DANCE TEK

DANCE TEK WARRIORS

“To become a spiritual warrior means to develop a larger vision, a special kind of courage, fearlessness and genuine heroism. “

MARTIAL ARTS

Old-fashioned or ancient arts in addition modern styles of folk wrestling vs. contemporary fusion martial arts.

Local origin, particularly Eastern Martial Arts verse the Western Martial Arts

Techniques: Armed vs. unarmed, within these groups the type of weapon used are as follows swordsmanship, stick fighting etc... And by the sort of combat; grappling verse striking; stand-up fighting verse. ground fighting.

By application or intent: self-defense, combat sport, choreography or demonstration of forms, physical fitness, meditation, etc.

Within Chinese tradition: "external" vs. "internal" styles

By technical focus

Unarmed

Unarmed martial arts can be broadly grouped into focusing on strikes, those focusing on grappling and those that cover both fields, often described as hybrid martial arts.

Strikes

Punching: Boxing (Western), Wing Chun

Kicking: Capoeira, Kickboxing, Taekwondo, Savate

Others using strikes: Karate, Muay Thai, Sanshou

Grappling

Throwing: Jujutsu, Aikido, Hapkido, Judo, Sambo

Joint lock/Chokeholds/Submission holds: Judo, Jujutsu, Aikido, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Hapkido, Eagle Claw

Pinning Techniques: Jiu Jitsu, Judo, Wrestling, Sambo

Another key delineation of unarmed martial arts is the use of power and strength-based techniques (as found in boxing, kickboxing, karate, taekwondo and so on) vs. techniques that almost exclusively use the opponent's own energy/balance against them (as in T'ai chi ch'uan, aikido, hapkido and aiki jiu jitsu and similar). Another way to view this division is to consider the differences between arts where Power and Speed are the main keys to success vs. arts that rely to a much greater extent on correct body-mechanics and the balance of the practitioner's energy with that of the opponent.

In all such delineations, aspects of many arts, if not most, can fall within both camps, regardless of which way the defining line is viewed (striking vs. grappling or power vs. energy/balance). Most arts have features on both sides of any such dividing line.

Weapon-based

Those traditional martial arts which train armed combat often encompass a wide spectrum of melee weapons, including bladed weapons and polearms. Such traditions include eskrima, silat, kalaripayat, kobudo, and historical European martial arts, especially those of the German Renaissance. Many Chinese martial arts also feature weapons as part of their curriculum.

Sometimes, training with one specific weapon will be considered a style of martial arts in its own right, which is especially the case in Japanese martial arts with disciplines such as kenjutsu and kendo (sword), bojutsu (staff), and kyudo (archery). Similarly, modern Western martial arts and sports include modern fencing, stick-fighting systems like canne de combat or singlestick, and modern competitive archery.

Combat sport and Self-Defence

Many martial arts, especially those from Asia, also teach side disciplines which relate to therapeutic practices. This is mainly customary in traditional Indian martial arts which may teach bone-setting, and other aspects of traditional Indian medicine.

Martial arts can also be linked with religion and spirituality. Numerous systems are reputed to have been founded, disseminated, or practiced by monks or nuns.

For instance, Gatka is a weapon-based Indian martial art created by the Sikhs of the Punjab district of India.

Japanese styles, when concerning non-physical qualities of the combat, are often strongly influenced by Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. Concepts like "empty mind" and "beginner's mind" are recurrent. Aikido, for instance, can have a strong philosophical belief of the flow of energy and peace fostering, as idealised by its founder Morihei Ueshiba.

Traditional Korean martial arts place emphasis on the development of the practitioner's spiritual and philosophical development. A common theme in most Korean styles, such as taekkyeon and taekwondo, is the value of "inner peace" in a practitioner, which is stressed to be only achieved through individual meditation and training. As with most other East Asian martial arts, the Koreans believe that the use of physical force is only justified through defence.

Systema draws upon breathing and relaxation techniques, as well as elements of Russian Orthodox thought, to foster self-conscience and calmness, and to benefit the practitioner in different levels: the physical, the psychological and the spiritual.

Some martial arts in various cultures can be performed in dance-like settings for various reasons, such as for evoking ferocity in preparation for battle or showing off skill in a more stylized manner. Many such martial arts incorporate music, especially strong percussive rhythms.

Historical martial arts

The oldest work of art depicting scenes of battle, dating back 3400 BC, was the Ancient Egyptian paintings showing some form of struggle comparable to the stocks.

