When recounting the history of one’s martial art, it has long been required that one embellish or fabricate fascinating details. For those unfamiliar with the history of East Asian arts, a scorecard can prove useful for evaluating the quality of the story.*
Martial Arts History Scorecard
1 Point for the following references:
- Used by the military of {Country of Origin}
- Taught to first American instructor (i.e., the first instructor whose presence in the U.S. can be verified from government records) by respected practitioner in Asia
- Developed alongside a code of honor
- Developed from 2 older arts
- Pure, unmixed art for 50 years
- Developed as a “street fighting” art
3 points:
- Used by the military of {other country}
- Taught to first modern instructor by secret society
- First modern instructor required to undergo grueling test to be accepted as student
- Derived from principles developed by Wong Fei Hung or Miyamoto Musashi
- Developed from 3-5 older arts
- Has “secret technique”
- Pure, unmixed art for 100 years
- Developed alongside a related healing art that uses some sort of “energy”
- Developed by the special forces of {country}
- Actively encourages students to engage in Mixed Martial Art (MMA) fights
5 points:
- Taught to first modern instructor by hermit(s) in an inaccessible area
- Has “death touch”
- Developed from the “best parts of all other martial arts”
- Derived from principles developed by the Yellow Emporer
- Pure, unmixed art for 1000 years
- Actively encourages students to get into bar/street fights
- Ranking students must defeat an instructor in single combat to become an instructor
Now add up your points and evaluate!
- 1-5 points–Too mundane
- 5-10 points–Now we’re talking
- 11-15 points–This martial art clearly deserves its own movie
- 16+ points–This is the best martial art in the history of the world.
*Though not the art itself, unless perhaps by inverse proportion to the score.