Who got the most MA?

[Satelite]

I always wanted to ask this, since I saw this forum.
Out of the following countries, which one has the highest percentage of martial artitst.
-US
-Uk
-Canada
-Russia
-Australia
-Germany
-France
-China
-Korea
-Japan

If you know which country has the most, please let me know.

 

[Brother John]

I always wanted to ask this, since I saw this forum.
Out of the following countries, which one has the highest percentage of martial artitst.
-US
-Uk
-Canada
-Russia
-Australia
-Germany
-France
-China
-Korea
-Japan

If you know which country has the most, please let me know.

I think that this is an impossible question to answer or even guess at. To guess would be the most you could do.
BUT: IF I were to Guess, I'd have to guess China, due to its massive population and the popularity of the martial arts (including Wu Shu and Tai Chi) among the people.

Your Brother
John

 

[terryl965]

I would concur with Brother John, on a side note out of these country that are listed who practices the most purest Arts and why?

MY guest would be some Asian country and a little city in that country where commercialism has not corrupted the Art.

 

[MA-Caver]

Yes I would say the same... however; I've a number of friends from mainland China who do not know any MA what-so-ever. It started to take me by surprise until I stopped myself and realized that I was stereotyping without intending to. But given it's population it could be that China does have a proportionally large number of practicing MAs.
Yet how many of those people are practicing MA for defense reasons. In a country such as theirs with rigid communist doctrine and ever present military/police force, the nationals that I've spoken to have told me that most of the chinese population (that they knew personally)who took/study a MA, did so as a hobby or as a form of excercise much in the same way that we Americans (and others) might take up tennis or model building or going to the Gym. It's just something else to do. I find that kinda sad because of the origins of many of the MA's here on MT can be traced to China. It's a loss of heritage.
It could be said that it is because of the oppression of the communist government that is the cause of the indifference of the native people to have towards MA.

All the more reason to for me to be proud I'm an American!

 

[Andrew Green]

I'd look to places that have martial arts as part of the school curriculum.

As for purity... define purity...

Many North American schools offer wrestling, boxing is pretty big, add in all the pseudo Asian commercial schools. It wouldn't surprise me to find out Canada / US rank high on the list. A good chunk of our population has either wrestled, boxed or done karate/kungfu/judo/TKD at some point in there life.

 

[evenflow1121]

Yeah I am with Andrew here, I d say North America Canada/US if not the highest would be pretty high up. That was a good point btw, with respect to boxing and wrestling is offered in just about every public school.

 

[Dan G]

Guess work on my part, but I agree with the previous posts.

Given the size of the country and the presence of wushu on the school curriculum China probably has the largest in raw numbers, and percentage of population given that both men and women are able and are encouraged to practice wushu in school. It does depend how one views performance wushu, and school age training.

I reckon it is safe to say that it is easily China that has the highest raw numbers and percentage of martial artists studying both at school age and in old age, given the presence of wu shu on the school curriculum and the popularity of Tai Chi and Qui Gong exercises in later life.

I would say South Korea has the highest percentage of "fighting" martial artists per male head of population. Military service is compulsory for all men, and a form of Taekwondo is part of a conscripts training. North Korea may even be higher, but as it is a closed country it is hard to know. I doubt many Koreans continue their training after 3 years of military service, from the few people I spoke to it wasn't the most popular aspect of their time in the military. 50% of the population drops out of the calculation though, as women aren't conscripted in South Korea. Policemen and women are likely to practice at least one martial art though.

Although martial arts are probably not as popular as may be stereotypically believed; I reckon Japan scores reasonably highly as both kendo and Judo are very popular school sports, with kendo being widely practiced by girls. Baseball and soccer rank first and second as sports for boys (soccer might actually be the most popular now). Outside of the police forces and university clubs aikido and karate seem surprisingly rare. (Just personal impression, not hard stats though)

Not on the list, but I reckon Thailand, Laos, Burma would rate rate pretty high as Thai/Khmer boxing is pretty widespread there. Pol Pot did a lot of damage to martial arts in Cambodia, so I would expect they are actually quite low on the list now. The Phillipines should also score pretty well, as learning to fight from "uncles" is apparently a common tradition in the Philippines and still something of a practical survival skill in parts.

I definitely reckon the US and Canada will not be far behind when fencing, wrestling, boxing etc are taken into account (I wonder if lacrosse should count, it is arguably a traditional native American/Canadian martial sport?) China probably still has the overall top spot given the numbers of women that train.

I wouldn't expect Europe to score as highly as the US or Canada as wrestling is not a major sport. Popularity of asian martial arts is probably roughly the same.

Frankly I reckon these are "guesstimates" at best, but I reckon those countries that have a tradition of women studying martial arts as well as men will definitely be way up the list. It would be interesting to see if someone out there has some hard stats on the subject.

Dan:asian:

 

[arnisador]

I'd guess China for the same reasons--but, that's just a guess, and much of that tai Chi isn't practiced in a very "martial" way. South Korea is another possibility.

 

[Shogun]

according to some articles I have read, Taiwan is the highest percentage of "masters". not sure how they define that one, but I beleive the article came out of a kung fu mag so maybe just for kung fu. Brasil ranks up their as many many people their practice Jiu jitsu. also, if you consider your standard knife fighting a martial art, according to dan inosanto, almost everyone in the PI carries a knife, and knows how to use it.

 

[theletch1]

I'd guess China for the same reasons--but, that's just a guess, and much of that tai Chi isn't practiced in a very "martial" way. South Korea is another possibility.

I agree with you on the China guess. Got to be careful with the tai chi comment though, 'cause then we get into the whole "What qualifies as a true martial art?" argument.