New year, a new challenge.

New Year starts, and with it we new challenges, new goals, new targets.

We make the decision of training a martial art, knowing all the benefits that its practice can bring us, but …: on which to decide?

In the XXI st century; with Internet, social networks, youtube and all kinds of information flooding our lives, even, in some occasions, reaching saturation.

All this information gives us many choices, with multitude offers that sometimes we cannot confront, due to not knowing what should we choose with such a flood of information, entering the quandary of which is what we want to practice and the keys to do a correct election.

From a general point of view we are going to clarify all these questions and facilitate somehow our decision.

Currently we find three big families inside the world of martial arts and differentiating them can help us in our way towards making the correct choice depending on our tastes.

These are the so called "Martial arts", the “combat sports” and the “arts of combat”.

We are going explain each one of them:

-Martial arts-

For any person who decides to get in its practice, these arts imply following a path that lead us improving in every aspect as individuals: becoming healthier, personal protection, personal development, mental discipline, forge of the character and self-confidence. They are traditional practices that have survived over the centuries, with technical codification, which end is to submit the adversary or to defend itself from its aggression by a series of highly effective movements. Multitude of different styles exists to discover and an infinity of schools to develop and study its practice.

What differentiates martial arts of the mere bellicosity with physical violence (street fights), is the organization of its skills in a coherent system, with codification of effective combat methods and defense.

Currently, in the modern times, martial arts are framed inside the purely sportive practice, losing partly the essence for which they were designed, that was not other than the use in wars. Please note, military use them for what they were actually created.

Practicing martial arts in sport combats does not exist, since its practice is directed to solve real situations, therefore in its achievements does not exist regulation.

Take for example the arts of Aikido, Thai Chi Chuan or krav magá

-Combat sports-

A combat sport is a competitive contact sport where two combatants fight against each other using certain rules of contact, in order to simulate some segments of what would be a real combat. Physical preparation is essential.

Contact sports or combat sports are modern and originally were created for purely competitive and sporting purposes, existing in each and every one of them a fighting sport regulation. They lack the philosophy and cultural baggage of martial arts.

A combat sport belongs to the world of the competition, with behavioral norms and times of participation of the athletes, destined to guarantee the physical integrity of the opponents, with a referee being always present, who can stop the combat, offering always safety to the contest. Although combat sports move away from the real combat, they allow to face an adversary who may have unpredictable reactions in a secure environment.

Boxing, MMA, Savate or Full-Contac are some of its examples

-Combat Arts-

We find the last family as an excellent hybrid of the two previous ones. Inside its practice we discover the whole philosophy and technique of self-defense that belongs to a martial art while enjoying the preparation and training for combat sports in its various forms and levels of competition.

In the arts of combat, there is not only the mode of combat sports melee, but also we get the ability to compete in other forms such as the kata or forms, which are sequences of choreographed movements conducting technical individually or with partners reaching the highest perfection in the execution.

Very well-known examples are: LIMALAMA, KARATE, TAEKWONDO, JUDO, KENDO, between many others.

I hope I have been helpful in your decision and your new resolutions for the New Year ahead. Never forget that you will always find in each family not only physical training but a whole set of moral, ethical and spiritual aspects that will make you grow as person enjoying the path you have chosen, which I'm sure will change your life in the best sense.

Kumu Alfredo López Leo