Data Shadows: When Martial Arts Analysis Falls into the Void

In an era where every punch, kick, and step is digitized, some analytical reports still return blank. Not because the fight isn't worthy, but because the raw data never made it into the record. And that is painfully true for martial arts – a field caught between tradition and modernity, between ring and dojo, between numbers and legends. Some time ago, a deep analysis system received a 'blank' data extraction from a martial arts article. Every information field – key points, entities, core viewpoints – was empty. The result could only offer one judgment: insufficient information, impossible to assess. Many would call it a system failure. But looking closer, it is a mirror reflecting a chronic disease in sports and especially martial arts: the disease of missing source data. In high-performance sport, data is not just statistics; it is the foundation for every tactical decision, every analytical report, every indictment, and every praise. Without data, a coach cannot build tactics, a commentator cannot deliver sharp insight, an analyst cannot dig into blind spots. And yet, we are still used to seeing Vietnamese footballers step into the ring without anyone responsible for recording, measuring, and systematically preserving information. Look at a professional boxing match or an international MMA event. Every strike has its score, speed, pressure, distance traveled, accuracy – all algorithmically captured. Fans receive detailed stats right after each round. But what about a Muay Thai fight in a remote province? Or a traditional martial arts championship at a small scale? Who counts the strikes, the hit rate, or even the time of dominance? The data often lies scattered in the memory of a few referees and coaches, and is never standardized. The absence of source data spells doom for any professional analysis. The multi-dimensional analysis frameworks we often see – assessing competitive value, reference value, timeliness – become circles without a focal point. When no strike is recorded, when there is no head-to-head history, when there is no physical data, discussing tactics is like talking in a language that does not exist in the dictionary. I once heard a sports analyst say: 'We learn the most from what is off-rhythm, not from what goes right.' But without data on rhythm, how do you know where the discordance lies? It's like diagnosing a disease with an empty chart; instead of prescribing, the doctor must write: 'Patient not yet examined.' Those empty martial arts analyses are indeed medical charts with no history, no symptoms, and no tests. And our patient – the martial arts community – is slowly self-destructing through an astonishing indifference to information. What are the root causes? First, the mindset that 'martial arts is art, not science' still pervades parts of the community. They consider quantification as dry, and as robbing the sacredness of the way of martial arts. But that anti-scientific attitude leaves martial arts behind in the era of big data. Other sports – from football to athletics – have long embraced the data revolution, while martial arts remains on the sidelines with beautiful performances but no verifiable substance. Second, there is a lack of standardized event management. Many martial arts events in Vietnam are organized in a 'backyard' fashion, without professional organizing committees, with no obligation to publish statistics, and sometimes without even an official scorecard. Fans must count strikes themselves through videos, and those numbers are purely for entertainment. There is no central database to verify or cross-check. Third, sports journalism training is poor. I've seen young sports journalists only clapping at beautiful kicks, never asking: How many strikes? How accurate? How many meters did he move? What was his average heart rate? They don't ask because they don't know to ask, or because no one provides the information. The vicious cycle continues. As a result, martial arts articles become a series of emotional storytelling: 'a thunderous punch,' 'an iron will,' 'magic in the ring' – empty clichés that convey nothing substantive. When an article is called 'in-depth' and contains not a single specific number, it is propaganda, not analysis. Notably, the people involved – the fighters and coaches – rarely realize the value of data. They may know that they landed five low kicks in the last round, but not that their average striking speed was 15% slower than their opponent's. They enter with experience and instinct, refusing to listen to the voice of numbers. This makes tactical preparation a guesswork, and training young fighters impossible to implement in a systematic way. Vietnam's context is even more alarming. Though high-performance sports have seen significant progress in recent years, martial arts still stand out of the data game. Try searching for a database of Vietnamese fighters, from kickboxing to vovinam, from Muay Thai to karate – you'll be shocked by the emptiness. Names like Nguyễn Trần Duy Nhất or rising faces often appear in newspapers with only a few summary lines and zero accompanying statistics. Looking internationally, how major organizations like the UFC or Glory operate is a lesson. They start by collecting minimal data from every fight: weight, height, reach – that's basic; then strength, speed, endurance. They even analyze the blinking frequency of fighters to detect attack intent. Pre-fight analyses are nearly precise, and fans receive scientific explanations for every move. Some analysts might say: 'Experience cannot be replaced by numbers.' True, but data also cannot replace experience – they complement each other. One cannot use stats to measure courage, but can use them to explain why a fighter wins despite being hit more. Martial arts remains an art, but it needs a new language to enter the 21st century – the language of data. The emptiness of the analysis system above is a wake-up call. It reveals that while football and other major sports are entering the fourth industrial revolution, martial arts is still drowning in the dark hole of fundamental deficiencies. We need a revolution in mindset, a change from the grassroots: from training referees and coaches to log numbers, to building a national database for each discipline. There must be mandatory rules about publishing fight statistics as part of the event license. Martial arts federations should adopt models from other sports to create a common standard. Sports media needs to be equipped with data mining skills, not just cheerleading. Fighters should be guided early in their careers about the importance of tracking and analyzing personal achievements. Data darkness is not a destiny. It is a result of apathy, underinvestment, and a conservative mindset that is holding Vietnamese martial arts back. When we admit that 'information is power' in any field, martial arts is no exception. If we do not act, we will continue to receive empty analysis reports, and fans will forever lack a true picture of their idols. The philosopher George Santayana once said: 'Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.' In martial arts, without data about the past, we keep repeating old mistakes and never learn from success. I want to emphasize: the empty chair never lies – it only exposes what we don't want to hear. An analysis with eight dimensions all unrated is an empty chair staring at our face; ironically, it speaks not about the fight but about ourselves – those who refuse to document. I still recall mispronouncing a Thai fighter's name, which made the audience laugh. I quickly corrected it, but the embarrassment lingered. The lesson I drew is: every mispronunciation is a system trying to say something. Here, Vietnam's martial arts system is mispronouncing its own name by not recording data. It is erasing itself from the map of modern sport. The empty season is not without audiences – it lacks the data of the heart. Martial arts arenas are still full, but that passion is not being converted into material for development. We need something more enduring than fleeting emotions: a system of documentation and operational information. Finally, every fighter deserves to be seen as an individual with a story, not just a passing figure in the ring. To do that, we must first record every strike, every step, every moment. Only then can martial arts truly cross the threshold of professional sport, and the empty chairs in the analysis room will gradually be filled with the light of knowledge.