MMA?

[dmattwads]

Ok I'm sure this topic has been covered many times before, but I could not find it on this forum (I did look). Anyways I was wondering why you do not see any kung fu practitioners compete in cage fights? Considering that in mixed martial arts you have a combination of stand up fighting and ground fighting, and from what I understand (I'm a karate guy) in kung fu there is chin na for the ground, as well as striking, why is this style not commonly seen in the mixed martial arts world?
I've heard the argument that MMA and TMA are not the same, but the all MMA is are martial arts, that are mixed together. MMA is not some new and novel thing, except for maybe being allowed to use multiple styles in a competition. Its just that the martial arts in the MMA mix seem to be a lot of BJJ, wrestling, and muy thai, which are all TMA. So why are not more Chinese, and Japanese traditional arts in MMA? Why not someone good at white crane, and chin na? Or karate and jujitsu (I know Machida does this, but he's about it), or Tae Kwon Do, and what ever ground fighting methods or wrestling they have over there in Korea? Or especially a soft marital art like Tai Chi, now that would really be cool.
So why don't we see this?

[John the Monkey mind]

There are some Wing Chun guys, most notably Alan Orr. I also met a guy at a martial arts expo in London who was using Chin Na and throws in his Wing Chun, I think he was a fighter to but cant remember his name right now.

[bowser666]

Dotn forget , Lyoto Machida , he does Kyokushin Karate I think, and Cung Le, who is a Sanda fighter. I think alot of the reason you dont see TMA in there more is that TMA is not meant for sport. Certain practitioners do not have the desire to modify their learning to accomodate a rule laden sport. Just my $.02 .

[dmattwads]

Yea I mentioned Machida in my post, and he is my favorite UFC fighter . Of course he also trained in BJJ which goes back to my previous point. Both karate and jujitsu are both TMA, but when you "MIX" them together you get MMA. Most MMA fighers often train in Mauy Thai, BJJ, and wrestling, all of which are TMA in and of themselves, but when you mix them together what do you get? MMA. So I think the debate about TMA vs MMA is sort of missing the point. I think what is really meant in most cases of the MMA vs TMA debate is does this one style on its own (TMA) stand up to a mixture of various styles (MMA). Well of course the person who is cross trained and more versitile is going to have the advantage, but keep in mind that person is trained in several TMA.
Someone who trains in only striking regarless of the style (karate, kung fu, boxing, ect...) is going to be at a severe disadvantage if the fight goes to the ground, simply because their fighting education is more one dimensional. Train that striker in some form of ground fighting as well, and now you have a "Mixed Martial Artist" .
On the other hand if you have someone who is only trained in ground fighting, they are also not a MMA fighter, and if a striker who also is cross trained in ground fighting goes against them, and especially if the fight stays standing up, then in the ground fighter only is going to be at a disadvantage.
I was watching "Enter the Dragon" staring Bruice Lee the other night and in the opening fight scene, Bruce Lee makes the other guy tap with an arm bar, and this movie was made back in 1973. Lee had it figured out, that a good martial artist is a mixed martial artist, which is why he cross trained in so many various styles.
I get tired of MMA people talking smack about Kung Fu. I do not train Kung Fu, but do respect the art. I believe that a truely proficent kung fu practitioner would be fully versed in not only the striking aspects of kung fu, but the chin na, ground fighting, take downs, and submission aspects of kung fu as well. So in essence a truely knowlegable kung fu fighter would be a mixed martial artist. I know and have seen the you tube videos of the Gracies handing kung fu guys their arses on a platter, but I don't think those fighters were good representatives of real kung fu, for if they had been where was the chin na? Same goes for those early UFC's where just about all the pure strikers were slapped around like little school girls.
What I think a lot of people forget is that the TMA were developed on battle fields, and what didn't work didn't usually survive (litterally), but as the transition was made from battle field martial arts to sport martial arts I think something was lost. Example, a lot of people do not know that true Okinawan karate has take downs. The original high kicks of TKD were developed to knock a rider off his horse on the battle field,but as these arts were modified for sport I believe something was lost. The Chinese government intentionally modified sport wushu to be more of a sport than a true martial art. Tae Kwon Do entered the Olympics and had to be modified so that it could be a sport, and not a battle field, and so on and so forth. Then MMA came along and held more to the rationale which developed the TMA in the first place which is "use what works, discard what does not".
So in conclusion I don't believe the TMA that MMA guys talk smack about are really the TMA's, which their MMA is built from, but the modified sport martial arts from which they evolved.

[John the Monkey mind]

I don't think MMA is comparable to TMA. I know of a guy (one of my wing chun teachers friends) who was a jujitsu player. He had an MMA bout he was the winner but he came to the conclusion that training for it had blunted his real street skills as the fight lasted some. In a real fight he would have broken something like fingers and that would be it. He gave up MMA then and there.

