A Brief Essay about the Traditions of the Occidental Martial Arts

Evangelos C. Papakitsos^*

Department of Education, School of Pedagogical and Technological Education, Athens, Greece

Correspondence to: ^* papakitsev@sch.gr (Papakitsos, Evangelos C.)

Abstract

The Occidental Martial Arts have been constantly used in wars with historical weaponry, from the ancient times until beyond the 2nd World War. The training in the usage of weaponry had been continuously conducted in military campuses and in various communities for “elite” and “folk” martial arts. Direct and indirect evidence indicate that the technical part of the training in the latter arts had always been rather simple (utilitarian), with emphasis given to the tactical usage of weaponry (conceptual). The relevant practices and concepts of fighting have been preserved in the Christianized Filipino Martial Arts, due to the predominant Spanish military influence, at least in the Portuguese art of Jogo Do Pau, in various European regions and in Sport Fencing. Nevertheless, some scholars believe that the Occidental Martial Arts have a broken line of legacy, mainly because of the lack of fighting manuals prior to the 13th century CE. In this paper, the author argues against this opinion.

Keywords:

Occidental Martial Arts

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the people of ARMA for discovering, gathering and making available to the public many literature sources of Occidental Martial Arts. Although I disagree with some of their opinions, I feel that they deserve the congratulations of the martial arts community for their laborious effort. I would also like to express my thankfulness to Mrs. S. Kataki for the gratuitous typing of the text.

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