Well, if you actually READ my post, I said: ...so martial arts can provide some things other than just "fighting", but if you're not there for the martial aspect, then what are you there for? Why not practice something else that has whatever you're looking for as its primary goal? Dungeons and Dragons and/or joining medieval re-creation groups spring to mind...
As noted, nobody has actually said that. I personally doubt any activity in the world is for "anything else but" anything. But when it comes to martial arts, I'm looking at it as the practical application of armed and unarmed combat techniques. The best way to simulate the actual experience is to use so-called "alive" methods. Punching and kicking the air, practicing locks and throws on unresisting partners, and sparring with light- or non-contact rules with heavy restrictions on technique and target area are valid training methods, but will only get you so far.
Yep, it certainly does include the UFC. MMA tournaments aren't a perfect recreation of a real martial encounter, but then nothing is. Regardless of your training method, you are always compromising in one way or another. That's why it's called training. The best thing we can hope for as people training for self-defense is to emulate a real-life situation as closely as possible, and the best way to do that is with lots of partner work and full-contact sparring, even under a restricted rule set. The alternative, performing techniques that are less restricted but against little or no resistance and with no aliveness, resembles a self-defense situation only vaguely.
Great post. Martial arts and/or martial artists in past eras, took strides to learn whatever, to add to their arsenal of methods. Even casting out previous outdated or ineffective methods. Somewhere, over time, myth, hype, charletain, marketing, sell out, etc., people started to remove the understanding that versitlity is the key factor in defense.
