While the stereotypical “martial arts” activity involves hand-to-hand combat (e.g karate, kung-fu, judo, etc.), there are martial arts that use or simulate the use of melee weapons. Examples include fencing, jousting, and kendo.
Are there any martial arts that involve combat using ranged weapons? I know that many people practice target shooting with guns and bows, but are there any martial arts that involve teaching how to survive and win a gunfight, or can you earn a Black Belt in trebuchet tactics and deployment?
My initial thought was yes, paintball and laser tag are gun-based martial arts. But are they really? After considering it more, it feels like paintball and laser tag are more similar to playing field-based team sports that emphasize teamwork and strategy over raw combat skills. They just happen to give players a large number of “balls” with which they can tag out opponents rather than center play around a single game ball.
There are traditional disciplines such as shurikenjutsu and tajani that use throwing weapons, but they are generally taught as supplemental skills rather than a separate school.
Technically, any formally codified skill for using a ranged weapon is “a ranged-weapon based martial art”, isn’t it ? Whether it’s Hungarian horse archery, Medieval Italian crossbow practice or a Marines shooting range : you’re learning a specific skillset, hurting people (for the use of).
A propos of nothing, the art and science of placing and using trebuchets (among other things) is called poliorcetics. Have fun trying to squeeze that one in daily conversation
There is a form of firearm competition common in the US called IPSC International Practical Shooting Confederation - Wikipedia. The wiki isn’t very informative, but the reference section might be, as would the IPSC or USPSC websites. I didn’t look, but I’d bet youtube has a boatload of vids of people competing which would show how it works.
Taking into account the OP’s (IMO sensible) observations against laser tag & paint ball, IPSC seems a lot closer to a martial art. It’s an individual performance sport, fairly specific moves or actions are scripted and practiced to perfection using part-task training approaches, etc.
And in some crazy Mad Max sort of world you could readily imagine a lethal game involving folks facing off against each other using IPSC tactics. About as easily as you could imagine Kung Fu death matches.
If, by martial arts, you mean a system of fighting that has a hefty dollop of Eastern woo mixed in with the practical aspects, I am unaware of any that are built around the use of guns.
However, if you mean a systematized method of using firearms in combat, such exists and has for some time. Serious firearms users place a LOT of emphasis on training. You fight as your train. Good training covers much more than just marksmanship. Weapon retention, weapon transition, threat assessment, use of movement and cover, and a great huge pile of other things are included and practiced. Soldiers, and the more elite police, learn how to integrate these skills into functioning as a group in addition to as individuals.
Remember what Desmond Lockheart said in Fallout 3:
Trained people tend to badly maul the untrained the vast majority of the time.
I know several schools/forms include archery and some firearms (often matchlocks) among the wide range of weapons used and practiced with but I can’t think of one that has it as the central theme. Look mostly, I would think, at some of the “kung fu” schools.
I recall that, in Japan, there was some training on how to use a musket as a weapon, after you’ve shot it or in defending yourself in close-range, when someone with a sword is trying to disarm you.
But modern day “firearm martial arts” basically just means things like “how to hold your weapon”, “how to clean your weapon”, “how to reload fast”, “how to storm a room quickly”, “how to shoot around a corner”, etc. There are schools of thought, with their relevant techniques, but for the most part you still let the weapon do the bulk of the work.
I disagree. A serious practitioner of firearms technique armed with a plain vanilla nothing special gun will kill the holy living shit out of an untrained operator armed with the latest model the vast majority of the time. The gun only does what the user makes it do, same as swords or any other traditional martial arts weapon.
True, but a master trapper would also outperform any other random stiff at catching animals, but I’d still say that the bulk of work is done by the trap. The trapper didn’t design the trap and he’s not delivering the blow. All he decides is where to place the trap, and that gets more into psychology and tactics than physical skill and martial arts are focused around physical skills.
IPSC/USPSA is much closer to a game than a martial art. Some of the skills are applicable (shooting accurately at speed, while moving or leaning at awkward angles), but the tactics all revolve around scoring as many points possible as quickly as possible. IDPA is a similar sport that is supposed to be more closely related to realistic CCW scenarios, but it still at least as much of a game as it is training.
Both games will make you a much better shooter, and they are lots of fun. If you want serious life-and-death tactics training, though, there are some schools out there that focus on such things. A few of the more highly regarded ones in the US:
I know some folks who have attended and recommend courses at both of these. I’ve never been myself - I just like playing gun games. When the apocalypse comes, I’ll be just as screwed as everyone else.
Shooting is a physical skill. Many target games are, in fact, Olympic sports. As a true marial art, that is something that is used in actual real, true deadly combat, it is actually more of a martial art than virtually all of the various kung fu/karate/jiu jitsu disciplines. Unless you are a truly exceptional person, I doubt you could shoot alongside an Olympian or complete force-on-force training such as elite military practice.
I have to agree that the stuff they teach you in army basic training about how to use a rifle is a firearm based martial art. There are even sometimes bullshit mystic rituals like giving your rifle a girl’s name and sleeping with it, and learning special chants about your rifle, and special dances you do in unison with your buddies.
But the bulk of rifle-based martial arts are learning how to point the business end where you want to point it, and how to put the bullets where you want them, and how to work as a team to get the best use out of your rifle. That’s what martial arts are for, right?
When the apocalypse comes, I’ll be just as screwed as everyone else.