Vietnamese Martial Arts in a New Arena: Between Heritage and Trust

A weekend night in Da Nang, just as the arena lights came on, I sat in the fourth row, close enough to see sweat rolling down the shoulder of a young fighter. He stood in the corner, eyes closed, arms loose, lips moving through words no one but him could hear. The stands went silent in that instant, the instant before the music swelled and the whole hall roared. I have sat in many stands. Hoa Xuan stadium in pouring rain in 2026, when SHB Da Nang stood on the edge of relegation. The Moscow stands in the summer of 2026, where I learned to listen with my eyes and see with my ears. The empty stadiums of the pandemic, when V.League paused and players trained on dust-covered pitches. Each place taught me something, but the silence before a person steps into a fight with himself is always the same. It is not loud. It is only heavy. After forty-two years holding a pen, I still believe martial arts do not begin at the bell. They begin in some gym, on a morning no one witnesses, when a child first learns to hold a stance until the legs tremble and he dares not cry out. Tonight, on the arena floor, that moment returned in a grown man. And I sat there to retell what the scorecard will never tell. That arena was inside a hall in central Vietnam, not far from the Han River. Outside, motorbikes packed the entrance, horns and laughter mixing together. Inside, some two thousand spectators filled the stands, most of them young. They carried no banners for any team. They carried phones, and names. This is the landscape I have followed for more than a decade: Vietnamese martial arts are changing shape. On one side sits heritage, Vovinam, the schools of Binh Dinh, family gyms passed down through generations, where people learn the art before they learn to win. On the other side sits the professional wave, MMA, boxing, muay, sanda, events with contracts, broadcast rights, sponsors printing logos on fighting gear. Where those two currents meet, and how, is the question I wanted to put on the table all night. In a night like that, many things never reach the big screen. No one broadcasts the corner coach whose hands shake when his student takes a hit. No one broadcasts the mother in the last row who cannot look up. No one broadcasts the losing fighter in the locker room, staring at his phone, reading what strangers write about him. Those are the gaps I want to fill. Football taught me that a match lasts ninety minutes, but the story lingers for decades. Martial arts are the same, except they compress everything into a few short rounds, where a small mistake can end a career. That is why I always seek the people behind the record, the ones the media mention only when they win and forget the moment they lose. To understand Vietnamese martial arts today, I start where few want to look: the gyms. A gym in Quy Nhon, less than two kilometres from the sea, opens at five in the morning. The wooden floor is worn, the smell of sweat and liniment blended together. There I met a teacher who has spent more than twenty years tied to the Binh Dinh fighting schools. He told me something I recorded word for word: 'Teaching martial arts today is harder than it used to be, because children do not lack strength, they lack a reason to endure pain.' That sentence opened up an entire ecosystem. At the lowest level are small gyms, where children learn martial arts like any sport, sometimes just so their parents can rest easy. In the middle are professional training centres, where young fighters are scouted, housed, and drilled by a programme. At the top are events with television, sponsors, and names repeated on social media. Between those three layers lies a gap many young people never cross, not because they are weak, but because there is no bridge. I once watched a fourteen-year-old boy come down from a mountain district to the city, carrying a cloth bag and a pair of frayed gloves. He trained at a centre, slept there, ate there. Three years later, he had his first professional bout. That is a beautiful story. But beside it are dozens of others, where that same boy went home after six months because he missed his family, because of injury, because no one explained to him where he was going. The point I want to stress is that Vietnam's talent pipeline runs on trust more than on money. There is no large-scale scouting system, no sufficiently strong national fighter database, no clear path from gym to professional contract. Instead there are personal relationships, teachers recommending students to one another, coaches calling an organiser to say: 'I have a kid, give him a chance.' That system is both warm and fragile. The economics of a martial arts gym in Vietnam is a harsh equation. Rent, electricity, equipment repairs, coach salaries, all steady each month. Meanwhile, revenue comes mainly from recreational class fees and a few small sponsorship deals. Top professional fighters can make a living, but most people training in the middle layer must take other jobs to get by. I sat down with an event organiser in Ho Chi Minh City. He told me