  The Martial Arts in North America
The martial arts of the Native American peoples have largely been lost, like
much of their culture, but the European immigrants, and later the Asians,
brought their own martial arts, such as boxing, fencing, and wrestling, with
them. In the nineteenth century, as Americans became involved in trade with
China and Japan, interest in the Eastern martial arts grew. They were seen as
exotic imports of distant and mysterious lands. Few Westerners actually
practiced them, but many watched them as performances in vaudeville shows.
As the Western presence grew in the East, many military personnel spent time in
China, Japan, and other Asian countries protecting Western interests and
advising on military matters. At first the goal was to change the Eastern way of
fighting to the Western way, but gradually many Westerners began to see the
value of the Eastern martial arts. As a result, they began training seriously in
the Eastern martial arts and incorporating them into the Western military arts.
By the Second World War nearly all high-ranking officers received training in
Japanese jujutsu.
After the war, many military personnel stationed in Japan adopted Eastern
martial arts techniques, and thus began the exportation of complete systems to
the West. In the 1950s, when many military personnel were taught the Korean arts
of taekwondo during the North Korean War, this exportation gained momentum.
After demobilization, these soldiers brought their training home with them and
continued to practice. Some became teachers. The Japanese arts of karate and
judo became popular in the 1960s, and thanks in part to the rise of martial arts
movies and Bruce Lee, the Chinese styles became known in the 1970s. With
exportation, however, also came dilution of the arts. Many of them were
redesigned into competitive systems. For example, karate became a sport for
professional fighters, complete with television shows, sponsorships, and big
prizes.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, interest grew in the non-sport martial arts, both
those with and without weapons. The media sensationalized and fed this interest
with movies, books, and magazines emphasizing the mysticism of the martial arts
and the supposed supernatural abilities of practitioners, especially ninjas.
Opportunists stepped in to exploit the market, teaching classes and selling
certificates, books, and videos while providing little evidence to back up their
claims of the superiority and uniqueness of their systems. Expensive, long-term
training contracts and black-belt factories sprang up, along with an array of
uniforms and even multicolored belts for children.
The true martial arts were brought to America from Vietnam, Burma, the
Philippines, Indonesia, South America, China, Japan, and many other countries.
Some styles were invented by unscrupulous opportunists out of existing styles or
made up entirely. Among these, some became popular due to their claims of being
effective, and in some cases they were. Regardless, the growing popularity of
the Asian martial arts led to further exploration, especially of the systems
from Korea, Japan, and China. Today their cultural as well as historical value
is well known.
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