Why aren't there more MMA fighters who use chinese martial arts?

[Greco-Roman]

Have you ever wondered why the MMA world is dominated by Muy thai,BJJ,TJJ,wrestling and boxing practitioners?Where are all the Gung fu fighters; are their styles not suited for this kind of sport?You would think that there would be at least some San Shou fighters because that's a full contact sport.The only MMA fighter that I can think of who uses CMA is Jason Delucia,but I don't even know if he still fights.Your thoughts on why the CMAs aren't represented in the MMA world.

[Yang Wei Xin]

http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=5248&page=1&pp=20
this thread covers this subject.

basically, since kung fu contains all the hand strikes, kicks, takedowns, and ground work that exists in mma, they actually are using cma.

see
shuai jiao
chin na
san da

also, kung fu techniques tend to focus on moves that are illegal in mma, groin strikes, eye gouges, joint strikes, open hand chokes, open hand strikes.

[khujo78]

i did choy li fut for 4 years and, short answer, many chinese arts dont practice the way they do in the mma arts. in the first ufcs, for example, the only things illegal were pretty much eye gouges and biting. the main arts that dominated then, dominate now (though everyone seems to practice the same thing nowadays). also, don't believe for one sec that those practicing "mma arts" couldn't do eye strikes, throat strikes, joint locks, etc if they wanted to. many of the submission techniques are very dangerous and all one has to do is continue to use the technique if there is no tapout rule, and much more damage could occur.
another reason is that much kung fu practices techniques that dont flow like an mma fight, until they do sparring. and, as I've stated before, the sparring looks very little like the actual techniques (which tend to be stationary) and more like...fighting. the core of chinese arts don't focus on this type of fighting, so a cmaist would have to change his/her whole curriculum to fight in these events. However, I do think a san shou fighter could do well because that is a good standup and takedown foundation to have. There are san shou tournaments, but i'm not sure why they dont do ufc fighting .

[Greco-Roman]

It would be interesting to see more Gung fu fighters in the UFC,sometimes watching the striking can get boring.Everybody throws the basic left,right,upper cut,jab,front kick,head kick,shin kick combinations.Every now and then a fighter will throw in a spinning back kick or fist and make things exciting.

[siouxnyc]

1. training methodology. you fight how you train, and no MMA fighter wants to train in something that isn't aclimating him to the stresses of hard combat.

2. practical contribution. what do the aforementioned CMA's have to offer the MMA athlete that he doesn't already get from MT, boxing, BJJ, wrestling, et al.? The answer is: not eye gouges and groin strikes, which are illegal in any MMA competition.

[Yang Wei Xin]

in the first ufcs, for example, the only things illegal were pretty much eye gouges and biting. the main arts that dominated then, dominate now (though everyone seems to practice the same thing nowadays). also, don't believe for one sec that those practicing "mma arts" couldn't do eye strikes, throat strikes, joint locks, etc if they wanted to. many of the submission techniques are very dangerous and all one has to do is continue to use the technique if there is no tapout rule, and much more damage could occur.

this is one hundred percent correct, its just that most cma's do not have a sporting aspect to practice. they focus mainly on the illegal stuff. whereas jiujutsu does have the illegal stuff, it also has the sport aspect.

beyond the technical reasons, i think a lot of chinese martial artist do not compete in ufc because it has no real bearing on what they are trying to accomplish. if you want to be a famous fighter, mma is great. but if your goal is to live as long and as healthy as possible, signing up to fight in the ufc isn't the best move. even the great fighters get awful injuries. cauliflower ear, busted noses, strained joints, it just doesn't add up to being healthier than you already are.

also, if you look up historical fighting tournaments in china, you will see that quite a few tournaments ended with dead fighters, which goes to show that the chinese were not the best at dumming down their techniques for sport aspect, and that alot of them took their systems reputation very seriously and were willing to kill to keep it. this is why you don't see an abundance of full contact fighting in cma.

[Greco-Roman]

Yang Wei Xin could it be that the striking and grappling techniques taught in CMAs aren't up to par with those taught in MMA?Can an open palm strike to the body or the head really do as much damage as a fist?Don't get me wrong I know that a palm strike to the chin can do some serious damage to the average person but what about to a trained athlete who takes strikes to the head all day?The way I see it is that CMA fighters don't compete in MMA fights because many CMA are not complete systems and they don't teach the best way to fight.

[Kevin]

Well, palm strikes were discusses on this site before, and most of the times they were brought up it was generally agreed that they weren't really more or less powerful than punching. They are a bit harder to do and you are a bit less likely to break arm, wrist or hand bones, but don't think that switching punching to palm heels or palm heels to puching would yield some dramatic upshot in effectiveness.