about the cost of a fight night: renting the hall, staging, lighting, sound, medical staff, security, media, fighter purses. He said: 'I do not make money from the fighters. I make money from the audience, and I give it back to the fighters through a decent arena.' That is a fine way to put it, and I believe he meant it. But I also understand that when revenue is not yet large enough, the one who pays last is usually the one who steps onto the floor. Transfers are not numbers. They are partings written in contracts. In martial arts it is even harsher, because many fighters have no agent, no lawyer, no one to read the contract aloud to them. One wrong signature can bind a young person for years, keeping them from fighting elsewhere, or forcing them into unfavourable terms. On rules and governance, Vietnamese martial arts are at a stage I call 'shaping identity'. Domestic events apply many different rule sets, from international MMA rules to variations specific to traditional arts. This creates richness, but also inconsistency. A fighter used to one rule set can be lost under another, and sometimes even referees need time to adapt. I once saw a fight end in controversy, with fans booing a referee's decision. But rather than blaming an individual, I want to look at the system. Referee training, pre-fight medical checks, weigh-ins, all need a common standard. When that standard is clear, fan trust rises, and that trust is the foundation for sustainable growth. Medical checks are the story that troubles me most. Across many fight nights, I noticed fighters were screened, but the depth of screening varied between events. Some did it carefully, some did it loosely. In a sport where a blow to the head is part of the game, that difference is not small. It is the line between a career and an irreversible injury. Brain health is a topic I believe will become central in the coming years. Around the world, much has been said about repeated-impact injury. In Vietnam, that discussion has only just begun. I do not want to frighten anyone, but I want young people stepping onto the floor to understand that their bodies are not infinite. A wise fighter knows when to stop, and knows how to prepare for the day he no longer competes. Speaking of the day one no longer competes, I remember a retired fighter I met at a café by the Han River. He had once been the hope of a small province, once called a 'gem' by the press. Then a knee injury, then two years of silence, then he vanished from the papers. He told me: 'People remembered my name when I won. No one called to ask what I ate on the day I lost.' I sat and listened, and understood that behind every medal is a person with medal-less days. The psychology of fighters is a territory Vietnamese media have not mined properly. During the pandemic, the stands were empty, but I never heard the hearts of fans more clearly. That day, I sat in a gym with no spectators, only the sound of breathing and fists on the heavy bag. A young fighter told me he trained not to win, but so he would not feel invisible. That sentence made me realise that martial arts, at their deepest layer, are a way for a person to affirm that he exists. On media, I see a paradox. Domestic events grow more professional in organisation, but the storytelling remains simple. People focus on results, on knockouts, on social media confrontations. Few spend time telling of an ordinary training day, of a quiet teacher, of a mother waiting for her child after each fight. Those stories do not generate instant views, but they generate loyalty. The new generation of fans does not sit in the stands the old way. They watch the livestream, comment, and cut clips. They do not need a commentator to tell them how to feel. They choose who they love, and they love by sharing. I once saw a young fighter rise after a single short clip online, though he had never won a title. That made me think about how fame is made in this era. I do not think online fame is fake. I think it reflects a real need. Young people want to see themselves in the people who step onto the floor: those from places no one remembers, those who train while worrying about food and rent, those who lose more than they win. When a fighter admits he once suffered depression, he does not weaken his image, he makes it truer. And the true, in sport, is the heaviest thing of all. Every drumbeat in the stands is a heartbeat of the city where the fight happens. In Da Nang, I feel that more clearly than anywhere. This city taught me that a team, a gym, an event does not live on revenue alone. It lives on the trust of people who give their time, their money, their emotions. In 2026, when SHB Da Nang fell into crisis with a record-low points tally after twenty-two rounds, I did not rush to criticise. I invited former stars, the supporters' association, and club leaders to sit together at a café by the Han River. That open dialogue helped keep three key players. And I learned that sometimes the most important task of a sports writer is to open a circle, not to hand down a verdict. The same is happening in martial arts. When a fighter