Editing Martial arts (section)

===Martial sport===
{{see also|Combat sport}}
[[File:050907-M-7747B-002-Judo.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|Several martial arts, such as [[judo]], are [[Olympic sports]].|left]]
Martial arts have crossed over into sports when forms of [[sparring]] become competitive, becoming a sport in its own right that is dissociated from the original combative origin, such as with western fencing. The [[Summer Olympic Games]] includes judo, taekwondo, western archery, boxing, javelin, wrestling and fencing as events, while [[Wushu (sport)|Chinese wushu]] recently failed in its bid to be included, but is still actively performed in tournaments across the world. Practitioners in some arts such as [[kickboxing]] and Brazilian jiu-jitsu often train for sport matches, whereas those in other arts such as [[aikido]] generally spurn such competitions. Some schools believe that competition breeds better and more efficient practitioners, and gives a sense of good sportsmanship. Others believe that the rules under which competition takes place have diminished the combat effectiveness of martial arts or encourage a kind of practice which focuses on winning trophies rather than a focus such as cultivating a particular moral character.{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

The question of "which is the best martial art" has led to inter style competitions fought with very few rules allowing a variety of fighting styles to enter with few limitations. This was the origin of the first [[Ultimate Fighting Championship]] tournament (later renamed [[UFC 1|UFC 1: The Beginning]]) in the USA inspired by the Brazilian [[Vale tudo]] tradition and along with other minimal rule competitions, most notably those from Japan such as [[Shooto]] and [[Pancrase]], have evolved into the [[combat sport]] of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Some martial artists compete in non-sparring competitions such as [[Breaking (martial arts)|breaking]] or choreographed routines of techniques such as [[poomse]], [[kata]] and [[Aka (Burmese martial art)|aka]], or modern variations of the martial arts which include dance-influenced competitions such as tricking. Martial traditions have been influenced by governments to become more sport-like for political purposes; the central impetus for the attempt by the [[People's Republic of China]] in transforming Chinese martial arts into the committee-regulated sport of [[Wushu (sport)|wushu]] was suppressing what they saw as the potentially [[subversion (politics)|subversive]] aspects of martial training, especially under the traditional system of family lineages.<ref name="Mastering Yang Style Taijiquan">{{cite book |last=Fu |first=Zhongwen | title=Mastering Yang Style Taijiquan |orig-year=1996|year=2006 |publisher=Blue Snake Books |location=Berkeley, California}}</ref>