FMA Histories and Philosophies

[Ronin74]

First off, I should say this is based on personal experience, and not a concrete fact. This is just something I've always wondered about.

From my experience, I've found that FMA generally had a more aggressive (but not necessarily beligerent) mindset than some of the other arts I've tried. I've also been told that their respective communities had rivalries that bordered on everything from conversational slander to outright challenges. I'm sure thing like that aren't exclusive to FMA, but I've never seen them at that level in other martial arts. It brings me to this topic.

I've read about how a lot of the histories and philosophies behind FMA were either destroyed by colonization, or fell to the wayside to focus more on combat and survival. From what I've seen and heard, most of the histories today are passed on verbally, and sometimes with disputes from other sources who say otherwise.

On that same note, I always think about how Japanese martial arts connected with Bushido, or how Chinese Arts related themselves to Taosit, Buddhist ways, or even how Malaysian arts went hand in hand with the teachings of Islam.

I've always wondered if FMA had philosophies or a set of beliefs that were a part of the training, and if perhaps they were lost- and possibly the reason why there's sometimes a considerable amount of strife to be found between FMA groups.

 

[arnisador]

Having studied the JMAs and CMAs as well as the FMAs, as a rule I find less of a philosophical connection and less of a lineage/history emphasis in the FMAs. But it varies. In some arts things like anting anting are stressed. But the Japanese have an incessant need to organize/catgorize things, and the Filipinos are more content to say "It is what it is"!