If you have seen the fight quest were they are in Israel they get told after being tested at the start that they are athletes but they would be dead for real as they were open to being stabbed when they tried to get people down.

MMA guys don't seem to know Chin Na or trapping. Kung Fu has not made it in the cage for a few good reasons. Half of what we train would be illegal, few people know the real deal and those that do don't want to be beaten on by some guy who looks like some type of grate ape. All sports fighting is mostly about money, think who gets a shot in boxing is all about who can win?

Also I once was told that the Gracies were challenged to a fight with no rules what so ever by a kung fu guy and said no. A padded cage suits ground fighters so you end up with poorly balanced fighters.
They say MMA is as real as it gets but it takes about half a second to see how unreal it is. I am not saying I am the best fighter but I am saying that if we had another Sun Lu Tang people would soon have another point of view.

[Josh Young]

MMA is an excellent arena for martial arts to test themselves in a manner that is still civil.

Nearly all of the arguments made against it, it being unrealistic, it being too safe, it having too many rules: can be made against classroom training.

I used to think little of MMA, but when I applied my logic to other things I found I was deluded and ignorant about the topic.

It is as good as it is bad and it can be a potent training tool for those who can approach it correctly.

Nearly all MMA moves are potentially lethal or maiming if you change the targeting just a little. Submission holds can easily remove and destroy limbs. Strikes can easily be directed towards more lethal areas like the throat and internal organs.

Basically the idea that MMA is has too many rules for TMA doesn't hold water. They guy who says he can't enter a friendly match because his art is too deadly is pathetic in my opinion. That argument is pathetic because if it applies to MMA matches, it applies to training and learning applications in a safe manner. The man who cannot chose his level of control, lethal verses non-lethal, is not very skilled mentally.

What is with the words Kung-Fu? it isn't even a martial arts specific term? I hear that people learn Kung-Fu and want to fall down laughing.

[John the Monkey mind]

The kung fu guy was more accurately a wing chun guy and I think he had trained other kung fu styles so I was not specific, to clarify I don't know him but one of my teachers did from the UK wing chun community.

Also the BJJ camp always uses the term kung fu or karate as a general term so I was talking in the same terms. Look at their youtube vids they beat a bunch of guys in silly style clothing with no comment but he trained kung fu ect. Of course MMA is a valid skill, my only objection to it is the hype that its "as real as it gets", its not more real than good full contact training its about the same.

Also I think the reasons TMA don't get involve stand, if you train mostly to hit the throat then enter an space were the arm bar is king and you have gloves your going to get a beating. My point is that if you train for sport (even MMA) you HAVE to target your training to that so it will change how you fight both on and off the street.

Yes MMA moves could really damage someone but if you train MMA and take someone to the ground who has a knife without adapting what you do your dead, if you train traditional jujitsu that is what the art was made to do so you wont ignore the danger as your training would have been in that direction. If you train traditional jujitsu and enter an MMA fight and don't adapt what you do you lose.

I would love to see more traditional MA guys in MMA fights but it seems unlikely as it takes a set of skill to enter any contest and TMA guys tend have other interests.

I totally agree it is a load of rubbish to say your style is to deadly to spare with ect but some styles are easier to adapt for safe fighting than others and things can be lost in translation. Just look what changed for a lot of sport karate its a very changed art from where it came from.

Really I didn't mean to get anyone's back up.

[Josh Young]

One thing I have seen, is that locally most MMA fighters are people who have done exceedingly well in street fights, and because of that choose to enter the ring.

I've seen TMA guys walk away from confrontations in the street avoid violence, but I have seen MMA guys go out looking for it.

Frankly training against an MMA person is mandatory to me, if one is going to be practical about real self defense. It is the most common fighting style on the street. Many people who have not faced an MMA fighter, think they can. I however do not think it is wise to categorize all MMA together, there is always someone better, faster, bigger or stronger.

In the old days a persons Kung-Fu reputation would not be made by books or seminars, rather it involved competition, that tended to be sporting, just like drills can be in class. I believe that the MMA setting is more traditional than modern TMA, which no longer seeks to prove itself in a competitive manner. I believe that many martial arts have degraded to a worthless level because the students and instructors do not put them to worthy tests anymore. The old ways show how, and it is through sporting competition.

Yang Jwing-Ming is an MMA practitioner, he practices multiple martial arts, thus his martial path is mixed. He is a Mixed Martial Artist, and a good one.

