A martial art is identified as any skill that is usefull within warfare. The definition of martial means “military.” So traditionally, a martial art is a military art. The first things that usually pop into your head when discussing modern fighting systems do you think leaping, kicking, punching, blocking, inverting elbows, twisting necks, throwing, and weapons combat. But also horsemanship, javelin throwing, archery, spear fighting, halberd fighting, wrestling, knife fighting, rifle, shotgun, and pistol shooting, demolitions, logistics, and battle strategy can all be classified within as the field of martial arts. Anything that a soldier might do in battle is a martial art.
By martial art usually it is meant aikido, arnis, boxing, capoeria, chow gar, choy la fut, hapkido, hsing’i, hun gar, jeet kune do, jow gar, judo, jujitsu, karate, kempo, kick boxing, krav maga, kung fu, pa kua, penjak silat, praying mantis, savate, shaolin, tae kwon do, tai chi, white crane, ving tsun, wu shu and more! As you can see the list is quite long and it is actually very promising how many combat arts systems there are and how many methods of self defense can be...