In Europe, the earliest sources of martial arts traditions date to Ancient Greece. Boxing (pygme, pyx), wrestling (pale) and pankration were represented in the Ancient Olympic Games. The Romans produced gladiatorial combat as a public spectacle.

European swordsmanship was trained for duels until the Napoleonic era, and developed into sport fencing during the 19th century. Modern boxing originates with Jack Broughton's rules in the 18th century, and reaches its present form with the Marquess of Queensberry Rules of 1867. Europe's colonization of Asian countries also brought about a decline in local martial arts, especially with the introduction of firearms. This can clearly be seen in India after the full establishment of British Raj in the 19th century.[10] Similar phenomena occurred in Southeast Asian colonies such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Testing and competition

Testing or evaluation is important to martial art practitioners of many disciplines who wish to determine their progression or own level of skill in specific contexts. Students within individual martial art systems often undergo periodic testing and grading by their own teacher in order to advance to a higher level of recognized achievement, such as a different belt color or title. The type of testing used varies from system to system but may include forms or sparring.

Various forms and sparring are commonly used in martial art exhibitions and tournaments. Some competitions pit practitioners of different disciplines against each other using a common set of rules, these are referred to as mixed martial arts competitions. Rules for sparring vary between art and organization but can generally be divided into light-contact, medium-contact, and full-contact variants, reflecting the amount of force that should be used on an opponent.

Light medium contact

These types of sparring restrict the amount of force that may be used to hit an opponent, in the case of light sparring this is usual to 'touch' contact, e.g. a punch should be 'pulled' as soon as or before contact is made. In medium-contact (sometimes referred to as semi-contact) the punch would not be 'pulled' but not hit with full force. As the amount of force used is restricted, the aim of these types of sparring is not to knock out an opponent; a point system is used in competitions.

A referee acts to monitor for fouls and to control the match, while judges mark down scores, as in boxing. Particular targets may be prohibited, certain techniques may be forbidden (such as headbutting or groin hits), and fighters may be required to wear protective equipment on their head, hands, chest, groin, shins or feet. Some grappling arts, such as aikido, use a similar method of compliant training that is equivalent to light or medium contact.

In some styles (such as fencing and some styles of Taekwondo sparring), competitors score points based on the landing of a single technique or strike as judged by the referee, whereupon the referee will briefly stop the match, award a point, then restart the match. Alternatively, sparring may continue with the point noted by the judges. Some critics of point sparring feel that this method of training teaches habits that result in lower combat effectiveness. Lighter-contact sparring may be used exclusively, for children or in other situations when heavy contact would be inappropriate (such as beginners), medium-contact sparring is often used as training for full contact

Full-contact

Full-contact sparring or competition, where strikes are not pulled but thrown with full force as the name implies, has a number of tactical differences from light and medium-contact sparring. It is considered by some to be requisite in learning realistic unarmed combat.

In full-contact sparring, the aim of a competitive match is either to knock out the opponent or to force the opponent to submit. Where scoring takes place it may be a subsidiary measure, only used if no clear winner has been established by other means; in some competitions, such as the UFC 1, there was no scoring, though most now use some form of judging as a backup. Due to these factors, full-contact matches tend to be more aggressive in character, but rule sets may still mandate the use of protective equipment, or limit the techniques allowed.

Nearly all mixed martial arts organizations such as UFC, Pancrase, Shooto use a form of full-contact rules, as do professional boxing organisations and K-1. Kyokushin karate requires advanced practitioners to engage in bare-knuckled, full-contact sparring while wearing only a karate go and groin protector but does not allow punches to the face, only kicks and knees. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and judo matches do not allow striking, but are full-contact in the sense that full force is applied in the permitted grappling and submission techniques.

Several martial arts, such as Judo, are Olympic sports.

Martial arts have crossed over into sports when forms of sparring become competitive, becoming a sport in its own right that is dissociated from the original combative origin, such as with western fencing. The Summer Olympic Games includes judo, taekwondo, western archery, boxing, javelin, wrestling and fencing as events, while Chinese wushu recently failed in its bid to be included, but is still actively performed in tournaments across the world. Practitioners in some arts such as kickboxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu often train for sport matches, whereas those in other arts such as aikido and Wing Chun generally spurn such competitions. Some schools believe that competition breeds better and more efficient practitioners, and gives a sense of good sportsmanship. Others believe that the rules under which competition takes place have diminished the combat effectiveness of martial arts or encourage a kind of practice which focuses on winning trophies rather than a focus such as cultivating a particular moral character.

