Hello and Welcome!
Steemit as a platform doesn't really have a community oriented towards Martial Arts. And hence, I took it upon me to bring a place to the people interested so that they may share their experiences, journey, and understanding of all things martial arts not only with the people of the community itself but also with the broader audiences of Steemit. The purpose of this community is to share and contribute to the global martial arts community with your thoughts and ideas and make the other people of this community more aware of other styles and the cultures and perspectives behind it. The broader objective of this community is also to help the martial arts community reach a broader audience on Steemit, and help them discover what Martial Arts truly is.
What you can share here
Short answer: Anything and everything. Just make sure it bears even the slightest relation to martial arts.
You are encouraged to share whatever you have that is martial arts related to this community. It doesn't necessarily have to be something great. It can be something that is very personal to you as well, such as your interpretation of ideals and philosophies, your critiques of techniques, your thoughts of different styles, or even logs and accounts of your personal progress. Got a new belt? Post it! Won a fight? Post it! Unsure of how you're performing or want to improve? Post it and ask for critique! You don't like how a few certain things are run or followed? Suggest how to make improvements! You want to share how moves and training in you martial art works? Share them! No matter what, make sure to keep whatever it is that you have, no matter how meagre you think it is. Somebody or the other will surely find value in it and be able to benefit from it.
Here are a few suggestions about what you can possibly share with this community:
- Techniques from your martial art.
- Critique of techniques which other people perform.
- Analysis and breakdown of fights and matches and forms.
- Analysis of martial arts and weaponry in movies, games, and media.
- Philosophies and ideas behind martial arts.
- Anime, Movies, Games, and TV Shows regarding Martial Arts.
- Applications of forms and patterns from traditional martial arts.
- Your personal journey and progress into martial arts.
- Something you found on another site.
- How you prefer to train in your class, or how training proceeds for you.
- Recommendations, suggestions, and advisory regarding what can be improved in your art or community.
- Self-defense/Street Fight tips.
- History.
- Misconcenptions and myths.
- Legends and fables.
- Archives, books, and magazines about martial arts which you might have found.
- Things regarding the equipment used in your art style.
- Your journey transitioning from one art to another and how things can get different throughout the journey.
- The apparent stylistic differences between one art to the other.
- How a famous athlete uses some technique or has fought in his recent match. Translations of content available in languages different from those which you speak.
Share your heart away and make sure to keep interacting with other people in this community. Sharing and interacting is what gives us more knowledge and newer perspectives. Why let that go to waste?
Regarding Plagiarism
Now plagiarism is not cool. And given how you can profit from whatever you post on Steemit as a platform, it is completely immoral and unethical to be using somebody else's content for your personal profit.
That being said, it is completely fine to share what someone else has created to this community and profit off it as well as long as you add your own take to it and make it rightfully yours. Simply add your own content to whatever your sharing, be it your own views, or simply an elaboration of what the original author is trying to convey about it. You could even take it a step further and argue with their perspective or even use their perspective to put forth your own ideas on the matter. You might also take the contents of the original message and turn it into something that you have created for yourself.
If you have the appropriate source for something such as your statement, or your idea that you got from somewhere, make sure to provide links to the original content, as is the proper writing etiquette so that you don't accidentally steal from someone else. (Notice what I did there)
Another good idea is to avoid paraphrasing things unless you can't help it. Paraphrasing is just repeating the same things that have been said elsewhere. It is unoriginal most of the times even though you have worked on it. It's fine if you can't help it, but try to keep it to a minimum.
Also, this is something which I know most of you aren't going to follow, but if you are simply sharing something that another person has made, the least you could do is decline payment for that specific post. Taking payment for something is downright dishonourable and there is no martial artist, fighter, or warrior without honour.
Finally, I'd like to clear the fact that translating something from one language to another is not considered plagiarism and it is to be considered your work through and through. It is not the same as paraphrasing and it can help content reach a much broader audience than it was initially reaching before.
Some rules and guidelines
Since Martial Arts can be a pretty broad topic with tons of styles. The problem which I frequently see arising in such spaces is that everyone thinks that their style is superior while other styles might be considered inferior. Sure, there are things which are more effective than others at what they do, but not all things are the same and maybe your definition of effectiveness is just not the same as another's. Or perhaps you're just not looking for the things that they are looking for. Hence, as a bid towards communal harmony, I would encourage everyone to be critical of everything, but keep an open mind about things at the same time. Arguments are all fine and good, but dismissing someone else because of your own personal opinions is downright arrogant. Kindly do try to get along and critique, argue, and learn in a more civilised, matured manner.
If you can't guess what comes next, it is about trolling. Trolling is somewhat prevalent in the martial arts community and people with strong opinions often do it unconsciously. Trolling does nothing but ruins a community and makes other people uninterested in it. If you see someone trolling, ignore them at once, and bring them to the attention of the administrators who will look into the matter and try to provide a just resolution to it. In essence, do not troll and do not let troll.
NSFW content is a natural part of human life, and while it is not suitable for underaged people, most of them do have easy access to it and their curiosity attracts them more towards it. So, if you have any content that is NSFW, make sure to tag it as such so that Steemit can display a fair warning. Also, try to keep things like NSFW photoshoots of martial arts models and such to a minimum. They don't really help in most cases unless they're displaying something valuable in an NSFW manner. And while gore and similar content is fine for the most part, let's try to keep the community clean. There shall be no pornography entertained in the community, even though you are completely free to discuss martial arts related pornography and provide links to the same to other sites. Just make sure to mark such posts as NSFW and not post the actual thing itself to this community.
Finally, kindly make sure to tag all posts to this community with +martialarts.
And that seems to be it for now. As things keep changing, newer rules will keep getting added or existing ones removed or modified. You will be notified in all such accounts.