Meaning:
To 'tilt at windmills' is to attack imaginary enemies.
Background:
Tilting is jousting. The expression 'tilting at windmills' derives from
Cervantes' Don Quixote - first published in 1604, under the title The
Ingenious Knight of La Mancha.
The novel recounts the exploits of would-be knight `Don Quixote' and his
loyal servant Sancho Panza who propose to fight injustice through chivalry.
It is considered one of the major literary masterpieces and remains a best
seller in numerous translations.
In the book, which also gives us the adjective quixotic (striving for
visionary ideals), the eponymous hero imagines himself to be fighting giants
when he attacks windmills.
...
The first figurative references to tilting at windmills, that is one where no
jousting took place, came in the 17th century. John Cleveland published The
character of a London diurnall in 1644 (a diurnall was, as you might expect,
part-way between a diary or journal):
"The Quixotes of this Age fight with the Wind-mills of their owne Heads."
The full form of the phrase isn't used until towards the end of the 19th
century; for example, in The New York Times, April 1870:
"They [Western Republicans] have not thus far had sufficient of an
organization behind them to make their opposition to the Committee's bill
anything more than tilting at windmills."
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Two thoughts exist in BJJ practitioners about the art's purpose: self-defense
vs. competition. Old-school folks like Royce Gracie, the three-time UFC
champion, called modern competitions a tag game. On the other hand, today's
IBJJF champs might claim that jiu-jitsu has grown by leaps and bounds since
its debut in the 90's and dismiss certain moves as dated drills of tilting
at windmills, falling hopelessly behind the state of the art.
