has trained well). Personally, I always thought boxing was a great way to supplement kung fu and karate training and all those. I think every martial art, except maybe like Pankration and Muay Thai, should have cross-training in boxing. No other martial art really teaches one to punch like boxing. Boxing is the great art of punching. Or how to punch someone and not get punched back, and also how to take hits. But boxing by itself against good kung fu of equal skill and conditioning will lose.

The problem is, the scenario I just described above usually doesn't happen because people who practice boxing are usually in good shape whereas the average Joe Schmoe "I take karate (or kung fu) class" dude has about as much conditioning as a lemon.

I guess it's sort of like this one cop I remember, he was talking to this guy and was saying, "Yeah, you know, those kung fu/karate guys, they jump up and down and yell but you give them a couple of drinks and they drop like boards of wood." For one thing, a few drinks will affect a lot of people, it depends one's liquore tolerance, however, a good karateka or a good kung fu person is a tough opponent to take down. Since karate and kung fu have been so commercialized and have so many crap people in them, these arts have a bad rep.

A very good combo for fighting I think is to be what this one guy I knew was; he was a boxer and a wrestler, for like 25 years, studying those arts, holy crappola, what a puncher and a ground fighter. And what a mover. And what a kneer!!! He knocked my whole thigh out of commision with a knee strike (I was 17, he was like 45, lots more conditioning, but STILL sheesh, that hurt like hell!!!). By mover I mean he could move around so fluidly, he was hard to hit. The only thing he lacked really was kicking skill. If that guy had had taekwondo-style kicking ability, combined with his wrestling and boxing ability, he'd have been probably one of the most complete fighters who could actually literally kick the crap out of someone in a real street or bar fight.

So I consider boxing a martial art, absolutely, but it needs to be combined with something else, but a martial artist should combine it with something else. And this is just my 2 cents, but even if one has no real kicking skills, one should ALWAYS know how to protect their legs from other kickers or fighters.