Hybrid Martial Arts

Additional material coming soon.

What is Hybrid [Traditional] Martial Arts?

HMA is a paradigm for learning martial arts. It expresses appreciation for the full multitude of martial arts and provides a mechanism for learning martial arts in a world that can often be competitive and exclusive. HMA proposes the benefits of all martial arts. Its core tenets are described in the HMA manifesto.

HMA is not in itself a martial art, or a system of study, but an approach to the study of martial arts as a whole that attempts to incorporate the relevance of traditional and modern martial arts combined.

The word “traditional” is sometimes kept in the title as an indication that the goal of the HMA approach as a whole is a goal of learning, rather than of application. That is to say, if you are studying for self-defense alone, or for exercise alone, or with some similar goal in mind, then a single martial art may be plenty sufficient for the purpose — and that is perfectly reasonable. HMA applies to those who study martial arts out of a broader interest (which can certainly include self-defense, exercise, etc), and seeks to help a student with such goals navigate the learning process of the wide world of martial arts in a balanced and inquisitive way.
Some reasons why one would study martial arts outside of the imminently practical can be found in the Purpose of Study article.

The precepts of HMA can be used as a loose guide for approaching martial arts training and study. It endeavors to manage the “why” as well as the “how” of learning martial arts.

How does HMA approach learning martial arts?

HMA advocates for the open and conscious development of martial arts knowledge towards the purpose defined by the individual student, and as realized by the school or schools under which the student studies. In plainer terms, HMA seeks to present a framework that allows any learner to maintain awareness of their own trajectory. More details on the practical principles HMA employs are expanded upon in the Manifesto.

HMA also operates on the principle that there can be no teaching without learning, and no learning without teaching. In other words, all growth in martial arts is interactive and bidirectional. The instruction of martial arts when performed properly is inherently an act of curiosity. It should go without saying that the reception of instruction is as well.

What purpose does HMA serve?

As alluded to in earlier sections, HMA’s goal is to provide an overarching framework by which any martial arts learner may approach the study of one or more martial arts.

Even as the world of martial arts expanded rapidly over the last half century, and became easily available to almost anyone, it has increasingly fractioned, isolated, become territorial and self-aggrandizing, in ways that contradict the very purposes of martial arts.

Historically, many martial arts developed in isolation, or due to some pressing need, such as opposing armed enemies in combat while oneself being unarmed, or attempting to make a stand against an oppressor. Some martial arts developed slowly over time with great introspection, such as the famous Shaolin boxing arts, while others sprang into existence rapidly as the answer to some particular problem, such as Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kun Do.

In nearly all cases, until the very modern era, martial arts were not built with the intention of “competing” conceptually against other arts for popularity or the public eye. There have always been rivalries, inter-school conflicts, branches seeking to outdo one another, but these were hardly relevant to the average citizen – most of whom would not have been a practitioner of any martial art in any case.

It is wonderful that in the modern era an average person can have access to at least one, and usually many, martial arts schools and styles to choose from and learn, in order to improve physical health, gain mental rigor, learn practical defensive techniques, and have a new skill about which to feel a very reasonable pride of growth.

But all too often we are convinced to “buy in” to a particular martial art’s brand, or a school’s particular way of teaching, to the exclusion of all other styles and methods of teaching, and, all too often, to the exclusion of reality. In doing so a school loses any legitimate connection between its teaching of the martial art and the goals which it purports to sustain.

As discussed elsewhere, it is valid for a martial art to maintain its traditional forms even if they do not conform directly to modern street fighting; it is also valid to teach techniques specific to a certain type of competition that would have less use outside that sphere. But in doing so, it should be clear to any student (as well as to the instructor, who often deludes himself over time) exactly what is being taught. A student should not learn a conceptual qi martial art with the expectation that it will help him tangibly in a street fight without relevant training, and a student of Muy Thai should be disillusioned of the expectation that his thigh kicks will be accepted in the boxing ring. A student of an internal art should not expect his study to build physical strength; and a student of Jiu Jitsu should not expect his art to impart a well-ordered mind as might the internal art. There are many other such examples, some intentional, many unintentional, as a martial art grows and becomes more insular, and scoffs at anything that is outside of its own system.

The more time one spends absorbed in a single martial art, the more tempting it becomes to consider one’s martial art a panacea for all potential tests to which a martial art could be put, disregarding the origin and purpose of the martial art, which often was intended for a specific goal, or within a specific environment to which it remains suited. Few if any martial arts have run the gamut of all possible scenarios — sport, fitness, competition, personal defense, health, longevity, military exercise, etc — and those few which have done so have often come to incorporate aspects of other disciplines in order to “round out” the martial art to broader application.

Therefore, one of the key intentions of HMA is to supersede these false suppositions of supremacy, and break past the artificial restraints which martial artists have placed on themselves, by building a conceptual framework, a means by which to view all of martial arts study in a more complete way.

This point of view does not mean that any individual learner’s goals should be viewed differently, nor certainly encouraged to change without good reason, but that the actions, goals, and choices which are already being taken can be better and more clearly seen and understood — not to be hidden behind the mists of illegitimately obfuscating wordplay and disciplinary bias.

Used correctly, HMA hopes to provide the beginning learner with a guiderail for maintaining a desirable trajectory in learning, and the lifelong or exploratory learner with a somewhat more rigorous method through which to analyze, understand, and grow.