[ProAm]

  > No sane person is going to dedicate years of their life into learning something that is a bit shit.  
  >  
  > In general the world has become a lot more factual in the last 25 years.

This statement is sort of absurd. For the sense of learning a military art form for combat yes. But there is a lot more to martial arts than fighting. Why learn Tai Chi or Yoga? If the world is more factual why are people still playing american football? Why do people join a football team when the coach is obviously garbage (after all they can tell from watching on the internet that they are not learning the best football)...

[r_smart]

>Why learn Tai Chi or Yoga?

To my knowledge Yoga has never been practiced as a form of combat. Tai Chi is rarely taught as such. To actually answer your question, look at why those things are taught: wellness.

>why are people still playing american football?

If your goal is to get rich playing sports, and you're good at your sport, then football is a great choice to make. It's one of the largest sports in the US, minimum pay is something north of $500k / year. I'm not sure why you even put this in here.

>Why do people join a football team when the coach is obviously garbage?

You've decided to pursue a career in football. Where you live there is one choice. Or, possibly, it's like why would you choose to work at Amazon these days? Short term sacrifice for long term gain (credibility gained from working there).

As a, possibly interesting, anecdote: I practiced Aikido for 10 years. Broadly painted, there are two major schools of thought in Aikido, those who want to pursue it as a traditional Japanese martial art, and those who want it to be more like the modern iteration of Tai Chi (at least as taught in the US). I was in the former camp, and was constantly frustrated with the latter. Stripping out the ideas of martial effectiveness and replacing it with new age philosophy did not result in a better promotion of wellness (not mental wellness and certainly not physical wellness) in my opinion, it just washed out the merits of the art. When you train yourself with a martial attitude, you work harder, you take your training more seriously, you develop focus, discipline, tolerance for pain. You push your limits. As your ability grows you put yourself in conflict with your ego and the nastier sides of yourself. Arrogance is a natural consequence, and you get the opportunity to temper that. It's only through doing that hard work that you can arrive at any sense of internal peace, at least in my opinion. Not just peace when you are laying in a hammock reading, but also peace in conflict.

Take away the desire for martial validity and replace it with New Age philosophy and you have a practice that creates the illusion of personal development while doing very little to actually achieve the aspirations set forth in its ideals. The time that should be spent honing your body and your personality is instead spent on an activity not much more useful than laying in a hammock reading. Fun? Yes. Intellectually stimulating? Sure. But not in line with making progress towards the stated goals.

[up_and_up]

> To my knowledge Yoga has never been practiced as a form of combat

An ancient Indian martial art that includes yoga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalaripayattu

"The foundation of modern Asian martial arts is likely a blend of early Chinese and Indian martial arts." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_arts#Historical_martia...

[naravara]

I think the conflation is mostly from a confusion in terms. Old Sanskrit treatises and sketches on hand to hand combat somewhat resemble the techniques in Muay Boran, the ancient precursor to sport Muay Thai, more than Patanjali's yoga sutras that form the basis of what we today think of as "yoga."

But the term "yoga" was historically applied to many sorts of disciplines, both mental and physical. It is likely that Patanjali's sutras were largely general knowledge in ancient India as ways to stay fit and limber, basically like the calisthenics everyone does today.

So it's likely it would have been integrated as part of any physical training regimens that came out of India. So basically, the yoga techniques and postures would be part of the martial arts training in the same way push ups and jumping jacks are.

[up_and_up]

> It is likely that Patanjali's sutras were largely general knowledge in ancient India as ways to stay fit and limber

You must be referring to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika or Gheranda Samhita since PYS doesnt deal with individual asanas/gymnastic yoga whatsoever?

PYS is split into 4 parts: 1. Details regarding superconscious states (samadhi), 2. The means of practice by which samadhi can be attained, 3. the supernatural powers associated with and attained via samadhi including their dangers and pitfalls, 4. how to transcend all the lower samadhis and attain final and complete liberation.

Asanas are only mentioned in the 2nd part and in that context only really mean how to sit properly to attain deep meditation. Gymnastic yoga is nowhere to be found in the book.

[r_smart]

Interesting, thought I would argue that's not Yoga as a martial art, rather as a component of training. We don't say jogging is a martial art even though most every professional fighter has jogging as part of their regimen.

Tai Chi on the other hand used to be a martial art and essentially moved into the same space as Yoga.