Some martial artists compete in non-sparring competitions such as breaking or choreographed routines of techniques such as poomse, kata and aka, or modern variations of the martial arts which include dance-influenced competitions such as tricking. Martial traditions have been influenced by governments to become more sport-like for political purposes; the central impetus for the attempt by the People's Republic of China in transforming Chinese martial arts into the committee-regulated sport of wushu was suppressing what they saw as the potentially subversive aspects of martial training, especially under the traditional system of family lineages.

HEALTH AND FITNESS BENEFITS

Martial arts training is intended to give several benefits to trainees, such as their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.

Through systematic practice in the martial arts a person's physical fitness may be boosted (strength, stamina, flexibility, movement coordination, etc. as the whole body is exercised and the entire muscular system is activated. Beyond contributing to physical fitness, martial arts training also has benefits for mental health, contributing to self-esteem, self-control, emotional and spiritual well-being. For this reason, a number of martial arts schools have focused purely on therapeutic aspects, de-emphasizing the historical aspect of self-defence or combat completely

According to Bruce Lee, martial arts also have the nature of an art, since there is emotional communication and complete emotional expression

U.S. Army Combative instructor Matt Larsen demonstrates a chokehold.

Some traditional martial concepts have seen new use within modern military training. Perhaps the most recent example of this is point shooting which relies on muscle memory to more effectively utilize a firearm in a variety of awkward situations, much the way an iaidoka would master movements with their sword.

Many martial arts are also seen and used in Law Enforcement hand to hand training. For example, the Tokyo Riot Police's use of aikido.

MARTIAL ARTS INDUSTRY

Since the 1970s martial arts has become a significant industry, a subset of the wider sport industry including cinema and sports television.

Millions of people worldwide practice and teach some form of martial art. Web Japan (sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs) claims there are 50 million karate practitioners worldwide.The South Korean government in 2009 published an estimate that taekwondo is practiced by 70 million people in 190 countries.

MARTIAL ARTS FRAUD

Asian martial arts experienced a surge of popularity in the west during the 1970s, and the rising demand resulted in numerous low quality or fraudulent schools. Fuelled by fictional depictions in martial arts movies, this led to the ninja craze of the 1980s in the United States. Somewhat outdated, but there was also numerous fraudulent ads for martial arts training programs, inserted into comic books circa the 1960s and 1970s, which were read primarily by adolescent boys.

The rank system introduced for judo in the 1880s proved commercially viable, and coloured-belt systems were adopted in many martial arts degree mills (also known as McDojos) as a means to generate additional cash.

VOGUING

Vogue, or voguing, is a common stylised, modern house dance that evolved out of the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1980s. It acquired mainstream exposure when it was featured in Madonna's song and music video "Vogue" (1990) in addition when showcased in the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning (which went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival). After the new millennium, Vogue returned to mainstream attention when the dance group Vogue Evolution competed on the fourth season of America's Best Dance Crew.

Inspired by Vogue magazine, voguing is characterized by model-like poses integrated with angular, linear, and rigid arm, leg, and body movements. This style of dance arose from Harlem ballrooms by African Americans and Latino Americans in the early 1960s. It was originally called "presentation" and later "performance". Over the years, the dance evolved into the more intricate and illusory form that is now called "vogue". Voguing is continually developed further as an established dance form that is practiced in the gay ballroom scene and clubs in major cities throughout the United States—mainly New York City.

Formal competitions occur in the form of balls held by "houses"—family-like collectives of LGBT dancers and performers. Some well-known houses include the House of Garcon, the House of Icon, the House of Khanh, the House of Evisu, the House of Karan, the House of Mizrahi, the House of Xtravaganza, the House of Ebony, the House of Revlon, the House of Prodigy, the House of Escada, the House of Omni, the House of Aviance, the House of Legacy, the House of Milan, the House of Infiniti, the House of Pend'avis, the House of LaBeija, the House of McQueen, the House of Ninja, the House of Suarez and the House of Andromeda, among others ("Legendary" in ballroom terms refers to a house that has been "serving", that is, walking or competing on the runway, for twenty years or more). The House of Ninja was founded by Willi Ninja, who is considered the godfather of voguing. Members of a house are called "children". Sometimes children legally change their last name to show their affiliation with the house to which they belong.