To the list of reasons why MMA fighters train the style(s) they do, you can add envirnmental selection and the training of the coaches - if you want an MMA coach, someone who does tai chi may be an effective practitioner but doesn't know MMA like the MMA gym coaches do.

[khujo78]

also, if you look up historical fighting tournaments in china, you will see that quite a few tournaments ended with dead fighters, which goes to show that the chinese were not the best at dumming down their techniques for sport aspect, and that alot of them took their systems reputation very seriously and were willing to kill to keep it. this is why you don't see an abundance of full contact fighting in cma.

actually there still are tournaments in chinese arts which are drummed down exactly for that reason. the arts you see in these mma fights began as arts used to injure or kill people, looking up historical tournaments in any country or art would bring the same conclusion. however the issue is why it isn't used in tournaments TODAY. The 'too dangerous' argument has been beaten to death, but it would not be smart to believe arts used in mma fights dont also have dangerous and lethal techniques, more so even than kung fu. Nothing could be more watered down than striking air, and those actually practicing contact with another person would be more apt to apply the more dangerous techniques since their practice has already focused on hurting people. they just have to take it to another level.

[sean_stonehart]

It would be interesting to see more Gung fu fighters in the UFC,sometimes watching the striking can get boring.Everybody throws the basic left,right,upper cut,jab,front kick,head kick,shin kick combinations.Every now and then a fighter will throw in a spinning back kick or fist and make things exciting.

A CMA fighter probably won't look much different.

[sean_stonehart]

Yang Wei Xin could it be that the striking and grappling techniques taught in CMAs aren't up to par with those taught in MMA?Can an open palm strike to the body or the head really do as much damage as a fist?Don't get me wrong I know that a palm strike to the chin can do some serious damage to the average person but what about to a trained athlete who takes strikes to the head all day?The way I see it is that CMA fighters don't compete in MMA fights because many CMA are not complete systems and they don't teach the best way to fight.


<Mod Mode On>

The way I see it is it's best not to troll these forums. If you want to tout the perceived excellence of MMA in a competative arena... take it to the MMA forum, Bullshido or Sherdog. Baiting people with inflammatory statements like above won't increase your length of stay around here.

Consider your self informed & warned.

<Mod Mode Off>

[khujo78]

and dont get me wrong, i believe if practiced correctly cmas could be very effective and extremely dangerous. they're just not for the 'cage'.

[Yang Wei Xin]

Yang Wei Xin could it be that the striking and grappling techniques taught in CMAs aren't up to par with those taught in MMA?Can an open palm strike to the body or the head really do as much damage as a fist?Don't get me wrong I know that a palm strike to the chin can do some serious damage to the average person but what about to a trained athlete who takes strikes to the head all day?The way I see it is that CMA fighters don't compete in MMA fights because many CMA are not complete systems and they don't teach the best way to fight.

There is so much wrong with this statement i don't even know where to begin.

since when did chinese kung fu not have punches? palm and knifehand strikes are used only to specific targets because they fit the contours of the area better. there are some incomplete cma systems, but not all of them, and to assume so is foolish. and as for the striking and grappling not being up to par with those in mma, they are the same, no differences, cma encompasses a huge amount of knowledge.

chin na-the art of siezing and locking(basically chinese jiujutsu, uses all the same principles)
shua jiao-chinese wrestling(a combo of judo and greco roman, which some say is one of its roots)
chuan fa-the fist methods or kung fu systems, usually focused on striking in combination with siezing and locking, with a throw at the end.

and khujo, i really am not taking anything away from mma, it is the closes thing to a street fight available in competition form. if you want to compete in mma, then an mma coach is the person to talk to, not karate, not kung fu, not muay thai, not jiujutsu, it has to be a person who focuses solely on that form of competition, a person who studies only the aforementioned arts may do well, but will not be as focused on the necessary tactics for that particular situation.

i also realize that ive been trying to speak for too many people, i don't know why other chinese martial artists don't compete in mma. i know why i don't. a)im not a professional fighter b)my focus is longevity, health, and self defense c)even the best mma fighter gets hurt almost every match

personally tho, i would like to do some more sparring of the mma type, ive been doing tournaments for the past 7 years, and used to compete in a lot of 2 minute domination (basically sanshou for open tournaments), but there was no groundfighting, just takedowns. then 2 minute basically disappeard and was replaced by point muay thai and point kickboxing, both were continuious but neither had the whole package. now im starting to see more and more sport jiujitsu at tournaments, which from what ive seen is pretty cool, it has striking kicking takedowns and groundwork. they just limit the amount of time you can spend on the ground. i personally don't focus alot on fighting with a downed opponent, because once they are down, i can run away, what i do practice a lot of is escaping from jiujitsu holds, because i know there are a lot of you out there, and not being knowlegeable in your stuff would be foolhardy on my part. :bandit:

[Greco-Roman]

[QUOTE=sean_stonehart]<Mod Mode On>

The way I see it is it's best not to troll these forums. If you want to tout the perceived excellence of MMA in a competative arena... take it to the MMA forum, Bullshido or Sherdog. Baiting people with inflammatory statements like above won't increase your length of stay around here.

