Curious About Martial Arts vs MMA

**Storiale** · 02-16-2012, 13:33

It seems that MMA has become very respected and popular lately, and with good reason. However, the arts are truly that - an art; while MMA is more of a sport. Little respect by practitioners of MMA, little attention to "defense-only" spirit.

However, the martial arts seem to be getting a very bad rap lately in that many high ranking martial artists are getting their rear-ends whooped by MMA guys.

There is a lot of value in self defense techniques, not used in MMA. It just seems like anyone that says they study one martial art is disregarded nowadays, but it takes so much time to get good enough to be competitive in MMA. Tough to know what style to take in today's culture.

Are most people aware of MMA or is it that I am familiar with it, so it seems like the rest of the world has less respect for the traditional arts?

**Abbax8** · 02-16-2012, 14:31

MMA is on TV, Pay per View, the internet and is a money making proposition. Martial Arts are for the most part hidden in a corner and many Martial Artists are truly misinformed about the diffetrent styles.Some of the public think Kung Fu or the Matrix are reality in M.A.

As for Martial Artists being beat by MMA fighters, I find that a strange observation. MMA fighters are Martial Artists. It is just that they train for full contact and cover all the ranges - Grappling to Striking. Many Martial Arts students have little or no experience in all the ranges. Couple that with the light to no contact found in schools and it is understandable how thye will lose in the Ocatagon.

Dennis

**nirgle** · 02-16-2012, 15:01

Originally Posted by Storiale

Are most people aware of MMA or is it that I am familiar with it, so it seems like the rest of the world has less respect for the traditional arts?

Yeah, this is the most common conversation I have these days with the few people who know about my training. I don't let the conversation go longer than a minute. I make clear the difference between sport and war, the fact that every target that we train to strike in combat is against the rules in the octagon, and leave it at that. There is no alternative ending to the convo that is anything but a waste of time.

**Erik** · 02-16-2012, 18:45

Think of Martial Arts as being the big set of all types of martial arts, sporty, artsy, meditative kata only, and so on.

MMA as a concept is mixed martial arts so it is a sub-set of this bigger Martial Arts set.

MMA as defined by UFC/WEC/King of the Cage/etc. is a specific subset of Martial Arts in general.

As mentioned above, these guys train hard for full-contact. Stereotypical Karate, TKD, etc., does not train to that level in terms of competition with another person and in terms of intensity. They could. Some are really intense and do train to a high level. Chuck Liddell and the whole SLO Kickboxing group train a subset of Kajikempo from an honest-to-goodness Kajikempo instructor (John Hackleman). They just call it kickboxing or MMA in the public world but on the the gym it reads "Kajikempo" (but spelled correctly).

And, not to give Jason a hard time

, I wouldn't consider aiki jujisu as war any more or less than modern MMA. I've bounced with a lot of MMA guys (the kajikempo clique and some others) and, believe me, their (our) fighting is absolutely completely real, even against knives, bottles, chairs, drunken SEALs and SWAT cops, and so on.

Doing a pop-double-leg takedown on cement can crack the guy's head open like an egg and kill him. Armbars, when done aggressively, break elbows and sometimes shoulders. Choking someone out and holding it a bit causes brain damage or death. A good overhand right causing a knockout disables the opponent and you can kill him with your next attack if you want. Ken Shamrock's phenomenal super-fast takedown (26 seconds?) at UFC way back when could have killed the other guy if it were on wood or cement. That's "just" a kata-garuma or firemans' carry (same thing). MMA is real martial arts, make no mistake.

I hope this helps.

**RickMatz** · 02-16-2012, 19:04

An anecdotal story about a mixed martial artist having a go at a traditional MA master after the latters seminar.

**Abbax8** · 02-17-2012, 09:10

An oldie but a goodie!

Dennis

**Erik** · 02-17-2012, 11:18

I'm trying to imagine being choked by a shoelace. I wonder if it's holding the hands together and they're doing the choking, kind of like an Ezekiel choke (holding one of the sleeve cuffs or a watchband).

**RickMatz** · 02-17-2012, 11:48

Originally Posted by Erik

I'm trying to imagine being choked by a shoelace. I wonder if it's holding the hands together and they're doing the choking, kind of like an Ezekiel choke (holding one of the sleeve cuffs or a watchband).

I don't imagine that it would be very pleasant.

**Storiale** · 02-18-2012, 01:02

Great comments all.

**jjaje** · 02-21-2012, 09:13

Also, there have been high level examples, again and again, of traditional martial arts basics being spectacular fight finishers in the UFC (and other places) - Just look at Randy Coutures last fight.

**kbarrett** · 02-26-2012, 16:36

I think just about everybody cross trains in other martial arts now a days, my primary style is Tang Soo Do, but I've also trained in Jujutsu, Boxing and Wrestling. And if you look at just about eveybody on Budoseek you'll see that most train in different styles of martial arts. As for contact in sparring, again that's really up to the instructor on how much contact they"ll allow during sparring, my personnel feeling is that no contact is a waste of time, and light contact doesn't fill the bill either, so some good controlled contact for me and my students it the way we training, even when sparring with weapons, but again everybody does thing differently.