Carter Hargrave In The Business Of War

By Author: hargravecarter
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The words martial arts bring to mind the high flashy kicks of Bruce Lee movies and the escapades of Jackie Chan, but what do they really mean. The term martial arts began its origins in the orient many hundreds of years ago before tournaments or any thought of sporing aspects of karate and kung fu. That was the time when Karate of Kung Fu was used to keep you and family in one piece defending against war lords and various Ronin or unemployed Samurai turned freelance fighters.

Martial Arts were in fact fighting arts says Carter Hargrave a direct descendant of the Bruce Lee School, and the direct translation of Martial Art is War Art. The term as it is used today is much more benign or generic in meaning. It could mean almost anything as it is used in all sorts of Karate or Kung Fu variants and anything in between from absolutely any country.

Almost every country has in its heritage a fighting art or a national Martial Art. In the United States you have American Boxing, and in the school systems many schools offer a wrestling program which was derived from the influences of Japanese Jujitsu. The French have Savate. ...
... The Chinese have Wushu among a multitude of other arts. The Italians have Greco Roman Wrestling. The Israelis have Krav Maga. The Brazilians have Capoeira, and so the list goes on and on. It is all part of each countries history to have a method of unarmed or empty handed combat.

So where does this leave the world of the Martial Art in todays societies? Well it is not so clear cut anymore. Many of the arts of today have no real purpose. Some are just for exercise and others are just to entertain us in modern gladiator fashion. The true Martial Art or War Art is hard to find and in a sense has been watered down and flowered up as not to offend the sensibilities of modern culture or civilized culture. Still the true Martial Art can be found if you know what to look for.

First if the art you are observing has any sporting aspects such as a tournament or a ring it cannot be considered as being a War Art. In War there is not a set of rules or guidelines that the practitioner must adhere to, so the tournaments of today would be out, as would any art that has tournaments. There is a word guide that a prospective War Art seeker can generally use in searching. When you see the word Do translated is way of on the end of an art that means that it is a watered down version of a parent art that was more real world effective. The only exception would be Bruce Lee's art which is Jeet Kune Do which is most certainly a War Art.

Carter Hargrave teaches real world arts at Hargrave Martial Arts, such as Jeet Kune Do and is the founder of American Combat Kempo Karate a hard style system that has all heavily modified punches and strikes of Karate, throws and take downs of Ju Jitsu, and weapons training and disarms.

http://www.carterhargravearts.com