[John the Monkey mind]

I think I will take your advice when I am back in the UK and make some MMA friends for sparing, I take your point its what your most likely to face. Dr Yang mixes martial arts but I think its a bit of a stretch to put him in the MMA box as MMA now means more than just training a variate of styles (it has a lot of connection with cage fighting) lol that would make me an MMA fighter as well

I admit I have drilled boxing before just to give me a feel for likely opponents.

[dmattwads]

I agree with Josh that MMA now days is actually more like what TMA used to be in that it puts its skills to the most realistic test you can have with out suffering death or permanent injury. I think the lack of realist competition has caused a lot of TMA to atrophy.
I am about to move to another city and am debating what kind of MA training I would like to take up there. I have been debating either karate which is what I already do, kung fu, or Sambo. I like what Sambo has to offer in that its a modern military martial art and still gets to be tested in real combat regularly, so what works its kept and what does not work is thrown out, plus it combines striking and grappling, but I have not made a final decision yet.

[Urgeist]

Apologies for commenting on a thread Ive only scanned briefly. It seems to me, however, that, as a measure of worth, a more interesting question is not whether MMA or TMA are more effective in combat, but which martial arts elevate human consciousness / pursue enlightenment...? After all, what is the point of winning a fight if you are going to die anyhow?

[jpmaus]

Urgeist, of course you make the most important point, but just as a fun and silly question, what do you guys think: if you put a grand-grand-grand master of Shaolin Kung Fu, someone who had spent their whole life studying the art, into the UFC octagon against the Ice Man or GSP or Bj Penn, who would win??

[John the Monkey mind]

Urgeist, of course you make the most important point, but just as a fun and silly question, what do you guys think: if you put a grand-grand-grand master of Shaolin Kung Fu, someone who had spent their whole life studying the art, into the UFC octagon against the Ice Man or GSP or Bj Penn, who would win??

That is kinda an unfair question, If a 80 year old grand-grand master fights ect, Some guy in his 30's who has trained since 5 years old would be a better match. However I would love to see the Ice Man age 80 fighting the grand-grand master also age 80. That would give a better result and make more of a point.

The grate master Sun Lutang would have given the Ice Man a run for his money, read his biograph in the book "Xing Yi Quan Xue: The Study of Form-Mind Boxing " the guy was amazing and really tested his stuff.

Also people like Butcher Wang ect, sadly I don't think there are many like that around any more. As Dr Yang has said, so much has been lost and as one of the other commentators has said a lot of TMA has been untested for a long time now. I know a TMA guy who used to be involved with some really shady fighting and street fighting. Really scary guy to mess with even though he is a lot older now he is the last person I'd fight (or piss of if I could help it).

As Josh Young said a lot of good street fighters gravitate to MMA. Good fighters study MMA and get a reputation so other good fighters study MMA. TMA seems to attract people who aren't so focused on fighting so again people think you cant fight with it so they study MMA and so on.

If you find someone however who is ready to fight and really mess people up and who has talent and drive when they study TMA they become terrifying. Not saying that is a good thing, its why Dr Yang's Crane teacher stopped teaching. Luckily most TMA people just walk away from fights. The down side is that this means they are not as good at fighting as others who have less technical skill but fight more.

A good TMA guy who is looks to be real good is Duncan Leung although I guess Josh Young would say he is MMA.

Gary Lam is another really good fighter in the real world and perhaps more traditional. I am shore every one of you could list a few good TMA fighters with good reputations for fighting but little in the ring.

I guess the more you train TMA the less you want to fight.

[Urgeist]

I appreciate some of the ideas in this thread.

I just watched redbelt, which I highly recommend. Not only did the film resonate with me on many levels but it reminded me of what I think UFC as a representation of martial arts misses. UFC gives people the impression that martial arts are just about fighting. However, what hasalways drawn me to kung fu are, as I said, its spiritual qualities ie the way it can contribute to personal growth and psychological development. My first Gongfu teacher is someone I highly respect and that seems to me a higher praise than being able to beat everyone up.

[bowser666]

Well I felt I needed to get in on this discussion. It is my belief that TMA is more of a way of life as opposed to MMA. TMA's help you to think a certain way and to use your art only as a final means, to protect yourself or others that are too weak to protect themselves. I am not saying that all MMA fighters are this way, but , from my experience, they are typically brash, arrogant, and overly aggressive in all things. Many that I have met or even sparred with did not show a high level of sportsmanship. They seem almost like bar brawlers hoping for their 1 in a million chance to become the next Chuck Liddell etc...... Martial Arts is not just about kicking bottom and taking names. It's about being humble , and respectful of where your teachings come from. Many MMA fighters I think lack that. They are too cookie cutter these days , and sadly that comes with over-commercialization. I am all about training in MA, whether its MMA or TMA. Just keep it respectful..... For the record, I train Taijichaun, WuXing Chuan, and Longfist, so that must make me a MMA-ist too I suppose