Martial Arts and the Future

[Z-Man]

Check out this modern-day "Iron-Man" exoskeleton suit on this link below on CNN. It magnifies the person's strength 17 times.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/11/11/iron.man.suit/index.html?hpt=C1

In the future exoskeletons maybe worn by soldiers in wartime. How will this affect the martial arts? I guess the exoskeleton will be like the gun, the great equalizer in combat.
Imagine fighting a guy with an exoskeleton on that magnifies his strength 17 times. What type of techniques would work best? Perhaps ones that use his strength against him. Maybe techniques that were used against fully armored samurai back in old Japan. Throw them and joint lock or choke. Strikes may not work as well as the exoskeleton is like armor.

This may sound like "science fiction" but if you look at the link above it is becoming "science fact." When firearms were emerging on the battlefield back in man's history, similar thoughts probably came across the minds of some progressive thinking martial artists as well. What are your thoughts on the above. Thanks!

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

My thoughts are that the divide between military arts and civilian self defense arts widens with each technological advance. Exoskeletons will not be for civilian use and will likely require some degree of advanced training. Most likely, if such devices were ever widely used, projectile weapons and other weapons would be developed to counter the advantage of said devices.

That said, tough guys with knives will still be a threat to the average civilian and the ability to fight when unarmed will still be a necesity.

Daniel

 

[Xue Sheng]

no no no.. I'm sorry but the future of martial arts would be Anbo-jitsu "the ultimate evolution in the martial arts"

 

[Cirdan]

no no no.. I'm sorry but the future of martial arts would be Anbo-jitsu "the ultimate evolution in the martial arts"

Definately! Hand me one of those awesome clubs with built-in motion sensors!

 

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Armour is making it's comeback to the battlefield.

The power assest exoskelitons will probably be specialty armour but in 10-20 years your average Infantryman will look like a Stormtrooper.

Throws, unbalancing and joint locks/manipulations will be much more important for Hand to hand as punching and kicking a guy in armour is next to useless.

Watch the Amry drift away from it's lcurrent love affair with MMA and BJJ and go back to Combat Judo and Jujutsu.

Funny, watch Return of the Jedi again and tell me what you see in the 2 scenes where han Solo goes hand to hand and tell me what you see.

 

[Bruno@MT]

The power assest exoskelitons will probably be specialty armour but in 10-20 years your average Infantryman will look like a Stormtrooper.

In 10 to 20 years, I think infantry is going to be obsolete.
Just like we ar eno longer lining up armies within range of each other to fire and reload, we will probably not see large land based invasions anymore.
In my non qualified opinion, fighting will either be remote controlled (drones and robots) or by tactical teams.

 

[Ken Morgan]

50 years ago the fighter plane was obsolete; we were going to be using missiles exclusively.

The history of fighting has almost always been trying to kill your enemy from a distance. Looking at Medieval Japanese battles, only 5% of the deaths were due to swords, the vast majority, 75% were due to arrows, musket balls, and rocks. The point to needing a power suit that makes you immensely strong due to one on one combat doesn’t hold water, most casualties occur through other means. Suits have a long way to go in their development, as is its cumbersome and large, not something I’d want if people are shooting at me. Like they said, it may be best for logistics rather then the battlefield.

The future may very well have soldiers wearing powered armour suits of some shape or form, but soldiers are always going to be needed on the battlefield, you need to take ground, and hold ground. You can’t hold ground with drones, you can’t see under a bed or in a cave with a drone, you can’t talk to or build a relationship with local civilians with drones.

 

[Cirdan]

In 10 to 20 years, I think infantry is going to be obsolete.
Just like we ar eno longer lining up armies within range of each other to fire and reload, we will probably not see large land based invasions anymore.
In my non qualified opinion, fighting will either be remote controlled (drones and robots) or by tactical teams.

Problem is, you need a ground presence to really take and hold an area. In terrain like cities and forests high tech is not even remotely close to replacing the old rifleman.

 

[SensibleManiac]

Microwaves and magnetic pulses will be the weapons of the future.

 

[chinto]

ONLY INFANTRY CAN TAKE AND HOLD GROUND! that said, I think you will find that Okinawan karate has joint locks and throws and brakes and all the things most think of as only in jujitsu and judo and mma and aikido, but its there in karate to. ( by the way punches are in aikido and kicks in jujitsu...etc.

I think that unarmed combat will be much as it is now, if only to maximize the use of any such exoskeletons power and speed.

 

[Rayban]

Hi all,

The advances made in the last 10 years or so have changes a lot about modern warfare (ie. predator drones, advanced ballistics, the talon armed robot...etc). But speaking purely as an engineer, modern warfare is still decades to a full century away from fully machanizing a human effectively enough for battle.

The reason for this was made in the video. There is no protable power source powerful enough or safe enough yet. If you look at most of the recent video games out there that deal with warfare in the future, most of that technology is capable of existing now. But again the problem is power coupled with economics.

Yes they look cool and I would love a peice of tech like that. But there is no point in pushing forward with power hungry hardware when there is no viable portable power source.

By the end of the video the reality comeas though. Strength enhancing tech will make a big economical difference in logistics. It already has (forklifts for example).

Its a romantic thought that will ultimately live on in video games... For the time being.

 

[ForeverStudent]

I think that the most things on this world has it's own evolution, which comes with the time. Martial arts to!

Traditional arts will get better as the time goes, as it did always. It's a growing plant, it can only grow. People will understand their principles and moves better and better.

Self defense for civilian can't change too much. Only what we can get is some better self defense tool as we once got taser os sprayes for sd etc. But with all that cameras and other tracking equipment they putting around, in the future there will be much less attacks, i think it's also thing to be taken serious. Who knows, maybe once civilian attacks will be rare excess.

But modern arts, which have ability to change itself and upgrade due to requirements, will evolve much more. I can't predict in which way, but what is for sure, in whatever era on the earth, people always had professional warriors which are preapared to fight in given conditions. So i think how technology grows, that warriors must go with it. Probably, as time goes, warriors life will depend on how good he know the use of weapons and technology and less how me mastered kicks, punches, etc.