The Historical African Martial Arts Association (HAMAA) is a community of martial artists, instructors, scholars, and artisans working to share information, connect, and learn about the history and culture of martial arts in Africa and the African diaspora. They have an extensive online community supporting work by the Association and one another in training, equipping, and showcasing the next generation of pan-African martial artists.
The work of HAMAA covers the whole sweep of African and diaspora cultures in time and space, incorporating styles as diverse as Tahtib, an Egyptian fighting style that has origins in the bronze age; Nguni Stick-Fighting, a South African martial art practiced by both Nelson Mandela and Shaka Zulu; and 52 blocks, a African-American art based on traditional African practices that emerged in the US prison system in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Association’s Chief Operating Officer, Adam Myrie sat down with us for an interview in March to discuss their work and the role IP plays in protecting and disseminating the knowledge of African martial arts.
Traditional and Ancient Martial Arts preserved by HAMAA
HAMAA members and community practice a broad range of arts they split into 7 regions, North, South, East, West, and Central Africa, and the Eastern and Western Diaspora. Each member generally specializes in a specific art, region or time period. The styles they practice cover a wide range in terms of their history and current popularity.
Some styles are actively being practiced today as popular sports in their countries of origin, such as Senegalese Laamb wrestling which is a multi-billion-dollar industry filling stadiums and drawing endorsements from brands like Adidas.
Other styles have smaller followings that are deeply rooted in their cultural heritage and identity, such as Morengy, a Malagasy kickboxing style with 500-year-old academies in Madagascar that are still training world class fighters today.
Still others are styles which fell out of popularity, but are being preserved and renewed by dedicated communities, such as El Matreg, a style of North African stick fighting which the Ligue Oranaise Des Sports Traditionnels in Algeria among others are working to retore and promote across North Africa.
Finally, there are styles that were lost and now are being reconstructed from original research, like the Mamluk Project, an initiative launched by HAMAA to translate “Kitāb al-makhzūn jāmiʻ al-funūn”, an Egyptian Mamluk treatise from 1470 on martial arts and the training of soldiers.
The Intellectual Property behind Martial Arts
This variation between popular, traditional, and lost martial arts styles presents a complex mix of intellectual property protections.
The rules and fundamental techniques of a sport are outside typical protections of patent and copyright. This is especially true for sports that are being practiced widely, like “lutte traditionnelle”, which is a popular wrestling style across west Africa.
Traditional Cultural Expressions in Martial Arts
Other styles may be considered traditional cultural expressions, like the acrobatic dance-fighting hybrid of capoeira in Brazil, because of their grounding in indigenous communities or their cultural and historical significance. Still others fall mostly within the public domain, especially if they are based on primary sources without living practitioners, as with the Mamluk Project, mentioned above.
Whatever the specific IP of the martial art style, there are other considerations to take into account.
Copyrights for Materials Based on Martial Arts
Specific books, photos, and videos can be copyrighted.
Patents for Tools and Equipment used in Martial Arts
Tools and equipment can be patented, name and likeness rights are owned by specific athletes, and athletes and teams can use copyright and trademark to protect their branding.
Informal IP Tools
All of this makes the IP around martial arts difficult to navigate, especially for smaller practitioners of styles outside of the global mainstream like those HAMAA tends to work with. Much of the martial arts world finds itself using informal IP tools, such as reputation, respect, tradition, and personal relationships, to protect themselves and their artforms. They rely much more heavily on culture and community than on legal systems.
This attitude has made its way into HAMAA’s thinking on IP. The Association always encourages its network to work closely with one another and with traditional practitioners as a means of respecting tradition. “One of the cornerstones of our organization is trust and community.” Myrie explained “As much as protecting IP is important, if you don’t have good will, if you don’t demonstrate that you respect people enough to give time in the sun and to be honest about where you get your information, you’re going to have a hard time… If people don’t trust us, they won’t work with us, and the model falls apart.”
Martial Arts Culture and Community
As an outgrowth of this attitude, HAMAA does not simply promote the martial arts they teach but shares and celebrates the rich tapestry of cultures they emerged from. Myrie said “for us, the culture and martial arts can’t be separated... If you were to learn a specific art from Japan from a Japanese teacher... there are certain Japanese cultural elements that can’t be separated from the art... People come to the arts because they’re interested in the culture. So, we do our best to educate people on the context of the arts, on the reason why certain things are used.”
This spirit infuses all the work of the HAMAA. Their tournaments and events feature traditional clothing, music, and food alongside martial arts. Throughout, there is a focus not just on combat, but on knowledge of, pride in, and love for African cultures.
During our tournaments, we make sure to have live drumming and singing... very different from what you’d see in Olympic fencing where it would be pin drop quiet. For us these tournaments are a celebration. And that carries through any other art. If you watch a Laamb competition, there will be singing and drumming. If you watch the Kalinda tournament they had a couple weeks ago in Trinidad for Carnival, there’s singing and drumming.... All of the gatherings of these martial artists are celebrations. And the songs that are sung are, depending on the culture, meant to invoke whatever gods they worship, spur on the fighters, or set the tone for the match.
Adam Myrie, COO of HAMAA
HAMAA itself is very small, consisting of a board and group of honorary members based on previous work or extraordinary contribution to the community. As such, their work focuses primarily on connecting people around the world, and not necessarily for activities that need to be controlled by the Association itself. Myrie gave an example: “if La Ligue Oranaise wants to build an el matreg league in North America, they have the opportunity to connect with people who are actually interested to build a community over there.”
Research on African Martial Art History
The Association also often works with historic sources in the public domain, and contemporary sources that fall under traditional knowledge or traditional cultural expressions. HAMAA also highlights the work of guests and community members from their network regularly in their content.
They freely share the information they have access to and are careful to credit and link back to the sources they use. “If we didn’t pay for it, we don’t ask money for it” says Myrie. The only exceptions are fundraisers to support the Association’s work, and events with overhead costs to cover. Even the Mamluk Project, which is a resource intensive project, will publish the translations for free online, after a successful crowdfunding campaign to kickstart the project.
Raising Global Interest in African Historical Martial Arts
HAMAA finds success and profit for its own work and supports the efforts of a global network of teachers, practitioners, influencers, makers, and researchers by focusing not on owning and controlling IP, but through a deep respect for traditions, cultures, and communities that encourages potential students of these ancient artforms. By sharing martial traditions from across the African continent and diaspora, and across the breadth of human history, they contribute to a better understanding of African cultures overall. There is a global passion for martial arts which too often remains fixated on Asian and European combat styles. HAMAA uses a mix of knowledge and access, both to modern practitioners and historical sources to broaden the horizons of martial arts on the global stage and bring more diversity to this sport.
