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Thread: Is MMA Art?

  1. #1
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    Is MMA Art?

    Meryl Streep's Golden Globe speech has got a lot of MMA-peep's fight shorts in a bunch. It's a little neurotic to me actually, very 2017 to be so reactionary. You don't see the NFL reacting like Dana White did, except for Tony Siragusa - a former NFL player grabbing some post-pro spotlight.

    Personally, MMA to me is a sport. There can be great artistry in any sport but it's a fundamental error in definition to categorize sport as art. At it's core, art is driven by aesthetic principles and criteria. Sport requires skill and physical prowess, and is fundamentally competitive. There is overlap for sure, but art is art and sport is sport. Each is a respectable field and neither need claim the other's glory.

    This Washington Post article makes a grievous error that many of the reactionary commentators have echoed - generalizing MMA as a traditional martial art. Sure, you can define traditional martial arts as arts (especially nowadays as so many have become so abstract), but the competitive sport versions are sport. Take Modern Wushu for example like gymnastics, there is great artistry involved, but it's still a sport defined by the rules of the game. Aesthetics are subjective notions. Sports must be objective to be fair. While MMA, like Modern Wushu, falls under the overall martial arts umbrella, it's still a sport. The question here is 'Does MMA now have the right to claim the artistic heritage the traditional martial arts - a tradition which many MMA people have disdained?


    The martial arts are arts
    By David Kopel January 11 at 8:01 PM


    Students stand in formation before wushu practice at the Tagou martial arts school in Dengfeng, China. (Nicholas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)

    This post is based on David B. Kopel’s “Self-Defense in Asian Religions,” [2 Liberty Law Review 79 (2007)].

    In a recent speech Meryl Streep announced that without Hollywood, “you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.” Although Streep won a well-deserved award for an outstanding acting career, the award did not confer authority to define what are “the arts.” The martial arts are called “martial arts” because they are generally recognized to be arts, even though they are not the particular arts at which Streep and Hollywood excel. Anti-martial hauteur was well-known to the ancient Taoists:

    In the space of one generation, the cultural and the martial may shift in relative significance, insofar as there are times when each is useful. Nowadays, however, martialists repudiate culture and the cultured repudiate the martial. Adherents of cultural and martial arts reject each other, not knowing their functions according to the time. [Thomas Cleary, “The Taoist Classics" (vol. 1, 2003), p. 314]
    Watching the martial arts, including mixed martial arts, can be entertaining, as Sonny Bunch pointed out in a recent Post article. More importantly, the martial arts, when properly followed, foster good character and transcendence of selfishness — virtues that Hollywood often congratulate itself for promoting via the cinematic arts.

    According to tradition, the martial arts were founded around 520 A.D. by Bodhidharma, a great Buddha who brought Zen Buddhism from India to China. During the journey to China, Bodhidharma was carrying valuable documents, and learned of the dangers to travelers posed by robbers. He meditated, and experienced a revelation that he should study animals. So he began to do so, and from the study, eventually developed the “18 movements of Lo Han.”

    At the Shao-lin Temple in China, Bodhidharma saw that many monks fell asleep during meditation. He felt compassionate pity for the monks whose bodies were wasting away through purely mental meditation exercises. So Bodhidharma decided to teach the “bodies and minds” of the monks. He invented Kung Fu (or Chuan Fa), a form of boxing used for systematic exercise.

    There was another benefit to the Bodhidharma’s martial arts: because the monks had undertaken vows not to use weapons, gangs of soldiers or ex-soldiers would often rob the monks who traveled outside their monastery. After learning the unarmed combat techniques of martial arts, the monks could journey safely, and so they traveled around China, Okinawa and Japan, disseminating the martial arts. The ideal martial artist was a Scholar Warrior, a person whose mind and body were well-trained and well-integrated.

    For practical self-defense, the martial arts have been especially important to people who are persecuted by the government. For example, when China was ruled by the Mongols, the arms prohibition on the subjugated Chinese was so severe that only 1 out of 10 families was allowed a carving knife. The martial arts have also been important for cultural defense. As Thomas Cleary described the period of the Ming Dynasty in China:

    It would seem that one of the concerns of the time, therefore, was the “deposit” of knowledge that would allow humankind to survive in the future. Geniuses everywhere from Europe to East Asia seem to have deposited part of that knowledge right in the infrastructures of conflict (such as the martial arts), and then moved to balance this by developing culture to a high pitch . . . . This whole process itself illustrates a principle of the I Ching, whereby waxing and waning balance each other. [Thomas Cleary, “Classics of Buddhism and Zen" (vol. 5, 2002), p. 97]
    For example, when Japan conquered Okinawa in 1609 and disarmed the people, Okinawans practiced martial arts as a means of preserving their cultural identity. Unsurprisingly, genocidal tyrant Mao Zedong attempted to wipe out all knowledge of the martial arts in his campaign to exterminate all aspects of traditional culture, which might impede his efforts to enslave all the people of China under his totalitarian cult of personality.