steps onto the floor, behind him are a gym, a teacher, a family, a small community. If we look only at the result, we miss nearly the whole story. And that missed story is where this sport truly lives. I want to spend the rest of this piece on what I believe is the biggest misunderstanding outsiders have of Vietnamese martial arts. There is a persistent stereotype that Vietnamese martial arts belong to the past, to pretty demonstrations, to forms that no longer have a place in the professional arena. That stereotype errs in asking the wrong question. The issue is not whether tradition still fits, but whether we have the patience to translate tradition into the language of the age. I once watched an elderly master observe an MMA bout. He did not fully grasp the rules, but he recognised something many young fans overlook: the guard, the management of distance, the breathing. He told me: 'The new does not erase the old. It only asks the old whether it still remembers who it is.' I think that holds for both sides. Young people training MMA can learn much from traditional schools about discipline and endurance. And those tied to tradition can learn from the young about reaching audiences and telling stories. The second misunderstanding is the belief that winning and losing are the only measure. I have seen fighters with modest records loved more than champions, for how they fought and how they treated others after the bout. In a sport where the body is one's capital, a person who rises after defeat tells the audience more than a perfect record. A record can be padded, built on weak opponents, beautiful on paper yet hollow on the floor. The third misunderstanding, and perhaps the most dangerous, is the belief that Vietnam's martial arts community is a single, united, pure bloc. I have sat long enough in gyms to know otherwise. There are disputes between schools, tensions between old and new, fighters exploited by those who only want to use them for promotion. If I painted an all-pink picture, I would betray the truth. And the truth, however hard to hear, is the only thing worth writing. What I have learned from my years covering Vietnamese sport is that community is not always beautiful. Fans can be cruel to a young player after a single mistake. Audiences can turn their backs on a fighter after a single loss. But precisely in those moments, I see a chance to tell a more honest story, one that neither glosses over nor blackens, but simply listens. Sitting in the Moscow stands, I learned to listen with my eyes and see with my ears. That night in Da Nang, I applied that lesson again. I did not look at the scorecard. I looked at the coach's hands as he wrapped his student's fists. I looked at how a fighter bowed to his opponent after being knocked down. I heard the panting in the back row, an older man telling his son that losing does not mean it is over. Those details never reach the scorecard, but they are the soul of this sport. When Hoa Xuan stadium burst into tears, I understood that a brand is not a logo but trust. I carried that lesson into martial arts. An event can have a beautiful logo, big sponsors, international broadcast. But if the audience does not believe that those who step onto the floor are treated fairly, cared for, respected, then that logo is just a drawing. Trust cannot be bought with advertising money. It is built only with time and with kindness. I think about the young people training in gyms across Vietnam right now. Some train for the dream of becoming a champion. Some train to escape a difficult situation. Some train because there they found their first friends in life. Each carries a private reason, and all those reasons deserve to be told seriously. That is my job, and I want to do it until I can no longer hold a pen. The fight night ended. The young fighter I mentioned at the start won by a narrow decision. He raised his arm, smiled, then knelt and kissed the floor. The crowd cheered. But what I remember most is not that victory. What I remember most is the moment before the music rose, when he stood in the corner, eyes closed, and the whole hall fell silent. In that silence was a question every fighter must answer alone: what am I fighting for? That question has no shared answer. For one, it is family. For another, honour. For yet another, simply the feeling of being true to himself for a few short minutes. And perhaps, precisely because there is no shared answer, Vietnamese martial arts still have much to say. They do not need a single answer. They need people patient enough to sit down and listen. I left the hall close to midnight. Outside, the Da Nang air was still warm. A group of young fans stayed behind, taking photos with a fighter who had just lost. I watched for a while. None of them mentioned the result. They only asked if he was hurting, and promised to see him at the next fight. That is the signal I want to track in the coming months: whether Vietnam's martial arts community is mature enough to love a person even when he loses. If the answer is yes, the future of this sport will be written in trust, not in numbers on a scorecard.