Quote: stekkos - 2010.02.15. 08:28:17 Twinky, sports are for fun, fitness, bettering yourself, and learning discipline. Martial arts are combat to the soldiers lets say who are trained mainly for that purpose but to the general public are fitness, fun or even a way to relax! So sport covers the wider aspect of martial arts, not the combat part only. After all, dont tell me you believe that all who study these arts they are doing it solely to get better at combating others!
Actually, I do think that everyone who studies Martial Arts does so to better themselves should they need to fight anyone. As a matter of fact, even in the definition of Martial Arts http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Martial+Arts the words Self Defense, and Combat are used to describe it.
It doesn't matter if someone intends to use what it is that they know in a fight or not, what they are participating in, is an education in a method of defending ones self against an attacker, or to go on the offense yourself.
I will conseed...conceed (SP?) that SOME forms of Martial Arts have been turned into a Sport, but I can assure you that what they do in a ring, often does not reflect the actual Martial Arts in it's entirety such as Kick Bocking, the crap you can see on TV and that Chuck Norris (I'm sorry Mr Norris I did not mean to ofend thee, don't roundhouse kick me into the next life if you are reading this) is known for having Championed, is not Muai Thai Kickboxing, which is insanly more brutal, including the use of headbutts and elbow strikes, manuvers that are, in the "Sport" of Kickboxing, illligal. The same can be said for Sumo-Wrestling, which has about as much in common with actual Sumo-Wrestling, as WWE Wrestling does with Collage Wrestling.