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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

#81

Post by matwood »

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.

I'm not sure where you train MMA or BJJ, but where I train the self-defense aspect of various grappling techniques are always discussed. There's a reason that it's drilled from day 1 to keep hands inside protecting the head (whether on your feet, ground, or anywhere in between). Next is controlling the shoulders b/c then it's hard for someone to punch.

Every grappler knows pulling guard in a real fight is dumb, with the best position being knee on belly b/c it gives control and the ability to assess the situation for more attackers.

The reason for the lack of small joint manipulation is that it doesn't really work in a true self-defense/life or death situation (and who wants broken fingers for sport?). Heck, I've read of people get their arms broken or shoulders dislocated and keep attacking. You think a finger or toe is going to stop them? LOL.

With all that said, the biggest advantage of training MMA or BJJ is learning to stay relaxed and make good decisions when a self-defense situation does occur. I might have 30+ simulated fight situations per week (with people who know what they are doing attacking me), how many fights in their lifetime has the person been in who may attack me?

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

#82

Post by skhr0680 »

roel_v wrote: post #67
watwut wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Right, and there is nothing wrong with spectacular fighting for movies, but it did give rise to the idea that this is what actual fighting looks like. Which it doesn't. Same with aikido - it's fine when people do it as a form of exercise, like lots of Chinese do tai chi, but let's not kid ourselves on the efficacy. I used to train at a place where there was an aikido group before us, and the teacher would always be t…

Aikido has a lot of woo, especially from “true believers”.

Putting that aside, it is pretty similar to meditation. It’s not really physically taxing, the movements are intuitive, and it isn’t competitive, so your main opponent is your own mind and heart. It’s a realization that can help you out a lot in other sports or life in general.

One of the most physically gifted athletes I grew up with was fitter and could train harder than anyone I knew, but never amounted to anything in sports, combat or otherwise, because he always completely lost his cool under pressure. Maybe Aikido would have helped him out if he had thought to try it.

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

#83

Post by herla »

fumblebee wrote: post #55

I love atlasobscura's content, but why can't I easily opt out of cookies? I would pay good money for a solution to the cookies popup problem.

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

#84

Post by rocknor »

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…

As usual, racism and stupidity comes together. Immigration is not charity. It is a way for host countries to maintain global power and living standards for their citizens. In a way immigrants are saving the former colonial powers from collapse.

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

#85

Post by satao »

ummonk wrote: post #31
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.

> 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

Do you have any source for this claim?

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

#86

Post by School-Cotton »

publicola1990 wrote: post #36
School-Cotton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yeah, historical linguistics distinguishes between a language being influenced by another vs. descending from another.

For example, English is descended from Old English (a Germanic language), but was very heavily influenced by French (a Romance language, i.e. descended from Latin). The grammatical structure and origin of basic words are still more Germanic than Romance.

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

#87

Post by DebtDeflation »

decafninja wrote: post #80
hliyan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sri Lankan here. I'm probably going to catch some flak from enthusiasts for this, but what you see in this article is essentially a modern recreation. As far as I know, nothing except the name itself has survived antiquity (if this actually existed, it faded long before Europeans arrived). Enthusiasm in this art form was rekindled due to a fictionalized depiction in a TV show named Dandubasnamaana about 15-20 years a…

Isn't this actually a pretty common phenomenon with martial arts? i.e. IIRC modern tae kwon do goes no further back than the 20th century, despite some practitioners and nationalists (disclaimer: I'm Korean myself) claiming it goes back hundreds or thousands of years.

>Isn't this actually a pretty common phenomenon with martial arts?

It is. Tae Kwon Do is little more than Shotokan Karate brought to Korea by the Japanese during the WWII occupation, with some fancy kicks later added and a fake history re-created. The vast majority of "ancient Asian martial arts" are at most 100 years old, many are significantly younger. I'm a long time practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and after the publication of Choque had to come to terms with the fact that almost everything I had been told about the early history of the art was complete nonsense.

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

#88

Post by decafninja »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #87
decafninja wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this actually a pretty common phenomenon with martial arts? i.e. IIRC modern tae kwon do goes no further back than the 20th century, despite some practitioners and nationalists (disclaimer: I'm Korean myself) claiming it goes back hundreds or thousands of years.

>Isn't this actually a pretty common phenomenon with martial arts? It is. Tae Kwon Do is little more than Shotokan Karate brought to Korea by the Japanese during the WWII occupation, with some fancy kicks later added and a fake history re-created. The vast majority of "ancient Asian martial arts" are at most 100 years old, many are significantly younger. I'm a long time practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and after…

Yeah, that is my understanding too. I don't doubt that there existed forms of martial arts in ancient Korea, but I doubt there is a straight lineage from back then to modern TKD.

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

#89

Post by briefcomment »

hliyan wrote: post #59
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...

Sri Lankan here. I'm probably going to catch some flak from enthusiasts for this, but what you see in this article is essentially a modern recreation. As far as I know, nothing except the name itself has survived antiquity (if this actually existed, it faded long before Europeans arrived). Enthusiasm in this art form was rekindled due to a fictionalized depiction in a TV show named Dandubasnamaana about 15-20 years a…

What would you say about the 104 year old practitioner in the article then? Do you think he was he part of modernized version?
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