When are you no longer a partial artist?

I don't really believe in "complete"

You can base the term off of nearly anything. It is completely arbitrary.

I really don't think this should even be a term that others should try to place on what others do.

there is no such thing as "complete", martial arts is rich in depth and history that one lifetime cannot complete. And besides, there will always be room for improvement, and there are many different styles out there... so much to learn, so little time.

Also, people perceive "complete" differently, "complete" may mean different things to different people, everyone has their own way of viewing the world. so while you may seem "complete" to one set of eyes, to another, that may not be so.

that's a good question though, with a very broad range of answers, kind of like... what's the meaning of life? :)

In my opinion, a "complete" martial artist would be know how to react to all situations. Example of this: Someone kicks you Reaction: you block kick. You can't show everything you know in a fight. Bruce Lee said that this was one of the "deadly sins" of Martial Arts. When something comes up you act appropriately and knowing how to act in all situations would make you a complete Martial Artist in my opinion

Good question but a very difficult one to answer. Im not sure if its possible to be 100% complete. To me complete would be akin to perfect and there is no such thing. Just my humble opinion though, very good question.

It's real hard to define lol

I would say it's when you can deal with all situations unarmed, armed, standing, grounded, clinching etc and don't have to get it from another style.

also another way I guess would be one not bastardized like modern muay thai with all it's rules and good stuff taken out compared to traditional muay thai with no rules an all the good stuff left in.

just like the sport of boxing bans grappling but the art of boxing has many throws and has since the beginning when it was used on the battle field but in peace times and the popularity of dueling it was made into a sport that showcased the art of boxing but since it was a sport they couldn't do what they did on the battle field which was kill indiscriminately.

however you have people passing things on to people to continue the line but some people never learn everything and still pass on their incomplete knowledge as complete and it keeps happening until you have something like kickboxing that cake from karate which came from te etc.

just like bjj went from japanese jujutsu to fighting wars with your bare hands if you lost your weapon to judo for self defence by kano to gracie jiu jitsu by the gracies for self defence to the sport of brazilian jiu jitsu by the people that the gracies never taught all their art too.

and don't listen to kw clearly has no idea what he is talking about because all tmas that aren't from a mcdojo teach all ranges of combat including standing, clinch & ground fighting but he must have seen to many mcdojos to know the real truth.

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I would say it's when you know 100% of an art and not just part of it and mixing with parts of of other arts would make you partial again in one sense but not in another.

maybe there are 2 definitions of partial artist? one who wasn't taught everything but thinks he does and goes on teaching it as the complete thing and another who was taught the whole art and moved on to mix other things.

martial arts were created by peoples experiences and everyone's are different and kyokushin isn't a partial art it is it's on art but oyama never said it was shorin-ryu or goju-ryu he called it something different when it was.

so I say a partial artist is someone who doesn't know the whole art like oyama didn't know either styles fully but he knew kyokushin fully so I guess everyone has their own style no matter what unless they have never learned anything from anyone else about fighting except from 1 teacher and never added any of his own stuff to it and passed it on exactly the way it was passed on to him.

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@keyboard warrior- they specialize in fighting not this kind of fighting or that kind and it's up to the practitioner what they want to specialize in since there is such a vast array of techniques and if 10 karateka who trained their karate under bjj rules and fought bjj guys it would be an equal fight since the karateka were forced to learn there grappling instead of neglecting it like most do since it's illegal in karate rules.

I believe that is the flaw in modern tmas since traditionally their practice was killing people which they cant do anymore and have since adapted crappy sparring rules they never had before.

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well he isn't stupid he's just a dumb@$$ there is a difference there too lol

To know oneself.