Whats the oldest martial art

[Robin Hood]

I dont mean all that bs that peeple rave on about india and tibet and shit. I mean real martial art. I know karate, kung fu and judo are the main oldest ones but which exact stile was the first one that inflooenced the others one?

[War Pig]

Kung Fu is the oldest.

The good people on this Kung Fu message forum can explain it.

http://forum.kungfuonline.com/1/OpenTopic/a/cfrm

[dan downard]

Actually,stick fighting would be your oldest form of martial art.Before that it was biting.LOL

[Slider]

this site runs throught a timeline of about everything includeing martial arts .. http://ejmas.com/kronos/NewHist0000-0499.htm

[Chopstix]

every civilization had some form of fighting..
but "martial art" that we know of it today came from ancient china.

[duchman]

.....

[Edited by duchman on 01-05-2001 at 04:01 PM]

[GinSueDog]

I don't know about that, I mean the Greeks and Indians had wrestling long before the development of Kung Fu. Plus the Chinese were supposely taught by Buddha who came from India. Not only that but the mongles brought in wrestling as well and the Thais have been using Muay thai in one form or another for a very long time. The africans claim to have there own martial arts for thousands of years and the chinese have one to no documents on anything to support there claim. What it comes down to is all hearsay and BS, no really knows for sure on any of it.-ED

[Ryu (non-working password]

Very debated subject.
Actually if you consider wrestling a martial art, then I would say it was wrestling that was the first combat art.
Wrestling styles can be found in the ancient texts or nearly every nation.

if you mean "martial art" as we think of it...I agree Kung Fu might be it.

[bustr]

Zipota

Documented in 22000 year old cave paintings in Spain.

[Water Dragon]

As far as Kung Fu goes, the oldest documented art is Shuai Chiao, or Chinese wrestling. The modern version looks a lot no gi Judo with a Chinese flavor. No one really knows how the art looked a thousand years ago.

[gungfuhero]

Judo is only a little over a hundred years old.

Buddah wasn't credited for inventing kung fu, rather it was the monk Bodidharma(sp), a buddhist monk from india.

From what I've read, Shuai Chiao is the oldest style of Kung Fu. On the other side of the world the greeks were developing pancratium, wrestling(although it looks different from even the collegiate wrestling of today) and boxing. There are paintings of Egyptian fighting tactics found in ruins. If you're talking about real systems, then you probably should look at literate cultures.

Once I met a guy who said that whenever he got in a fight he would kick his opponent in the groin and punch them in the jaw as hard as he could. I expect the first fighting system started out the same way. Somebody with a violent nature made observations about what worked for him and his reputation drew people to him for his method.