    Sometimes, the martial arts have been studied and applied in a morally degenerate fashion, as in 20th century Japan under the military dictatorship. More often, however, the arts have been used to build good character and self-control — including as a meditation practice. One advantage of moving meditation is that it is easier for the teacher to monitor the student’s progress. In sitting meditation, as long as the student maintains the correct posture, the teacher cannot see if the student is falling into error or bad habits. With moving meditation, the student’s physical actions help the teacher discern if the student is able to maintain calm and to overcome fear. The Zen master Hakuin (1685-1768) concluded that:

    The advantage in accomplishing true meditation lies distinctly in favor of the warrior class … mounted on a sturdy horse, the warrior can ride forth to face an uncountable horde of enemies as though he were riding into a place empty of people. The valiant, undaunted expression on his face reflects his practice of the peerless, true, uninterrupted meditation sitting. Meditating in this way, the warrior can accomplish in one month what it takes the monk a year to do.
    continued next post
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    Continued from previous post

    There is a certain amount of technique that a martial arts master can impart by direct instruction. Yet much of the learning must come through self-discovery by the student. Masters speak of “a special transmission beyond instruction.” The student studies ji, the techniques of the particular martial art. True mastery, though, comes from ri, the ineffable truths of the universe.

    For example, kyudo is Japanese ritual archery, in which the archer moves through a very formal and precise set of eight steps in raising, aiming and firing the bow. The first level of kyudo is called toteki (the arrow hits the target). The archer is concentrating on the technique of shooting accurately. He is more concerned with hitting the center of the target than with his form. In the first level, the target is seen as a goal.

    At the second level, kanteki (the arrow pierces the target), the archer’s body moves with beautiful symmetry. His breath control helps unify his mind, body and spirit, so that his shooting is smooth and extremely powerful. True kanteki is much more than a technique that can be taught. In kanteki, the target is seen as an opponent.

    Finally, the martial artist progresses to zaiteki (the arrow exists in the target). The target is no longer a goal or an opponent; the target is a true reflection of the archer. The archer aims to purify his thoughts and his actions, knowing that pure shooting will flow from a pure mind and body. Now, “there is no distance between man and target, man and man, and man and the universe — all are in perfect harmony.” [Hideharu Onuma, Kyydo: The Essence and Practice of Japanese Archery (1993)]

    One of the essential goals of spiritual growth through the martial arts is to forget oneself. The Zen Buddhist sword master Takuan explained that:
    The mind must always be in the state of “flowing” … When the swordsman stands against his opponent, he is not to think of the opponent, nor of himself, nor of his enemy’s sword movements. He just stands there with his sword which, forgetful of all technique, is ready only to follow the dictates of the unconscious. The man has effaced himself as the wielder of the sword. When he strikes, it is not the man but the sword in the hand of the unconscious that strikes. [Quoted in Joe Hyams, “Zen in the Martial Arts" (1982), p. 84.]
    The martial artist must learn not to focus on one part of the opponent’s body. Narrow focus creates blind spots that lead to the artist to receiving blows. As the martial artist learns in combat to adopt a wider perspective, so should he learn in all the rest of his life to see more completely. He should transcend the visual limit that ostensibly separates mind from body, or self from universe. He is no longer located in a particular sequence of time, but instead lives in the eternal present: “In sports, time exists. In the martial arts there is only the present.” [Taisen Deshimaru, “The Zen Way to the Martial Arts" (1982), p.23]

    Like psychotherapy, martial arts training may allow the student to experience a previously unknown state of self-awareness, and the awareness can lead to terrifying experiences of shame or guilt. The existential crisis might be analogized to what St. John of the Cross called the “dark night of the soul.” At the crisis point, some students will turn away, while others will confront their true selves.