Consider your self informed & warned.

Wow I though this was a forum where a person could express their views freely but I guess not.What is wrong with the statement I made;just because I don't think CMAs aren't as well rounded as MMA fighting it make's it inflammatory?Come on you are way to sensitive.

[Cory Nyenhuis]

Has anyone ever thought about the cultural aspect of cma. My teacher said once that kung fu is taught differently in China than the martials arts are taught in Japan or America or any where else. In China students were taught slower than most of us might be used to, I have heard that you are considered a beginer until you have been training for more than ten years. How many mma fighters have been training for more than ten years? Many of the books I have read say that self defence and fighting ability are the secondary by product of training in which long life and good health are the primary concerns. Maybe some of these factors get rubbed off on the cma practitioners. You could also look at it like this, most martial arts are descended from Chinese arts(please correct me if I am wrong), so there is lots of kung fu in mma

[Cameron]

Wow I though this was a forum where a person could express their views freely but I guess not..


It is, when you voice your opinion maturely and in a respectful manner, which you fail to do. In fact, the only thing you have succeeded in doing is making several inane posts about what you think is wrong with various subjects.

[Lame Leopard]

http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=5248&page=1&pp=20
this thread covers this subject.

basically, since kung fu contains all the hand strikes, kicks, takedowns, and ground work that exists in mma, they actually are using cma.

see
shuai jiao
chin na
san da

also, kung fu techniques tend to focus on moves that are illegal in mma, groin strikes, eye gouges, joint strikes, open hand chokes, open hand strikes.

This is about as succinct,and accurate, as it can get. What you see in MMA matches, is taught in kung fu, if you take it as a generic term, as well as other martial arts. Illegal octagon maneuvers are taught as perfectly legitimate in street encounters, by many systems, as the situation warrants. Grappling is taught in depth by my Chin Na instructor. For sure, grappling is not emphasized in some kung fu and other systems such as Tae Kwon Do, but some kung fu instructors and Tae Kwon Do instructors do teach it. Since we are using "kung fu" as a generic term, encompassing many systems, all systems are not going to use everything seen in UFC or PRIDE. Sometimes these rigid lines drawn between arts are too artificial. There are traditional systems who want to maintain the purity of the system without outside influences. I personally don't have a problem with that, but I think it can be a disadvantage. Personally, I like the Jun Fan Kung Fu/ JKD concept of using anything that works.

[Greco-Roman]

It is, when you voice your opinion maturely and in a respectful manner, which you fail to do. In fact, the only thing you have succeeded in doing is making several inane posts about what you think is wrong with various subjects.
Inane points?Why because you disagree with them?Dispute rather than attack Cameron,that would be a true sign of maturity.We should not be affraid to say that one M.A works better than another.It is just my opinion that MMA is a more complete system of fighting than most CMAs.

[Kevin]

Ok. That opinion is fine. In fact, there are probably plenty of people who share it (though I don't particularly have an opinion on this; I don't know enough yet). The problem is when you make sweeping generalizations that you don't support with any evidence in a manner that is not seen as respectful by some. Does that help? I'm not a moderator or anything, but hopefully I helped clarify.

[sean_stonehart]

Jack... have you ever heard "It's not what you say, but how you say it"?? I'm assuming not.

Bottom line... opinions are one thing... inflammatory by nature statements are another. This is a CMA forum, therefore anything considered inflammatory to CMA's & the practitioners of, especially the opinion of a person who does not practice a CMA are taboo.

Walk away from it... end of story. There is no further discussion necessary.

[Yang Wei Xin]

Has anyone ever thought about the cultural aspect of cma. My teacher said once that kung fu is taught differently in China than the martials arts are taught in Japan or America or any where else. In China students were taught slower than most of us might be used to, I have heard that you are considered a beginer until you have been training for more than ten years. How many mma fighters have been training for more than ten years? Many of the books I have read say that self defence and fighting ability are the secondary by product of training in which long life and good health are the primary concerns. Maybe some of these factors get rubbed off on the cma practitioners. You could also look at it like this, most martial arts are descended from Chinese arts(please correct me if I am wrong), so there is lots of kung fu in mma
good post cory,

there is an old saying that the first three years of kung fu are spent in horse stance.

