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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

#41

Post by cowanon22 »

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"…

Yes, most martial arts are more of cultural dance and ceremony than an actual effective fighting techniques. MMA/UFC has done more to advance the state of the art than a 1000 years of dojos ever did. From a cultural standpoint it's a shame that this martial art is lost, but I would be surprised if it had anything novel that would translate to real combat.

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

#42

Post by austinjp »

cowanon22 wrote: post #41
roel_v wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

Yes, most martial arts are more of cultural dance and ceremony than an actual effective fighting techniques. MMA/UFC has done more to advance the state of the art than a 1000 years of dojos ever did. From a cultural standpoint it's a shame that this martial art is lost, but I would be surprised if it had anything novel that would translate to real combat.

Well, MMA is a one-on-one sport, with all that entails. No multiple opponents, no small joint manipulation, no gouging, no biting, no spitting, no striking the neck or back of the head, no kicking the head of a downed opponent.... etc etc. All of which could happen in actual combat and non-sport fighting.

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

#43

Post by Cthulhu_ »

cowanon22 wrote: post #41
roel_v wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

Yes, most martial arts are more of cultural dance and ceremony than an actual effective fighting techniques. MMA/UFC has done more to advance the state of the art than a 1000 years of dojos ever did. From a cultural standpoint it's a shame that this martial art is lost, but I would be surprised if it had anything novel that would translate to real combat.

It being a cultural expression is (I think, I'm no expert / armchair, etc) an important motivator for erasure. If missionaries think this cultural expression is pagan or anti-christian, they would have tried to suppress or erase it. And it's well-established that China's cultural revolution erased (and is erasing) culture, see also Tibet and the current erasure of Uyghur culture and identity. They seem to have come to an understanding with martial arts, but there were attempts to erase it.

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

#44

Post by simonh »

austinjp wrote: post #42
cowanon22 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, most martial arts are more of cultural dance and ceremony than an actual effective fighting techniques. MMA/UFC has done more to advance the state of the art than a 1000 years of dojos ever did. From a cultural standpoint it's a shame that this martial art is lost, but I would be surprised if it had anything novel that would translate to real combat.

Well, MMA is a one-on-one sport, with all that entails. No multiple opponents, no small joint manipulation, no gouging, no biting, no spitting, no striking the neck or back of the head, no kicking the head of a downed opponent.... etc etc. All of which could happen in actual combat and non-sport fighting.

There was a famous Greek fighter who competed in the original Olympics who's preferred tactic was to break all the fingers of his opponent first, before finishing them off. It was pretty normal for fighters to lose teeth or suffer broken bones.

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

#45

Post by VortexDream »

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"…

Sorry, Bruce Lee and static? What are you even talking about? He's one of the earliest examples of MMA I can think of in how he tried to draw from different martial arts to create jeet kune do, which was not just created for movies.

Edit: As a concrete example, he grew up with Wing Chun. But he realized that the static stance was a huge detriment in real fights, so he took the boxing footwork from Ali, which was a lot of moving around and staying mobile and not standing in one spot.

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

#46

Post by chana_masala »

throwmaway99 wrote: post #20
cmrajan wrote: post #2

I could see close parallels with ancient martial art Kalaripayattu [1] practiced in southern Indian state of Kerala. It's very popular and still being practiced there [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalaripayattu

I am not surprised. Sri Lanka shares a lot of culture and history with India. Afterall one of the origin stories of sri lanka is king Vijaya was banished from India and sailed to Sri Lanka where he met the locals then and established the kingdom that later became Sri Lanka. When I am working abroad and miss home food and I can't find a Sri Lankan shop, I often substitute it with Kerala food, which I believe some of o…

What about Tamil food? There are lots of ethnic Tamil in Sri Lanka

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

#47

Post by ctack »

chalst wrote: post #28
stryan wrote: post #19

Angampora is a fascinating martial art, but while British colonialism is/was a scourge across the world there's little evidence that they actually banned the martial art. While I generally don't like to use reddit posts as sources, this one[0] is well researched enough and includes its (long list of) sources that I figured it counts. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/kh9gfb/the_brit...

There's something about martial arts that encourages mythologising. The Reddit post you link to also mentions the uncritical assertion that Angampora is 5000 years old. Gillian Russell wrote a nice essay about the nature of received wisdom among many martial arts practitioners: Epistemic Viciousness in the Martial Arts. https://fightsciencesresearchinstitute.wordpress.com/2008/10...

The linked paper doesn’t seem to exist :/

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

#48

Post by danenania »

austinjp wrote: post #42
cowanon22 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, most martial arts are more of cultural dance and ceremony than an actual effective fighting techniques. MMA/UFC has done more to advance the state of the art than a 1000 years of dojos ever did. From a cultural standpoint it's a shame that this martial art is lost, but I would be surprised if it had anything novel that would translate to real combat.

Well, MMA is a one-on-one sport, with all that entails. No multiple opponents, no small joint manipulation, no gouging, no biting, no spitting, no striking the neck or back of the head, no kicking the head of a downed opponent.... etc etc. All of which could happen in actual combat and non-sport fighting.

Apart from multiple opponents, those all seem like fairly minor variations on MMA technique in the sense that defending against the legal MMA attacks naturally defends against the illegal ones as well, and similarly the same skills that allow a fighter to land legal attacks would allow them to land illegal ones in a non-sport situation. It seems unlikely an overall inferior MMA fighter could win just by focusing on specific illegal moves.

For multiple opponents, I could certainly see that changing the optimal strategy, but it seems like the odds of winning would still mainly be a function of how strong a fighter is one-on-one, since the only hope is to quickly neutralize the additional opponent(s).

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

#49

Post by 101_101 »

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…

LMFAO GTFO with your proud history dude. SL is currently run by a corrupted family (Rajapaksha's). they have been accused of crimes(most of those cases got dropped for some reason. LOL). they changed the constitution so their brother, who is a dual citizen can take a seat in the parliament. they pardoned convicted child killers, war criminals & murderers. they exploited racism to get into the power. they even let convicted murderers attend the parliament. they suppress free speech & media. they make up BS quarantine laws to stop protests. they have different rules for different people. they sell local resources/lands to private companies (mostly Chinese), and yet here you are talking about your proud history. you should talk about what your people are doing to your country right now. without the British, SL won't even have a freaking rail road. LOL

Edit: they also got caught paying people (with taxpayers' money) to boost their online/international image BTW. one of them even got arrested by the CIA.

the current government is trying to militarize the whole country as well.

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

#50

Post by chana_masala »

cowanon22 wrote: post #41
roel_v wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

Yes, most martial arts are more of cultural dance and ceremony than an actual effective fighting techniques. MMA/UFC has done more to advance the state of the art than a 1000 years of dojos ever did. From a cultural standpoint it's a shame that this martial art is lost, but I would be surprised if it had anything novel that would translate to real combat.

However the cultural fighting styles provide a spiritual or religious framework that MMA lacks. Of course some (many?) won't find that an issue, however I think that the spiritual framework includes moral and character building disciplines which are helpful in life (not always and not completely, but much more than MMA)
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