    The martial arts are superficially a form of training to fight external foes. But the true martial artist must combat the enemy within — and if he is to prevail, he must fight without greed, ignorance or hatred. If he wins, then his internal demons can be harnessed into service of the good. Defeating self-deception is not a once-and-for-all battle. After one form of self-deception is defeated, a more sophisticated and insidious form may replace it. The psychological and spiritual struggle does not take place while a passive subject is lying on a psychotherapist’s couch, paying for advice. The inner combat is experienced through physical combat:

    Chuan Fa used the wordless strategy of direct interpersonal encounter to teach the words of personal self-encounter. It uses the “words” of personal self-encountering to understand the wordless doctrine of interpersonal encounter. Ultimately it sought to encounter the infinity known as perfect and complete Enlightenment. [Shifu Nagaboshi Tomio, The Boddhisativa Warriors (1994), p. 279]

    The whole energy (ki) of the universe flows through the martial artist at a single point in his body. By staying centered on this one point, the mind and body of the artist are united with the universe and can experience its infinite energy and freedom. Kyudo master Hideharu Onuma was asked by some students how they should practice after they returned to the United States, and he could no longer instruct them. He replied, “Your practice should always center around these six elements: truth, goodness, beauty, balance, humility, and perseverance.” [Onuma, p. 150]
    Some martial arts teachers in the United States specialize in empowering women and in integrating feminist values into the spiritual instruction. Some female participants report that the martial arts have liberated them from the notion that women must always be victims, that women are incapable of resisting successfully. The principle applies to physical attacks, and in more abstract social settings. Said one woman: “If every woman in the world could defend herself, it would change the world; patriarchy would crumble … Physical empowerment for women is critical from the start; then women wouldn’t be as intimidated psychologically by men.” [Shirely Castlenuovo & Sharon R. Guthrie, “Feminism and the Female Body: Liberating the Amazon Within" (1998), pp. 67-90]

    Vernon Kitabu Turner was a weak and bookish American black child in the racist South. He was a descendant of Nat Turner, a mystic who in 1831 led the largest slave revolt in American history. Bullies would often attack him when he sat under a tree reading. When he was nine years old, in 1964, he heard about the Kitty Genovese murder. It was reported by the New York Times that in Queens, New York, a young woman was stalked, attacked repeatedly and stabbed to death outside an apartment building over the course of half an hour. Thirty-eight people allegedly heard her scream, but none of them did anything. Meditating on Psalm 144 (“Blessed be the Lord, my strength, who teaches my hands to make war, and my fingers to fight.”), Turner asked God to teach him to fight, to learn how to protect people. Turner promised that he would never abuse the knowledge. He took up the martial arts and eventually became an American Zen master.

    In church, Turner remembered, the congregants heard and believed the story of David and Goliath. Yet they refused to apply the story to their own lives. They could not believe that, with God’s help, they could “bring down Goliath.” Turner explains that the person who truly understands Zen will say, “I will do no harm to others. I will not be a person who is aggressive and violent. But neither will I sit here and watch someone be destroyed when I know I should reach out and offer a helping hand.” [Vernon Kitabu Turner, “Soul Sword: The Way and Mind of a Zen Warrior" (2000)]

    Not every person who studies the martial arts does so for the purpose of moral self-improvement and community service, just as not everyone in Hollywood works for the noble purposes for which Streep congratulated herself and her peers. Like many Hollywood filmmakers, some mixed martial arts fighters simply provide violent entertainment. Yet when practiced at the highest level, the arts are paths to self-transcendence, and the paths are equally available to practitioners of the cinematic arts and the martial arts. One step towards a better America is greater empathy and tolerance among the people of a diverse nation. The people who cheered Streep’s remarks about empathy will, I hope, respect their fellow citizens who study the martial arts.


    David Kopel is Research Director, Independence Institute, Denver; Associate Policy Analyst, Cato Institute, D.C; and Adjunct professor, Denver University, Sturm College of Law. He is author of 17 books and 100 scholarly journal articles. Kopel is an NRA-certified safety instructor. The Independence Institute has received NRA contributions.
    Don't get me wrong. I love MMA and can't wait until I can find an excuse and opportunity to cover another fight from ringside. And I don't have a particularly strong opinion on this topic, truth be told. I'm just interested in the potential discussion here. This is, after all, a discussion forum.
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    Meryl Streep's Golden Globe speech has got a lot of MMA-peep's fight shorts in a bunch. It's a little neurotic to me actually, very 2017 to be so reactionary. You don't see the NFL reacting like Dana White did, except for Tony Siragusa - a former NFL player grabbing some post-pro spotlight.

    Personally, MMA to me is a sport. There can be great artistry in any sport but it's a fundamental error in definition to categorize sport as art. At it's core, art is driven by aesthetic principles and criteria. Sport requires skill and physical prowess, and is fundamentally competitive. There is overlap for sure, but art is art and sport is sport. Each is a respectable field and neither need claim the other's glory.

