Are Traditional Martial Arts Underestimated in MMA?

I'm pretty sure that the OP and most people here are referring to the combat sport MMA (a combat sport involving stand up, clinch and ground fighting in it's ruleset) and not an art that encompasses fighting in all ranges, or cross training.

It's true that competitions involving fighting in all ranges isn't new, however it's format is new.

 

I don't see much difference between "cross training" and "MMA". Both share the same believe such as:

- No style boundary (instead of my style is better than your style).
- You learn whatever that you want to learn, and not whatever that your style wants you to learn (you are the master and not the slave of your style).
- Test your skill against people from different styles (instead of only commpete against people in your own style).
- Test your skill when you are still young (don't wait for 10 years to get into the ring).
- Use full contact sport format to test and polish your skill (no point system and light contact format).
- You spend most of your time doing the "integration" (use one art to help and set up the other art).
- You train "drills" and you don't train "forms" (both are formless art).
- You use equipment (weight) training to "enhance" your skill (both believe that strength can defeat 10 best skills).

 

Good post. I guess it is har for some to realise not much of a difference other than a coined phrase.

 

I think you guys are missing that most people here are referring to MMA as a combat sport, not a training concept like you guys seem to be. Maybe that's why people are talking past each other in these threads.

The OP was talking about the TMAs being underrepresented in the combat sport of MMA, not in the concept of 'cross-training'.

 

Some TMA guys believe that they will need to build a solid foundation first before they can get into combat training (I strongly disagree with this kind of thinking). They also believe that they should fight with their style flavor (such as a Taiji guy should fight with Taiji flavor). Unfortunately after many of them had spent 10 years to build their foundation (some style flavors are long term process), their tournament life is already over (too old to compete). They may end with a house with 20 feet deep foundation but no roof, an incomplete house which is not liveable.

IMO, some of the TMA guys training priority are wrong. You can always enhance your foundation when you are 80 years old, but you can't start to develop your combat experience when you are that old. When you are still young, you should fight as much as possible. This kind of thinking is missing in some of the TMA guy's mind.

We don't see many TMA guys in cage fight because they may think that they are not ready yet. The truth is when they think that they are ready, they may be too old to enter any cage fight. Of course some TMA guys may only interest in health, spiritual development, and not combat. This also reduce the possibility for us to see any TMA guys in the cage fight.

You are right, the difference is not in the "cross training" but in the "early stage skill testing by using the combat sport environment". When some MMA guys are rolling on the ground, some TMA guys are still hiting in the thin air (solo form training).

 

If people are training for it using a variety of methods, then it is a training concept no matter for sport or otherwise.

Training in multiple methods is cross training.

 

Well I'm of the opinion that many TMA's are already represented in MMA. The Western styles of wrestling and boxing go back hundreds of years. Muay Thai is the traditional MA of Thailand and Japanese styles like Judo and even BJJ are rooted in Japanese Jujutsu.

Of course I assume ppl are really referring to "exotic" "mystical" MA's like Kung Fu or Silat which don't have much sparring. Well even in many of these cases that's changing. Sanda and San Shou were originally introduced to test out Kung Fu styles and eventually it became a style on its own as ineffective techniques were weeded out.

Some TMA's seemed to have developed narrow forms due to other cultural reasons besides competitive fight techniques. Some are making a comeback but are being re-acclimated to full contact competition. Eventually though TMA's that do work will probably have to evolve to combat sports and in that sense will stop being "traditional".

In that sense "Traditional" MA will never be represented in combat sports.

 

Define traditional. Traditional martial arts were used for warfare and most civilians were not allowed to practice.

 

Very few martial arts these days have much of anything to do with "combat training" (and rightfully so, given the paradigms of combat in this era), so I'm not sure what to make of this.

As for "solid foundations", I'd hope that'd be the case in most anything, and not just "TMA". I can't imagine too many martial artists of any style doing otherwise; I've yet to hear of, say, an Olympic fencer of any caliber who didn't bother actually practicing how to fence. And no one can bother to count just how many basic straight punches even, say, a non-competitive boxer or karateka of intermediate proficiency, might throw over the time of his career in practice.

Maybe it's just me, but again, I'd hope that this'd be the case, regardless of style. The alternative situation (i.e., rather than applying what one has spent so much time practicing, one's training instead goes out the window and a half-baked attempt at something else and/or outright unskilled action is performed instead) is a problem for the competitor in *any* competition, and is a clear signal that something's gone wrong or is insufficient training-wise. It doesn't matter whether it happens in boxing, alpine biathlon, naginata, Olympic archery, kendo, MMA, or whatever one's art is.

 

Uhhhh, Didn't I already address that in the first two short paragraphs?

If you didn't get a sense of my definition of Traditional Martial Arts or what the definition of Traditional Martial Arts as it is being used in this thread I'll be willing to indulge in the defining the semantics but just once. I hate getting caught up in semantics.

