I was browsing a HEMA subreddit, Historically European Martial Arts, and some guy was crying that a white nationalist was in his club. He wanted to know how to avoid attracting qhite nationalist and a lot of folks were arguing to remove the European part because being European isn't inclusive. Are white people so cucked that including European in our own cultures considered racist?
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That’s hilariously retarded. All the famous martial arts are Asian (plus the one South American one and one Israeli one). The entire point of a distinction like “European” or any other such qualifier, in a field where that qualifier is not the norm—and it is absolutely not in martial arts—is to carve out its specific niche.
If they become “martial arts” (the “H” is a qualifier for the “E,” so it would go as well) and allow anything from anywhere, they’ll just be Karate/Kung Fu/Akido group #7529.
I think every culture has martial arts, it's just been used to describe Asian forms of it for so long that the term with associated with them. Masai warriors passing on their fighting is a martial art, viking clans passing down their fighting is a martial art.
I agree, but my point was that if you don't specifically say "my space is for this one subgroup," it inevitably becomes a space for whatever the most famous, broadly known version of itself is.
If you mean BJJ isn't that still derivative given the name being indicative of the origin, which is Japanese?
I think he means the ridiculous dancing one.
No, I did mean BJJ; I think it's fair to give it the South American categorization even though it's a derivative, since "Brazilian" is right in the name and it's (currently) much more famous than any other school of Jiu Jitsu. It's a differentiator, just like the European tag; it's saying "not the original Japanese version(s), the Brazilian modification of it."
I could be wrong, and maybe "Brazilian" Jiu Jitsu is not different enough to be fairly called South American, but that was my logic.
Tagging u/devidose since this is relevant to both comments.
Martial arts just means war arts. Any culture that has had any semi-organized training for and/or engagement in war is going to have "martial arts." It's true the Asian ones get a bunch of the fame, but that's also why these European ones are are called "historic;" they're more specific to that time, and not as mainstreamed like many Asian arts.
But, yes, if you take out the "historic" and the "European" it certain loses its meaning, that's very true.