People often wonder what the difference is between traditional and modern martial arts. How is it that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which was created in 1925, is a modern martial art, and let's say Taekwondo, which was created in the 1950s, is a traditional martial art? First, we must clarify what is a traditional martial art and what is a modern one. Traditional martial arts are those that maintain tradition regardless of whether that tradition is practical for modern times or not, also in most cases traditional martial arts do not evolve, but remain the same originally, they do not change even if they are ineffective in self-defense, they use weapons which are no longer used, such as spears, swords, etc., some traditional arts in themselves may be more effective in self-defense, but that is because they were created that way. Modern martial arts are arts that, although they are based on traditional martial arts, do not maintain tradition and often use techniques from various martial arts and add new techniques to make the art practical for fighting and self-defense, modern martial arts are mostly hybrid. I trained a lot of traditional martial arts, the problem was always that I had to adapt to the art and its rules, and the space for changing and adding is minimal, so when I was training shotokan karate and when I was doing kumite, I couldn't do everything I could to take advantage of, for example I do a lot of wrestling and boxing, I use a low kicks most of all from kickikng arsenal, and I can't do anything like that in shotokan kumite, I have to do a lot of high kicks and punches in a straight line, although I would beat those karate fighters in a free fight, in karate I lost, and that gives those karate fighters a false confidence that they know how to fight, which can be fatal in real situations, on the other hand, when I was training in mma, I had complete freedom to adapt the art to myself, that's how I got to know myself better, when they were on mma came karate fighter and savate fighter, I beat them without any problems with my wrestling techniques. For example, imagine a fight between shotokan karate fighters and mma fighters, the mma fighters will win but the karate fighters won't think about what they need to do to improve karate and so they can fight mma, they will stick to the traditions even though they know that with karate they will never be able to to defeat mma fighters. On the other hand, in the event that karate fighters beat the mma fighters (which is impossible), the mma fighters would think about what to add or take away in order to win next time. And now the question of how a martial art is modern even though it was created earlier than the traditional one, so the answer is simple, it doesn't matter when the martial art was created, but by what principles it is guided, bjj is guided by winning fights and apart from the kimono, they have nothing traditional, while taekwondo was created to maintain tradition and philosophy, that's the difference. Boxing originated in ancient Greece, but it has always been considered a modern combat sport because in boxing, the boxer always strives to defeat the opponent, and in order to win, you have to adopt new ideas and change tactics, thus the art evolves, while shotokan and taekwondo, although they have fights , there are too many restrictive rules that slow down or stop evolution and there are many katas and forms due to tradition, and something that was useful 100 years ago does not mean that it is still useful today. If you are wondering which martial arts are better, it depends on what you want, if you like tradition, philosophy and old weapons, traditional martial arts are the right choice for you, if you want to learn self-defense in the modern age and fight, then modern martial arts are the right choice for you.
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