I define Traditional Martial Arts as unarmed combat training that has been practiced for at least 100 years.

I believe this thread treats the term of "Traditional Martial Arts" to refer to unarmed forms of combat training probably limited to things such as Shaolin Kung Fu, Japanese Jujitsu, Kempo, Karate, Tae Kwon Do, etc. Martial arts that have an exotic, mystical, and Eastern appeal.

You probably define Traditional Martial Arts as encompassing both armed and unarmed combat. And you probably are just going to refer to pre-industrial combat training but that's just a guess.

 

I just wanted to make perfectly clear upon your position of this.

No offense or foul intended.

 

Ok boxing wrestling judo very popular in mma all older than 100 years

thank you come again.

 

So, MMA is traditional
....:woo:

 

yep

 

Greek Pancration, European catch wrestling, Old-school boxing, Japanese dojo-yaburi and tournaments... Those are all off the top of my head. I'm sure there are similar competition formats in every culture.
MMA has always been with us, and has always been the peacetime test of fighting ability. It preserves the spirit and attitude of the old warriors where many of those who call themselves traditionalists only preserve the dead poses.
I'd say it's as traditional as it gets.

 

Nicely put, not everyone has to do it, but people who dont putting down people who do, and pretending to be above the need to test your mettle, well it just isnt cricket,

 

QFT

 

Actually Yes, at least in its earlier Vale Tudo ruleset. I think it would be considered a TMA by my defintion.
Boothfighting and NHB contests by roaming carnivals with their designated
Hookers (don't you dare laugh)
http://www.fortunecity.com/olympia/botham/277/submission_grappling.htm

If you want to include Pancration as MMA it actually predates Shaolin Kung Fu.

 

I've actually only been here a short while and I've been told by countless people here already that TMA doesn't work because it doesn't work in MMA fights. All MMA is and ever was is a marketing excercise by the Gracie's and sure in the ring they're right but on the other side of things from a TMA perspective they're very not.

You might tell me that they're the best at what they do, but as someone who focuses on technique I'd actually say a lot of ring technique comes across as being very sloppy. I'd say from a technical perspective that MMA fighters are about the worst examples of martial artists out there I'd further say that it's far from being about brute strength and that you can only strike well once your a good technician. To me that is what TMA gives you that a lot of MMA gyms don't focus on.

As for TMA not working, sure you need throws, take downs or etc, you need to understand how what you're doing does convert into practical situations but that's something by this day and age that should have occured in most TMA and that most TMA should have done otherwise you begin to question it's validity outside of being an art form much like Tai Chi. That's why I train what I train and if anyone questions why I train as such I point them to the countless examples of trained professionals who use the style I train in on a day to day basis. Martial Arts is exactly that Art(s) and when you take the s out of it, sure you end up with a style that may not have a practical application but on the other hand when you're instructor is willing to understand and apply that you do in the end, end up with a practical martial arts form.

You might call that mixed martial arts, but if you go to that extent what do you call TMA? Nothing really is TMA because I can tell you right now my Mawashi Geri is being practiced even in Thai Boxing as are my snap punches, Mae Geri's, throws, yuksu's and whatever else Go Ju, Shotokan, Tae Kwon Do, Judo,Jujitsu, Budo, whatever. In the end it really becomes the TMA practitioner and not the style, TMA on it's own is fine.

TMA from a Japanese perspective at least has been perfect over the last 600 years, and you standing here and now with possibly a belt as a Renshi or a Dai-Renshi, or whatever else are going to tell me that they're wrong? This is where I have to respectfully disagree... people have studied the practical applications of attacks over this time period in TMA, there are only a limited number of attacks and a limited number of ways in which ones body can move. There is nothing much at all to be learnt that is new from MMA. There is nothing that the Gracies have taught us that wasn't in Jujitsu/Judo or whatever else over the same time period. You stand here today and want to throw out tradition with the bath water? I have to humbly disagree with the majority of people who use that rhetoric.

 

You have no idea what you're talking about.
Vale Tudo, Pride, Shooto, IFL, Strikeforce, WEC, Amateur MMA, Sanshou, K1, Hero's, M1, Affliction, Pancrase, Catch Wrestling, Combat Sambo. This is a small list of MMA formats and organizations which have nothing to do with the UFC, many of which predate it by years. Yes, the UFC was a sales-pitch for the Gracies, and yes, it brought MMA into the mainstream in the US. This does not mean it represents all of MMA. MMA was around long before and after the UFC was founded, and the UFC has long been left behind by the Gracies.
People who say TMA doesn't work are ignorant. It can. The reality of it is most TMAists fail in the cage because many of them train in a way which allows them to feel like a master without ever actually being able to fight. When this is drawn into the light, they all make the same half-baked excuses. Nothing personal, but your excuses come up fairly often too.


What exactly is it that keeps TMAists from succeeding in the ring or cage, in your opinion? I mean as sloppy as we are, TMA should be having a healthy run in the cage, right?