    This Washington Post article makes a grievous error that many of the reactionary commentators have echoed - generalizing MMA as a traditional martial art. Sure, you can define traditional martial arts as arts (especially nowadays as so many have become so abstract), but the competitive sport versions are sport. Take Modern Wushu for example like gymnastics, there is great artistry involved, but it's still a sport defined by the rules of the game. Aesthetics are subjective notions. Sports must be objective to be fair. While MMA, like Modern Wushu, falls under the overall martial arts umbrella, it's still a sport. The question here is 'Does MMA now have the right to claim the artistic heritage the traditional martial arts - a tradition which many MMA people have disdained?
    I agree with most of your post, Gene.

    However, in terms of some MMA trying to claim artistic heritage of TMA...remember back in the 1970s and '80s when many (though not all) of the "full-contact karate"/kickboxers had disdain for TMA? Then when UFC/MMA became big, many of those same ex-fighters began categorizing themselves as TMAists and criticized MMA? I strongly suspect that, if some other, different fighting sport were to somehow supplant MMA in the future, many MMAists would probably do something similar, especially if they came into MMA as MAists with at least one solid, base art.

    TBH, I thought Meryl Streep had made a few decent, sensible points, until she turned her ire on football and MMA. Then she lost me. I mean, WTF? That came from way out of left field. It had nothing to do with her earlier points, and she came across like a hoity-toity, out-of-touch elitist who thinks she can define what "refined/sophisticated" people can/should enjoy. I'm not a football fan, but I do occasionally watch MMA. I have no interest in watching any of Streep's movies, or films like La La Land. That doesn't make me or my tastes somehow lower than Streep's. Although I do think it is funny that any MMA people would get their panties into a wad over her remark.

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    Didn't read the whole article. Should have been edited for all the rambling that really had little to do with its thesis, would have been half as long. Funny though. Honestly most MMArtists probably couldn't care less about her comments. Most MMArtists don't really care what TMA folks think either, for that matter. Doesn't really ever come up into the forefront of logical processes very often. Either way, if going by proposed criteria, combat is inherently competitive. That's what fighting is. I'm perfectly happy saying MMA is a sport and not an art, if we're willing to admit that kung fu is just traditional Chinese ballet.

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    Orosco and Smash Global

    FEBRUARY 02, 2017 10:30am PT by Chris Gardner
    Mixed Martial Arts Star Responds to Meryl Streep Golden Globes Insult With Smackdown Event
    SMASH Global founder Steve "Hulk Smash" Orosco tells THR that the sport is not without artistry: "Like Meryl Streep said, 'We let you feel what we do.'"


    Getty Images
    Meryl Streel and Steve Orosco

    SMASH Global founder Steve "Hulk Smash" Orosco tells THR that the sport is not without artistry: "Like Meryl Streep said, 'We let you feel what we do.'"
    When Meryl Streep took to the stage to accept her Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes on Jan. 8, she took a not-so-subtle jab at two sports: “So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick them all out you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.” In a surprising coincidence, a new MMA event has been added to Oscar week, one that best actress contender Streep surely won't be attending.
    The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Smash Global — a producer of luxury events that feature professional MMA fighters — will be hosting a pre-Oscar MMA Fight Gala on Feb. 23. The private, black-tie charity gala will benefit anti-bullying while featuring a cocktail reception and a four-course dinner with guests seated around a fight cage in the Taglyan Complex on Vine Street in Hollywood.
    Founder Steve “Hulk Smash” Orosco will honor a yet-to-be-announced "high-profile individual" for their contribution to the sport of mixed martial arts before the night's centerpiece entertainment: five sanctioned MMA fights live in the cage.
    Orosco tells THR that he chose the date "to celebrate the artists who have influenced uncountable lives, in almost every country in the world," and to be close to Hollywood's biggest night.
    "What child did not want to take up karate after watching Enter the Dragon? Or learn how to kick-box after watching Blood Sport? From Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme, to icons like Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, Steven Seagal, Tony Jaa, Scott Adkins, Jason Statham, Michael Jai White, Michelle Yeoh, Jackie Chan and so many more, our night is to celebrate in a raw, unfiltered fashion, the outstanding films, filmmakers and artists who have successfully fought their way to the prize ring of the Academy Awards."
    He continued: "When I’m in that cage there are so many elements at play; the artistry of my movement, the anticipation of my opponents actions, and the performance for the spectators. Like Meryl Streep said, we let you [the audience] feel what we do. The passion, the intensity, the loss, the fear and (hopefully) the triumph. The entire human emotional scale is at play."


