Jawa Ex Machina
Veteran
Well, this is another discussíon, but yeah it is.
You basically have two types of martial arts. You have Classical and Modern.
Classical martial arts, like Shaolin Gong Fu, Wu Shu, Bujinkan, Capoeira, most of the old traditional arts, are very focused on being traditional for the sake of being traditional. Modern martial arts like Thai Boxing, Jeet Kune Do, Krav Maga, MMA, Boxing, tend to focus more on the actual fighting and physical exercises.
This all got started in the late 60's/early 70's when Bruce Lee kind of revolutionized traditional Gong Fu and added a mix of all kinds of modern techniques, everything from boxing to savate to fencing, and also worked out physically on the side.
Later, other people started doing that too, and a lot of the more classical martial arts got modernized or had more modern elements put into their sparring systems so they became more functional and practical instead of just traditional.
I'm being very general here of course, and not to piss someone off or create a "my style is better than your style" battle, I'm just saying if you go to a traditional martial arts school, where they teach traditional "Kata"-style forms more than physical exercise, sparring practice and weight lifting, you will learn traditional forms and not a way to defend yourself on the street.
Most likely, that is.
