There is abundance and great diversity of martial arts.  But generally, martial arts come with one common goal, which is to physically defeat a person or defend oneself against physical threats.  Other forms of martial arts are even associated to religious or spiritual beliefs and philosophies like the Shinto or Buddhism, while others exist with their very own spiritual or non-spiritual code of honor.

Each style of martial arts has its unique facets making it distinctive from the rest.  The common characteristic though is their systematic fighting techniques.  In most Asian martial arts, the standard training method is called the “kata.”  Kata are routines or sets of various techniques all performed alone, but sometimes, may also be done with a partner. 

“Martial” is derived from Mars, the god of war in Roman mythology.  Literally, martial arts or ars Martialis, means the arts of Mars.  The term was born during the 15^th century when the Europeans used it to refer to their fighting arts, which are known today as historical fencing.  Meanwhile, a person who practices martial arts is called a martial artist.

The practice of martial arts is widely varied.  It may focus on a certain area or areas.  Moreover, it may also be grouped according to weapons training, strikes and grappling.  Striking consists of punching, kicking and others.  Throwing, joint lock and pinning techniques as used in wrestling and Judo are all under grappling.  In weaponry, it is classified into traditional and modern weaponry.  Traditional weaponry involves fencing, gatka, kendo and silambam, while modern weaponry is used in jukendo, jogo do pau and eskrima.

A lot of martial arts, particularly the ones prevalent in Asia, teach side discipline pertaining to medicinal practices.  Such is clearly exhibited in Chinese martial arts, which at times incorporate the lessons on qigong, bone-setting, acupressure, acupuncture and many other Chinese medicinal therapies.  Despite martial arts being closely related to the East Asian culture, it is in fact unique to the region. 

In Europe, there was even a martial arts system, which was commonly called Historical European martial arts.  It still exists even until now but has been reconstructed by different organizations already.  The Native Americans too have their own open-handed martial arts, which includes wrestling.  Hawaiians, on the other hand, also practiced martial arts at some point in history.  Theirs featured the large and small joint manipulation.  Even street fighters and sailors had their own contribution to martial arts.  The “savate” as it is called is a French style of kicking developed by the street fighters and sailors.  And the “capoeira” was an athletic move created by slaves in Brazil based in special skills brought from Africa.

Generally, martial arts history all throughout the globe is complex.  People had to defend themselves differently at different time.  Thus, martial arts’ fighting techniques were developed at various times for assorted of purposes.  However, the development of most martial arts practices was for the purpose of military development, but a lot of those methods were technologically rendered as obsolete as centuries passed.  At present, firearms are more preferred and widely used to defend oneself in time of adversary, rather than melee weapons.  The same can be said during battles as well.  Furthermore, to preserve martial arts, it takes many years of lessons and teaching by a really good instructor to pass on the essence of the art to the next generation.  With such circumstance, innumerable martial arts from the previous eras had not been passed on to the following generations.           

On the other hand, in the regions of South and North America, their martial arts training began during the childhood days of the native people.  In fact, most of the Native American males regarded themselves as warriors and were trained to use knives, bows, war clubs, blowguns and spears.  The war clubs were the preferred weapons since the Native Americans raised their social status by means of killing their enemies in a single face-to-face combat.  The warriors were able to hone their war club and archery skills through many years of training.  And later, Asian immigrants and European colonists came over and introduced other forms of martial arts like wrestling, boxing and fencing.