    Unique Nicole/Getty

    Smash Global founder and CEO Steve Orosco speaks in the cage at Smash Global IV Event at Taglyan Complex in Los Angeles on Sept. 15, 2016. (Photo by Unique Nicole/Getty Images,)
    Orosco can't really use martial arts film to defend MMA (although I confess to doing the same - intentionally - in the cover story of the upcoming issue ) I gotta give him cred tho, for trying to capitalize on an offhand statement about something totally different (again, my next cover story will do the same )


    Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
    Although I do think it is funny that any MMA people would get their panties into a wad over her remark.
    Yeah, I'm totally with you on this. Martial artists can be so **** neurotic. When you compare that to the reaction of football to this, especially now on Superbowl weekend, you can really see the disparity of sports.

    Quote Originally Posted by SoCo KungFu View Post
    Either way, if going by proposed criteria, combat is inherently competitive. That's what fighting is.
    Ture, but there's a distinction for sport. Combat has no rules. Sport is all about rules. And the rules of art are?
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    Modernism and post- modernism has pretty much defined art as being 100% subjective so, yes, MMA is artistic.
    If a picture of Jesus in urine ( remember that?) can be art, so can the graceful, yet brutal, display of kicking someone in the face.

    Streep's comment was, quite simply, ignorant AND arrogant.
    She doesn't get to define what Art is any she has no idea about the ethnicity of MMA ( or anything it seems)
    Psalms 144:1
    Praise be my Lord my Rock,
    He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !

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    MAY+JUNE 2017 cover story

    Remember this? Well, it inspired our present cover story in the MAY+JUNE 2017 cover story issue: When is a Martial Art an Art? Complex Aesthetics and Traditional Kung Fu By Gene Ching and Gigi Oh
    Gene Ching
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    Seven year shade throwback...

    Meryl Streep’s Comments About Mixed Martial Arts Motivated Conor McGregor to Prove Her Wrong in ‘Road House’
    Tatiana Tenreyro
    Wed, March 20, 2024 at 7:25 AM PDT·3 min read



    At the New York City premiere of Doug Liman’s remake of Road House on Tuesday, Conor McGregor shared with The Hollywood Reporter how Meryl Streep’s negative comments about mixed martial arts made him want to prove himself even more while starring in the film.

    While accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2017 Golden Globes, Streep said, “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.” Her remark was met with roaring applause, but her comments hurt athletes in the UFC, including McGregor.

    “Fighting is the most beautiful form of art, and you know, it’s a great thing to come into this game, which is also art,” he said. “I was really taken aback because fighting is an art. It’s brutal also, so I can understand. It’s not for somebody to make a mistake; it’s real artistry for those who do what we do, so I came in [to filming Road House] with maybe a little chip on my shoulder and wanting to represent my sport and my art, give my best in this arena.”

    In this iteration of Road House, McGregor plays the villainous Knox, who faces off against former UFC champion-turned-bouncer Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) in a battle for the titular bar. While appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Gyllenhaal shared that the UFC star “clocked” him in the face “by mistake.”

    McGregor confirmed he did in fact hit Gyllenhaal in the face, saying, “Aye, one or two little wallops. What’s a fight between friends, eh? At the lovely Road House.” The Irish athlete added, “But he gave ’em back, too! Jake’s a consummate professional, and he took it well and gave it right back. That’s what you gotta do. Gotta get up and fight right back.”

    When asked if he thinks his co-star has what it takes to be a real-life UFC champion, McGregor had nothing but kind words: “For sure, he could, yes, for sure, I’d love to see him do it. I’d love to see him have a fight or two.”

    Lukas Gage, who plays bartender Billy in the film, was also in attendance at the premiere and spoke about the behind-the-scenes process of filming the movie’s many fight scenes. “It was intense. I never have done stunt training or fight training before,” he said. “Taking on full stunt training under Steve Brown and Garrett Warren, they did Avatar and some of the best action films … it was an honor to learn from people who know what they’re doing.”

    Gage ended up doing many of his own stunts, which he wasn’t expecting. “I think I just assumed, okay, like, sometimes they’ll have a stunt person there to take over and have your back. But no, Doug, the stunt guys, everyone really wanted us to really do it on our own, and I’m so glad I did. It pushed me. It got me out of my comfort zone. I’m like a really laid-back dude in real life so to push myself in that way was really cool.”

    While Gage didn’t need a stunt double for fight sequences, another one of the film’s stars was ready to pull off a terrifying stunt but ended up not doing so. Daniela Melchior, who plays Dalton’s love interest Ellie, has a terrifying scene in a sinking yacht where she tries to break free after being kidnapped. “I had scuba diving lessons [for the scene],” said Melchior. However, the scene ended up requiring a stunt double because it was likely “too dangerous for production,” according to the actress.

    Road House will be available to stream on Amazon Prime Video on Thursday.
    Road-House-Redux
    Is-MMA-Art
    Gene Ching
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