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Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

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Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#31

Post by ummonk »

joe_the_user wrote: post #12

While all the damages of the British occupation of Sri Lanka and elsewhere is terrible, I believe banning martial has been common the world over, especially before the modern era. I think various Chinese rulers as well as the Maoist banned some martial arts, Russia banned everything but Sambo in the Soviet era, Capoeira was developed in Brazil as a "secret martial art", martial arts were banned in Okinawan at one poi…

Banning martial arts was a common practice. An equally common practice has been claiming your martial art was banned and suppressed in the past, to give it legitimacy and an aura of mystery. With any given martial art, it's hard to determine whether it was actually banned or not.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#32

Post by ummonk »

publicola1990 wrote: post #5
throwmaway99 wrote: post #3

As a Sri Lankan it breaks my heart whenever this type of topic is brought up, the amount of damage colonizers including the British did to my country, my culture is just heart wrenching. How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable. But on a more positive side, more and more Sri Lankans are starti…

Not related to the article, but would you be able to comment on why Sinhala is classified as an Indo-European language, rather than as a Dravidian language?

Languages are classified based on relatedness, not geography. Just as you have an Indo-Aryan language, Sinhala, that made it down to Sri Lanka, you also have a Dravidian language, Brahui, that stuck around up in Pakistan.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#33

Post by roel_v »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #23
joe_the_user wrote: post #12

While all the damages of the British occupation of Sri Lanka and elsewhere is terrible, I believe banning martial has been common the world over, especially before the modern era. I think various Chinese rulers as well as the Maoist banned some martial arts, Russia banned everything but Sambo in the Soviet era, Capoeira was developed in Brazil as a "secret martial art", martial arts were banned in Okinawan at one poi…

> martial arts tend to be always fracturing and in danger of dying out. Makes me wonder how many we’ve already lost that aren’t documented

The reality is that most "martial arts" are mostly performative, as the principles of actually useful hand to hand combat are fairly universal and anything that isn't effective and efficient "evolves" out quickly. E.g. wildly flaying weapons, static Bruce Lee style kicking/punching only h2h fighting styles, etc. - spectacular for movies and demonstrations, but little use in actual fighting.

So anything that's "lost" is just as easily replaced by someone else coming up with another ritualized choreography.

Take aikido. Why are there so many people doing that? It's not because it has anything to do with actual fighting. It's like why panda bears are still alive - if it were to be left to nature, they'd die out soon, the main reason we have so many is because they look cute to humans and we protect and encourage their existence.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#34

Post by tsjq »

throwmaway99 wrote: post #3

As a Sri Lankan it breaks my heart whenever this type of topic is brought up, the amount of damage colonizers including the British did to my country, my culture is just heart wrenching. How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable. But on a more positive side, more and more Sri Lankans are starti…

Next , more things will be banned in SL by Chinese. SL has willingly adopted and accepted and welcomed Chinese oppression.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#35

Post by saiya-jin »

brigandish wrote: post #29
throwmaway99 wrote: post #3

As a Sri Lankan it breaks my heart whenever this type of topic is brought up, the amount of damage colonizers including the British did to my country, my culture is just heart wrenching. How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable. But on a more positive side, more and more Sri Lankans are starti…

> How the British and other colonizers go unpunished I have to wonder how it's possible to decide whom to punish when the vast majority of those involved are dead, if any are left, and what you would punish them with? Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm cutting down the population of "colonizers", you did point at "the British" so it should be up to you to clarify the bounds.

In this case its super easy - Great Britain, a specific state next to continental Europe. Punishment as such can be done ie financially via direct aid. Building schools and hospitals. You name it.

But this would be a direct admission how monstrously they fucked up this world for centuries and that's something no politician will admit, no matter what they think personally. Also, we talk about most of western Europe here (GB, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Italy). US also had its colonies like Philippines.

The world is not fair. Rather than waiting for a sorry and help from bullies, get your stuff together and define your own destiny now that you can. I've been to Sri Lanka, have seen former prisons. Same as everywhere else, ie not so far on Andamans.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#36

Post by publicola1990 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #7
publicola1990 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not related to the article, but would you be able to comment on why Sinhala is classified as an Indo-European language, rather than as a Dravidian language?

Because it is descended from Sanskrit which has been known to be an Indo-European language since the very beginning of comparative linguistics. It is genetically unrelated to Dravidian languages, but it does have a lot of Dravidian loanwords.

Kannada is very influenced by Sanskrit, but still is a Dravidian lang. Is there more Sanskrit influence in Sinhala compared with Kannada?

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#37

Post by BBC-vs-neolibs »

roel_v wrote: post #33
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> martial arts tend to be always fracturing and in danger of dying out. Makes me wonder how many we’ve already lost that aren’t documented

The reality is that most "martial arts" are mostly performative, as the principles of actually useful hand to hand combat are fairly universal and anything that isn't effective and efficient "evolves" out quickly. E.g. wildly flaying weapons, static Bruce Lee style kicking/punching only h2h fighting styles, etc. - spectacular for movies and demonstrations, but little use in actual fighting. So anything that's "lost"…

Your last paragraph was incredibly funny!

Pandas exist not because they have evolved in their ecological niche for millions of years, but because they are human pets? I assume a bit like toy poodles?

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#38

Post by watwut »

roel_v wrote: post #33
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> martial arts tend to be always fracturing and in danger of dying out. Makes me wonder how many we’ve already lost that aren’t documented

The reality is that most "martial arts" are mostly performative, as the principles of actually useful hand to hand combat are fairly universal and anything that isn't effective and efficient "evolves" out quickly. E.g. wildly flaying weapons, static Bruce Lee style kicking/punching only h2h fighting styles, etc. - spectacular for movies and demonstrations, but little use in actual fighting. So anything that's "lost"…

Bruce Lee thing was specifically designed for movies, so I dont think it is good example of traditional martial arts that might or might not be lost. It was modern adaptation literally for movie.

Aikido is done a lot now, becauae it adapted to current world. What people do is modern variant where not useful pieces got removed and useful pieces are pushed up. Useful here being fun engaging exercise - and in our world being sedentary is more of risk then having to go on the offensive against ennemy clan.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#39

Post by caddybox »

tasogare wrote: post #9
throwmaway99 wrote: post #3

As a Sri Lankan it breaks my heart whenever this type of topic is brought up, the amount of damage colonizers including the British did to my country, my culture is just heart wrenching. How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable. But on a more positive side, more and more Sri Lankans are starti…

> How the British and other colonizers go unpunished And who would do that punishment? Colonization occurred because country X had overwhelming military strength over country Y, defeats it militarily and then occupied it. Absolutely nothing new historically or humanly wise: it's like this since the dawn of time; and it's true in the animal world too. The only way for Sri Lanka to "punish" England is to become militar…

Immigrants are a punishment? They pay taxes, respect the laws of the land and come here with proper documentation. Not even a shred of this decency was afforded to them in the colonial days.

Please take your xenophobic nonsense elsewhere.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#40

Post by watwut »

chakkepolja wrote: post #16

One sad thing about these ancient martial arts is, they were great for the battle conditions of the ancient era, but they were not sufficiently improved for modern situations. I don't know much about angampora in particular, but Kalaripayattu (which is a related martial art from Kerala) has sadly become more of a performing art than martial art these days.

In think they performing art is adaptation for modern situation.

We dont need to strangle people or gauge their eyes out anymore in fight. We dont have warlord clans fighting over influence nor trying to eliminate other clans. And where those exist, they use guns.

Martial arts as they existes were attempts to become as deadly as possible. The fight was about killing or seriously harming the other - stuff that leads to prison now.

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