First Things First

Martial arts are often disregarded and not considered “art”. If you want to know why that thinking is flawed and martial arts should be considered high art, keep reading.

Functional Enjoyment

Everyone that trains any type of martial art has run into the same question, “Why do I like this?” I’m asking myself that as I type away at this, slowly.

I sprained my wrist last night. I literally don’t remember how. I just know that now it’s swollen and I can’t really bend it, making typing frustratingly slow. Still, I have plans (that will not be deterred) to train in a few hours.

Some might say I am addicted. I would answer that I am lucky to have found something that motivates me to push through pain and fatigue so I can continue training and making art.

But can combat sports actually be called art? I’d argue combat sports are among the highest art forms that we could ever hope to participate in.

The “Father of Skyscrapers”, Louis Henry Sullivan, was one of the most influential people in America’s urban boom. His work and legacy is directly responsible for much of the country’s cityscapes. His philosophizing is indirectly responsible for the rest of the urban environment that we associate with today’s America. Perhaps his most famous thoughts about art, design, and building are:

This is remembered simply as “form follows function”, an idea that says the outward design is secondary to what the structure accomplishes. Said another way, well crafted art, whether it be a tall building or a short stool, has aesthetic value to the degree that it accomplishes the goal of what it was designed to do.

Inversely, as utility diminishes so do aesthetics. But what does this have to do with combat sports like Brazilian jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts?

Martial arts like BJJ and MMA can facilitate the most extreme intersection of aesthetics and utility. Combat sports are the synthesis of subjective choice and objective reality.

Fighting For Form

Let’s back up a bit and dissect the word that describes the activity. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a martial art as “any of several arts of combat and self-defense that are widely practiced as sport”. But when you separate the two composite words you actually create a bit of an oxymoron.

Art is defined as “skill acquired by experience, study, or observation” and “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects”. Overly biasing imagination to produce art pushes people to sacrifice objective reality and swim in subjectivity. It almost stands in opposition to the ideal that form should follow function. Why would form need to follow function if the creation comes from your imagination and has no regard for any possible utility?

Subjectivity above all can be summarized with the philosophy, “art for art’s sake”. And we see more and more contemporary art pushing those boundaries of what is art.

Everyone knows the modern art cliché. You stare at an exhibit, you have no idea what you’re looking at, and you leave. Confused, you’re unable to step into the subjective experience the artist was creating, for art’s sake. You don’t get it.

Martial is the opposite. “Of or appropriate to war; warlike,” according to Merriam-Webster.

Did you stop the enemy? Kill your opponents? It’s a binary question. Life or death, do or don’t; the ultimate extreme end of objectivity, and everyone understands it.

You don’t have to be a high brow critic to understand that when someone falls face first to the floor after eating a head kick they lose. They were not the better (martial) artist on that day.

When we put these two words together, martial and art, we get the intersection of objective and subjective. A word that asks, “What is the most skilled and creative way you can prevent people from hurting you? Next time, when you control them into submission, can you make it more aesthetically pleasing?” And I think this oxymoronical synthesis is why so many people like the ultra-real combat sports of kickboxing, submission grappling, and mixed martial arts.

These sports are open. You get nearly unlimited ways to play and win these games, and none of them are bound by strict size requirements. Anyone can participate and develop their (martial) artistry.

Unlike more abstract artistic activities like painting, drawing, etc., there is still an agreed-upon goal in these arts. An objective endpoint that tells you what you’re doing is working. Concussive force, physical restraint, and outlasting your opponent. And every few months someone is popularizing new martial arts techniques to accomplish these goals! I’ll save you a trip into the weeds, but just know there are infinitely complex way to choke someone with your legs.

In these activities, you get to work towards a commonly understood goal your way. It turns a hobby into the purest form of self-development and expression that no one can challenge, “You think my art doesn’t work? Well, I just submitted everyone in the room so I think my way works well enough.”

Still, there are those who would say, objectivity, the anchor to reality, is in opposition to what art is itself.

Art For Art’s Sake?

The idea “art for art’s sake” is supposed to tell us that the highest art is a pure expression of the artist’s inner workings. It needs no bearing to social values, nor serve a utilitarian function.

What function does art fulfill? Does it need to at all?

You cannot make a credible argument that art has zero function. You either do it to serve a broader need, like building skyscrapers or entertaining audiences, or to occupy your free time. Even with no audience nor public service, artistic self-expression and creation are tools to stave off insanity. It prevents idle hands from becoming the devil’s plaything.

This is precisely why martial arts and combat sports should be held in such high esteem. They maximize the subjective, frivolous element of artistic expression, while also providing the most utilitarian thing possible, literal life-saving self-defense.

Still, there are those who would argue combat sports are not sport, and certainly not art.

Pretentious Pontification

Seven years ago mixed martial arts was the subject of stupid criticism. The actress Meryl Streep took the stage to receive a reward and explain why her art is valuable:

I’m still impressed anyone could hear her from her ivory tower. Ironically this bizarre diatribe left a chip on Conor McGregor’s shoulder for his role in the recent movie Road House.

Mixed martial arts and its composite sports are crawling with outsiders. If you scroll the UFC’s list of champions you’ll see men and women, gay people and straight people, and champions traversing from Jamaica, South Africa, Dagestan, and other obscure paths to get to the title. The fact of the matter is, there is quite literally no other activity in the world that is simultaneously grueling, creative, and rewarding like combat sports. And I think that’s exactly why she, and many like her, don’t actually get it.

The function combat sports serve is life-saving self-defense on multiple levels. In the fundamental sense, you literally learn how to protect yourself. Taken to their extreme, combat sports can be a path for generational wealth creation. It can put food in unfed mouths. High brow artists and art critics that Streep spoke for are just the opposite, well-fed wanderers with no need to create for self-preservation.

I started training mixed martial arts at the end of high school. A few months later, my father, unable to pay the mortgage, lost it. The gym I had just begun training in became my anchor to an objectively better life.

I went to train because it was the only stable supportive place I had. That meant I went to wait tables so I could get food and have the energy to train and keep improving my art, and my life.

Mixed martial arts and Brazilian jiu-jitsu gave me something to focus on, and express myself that ultimately made my life better. It took me from a homeless and hungry outsider to a well-fed and, relatively, worry-free adult.

We should be encouraging more people to pursue whatever creative pursuit they can find that allows them to orient themselves toward an objectively healthy position in our collective reality, instead of pushing them to completely shirk shared experiences and sprint at their subjective whims.

So, are martial arts, art? Why, if at all are they valuable? Take it from Bruce.

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