[Greco-Roman]

Jack... have you ever heard "It's not what you say, but how you say it"?? I'm assuming not.

Bottom line... opinions are one thing... inflammatory by nature statements are another. This is a CMA forum, therefore anything considered inflammatory to CMA's & the practitioners of, especially the opinion of a person who does not practice a CMA are taboo.

Walk away from it... end of story. There is no further discussion necessary.

This a free country I can say whatever I like, I have not used any profanity and I have not insulted anyone.I you can not handle some constructive criticism then that is not my problem.Walk away from it... end of story. There is no further discussion necessary.

[Yang Wei Xin]

well you do have a point sort of, im not really insulted, a little dissapointed, but not insulted.

this thread got away from any real argument concerning cma's in mma a long time ago, if you wish to continure arguing over whether or not you are a dick, i suggest you start a new thread.

[jwinch2]

This a free country I can say whatever I like, I have not used any profanity and I have not insulted anyone.I you can not handle some constructive criticism then that is not my problem.Walk away from it... end of story. There is no further discussion necessary.

The difference is that you are a new member on this forum and you have been asked to change your manner of posing by a moderator who has been here a very long time.

I recognize that you are new here but please do your best to follow the forum rules that you agreed to when you joined. One of the things that we try to very hard to avoid here is "style bashing" of any kind. If that is what you want to do I suggest that you go to bullshido, mmatv, martial talk, or e-budo. Raising questions is one thing but we will not tolerate direct bashing here.

In addition, you were asked to drop the discussion by one of the moderators in charge of regulating this forum. You have chosen to reply anyway rather than change your ways.

Continued action of this kind will result in your being banned from this forum. Please consider this your last warning.

Thank you,

[CEB]

He is just a boy.

[sean_stonehart]

This a free country I can say whatever I like

Actually you're quite wrong. This is not a free country. It is a piece of cyberspace that is not governed by the Constitution's Bill of Rights. Therefore you may not say what you like here. That's the difference.


I have not used any profanity and I have not insulted anyone.

True you've not used profanity. You did however insult an entire section of practicing martial artists by insinuating that what they practiced was incomplete & ineffective because it wasn't used in modern fighting competitions as much as people assume it should be. You then proceeded to argue with me (moderator) over my telling you to knock it off.

You're acting like a high school kid. Noticing your age (19) I'm not suprised, therefore I'm treating you as such.


I you can not handle some constructive criticism then that is not my problem.

I can handle it just fine when there's something to be constructively criticized. You however are a petulent child.

You should've listened when I said to ...


Walk away from it... end of story. There is no further discussion necessary.

You didn't You reacted as I expected. Therefore...


YOU'RE GROUNDED!!! Take a few days (10 to be precise) off to reconsider how you conduct yourself here.

[Webmaster]

This a free country I can say whatever I like, I have not used any profanity and I have not insulted anyone.I you can not handle some constructive criticism then that is not my problem.Walk away from it... end of story. There is no further discussion necessary.
Jack:

Let me make myself extremely clear. You have been trolling. If you are not familiar with the term, let me lay it out for you. First, a troll is someone that posts or makes a comment that is intended to piss off a person or group. Second, when you come into the Chinese Martial Arts forum, announce that Chinese Martial Arts suck, you are intentionally trying to provoke a reaction. Third, our rules prohibit trolling. Therefore, you are in violation of the rules.

Let me tell you one more thing Junior. This may be a free country and you have the freedom of speech to say whatever you like, but you DO NOT have the right to be heard. Just because you say it does not mean that others have to listen.

Last, freedom of speech does not exist on my web site. Didn't read that right? Read it again. This web site, its software and everything about it belong to me. You are in essence a GUEST, and as such, you have only the rights and priveledges that I give you. Would you walk into someone elses home and begin to talk trash about them? Maybe you would, but you will not talk trash and disrespect others in MY HOUSE.

Are we clear on this? If not, I can arrange a vacation that will allow you time to think about it.

[Webmaster]

YOU'RE GROUNDED!!! Take a few days off to reconsider how you conduct yourself here.
Opps, we were posting at the same time. So we will go with the Grounding sentence! ;)

[sean_stonehart]

.... and with that, I believe this thread has run its course of usefullness.

And that's the way it is... January 26, 2006....

[kenpo123]

applause!!!! :toast: